More from Search Engine Land: Page 2

Google

Google Lego Logo: Google Offers Lego 50th Birthday Wishes

Google has a special logo up on the Google home page today. The Google logo is made up of legos, to celebrate Lego’s 50 year birthday. Google’s culture has always had a special place for Lego. Google’s first servers were “modded” up with Legos. The Google founders have admitted to having a special “fondness” towards […]

Local

Why Local Businesses Should Be Like The Jerk

“The new phone book’s here! The new phone book’s here!” Steve Martin’s character in the movie The Jerk is ecstatic. He rifles through the pages and finds his name. “I’m somebody now! Millions of people look at this book everyday!” He knows the importance of being listed. “This is the kind of spontaneous publicity—your name […]

Google

Happy First Birthday, Google Bomb Fix!

Short but sweet — one year ago today, a momentous event that must be recalled. Google bombing was defused. George W. Bush was no longer a miserable failure, and other mass link bombing attempts stopped working. For the most part, the Google bombing fix that Google put into place seems to have continued working. For […]

Google

Doerr And Moritz: A Tale Of Two (Very Wealthy) Google Investors

Forbes offers an interesting profile, “The Golden Touch,” of two of Google’s initial VC investors, John Doerr and Michael Moritz. Both of these men got fabulously rich off their Google shares: “Their personal gains, according to Forbes’ estimates, are likely north of $800 million apiece.” Moritz has kept his stock but given up his board […]

Google

Will Google Suffer In A Recession?

Will Google get hurt by a recession, as some are wondering? According to statements made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland yesterday, the answer to that question appears to be “no.” The Financial Times reports the view of several tier-two Google execs who expressed confidence in the continuing growth of the company’s revenues […]

Google Ads

Google AdWords Won’t Allow Personal Attacks On Politicians

The Google Public Policy blog announced new policies for how you can use AdWords in the political debate space. Google AdWords requires politicians to comply with the editorial guidelines that (1) you can campaign for any political view, (2) you can ask for donations if you are a non-tax-deductible organization, and (3) you cannot mislead […]

Google Ads

Confirmed: Google Domain Park To Cease Ads On Domain Kiting Sites

Google to kill Domain Tasting from Domain Tolls reports receiving a tip from a Google informant that Google will be preventing “domain tasting” from participating in the AdSense for Domains (aka Domain Park) program. Domain tasting is the practice of trying out a domain name for a 5 day-period. Registration companies will refund a domainer […]

Content

YouTube Improves YouTube Mobile Version

A New And Improved YouTube For Mobile from the YouTube Blog announces that they have improved their mobile version at m.youtube.com. The new features include: Tens of millions of added videos Community features now available on the mobile version Mobile phone uploads available within moments YouTube for Mobile is available and localized for the UK, […]

Google

DoCoMo And Google In Japanese Mobile Partnership

Reuters and InfoWorld describe a new partnership between Japan’s largest wireless carrier, NTT DoCoMo, and Google. NTT DoCoMo is a member of the Google-sponsored Open Handset Alliance, as is Japan’s number two carrier, KDDI, which is a Google partner as well.

Bing

Politically Tinged Promotion For Live Search

Microsoft has launched another would-be viral online campaign for Live Search that conceptually mimics the earlier Ms. Dewey campaign but is politically themed for the election year. The site is called Left vs. Right and (probably) takes its inspiration from the old Saturday Night Live skit point/counterpoint, featuring Dan Ackroyd and Jane Curtain, which was […]

Google

Day 2: Search Stocks & Is Search Recession Proof?

Let’s do the stock thing again. As with yesterday, the chart above shows Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), and Microsoft (MSFT) against the NASDAQ, over the past month. The key difference is that while the latter three stabilized, Google kept dropping. That leads some to wonder if search is going to be in trouble. A closer […]

SEO

Digg Updates Algorithm – Digg Community Revolts

Two days ago, Digg went down for a short while while changes were being implemented in the system. While nothing was immediately apparent, Brent Csutoras noticed some slight changes, and after several hours, a bigger trend emerged: the algorithm had changed and you needed a lot more votes to hit the front page of Digg. […]

PPC

Google Testing Click To Call Again?

