In the past couple of weeks, the question of how Google calculates cost per conversion in AdWords has been percolating in the PPC community. Robert Brady wrote a post illustrating that the cost per conversion reported in AdWords does not always match the manual calculation of dividing reported spend by reported conversions. Mark Jensen at Get Found First followed […]
Google doesn’t care about Windows Phone, given the latest spat over its YouTube app? Think again. Google cares very much, at least when it comes to search. That apparent double-standards is something users of its Windows Phone search app have taken to its review page to express upset over. Windows Phone Doesn’t Matter To Google? […]
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 July, I began my two-part series on building an enterprise-level search marketing team. We left off with a review of the essentials for SEO, including all the technical and editorial factors that can hinder your website’s rankings in the search engines. If you’ve followed my recommendations thus far, you’ll have hired a reputable search guru, […]
If you’ve heard me talk, you know that I’m ridiculously passionate about link building that, ahem, works. I mean, getting a couple links out of a campaign is nice. After all, a link is a link. But if you’ve done all the work to find 100 “webmasters,” researched their background and contact info, sent each […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: 72 Percent of PPC Marketers Plan To Spend Even More In 2014 [PPCHero Study] Hanapin Marketing has released its 2013 State of Paid Search report, revealing how PPC marketers are feeling […]
Hanapin Marketing has released its 2013 State of Paid Search report, revealing how PPC marketers are feeling about paid search marketing and where they plan to spend their money in 2014. A large majority, 83 percent of respondents, said they are feeling positive about the state of paid search. However, in a year in which enhanced […]
As one of the hottest topics in marketing, attribution is often presented as a panacea for marketers’ dilemmas, allowing you to understand how different advertisements in a purchase funnel work together. The typical description first shows how conversions attributable to various channels change when going from last-click to even-distribution or U-distribution (pick your favorite open-shaped […]
When it comes to search, we are accustomed to queries that are initiated client-side and not server-side. But, Google Now and similar services are altering this long-standing trend. Search, by definition, implies user-initiated actions. How is this changed by technology such as Google Now and Google’s Knowledge Graph? First, what is Google Now? Available within the […]
I’ve been a search engine marketer (both paid and organic) for over ten years, and in that time I have made my share of mistakes. I’m not talking about pure accidents here — most of these mistakes were caused by poor assumptions on my part which turned out to be horribly wrong. These mistakes cost […]
What do webmasters do when receiving a manual action from Google telling them they have a penalty because of paid or bad links pointing to their site? Google told us back in June that we should use Google’s “links to your site” report within Webmaster Tools to analyze bad links pointing to our sites. In fact, […]
Brands have a new way to pay for external or offsite SEO, a path to influence rankings. It follows the search engines’ terms of service and can lead to the type of links Google says are among the most valuable. Google spokespersons even endorse the principle behind this new paid form of SEO… well, sort of. Can Paid Offsite SEO Be Legal? Yes. Let’s […]
Earlier today, comScore released July 2013 US search market share data. The figures reflect modest growth for Google, stasis for Bing and contraction for everyone else. Google bumped up slightly from last month to 67 percent market share, while Bing hovered just below 18 percent. Yahoo lost a tenth of a point, as did both Ask […]
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 Brings More “Now” To Search With New Quick Answers Google is bringing more of the capabilities of Google Now to the search box and providing a range of personalized “quick […]
Google is bringing more of the capabilities of Google Now to the search box and providing a range of personalized “quick answers” regardless of platform. These new search capabilities focus on “travel and logistics” use cases: reservations, flights, package tracking and calendar entries, among a few others. The content and capabilities will likely expand over […]
Over the last few years, I’ve watched the search marketing industry grow from being traffic-growth focused to being conversion- and usability-oriented. In the coming years, I expect to see an even stronger focus on usability and conversion. One thing that makes the B2B sector different from B2C is the fact that users rarely convert 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: AdWords Editor Update Brings Upgraded Sitelink Management And More Google released an update to AdWords Editor, version 10.2, that supports upgraded sitelink management and several other smaller feature updates. Apparently now […]
Google released an update to AdWords Editor, version 10.2, that supports upgraded sitelink management and several other smaller feature updates. Apparently now dubbed upgraded sitelinks, these new sitelinks rolled out in June just prior to the enhanced campaign roll-out. They give advertisers the ability to include additional details for each sitelink. So far, they’ve been spotted […]
Without much fanfare or publicity, Google quietly updated the Link Schemes/Unnatural Links document inside the Webmaster Tools section of their site last month. If not for the excellent work of Barry Schwartz, many of us would have missed it. (I have a page change tool app set up for that exact URL, and it didn’t catch […]
Bing is testing displaying favicons in the search results, next to the title of the search snippet. A reader, Joshua Hedlund, emailed us a screen shot of this test. Bing has confirmed this is not a browser extension modifying the search results, but rather one of Bing’s many tests to the search results user interface. […]
