SearchCap: Google UX Ranking, Google Bill Reminders & Nokia Here Maps

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• Nokia’s Here Maps Come To Android Phones (Sort Of)
  Nokia’s Here Maps, which power maps on Windows Phones, has released a beta version for Samsung Galaxy Android phones. It’s not available through Google Play, though presumably it will be in time. Nokia’s hardware/handset division was sold to Microsoft but Nokia retained the Here mapping service. Now Microsoft is going to phase out the Nokia brand […]
• Google (Now) Beats Siri And Cortana For Direct Answers — Study
  Stone Temple Consulting (STC) published a study in which it compared mobile answers to “3086 different queries” on Siri, Google and Cortana to determine how each performed relative to the others. Google was the winner with more direct answers and more complete information. Eric Enge, who wrote up the results, says this was not a “personal assistant […]
• Why SEOs Need To Stop Automating Email Outreach For Links
  Link building is a time-consuming process, so it may be tempting to take shortcuts. But email outreach is one area where you should always invest the time.
• Google May Add Mobile User Experience To Its Ranking Algorithm
  At Search Marketing Expo East, Google engineer Gary Illyes talked a lot about user experience and how webmasters really need to focus on that. Over the past week or so, I asked Google about this and tried to understand why Google stressed this point so much at the event. Google told us in a statement: […]
• Call Gap: Survey Finds 54 Percent Of Search Marketers Don’t Track Phone Conversions From Search Campaigns
  How important are offline phone calls to search marketers? Google has reported that 70 percent of mobile searchers have called a business directly from search results. BIA/Kelsey estimates inbound phone calls from mobile search will grow from roughly 40 billion this year to 70 billion in 2016. Yet despite these trends, many marketers aren’t keeping […]
• Google Now Reminds You To Pay Your Bills
  Google announced that you can now search Google for when your bills are due and in addition, Google Now will place reminder cards in your Google mobile app as a reminder as well. You can search or speak your search for [show me my bills] or [my bills due this week] and Google will show […]

Recent Headlines From MarTech, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

• YouTube’s Top 10 September Ads: Samsung Continues Strong Showing, Kmart Sneaks Up To Holiday Season
• Study: 86% Of B2B Marketers Use Content Marketing, But Only 38% Believe They’re Good At It
• Twitter Fine Tunes Controls For MoPub Native App Advertising
• What Excites This CMO? Helping His Brand Become “The 1st Official Yogurt Partner Of The NFL”
• Seizing The Mobile Opportunity For The Holiday Season
• True Religion Jeans Seeks #BeSoBold Moments With Hipsterific Ode To Millennials
• Can’t Link From Instagram? Check Out Mashable’s Nifty Bitly Trick
• AAA Study Finds Siri — And Potentially Any Smartphone Assistant — Hugely Distracting To Driving
• Yahoo Scientists: “Dwell Time” Is A Better Metric Than Click-Through Rate
• Samsung Still Driving Android Sales But iPhone 6 Could Topple Brand

Search News From Around The Web:

Industry

• Google Does Sukkot, The Jewish Week
• Why the Majestic name change?, Majestic Blog
• Google’s Tax Setup Faces French Challenge, Wall Street Journal

Local & Maps

• Google Continues Testing New Interface For Local Results In Web Search, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Employs Camel to Take Liwa Desert Street View Imagery, Mashable
• Google extends ‘Street View’ to State Parks, The Press Democrat
• Your Google My Business Performance Report for September 2014, Mike Blumenthal

Link Building

• Google Generally Does Not Have Humans Reviewing Link Disavow Files, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Future of Link Building, Moz

Searching

• Google Adds Custom Pirate Bay Search With Autocomplete, torrentfreak.com
• Less Visibility for Emergency Results in Answer Box, thesempost.com
• Wednesday Search Challenge (10/8/14): Three little language questions…, SearchReSearch
• All the News that’s Fit to Read: A Study of Social Annotations for News Reading, Official Google Research Blog
• Hipmunk’s travel bookings take flight after deploying Google Maps, Official Google for Work Blog

SEO

• Does Homepage SEO exist at all?, Yoast
• Breaking News: TopSEOS.com Banned in Google, Vizion Interactive

SEM / Paid Search

• 4 Reasons Why AdWords’ Callout Extension Is a No-Brainer, KoMarketing Associates
• Using Google Grants for Non-Profit Advertising in AdWords, koozai.com
• The Best Tools for Keyword Research, Competitive Analysis and Trending Topics, Adam Sherk
• Is Your Google Shopping Listing as Optimized as it Could Be?, KISS Metrics

Search Marketing

• 6 Easy Ways to Improve User Experience Using Analytics Data, Distilled
• How To Proof Your Website Can Be Trusted (& Increase Conversions Easily), Search Engine People Blog
• 15 Tools For SEM Competitive Analysis, Cardinal Path Blog
• A Recipe for Client Success in PPC, Clix Marketing PPC Blog
• Google Custom Affinities Is Here: What You Should Do, Portent