Google says it will roll out the latest update to its Panda algorithm later tonight. The company posted the news a few minutes ago on Twitter, saying this update will affect about one percent of search results. New data refresh of Panda starts rolling out tonight. ~1% of search results change enough to notice. More […]
Microsoft’s AdCenter has just released some new features, including the ability to measure tablet traffic via Microsoft Advertising Intelligence, the ability to have more ads per ad group, and increased site exclusions for syndicated ads. The company has been working diligently in recent months to match Google AdWords’ features and make it easier for advertisers […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Report: Google Strikes Antitrust Deal With EU, Avoids Legal Battle According to a report in the Financial Times, Google and the EU have agreed in principle to the “outlines of a […]
According to a report in the Financial Times, Google and the EU have agreed in principle to the “outlines of a settlement” that will avoid a legal battle over antitrust claims against the company. The settlement reportedly also extends to mobile search, an issue that emerged late in the talks and threatened to disrupt a […]
Writers and analysts who keep an eye on the value of certain stocks, have been writing all year about the curious phenomenon of Google’s stock price. They generally say something along the lines of, “If you compare Google’s cash generation capabilities, why is it valued so much less than Apple?” or similar statements. Is it […]
Links are not often thought of as a by-product of a great social campaign. Often the goals of those working on social profiles for a brand revolve around a simple goal: Getting more followers and building an audience. This is a strong goal that makes sense, but rather short sighted. There’s more to social than […]
Link cleanups are all the rage right now, rightly so if you can judge by the number of webmasters who received Google warnings or had their sites tank. Strategies for effective cleanup have been outlined, tools to help you find contacts for cleanup have been unveiled, but there isn’t much information out there about the […]
Today’s Google doodle-logo celebrates aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart‘s 115th birthday. According to Wikipedia, “Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences and was instrumental in the […]
This afternoon Baidu released its second quarter financial results. The company made 5.46 billion yuan or $858.8 million, a nearly 60 percent increase from a year ago. Profit was 2.815 billion yuan or $443.1 million a roughly 52 percent increase from last year. The company also said that revenue per customer was roughly $2,440 against a […]
Dear Google. Please don’t send out any further link warnings to publishers. Your latest round yesterday, intended to clarify the confusion sparked by ones sent last week, is likely going to make things worse, not better. No more warnings, not until you get some fundamental clarity in place. Dear Publishers. Here’s our latest news on […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Insanity: Google Sends New Link Warnings, Then Says You Can Ignore Them Google’s war on bad links officially became insane today. For months, Google’s sending out warnings about bad links and […]
Microsoft has been fast-following Google AdWords with new features in adCenter recently, so it’s not a huge surprise that some have spotted what look like Product Listing Ads (PLAs) in Bing Results. Mark Ballard from Rimm Kaufmann Group (RKG’s) posted of seeing such listings and, while we haven’t been able to replicate this, we did […]
By all accounts Microsoft is struggling. It’s true that Bing is growing, but only slightly, while partner Yahoo continues to lose search share (to Bing) keeping the “Search Alliance” in the doldrums. Microsoft also recently took $6+ billion write-down on its 2007 aQuantive acquisition, resulting in a loss for its most recent fiscal quarter. Its […]
Social media has a direct and indirect impact on SEO but few large organizations are integrating the two as well as they should. At the enterprise level, the two disciplines actually have a lot in common beyond the strategic and tactical crossover. Like SEO, social media cannot be segmented as a separate activity or fully […]
Google recently released an addendum to their guidelines for optimizing for smartphones that gives more detail around how to optimize for feature phones as well. I know some of you are thinking, “Feature phones? What is this, 2005? Let me pull out my Razr and look for ringtones on WAP sites. Why on Earth would […]
“There aren’t enough hours in a day” is an old – but true – refrain about the nature of an SEM’s job. The list of things we could be doing in any given day to optimize accounts is a daunting one. Agreed? Fantastic. As long as we’re on the same page, and already slinging the […]
At the beginning of the year I wrote about PolitickerUSA, a free tool that allows users to quickly and easily read tweets from members of congress and other political leaders. Today, I want to point out another free service named Politwoops that launched at the end of May. Here, users can access and read tweets […]
Google’s war on bad links officially became insane today. For months, Google’s sending out warnings about bad links and telling publishers they should act on those, lest they get penalized. Today, Google said the latest round of warnings sent out this week can be safely ignored. That’s not “more transparency” as Google posted. That’s more […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Search In Pics: Marissa Mayers Yahoo Baby Gift & Goodbye Google Balloons, Android Nail Polish & Chrome Hats In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from […]
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
As anti-trust talks between the European Union and Google come close to a conclusion, the key anti-trust enforcer has brought up a new objection. Joaquín Almunia, the EU’s competition commissioner, is demanding the company make broad changes to its mobile services, according to a report in the Financial Times. Google and the European Union have […]