Today, I’d like to address an increasingly significant and treacherous topic for global marketers, a topic which I believe is insufficiently discussed — vendor management. The issues surrounding vendor management are principally related to cost, quality and control. First though, we need to put the situation into its wider context. No global agency vendor actually […]
Will the day come that Google can successfully respond when you tell it something like, “Book me a trip to Washington, DC” — walking you through all the queries and answers needed to complete such a complex request? Will the day come when we’re using devices that only offer voice-based search? Will the day come […]
When local businesses look to beef up their SEO game, they’re often looking for some clever technical trick. But, one of the simplest and most elegant local SEO tactics is to optimize the site’s logo. Since many businesses are unaware of it, employing it will amount to a “stealth” tactic, giving an advantage over competitors. […]
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’s Matt Cutts: I Recommend NoFollowing Links On Widgets Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, posted a video answer this morning strongly recommending that those who place widgets on their […]
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, posted a video answer this morning strongly recommending that those who place widgets on their sites, or those who distribute widgets, should place a nofollow on the links within the widget code. Matt Cutts said, “I would recommend putting a nofollow, especially on widgets.” The reason is because […]
Yelp’s battle against phony reviews and unacceptable tactics to earn reviews continues today with the company posting another batch of “Consumer Alert” messages on business profile pages. This is the second time Yelp has announced that some businesses will be outed for trying to game its system. Back in October, Yelp put a message on […]
Today’s Google logo marks the 126th birthday of Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger. Awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1933 while at the University of Oxford in England, Schrödinger is considered a founding father of quantum physics. Google’s logo honors Schrödinger by highlighting the physicist’s two most enduring legacies to quantum physics: the wave equation […]
If you’re not seeing the “Manual Actions” feature in Google Webmaster Tools, you’re not alone. Many webmasters have taken to Twitter and other social networks to say that the link has been removed from their accounts, and Google has updated its original announcement to say that a “snag” will delay full launch for a couple […]
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 Reports They Receive Hundreds Of Thousands Of DMCA Complaints Every Month Because of their share of the search market, Google is most frequently targeted by copyright holders filing DMCA complaints, […]
Because of its share of the search market, Google is most frequently targeted by copyright holders filing DMCA complaints, but the search giant is not the only one managing requests to remove unlawful links from search results. TorrentFreak reports Bing not only receives a great number of takedown notices monthly, but Microsoft submits DMCA complaints […]
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.
Google News is now showing the top web search result listing in the news results when the query has navigational intent. For example, if you search Google News for [ask.fm] at the top of the search results page, you will see a search snippet and link to their web site. Clicking on the link takes […]
When you set up bidding in paid search, it’s important you put a strategy in place prior to implementation. The most relevant questions that need to be addressed when developing this strategy are as follows: How many bidding strategies do I need? What cookie window should I use? Should I use a revenue-attribution model and […]
One second. That’s about how long it took you to read the two words above, and it’s also the focus of Google’s latest advice for webmasters when it comes to developing mobile websites. The company has published new guidelines that emphasize why sites should deliver above-the-fold content in less than a second. The emphasis there […]
Earlier today, Google launched manual spam actions to Google Webmaster Tools where you can see if your site currently has a manual spam action. To help those who have received some of these manual action notifications, Google created seven videos for the most common manual action notifications. The videos include user-generated spam, hidden text and/or […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: New Local Ad View (And AdWords Click Type) Comes To Google Maps App Google is following up on the recent roll-out of its updated Google Maps app for Android and iOS […]
Google is following up on the recent roll-out of its updated Google Maps app for Android and iOS devices with a new local ad view and click type. The ads appear at the bottom of the screen. In addition to the standard title and ad text, the ads include the car icon link to get […]
Google is adding a new feature in Webmaster Tools that will leave no doubt when a site’s search rankings are affected by a manual webspam action. It’s called the Manual Actions viewer, and it’s available today under the “Search Traffic” tab. The new tool complements the email notifications that Google already sends when it takes […]
Have you seen this new ad extension keenly spotted by Kim Clinkunbroomer of Philly Marketing Labs? As Clinkunbroomer pointed out, the “I am Looking For” ad extension gives users a drop-down navigation menu with links — in this case 10 — to specific sections of an advertiser’s web site. In Clinkunbroomer’s screenshot below, you can see […]
In response to our post yesterday about the often-invisible background shading on ads in the search engine results, Derrick Connel, Corporate Vice President of Bing Program Management at Microsoft, followed up with Danny Sullivan on Facebook to say: As a small comment on Bing — the ads have 2 design elements for mainline ads. We […]