Yandex has presented what it claims is a new concept in search engine results pages to a Russian audience at an online industry conference in Moscow. They’ve nicknamed the new concept “Islands,” but are describing it functionally as “Interactive Snippets” and the next step on from rich snippets. To be launched in a few weeks in Turkey, followed by Russia, the new interactive snippets enable webmasters and publishers to coordinate their own on-SERPS interactions with users which are fully controlled by their own sites. [caption id="attachment_159950" align="aligncenter" width="5 [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Search Engines: Yandex | Top News

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 [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Search & Social | Search Engines | Search Engines: Social Search Engines | SEO - Search Engine Optimization

The Local Search Association has released a new Local Mobile Search report, which affirms many of the big themes and trends in the market now: PC traffic is flat, mobile is gaining rapidly and mobile is heavily used for local search. The Q4 2012 data in the report are from comScore. And because the data are from Q4, the trends and traffic figures in the report are probably slightly higher now. The data argue that there has been zero-percent growth in PC Internet traffic since 2011. The PC Internet has plateaued (see our Marketing Land story: PC Free: 46% Used Only Mobile Devices In Purchase [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News

Expect Labs, which is a small startup in the San Francisco Bay Area, has a very impressive list of investors. Today the company announced a new funding round, though the figures weren't disclosed. Investors are the venture or investment arms of Intel, Samsung and Telefonica. Telefonica is the world's fourth largest telco and owns mobile operator O2 in the UK. Previous investors included Google, Greylock, Bessemer, IDG Ventures, KPG Ventures, Quest Venture Partners. The company has one product called MindMeld. It's sort of a (video) chat app but really more of a technology demonstration.  [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Google Now | Search Engines: Experimental | Search Engines: Help Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Search Engines: Other Search Engines | Search Engines: Personalized Search Engines | Search Engines: Real Time Search

Clearly I've broken my own resolution when it comes to not talking about responsive Web design, as I've done so for the past two months. This month, I'm taking a break so I can focus on resolution #1: giving more tactical advice on how to do mobile SEO well. Today's column will focus on mobile SEO tips for m-commerce and retail -- the topic of a webinar I’m doing this month for Mobile Commerce Daily. Tip #1: Make Pages Accessible To Mobile Searchers This tip may seem like a no-brainer in a world where at least 25% of all search traffic comes from mobile devices and 90% of consumers use [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Mobile | Mobile Search | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Search Marketing: Mobile | SEO: Mobile Search

I spoke recently with John Shehata, the director of search for ABC News. Since he owns the SEO responsibility for a number of large media properties, I leapt at the chance to explore some of the things he has learned along the way. We dug in and explored the challenges of educating a large media company, dealing with multiple content management systems, syndicating content and query deserves freshness, all viewed through the eyes of ABC! Interview Transcript Eric Enge: Can you provide a brief outline of your responsibilities at ABC News? John Shehata: I’m the Executive Director of Se [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO | Google: News | Search Engines: News Search Engines

Technical University of Denmark researchers have designed a search engine that indexes specific sets of databases to help identify rare diseases. Users can query patient symptoms on FindZebra.com which crawls over 31,000 medical articles focused on rare and genetic diseases to deliver medically relevant search results. While the search engine's homepage includes a notification stating that the site is a research project and should only be used by medical professionals, the developers boast that it delivers significantly better results than Google when searching for rare disease content. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building: General | Search Engines: Academic Search Engines | Search Engines: Other Search Engines

In a recent study by SurveyMonkey examining SEO assumptions, respondents were given two search result pages, one with a page header labeled "Google" and the other with a page header labeled "Bing," and asked which page of results they preferred. Even when the page header labels were swapped, more users preferred the Google search results. Of 641 survey respondents, 379 participants received a survey asking which of two search result pages they preferred. One page of results for the term "file taxes" included true Google results and the other page included true Bing results. The Google page [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Search Quality Raters | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing SEO | Search Engines | SEO: Domain Names & URLs | Stats: Popularity | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300"] Twitter Cards Image from Marketing Land[/caption] Mobile Application Search in both Apple's App Store and Google Play is frustratingly similar to general online search in the early 2000s -- and the tactics used to make them visible in search resuls also closely mirror the SEO best practices from that era. Searching for and discovering the right apps is a concern for both developers and mobile users, which may recently have been dealt a helping hand from Twitter with its App Cards. How Do Twitter App Cards Work? Currently, you need special [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Mobile | Mobile Search | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | SEO: Mobile Search

Yandex has taken exception to a recent study that reported it has more malware in its search results than other major search engines like Google and Bing. The company shared its concerns with Search Engine Land via email, saying that it also sent the same response to AV-TEST, the German IT security firm that published the findings from an 18-month search/malware study. We reported on the study yesterday after PC Mag was first to report on it. The AV-TEST study examined more than 13 million Yandex search results and found malware in about .024 percent -- twice the percentage of malware it [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Engines: Yandex | SEO: Spamming | Top News

About three years ago, Google was labeled in one study as the "King of Malware." Things have apparently changed a lot since then. A new study reports that Google is beating its primary search competitors pretty significantly when it comes to keeping malware out of search results. The 18-month study (PDF), done by a German IT security group called AV-TEST, reviewed more than 40 million web pages -- the vast majority (about 38 million) coming from Google, Bing, Yandex and Blekko. The results: About .0025 percent of Google's search results were links to malicious websites. Blekko was [...]

