When you first begin using Siri it’s not entirely clear what you can do with it. (It’s also not clear how to access it.) Yesterday Danny wrote up some initial thoughts/criticisms of the Siri local search experience. In this piece I’m going to offer some general thoughts comparing Siri (on an iPhone 4S) with Google […]
It sounds great. Speak into Siri about some local need, get nice results from Yelp’s reviews. In reality, it’s pretty easy instead to end up stuck with only a phone number and directions from Google Maps. From Siri To Yelp To Google Maps Consider this example, which illustrates the situation I’ve repeatedly found to be […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Shuttering Buzz In Favor Of Google+; Farewell To Labs Buzz was a great learning experience, says Google, but in a few weeks it will be shut down and all such […]
Buzz was a great learning experience, says Google, but in a few weeks it will be shut down and all such efforts will be focused on Google Plus. The move will likely come as no surprise to Google-watchers, who noted that Buzz integration with Google+ was minimal. Additionally, the Google Labs page, as previously announced, […]
Search engine marketers spend a large portion of their marketing strategies on keyword research. One method is to seek words and phrases that are most likely to be used by searchers to find a particular website. What may be ignored or overlooked is understanding the user intent behind these searches. It’s one effort to provide […]
I was happy. I was joyful. I thought the meta keywords tag had finally died last year. But Bing recently said that it does use it. After some back-and-forth, I can confirm further that it does, but as a signal for finding spammers, not for improving rank. Meta Keywords Tag 101 If you want the […]
It’s probably my fault but I receive what seems like 20 emails a days from an endless stream of Groupon emulators, flash sites and discount etailers that have taken my inbox by storm. These sites are saturating the online marketplace with tantalizing deals designed to make even the most staunch consumers (like my wife) … […]
In May Google launched Google Music, a cloud-based streaming music app that allows for music backups and streaming to phones and other devices. Rumors have been swirling that Google will use this product to create an online MP3 store to compete against Apple and Amazon. The WSJ reports that Google has been in licensing talks […]
Google announced that Google+ has 40 million users today. Woo-hoo! That’s nearly half what Twitter claims, right? And while it’s below Facebook’s 800 million, Google’s getting there, right? Wrong. The number simply can’t be compared to Facebook and Twitter. Active Users Vs. Sign-Ups Let’s start with Facebook. At various points, Facebook has given out a […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Larry Page: Google+ Now Has 40 Million Users As part of Google’s earnings announced today, CEO Larry Page announced that Google’s social network, Google+, now has 40 million members. That puts […]
As part of Google’s earnings announced today, CEO Larry Page announced that Google’s social network, Google+, now has 40 million members. That puts it still well behind Facebook’s 800 million, closer to Twitter’s 100 million, but doesn’t seem to count “active” users. Page said in the earnings release: “We had a great quarter,” said Larry […]
Google has announced its third quarter earnings, with revenue of $9.72 billion, up 33% from the previous year. GAAP Net income was $2.73 billion, compared to $2.17 billion for the quarter before. Google+ was said to have 40 million users now. Here are some highlights: Revenues – Google reported revenues of $9.72 billion in the […]
In January, Google Translate for Android gained “Conversation Mode,” a way to speak into your phone and have it speak back in a different language. Today, Google’s expanded the number of languages supported. Originally, the tool only supported English-to-Spanish translation (or vice versa). Now, Google says 14 languages in all are covered: Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, […]
Social media marketing is hot—and everyone agrees that it has become a must-do activity for all companies wanting to connect with customers, reach out to prospects and maximize brand awareness. A recent study by online ad agency Collective found that 90 percent of marketers want to try new things online, and 62 percent of marketers […]
Good keyword research is laborious. So is it no wonder that once you understand the basics, you may be tempted to use whichever tool you have at hand and try to automate or speed up the process. Except, should you want to do this? Keyword research is your time to understand the market you are […]
Along with the most obvious campaign attributes that impact cross-channel marketing performance — traits like publisher, size, creative, keyword, placement, etc. — are a number of less intuitive factors that can significantly influence your results. Among these more ancillary factors is “frequency” — specifically the frequency with which online users are exposed to a given […]
Paid search advertising grew 24% in the third quarter of 2011 as compared to the year-ago period, according to a new report by interactive marketing agency Covario. A second report on the quarter conducted by Marin Software finds that click volume increased by 22% year-over-year while cost-per-click prices were lower, indicating marketers achieved increased efficiency. […]
This continues the analysis presented in the MicroData Not Ready For Primetime article previously published. Here, I break down the MicroData hierarchy into three levels so marketing professionals can review each category to see what value it can bring to future marketing, content and SEO initiatives. When you look at the type schema you see close […]
Google, Microsoft and scores of other companies are pushing us all into the “cloud”—where all of our information is stored online and is instantly accessible from any internet-connected device. This instant, universal access is a phenomenal benefit for most people. And since many of these cloud-based services are “free” (in the sense that they are […]
Google has inched back above the 66% market share threshold in the latest numbers from Experian Hitwise. And both Bing and Yahoo saw slight drops during the month of September. Hitwise explains that this is pretty normal: Google’s market share has risen for five of the past six Septembers, while Yahoo’s has declined in each […]
