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

AdWords users can now share their screens with AdWords support staff. Yesterday, AdWords Community manager, Zee announced the launch of Google Screensharing. Now an AdWords support team member can invite you to share your screen while you're on the phone with them and signed into your AdWords account. There are set-up instructions here. Once you finish the Screensharing acceptance process, the AdWords rep will only be able to see the screen you chose to share, and won't have access to your computer. Google Screensharing actually uses Google+ Hangout technology, and the install is Goog [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | 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

The EU released documents this morning that detail Google's antitrust settlement proposals and explain the Competition Commission's position on various aspects of the investigation. First here's what the EU says Google has proposed: Google offers for a period of 5 years to: (i) - label promoted links to its own specialised search services so that users can distinguish them from natural web search results, - clearly separate these promoted links from other web search results by clear graphical features (such as a frame), and - display links to three rival specialised search services c [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Antitrust | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: General | 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

The European Union has "accepted" Google's formal antitrust settlement proposal -- subject to "market testing." As a practical matter, that means EU Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia is circulating it among Google's critics and competitors for reaction. However, there has already been plenty of (negative) reaction based on the information that came out last week in news reports. That leads to the question: is Google's settlement proposal dead on arrival? And if so, what will Almunia and the Europeans do? Is litigation inevitable? The issue that Google's competitors and critics ca [...]

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

We reported yesterday that Google penalized Mozilla over user generated content. Today, we learn that it was a really, really small penalty that only impacted a single page out of Mozilla's ~22 million webpages. Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, added more to the Google thread explaining that this manual penalty was applied in a very granular way. In fact, it only impacted a single page on Mozilla's domain name, blog.mozilla.org/respindola/about. Matt Cutts wrote: In this particular case, it was the url http://blog.mozilla.org/respindola/about/ that we took action on, and that w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | SEO: Spamming | Top News

Google has quietly removed the "related searches" option from the search tools menu within the Google search results page. When Google launched search options in October 2009, the option for "related searches" appeared on the left-hand side under the "standard view." The placement of the "related searches" search option has changed over the years, including the whole search filters being moved to the top in November 2012; but, the ability to find related searches remained. That has ended last week, when Google decided to remove the feature. Google told us that they "weren't seeing enough [...]

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

Google AdWords is rolling-out a new upgrade center today for advertisers using Enhanced Campaigns. Accessible from the left-hand nav bar on the Campaigns tab, the upgrade center lets advertisers managing several campaigns perform bulk upgrades to multiple campaigns simultaneously and merge selected campaigns in a few simple steps. The bulk upgrade feature allows advertisers to select multiple campaigns, choose a mobile bid adjustment, view traffic estimates and upgrade their Enhanced Campaigns with fewer clicks, making it easy to upgrade individual campaigns all at once. The upgrade cent [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: AdWords: Enhanced Campaigns | 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

Global search ad spend rose 15% in Q1 2013 versus the previous year, according to the Kenshoo Global Search Advertising Trends report released today. That rise in spend was driven largely by a 62% increase in click-through rates and a 21% increase in clicks year-over-year.   U.S. ad spend rose 24%, spurring the overall global increase. However, PPC spend fell 4% in the E.U. and 11% in the U.K. CPCs fell in both the U.S. and U.K and remained relatively flat for continental Europe. CPCs in the U.S. continued to be higher, at $0.44, than the U.K. at $0.38 USD. The report highlights th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats | Stats: General | Stats: Spend Projections | Top News

Google Maps announced today that their collection of images now include Street Views from 50 countries with photos recently added from Hungary and Lesotho, an enclave surrounded by South Africa. According to the Google Maps blog, their latest update is the largest single update of Street Views imagery since Google Maps launched in 2007, with new images from nearly 350,000 miles of roads across 14 countries. The new Street Views of Hungary allow users to see the historic center of Budapest, with up close views of the Hungarian Parliament building along the Danube and Hungary's Chain Bridge. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Street View | Top News

As Alex Chitu from the Google Operating System blog discovered, Google is testing adding Google Now functionality to the Google home page. Google Now is about getting you the information you want to see, right when you want to see it. For example, if you are in the airport, Google Now would show you the gate information. If you are about to leave for work, Google Now would show you traffic and driving directions. Google Now is available for Android users and Google Glass users, but for users of Google's home page? Google's home page may soon have Google Now functionality. Google can know [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Google Now | Top News

A fine of 145,000 EUR (roughly $189,000) is trivial for Google. But that's close to the maximum fine allowed by German law ($150,000 EUR). The fine is being imposed on Google for violations of German privacy and data protection laws stemming from the so-called "WiSpy" episode in 2008 - 2009 in which Google collected private emails and other personal data via its Street View cars and their efforts to map Wi-Fi locations around the world. Google was fined 100,000 EUR by French authorities for the same violations in 2011. These amounts are insignificant to Google, which just posted quarterl [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Google: Outside US | Google: Privacy | Google: SpyView | Google: Street View | Legal | Legal: Privacy | Legal: Regulation | Top News

Local business owners have a new tool for managing their Google Places For Business listing: a dedicated app that works on the iPhone and iPod Touch. There's no official announcement that I can find about the app, and as best I can tell, the iClarified blog was first to report on it. The Google For Places Business app is a free download in the iTunes app store. I haven't tried it yet (and may not be able to given the ongoing mess as Google merges the Places dashboard with Google+ Local), but here's how Google describes the app's capabilities: Business owners can use the app to: - Verif [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages | Top News

Bing has responded to the malware study conducted by AV-TEST earlier this week, claiming that Bing search results led to five times more malware than Google. To that Bing said, "the conclusions many have drawn from the study are wrong." Why is the study wrong according to Bing? While Bing may show potentially infected search results, Bing clearly labels results that may be infected and this study did not consider that. Bing said the study's methodology used the Bing Search API, which does not contain a malware label, like the core search results screen does. Bing said, "AV-TEST di [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Microsoft: Bing | SEO: Spamming | Top News

Bing Ads announced it is working on adding a Search Terms Report to make mining search query data more accessible from within the Web UI. Currently in the Web UI, search query data is only available under the Reports section. With the update, search terms reporting will be available in-line on the Keywords tab. Here's a screenshot Bing Ads provided: According to the announcement, there will also be filtering capabilities to find specific search queries and to filter out those queries that are already included as keywords in an ad group. The Search Terms Report will eventually be a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Top News

Google announced their Q1 2013 earnings today, and as many analysts expected, the company posted revenue gains over the previous year. Revenue rose  31% year-over-year  to $13.97  billion for the quarter, beating expectations. Here are the highlights: Paid Clicks -- Aggregate paid clicks, which include ad clicks on Google sites and Google Content Network sites rose 20% year-over-year and 3% over Q4 2012. Google Sites -- Google-owned sites generated $8.64 billion, an 18% increase year-over-year of $7.31 billion. Revenues were flat quarter-over-quarter. Google Network -- Google partner [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Business Issues | Top News