September 2010: Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories

Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from September 2010: 1) What’s Up With The Google Balls Logo On The Google Homepage Today? – Visiting the Google homepage today may make you go “wow.” It has one of the most wild and explosive special Google logos I have ever seen. There are dozens […]

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Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from September 2010:

1) What’s Up With The Google Balls Logo On The Google Homepage Today? – Visiting the Google homepage today may make you go “wow.” It has one of the most wild and explosive special Google logos I have ever seen. There are dozens of balls that make up the Google logo, and they bounce around the screen all to come together to form “Google.” The balls in the logo will bounce off your cursor, so if you move your cursor off the browser window, the logo will come together.

2) Google Announces Can’t Be Missed Press Event On Search – What’s Up? – Google’s announced a special press event for next Wednesday on search that “you won’t want to miss.” What big news could there be?

3) Microsoft Launches A New Loyalty Program: Bing Rewards – Prior Microsoft search loyalty programs, SearchPerks and Cashback, were retired. But maybe the third time’s the charm: today Microsoft is rolling out Bing Rewards Preview (beta). It’s a credit card or airline-style loyalty program that offers users credits that can be redeemed for products, gift cards or charitable donations.

4) How Google Saved $100 Million By Launching Google Instant – I kind of like Google Instant and I think it represents a natural evolution in the way search works, but for today, I’d like to talk mostly about Google Instant for what I really believe it to be—an amazing PR win for Google.

5) Google Instant Search: The Complete User’s Guide – Google Instant promises to change the way people search. Speaking at today’s announcement, Google’s Marissa Mayer called it a “fundamental shift in search.” As with any big Google announcement, there are questions: Who can use Google Instant? Can I opt out or turn off Google Instant? Why am I not seeing it when I do a Google search? Answers to those questions and more are below, in our Google Instant User’s Guide.

6) The Five Words You Can Never Suggest On Google Instant – Like it or not, lots of people search for nude celebrities on Google. But with Google’s new Google Instant Search, those inclined to seek celebs in the buff have to figure out their queries without any help from Google. The same is true for those interested in nude beaches, famous nude artwork or “innocent” topics such as the Naked Brothers Band and nude lipstick. Below, a closer look at pros and cons to Google Instant’s filtering, including a nod’s to George Carlin’s famous “Seven Words You Can Never Say In Television” bit.

7) Will Google Instant Kill The Long Tail? – From a paid search perspective, the first impression of Google Instant is alarming. Those concerns range from interesting, to wait and see, to alarming. Below are my early observations and first reactions to Google Instant.

8) SEO Is Here To Stay, It Will Never Die – Google’s press conference about Google Instant hadn’t even ended yesterday when the question of “is SEO dead” started coming up on Twitter, in blog posts and was even asked about formally during the event’s Q&A (the answer was no, twice over, by the way). No, Google Instant isn’t killing SEO. In fact, nothing’s going to kill SEO.

9) Nielsen: Bing Passes Yahoo To Become #2 Search Engine – According to Nielsen data out this morning Microsoft’s Bing has passed Yahoo to become the number two search engine in the US. Nielsen says that Google’s August share is 65% (and growth is flat) but that Bing and Yahoo have now switched places.

10) How The “Focus On First” Helps Hide Google’s Relevancy Problems – In January, I was invited to speak to Google’s search quality team about issues I had with Google’s search results. My topic? For queries where I know a subject really well, I often found Google provided some pretty poor results in the top listings along with the good ones. I wanted more perfection!

Wow – 7 out of 10 of the most read stories were about Google Instant! By the way, our SMX East search marketing conference that begins in New York on Monday has two sessions entirely devoted to Google Instant. Learn more here.

To see all of our most popular stories over time, visit our Most Popular Stories page. And wondering where the missing recaps are from 2009 through now? I stopped doing them, but I’m bringing back this feature. Perhaps I’ll slowly go back and revisit the most popular stories from the missing months, too!


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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