One of the key findings of the Q2 2012 Global Digital Advertising Update from Adobe (Efficient Frontier) is that search marketers can get more value from mobile campaigns than they now can on the PC. According to the report cost-per-click (CPC) prices are lower for both tablets and smartphones than comparable PC search campaigns and the ROI is higher in both cases -- although "conversions" are lower on smartphones. Adobe's data are drawn from "over 250 billion impressions and activity of 46 million fans for 225 companies in the automotive, CPG, financial services, media and entertainment, a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Marketing: Mobile | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior

Twitter is working on a project that will give users access to an archive of all of their own tweets. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo told the New York Times this week that the company is building a tool that would let Twitter users download their own tweets. He didn't provide a timeframe for such a tool to be ready. Twitter search is notoriously shallow. Although the company has recently upgraded its search capabilities, the site's search box only shows results from the past seven days. With users tweeting more than 400 million times per day, a full-history, all-Twitter search/download to [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Features: Analysis | Search Engines: Real Time Search | Top News | Topsy | Twitter: Search

Alex Chitu reports Google is testing a new feature for the Google Knowledge Graph. The new feature is a way to show an expanded version of the knowledge graph in the top of the search results. Currently, when you search in Google and the knowledge graph comes up, it shows you up to five related people, books, albums, movies and so on. If you want more, you are out of luck. But with this test, Google is adding an "explore more" more link that gives you a lot more related topics to scroll through right at the top of the page. Here is a picture: As you can see, you can use the arr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Knowledge Graph | Google: User Interface | Google: Web Search

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 context: goo.gl/huekf — A Googler (@google) July 24, 2012 By our count, this is Panda Update 3.9. The previous update, 3.8, occurred just about a month ago -- on June 25th. Panda rolled out initially in February 2011 and was designed to remove low-quality/thin content f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: Panda Update | Panda Update News | Top News

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 to simply import their existing AdWords campaigns into adCenter. Microsoft Advertising Intelligence, the desktop Excel add-on used for research, will now allow users to find tablet-specific information, including traffic, keyword [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Ads

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 BattleAccording 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 [...] Are The Analysts Wrong About Google’s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Learn more about enterprise SEO software platforms, plus the latest trends, opportunities and challenges in this market: Who are the key players in SEO platform and tools software? What do you need to look for in an enterprise SEO software solution? How is social media affecting the growth in this market? Available only at Digital Marketing Depot. Download now! [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Sponsor Messages

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 potential settlement. The details of the settlement framework -- and precisely what concessions Google is making -- are not known or public right now. However that information will come out in the next days and weeks. Google will likely release its own statement. In one f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Google: Legal | Google: Mobile | Legal: Regulation | Top News

Search Week is an exclusive weekly newsletter for Search Engine Land premium members that recaps stories covered on Search Engine Land over the past week. Below are top stories organized by topic that happened over the past week. Each topic (or Search Engine Land column) is also a link, where you can click through and drill into the Search Engine Land members library to find other stories in that area. Because some stories are listed in more than one category, you may see them repeated. Top News Confirmed: Marissa Mayer Leaving Google For Yahoo CEO Role Ironically, Search Mig [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Search Week

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 true that Google is undervalued or, in fact, might the lower than expected stock price be due to none other than Google itself? If you read this column regularly, you'll know that generally, as Google releases its performance figures each quarter, I like to break them [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Business Issues | Google: Outside US | Multinational Search

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 simply having a sounding board. If you leverage your fans and followers correctly, they'll be your key to naturally generating links and mentions around your brand. The big question is: I've built up these social channels. Now, how do we take advantage of successful social media p [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search & Social

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 bottom line: are link cleanups worth the time and effort? Who Should Cleanup? Now a caveat…if you've received a warning from Google, I don't think that you have a choice here. You need to clean up your links. If you haven't received a warning, let's put you into two cam [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

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 formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots." She's famous because she went missing trying to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, on July 2, 1937. Recently, the The International [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos

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 customer base of 352,000 online advertisers in Q2. Revenue per advertiser was up roughly 35 percent vs. last year. Baidu traffic acquisition costs were 8.3 percent of total revenue, up from 7.8 percent in Q1. However, by comparison Google's traffic acq [...]

Related Topics: Baidu | Channel: Search

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 the crazy link warnings that have gone out and our best attempt at figuring out whether you should be concerned or not. How We Got Here Earlier this year, Google began sending out warnings to some publishers, alerting them that they were involved with "art [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Webmaster Central | Top News

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 ThemGoogle’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 [...] [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

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 get confirmation from Microsoft that it's testing this ad format. "AdCenter is currently working on several ad product initiatives. Each initiative is at a different stage development and rollout stage," a Microsoft spokesperson told me in a statement. "The ad tr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Top News

Unending algorithm and quality score changes. "Negative" SEO penalties. Retargeting and real-time bidding. Mobile apps and voice search. Attend Search Marketing Expo – SMX East, October 2-4 in New York City, and you'll get the latest tactics, tips and advice from marketing experts who succeed in this ever-evolving search marketing space. Super Early Bird rates expire this week. Register now and save $400 off your All Access pass. The SMX East agenda features 50+ tactic-packed sessions on SEO, paid search, local/mobile search, social media marketing and semantic SEO. Programming incl [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SEM Industry | SEM Industry: Conferences | SEM Industry: Search Marketing Expo - SMX | SMX & DMD Alerts | Top News

[caption id="attachment_128353" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Credit: MarkPenn.com"][/caption] 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 core Office and Windows franchises are still healthy but their future is cloudy as PC sales continue to slow. Microsoft's Windows Phones and m [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Mobile | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Employees

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 owned by any one department. Yet social media is often siloed within an organization, making it more difficult to effectively coordinate social and SEO. In addition, for every way that social media initiatives can support SEO, there as just as many ways they can create [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO | Social Media Marketing