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Google’s Matt Cutts: Domain Clustering To Change Again; Fewer Results From Same Domain

May 17, 2013 at 2:46pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, posted a new video about a new change coming to Google's search results related to the diversity of the results being displayed. Matt said that Google is launching "soon" a new change that will make it less likely to see results from the same domain name, if you already have been shown that domain name in previous results three or four times before. Matt explained that once you've seen a cluster of about four results from a specific domain name, the subsequent pages are going to be less likely to show you results from that domain name. To explain [...]

Google Updates AdWords Express Sign-Up Process, Ad Copy Preview And Dashboard

May 17, 2013 at 12:15pm ET by Ginny Marvin

Google has updated the interface for AdWords Express, Google's AdWords product designed for small businesses. Among the interface updates are a redesigned dashboard to show an at-a-glance look at ad views (impressions), clicks and calls generated as well as a pie chart that tracks monthly budget expenditures. A new performance graph allows advertisers to compare results over time. A real-time ad creator tool now lets users see how their ad will look as they write their copy. Hovering over the icons at the bottom of the window allows advertisers to see a preview of the ad in the di [...]

Analyzing Competitiveness In Your Paid Search Account

May 17, 2013 at 10:40am ET by Benjamin Vigneron

The auction-based industry we work in involves a number of metrics which help search marketers identify where they are doing better or worse than the competition. Just to name a few, the most common metrics search marketers usually look at are the Quality Score (QS), the average cost-per-click (CPC), the impression share (IS), and the 'Relative CTR' on the Google Display Network. While the Quality Score indicates whether your keywords/ads/landing pages are relevant against the competition, it does not tell much about the actual competitiveness of the market. Instead, the average cost-per-cl [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google: AdWords | Search & Analytics

German “Ancillary Copyright” Law To Go Into Effect, Imposes Limits On Search Results

May 16, 2013 at 10:57am ET by Greg Sterling

According to a report from IDG News, a "toned down" version of an earlier, more restrictive "ancillary copyright" law has been published in Germany and will go into effect in August. The ”ancillary copyright” rule was proposed in August of 2012. In its initial form it would have required Google and others that indexed or aggregated news to pay for links or excerpts from those news items -- essentially a "link tax." The law was pushed by German magazine and newspaper publishers that see the Internet and Google, in particular, as the cause of many of their subscription, readership and [...]

Study: Delaware Least Likely State To Use Google, While Yahoo Is More Popular In Southern & Midwest States

May 16, 2013 at 10:18am ET by Amy Gesenhues

Using data from more than 35 million search queries performed in 2012, SEO company WebpageFX set out to determine search engine market share by state for Google, Bing and Yahoo. According to their study, Google dominates across the country, taking 70 percent or more of search engine market share in nearly all 50 states. Delaware represented the only state where Google won less than 70 percent of searches, with 69.49 percent market share. While Google won more than 80 percent of the market in many states, Hawaii, Oregon, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and Colorado led in Googl [...]

Google Continues To Experiment & Expand Authorship

May 16, 2013 at 10:00am ET by Janet Driscoll Miller

If one theme was abundantly clear at SMX West in March, it was the question over the importance of authorship and how it might impact future rankings in Google. During the “What’s Needed For SEO Success In 2013 & Beyond?” panel, I asked Matt Cutts if Google planned to expand authorship credit (and potentially the rich snippet) beyond just written content (like blog posts) and begin incorporating other content types. In reality, content creators could truly author various types of content, including photos for photographers or video for videographers. Just because a piece of con [...]

How to Automate AdWords Ad Creation & Landing Page Checks

May 16, 2013 at 9:05am ET by Frederick Vallaeys

Automating AdWords as much as possible is every advertiser’s dream, especially when dealing with the massive accounts we see in enterprise-level SEM. This article provides a few examples of how we at Top Tier Marketing have automated some of the more laborious tasks of running AdWords. Hopefully, these examples will give you some ideas for your own accounts. There’s even a full script that should work by simply copying it into your own account toward the end of this post. Automate AdWords Ad Creation From Your Catalog [caption id="attachment_158965" align="alignright" width="212"] F [...]

“Organization Markup” Supported As Non-Google+ Way To Put Logos In Knowledge Graph Box

May 15, 2013 at 7:00pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Want to have your company logo appear in Google search results, similar to the way authors get to have their pictures displayed? Keep waiting. New "organization markup" support that Google has announced won't do that, but it might be useful for putting your logo in Google Knowledge Graph boxes. Author Images Many are familiar with authorship images that appear next to some stories, such as this example: That's where I did a search for "google bing," and one of my own articles came up in the top results. My picture appears next to the article because I've gone through the steps to identify [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Webmaster Central | Top News

New Google Now Cards Include Voice-Activated Reminders

May 15, 2013 at 5:45pm ET by Ginny Marvin

Six shiny new cards are coming for Google Now, the assistive app for Android and recently, iOS devices, that offers predictive information tailored to your needs. The new cards, announced at Google I/O today, are for reminders, music, TV shows, public transit, books and video games. Photo credit: Danny Sullivan Reminders is an interactive feature that can be set using voice commands. Johanna Wright, VP of Search and Assist, gave a live demonstration of a Google Now "Voice Action Reminder". Using simple voice commands, users can set reminders that then show up and activate in the [...]

