More from Search Engine Land: Page 2

SEO

New Comment System For Search Engine Land

Back when Search Engine Land launched, we used TypeKey to manage our comments system. Some people hated the system, but I promised from the start that it would eventually be replaced by something better. Today, that finally happens. Comments at Search Engine Land are now being handled through our own Sphinn discussion site. More about […]

Facebook

Microsoft May Buy 5% Stake In Facebook

The article Microsoft Is in Talks To Buy Facebook Stake from the Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft is in talks with Facebook to place a 5% stake in the company, putting the valuation of Facebook at $10 billion. The Wall Street Journal said that Google “also expressed strong interest in a possible Facebook investment,” […]

Google Ads

Google Releases Conversion Optimizer To Aid AdWords CPA Bidding

Google announced a new AdWords feature to help advertisers automate their bids on their CPA (cost-per-acquisition) ads. Conversion Optimizer is a tool that will look at your costs and conversion goals and automatically change your bid prices based on those metrics. All you need to do is define a maximum CPA bid and this tool […]

Google

Google Trends Now Updated Hourly

The Google Blog announced today that Google Trends is now updated every hour. In the past, it was just updated monthly with the latest statistics on searches. If you want to track the latest hot trends by hour, you can subscribe to the hourly Hot Trends Atom Feed or add a Google Gadget to your […]

SEO

Why I’m Excited About SMX Local & Mobile

Next week we kick off our inaugural SMX Local & Mobile conference in Denver, and it promises to be a killer show. I’ve programmed dozens of search conferences over the years, and yet this one, which I co-organized with the able and expert help of Greg Sterling, is special. To be sure, I’ve got a […]

Content

Google Trends: Yellow Pages Will Be Toast In Four Years

Local marketing industry savants have long been predicting the demise of print Yellow Pages books, going the way of the buggy whip due to overwhelming competition from Internet alternatives. Further, the aggressive invasion of search engines into the local space during the past few years has inspired some analysts to wonder if Internet Yellow Pages […]

Content

Attention Shopping Sites! Generic Content Means Generic Links

I had the pleasure of participating on a Link Building Clinic at the Shop.org conference in Las Vegas last week. This conference attracts a different crowd than the SEO/SEM related shows in that practically every attendee at a Shop.org show is running a web site that sells something. Now, link building for a shopping site […]

Google

Blyk And MySpace: Will Ad-Subsized Mobile Services Fly?

There is a belief, held by many, that there is a bright future for ad-supported or subsidized mobile services. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt floated this idea as far back as November 2006. Now, the long-delayed Blyk in the U.K is live and MySpace in the U.S. has announced an ad-supported model (and a richer subscription […]

Content

Google Asks Judge To Deny Boarding To American Airlines Lawsuit

Google seeks dismissal of American Airlines suit from Dallas Business Journal reports that Google has filed a motion to dismiss the American Airlines vs. Google trademark case. In that case, American Airlines sued Google for allowing advertisers to bid on their trademark names. Gary Price located the motion to dismiss document (PDF format). Google argues […]

Google Ads

Google Endings Commission Payments In Europe, Middle East & Africa

Back in September 2005, Google announced an end to commission payments to agencies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, replaced by "Best Practice Funding." That was to me simply still paying commissions, only under a different name and a more standardized pan-European rate. Now even Best Practice Funding is going away. Google to end […]

Google

The Open Directory’s Home Page Goes Missing In Google

The Open Directory’s home page appears to have gone missing from Google’s search results. For example, a search on dmoz (the Open Directory’s nickname) does not return the home page in the search results. Here is a screen capture: Similarly, searches for open directory or open directory project also don’t list the site at the […]

Google

Google Unity Project To Build Submarine Cables Across Pacific Ocean

Remember that Submarine Cable Negotiator job we mentioned being available at Google last month? Turn out Google’s not just negotiating for undersea cable use. It has its own “Unity” project underway to run communication cable of its own under the Pacific. Spotted via John Paczkowski, Google plans new undersea “Unity” cable across Pacific from Commsday […]

Google

Comparing Mobile Ads In Google & Yahoo

Google recently opted-in many of their clients’ PPC ads to appear in Google Mobile search results. Yahoo has been offering a small suite of mobile ads for a while now, too, so I thought it’d be interesting to compare their current mobile ad offerings. This article is part of Local Search Week here at Search […]

Content

Your Guide To Countries That Have Banned YouTube

With Thailand and Turkey both yet again seeking to block YouTube, we thought it would be useful to recap the growing list of countries that have objected to content on the service. We’re focusing on national governments that have taken action to block content on YouTube from being accessible countrywide.

