PPC

Paid Search’s Point of Diminishing Returns

“So, how much should we spend in Search?” Years ago, when I was a siloed search engine marketer, that answer was unequivocally: “As much as you can spend!”. Return on Investment was through the roof and paid search was setting the standard for transparent measurement. “You only pay when someone clicks and they have to […]

Google

Google Still Working On Making Blog Search More Relevant

It has been almost three months since Google Blog Search began indexing full text of the page and, since then, there have been numerous complaints from searchers and webmasters. The majority of the complaints are that Google Alerts are coming up for irrelevant or outdated blog results. In addition, many blogs are no longer indexed […]

Content

Finding The Right Balance Between Search Marketing & User Experience

Yesterday a colleague asked me to find information on software application response times. I responded with some qualifying questions to refine my assistance but what it boiled down was this: the corporate powers wanted to know how much they could fudge things so that an ecommerce software application could roll out into “production” even though […]

SEO

Yahoo Search Updating: Weather Reports Go Away?

I am fairly confident that Yahoo Search is currently updating their index and algorithm now. Dozens of webmasters and SEOs are noticing this update and discussing it at WebmasterWorld, but the Yahoo Search Blog has no mention of it. Typically, Yahoo posts updates — which they call weather reports — when Yahoo is updating their […]

SEO

SEO 3.0 = Digital Asset Optimization

Our industry rolls along at breakneck speed. We are peeking around the corner trying to get a glimpse of Web 3.0 and big brand marketers are certainly investing heavily in the digital assets that make your user experience more engaging. Problem is that the search engines are still firmly rooted in Web 1.0. At Agency.com […]

SEO

Yahoo CEO Bartz: New Management To Make Yahoo “A Lot Faster On Its Feet”

People have been writing about the forthcoming management changes at Yahoo for a few weeks. Now they’re starting to kick in officially. Yesterday Yahoo Connected Life chief Marco Boerries resigned and today, in something of a surprise, Yahoo CFO Blake Jorgensen also resigned. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz wrote a blog post explaining in general terms […]

Content

Should YouTube Sponsored Video Ads Be In Your Marketing Mix?

According to comScore, YouTube surpassed Yahoo! as the #2 search engine in terms of search query volume in August of last year.  Recently, Google used the functionality of AdWords to launch the new YouTube sponsored video product, which allows advertisers to bid on keywords that trigger their video ad to appear in the YouTube search […]

LinkedIn

Yahoo Adds Facebook As A SearchMonkey Friend

Thanks to Yahoo’s SearchMonkey, you’ll be able to poke your friends right from a page of Yahoo search results. Yahoo has announced that Facebook enhanced results are now turned on by default across Yahoo search results. This means that any Facebook user who has allowed his/her profile to be publicly viewable and searchable can now […]

Bing

Google Maps Adds User Photos To Street View

Google has added geo-tagged Panoramio photos to StreetView images. According to the Google LatLong Blog it’s done automatically: Google’s image-matching algorithms will analyze them at some point to see if they are also a good match for a Street View location. Google has offered images on Maps for some time, but not directly integrated into StreetView […]

PPC

Report: Lack Of Buying Searchers Leading To Depressing Search Ad Market

I have been fascinated watching how the search ad space has been impacted by the current global recession. Rimm-Kaufman has posted early first quarter PPC data showing the weak trends in retail for search advertisers. Let me summarize his retail client data: Approximately 20% reduction in sales from search ads from last year Approximately 20% […]

Google

Google Gets On Twitter

If you are a Twitter addict like I am and you read this site, then you will be happy to know that Google has officially signed up to Twitter at https://twitter.com/google. The first twit, captured in the image above, was in binary and translated into “Feeling Lucky.” You can expect this account to post announcements, […]

Google

Google News Officially Adds Advertisements

Although many people have been noticing ads on Google News for the past few months, Google News has rolled out ads on Google News search results to all US based searchers. Google began testing ads on Google News back in mid-November of last year. Google confirmed those tests in their blog post, where they said: […]

PPC

Tips For Optimizing Your Local Business Listings, Courtesy of SMX West

In last month’s column, I highlighted the need for search marketers, search engines, and data providers to reach out to small business owners to increase their awareness of the free opportunities to claim their businesses online.  Well, the two excellent Local Search panels at SMX West, put together by Search Engine Land’s own Greg Sterling, […]

Google

Google Joins EU Anti-Trust Case Against Microsoft Browser

Over the past couple of years Microsoft and Google have become increasingly intense (maybe even bitter) rivals. Most recently the two companies used Yahoo as something of a pawn their game. It may be somewhat unfair to all involved to characterize Yahoo as a “pawn.” But Microsoft tried to buy Yahoo primarily as a way […]

Microsoft

Microsoft’s TechFest 2009 Is A Search Playground

Hundreds of Microsoft researchers from around the world gathered at company headquarters in Redmond this week for TechFest 2009, a chance to share ideas and show off their latest creations. Although Microsoft emphasizes that there are no plans to bring any of this technology into Live Search, some of the interesting ideas were featured this […]

PPC

Penn State Study: Paid + Organic Listing = 15% Clickthrough Rate

Penn State’s Jim Jansen announced a recent study they just finished that looked at the click through rate of search ads. They studied hundreds of thousands of users, as they interacted with Dogpile, the popular meta search engine. The findings were somewhat surprising to  Jansen. The clickthrough rate on an ad when it was supported […]

Apple

Yahoo Mobile Head Boerries To Leave, How Will It Affect Yahoo Mobile?

