The beauty of working in the digital marketing industry is that it is difficult to get bored. There is a new advertising option available every week, it seems, a new Google algorithm update, a new targeting option, and a new rocket ship social media platform clamoring for attention. The demands on the online marketing director’s […]
The New York Post is reporting that relatively soon, possibly as early as next week, the FTC is scheduled to announce a settlement of its antitrust investigation and potential claims against Google. The Post says that settlement will substantially let Google off the hook: Federal regulators are expected to close a year-long probe of Google’s […]
The end of the year in any industry marks a good opportunity to look back on the year and reflect on changes. This is particularly true in the SEO industry, given the volume and intensity of changes that have occurred in 2012 — from algorithmic changes to how SEO is perceived in the organization to […]
Yesterday comScore released its November search market share data. The distribution and trends are consistent with what has been happening over the past several months: Google is stable, Bing has gained incrementally, Yahoo lost some share (mostly to partner Bing) and the others have gained or lost a fraction of a point. Stepping back, comScore […]
Google has released its long-awaited map app for the iPhone. And it delivers all the expected features: voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation, traffic, public transit, Street View and so on. It’s better than Google Maps for Android because it has been built or rebuilt “from the ground up” and didn’t grow by accretion. The bottom line: it delivers. Yet […]
Google is trying out a new travel search tool that seems to be aimed primarily at casual travelers that are as concerned about price as they are about a destination. It’s called Flight Explorer and it doesn’t appear to be reachable yet via Google’s regular flight search tool at google.com/flights. As best I can tell, […]
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 Updates SafeSearch Filter In Image Search Google has changed the default behavior of their image search to work similarly to how web search works. Now when you search for less […]
Google has changed the default behavior of their image search to work similarly to how web search works. Now when you search for less explicit search terms while in image search, Google is more likely to filter out explicit images and set your default SafeSearch filter to the on position. When I searched for the […]
Google has been helping the popular NORAD Tracks Santa site locate Santa Claus on Christmas Eve since 2007. But this year, Jolly St. Nick will be tracked on Bing Maps, not Google. NORAD is also pushing an official Windows 8 app. It part of Microsoft being the new lead partner for the site. NOTE: If […]
Chris Larsen from Blue Coat Security shared new statistics on the number of poisoned search results during the holiday shopping season. The new stats show an 80% jump in the number of clicks on infected search results from their last report in August. Specifically, they tracked 13,616 different clicks over 10 days, which is an […]
Looking back, 2012 was a big year for both real-time bidding (RTB) as well as search retargeting. According to a recent report by eMarketer, RTB display ad spend was estimated to grow 98% in 2012 from 2011 levels. My guess is that many in our industry (me included) feel that estimate is low. As 2012 […]
Branding in B2B search engine marketing is a constant topic for debate. All B2B marketers realize that online brand awareness and recognition is extremely important, and most marketers already promote their brand via PPC campaigns and organic optimization programs. To increase the effectiveness of your efforts, I also recommend implementing remarketing. A short B2B remarketing […]
Just when you thought competition in search was effectively over, it starts to get interesting again. Over the past two weeks I’ve spoken to no less than four companies that say they are trying to reinvent “mobile search” for smartphones or tablets. I would almost guarantee there are more out there as well. These companies […]
Google announced on the Google Webmaster Central blog a new tool that makes it incredibly easy for site owners to markup their pages with structure data. The Data Highlighter tool. The Data Highlighter is a browser based point-and-click tool that lets authorized site owners add rich snippet / structured data markup to their web pages. […]
Don’t worry, Google’s year in review for 2012 isn’t that predictable for the once in a lifetime calendar event. On the official Google 2012 Zeitgeist website, you’ll find their biggest list ever published, with a total of 838 lists from 55 countries, covering 1.2 trillion searches done worldwide. Digging in deeper, Google has divided the massive […]
Russia’s leading search engine, Yandex has launched an approach to personalizing search results for users in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, affecting 75-80% of search queries and potentially all of the search results a user sees. Yandex has been testing the approach throughout the last year and found that users click 37% more often on […]
Last week, search marketing software provider Raven decided to stop using scraped data after Google’s AdWords API team threatened to revoke the company’s token. Now, a second tools provider, Ahrefs, says it, too, will remove functionality that uses scraped data, to maintain access to the AdWords API. A third provider, SEOmoz, has said it has […]
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 Finally Adds Their Hanukkah Decorations To The Search Results If you search for [hanukkah] or [dreidel] or [menorah] and so on – you will see special Hanukkah decorations on the […]
If you search for [hanukkah] or [dreidel] or [menorah] and so on – you will see special Hanukkah decorations on the Google search results. Hanukkah began this past Saturday night and we reported yesterday that Google launched Festivus decorations but didn’t have any decorations for the holiday of Hanukkah. Well that has just changed, Google […]