People have been speculating about it for weeks and now it’s live: MapQuest Vibe. With the launch of the new neighborhood-discovery site MapQuest is striking out in a promising direction. It’s not a new social network, as some speculated, but it incorporates social input into a larger algorithmic-based framework that generates a score for nearly […]
Social search and discovery site StumbleUpon has announced a new milestone: The site recently surpassed 20 million users. The company’s announcement is filled with some interesting stats that show its growth since launching as a Firefox add-on back in 2002: StumbleUpon now serves as many “stumbles” in one hour as it did during its first […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google+ Search Goes Real Time & Gains Hashtag Support Google has announced that its still relatively new Google+ Search feature now will update its results in real time plus has new […]
Google has announced that its still relatively new Google+ Search feature now will update its results in real time plus has new support for hashtags. Alerts For New Results When doing a search, if there are new results that have happened after you initially did your search, you’ll see a message alerting you to the […]
I know this industry evolves fast, but damn! Just 18 months ago, most media planners and search marketers had not heard of search retargeting, and already we are in what could easily be called version 3.0. With the agency hat back on (for today), we look at whether this tactic is living up to the […]
Google now has its own version of the Yahoo “peanut butter” manifesto, where Google staff software engineer Steve Yegge wrote a “family intervention” memo about Google’s failure to build accessible platforms, leaving it vulnerable to the likes of Facebook. There are some harsh words about Google+, but the memo is broader than that. It offers an intriguing look […]
The second largest search engine on the web after Google is YouTube. In-house search engine marketers often overlook the promotional possibilities of YouTube, but with the relatively recent proliferation of cheap and easy video filming technologies (iPhones, Androids, Flips), leveraging YouTube’s massive search volume is something in-house search engine marketers should give at least as […]
It appears that Google is testing showing a red squiggly line in the Google search box as you type, if they feel the spelling of your query is wrong. You know, the red line you see when you have a spelling mistake when using Microsoft Word or other word processors. At first, I thought it […]
Today would have been Art Clokey’s 90th birthday, and to celebrate the man who invented Gumby, Google has a special interactive Gumby Logo. The logo has many of the characters from Gumby, including Pokey, the lovable horse. Clicking on the colorful balls makes the play dough figures come to life, bringing out the essence of […]
FairSearch, a group of search companies including Microsoft which lobbies that Google is too dominant, has sent a white paper outlining its anti-trust concerns about Google to the 50 state attorneys general in the US. Below, a review and some fact checking of the paper. You’ll find the paper here, if you wish to read […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Pitches Google+ Hangout With Full Page New York Times Ad How do you spread the word about your awesome new social media network? If you’re Google, apparently you turn to […]
How do you spread the word about your awesome new social media network? If you’re Google, apparently you turn to a full page ad in the old media of the New York Times. My copy of the New York Times today contained this giant ad on the back of the main section, pitching how the […]
Visitors to Google Display Network sites will begin seeing +1s and annotations on display ads for the first time today, according to Google. The initiative, announced nearly a month ago, is aimed at adding social cues — recommendations — to display advertising. The addition of social cues at least partly takes its cues from Facebook […]
Today Topsy Labs, a real-time social search platform, announced the addition of Google+ as a source in its real-time social search index. Topsy features an influence algorithm to display the most pertinent and popular social results. In addition to social posts, Topsy displays shared links with social context within the results. A little over a month ago, […]
We've seen a number of queries on the suitability of various platforms for SEO, and so I've pulled together some pointers that may prove useful when choosing a commonly available, free, website platform for a site that will - either immediately or at a later date - be expected to deliver an SEO friendly website that can dominate the rankings in multiple countries.
Mozilla released its annual report (PDF) yesterday and reports came in that 98% of the foundation’s revenue comes directly from search partners, including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Mozilla said it earned $121.1 million in revenue in 2010, up 19.3% from 2009’s $101.5 million. Even with the growth of Google Chrome, Mozilla increased revenues through this […]
Third in our series are the link building tools from Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Raven Tools, founded in 2007, has a 20-person staff based in the country music capital of the world, Nashville, Tenn. Raven’s development team of eight is hard at work finalizing three new features set to launch between now and mid-November; vice […]
Google has replaced the destination URL of the “Photos” link within the Google navigation at the top of the page. Now when you click on “Photos,” and if signed-in, Google will take you to Google+ Photos, instead of taking you to Picasa photos. When I click on photos, I am taken to my Google+ profile […]
Efficient Frontier released its Q3 Digital Marketing Performance Report this morning. The document covers a range of trends from search marketing to Facebook and display advertising to mobile and tablets. However the report is primarily focused on paid search trends. Here are some of the bullets from the report: Search spend increased 20 percent year […]
It’s that time again; the financial analysts are trickling out their advanced look at September search market share data from comScore ahead of the official release of those numbers. Our look at the data comes courtesy of Macquarie Equities Research and UBS. Google regained some share in September, at Yahoo’s expense. And AOL was up […]