Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Experts Weigh In On Google’s “Pigeon” Update Aimed At Improving Local Search Results Last week, Google made new search waves when it rolled out updates to its local search algorithm. The […]
Last week, Google made new search waves when it rolled out updates to its local search algorithm. The “Pigeon” update (the name Search Engine Land gave it in absence of an official name from Google) aims to deliver improved local search results, with enhanced distance and location ranking parameters. According to Google, the new local […]
Mike Blumenthal reports that you can now instantly verify your Google Local listings, formerly known as Google Place Listing and now known as Google My Business, through Google Webmaster Tools. Google’s Jade Wang announced this in the Google forums saying, “starting today, if you’re verifying a page for your business, you may be instantly verified […]
No one applauded louder than I did when Google introduced their warning in search results for faulty redirects in June of this year, and then, warnings for Flash earlier this month. It’s definitely a step in the right direction for Google — and for searchers, who have had to endure less than usable mobile search results in Google […]
Marketers have been dreaming about the possibilities of contextual data for decades, and as consumers have become more mobile and their behavior more quantifiable, it has only stoked those flames further. What’s The Big Deal About Contextual Data? Contextual data provides an opportunity for marketers to gain a competitive advantage based on outside trends that […]
If you search in Google for [offers] Google will return the shuttered Google Offers page as the first search listing. But if you look carefully, you will see that Google has blocked the page from spiders within their robots.txt file and the page itself says “This site is no longer being supported.” Here is a […]
There’s increasing evidence that Microsoft’s personal assistant Cortana is being positioned as a key differentiator vs. Android and iPhones. A new TV commercial (below) purports to compare Cortana to Siri, with a mock Siri voice saying “I can’t do that” a number of times. This morning Microsoft announced new geographies and new features for Cortana […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: UK House Of Lords Condemns Right To Be Forgotten The House of Lords in the UK has little power in government or policy making except at the margins. Similarly, the British […]
The House of Lords in the UK has little power in government or policy making except at the margins. Similarly, the British upper house’s recent condemnation of the European Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) will have little practical impact in the UK or across Europe. Still it’s a dissenting voice from within a European government. […]
On July 24, 2014, Google released a major local search algorithm update, we named Pigeon. Google told us the new algorithm will lead to a more useful and relevant experience for searchers seeking local results. But like with any new algorithm launch, there are always bugs, unexpected outcomes and less relevant results. A search for […]
For many years, a staple of my discussions with people who had been penalized by Google was the following advice: “Don’t worry — at Google, there is a culture of letting you repent of your sins and then be forgiven.” Even if you had made some bad choices, if you started doing the right things, […]
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 Ads Is Getting A Slick New Look That Will Feel Familiar Bing is unveiling a new look that will start showing up in the web interface next week. The new […]
Bing is unveiling a new look that will start showing up in the web interface next week. The new design makes trend graphs immediately visible, has simplified navigation and generally looks a lot like Google AdWords. That’s by design, of course. The Bing Ads team has been making a point of reducing friction between managing […]
There’s a basic feeling among traditional news publishers throughout Europe, and among some in the U.S., that Google has benefited enormously from their content but failed to offer anything in return. Furthermore, many publishers see Google as directly responsible for the decline of their traditional advertising and circulation revenues. The counter-argument that Google sends traffic […]
Spotted in a test back in May, product ratings and reviews are officially rolling out on Google Product Listing Ads as of today — just weeks ahead of the full transition to Shopping Campaigns. Available in the U.S. only for now, consumers will begin to see the 5-star rating system appear on PLAs on Google […]
The biggest SEO improvements available are often a more profound shift in strategy that continues to deliver improvement day after day for the entire duration of your SEO campaign. One such strategy is taking the same weekly approach to auditing your SEO strategy using search query reports as a PPC manager would.