Related Topics: Blekko | Channel: SEO | Google: Security | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Search Engines: Yandex | SEO: Spamming | Top News

Mobile-location based advertising network xAd joined forces with mobile call measurement provider Telmetrics to release their first U.K. Mobile Path-to-Purchase study, focusing on U.K. mobile search behavior. Conducted by Nielsen, the online study, surveyed 1,500 U.K. smartphone and tablet users to measure consumer search activity on mobile devices. While price comparisons and reviews were the leading mobile research activities in the U.K., users performing restaurant and automotive searches on smartphones were most often looking for location or local contact information. According t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search & Society: General | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Search Marketing: Mobile | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

This morning, Foursquare is rolling out version 6.0 of its app. It puts a new search box "front and center" at the top of the screen to emphasize the local search capabilities of the app. It also adds or enhances other features to make it easier to find places and things to do. The company is using all its social and check-in data to generate greater utility, as well as create a discovery or recommendations edge over Yelp and Facebook's relatively new Nearby/Local Search. Below is the previous version of the app, which featured tabs at the bottom. Search was available under Explore and v [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Foursquare | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Top News

Developed by John Matherly, Shodan is a search engine designed to help users find certain pieces of software, determine which applications are most popular, identify anonymous FTP servers, or investigate new vulnerabilities and what hosts they could infect. It also serves as a window into millions of unsecured online connections. According to an article on CNN Money, Shodan runs nonstop, collecting data from approximately 500 million connected devices and services each month. Through a simple search on Shodan, a user can identify a number of systems that either have no security measures in [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Legal: Crawling & Indexing | Legal: Privacy | Legal: Security | Search & Society | Search Engines | Search Engines: Meta Search Engines | Search Features: Safety

The data analytics firm Chitika has created an infographic showing search volume for the final four teams in this weekend's NCAA basketball championship tournament. If search interest has any influence on game results, we'll all be watching the University of Louisville men's basketball team beating Michigan next Monday night at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Louisville also ranks No. 1 for most searched teams according to Bing's Search Blog. Leading the list of most searched players is Kevin Ware, the Louisville player who suffered a severe lower leg injury during the Louisville-Duke game on [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Search Engines | Stats: General | Stats: Popularity

Google Public Alerts has broadened its service through a new partnership with Nixle, a company that contracts with public safety agencies to send alerts via cellphones and social media networks. Police, fire, and emergency management agency alerts will now appear when a Google search or a Google Maps search is performed in an area with an active emergency alert in effect. "Google Public Alerts provides people with information about how to respond in emergency situations," said Jonathan Betz, engineering manager for Google Crisis Response. "Nixle enables local response agencies to get tha [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Google: Alerts | Search Engines: Disasters | Top News

It seems people have strong feelings for or against responsive Web design. My thanks to those with open minds who responded to last month’s column on SEO problems with responsive Web design with either praise or reasonable criticism. While I answered the most common criticisms already, one recent comment from Google’s John Mueller stood out to me. When he posted Luke Wroblewski’s results of sites that have seen success with responsive Web design to Google+ with the caption #rwd #ftw, I wanted to remind Google and other responsive Web design advocates that responsive Web design, whil [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Mobile | Google: SEO | Mobile Search | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | SEO: Mobile Search

If job listings are any indication, Apple remains committed to improving its iOS Maps app. As the iDownload Blog spotted, Apple currently has seven job listings for what's called a "Maps Ground Truth Manager." The positions are based around the world -- U.S., Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, Asia-Pacific, the Americas and Middle East/Africa. The job description explains that these Ground Truth Managers will be responsible for improving and ensuring the accuracy of Apple Maps. The Maps team is searching for a manager for the team responsible for regional map quality and ground trut [...]

Related Topics: Apple: Maps | Channel: Local | Features: Analysis | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News

Search continues to shift away from the desktop toward mobile devices. That's one of the conclusions of the just-released Neustar Localeze/15miles/comScore Local Search Study, which is now in its sixth year. This year's study involves a sample of more than 3,000 U.S. adults that say they use the Internet to search for local businesses. Results aren't available online yet, but we'll add a link here when they are. The total number of U.S. searchers using mobile phones grew 26 percent between March 2012 and December 2012, from 90.1 million to 113.1 million searchers. Search on tablets was u [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Stats: comScore | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

Several sites are touting a new voice search feature on the CheapAir.com app. The company says that it uses the iPhone's own speech recognition capability on the front end, but then does some semantic parsing on its side to deliver flight search results. I tried the app and found that its voice search fell quite short of my expectations. You can't speak "naturally" and get good results. For example, you can't say something like, "I need to go to Chicago on April 7 from San Francisco." If you form a query loosely or conversationally -- if you speak to it as you would an "assistant" [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Search Engines: Travel Search Engines