SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 22, 2010

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Report: Not Optimizing For Bing-Yahoo Means Loss Of Traffic From an SEM-SEO resource-allocation perspective focusing on Google historically made lots of sense for small and even medium-sized firms. Some firms didn’t […]

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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:

  • Report: Not Optimizing For Bing-Yahoo Means Loss Of Traffic

    From an SEM-SEO resource-allocation perspective focusing on Google historically made lots of sense for small and even medium-sized firms. Some firms didn’t have the bandwidth to address Yahoo, let alone Bing. But after the merger the two now control about 28 percent of all search traffic according recent search market share data from comScore. So […]

  • Hot At Sphinn: Article Spinning, Search Behavior, SEO Advice & More

    Do you remember the best piece of SEO advice you ever received? Do you think “article spinning” is spam? And are you up on the latest research about how consumers use search engines? Those were some of the hot topics last week on our sister site, Sphinn, where the community interacts by commenting, tweeting, and […]

  • Google’s Second Major Quality Score Reporting Bug In 3 Weeks

    All Google AdWords advertisers know the importance of having a good quality score on Google. A poor quality score can result in your cost per click prices to soar, virtually knocking you out of the auction space and competing during the holiday shopping season. That is why tracking and monitoring your ad’s quality score in […]

  • Viacom Blocks Google TV From Airing Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, and Nickelodeon

    GTVHub reports that Google TV is now being blocked by Viacom. Shows such on popular networks such as Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, and Nickelodeon are not viewable via the Google TV. Previously, ABC, CBS and NBC blocked Google TV and so did Fox many of those channels returned to Google TV soon after. Viacom, which […]

  • Google Analytics Data Skewed Because Of Instant Previews

    There are confirmed reports that Google Instant Previews may be skewing your web analytics data. It appears that in some cases Google will conduct an on-demand fetch of your page to dynamically create an Instant Preview. The on-demand fetch happens when a searcher places his mouse over the search result on Google and the image […]

  • Facebook Drops Gmail As Find Friends Option

    TechCrunch reports Facebook has removed the Gmail option of finding friends on Facebook. If you go to the find friends section on Facebook, you will find options to find your friends via Skype, AIM, Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Comcast, MSN, sbcglobal and verizon.net, but you won’t see Google’s Gmail as an option: This doesn’t […]

  • Yahoo Experiments With New UI, Content For Local

    It has been quite some time since Yahoo updated its pioneering and once-dominant local destination, Yahoo Local. Now the company is testing a simplified UI that streamlines the user experience and offers new content (including deals) in a number of cities. Below are screens showing the current and new Local UIs. First the existing site […]

  • Managing Huge PPC Campaigns? Try These Best Practices

    Reading search marketing advice, you will find an abundance of information about best-practices that are easy to apply to a campaign or ad group level. Common best practices such as keeping ad-groups small and targeted, with relevant and keyword specific ad-copy have demonstrated great results. Moreover, the value of managing match types and negatives to […]

  • Google’s Advertising Policies: A Plea For Understanding

    Drawing lines in the sand and enforcing them is harder than it may appear. Perhaps these “rules of engagement” will help.

  • Google Testing New Look For Map Views

    It’s probably a safe bet that large numbers of people don’t use many of the enhanced features and content layers of Google Maps. I don’t have any empirical data to support this assertion but that’s my hunch. Google may now be experimenting with ways to make some of those features more prominent. Here’s an image […]

  • Three Important Online Trends For Local Business

    It’s been roughly a year since Marchex launched an online presence and reputation management product for small and local businesses, and we’ve learned a lot about what these businesses truly care about when it comes to their digital footprint. This article summarizes three key things we discovered after over a year of product testing and […]

  • Google Pushes Chrome Browser Via Newspaper Ads

    Flipping through my Los Angeles Times newspaper today, I came across an unusual ad — one placed by Google, to push its Chrome browser: The Chrome Ad Google’s “20 Things” Book In particular, the ad covers one of the 20 “things” that are part of the “20 Things I Learned About Browsers And The Web” […]