If you happened to do certain abortion-related searches in the past few days, you might’ve been surprised to see the late Truman Capote getting Google+ Authorship credit for an article from The New York Times. What makes it odd, of course, is that Capote died in 1984. He wrote numerous classics that showed up on […]
How far do your relationships extend across the Web? This question is totally relevant to digital marketing nowadays. No longer are the days of just plain and simple on-page SEO. I have read countless articles about link building vs. relationship building, seen Whiteboard Fridays and attended panels at conferences about the subject. The obvious conclusion being: relationships […]
Bing has officially announced they have redesigned the search results screen and social sidebar to help improve usability of the page. The changes include: The social results on the right are now clearly labelled as “Social Results” The search results on the left are now left-justified Addition of a + more link to expand the […]
It’s our sixth birthday here at Search Engine Land, and we’ve got some news — a new editor-in-chief and expansion plans for the future. Congratulations to Matt McGee, on his new position as Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land & Marketing Land! He starts on January 1, 2013. Matt joined our publications in September 2008 as assignment editor for Search Engine […]
With Google rolling out frequent changes, the last couple of years have been alternately amazingly fun and freakishly terrifying for anyone who builds links or has links built. It should be clear by now that your site can be harmed by poor quality links, whether you bought them or got them for free, or heck, […]
Everywhere I go and in every conversation I have, the importance of the quality of content keeps on cropping up. You’ve no doubt had the same conversations where Pandas and Penguins keep poking in their nosy beaks? So, here’s my question: “If quality is so important, why do we give up caring when it’s in […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: On Hanukkah Google Adds Festivus Decorations But No Dreidels This week is Hanukkah and typically Google adds holiday decorations in the form of Jewish Stars, Menorahs, Dreidels or other Hanukkah related […]
This week is Hanukkah and typically Google adds holiday decorations in the form of Jewish Stars, Menorahs, Dreidels or other Hanukkah related decorations. This year, Hanukkah began on Saturday night, December 8th but Google has no such Hanukkah decorations this year. Instead, they have decorations for Festivus, just Google [festivus] and you will see the […]
Last month, in A Search Marketer’s Guide to Google Display Advertising, I discussed recent changes to the Google Display Network (GDN) that are important to search marketers who use both search and display advertising to reach customers. This month, we’ll dig in and try to make some sense of GDN targeting options. Targeting Options On […]
There’s no escaping it: It looks and acts a lot like Google’s Knowledge Graph. But Bing calls it “Snapshot” — that middle column in between its main search results and the social sidebar on the far right. And today, Snapshot expands to begin showing facts and related information for both people and landmarks. So, on […]
Last year at this time, I refuted 7 myths in mobile SEO, saying mobile SEO isn’t a myth, but there are myths in mobile SEO. As we near the end of 2012, there are still too many SEOs who put mobile SEO in the same category as Santa Claus and his elves: good story but […]
As the year comes to a close it is a good time to evaluate your enterprise SEO program and ensure that needed adjustments are made. The best time to do this is actually during budget season so you are able to make a case for additional resources as necessary. But, since budget timing varies from […]
I just returned from the jam-packed annual BIA/Kelsey ILM West conference in Los Angeles, where there was a lot of excitement about what’s next in local SMB advertising. As we head into 2013, local businesses have some important trends to consider when developing their marketing plans. The ways in which consumers are both searching and […]
Today on Google is a special logo, aka Google Doodle, for Ada Lovelace. Ada Lovelace was born 197 years ago today and invented the first algorithm or computer program in 1842. That means she invented the first program 170 years ago! In her very short life of 36 years she was able to see the […]
This is a bit of bad PR: Macrumors reports that Australian police have warned iPhone owners in that country not to rely upon Apple Maps due to “safety concerns.” According to a local police statement: Mildura Police are urging motorists to be careful when relying on the mapping system on the Apple i-phones operating on the iOS […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Raven Tools To Remove Scraped Data To Maintain Access to AdWords API While there has been lots of talk about a Google crackdown on developer access to the AdWords API, there […]
While there has been lots of talk about a Google crackdown on developer access to the AdWords API, there have been few details about what the disputed issues may be — and why they’re coming up now, with tools-makers like Raven and SEOmoz that have had access to the API for years. Now, Raven Tools, […]
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.
Bing has been escalating its attacks against Google Shopping over consumer transparency since launching its “Scroogled” campaign just over a week ago. Well, consumer confusion is a serious issue. Indeed, Bing itself can be used to illustrate some of the problems consumers face at both Bing and Google. The day after Bing’s campaign launched, I […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Nokia Partners With Xyo To Power “Replacement App” Search For Windows Phones One of the persistent criticisms of Windows tablets and Windows Phones is that they just don’t have the app […]
One of the persistent criticisms of Windows tablets and Windows Phones is that they just don’t have the app selection of Android or iOS. Microsoft says however that Windows Phones currently have access to 120,000 apps. Nokia adds,”Of the top 50 apps available for iPhone and Android, 46 of them are available” on the Windows […]