Google has allowed you to speak your search to it on the desktop and mobile devices for some time, but now it's going to get smarter -- talking back to you and continuing the conversation you started. Google shared details at its Google I/O 2013 developer event today and also in a blog post that's gone up. The idea is that your devices --  smartphone or desktop -- will apparently be constantly listening for the "OK Google" command. If you say that, then it knows you want to do a search. That command is already used as part of Google Glass in a similar way ("OK Glass") -- and onl [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Google: Google Now | Google: Voice Search | Top News

In an update on the early progress of the transition to enhanced campaigns last night, Sridhar Ramaswamy, SVP, Ads and Commerce at Google -- and the lead on enhanced campaigns -- said that close to two million campaigns have been set to enhanced. That's up from 1.5 million Google quoted on the first quarter earnings call on April 18. Results From Early Adopters Based on positive case studies from clothing retailer American Apparel, financial services provider Woodbridge Structured Funding, and an unnamed luxury shopping brand among others, Ramaswamy says early adopters of enhanced campaig [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Features: Analysis | Google: AdWords: Enhanced Campaigns | Top News

What a week it's been where Google and SEO are concerned. The company, via Matt Cutts, has issued several warnings about things to come -- and, late Tuesday night, also revealed that it's just acted against another link network. In a pair of tweets, Cutts -- the head of Google's webspam team -- said that Google has taken action against "several thousand" link sellers that were part of a link network that bought and sold links that pass PageRank. In addition to mattcutts.com/blog/what-to-e… it's safe to assume webspam will continue to tackle link networks that violate our guidelines as we [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Featured | Features: Analysis | Google | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Link Building: Paid Links | Top News

In a surprising turn of events, Germany's top civil court overturned two lower court rulings on a case involving Google's autocomplete function. According to the ruling, it is Google's responsibility to block libelous words that appear next to a name via the autocomplete function if Google has been alerted to the defamatory words. The plaintiff in the case was an unidentified nutritional supplements company that filed the lawsuit against Google because the German-language site's autocomplete function was adding the terms "Scientology" and "fraud" to the company's name in search queries. The [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: Business Issues | Google: General | Google: Legal | Legal | Legal: General | Legal: Privacy | Top News

Yesterday, we covered and summarized the ten future Google SEO changes coming to Google's search results by the end of this summer. But today, I wanted to pull out one point where Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, said Google is working on an algorithm to give authorities in a particular subject a ranking boost for being that authority. Google has long done this within Google News, but this seems to be the first time it's talking about trying to determine subject authorities within Web search. The portion of the video of when Matt Cutts talks about authority boost starts at 4 min [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Top News

A video from Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, today answers some of the questions about what webmasters and SEOs should expect in the near future in regards to SEO. The primary question Matt asked and answered was, "What should we expect in the next few months in terms of SEO for Google?" Matt addressed 10 points, all summarized at the end as helping improve the search results by awarding the good sites and hurting the spammers and black hats in the search results. Here are the 10 points Matt addressed in his video, followed by the video itself: 1.  Penguin Updates The next g [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Featured | Features: Analysis | Google: SEO | Top News

In a German case that could have broader antitrust implications in Europe, Google defeated a petition for an injunction brought by a German online weather trade group, Verband Deutscher Wetterdienstleister. The case is interesting because it involves a private antitrust action against Google and directly addresses the "search bias" argument made by Google critics. The case and petition for injunction against Google were brought on behalf of third party publishers by the weather association. I obtained an English translation of the German court's opinion. The translation is a bit awkward [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features: Analysis | Google: Antitrust | Google: Legal | Google: Outside US | Legal | Legal: Regulation

Google has quietly dropped yet another search feature; this one is related to local search results within a search on Google. Google has removed the "more results near..." link on local search results for queries with local intent. For example, if you search for [pizza] on Google.com, Google will show you local businesses selling pizza to consumers, as well as webpages, videos and so forth on pizza. This is part of the universal search initiative from 2007. Since then, when Google showed local listings in the organic search results, Google would show a "more results near..." link under t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Features: Analysis | Google: Maps & Local | Google: User Interface | Google: Web Search | Top News

When Google first released its updated Google Search app last October, it never made the iTunes top ten and, last week, wasn't even in the top 100. But the addition of Google Now helped the app make the top ten in less than a week. Google relaunched its app last October with Siri-like voice recognition and readback, but after peaking at number 16, it started dropping down to around the 150 mark last Sunday. With Google Now being added, the app has risen up to number 10 in the most recently downloaded free apps list. Coincidentally, it also just got named the 10th most downlaoded free app [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Google | Google: Google Now | Google: Google Search App | Google: Mobile | Top News

Every year, Ad Age ranks the top performing U.S. search marketing agencies based on the previous year's U.S. and worldwide revenue. This year, the top three agencies held their 2012 report rankings, with iCrossing, 360i and iProspect coming in at No. 1, 2, and 3 on the list of largest U.S. search marketing agencies. 360i was responsible for the fast-thinking Oreo tweet during the blackout at this year's Superbowl. The agency also received a Facebook Studio Award for an Oreo social media marketing campaign. iCrossing recently received a Shorty Award for their Maker's Mark #CocktailParty2012 [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Features: Analysis | Magazine | Search Ads | Search Ads: General | Search Marketing | Search Marketing: Branding | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: Awards | Social Media Marketing

