Small businesses are often left in the dark when it comes to which SEO strategies really work and which don’t. Online there is an onslaught of information freely available online, much of it contradictory. Small business owners who attempt to perform SEO for themselves are often left wondering “What strategies are more important than others? […]
Gary Price spotted that Microsoft has added a new “more” tab to the Live Search home page, exposing some Live Search specialized search engines that haven’t been promoted from the home page since last month’s relaunch of Live Search.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was in Japan to promote Windows Live services and was asked about competition from Google and Android. According to this article in the International Herald Tribune, he acknowledged that Google was “ahead” of Microsoft in search. (It’s not clear whether that includes online advertising as well.) Ballmer went on to dismiss […]
The Inside AdWords Blog announced they are renaming the “site targeting” feature to “placement targeting” because now you can specify the sections of a site that you want your ad to be displayed on. Google also announced that advertisers can now specify if they want to pay on a CPC (cost per click) or CPM […]
ValleyWag speculates that a local search startup called “What’s Open” has written the first Android application. The site has some screenshots, which suggest a fairly familiar local search tool, with a map and some social networking features. The differentiator is likely — as the name suggests — data about what local stores and businesses are […]
Google adamantly denies that payment influences organic search engine rankings. In an ideal world that might be true, but exposure begets exposure. Here are some of the cheapest and fastest ways to get your message to the top of the search results without paying for every click.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Microsoft took the beta label off Windows Live Services, a mix of desktop and Web apps that are part of the company’s “software + services” strategy to keep those promoting “cloud computing” at bay (e.g., Google). Reuters and eWeek have rundowns of the global launch, while Digital Inspiration complains about the launch of the Live […]
A recent Forrester research report, US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2007 to 2012, concludes that all marketing will become interactive over the next five years, with no single channel dominating the scene. We’ve seen some evidence of erosion in the ad spend for traditional media this year, as the latest TNS Media Intelligence report shows a […]
As any company trying to set up operations in China knows, getting things done is a little more difficult than in the western world. In the United States, finding a supplier is relatively easy. You can look for partners at trade shows, industry publications, or put an ad in business directories, among other places. There […]
Bloglines Beta has launched the Bloglines Top 1000 list. Didn’t Bloglines have a top blog list already? Yes, they had a top 200 list, but users wanted to see a larger picture of what feeds people subscribe to, so Bloglines has released an expanded top 1000 list. A formal announcement is planned to go live […]
The Google Webmaster Central Blog posted advice on how to make your site crawlable if you make use of common Web 2.0 design features, such as AJAX.
Google has struck a deal with a company called Gilbarco Veeder-Root, which makes what might be called “smart” gas pumps that include an Internet connection and a kiosk/screen. It would appear to be a deal with potential global reach. Users will be able to do certain types of searches and print directions and coupons from […]
YouTube has announced they have improved their video flagging system. If you ever watch a video that might raise a concern, you can click on a “Flag” link below the video (when on a video page) that will enable you to report the video to a human editor at YouTube. Based on user feedback, YouTube […]
An editor at the UK’s Times Online repeated to a newspaper conference the oft-told theme: Google was ‘hugely dangerous’ to the newspaper industry. She was apparently using Google as a bit of a stand-in for the Internet as a whole and its impact on the industry. Newspapers in Europe have fared, in some cases, better […]
The Inside AdWords blog announced Clear Channel’s inventory of about 1700 AM and FM stations are now available for purchase at Google Audio Ads. For more about the ads, see our Google Audio Ads archive.
The Google Reader Blog announced they have added the ability to dynamically include a blogroll of your feeds on your site and that they have improved the Google Reader Mobile interface for iPhone users.
Based on the circulating rumor and reports, we joined the speculation that AOL was acquiring Quigo and would integrate it into Platform A. Today AOL confirmed that it had entered into an agreement to acquire the company for an undisclosed amount, which various parties speculated was $300 million. Here’s the release. As the release points […]
Perhaps it was lucky fate that Anders Hjorth (of Relevant Traffic, a European SEM agency) and I didn’t have too much time to compare notes going into the panel “Tuning Ads for Quality Score” at SMX Stockholm last week. Fortunately, the presentations didn’t overlap too much. The interesting thing is the overlapping conclusions we drew […]
Facebook has launched a new Facebook Ads program offering three major products for advertisers: Facebook Pages, a way for businesses to build branded pages on Facebook to connect with their audiences; Facebook Social Ads, an ad system allowing Facebook users to be targeted by demographic interest, and “friend activities,” and Facebook Beacons, allowing activities at […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
News.com has live blogging of the “Yahoo! Inc.’s Provision of False Information” hearing by the US House Of Representatives today. Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s CEO, and Michael Callahan, Yahoo’s General Counsel, stood before congress to give answers on the information the company provided to China that lead to the jailing of journalist Shi Tao imprisonment. Yang […]
Keyword research involves so much more than just looking up search frequencies. Critical factors such as budget restrictions, competition levels, and business strategy must be considered in order to develop a results-driven search marketing plan. Rounding out our 3-part series on keyword research, this week’s infographic illustrates what goes into the final selection process.
