SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 12, 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: How To Help Clients Through Link Building Confusion This is my first column since returning from SMX East. Thank you to Debra, Danny, Chris, Karen, Elisabeth and everyone else who made […]

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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:

  • How To Help Clients Through Link Building Confusion

    This is my first column since returning from SMX East. Thank you to Debra, Danny, Chris, Karen, Elisabeth and everyone else who made this a fantastic show. I even spent time in the exhibitor hall, which I haven’t been able to bring myself to do since back in the 90’s when a vendor brought […]

  • OneRiot Shutters Real-Time Search Engine, Focuses On Ad Network

    OneRiot, one of the early entries in the real-time search space, has shut down its consumer-facing search engine that was previously available at OneRiot.com. The company has announced that it will instead focus completely on its advertising network.
    “Realtime search is still very important to us,” writes OneRiot CEO Tobias Peggs. But he says the company […]

  • Google’s Automated Cars: The Perfect Venue For Ads

    Imagine this: You’re driving across town to catch a concert by a new artist that friends have been talking about for weeks. Only you’re not really driving. The car is driving itself. And you’re actually paying as much attention to the video screen on your car’s dashboard as anything.
    You’ve already bought the singer’s latest […]

  • Official: Google Testing “Ads” Description Rather Than “Sponsored Links” For AdWords

    Tim Cohn emailed us a screen shot of Google using a new description next to AdWords search ads that appear on Google’s search results, just the word “ads” rather than the long-standing “sponsored links” disclaimer. The company has confirmed this is a test that’s underway.
    Here is a screen shot showing the change. See the […]

  • IAB: Online Ad Revenues $12.1 billion (1H), Search Is 47 Percent

    This morning the IAB announced online ad revenues for the first half of 2010. According to the report, revenues increased 11.3 percent vs. the same period a year ago. Second quarter ad revenues were $6.2 billion, a 4.1 percent increase over last year. Total 2010 ad revenues to date (through June) were $12.1 billion.
    Search continued […]

  • How To Use QR Codes In Social Media

    Last week, I attended SMX East and spoke about “Facebook SEO: Free Ways To Be Found On Facebook”. One hot topic within the panel was how exactly to leverage one’s user base and get them to take the action steps on social sites. Whether it be “likes,” “check-ins,” or “followers” you are looking for, one […]

  • Not Hot Air: Google Investing In Offshore Wind Energy

    Google announced last night that the company has invested “in the development of a backbone transmission project off the Mid-Atlantic coast” that will help support future harvesting of power from offshore wind turbines up and down 350 miles of the US East Coast. The windmills have yet to be built, but this is key […]

  • European Domains: Changes & Opportunities For SEOs

    I recently spoke at the Domainfest conference in Prague. The conference, of course, was all about selling and buying domains, but they asked me to speak about search.
    “Domaining” is related to search, but somehow the two worlds rarely intersect. Yet they do need each other. In this post, I’d like to show you around the […]

  • Yahoo Expands Mobile Search Results Display

    Users of Yahoo’s mobile web search site (https://m.yahoo.com) on smartphones should notice new enhancements and expanded search results the next time they search using certain types of queries. Yahoo has announced changes to how it shows search results for local business listings, entertainment, stocks, videos, and images on smartphones.
    Yahoo says it’s “pulling more essential information […]

  • Google The ‘Early Winner’ In Ads After Bing-Yahoo Integration

    In the aftermath of Bing and Yahoo integrating their search ad platforms, the “early winner” seems to be Google, whose share of paid search spending rose more than two percent between the second and third quarters of this year. That’s one of the conclusions in the latest quarterly report from Efficient Frontier, a search marketing […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

Local, Maps & Mobile

Link Building

Paid Search & Contextual

Searching

SEO & SEM

Social Media

Video, Music & Image Search

Web Analytics

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

  • How Retargeting Can HURT Sales – Some fraction of buyers will place an order on the first visit to an advertiser’s site. Some fraction will leave and come back later. If all the people who leave before buying are shown re-targeting ads, re-targeting will get credit for a big slug of orders that would have happened anyway in addition to order legitimately inspired by re-targeting.
  • SEO (Usually) Does Not Create Demand – Aaron Wall explains how getting a specific brand to rank for terms as well as location is less about refining SEO efforts and more about building demand.
  • The Anatomy Of Google Search URL Parameters – Know your PWS from your NUM, as a way to make Google Search do what you want right from the address bar? Learn your query parameters alphabet, and you'll be a "command line" whiz plus learn about what Google's tracking.
  • Twitter shortens the six degrees of separation to five – Interesting study by Sysomos which found that the most common friendship distance on Twitter was five steps which is down from the old six degrees of separation that we had in the 'old days.'
  • Does anybody else think that out of all of the major social media networks Twitter will be the first to die out? – Being in the internet marketing industry, I have a pretty extensive knowledge on the subject and a wide of array of tools I use for my internet marketing arsenal. The thing is, I was extremely reluctant to get a Twitter account for my works because I think micro blogging networks are almost useless. Although I do agree micro blogging sites like Twitter can greatly help businesses or advance a celebrity's agenda, I think it will be the first thing to fizzle out of all the social media avenues out there. Any thoughts?
  • How to get Additional characters in Google Ad Copy – Nice little loophole in a recent Google AdWords update that allows advertisers to get 30 characters in their headlines and 38 characters in their description lines.
  • CNN Says Shared News Leads to Advertising Engagement – At Marketing Pilgrim, Cynthia Boris recaps a CNN study called POWNAR which stands for “power of news and recommendation.” For the study they tracked the sharing of news through social networks and they also used eye-tracking and biometrics to study engagement.

  • 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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