Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Brings Quora Content Into Its Social Sidebar Bing continues to expand the content that may show up in its social sidebar, with news today that its Quora integration is complete. […]
Bing continues to expand the content that may show up in its social sidebar, with news today that its Quora integration is complete. The integration involves Bing showing top Quora contributors in the sidebar when there’s Q&A content on Quora that’s related to the Bing search term, much like the sidebar might show content from […]
A report from GigaOm this morning discusses a ridiculous proposed “ancillary copyright” law in Germany that would compel Google — and others online — to pay to link to and excerpt any content from German publishers’ websites (e.g., newspapers). The law currently is in draft form and being debated by stakeholders and legislators. The “fair […]
Google has confirmed they have pushed out a Panda refresh this past Monday. This updated affected less than 1% of search queries and is a “minor” Panda refresh. We emailed Google, after hearing speculation of a Panda update and Google confirmed it by tweeting it. Here is that tweet: Panda data refresh this past Monday. […]
Yup…you guessed it. Audience segments are going the way of the dinosaurs. This may not come as much of a revelation to search marketers, who wouldn’t dream of running a search campaign where they couldn’t see the performance of each individual search term and vary bids on each search term as needed. Search marketers know […]
The ellipsis, or “…” is a written construct that means “you fill in the missing part.” In a quote, it means “something is missing here.” The Chicago Manual of Style states, “Ellipsis points suggest faltering or fragmented speech accompanied by confusion, insecurity, distress, or uncertainty.” Compare this to the period, or “.”. A period says, […]
All search marketing programs are not created equally. This rings true most profoundly in the B2B marketing arena where shifting corporate demands, streamlined staffs and reduced budgets produce unique challenges for both B2B companies and the search marketing agencies they hire. Follow this B2B search marketing agency hiring checklist to find a long-term partner that […]
Facebook has earned its reputation as an AOL-like walled garden by keeping most of the content generated within Facebook hidden from those who haven’t logged in. Not only does a login screen stop general Internet users from viewing Facebook content without logging in, it also impedes search engine indexing. Currently, Google can index: a limited […]
That annoying thing when you do a Google search on your desktop computer, then you’re searching again on your laptop an hour later, and maybe searching on your iPad an hour after that … and you have to redo your search preferences each time? Or maybe you’re searching in Chrome one minute, but you switch […]
Like it or not, link building has been and still is big, big business. Doing it well takes a lot of time and resources, which means that many webmasters/site owners can’t or don’t want to do it themselves. Many agencies that handle other aspects of search engine marketing want to outsource it simply because of […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Webmaster Tools Adds Clarity to Traffic Alerts: What To Do If You Receive One For some time (since at least March), Google webmaster tools has been sending messages to site […]
For some time (since at least March), Google webmaster tools has been sending messages to site owners about substantial traffic changes (increases or decreases) to pages of a site. Some site owners found these messages perplexing as they weren’t sure exactly what was actionable about the messages. Were the messages just informational, intended to help […]
A question which is hitting my desk on a daily basis at the moment is, “Should I transliterate my brand for greater success in China, Korea and the other double-byte countries?” The very first time I saw this I though, “I’ll just wing off a quick email to respond to this,” then discovered that my […]
Two of the major US yellow pages publishers and local search providers, DexOne and SuperMedia are merging in an all-stock transaction. After the merger closes, pending a shareholder vote, the combined entity will have 700,000 advertisers, 3,100 salespeople and revenues of roughly $3 billion. The merger was partly dictated by the need to accelerate the transition from traditional […]
If there’s one thing that stands out in the 2012 SEO Industry Survey, it’s that the SEO industry relies heavily on the free SEO-related tools that Google provides. SEOmoz released the results of its semi-annual survey today — a survey conducted between March and May that drew responses from almost 6,500 people in more than […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: What Is In Your Enterprise SEO Toolkit? Enterprise SEO ain’t like the others. As I’ve said before, simply saying “I’m an enterprise SEO!!!” doesn’t make you one. You need different tools, […]
Enterprise SEO ain’t like the others. As I’ve said before, simply saying “I’m an enterprise SEO!!!” doesn’t make you one. You need different tools, and different skills, and a whole different level of diplomatic kung-fu. I lack diplomatic-fu. And skills are always open to debate. But the tools are forever. This is a very incomplete […]
Do you spit out status updates on Facebook for your local business without much thought? Carefully engineering your status updates can result in more effective targeting, better engagement with your audience, and improved EdgeRank to help more of your followers actually see your status updates. These tips should be considered to be “spice”, rather than […]
To be honest, there isn’t much about adCenter that I like. Their UI is more ‘cool’ than functional. Their editor tool isn’t worth the space on my desktop, and their keyword research tools sometimes seem to be from the Stone Age. If I never had to login to adCenter again, it might be too soon. […]
Google continues to differentiate mobile results from desktop search results, having recently announced interactive answers for tablet and mobile and a test for smartphone icons in smartphone search results. Did you even know that Google mobile search results (whether tablet, feature phone or smartphone) can be different from desktop results? In May of last year, […]
It looks as if Google is testing a move away from showing the traditional 10 listings to only displaying seven, and it also appears that it’s even easier than ever for one site to dominates all those results. 7 Blue Links We started getting reports last week about the 7-results change last week. Here’s an […]
Google has the most complete and accurate local search database in the UK, according to data and analytics firm Implied Intelligence. Previously we’ve published comparable US reports by the company: Yellow Pages Sites Beat Google In Local Data Accuracy Test Bing Ties Yellow Pages Sites For Most Accurate Local Data In these earlier US tests, […]
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: Domo At GooglePlex, Google Subway Bench & Google Fiber Van In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people […]
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.