  • The Best Android Fragmentation Example: No Google Search App On Android 2.1

    Android “fragmentation” is back in the news this week, thanks to the Angry Birds game needing to release two different versions for Android. But I have a better one: Google itself needing to make two different versions of the Google Search app. Where’s Google Search? For about three months, I’ve been using the Motorola Droid […]

  • Facebook Getting Almost 25% Of All US Page Views

    New statistics out today from Experian Hitwise show Facebook’s continued spread into the average US internet user’s daily activities online. Hitwise says Facebook received nearly 25% of all US page views for the week that ended on November 13, 2010 (last week). Comparatively, a year ago at this time, Facebook generated 16.7% of all US […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

Business Issues

Local, Maps & Mobile

Paid Search & Contextual

Searching

SEO & SEM

Social Media

Video, Music & Image Search

Web Analytics

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

  • The Ultimate Small Business Website Resource – This is a really great 101-level starter guide from Samir Balwani. It covers everything from hosting and design to CMS concerns, SEO, blogging, local visibility and a whole heck of a lot more.
  • Do You Really Want to Grow Your Online Network? – At least once per day I get asked by someone this very ambigous question: “How do I grow my online network?”. I am done answering this question because when I ask people what they are doing – it’s as if they have completely forgot about everything PRE-SOCIAL MEDIA….
  • Valuing Facebook's Ads – The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the disconnect between the amount of ads being served at Facebook, vs. the budgets applied to display ads at the network, and speculates as to why that disparity exists. From the article – "New data from comScore Inc. show that in September 24% of all online display ads in the U.S. appeared on Facebook—more than twice as many as any other publisher. Yet Facebook is far from capturing a quarter of the wallets of major marketers. The company accounts for just 9.5% of the spending on display ads in the U.S., according to research firm eMarketer Inc."
  • Let Me Teach You a Thing Or Two About Domain Sales – Powerful advice about a topic that makes most of us a bit uncomfortable and nervous.
  • Branding in the Digital Age: You’re Spending Your Money in All the Wrong Places – Comprehensive look at the changing nature of how and when consumers interact with brands on purchase decisions, including analysis of an in-depth case study. From the article at the Harvard Business Review – "Marketers have long used the famous funnel metaphor to think about touch points: Consumers would start at the wide end of the funnel with many brands in mind and narrow them down to a final choice. Companies have traditionally used paid-media push marketing at a few well-defined points along the funnel to build awareness, drive consideration, and ultimately inspire purchase. But the metaphor fails to capture the shifting nature of consumer engagement."
  • 5 Reasons NOT to Delete Negative Reviews – While it may seem counter-intuitive, there are quite a few reasons why business owners want to resist the urge to delete comments and reviews that are critical of them. Sometimes, negative reviews can actually help, not harm, your business. Lisa Barone explains a few reasons why it’s okay to let negative reviews lie on your page.
  • Spinning Insults Intelligence, Steals Money and Hurts Businesses – Article spinning has become increasingly prevalent over the last couple of years. Bad enough that it has existed for quite some time… there are those in any industry that prefer to leech off the work of others. But now, a whole new sub-industry has risen.
  • What!?! That's My Competitor in My Google Places Listing! Or, How to Change the Street View Image in Google… – Imagine that you are diligent about maintaining a good quality Google Places listing for your business, complete with video, images, accurate information, monthly specials and discounts, even an experimental Tag. Imagine that you've ranked well for over a year now in Google Places and that your listing generates good leads to your business. Now imagine that you wake up one morning to see that your Google Places Page features a street view image that shows a competitor. Here's what you do…
  • Just Say No to Articles Written for SEO Purposes! – Great piece by Jill Whalen, her summary:  So banish the notion of "SEO articles" from your vocabulary. Optimize the actual pages of your site that are there to do business, and provide as much additional information as you can that will set your business apart from the others. Get into the head of your potential customers and give them exactly what they need to become informed buyers who want to buy only from you.

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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