Search Engine Journal alerted us to an apparently renewed test of click-to-call at Google. Google had been testing click to call in 2005 and 2006 with an eye toward implementing pay-per-phone call. Rather than show local or 800 tracking numbers, Google was using a field that remembered users’ telephone numbers (once entered) and connected calls. […]

SEO

Hyper-Local “News” Site EveryBlock Emerges

EveryBlock is a new local “news” site that seeks to answer the question, “What’s happening in my neighborhood?” It aggregates data and content from a variety of sources and currently covers three US cities: Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. EveryBlock competes with Outside.in, YourStreet, and Topix to some degree. We noticed the site based […]

SEO

Think You’re Successfully Flying Under Google’s Radar? Think Again.

Have you been trying to “fly under the radar,” engaging in activities outside of Google’s guidelines but subtly so as not to get caught? More and more SEOs are moving into this dangerous territory as the guidelines continue to broaden (prime examples of which being the expanded definition of doorway pages and the addition of […]

Google

Customizing Your Search With Ask.com

Don’t like the backgrounds available on Ask.com? No problem. Now you can upload any image you want. For instance, maybe you’d like this one! The new background feature is part of the skinning ability launched as part of Ask3D last year. The other engines offer some customization features as well.

Google

Google Health Close To Launching?

Philipp Lenssen and Tony Ruscoe at Google Blogoscoped have noted that the login page for Google Health is now live, although the service itself is not (and www.google.com/health currently redirects to the Google Coop page about health). Gabriel Stricker, Google spokesperson, told us: “We’re very interested in working on products in the area of health, […]

Google

Search Stocks & The Stock Crash: GOOG, YHOO, & MSFT

Today John Battelle noted what a plunge Google took on the stock market yesterday and in general through the current year. I thought it would be fun to look at Microsoft and Yahoo as well. The chart above covers the past month and shows Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), and Microsoft (MSFT) against the NASDAQ over […]

Ecommerce

Will The European Union Decide IP Addresses Are Personal?

The head of an EU group looking into search privacy issues said yesterday that Internet Protocol addresses assigned to computers should be treated as personal information. Below, more about that plus a look at some comments about how the search engines have been reported to the European Parliament to be dealing with privacy.

PPC

FTC Complaint Filed Over AskEraser: “Unfair & Deceptive”

Photo adapted from one by Hans Engel Some felt Ask.com won the privacy oneupmanship that went on last year when it rolled out Ask Eraser, a tool promising to stop recording any information about someone doing a search. But questions quickly came up, including whether the tool helped at all, considering that query data was […]

Google

Google Best Place To Work, According To Fortune Magazine

Fortune Magazine rated Google the best place to work in 2008. Google secured the top spot for a second year in a row because, as Fortune explains, “Google continued to mint millionaires as the stock cracked $700. The company gives stock options to 99% of employees.” Microsoft made the list at number 86, and Yahoo […]

Google

Google’s Mysterious Position Six Penalty

One of the most recent Google theories floating through the forums is the “position six penalty.” The signs of being hit by a “position six penalty” is when you see your number one or two rankings shift downwards to position number six in Google. Many people first started noticing this happening in mid-to-late December. Aaron […]

SEO

Building A Career In Search Marketing

So, you’ve decided that a career in search marketing IS for you. Sure, your friends, parents, and significant other have no idea what you’re talking about when you describe the profession, but there’s money to be made, and you want your share! But, where to begin? Wanting the job is one thing. Being qualified for […]

Google Maps

Google Maps: From “OneBox” To Ten Local Links

For ages — through OneBox results and its successor of Universal Search — Google Local results have sometimes shown on regular Google search pages, with three local listings and a prompt for more results. Except now that seems to be changing, with 10 results showing. Last week Paul Jahn at Search Engine Guide discovered that […]

Google

South Korea To Google: Return Our Cities From North Korea

Google Under Fire for Flawed Korea Maps from the Digital Chosunilbo reports Google has labeled some of the regions in South Korea as being part of North Korea. Specifically, the city of Incheon and some islands in Ongjin County such as Baegryeong-do, Daecheong-do, and Socheong-do are labeled to be in North Korea but are actually […]

Ecommerce

Baidu Relaunches In Japan

Baidu aims to take on Google and Yahoo in Japan from Reuters reports Baidu has relaunched in Japan at https://www.baidu.jp/. The press release called the launch a “formal launch of its Japanese language search engine.” As part of this launch, Baidu revamped the Japanese home page and added blog search. Baidu currently holds a 70-percent […]

Content

The Brutal Realities Of The B2B Lead Qualification Process

So, your pay-per-click campaign has generated 100 registrations for the download of a white paper. One hundred conversions may sound pretty good, but the real questions are: How many of these are valid, qualified prospects… what percentage will become sales leads… and ultimately, customers? Understanding the lead qualification process is key to B2B search marketing […]

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