The Amazing “Google Now” — When Google Searches Before You Think To

Apr 29, 2013 at 10:30am ET by Danny Sullivan   

With Google Now coming to iOS, a whole new audience using iPhones and iPads are about to meet Google’s predictive search service. It’s a feature that’s gone from interesting novelty to being downright amazing, in less than a year. Here’s a look at how the “predictive search” service has evolved and where it may head [...]

---

Q&A With Google’s Matt Cutts On What To Do If You Get A Manual Penalty

Apr 26, 2013 at 12:24pm ET by Danny Sullivan   

What to do if Google sends you a penalty notice, and you can’t figure out exactly what it’s for? Turn to Google’s webmaster help forum, says the head of Google’s Web spam team, Matt Cutts. If you’re still confused after that, you can file a reconsideration request where you might be given more details. The [...]

---

Google AdWords Support Launches Screen Sharing Functionality

Apr 26, 2013 at 10:11am ET by Ginny Marvin   

AdWords users can now share their screens with AdWords support staff. Yesterday, AdWords Community manager, Zee announced the launch of Google Screensharing. Now an AdWords support team member can invite you to share your screen while you’re on the phone with them and signed into your AdWords account. There are set-up instructions here. Once you [...]

---

Google’s New European “Antitrust” Search Results: Here’s What They’ll Look Like

Apr 25, 2013 at 12:31pm ET by Greg Sterling   

I’ve found documents associated with the Google-EU settlement proposal that offer mock-ups of how the new, regulated SERPs will look. It’s very interesting and greatly clarifies the settlement terms and how they will be implemented practically. These mockups look quite different (and less “disruptive”) than what I imagined. There are three basic scenarios: where Google [...]

---

EU Goes Public With Google Antitrust Proposals, “Market Test” FAQs

Apr 25, 2013 at 10:16am ET by Greg Sterling   

The EU released documents this morning that detail Google’s antitrust settlement proposals and explain the Competition Commission’s position on various aspects of the investigation. First here’s what the EU says Google has proposed: Google offers for a period of 5 years to: (i) – label promoted links to its own specialised search services so that [...]

---

Google: We Removed Instant Previews Over Low Usage From Searchers

Apr 25, 2013 at 9:24am ET by Barry Schwartz   

Yesterday we reported that Google changed how you access the cached, similar and share links within the search results by adding a new green down arrow next to the search snippet’s URL. We asked, where did the Instant Previews go that launched on November 9, 2010 with a huge amount of excitement from Google. Google [...]

---

Bing: More Than 50% Of Searchers Click The First Result; 75% Click On Deep Links Result

Apr 24, 2013 at 7:47pm ET by Matt McGee   

The value of ranking first on a search results page is no secret, but today Bing is putting some hard numbers on it: More than 50 percent of Bing users click the first result, and more than 75 percent click there if the first result includes Bing’s deep links. In a blog post today, Dr. [...]

---

Is Google’s Antitrust Settlement Offer To Europe Dead On Arrival?

Apr 24, 2013 at 1:17pm ET by Greg Sterling   

The European Union has “accepted” Google’s formal antitrust settlement proposal — subject to “market testing.” As a practical matter, that means EU Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia is circulating it among Google’s critics and competitors for reaction. However, there has already been plenty of (negative) reaction based on the information that came out last week in [...]

---

Google: That Mozilla Penalty Only Impacted One Page Out Of 22 Million

Apr 24, 2013 at 9:36am ET by Barry Schwartz   

We reported yesterday that Google penalized Mozilla over user generated content. Today, we learn that it was a really, really small penalty that only impacted a single page out of Mozilla’s ~22 million webpages. Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, added more to the Google thread explaining that this manual penalty was applied in [...]

---

Google Pulls Related Searches Filter Due To Lack Of Usage

Apr 23, 2013 at 3:32pm ET by Barry Schwartz   

Google has quietly removed the “related searches” option from the search tools menu within the Google search results page. When Google launched search options in October 2009, the option for “related searches” appeared on the left-hand side under the “standard view.” The placement of the “related searches” search option has changed over the years, including [...]