Big data is all the rage right now. If you search Google News for the term, there are 53,500 thousand results. And that’s just the news. Most of us in Internet marketing aren’t truly working with big data, in the truest sense of the word. However, when we’re investigating things like the competitive landscape for […]
For the past year, Google has been sending out link penalty notifications for unnatural links pointing to your web site. Those notifications kicked up a notch earlier this year and since then – especially with the Penguin update, webmasters and SEOs have been obsessed with link removals. Link Removal Fees: With this, there are many […]
While it might be the simplest way to drive more impressions, any savvy search marketer (and particularly those in the retail sector) in should be aware that leveraging broad match type is far from the only possibility to scale your PPC program. There are plenty of other options out there –I’ll try to cover just […]
On its earnings call today, an analyst asked Google about the new paid inclusion model for Google Shopping. The analyst got corrected. Google doesn’t call what it’s doing paid inclusion, he was told. That’s because Google is comfortable continuing to ignore the US Federal Trade Commission’s definition of what “paid inclusion” is. It’s yet another […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The Pillars Of Strategic SEO & A Primer On Website Design Every serious business website must be built around relevant, business-critical keywords and phrases, and done in a strategic manner. This […]
Every serious business website must be built around relevant, business-critical keywords and phrases, and done in a strategic manner. This begins with careful analysis of the ground realities, and then moves on to technical nuances, as we will soon see. Analysis – The Bedrock Of Strategic SEO Every business exists to serve a marketplace while […]
“Remember: Y’all is singular. All y’all is plural. All y’all’s is plural possessive.” – Kinky Friedman In display or social advertising, the marketer can reach customers with different offers based on demographics or behavioral signals. This is not so in search where one only has the query searched as the fundamental mode of segmentation. This […]
Once again, Yahoo is earning so little under its search deal with Microsoft that Microsoft is having to make up the difference due to a revenue guarantee. If the performance doesn’t improve, Yahoo might go looking for a new partner, which could include Google. Let’s explore how the deal has continued to falter, quarter-after-quarter, and […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Foursquare Tips Now Integrated Into Bing’s Social Sidebar In May Bing rolled out its new social sidebar that tied together social data from both Facebook and Twitter. Today another source has […]
In May Bing rolled out its new social sidebar that tied together social data from both Facebook and Twitter. Today another source has been added to the mix. Bing announced that Foursquare tips will be tied into specific location based queries. The Foursquare data will appear in the ‘People Who Know’ section of the sidebar, […]
Retiring a brand name is a tricky challenge. On one hand, you don’t want to confuse your marketplace by transitioning too quickly. On the other hand, you don’t want the transition to take too long because it can cost more money and also cause confusion. We are currently going through a brand name transition with […]
Every good story has a beginning, middle and end. It starts with the set-up, moves into the conflict and wraps up with the resolution, or climax. In the story of online marketing, each visitor to your website follows the same pattern – a beginning (What brought them there?), a conflict (Will they find the information […]
Google has added a new option for downloading your links in Google Webmaster Tools. You can now click on a “download latest links” button. The latest links download option will download your links that Google Webmaster Tools discovered but do so sorted by date. Google will have the link in one column and in the […]
Google announced they have now migrated the Panda algorithm to Japanese and Korean languages. Google also added that this is likely to affect about 5% of queries for those languages. No other Asian or other languages were affected by this update. This comes over 16 months after Google released the original Panda update for English […]
A Tweet this morning from @BerianReed, head of search marketing of AutoTrader UK, uncovered some potentially deeper integration between Google Search and Google+. Reed spotted a new option in the results that showed up next to the URL, a “Share” link. Upon hitting the button, users are prompted to share directly to Google+ from the results pages. […]
Clicks on paid search listings on Google were nearly double the number of organic clicks — but only on keywords with “high commercial intent” in the US, according to a Wordstream analysis released today. Sponsored results, the research from the software company found, represented 64.6% of clicks on SERPs for commercial searches, while organic clicks […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Firefox 14 Now Encrypts Google Searches, But Search Terms Still Will “Leak” Out Firefox 14 has officially launched today, which means all Google searches are encrypted by default. However, due to […]
Firefox 14 has officially launched today, which means all Google searches are encrypted by default. However, due to a Google loophole, the encryption will not prevent things you search for from “leaking” out to Google’s advertisers nor potentially showing up as search suggestions or in data reported to web sites through Google Webmaster Central. The Firefox […]
I read a lot. If you ever happen to see me riding the train to work, or waiting for something, you can be sure that I will have my head down, staring at my phone and scrolling through my reader to get the latest information and changes in the digital world. This is usually where […]