In two weeks, we’ve had two “open” initiatives from Google: OpenSocial, to free social networking data from behind the Facebook walled garden and the Open Handset Alliance, to free cell phones from a myriad of complicated mobile OS platforms and carriers who want to restrict features. I’ve seen some people writing about open as the new black, with Google showing its […]
Yesterday I wrote (with myriad contributions from Danny) a largely bullish overview of Android and the Open Handset Alliance (which sounds like a JK Rowling title, I admit). Now, on day two, the bears are coming out. The Wall Street Journal blogs that the “Google Phone” is “A Business-Tech Nightmare Waiting to Happen.” Wired says […]
There are rumors and reports circulating that AOL is about to add Quigo to its now pretty full roster of online ad networks and technologies, which includes Tacoda, Advertising.com, Third Screen Media, Lightningcast, and AdTech. These entities are the backbone of AOL’s “Platform A” integrated online (and mobile) advertising, er, platform. AOL now claims that […]
Aaron Wall has released a new tool named the Website Health Check Tool. The tool reviews a site’s title tags, descriptions, URLs, and page status codes. It then returns problems the site may have with missing title tags and descriptions, any duplicate title tags or descriptions, www versus non-www issues, index page health, and error […]
The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both report on the IPO and first day of trading for Alibaba.com. The offering was the biggest IPO by any Chinese company and raised an estimated $2 billion. The market capitalization of the company is now nearly $26 billion. Yahoo owns 39 percent of Alibaba Group, […]
SEOmoz reports that after reviewing the PageRank scores of over 30,000 web sites, none of them showed any PR gains and about 4 percent registered a drop after Google’s first big wave of PR changes. In a second wave, there were finally some gains.
Gary Price reports that Google has recently moved MyGoogleDrive.com and MyGoogleStorage.com from third party domain name servers to Google domain name servers. Is this a sign that the GDrive (Google Drive) is coming soon? Back in September, we reported that GoogleDrive.com was moved to Google’s name servers and anticipated that the GDrive was coming soon, […]
Google has added five new themes to iGoogle. Google Blogoscoped and Google Operating System both have posts on the new themes, which include a Solar System theme, an Autumn theme, a Hong Kong theme, a JR The Monster theme, and an Aja Tiger theme. Google China is also testing out a new home page according […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Last week’s inaugural SMX Sweden was a great success—excellent speakers and great buzz made for a worthwhile couple of days (don’t just take my word for it—check out a Cracking start for SMX Stockholm, SMX Stockholm, having a blast!, and this great collection of photos from the event). If you missed the show, never fear—our […]
Web 2.0 sites have caught on because they offer slick user interfaces, with cool AJAX effects and lots of user-friendly controls and really useful mashups of content. But many Web 2.0 developers are apparently clueless when it comes to search engine optimization—often to the point where they’re actively harming their presence in search engines. For […]
Today is a big day for IAC, Ask.com’s parent company. First they announce they are breaking the company into five publicly traded entities, and then they announce they have extended their search ad deal with Google.
In the wake of the mass hysteria over Google’s recent PageRank decreases, devaluing of certain links, and the resulting rankings drop many people experienced, I’d like to offer some perspective and advice. First, my rankings at EricWard.com didn’t drop one spot. And remember that my site is 100% devoted to link building, so I have […]
After literally years of anticipation, rumor, and increasingly aggressive speculation about a Google Phone, Google has formally announced that the Gphone cometh — sort of. Today, the company has gone public with news of an open source mobile operating system called "Android," named after the company Google acquired in 2005. Backing Android is the Open […]
MySpace To Announce Self-Serve Hyper Targeted Advertising Network from TechCrunch reports MySpace is announcing a new ad platform today at adTech. The new ad platform will enable advertisers to target ads to users based on geography, demographics, and user interests. The ad platform seems to be named SelfServe HyperTargeting and will be launched to a […]
BuzzLogic started out offering analytics to identify the blogs that were having the greatest influence on particular topics or “conversations” online. Now the company is moving into the online advertising space. In a new product extension, BuzzLogic is enabling advertisers to target text or display ads on any blog within the Google AdSense network.
Today, Yahoo launched their new social networking site geared towards college students and alumni named Kickstart. We first wrote about it over here, where we described that this service will help college students looking for jobs connect with alumni who already have jobs and might be hiring. There is more coverage of the Kickstart launch […]