Exploring The New More Dynamic, More Social Google Maps

May 15, 2013 at 5:41pm ET by Greg Sterling

At the Google Developer conference keynote this morning in San Francisco, one of the clear highlights was the introduction of a redesigned Google Maps experience for the PC and mobile. The New Google Maps are available now with an invitation. Already the leading digital and mobile mapping service, the various feature and UI improvements put more distance between Mountain View and its competitors. While Microsoft, Nokia and Apple offer some or even many of the same mapping capabilities, no one offers "the complete package" that Google does. The new Google Maps offer a redesigned UI, though it [...]

Google Knowledge Graph Gets More Stats and 4 New Languages

May 15, 2013 at 3:32pm ET by Ginny Marvin

At Google I/O today, Amit Singhal, Google VP of Search, announced that statistics and four new languages are being added to the Google Knowledge Graph. Knowledge Graph is already supported English and eight other languages: French, Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Korean. Now, Polish, Turkish, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese are the latest languages to be supported in the Knowledge Graph. Here is an example of Knowledge Graph in search in Traditional Chinese. The Knowledge Graph is also going to start "anticipating your next question." As an exam [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Google: I/O | Google: Knowledge Graph

“OK Google” — Hands-Free, Conversational Search Coming From Google

May 15, 2013 at 2:35pm ET by Danny Sullivan

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 [...]

New Google Maps Interface Launching At Google I/O Today?

May 15, 2013 at 12:19pm ET by Chris Silver Smith

Last week, Alex Chitu at Google Operating System blog reported on some screengrabs that were apparently leaked from Google Maps. The images indicated that new Maps interfaces could be in the works, and it was supposed that these might be officially announced at Google I/O today or tomorrow. This morning, Mike Blumenthal reported on new Google Place Results pages that are rolling out in Europe and appear to be closely related in look and feel to the leaked images. Compare a closeup detail of one of the leaked images on the left, with a screengrab I just took of the map portion of the results [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Local Search

Google: Nearly 2 Million AdWords Campaigns Are Now Enhanced, Early Results Are In

May 15, 2013 at 10:32am ET by Ginny Marvin

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 [...]

Five Reports For Measuring B2B Marketing Effectiveness

May 15, 2013 at 9:45am ET by Derek Edmond

Like many online marketing professionals, B2B marketers are obsessed with data. Technological innovation creates phenomenal opportunities for marketers to "slice and dice" information in an effort to create more meaningful lead acquisition strategies. But, innovation might also act as a deterrent and be considerably overwhelming. A recent article on MarketingSherpa discussed their latest survey report on marketing analytics, which indicates that 42% of marketers surveyed believe the ability to act on data to be the most significant challenge they face. Combining data from multiple sources a [...]

Wired Revisits Story Of Federal Sting & $500M Penalty Over Google’s Pharmacy Ads

May 15, 2013 at 9:16am ET by Matt McGee

Wired is telling the story of David Whitaker, a federal prisoner that helped the U.S. government catch Google breaking the law by allowing and helping foreign pharmacies sell drugs via Google AdWords. It's a story you may have heard before; the Wall Street Journal did a similar exposé on Whitaker and the federal sting operation in early 2012. Wired tells how Whitaker used a pseudonym and convinced Google AdWords reps to help him tweak his pharmacy websites so that they'd be approved for AdWords. To prove that Google's behavior was widespread, Whitaker went through a different rep—one [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google | Google: AdWords | Google: Legal | Legal: Regulation

Product Listing Ads: Five Tips That Increase Conversions

May 15, 2013 at 9:00am ET by Rick Backus

Google Shopping scored best in class in our latest rankings of comparison shopping engines. How can you get more revenue out of it? Read on for our five tips to increasing the conversion rate of your Product Listing Ads. 1. Please The Feed Your Google Shopping product data feed is the most important element of a healthy PLA campaign. It tells Google what information to use for your product ads and helps Google determine where your ads should appear in search results. It's better to err on the side of providing too much relevant information than not providing enough. Give Google as many cl [...]

Google Zaps Another Link Network, ‘Several Thousand’ Link Sellers Hit

May 15, 2013 at 3:45am ET by Matt McGee

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 [...]

German Court Says Google Must Block Libelous Words Added Via Autocomplete Function

May 14, 2013 at 1:33pm ET by Amy Gesenhues

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 [...]

Taiwanese Research Firm Claims Patent Law Suit Against Google Search Products

May 14, 2013 at 11:44am ET by Amy Gesenhues

Institute for Information, located in Taipei, Taiwan, has brought a patent lawsuit against Google in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. According to the case, the research institution claims Google Search, Google+ Local and Google Places infringes on the Institute for Information's patented information retrieval system. The patent in question was issued to the Institute for Information in January of 2005. Titled, "Information retrieval system with a neuro-fuzzy structure," under US Patent Number 6,845,354, Law360.com stated the Institute for Information's patent covers [...]

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