---

New Upgrade Center For Enhanced Campaigns Lets Advertisers Do Bulk Upgrades & More

Apr 23, 2013 at 1:59pm ET by Amy Gesenhues   

Google AdWords is rolling-out a new upgrade center today for advertisers using Enhanced Campaigns. Accessible from the left-hand nav bar on the Campaigns tab, the upgrade center lets advertisers managing several campaigns perform bulk upgrades to multiple campaigns simultaneously and merge selected campaigns in a few simple steps. The bulk upgrade feature allows advertisers to [...]

---

Google Hits Mozilla With Spam Penalty Over User Generated Content

Apr 23, 2013 at 1:19pm ET by Danny Sullivan   

Have user generated content on your site? Pay attention to what those users are doing. That’s the takeaway from Google hitting Mozilla with a spam penalty this week, along with another takeaway. Despite Google’s saying it’s being more transparent about spam actions, people clearly find it hard to know what they’re in trouble for. Mozilla [...]

---

Report: Global PPC Spend Rises 15% On Higher Click Volume And Click-Through Rates In Q1

Apr 23, 2013 at 9:39am ET by Ginny Marvin   

Global search ad spend rose 15% in Q1 2013 versus the previous year, according to the Kenshoo Global Search Advertising Trends report released today. That rise in spend was driven largely by a 62% increase in click-through rates and a 21% increase in clicks year-over-year.   U.S. ad spend rose 24%, spurring the overall global [...]

---

Google Street Views Now In 50 Countries With Addition Of Hungary & Lesotho

Apr 23, 2013 at 9:27am ET by Amy Gesenhues   

Google Maps announced today that their collection of images now include Street Views from 50 countries with photos recently added from Hungary and Lesotho, an enclave surrounded by South Africa. According to the Google Maps blog, their latest update is the largest single update of Street Views imagery since Google Maps launched in 2007, with [...]

---

Google Now To Make Its Way To The Google Home Page?

Apr 22, 2013 at 9:58am ET by Barry Schwartz   

As Alex Chitu from the Google Operating System blog discovered, Google is testing adding Google Now functionality to the Google home page. Google Now is about getting you the information you want to see, right when you want to see it. For example, if you are in the airport, Google Now would show you the [...]

---

German Privacy Regulator Fines Google Over Street View Data Collection, Calls For Tougher Financial Penalties

Apr 22, 2013 at 9:48am ET by Greg Sterling   

A fine of 145,000 EUR (roughly $189,000) is trivial for Google. But that’s close to the maximum fine allowed by German law ($150,000 EUR). The fine is being imposed on Google for violations of German privacy and data protection laws stemming from the so-called “WiSpy” episode in 2008 – 2009 in which Google collected private [...]

---

Google Places For Business Gets Its Own iPhone App For Managing Listings [Update: Google Removed App]

Apr 22, 2013 at 3:00am ET by Matt McGee   

Local business owners have a new tool for managing their Google Places For Business listing: a dedicated app that works on the iPhone and iPod Touch. There’s no official announcement that I can find about the app, and as best I can tell, the iClarified blog was first to report on it. The Google For [...]

---

Bing: Our Search Results Do Not Infect Users, “Malware Study Was Wrong”

Apr 19, 2013 at 3:56pm ET by Barry Schwartz   

Bing has responded to the malware study conducted by AV-TEST earlier this week, claiming that Bing search results led to five times more malware than Google. To that Bing said, “the conclusions many have drawn from the study are wrong.” Why is the study wrong according to Bing? While Bing may show potentially infected search [...]

---

In-Line Search Term Reporting Coming to Bing Ads

Apr 19, 2013 at 12:30pm ET by Ginny Marvin   

Bing Ads announced it is working on adding a Search Terms Report to make mining search query data more accessible from within the Web UI. Currently in the Web UI, search query data is only available under the Reports section. With the update, search terms reporting will be available in-line on the Keywords tab. Here’s [...]

---

Google Earnings: Q1 Revenue Rises And Paid Clicks Up 20% Though CPC Slips 4% YoY

Apr 18, 2013 at 6:28pm ET by Ginny Marvin   

Google announced their Q1 2013 earnings today, and as many analysts expected, the company posted revenue gains over the previous year. Revenue rose  31% year-over-year  to $13.97  billion for the quarter, beating expectations. Here are the highlights: Paid Clicks — Aggregate paid clicks, which include ad clicks on Google sites and Google Content Network sites [...]

---