Analytics & conversion

Yahoo Analytics Now Available To Yahoo Advertisers

Yahoo’s slow rollout of Yahoo Web Analytics continues with news today that its now available for free to certain Yahoo search and display advertisers. Here’s how Yahoo explains some of the benefits of its analytics tool in today’s announcement: “Yahoo! Web Analytics offers user insight that you’re not likely to find in other free analytics […]

Paid social

Twitter Search (Finally) Available To All Users

Much to the delight of users far and wide (such as our own @dannysullivan), Twitter has announced that Twitter Search is now available on all user account home pages. Not only that, but Twitter has also added a “Save This Search” feature that may prove popular, too. When logged in to your Twitter account, all […]

SEO

Searchme Launches Multimedia Visual Search

Searchme has rolled out what it calls “true” blended search results, combining web, video, images, music and Twitter results organized by their relevance and playable inside the search results page. Searchme displays results as small versions of entire web pages, in a format that looks just like the “cover flow” display in iTunes. I love […]

Google Ads

Google, Give Me My $30,000 Back!

I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that one new AdWords advertiser found a $30,000 surprise from Google in her AdWords account. The advertiser said in a Google AdWords thread that she set up a test ad one night and when she returned the next morning to see how the ad was doing, she noticed […]

Content

YouTube Is Broken. Here’s How To Fix It

As has anyone in the online industry, I have closely followed the YouTube saga since its acquisition by Google.  Undoubtedly YouTube is one of the greatest success stories of the Internet era, adding users and usage faster than any site ever launched on the web, including MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Google.  What is also often […]

Content

Powerful Linkbait: Contests & Incentives

Most people in the industry look at contests and incentives as branding and marketing tools. However if you are willing to get creative, you can turn a contest into a powerful link building tool that will, over time, help your organic rankings. When most marketing and advertising teams look at a contest they are looking […]

Google News

Tracking The Swine Flu Epidemic With Maps & Search

It was less than a week ago that health officials alerted the media to a possible pandemic of swine flu in humans. Since then, authorities have moved quickly to track the outbreak and reassure the public with precautionary measures. Here’s a look at some of the best sources of online information about swine, avian and […]

Analytics & conversion

Google Analytics Adds AdSense Integration

After months of testing AdSense data in Google Analytics, Google has announced on both the AdSense Blog and the Analytics Blog that all AdSense publishers can now integrate their AdSense data directly into Google Analytics. To link up your AdSense account with Google Analytics: Log in to AdSense Click the link that says “Integrate your […]

Google Maps

Is It Time To Send Google Maps Back To The Drawing Board?

Google Maps and its Local Business Center continue to be the ugly warts on Google’s otherwise smooth surface. But rather than the long-running problems with mapspam and hijacked listings, the latest sore spot appears to be an internal problem with Google’s apparently unsophisticated (or perhaps over-complicated?) database systems. Mike Blumenthal points out today that Google […]

Apple

IAC Buys UrbanSpoon

IAC has acquired UrbanSpoon, the restaurant review site that has an incredible popular iPhone application, amongst Facebook widgets and other widgets. The news is now over Techmeme that the company has been acquired for somewhere in the millions of dollar range. IAC has not disclosed the acquisition price. The company was set up by Ethan […]

Google

Google News Automatically Tweeting Stories @GoogleNews

The Google News Blog announced they have joined Twitter to automatically post links to top stories on Twitter via @GoogleNews. Many news sites automatically post stories to Twitter as well, but Google News recently started to do this as well. I believe Google News also powers @News_By_Robots, but I do not have official conformation on […]

PPC

Learning SEO From Building A Web Crawler

There is no doubt that you can learn a tremendous amount of information on search engine optimization (SEO) by reading sites like this or ones in our blogroll, but there is always a lot to be learned from getting your hands dirty. Now, you can get your hands dirty by experimenting and trying SEO techniques […]

Content

Search Marketing Firm, Conductor, Raises $10 Million

Conductor, a search marketing firm, has announced they have raised $10 million in funding from Matrix Partners and FirstMark Capital. This is more good news from the search industry showing that venture capital companies are still investing in search marketing firms. Yesterday, we reported that Marin software raised $13 million and today, Conductor raised $10 […]

SEO

Another 5 Search Tools You May Not Know … But Should

Wouldn’t it be great if you could use a search engine without needing to touch your mouse? You know, type your query and then scan and even click through to results without actually clicking the mouse button? Or maybe you’re looking for an alternate source of search advertising data, like how many advertisers are bidding […]

Apple

How To SEO For Apple’s App Store

If you still think mobile SEO is only about WAP pages and the mobile Web, you may have been living under a rock since July 10, 2008, when Apple launched their App Store for iPhone and iPod Touch. This week they announced their 1 billionth App download, and many out of work programmers are wondering how to become the next App Store millionaire. In the new world of digital content optimization (also called digital asset optimization by some) content can and should be optimized to make it more visible on many popular platforms, including the App Store. The few articles that I’ve seen on App Store SEO seem to focus on more black hat techniques like keyword stuffing with unrelated keywords, but there are white hat ways to get your content to the top of Apple’s App Store search engine as well

SEO

Measure Your Brand Success Using Competitive Intelligence

Your brand is important to you.  Consumers looking for you or a product like yours will often search using your brand in their keyword phrases.   Your competitors know this and will likely try to advertise on your brands, slogans, and catchy phrases.  How can you tell if you are winning out on your brand terms?  […]