About this time every year I reflect on my progress thus far and start thinking about what I want to do differently in the second half of the year. Consider taking a good, hard look at your link building campaigns. Even if your strategy isn’t six months old, making changes to your plan multiple times […]
In part 1, we talked about some practical tips for converting a satisfied customer to a raving fan who is willing to talk about their experience with your service-based company online. In this article, we’ll discuss how to get that fan to talk about your website in a way that benefits your search marketing efforts. Creating […]
Russia’s deteriorating relations with Europe and the U.S. don’t appear (so far) to have impacted its leading search engine Yandex, which announced second quarter results this morning. Yandex reported revenues of RUR 12.2 billion ($361.5 million), up 32 percent over last year. Income was RUR 3.6 billion ($1.08 billion), representing a 13 percent increase over […]
On the Bing Webmaster Blog they announced a new feature named the Bing Site Safety Page. The Bing Site Safety Page will show up in the search results when Bing has flagged a specific site as having a safety issue. Bing will then show the searcher what the issue is with the site, hoping the […]
Bing announced on the Bing Maps Developer blog that they have rolled out better rendering and styling improvements to their map imagery. They added a new gradient coloring for land areas that adjusts the brightness to your zoom level. The new gradient helps improve the contrast, making streets and other features more visible, says Microsoft. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: How To Conduct A Winning Local Search Audit Every week, our support team at BrightLocal fields numerous questions from our customers about how best to conduct a local search audit. The […]
Every week, our support team at BrightLocal fields numerous questions from our customers about how best to conduct a local search audit. The questions range from the type and quantity of data to include, to what processes and tools can be used to speed up the audit. This topic is well covered on many blogs, […]
How’s this for brazen? For at least two years, a Russian hacker has been running a cheekily-named click fraud service called GoodGoogle, promoting it in videos on Google’s YouTube and using Gmail accounts to correspond with customers. Online security expert, Brian Krebs, recently brought the scam to light. The service enables advertisers to quickly run […]
Everybody loves the long-tail and diversified PPC accounts. However, sometimes these ideals just aren’t possible. Some accounts inherently have only a short tail. This applies heavily to lead gen advertisers that measure post-lead activity to determine actual profitability. Are the insurance quote requests turning into policies? Are the edu inquiries turning into students? Are the mortgage […]
Google often removes features from their search results and other services. Jon Wiley, Google’s Principal Designer of Google Search in a Reddit AMA (ask me anything) thread answered the question on why Google removes features people love. Most recently, Google completely disabled the Google discussion forum search filter, which was actually removed from the search […]
Google is testing a new knowledge graph interface for showing a timeline of data, facts and knowledge in the top carousel section of the Google search results. Florian Kiersch spotted this first and captured a video of it, posting the video on Google+. The timeline shows you data elements related to your search query. When […]
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 Pigeon Update Solves Yelp Problem, Boosts Local Directories As the analysis continues on yesterday’s Google local search algorithm changes — that we’re calling the Pigeon update — one thing appears […]
As the analysis continues on yesterday’s Google local search algorithm changes — that we’re calling the Pigeon update — one thing appears to be clear: Local directory sites are getting better visibility in Google’s search results. More specifically, it looks like Google has fixed its “Yelp problem” and is now showing Yelp pages at the […]
Last night, Google released a pretty significant local search algorithm update. Google told us there was no internal name for the update, but now that we see that it was fairly significant, we decided to give it a name: Pigeon. Pigeon is the name we decided on because this is a local search update and […]
Google’s quick answer results have recently added images to some of the answers. Alex Chitu spotted this and I was able to replicate it for many queries. Such as for [how old is barack obama] to [how many children does michael jordan have?] Here are both desktop views and mobile views of the images in […]
Senators Tom Coburn and Claire McCaskill have introduced new legislation aimed at saving taxpayers $66 million a year. What’s their plan? It’s the “Let me Google that for you” Act, and its goal is to replace the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) agency with a simple Google search. Started in 1950, the NTIS collects and […]
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.
Back in June, Google head of webspam Matt Cutts participated in the annual You&A at SMX Advanced in Seattle, an hour-long event in which he was interviewed by SEL founding editor Danny Sullivan live in front of a large audience. A variety topics were covered, including important Google news, changes, and updates. The video itself is now on […]
Jon Wiley, Principal Designer for Google Search, participated in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) discussion, where in one question, he was asked to share something cool he is working on. He shared that Google is working on a feature to listen to multiple languages at the same time and be able to process them […]
The Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) content removal requests in Europe keep coming in. It’s difficult right now to know whether they’re leveling off or continuing to increase. On the first day of availability Google’s RTBF online form, it received 12,000 submissions. Sources familiar with the status of Google’s program told us that there had […]
Google has released a new algorithm to provide a more useful, relevant and accurate local search results that are tied more closely to traditional web search ranking signals. The changes will be visible within the Google Maps search results and Google Web search results. Note: We’ve named this update the Pigeon update. The core changes […]
Meet Dynamic Sitelinks, the latest ad snippet from Google AdWords. Dynamic sitelinks are another one of those add-ons — like seller ratings and consumer ratings annotations — in which advertisers don’t have control over what displays or when the content is triggered. Here’s what you need to know: Dynamic sitelinks are automatically generated, typically when […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: It’s Time For Marketers To Attend To The Branding Benefits Of Search Google recently released a study that concluded, “Search Ads Lift Brand Awareness.” The study tested brand recall for searchers […]
Google recently released a study that concluded, “Search Ads Lift Brand Awareness.” The study tested brand recall for searchers who had seen the target brand in paid search ads against a control group who had not been exposed to the brand. The study concluded that brand-exposed searchers had a 6.6% increase (80% lift) over the […]