More from Search Engine Land: Page 2

Google

Will the “Deep Web” Slay Google?

There are arguably two parallel tracks in the “what will succeed Google?” meme. An emerging one is “will the feds intervene to block Google?” The second is much older and involves the hypothetical “semantic web” or sometimes “deep web.” Essentially this asks, “who will do search better than Google?” (A third line of argument might […]

SEO

Yahoo CEO Bartz to Reorg for More ‘Top-Down’ Authority

It’s probably safe to say that Yahoo has lots of fans rooting for the company to succeed under the management of new CEO Carol Bartz. In my vicarious observation of Bartz I’ve come to appreciate her no-nonsense approach and sense of humor. And as could have been anticipated after her appointment, another Yahoo reorganization is […]

Analytics & conversion

Post-Click Marketing For Search Marketers

Over the past year, the term “post-click marketing” has come up more frequently in search marketing discussions, especially in the context of improving conversion rates and overall search ROI. At SMX West earlier this month, Gordon Hotchkiss of Enquiro unequivocally declared that post-click marketing moves the needle for their clients more than any other aspect […]

Google Ads

Google Changes Display URL Policy: One Domain Per Ad Group

The Google AdWords blog has finally announced that the new display URL policy will go into effect the week of February 24th. The new policy, which I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable about a month ago, and was confirmed by AdWordsAdvisor (an official Google representative in WebmasterWorld), will disallow multiple display domains per ad […]

Google

Google Suggests Ways To Prevent Hacking

If you run a popular/successful blog, there’s a pretty good chance you’re plenty familiar with hacking and how to deal with it. But hacking comes in many forms and can hit any kind of web site that isn’t secure. In a post today, Google’s Webmaster Central blog talks about ways to prevent hacking, including using […]

Content

Google Brings Back Video & Drops Shopping From Top Navigation

Google has dropped the “Shopping” link from the main top navigation on Google.com and replaced it with a “Video” link. What is the big deal? Well, in November 2007, Google did the exact reverse. They dropped the video link for products to replace it. Then Google renamed products to shopping but that link remained at […]

Google Ads

Google AdSense Adds Font Selection

The Google AdSense blog has added the font selection preference for publishers. Publishers can now pick between Arial, Times, and Verdana font types and they will be present on all of their Latin-based character units. Publishers can pick the font style two different ways within the AdSense console. They can go to the “Ad Display […]

Apple

Google Maps: Transit Updates, Map Maker In 27 Languages

Yesterday Google provided another round of Transit updates. These include more cities globally as well as full public transit schedules for a number of new cities in Canada, the UK, Houston, Texas and throughout the state of Virginia. Separately Google now says that its community mapping tool Map Maker is available in 27 languages: We […]

Content

SEO Vs. Web Site Architecture

If you ask web professionals what their interpretation of the phrase information architecture is, you will get a wide variety of responses. A search engine optimization (SEO) professional might launch into some grand scheme about indexation and PageRank sculpting. A web developer usually views information architecture in terms of fields in a database—how each field […]

Paid social

Go Figure: Twitter Tests Adding Search To Main Navigation

The Twitter blog announced that they are now testing the integration of Twitter search directly at the top navigation of Twitter. Twitter Search has become incredibly popular, even when most people I speak with have no clue on how to find it. Twitter Search is not even currently linked to from Twitter’s main navigation, let […]

Local

And Your Next SMB Advertiser Is…Already An Advertiser

SMBs who wish to advertise online now have many options: vertical sites, local sites, search engines, traditional and new directories; SMB owners need only choose where they would like their business to appear. Online directories are a common choice for advertisers, and the group at Palore chose to examine the more traditional type of national […]

SEO

URL Rewrites & Redirects: The Gory Details (Part 1 of 2)

If you’re dealing with a large complex website, rewriting your URLs from dynamic to static and placing all the necessary 301 redirects in place is – as programmers would say, nontrivial. The devil is in the details. Granted, the redirecting piece may not be quite as onerous anymore thanks to the advent of the search […]

PPC

Yahoo Formalizes Rich Ads In Search, Text Ads Gain Images Or Video

After testing this for close to a year, Yahoo is set to formally announce Rich Ads In Search — a service that places images and videos into paid ads in Yahoo’s search results. The New York Times says the service will be announced formally on Thursday. A search for Pedigree dog food brings up a […]

Ecommerce

Happy Birthday: Yahoo Search Turns 5 Today

The Yahoo Search Blog is celebrating the 5th birthday of Yahoo’s search engine today. It was February 18, 2004, when Yahoo stopped using Google search results and rolled out its own index and ranking of web pages. (It should be noted that Yahoo continued to use Google for image search results at first, even after […]

Google

Google Finally Releases Google Mobile App For Windows Mobile

Google has announced the much anticipated release of the Google Mobile App for Windows Mobile. To get this app on your Windows Mobile device either go to https://www.google.com/mobile/winmo/ on your browser or visit https://m.google.com on your mobile phone. Here is a video of it in action: This currently works for Windows Mobile users located in […]

