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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 [...]

Google Authority Boost: Google’s Algorithm To Determine Which Site Is A Subject Authority

May 14, 2013 at 9:38am ET by Barry Schwartz

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 [...]

The Future Of SEO in a Socially Driven World

May 14, 2013 at 9:15am ET by Mani Karthik

If SEO is dead, social media will be, too, in another five years. So, keep calm and tweet on. Hold that thought for a second – I can explain. In today’s search world, there's a lot of talk about how social is "taking over," how "content is king," and how search engine optimization is "dead" -- with search updates like Penguin and Panda hitting the final nails on the coffin. Sounds very dramatic, doesn't it? SEO is "Dead" -- Or Is It? Yes, social is more significant than ever. But, it is too early to draw any conclusions about the death of SEO based on the patterns that we’r [...]

Google’s Latest Easter Egg Brings Atari Breakout Game To Image Search

May 13, 2013 at 8:25pm ET by Matt McGee

Add this to the big list of Google easter eggs: do an image search for "atari breakout," and you'll be able to play the classic video game online, right in your search results. In fact, the image search results become the bricks that you have to eliminate as you play the game. Google is calling the game "Image Breakout." You can use your mouse or the arrow keys on your keyboard to control your paddle, and when you've used up all five chances, you can share your score on Google+. I'm not sure who reported/discovered this first (if it matters); TechCrunch, which may have been first [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google | Google: Easter Eggs | Google: Images

Google’s Matt Cutts: Black Hat & Link Spammers Less Likely To Show Up In Search Results After Summer

May 13, 2013 at 12:26pm ET by Barry Schwartz

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 | Features: Analysis | Google: SEO | Top News

Another One Bites the Dust: Google SMS Search Shuts Down Without Warning

May 13, 2013 at 11:42am ET by Amy Gesenhues

After trying to perform searches via Google SMS Search last week, many users discovered that the mobile search service had been discontinued. In the Google Web Search Help forum, a Google spokesperson wrote, "Closing products always involves tough choices, but we do think very hard about each decision and its implications for our users. Streamlining our services enables us to focus on creating beautiful technology that will improve people's lives." Google SMS Search let users send search queries and receive results via a text to Google. Beginning last week, users received the following no [...]

Google’s Matt Cutts On Spamming Cuil, Helping Masses, Debunking Evil Google & More

May 13, 2013 at 9:38am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google's head of search spam, has decided to publish a bunch of blog posts that were sitting in draft mode on his personal blog. He said his blog needs to cough up a hairball - hence the animated GIF used here. But, we can learn a few things when Matt Cutts coughs up hairballs. A few of the 16 blog posts he published last night contain some Google insight. Helping The Masses Versus Individuals Matt wrote a blog post named email backlog where he explains the rational about responding to individual emails requesting help versus producing videos or posting a blog post that can help hundreds [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Other | SEM Industry: General

5 Ways To Rank Outside Of Your Physical Location In Google Places

May 13, 2013 at 9:25am ET by Andrew Shotland

One of the more desperate requests I get from clients interested in Local Search is wanting to rank well in Google for local queries when they don't have a physical location in the searched city. The challenge is that Google appears to not want to show businesses that are not physically located in the searched city if they can avoid it. And, in their guidelines, they are fairly explicit about trying to game the listings, particularly with easily faked addresses like P.O. Boxes: "Do not create a listing or place your pin marker at a location where the business does not physically exist. P.O [...]

How To Conduct Ad Tests In Enhanced Campaigns

May 13, 2013 at 9:19am ET by Brad Geddes

Enhanced campaigns have brought about many changes to AdWords. One of the biggest changes yet to be discussed is the fact that your ad testing methods will have to change. One of the “features” of enhanced campaigns is that your campaign can now run on desktops and mobile devices with different CPCs that are controlled by bid modifiers. However, since your ads can be run on multiple devices at the same time, you need to test your ad metrics by device. This can easily be accomplished with device preference and Excel filters. First, let’s discuss why this change needs to occur, and t [...]

The Google Mother’s Day Logo Offers 27 Art Variations

May 12, 2013 at 9:18am ET by Barry Schwartz

Today on the Google home page is a special Mother's Day logo for all moms out there. This logo, or Google Doodle, as Google calls them, has a little more detail than the previous years. The logo is completely interactive allowing users to create up to 27 different pieces of art with 3 border types. The logo itself takes you through a series of options, asking you the following questions: Do you want to draw Mom, flowers, or maybe create some kind of gift, gesture, or way of spending time together? If you choose to draw Mom, would you prefer a stick-figure, maybe a Mama Bird, or per [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos

Google’s Matt Cutts: Next Generation Of The Penguin Update “Few Weeks” Away

May 10, 2013 at 5:08pm ET by Danny Sullivan

In March, Google's chief web spam fighter Matt Cutts promised that the Penguin Update designed to fight spam would get a big refresh later this year. Today, Cutts gave an update -- keep waiting. It's still a few weeks off. Along the way, there's some confusion about whether the next Penguin Update will be Penguin 2 or Penguin 4. It'll be Penguin 4, in how we reckon things. Let's dive in. This Week Wasn't Penguin Publishers have already been wondering if a change in rankings that many have noticed this week was some type of Google update. Google won't say what, if anything happened. Howeve [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Penguin Update | Top News

Web Analytics Software Comparison: Identifying The Right Web Analytics Tools For Your Business

May 10, 2013 at 12:50pm ET by Tom Demers

If you’re considering using an analytics platform other than, or in addition to, Google Analytics, it can be a bit difficult to determine what the best alternative will be. Search Engine Land compiled a great buyers guide to enterprise web analytics tools, but what if you’re in the market for a free to mid-level tool, or don’t even know yet exactly what type of software you need? Analytics Software Solutions Below is a brief overview of 25 analytics software options (and one add-on) that should give you an idea of what each tool costs and what functionality each offers. Before you chec [...]

Managing The Bounds Of Profitability: iCPA & iCPC

May 10, 2013 at 9:14am ET by Benny Blum

In my previous post, From 3rd Party To 1st Party: The Evolution Of The Google Advertising Toolset, I wrote about the evolution of AdWords data and how recent changes have constricted the incremental value presented by third-party paid search tools. I wrote in loose terms about using internal analytics to calculate average profit per conversion to use in AdWords Conversion Optimizer. In this post, I will detail the logic behind and process of incorporating margins into bidding at the CPA and CPC level, in case you prefer manual bid management to cost-per-acquisition based management. Depe [...]

If That Was A Google Update You Felt, Google’s Not Confirming It

May 10, 2013 at 8:59am ET by Barry Schwartz

Over the past few days, the Webmaster and SEO community have been discussing significant shifts, fluctuations and updates in both the Google rankings and traffic patterns they have seen from Google's organic search. I've asked Google if there was, indeed, an update, and Google would not confirm. Instead, they gave me the boilerplate response, "We have nothing to announce at this time." They of course added, "We make over 500 changes to our algorithms a year, so there will always be fluctuations in our rankings in addition to normal crawling and indexing." This is nothing new; Google often w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Search Diary | Top News

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