AllThingsD is one of several sources reporting that the EVP of Connected Life at Yahoo, Marco Boerries, will be leaving the company ahead of the anticipated management reorganization. AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher speculates that this may result in a “cut back” in mobile efforts at Yahoo: It’s unclear what the impact of Boerries’ departure on Yahoo’s […]

Google

Google Toolbar 6 For IE Adds Search To Windows Task Bar

Google announced the release of the Google Toolbar 6 for Internet Explorer. This toolbar, when installed, adds the Google Quick Search Box (QSB) to the task bar of Windows computers. This is by far the most visible difference with this version of the toolbar. Other changes include enhancing the search suggestions and a new tab […]

Content

B2B & Social Marketing: Discovering Its Hidden Value

If you’re a B2B search marketer, chances are that measuring return on investment is key for you.  Considering that, why would you ever want to go down the social marketing path where success is just as unclear as how to measure it? Moreover, social marketing is something predominately used by B2C companies for engagement purposes, […]

Content

Search Queries Are Getting Longer: Hitwise Report

More than half of all search queries are at least three words long, and more than a third are four words or longer. That’s according to Hitwise data (PDF) released today: As the chart shows, 1- and 2-word queries are becoming less common, while 4-, 5-, and all the way up to 8+ word queries […]

Content

comScore: Search Behavior Is A Sign Of The Times

You can watch the TV news, read a newspaper, or maybe drive down your street to see signs of the current financial struggles that many Americans are facing. You can also take a look at what Americans are searching for online. That’s what comScore has done, and today’s announcement confirms that we are what we […]

Google

Google.org Changes Leadership, Aligns Goals More Closely with Big G Itself

Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org is changing its operational leader and trying to more tightly integrate with the larger objectives of Google the company. According to the Google Blog: Long-time Googler Megan Smith will take over day-to-day management of Google.org, joining as General Manager to lead us through this transition, in addition to her existing role […]

Local

MapQuest Launches Mobile Personalization

As part of a wave of new features, MapQuest late last year introduced My MapQuest, a personalization tool for the PC side of the business. It subsequently renamed that offering “My Places” and has now launched it in mobile. My Places for MapQuest4Mobile offers a rich user experience and the ability to save maps and […]

Link building

What If A Client Doesn’t Like Link Building?

What if you have a client who wants SEO but simply does not want you to do any link building even though, over and over and over, you’ve told this sweet client that link building is a key component of doing well online? I’m not talking about the outright purchasing of links here either. I’m […]

Google

Google Webmaster Central Launches YouTube Channel

The Google Webmaster Central team has officially announced the launch of a new YouTube channel at youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp. This channel will contain, you guessed it, videos from Googlers on how to help your web site success in Google. The first video is the presentation Matt Cutts gave at PubCon last year named “State of the Index […]

Google

Has Google Ocean Uncovered Atlantis?

Is that the lost city of Atlantis? Whatever it is, this grid-like pattern of lines on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean is getting a lot of buzz these days — and it’s all made possible by the recently launched Google Ocean. According to the Telegraph, a 38-year-old aeronautical engineer recently spotted the pattern off […]

Google algorithm updates

Has The iPhone Made Mobile SEO Obsolete?

Recently there’s been a lot of ‘mobile web is dead’ talk due to several ‘full HTML web’ announcements at Mobile World Congress (MWC), and response to a pragmatic Sitepoint article aimed at casual webmasters with limited budgets, so I thought it would be a good time to address this question that people have been asking […]

PPC

Offline Conversions: How To Get SEM Credit!

Search marketers are pretty good at claiming credit for online sales, and they’re getting better at measuring phone sales as well. However, there’s a huge amount of activity in brick-and-mortar stores, in terms of walk-in sales in the offline world, which is not properly attributed to online search. How can we get some of the […]

Google

Will Obama Be The Downfall Of Google?

Is Google going to face a monopoly investigation? from The Guardian asks if President Obama’s appointment of Christine Varney to be Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at the United States Department of Justice will ultimately lead to more antitrust problems for Google. Varney has been quoted as saying and believing that Google “has acquired a […]

Google Ads

Why Is Google Now Requiring Ringtones Ads To Disclose Pricing

A week ago, I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google is now requiring advertisers of ringtones to disclose the price of those ringtones in the actual ad copy. Supposedly, this will become a new policy required of advertisers in the upcoming weeks. We do not yet have confirmation on Google about this new […]

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