The only constant in search is change. The Periodic Table of SEO was created in 2011 to summarize the major factors that comprise search engine optimization. But, it's time to update the table to review those ranking factors and make sure we've got the right combination. This year, we're asking the SEO community to provide their insight as we revise the Periodic Table of SEO. Please take the Periodic Table of SEO survey below, where you'll review and rank each of the 33 elements. You might notice that Blocking factors have already been removed (going the way of Pluto) since Google effec [...]

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Bing is hopping on the April Fools' Day joke bandwagon later than Google and even Wolfram Alpha, but it's taking a swing at Google in one of the two gags that it just announced via separate blog posts. Bing Basic On its main search blog, Bing has an esoteric blog post that talks about "Bing Basic," a feature that lets searchers experience Bing's home page without the large, colorful and almost always beautiful, clickable photos. The post says Bing is running a test today and, if you know "a certain telltale query," this is what you'll experience: ...you'll get something a little more bla [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: General | Microsoft: Bing | Search & Society: April Fool's | Top News

April Fool's Day is pretty much like a national ... err, international holiday for everyone that works for Google. It seems that nobody else on the Web takes the tradition of pranks and jokes as seriously as Google does -- just see our coverage from the last few April Fool's Days for proof: Google's Gags Go Worldwide For April Fool's Day 2012 It's Over: Google Has Already Won April Fools Day 2011 Google Books, Google Maps Get 3D View – But Only For April Fool's Day April Fools' Day 2009: Google CADIE & More From Search Industry It may still be March 31st for me, and maybe [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: General | Google: Analytics | Google: Docs & Spreadsheets | Google: Gmail | Google: Internet Access | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Marketing | Google: Street View | Google: Trends | Google: Wallet | Google: YouTube & Video | Search & Society: April Fool's | Top News

You may have missed Google’s quiet and brief announcement that starting in April, AdWords ads with phone numbers in the text will be disapproved. Advertisers who want to display phone numbers will have to use the call extensions feature instead. Google states in the announcement, “We are making this change to foster a safer, more consistent user experience across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.” As others have stated, what this change really does is allow Google to charge for mobile ad engagements as part of its transition to enhanced campaigns. With call extensions, advertise [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Features: General | Google: AdWords | Google: AdWords: Enhanced Campaigns | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Ads: Pay Per Call | Search Marketing: Mobile | Top News

Most news organizations provide video content on their sites, and aggregators like Google News also offer video clips for some stories. But there are also some excellent search tools that focus exclusively on broadcast television news, and they can often take you to "all the news that's fit to watch" more quickly and efficiently than browsing the Web. Today, a look at "TV News Search and Borrow" (TV News), one of the many services the Internet Archive makes available, such as the incredible Web history archive, The Wayback Machine. "TV News Search and Borrow" allows you to keyword [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Features: General | Internet Archive | Search Engines: News Search Engines | Search Engines: Video Search Engines

[Ed. note: This is the first of what will be an ongoing interview series called "5 Questions With...," in which we'll publish brief interviews with interesting and important online marketing newsmakers. Depending on the topic, the interviews may be published on Search Engine Land or Marketing Land and, depending on the topic and interview subject, we may occasionally ask more than five questions.] Facebook made a splash this week when it announced Graph Search, an upgrade to its long-neglected search tool. It's very much a beta product. Facebook emphasized that the product will expand to in [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook: Facebook Search | Features: 5 Questions With | Features: General | Search Engines: Social Search Engines | Top News

For the fourth straight year, "facebook" was the most common search term in the U.S. this year -- part of an increase in navigational searching that saw one-word searches rise 16 percent in 2012. That's according to Experian Marketing Services, which announced its list of 2012's top search terms today. The data covers search activity on more than 60 search engines and website visits between January and November of this year, but doesn't include mobile searches or traffic. Experian says "facebook" accounted for 4.13 percent of all searches, a 33 percent increase over 2011. Other Faceb [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Features: General | Stats: Hitwise | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

Last year, Yahoo! celebrated ten years of sharing its annual Year In Review feature, marking the occasion by releasing 30 categories of the most popular searches on Yahoo! in 2011, one of the biggest lists up to that point in time. For 2012, Yahoo! one-upped themselves by providing us with the top 10 most popular searches in over 50 categories, giving us a mega list of the most common queries and questions asked by Yahoo! searchers over the last year. Vera Chan,Yahoo!  senior editor and Web trend analyst, has possibly the 2nd best job at Yahoo! next to Marissa Mayer, as she has been in [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: General | Search & Society | Search & Society: General | Top News | Yahoo | Yahoo: Search

The final debate between U.S. presidential candidates Obama and Rommney airs tonight. Until the election next month, a lot of attention will continue to be on the presidential and vice presidential debates. Here's an easy and free way to keyword search debate video and then immediately view the video online. In fact, all of the presidential debates back to 1988 can offer keyword searchable video. Where do you search and access? Visit the wonderful, irreplaceable and important C-SPAN Video Library. I'll be taking an in-depth look at this resource in an upcoming report but [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Features: General | Search Engines: Government Search Engines | Search Engines: Video Search Engines

In How Search & Social Engines Are Using Semantic Search, I started this series with an overview. This article will give you a walk through on generating local and organization markup for a store. We will look at an alternative vocabulary, namely GoodRelations, and take a deeper dive into the specifics of generating semantic markup for the e-commerce domain using GoodRelations. To clarify, GoodRelations is a vocabulary for e-commerce. Microdata and RDFa are syntaxes. Schema.org for product is an alternate vocabulary for e-commerce. The diagram below from Linked Open Commerce gives an [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: General | Schema.org | Search & Retail | Search Features: Enhanced Listings | Series & Special Topics

