SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 22, 2013

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: After Penalizing Interflora & UK Newspapers, Google Warns Against Advertorials After penalizing Interflora and UK newspapers Google has issued a stern warning that selling links on sites that pass PageRank can […]

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

From Search Engine Land:

  • After Penalizing Interflora & UK Newspapers, Google Warns Against Advertorials
    After penalizing Interflora and UK newspapers Google has issued a stern warning that selling links on sites that pass PageRank can lead to a penalty in Google. Google specifically called this a “reminder,” because in 2007 they clearly went on record that selling paid links can lead to a penalty. Google’s Matt Cutts, the head […]
  • Google Quietly Rolls Out New Offer Extensions in AdWords
    Google is now rolling out Offer Extensions, their latest ad extension that lets AdWords advertisers to post deal offers underneath a normal Google Search ad. If your AdWords account has been upgraded to Enhanced Campaigns, then you’ll see the new Offer Extension in your account right now, in the “extensions” tab. If not, you’ll have […]
  • SMX Toronto Keynote: Social Proof, SEO & Influence Marketing
    The concept of “influence marketing” has suddenly exploded into all aspects of search and online marketing. In his SMX Toronto keynote address, Sam Fiorrella, co-author of Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media will present a new methodology that will advance the concept of influence marketing from a social […]
  • Search In Pics: Google Drive Latte, Google/Bing Traitor Cake & Google Cushions
    In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the Web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Google Cushions: Source: Google+ Google Toys: Source: Flickr Gmail & Google Drive Latte: Source: Google+ Google […]
  • Google Dishes Out PageRank Penalties To UK Newspaper Web Sites For Selling Links
    Google has downgraded the Toolbar PageRank scores for several dozen UK operated newspapers and news sites today. It is believed the reason Google has downgraded their PageRank scores is because they were selling links on a massive scale. Google Penalizes Sites Selling Links As you may remember, in October 2007, Google went on record that […]
  • How To Use Regression Analysis To Estimate Incremental Revenue Opportunities
    My previous article was about estimating the potential for growth for those paid search campaigns capped due to insufficient budget. This was definitely the easy part since the logic behind the assumptions involved in the calculation was fairly simple. Now, we can address those paid search campaigns capped due to insufficient rank – and there […]
  • What’s the economic impact of SEM Services? Webcast, Thurs. Feb. 28
    When a direct global response company hired an outside agency for its SEM services, was it worth it? Find out next Thursday, February 28, in a live webcast hosted by our sister site, Digital Marketing Depot. Commissioned by the Covario search agency, Forrester Consulting used its Total Economic Impact (TEI) methodology to produce a case […]
  • Google Says No Comment On Why Interflora Was Penalized
    The popular UK flower website Interflora seems to have been penalized in Google. They no longer rank for their key terms, such as [flowers], [flower delivery] and related terms — nor do they rank for their own name [Interflora]. Here is a picture of the search results in Google UK for [Interflora]. As you can […]
  • Google Celebrates Edward Gorey 88th Birthday With Logo
    Google has a very artistic logo on their home page today for the 88th birthday of illustrator and writer Edward Gorey. Edward Gorey, who died at the age of 75 on April 15, 2000, would have turned 88 years old today. The Chicago-born illustrator and artist is well-known for his works on The Gashlycrumb Tinies […]
  • These Five Websites Captured 20% Of All Search Result Clicks
    Once in every five times that someone clicks a search result, it goes to one of five websites: Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, Wikipedia or Amazon. That leaves about 80 percent of search clicks for the rest of us. Going further, the top 500 websites received almost 50 percent of all clicks from search results, and the […]
  • Wisconsin State Court OKs Bidding On Trademarks In Paid Search
    A Wisconsin appeals court this week affirmed a circuit court’s ruling that it’s OK to use trademarks as keywords to trigger the display of paid search ads. The court’s conclusions are in line with search engines’ policies with regard to trademark bidding and with a Federal case decided last year in California. The Wisconsin case, […]
  • Google Switches To Paid Shopping Results In 11 New Countries
    Marketers outside the U.S. have continued to enjoy free shopping traffic from Google, despite the search giant’s big change to convert all results to paid listing ads in its home country. But that’s beginning to change for folks in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, Australia, Switzerland and the Czech […]

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About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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