Here’s one from the “shaking my head” department: If you assumed that all of the “Right To Be Forgotten” (RTBF) requests that people in the European Union are sending to Google are for unflattering or inaccurate web pages written by third parties, you’d be wrong. It turns out that Google is rejecting a lot of […]
Like many of Google’s local/mapping products, My Maps has had a … let’s call it a “checkered” history. It’s been heavily promoted and then seemingly ignored. It’s been renamed (to “My Places”) and had some of its features co-opted by other Google products. Perhaps most importantly, it wasn’t supported in the new Google Maps that […]
After a successful test, Microsoft says it will expand its Catapult server project to all Bing servers in one of its datacenters in 2015. Microsoft told a microprocessor conference Tuesday about the results from its early testing. The PC World article gets into fairly technical details about the Catapult boards and their use of “field-programmable […]
Notice anything different today? I sure hope so, because we’ve just launched the new Search Engine Land website! This is Search Engine Land’s first redesign since March, 2011. Our sister site, Marketing Land, has also been relaunched. While both sites obviously look different (more on that below), let me begin by talking about what hasn’t […]
The SEO industry is abuzz today with the news of Google’s latest ranking signal: Using SSL certificates will provide a boost in Google’s search rankings. (The web hosting industry is all abuzz, too, if you’re curious.) Google says it’s a “very lightweight signal” for now, but one that may become stronger over time because Google […]
As the analysis continues on yesterday’s Google local search algorithm changes — that we’re calling the Pigeon update — one thing appears to be clear: Local directory sites are getting better visibility in Google’s search results. More specifically, it looks like Google has fixed its “Yelp problem” and is now showing Yelp pages at the […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Marin Software Adds Support For Google Shopping Campaigns Marin Software has added support for Google Shopping Campaigns, which will become the only way to manage Product Listing Ads (PLAs) in AdWords […]
Yahoo has announced another round of product cuts and changes, all part of what it calls a continued effort on “furthering our focus.” The most notable cut announced today is the upcoming closure of both Yahoo Voices (voices.yahoo.com) and the Yahoo Contributor Network (contributor.yahoo.com). The former is Yahoo’s home for user-generated articles; the latter is […]
You’re probably pretty familiar already with Siri and Google Now, the personal assistant-type technologies from Apple and Google, respectively. Each has its own approach to the idea of providing information and answering questions without needing a traditional search box and search query. You may be a bit less familiar with Cortana — she’s Microsoft’s upcoming […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Reputation VIP Launches Link Removal Service In Response To EU “Right To Be Forgotten” Ruling In response to the European Court’s “right to be forgotten” ruling last month, online management company […]
You already read the live blog and news coverage. Or maybe you were one of the lucky ones who was in attendance last week for the annual Matt Cutts “You&A” AMA-style keynote conversation with Search Engine Land’s Founding Editor, Danny Sullivan, at SMX Advanced. Either way, you can now catch (or catch again) the full […]
A major datacenter project at Microsoft could lead to faster and more relevant search results on the company’s 5-year-old search engine, Bing. The Catapult project is a collaboration between Microsoft researchers and the Bing team that was presented Monday at an industry conference on computer architecture. A Microsoft blog post explains some of Catapult’s technical […]
Forget the idea that Pinterest is all about fashion photos, cute animals and inspirational messages. The company says it’s now hosting more than a billion Place Pins across four million Place Boards. Together, all this represents more than 300 unique countries and territories. That’s a lot of image and board geotagging going on. To make […]
It’s far too early to consider monetizing Cortana, Microsoft’s new virtual personal assistant, but the company is already thinking about how to scale her across different devices, platforms and around the world. Those were two of the key points from Microsoft’s keynote conversation Thursday morning at our SMX Advanced conference in Seattle. Marcus Ash, a […]
We’re ready to get started on day two of SMX Advanced, and today’s opening keynote promises to talk about the future of search. Microsoft’s Marcus Ash (Group Program Manager for Windows Phone) and Rob Chambers (Group Program Manager, Applications and Services Group) will be here to talk about Cortana, the company’s recently launched virtual assistant […]
Day one of our SMX Advanced conference is wrapping up, but before we call it a day … it’s time for an SMX Advanced tradition: Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s webspam fighting team, in a keynote conversation with our Founding Editor, Danny Sullivan. With all of the recent news about Google penalties (eBay, Metafilter, […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Advanced Begins Next Week – Join us! SMX Advanced takes place next week, June 10-12 in Seattle. Learn actionable new tactics, find inspiration, discover solutions to your […]
Don’t annoy mobile searchers. That’s the message behind a new warning that Google is showing in mobile search results on smartphones. On the Webmaster Central blog, Google alerted webmasters late yesterday that it will let smartphone searchers know if it thinks a website has a “faulty redirect” in place that sends the searcher to your […]