Bing

Microsoft’s Tellme Offers Improved Mobile Voice Search Experience

Tellme has been in the speech, automated directory assistance and “voice search” segment for a decade. Two years ago the company was acquired by Microsoft for roughly $800 million. Since that time the two companies have been working on integration and developing next-generation services. Tellme powers Microsoft’s LiveSearch 411, among other services. Today, two years […]

SEO

Wolfram Alpha Makes Public Debut

The highly anticipated Wolfram Alpha search engine made its debut today, although Google tossed in a little spoiler. The webcast was apparently difficult for some to view, but you can get impressions of what happened from Between The Lines and Bits. The site also has a new blog and Twitter account, and we’ll be looking […]

Content

Google Still Owns Online Video, But Hulu Is Rising

Google remains the dominant player in the online video space, but Hulu is on the rise. It’s now the number three video property according to the latest comScore numbers out today. According to comScore, Hulu has passed Yahoo properties and moved into the third spot with 2.6% of all videos viewed during March. Yahoo dropped […]

Google

Google Book Search Settlement Delayed

Publishers Weekly is reporting that a judge has granted a four-month extension on the deadline for affected parties to object to or opt out of the proposed Google Book Search settlement. (You can read Judge Denny Chin’s ruling on Scribd.) Last week, a group of authors asked the presiding judge for four additional months to […]

Local

MySpace Local & SEO Failures

MySpace and CitySearch recently made big waves in the Local Search and Social Media community with the announcement of MySpace Local. The two companies agreed to a revenue share but no details were released as to what percentages each company would receive. MySpace quickly stressed that this was a completely new revenue source for the […]

Content

Search Marketing Firm, Marin Software, Raises Additional $13 Million

paidContent.org reports Marin Software, a search marketing company, has raised an additional $13 million venture capital. The primary source of the money came from DAG Ventures, adding up to Marin raising a total of about $25 million in funding from sources such as Benchmark Capital, Amicus Capital and Focus Ventures. Marin reportedly manages $300 million […]

Google

Google Study On Sitemaps

The Google Webmaster Central blog notified us that Googlers have presented a new study on Sitemaps at the WWW’09 conference in Madrid. The study is absolutely interesting and I recommend printing out the ten page PDF document and reading it. For those of you who don’t have time for that, I hope to highlight the […]

SEO

Localeze Introduces Local “Confidence Score” Reflecting Data Accuracy

Local search data and content provider Localeze has introduced what it’s calling the “Localeze Confidence Score.” The confidence score is the company’s statement to third party search engines and local directory partners about the accuracy of its local data and business records. The company is associating a confidence score with each of the millions of […]

Paid social

Where To Find Social Media Power Users

While having great content and an appropriate message are crucial for success on social media news sites, having a quality user help with promotion is essential to build momentum. Contacting and conversing with top users who share similar interests as you can be beneficial in helping to spark your content and get it noticed. This […]

SEO

Are Shortened URL Links Worth The Trouble?

URL shortening services have become quite popular lately, primarily due to the restricted length of “tweets” on Twitter. Danny Sullivan compared several of these services in URL Shorteners: Which Shortening Service Should You Use? and talked about the SEO implications of using these services, especially when it comes to passing along link love. But not […]

Microsoft

Microsoft Goes Social (& Local) With Vine

Microsoft is launching Vine today as a limited beta in Seattle only. It’s an interesting local/social communications and information tool that plays in the same sandbox as both Twitter and Facebook, and also competes to a degree with online news sites. Vine is Windows-only software that’s intended to sit open on your desktop so that […]

SEO

Need Traffic Report? Call Microsoft Live Search 411!

How many people are familiar with Microsoft’s Voice Search tool “Live Search 411?” It’s a powerful yet not well-known way to do local search from any phone (1-800-CALL-411 or 1-800-225-5411). Conceptually, it’s exactly like Goog-411 but has more considerably more content and capabilities. Built on the Tellme infrastructure it can provide: Local business search Driving […]

Google Maps

Is Google Maps Getting Flickr Photos?

Our own Barry Schwartz spotted this today on Google Maps: A search for rustybrick includes a link to see Flickr photos displayed on Google Maps: Clicking on that link leads to a fairly lengthy list of photos imported into Google Maps via the Flickr API. The photos are all from a Flickr feed that includes […]

SEO

SEOs Say AOL’s Love.com Feels More Like A One-Night Stand

AOL recently soft-launched Love.com, which it advertises as a collection of “topic blogs” that “provide a central view into what the world is loving now.” But it’s really an SEO play. Give the site any subdomain under the sun, and Love.com will make a new site on-the-fly with content scraped from news sites, blogs, YouTube […]

Ecommerce

Google’s Morse Code For Samuel Morse’s Birthday

Today is the birthday of Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse code. Today, Google is sending out a message to everyone that it is his birthday. The logo is getting a lot of buzz and people are asking for more information about it. Here is a picture of the logo: Supposedly, the logo is slightly […]

Bing

Microsoft Launching Kumo At SMX Advanced?

When’s Microsoft’s new search brand launching? Perhaps at our SMX Advanced search marketing conference on June 2, based on a “countdown clock” someone spotted at the Microsoft campus. The LiveSide Blog reports a visitor noticed a countdown clock at Building 88, where the Live Search team works at Microsoft’s headquarters. The clock says “Countdown to […]

SEO

Google’s What’s Popular Gadget: The Next Digg Clone?

Steve Rubel reports that Google has released a new iGoogle Gadget named What’s Popular. The gadget looks like a small little Digg clone to me. Here is a screen capture: As you can see, you can mark up or down a story and it shows the number of “pops” next to the story, plus when […]

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.