The term "Semantic Search" is certainly not new. However, it has taken on a new dimension and implications in both search and social engines today. In addition, it has had a strong impact on targeted semantic advertising. This special series of forthcoming articles on semantic search will take a look at the history behind the development of semantic technology and why it has now become so commercially viable and topical. It will also take a look at how the technology enables "answer engines," rather than simple search engines, to improve the user experience. For example, look at the dire [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features | Features: General | Schema.org | Search Features: Direct Answers | Search Features: Enhanced Listings | Search Features: Natural Language | Series & Special Topics

About nine out of 10 search marketers say Google's recent algorithm changes have had a significant impact on them, and about the same amount say that the rise of the mobile internet and local search are also having a significant impact. The data comes from the SEMPO State of Search Marketing Report 2012, which was just released this week. Nearly 900 search marketers responded to this year's survey, which was conducted online between March 12 and May 15, 2012. Survey takers represent 36 countries, with about 64 percent being in the US. What Impacted Search Marketers Most Whether workin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features: General | SEM Industry: Community | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats | Top News

The games of the XXX Olympiad have begun in London. For the next two weeks people around the globe will be viewing the games in person, on television and on the web. There will also likely be record numbers of posts, tweets, pins, etc. from viewers, media and athletes and other participants in the games. There are tons of Internet information resources that can help enhance your knowledge and enjoyment of the games. Hopefully these resources will also provide you with some interesting facts (with links to discover even more) that will help you "wow" your  friends, colleagues and others ab [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: General | Search Engines: Olympics | Search Engines: Special Events | Top News

At the beginning of the year I wrote about PolitickerUSA, a free tool that allows users to quickly and easily read tweets from members of congress and other political leaders. Today, I want to point out another free service named Politwoops that launched at the end of May. Here, users can access and read tweets that have been deleted by members of congress. In their words: Politwoops, the only comprehensive collection of deleted tweets by U.S. politicians. From minor typos to major gaffes, Politwoops is now there to offer a searchable window into what they hoped you didn't see. The P [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: General | Search Engines: Government Search Engines | Twitter: Search

A pair of New Orleanians are trying to get Google to update the Street View imagery of their city -- some of which is five years old and still shows the ruins from 2005's Hurricane Katrina. "We basically just want to let Google know that there's a real need for updated images this many years after Katrina," says Annalisa Kelly, who, along with Hunter King, recently launched Update Google Street View in New Orleans! It's a blog that juxtaposes current city photos with Google's images to shine a light on the need for new Street View photos. As King and Kelly say on the blog, New Orleans is [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Features: General | Google: Street View | Top News

At SMX Advanced 2011, Matt Cutts announced the Google initiative to begin attributing content to original authors. Since that time, the process in which authors and websites attribute content to authors has evolved. A lot. Many times over, in fact. If you’ve heard about Google authorship markup, but have been confused as to how to get started with it, you are definitely not alone. I’ve been writing about this topic since August of 2011, and have worked to get this process up and running on three separate blog sites (Search Engine Land, Internet Marketing Ninjas, and The SEO Ace– all c [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO | Features | Features: General | Google: Authorship | Google: Rich Snippets | Google: SEO

You know that rumor about Microsoft shopping Bing to Facebook? It sparked lots of speculation about whether that would be a good move for both companies. Turns out it did happen, according to a report in the New York Times citing executives who made overtures to Facebook on behalf of Microsoft -- but without the effort being sanctioned by CEO Steve Ballmer. This happened more than a year ago, according to the report. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg declined to discuss the matter, telling those Microsoft executives that the company had too much else to focus on. Neither Google nor Facebook spok [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Features: General | Microsoft: Bing | Top News

Last week, Google released a new update to its Panda algorithm that targets low-quality content. Who won and who lost? Searchmetrics has posted an analysis of that. Our original story here reported the winners/losers list, as Searchmetrics did, showing who was estimated to have gained and lost in the new Penguin Update that was released this week by Google. Penguin targets not low-quality content but outright spam. No one knew that there had been a Panda Update that also happened, one that in fact was likely responsible for most of the changes on the lists. This was confirmed by the h [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: General | Google: Algorithm Updates | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Panda Update News | Panda Update Winners & Losers | Top News

Search rankings got you down on Google recently? It's not the expected over-optimization penalty, as some have been guessing at. Rather, Google may have thought your site was a "parked domain," when it wasn't. Search forums like Webmaster World and Google's own search discussion areas have had much discussion about recent drops in ranking, such as here, here and as summarized by Search Engine Roundtable. Some have wondered if this was the release of what's been dubbed an "over-optimization penalty" that Google previously said would be coming this year. Whether that really will be a [...]

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

[caption id="attachment_118292" align="alignright" width="294" caption="Credit: Library of Congress"][/caption] April 15th marks the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and there will be no shortage of news coverage (or hype) commemorating the event this weekend. The good news is that if you want even more information, facts, images and history, you can take a deep dive on the web to get to the bottom of the historic event. Here's a roundup of a few sources that we think you might find interesting and useful. Ancestry.com's The Titanic Collection Passenger Lists Crew Li [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: General | Search Engines: Disasters | Search Engines: Other Search Engines