Google

Google Latitude Attracts A Million Users In A Week

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona Spain, Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra apparently said that Google’s mobile friend finder service Latitude had seen “more than a million” mobile subscribers sign up for the service in the first week since launch on February 4. Given that Google released Latitude in 27 international […]

SEO

SearchBiz Legal Edition: Varney Uses The “M Word,” More AdWords Litigation, Yahoo Lawyer Files Complaint — Against Yahoo

If Christine A. Varney is confirmed as the head of anti-trust for the US Justice Department it may signal tough times ahead for Big G. Bloomberg discusses public remarks that Obama nominee Varney made before the American Antitrust Institute about Google in a June, 2008 speech: The U.S. economy will “continually see a problem — […]

Google

Google Expands AdSense For Domains Globally

I am now seeing reports from several blogs that Google is expanding AdSense for Domains internationally. In December 2008, Google expanded the program to all US publishers. They promised to continue the expansion and seems to have done so, overnight, to all international publishers. Google has not confirmed this with a blog post yet, but […]

SEO

B2B Marketers: Setting Expectations For Your SEO Campaign

The state of the economy today, particularly in the marketing world, leaves little room for ineffective programming. Marketing budgets that don’t produce the desired result are primed for the slash of the eraser, never to be heard from again. As we move through the second month of 2009, take a moment to “see the forest […]

Google

GoogleBot Art

A digital artist named Antonio Lizarazu Balué has created a piece he named GoogleBot. I spotted this via a Matt Cutts Twitter. Here is a low res of the art, but you can see them in better quality at this site.

Content

Yahoo Sued For Showing Spam Pages About Person’s Name

Eric Goldman uncovered another interesting lawsuit involving Yahoo. This one involves the organic search results showing spam results for a person’s name, where this person is suing Yahoo and Overture for “Lanham Act false endorsement and false designation of origin and violation of Wisconsin’s publicity rights statute and common law privacy rights.” Let me take […]

Apple

Yahoo Reorganizes, Rebrands Mobile Offerings As “Yahoo Mobile”

In Barcelona at the GSMA Mobile World Congress event, which has been mostly about new handsets so far, Yahoo announced what it’s calling “Yahoo Mobile.” I haven’t yet been able to talk to anyone at Yahoo about this, but it appears to be mostly a rebranding and repackaging of existing Yahoo mobile assets, with a […]

Link building

Sustainable Link Equity

Over the course of a Web site’s existence, it will earn a certain amount of link equity, which in simpler terms, is the collection of the links that point to a site at any moment in time. It’s fair to say that in some cases, no matter how fantastic a site’s content is, the links […]

Paid social

How #uksnow Made Social Media Fun Again

The start of this month saw the UK hit by the worst snowfall it had seen for nearly 20 years. Whilst the amount of snow involved (about 1 foot at its worst) would barely count as a sprinkling in parts of North America or Scandinavia, it brought the UK’s (mostly 100 year old plus) infrastructure […]

Google

Google Shuts Down Business Pages For Mobile Ads

Tim Cohn tipped us to his blog post about the end of Google’s Business Pages for Mobile Ads product. When logged into his AdWords account, Tim found this alert: “AdWords Business Pages for mobile ads are being retired. As the first stage, you will no longer be able to edit your mobile Business Page after […]

Google Maps

Google Believes It Has Ended (Some) Hijacked Listings In Google Maps

Recent statements suggest that Google believes it has eliminated the hijacking of claimed business listings in Google Maps, and that hijackings overall (of both claimed and unclaimed listings) are now a rarity. Speaking last week at SMX West, Google’s Jennifer Chin, also known as “Maps Guide Jen” in the Google Maps Help Forum, said that […]

Google

Pros & Cons Of Google’s “Darwinian Approach” To Products

This year is the 200th anniversary of naturalist Charles Darwin’s birth. I bring that up because Google’s approach to product decision-making has always struck me as “Darwinian.” The company introduces new products and services, generally without much promotion, and then it’s a version of survivor or “survival of the fittest.” Another appropriate metaphor here is […]

Content

Yahoo Doesn’t Take Beef Over Akaushi Keyword Lawsuit

Eric Goldman covers a recent lawsuit where Heartbrand Beef, Inc. sued several companies, including Yahoo, for selling the keyword “Akaushi” to Lobel’s of New York. Akaushi is a very expensive Japanese type of beef, known for being marbled with fat and coming out extremely tender. Lobel’s does not sell Akaushi, but Heartbrand is the largest […]

Local

Hyperlocal Is Happening

Traditional news outlets are looking closer to home for ways to remain competitive, and in some cases, to survive. Many of these newspapers and television and radio stations are latching on to a trend of going “hyperlocal” with their content—serving the information needs of local neighborhoods or communities—as a way to counter the problems of […]

PPC

Is Your Search Advertising Budget Harming Your Results?

Investment banks call me just about every week these days, asking whether our clients’ search budgets are growing or shrinking given the state of the economy.  Their interest is in valuing Google and Yahoo stock, but I’m not sure my responses are terribly helpful to them. Very few of our clients have set budgets for […]

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