Content

Report: Google Planning Wireless Spectrum Moves In UK

Much has been written about Google’s efforts to bid on and open the wireless spectrum in the U.S. Now, according to the Guardian newspaper (as spotted via MarketWatch), Google is considering something very similar in the UK, as regulators propose that existing mobile operators (Vodafone and Telefonica) relinquish part of the spectrum they now use. […]

SEO

Search And Online As Influential As TV On Moviegoers

In another piece of research that validates the influence of the Internet on offline consumer behavior, MediaPost writes about a Google-Nielsen study of the behavior of 2,000 summer film goers in the U.S. and the Internet’s impact on their decision-making. According to the survey, exposure to promotion on TV remained (by 2 percent) slightly more […]

Content

Google’s New Media Advertising: Get Hip or Get Left Behind

Like many agencies and advertisers, we’ve been dragging our feet before trying Google’s relatively new advertising options. My rationale has been that search (or PPC) advertising is inherently better than the traditional advertising media: print, radio and TV. PPC advertising has been trouncing traditional media due largely to the fact that efficiency and accountability are […]

Google

Gates, Brin & Page: Top 5 Richest People In Forbes 400

Forbes released its latest The Forbes 400 list, and among the top ten richest Americans are Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Gates topped the list at number one with a net worth of $59.0 billion. Sergey Brin is listed at number five, with a net worth of $18.5 billion. Larry […]

Search features

URL Rewriting & Custom Error Pages In ASP.NET 2.0

Recently I’ve been working on several ASP.NET 2.0 sites and had to research the best ways to set up URL rewriting, permanent redirects, and custom error pages. ASP.NET 2.0 is a popular platform for building corporate websites.  Among my clients, this solution seems to be very popular with medium to large corporations who have an […]

Apple

Eye Tracking On Universal And Personalized Search

In the past two columns, I’ve featured the interviews (Part 1, Part II) of where search might go in the next three years. The two themes consistently mentioned as the most important for the future have been personalization and blended search results. Being a user-centric type of person, my first question was, “how will that […]

Content

Zillow Grabs Another Big Round Of Cash

As the Wall Street Journal reported this morning, real estate and local search site Zillow announced another round of investment — this time a whopping $30 million. That means the company has raised roughly $90 million since launching in early 2006. Among other intended uses of the money, the site will be growing its sales […]

Google

Google-DoubleClick Senate Hearing To Begin Next Week

I won’t repeat verbatim the cliche about politics and strange bedfellows, but that’s exactly what we’ll have on parade next week as the public hearings in the US Senate begin about Google’s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick. As News.com succinctly and ironically points out, “an unlikely alliance of former antitrust defendants like Microsoft and […]

Search features

Sorting Out The Mobile Search & SEO Mess

One of the biggest challenges of being a mobile SEO is comparing keyword results across the many different search engines. While the goal of all the mobile engines is the same, their approaches vary considerably. Many traditional SEOs will simply target Google and hope for the best in the other engines, but there is a […]

Content

The Great Google Directory Ban Of Sept. 2007

Earlier this month, a discussion on our Sphinn site looked at how it seemed Google was going after directories with penalties. But was this really happening, or was it just forum noise coming out in particular from Digital Point? Today, Rand Fishkin takes a long look in the issue in What Makes a Good Web […]

Google

Google Launches Google Shared Stuff

Google Blogoscoped reports that Google has launched Google Shared Stuff. This is a bookmarklet that you add to your browser, which enables you email or share web pages with your friends. In addition to adding web pages to your Google Shared Stuff page, or emailing those web pages, you can also add them to related […]

SEO

The Pros And Cons Of Microsites As An SEO Option

I’ve never been a fan of “one page salesletter” web sites espoused by some marketers (here’s an example). Such sites seem to drone on, with so many screenfulls that I get tired of scrolling. And there are so few pages to the site that it’s an SEO nightmare. If each page should only have a […]

Apple

The Million iPhone Question

Let me preface this by saying that I am pretty tired of talking about the iPhone. But given that Apple recently sold the one-millionth unit, it’s generating more buzz around the office than ever and I have no choice. I’ve spoken more about the iPhone to clients and colleagues alike in the past two months […]

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