With the World Cup just a week away, Google has expanded its Street View imagery to coincide with the biggest sporting event on earth. Available today is new imagery inside all 12 stadiums that will be used during the tournament. You can do a 360-degree spin from the center of the pitch, or move your […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Now Accepting Entries For Its 2014 Homepage Photo Contest Bing announced on its Facebook page that it is currently accepting entries for its 2014 homepage photo contest. Coinciding with its […]
Starwood Hotels & Resorts is the latest travel brand to land on Google Glass. The company has launched a Glass app called SPG for Glass that’s now available for Explorers in the official Glassware app directory. Starwood becomes the first major hospitality brand with a Google Glass app. SPG stands for “Starwood Preferred Guest,” the […]
What really happened to eBay dropping in Google’s search results this week? A source familiar with the situation tells Search Engine Land that Google hit eBay with a manual penalty this week. A manual penalty is when a human being at Google reviews a site and decides that it deserves some type of slap. Previously, […]
After what we think was about a week of being de-indexed, the controversial Ripoff Report website is showing up again in search results on Yahoo’s Australian website. But a company spokesperson tells us that some URLs are still blocked. Late Wednesday night (May 21), we noticed that a site:ripoffreport.com search on Yahoo7 — the Australian […]
DuckDuckGo, the spunky little search engine that hangs its hat on user privacy, has relaunched today with a new look and feel, not to mention a number of new features like maps and local search, image search and more. Put it all together, and DuckDuckGo is starting to look less and less “spunky,” and more […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Expands Snapshot With New Food & Drug Entities Bing is getting smarter today with the addition of food- and drug-related entities to its library of facts. The new at-a-glance information […]
Bing is getting smarter today with the addition of food- and drug-related entities to its library of facts. The new at-a-glance information for these searches will appear in the Snapshot area on the right side of Bing’s search results. In some cases, like the hamburger search shown below, the Snapshot includes a dropdown to further […]
Flickr has quietly rolled out a change to its search interface that makes it a lot easier to find images that are licensed through Creative Commons. There’s a new “License” dropdown menu that shows at the top of the search results page, as shown above. It brings Creative Commons search filters right to the user, […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: With New GDN Ad Format, Text Ads Will Compete In Display Auctions Today, Google unveiled a new ad format on the Google Display Network (GDN) called magazine ads in which text […]
Yahoo7, the Australian version of Yahoo, has de-indexed Ripoff Report after receiving “significant complaints” about defamatory content showing in its search results. As you see above, a site:ripoffreport.com on Yahoo7 produces no results. A Yahoo7 spokesperson gave us this statement on the decision to de-index that entire domain: Yahoo7 has received significant complaints in regards […]
Google is expanding its Knowledge Graph into Google Maps. The company has confirmed to Search Engine Land that some locations in Google Maps will now get a new “Quick Facts” info card, and that the data are from Google’s Knowledge Graph. This new feature began appearing on Monday (May 12). The info card appears in […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Re-imagining Google: America’s Favorite Homepage Gets A Redesign By Letter Society Blog Early last month, the design blog Letter Society posted a challenge asking its select group of designers to submit […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Updates Its Android App With A New Look & Faster Performance Bing has rolled out a new look and feel for its Android app, claiming the updates make it more […]
Despite the buzz going through the SEO industry today, we don’t believe that Google is specifically targeting links that are earned via the popular Help a Reporter Out service. That’s one of the claims from SEO consultant Bill Hartzer, in an article he published yesterday, Google Targets Help A Reporter Out, Press Release Links as […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Enterprise SEO in 2014 – Webcast this Thursday This Thursday, May 1, at 1 PM EDT, our sister site, Digital Marketing Depot will host a webcast to help you better understand […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Search Marketers: Keep Calm, Carry On Everybody loves progress, but nobody likes change. This adage is particularly true any time Google announces major upgrades to AdWords. If recent comments on Twitter […]
More than one-third of Google’s search results incorporate Schema.org rich snippets, but only a tiny fraction of websites are actually using the markup code. That’s according to a new Searchmetrics study out today that examined Google’s U.S. search results in March “for tens of thousands of keywords and over half a million web domains.” The […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google’s Matt Cutts: How To Avoid Buying A Domain Name Previously Ruined By Spammers In his latest video, Google head of web spam (and, today, Boston Marathon runner) Matt Cutts offers […]
One of Yahoo’s latest search results tests should look awfully familiar. The website All Google Testing discovered a test that turns the right column of Yahoo’s search results page into a dead ringer for Google’s Knowledge Graph. The post even offers some instructions on how to enable the test in your own browser, but I […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: States Threaten Action If Google Doesn’t Delist “Illegal Sites” According to the Washington Post, 24 state attorneys general are trying to pressure Google to discontinue ads and the indexing of sites […]
It’s been more than a year since Facebook introduced Graph Search to the world — its first foray into developing a serious search product for Facebook users. If you think development of Graph Search has been moving at a snail’s pace, you’re probably not alone. The rollout to all U.S. Facebook users took about seven […]