In my post on table formatting, I demonstrated how to transform your static data into a simple yet sexy database in a matter of seconds. If you don’t know how to use table formatting, go read that post and then come back. Otherwise, your data will look like one of those housewives who goes to […]
Google announced they have added 13 new languages to Google Voice Search. The new languages include Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, European Portuguese, Finnish, Galician, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak and Swedish. This brings the total tally of supported languages in Google Voice Search up to 42 languages supported. Google says that adding these 13 new […]
The Microsoft AdCenter rotation feature — which lets advertisers optimize for clicks or rotate more evenly — is live today, having been announced back in July. The option will be available through adCenter online or through the adCenter API (version 8). It’s seen at the ad view level where keywords are connected to ad copy. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google: Further Penguin Update “Jolts” To Come; Panda Is Smoother & Monthly Fasten your seat belt, if you’ve been spamming Google. The anti-spam “Penguin Update” will have more jolts in the […]
Fasten your seat belt, if you’ve been spamming Google. The anti-spam “Penguin Update” will have more jolts in the coming months, as Google continues to adjust it. In contrast, updates to the Panda algorithm aimed at low-quality pages are now so minor as not to be noticed, when they roll out monthly. Speaking yesterday at […]
Every business grows by delivering value through products and services that fill a need, solve a problem or lead to a desired goal. To achieve this, your business must first be visible online to your ideal prospects. Enter SEO. Search Engine Optimization helps with this ‘findability’ problem. SEO can ensure that your business ranks high […]
When it comes to multi-touch attribution, I recently realized that most advertisers have pretty much the same questions: How does one know whether it is worth digging into the conversion funnel? What are common patterns from a multi-touch standpoint? How can one actually leverage the conversion funnel? Based on my conversations, here are some answers […]
Windows 8 is almost ready to hit the market. When it does it appears that it will deliver a new more “immersive” search experience, via Bing. In the video at the bottom of this page, Microsoft’s Stefan Weitz demonstrates that new experience on a Microsoft Windows 8 tablet (presumably a Surface device). Windows 8 Bing […]
When you block GoogleBot, Google’s web crawler, the page that is blocked can still show up in the Google search results because of links pointing to the page. When that happens, the search listing looks awkward, because Google isn’t able to crawl the page and make a title and description. Instead, Google will make a […]
Blekko has changed its previously free SEO tools into a paid service, putting it in competition with the likes of SEOmoz.org, Ahrefs.com, MajesticSEO.com, SEMrush.com and other SEO data/tool providers. There’s been no official announcement of the change, but Blekko CEO Rich Skrenta confirmed to us that the company’s SEO tools and data now require a […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Says It Has A Million Public Transit Schedules, Adds Transit Features In Android Maps Google Maps (and related data) continues to be strategic for the company. On Android Google Maps […]
Google Maps (and related data) continues to be strategic for the company. On Android Google Maps & Navigation are one of the big differentiators (at least until Q4) between the Google OS and iOS. Today Google announced several updates and upgrades for the public transit features on Maps (version 6.10). In addition, Google now reports […]
Microsoft has updated adCenter to enable advertisers to change or add agencies without losing their entire account history. With what they’re calling “Agency Enablement” features, adCenter now makes it possible for agencies to link or unlink to client accounts, onboard new clients via email requests to access accounts, control billing preferences and manage client accounts […]
It might be more than foggy in San Francisco this morning, as Brett Tabke of webmasterworld.com said after I took this picture, “that was a twilight zone moment for me”. It must have been interesting feeling for him then about 10 minutes later when Mike Grehan invited him and Danny Sullivan on stage to have […]
About a year ago, Google introduced a new rich snippets for prayer times. That rich snippet has now been decommissioned due to lack of webmaster implementation. The purpose was to show useful prayer times for those who are searching Google for Islamic, Jewish or other prayer times in the Google search results. Here is a […]
A web page that definitively satisfies a searcher’s intent is “Perfect,” and should appear at the top of Bing’s search results. On the other end of the scale, spammy web pages and pages that almost no searcher would find useful are deemed “Bad.” That’s a bit of how Bing instructs the people in its Human […]