Well look at that! Search traffic to news sites has dropped over the past eight months, according to how BuzzFeed tracks referrals to sites within its network. A change of user behavior? Or perhaps more the result of "Dark Google" and "Not Provided?" Come on, I'll explain how Google may be making itself look like it's in decline. Where Has All The Google Traffic Gone? BuzzFeed said that it looked at traffic to 200 publishers in its network and found a marked decline in Google traffic from September 2012 onward. The network includes sites like Rolling Stone and The Huffington Post. My mind is [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Features: Analysis | Google: Analytics | Top News

For the 20th anniversary of CERN making Web technology available to anyone royalty-free, the European science lab has restored the very first website to its original location. Could today's search engines of Google and Bing, which didn't exist when the site was first posted, find it now? Time for a test. The answer turns out to be tricky. Searching For The Page By URL The easiest test was to see which of them had the page listed by searching for it by its URL, which is: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html It looks like this, by the way: Google found it when I searc [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features: Analysis | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Stats: Freshness | Stats: History | Stats: Relevancy | Top News

Google doesn't always use the HTML title tag of a web page, choosing instead to make its own title for a page, if it thinks it can do a better job. Here's an example of it getting this completely wrong. I was searching for Dana Point Jet Ski, which is a real business in Dana Point. Google instead listed the official page for Dana Point Harbor first: Listing the wrong site first is a relevancy problem. But changing the title of the page to "Dana Point Jet Ski & Kayak Center" is a double-fail. That's Google reinforcing its error, because it's so sure that it's right. See, Google [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: SEO | SEO: Titles & Descriptions | Top News

In a recently published video, Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, listed off the top five SEO mistakes webmasters make. Matt said these are not the most devastating mistakes, but rather, the most common mistakes. (1) Not having a website or having a website that is not crawlable is the biggest mistake he sees. (2) Not including the right words on the page. The example Matt gave is: don't just write, "Mt. Everest Height" but write, "How high is Mt. Everest?" because that is how people search. (3) Don't think about link building, think about compelling content and marketing. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: SEO | SEO: General

With Google Now coming to iOS, a whole new audience using iPhones and iPads are about to meet Google's predictive search service. It's a feature that's gone from interesting novelty to being downright amazing, in less than a year. Here's a look at how the "predictive search" service has evolved and where it may head next, including perhaps to desktop computers. Wow, It Really Does Work [caption id="attachment_157254" align="alignright" width="300"] Google Now, showing time to airport and navigation option[/caption] [caption id="attachment_157256" align="alignright" width="300"] Google Now [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Google: Google Now | Google: Google Search App | Top News

What to do if Google sends you a penalty notice, and you can't figure out exactly what it's for? Turn to Google's webmaster help forum, says the head of Google's Web spam team, Matt Cutts. If you're still confused after that, you can file a reconsideration request where you might be given more details. The issue of confusing notices came up this week after Mozilla received a "manual" penalty notice because of a single page of spam found on its site. This followed the BBC receiving an "unnatural link" warning last month because of links pointing to a single page on its site. The good new [...]

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

I've found documents associated with the Google-EU settlement proposal that offer mock-ups of how the new, regulated SERPs will look. It's very interesting and greatly clarifies the settlement terms and how they will be implemented practically. These mockups look quite different (and less "disruptive") than what I imagined. There are three basic scenarios: where Google sees direct monetization from the SERP, indirect monetization in the vertical or no monetization (e.g., News in Europe). In each case the presentation and the rules will be slightly different. The screens below are all mock- [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features: Analysis | Google: Antitrust | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Google: Outside US | Legal: Regulation | Top News

Yesterday we reported that Google changed how you access the cached, similar and share links within the search results by adding a new green down arrow next to the search snippet's URL. We asked, where did the Instant Previews go that launched on November 9, 2010 with a huge amount of excitement from Google. Google even said that the instant previews resulted in searchers being "5% more likely to be satisfied with the results they click." Well, that is now gone because searchers apparently did not use the feature. A Google spokesperson told us a blanket statement, "we’re constantly [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Google: User Interface | Google: Web Search | Top News

The value of ranking first on a search results page is no secret, but today Bing is putting some hard numbers on it: More than 50 percent of Bing users click the first result, and more than 75 percent click there if the first result includes Bing's deep links. In a blog post today, Dr. Ronny Kohavi of Bing's Research & Development team, shares some valuable data about how Bing users interact with search results. After the 50 percent of users that click the top result, Bing says that only about 4-6 percent click the third result (depending on if it's an Instant Answer or a regular web [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Deep Links | Microsoft: Bing User Interface | Top News

Have user generated content on your site? Pay attention to what those users are doing. That's the takeaway from Google hitting Mozilla with a spam penalty this week, along with another takeaway. Despite Google's saying it's being more transparent about spam actions, people clearly find it hard to know what they're in trouble for. Mozilla Gets A Penalty Search Engine Roundtable spotted the latest flare-up in Google's fight against spam. Chris More, the Web production manager for Mozilla, took to Google's forums for help in dealing with the penalty notice he received. From his post: We got th [...]

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