Google just posted about ten new algorithm changes it has made to how it shows and ranks search results. These include showing rich snippets more often, improving the quality of snippets, a better way of showing page titles for times when Google ignores the HTML title tag itself and a ranking boost for “official pages,” […]
Earlier this month Google announced Go Mo, clearly labeled as “a Google Initiative”, as though it represents the official Google position on the value of mobile content and mobile sites. But what is the official Google stance on mobile sites, search and SEO? Will having mobile content help in search results? Many people will claim […]
Pay the most money, and you can get your text-only ad to be number one on Google, right? The Google AdWords system is far more complicated than that. A good “Quality Score” gives an edge to advertisers, even if they aren’t the highest bidder. “Ad Extensions” mean that ads can show pictures, maps, ratings and […]
Bing has launched a new section named Editors’ Picks. Bing Editor’s Picks is a collection of web pages grouped into topics, much like a web directory. Yes, Bing Editor’s picks is basically a limited version of the Yahoo Directory or Open Directory Project. They let you browse the categories and view sites that Bing editors […]
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 Leads In Search Engines’ Efforts To Woo TV Viewers Google’s “Dear Sophie” TV spot for Chrome, in which a father creates a Gmail account for his newborn daughter and sends […]
Google’s “Dear Sophie” TV spot for Chrome, in which a father creates a Gmail account for his newborn daughter and sends her multi-media messages as she grows up, earned the top spot in Ace Metrix’ rankings of websites’ TV advertisements. Despite being a recent and reluctant entrant to TV advertising, Google dominated the rankings with […]
I’m happy to announce that next month, Search Engine Land will gain a new sister site: Marketing Land. Search Engine Land will continue to provide all the great coverage about search marketing and search engines that you love. Marketing Land will go beyond into other areas, including social media, affiliate marketing, email marketing and other […]
On Google.com today you will find a special logo honoring Veterans Day. The logo is of a tree with a yellow ribbon tied around it. The yellow ribbon in the United States normally goes with the slogan “support our troops”. The Google letters is made out of clouds on the light blue sky background behind […]
Whenever the phrase, “usability and SEO”, enter a conversation, there’s a very good chance it goes in one ear and out the other. Corporate management interprets it as “We need more money”, and middle management fixes their poker face until they’re free to run to Google to look up the term. Though there is improvement, […]
Proprietary campaign management systems (eg AdWords, AdCenter, Facebook, etc) allow advertisers to track conversions and manage towards efficiency metrics such as Cost per Acquisition or Order (CPA / CPO). Some, such as AdWords and AdCenter, take performance management a bit further and allow advertisers to return a revenue value per conversion to report Return On […]
A new eye-tracking and click-tracking study from Mediative (formerly known as Enquiro) shows the value of having the top spot in Google’s local results, but also suggests that social content and signals can boost rankings further down the page. Early last month, Mediative did eye tracking on 12 participants and online click tracking on another […]
According to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal the world’s largest social network is nearing a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that will subject the company to 20 years of “privacy audits.” A nearly identical punishment was imposed earlier this year on Google over “deceptive privacy practices in Google’s rollout […]
Finding it too much hassle to organize your friends and contacts into circles on Google+? Google may have a solution on the way, thanks to the company’s acquisition of Katango. Katango launched this past summer with an iPhone app that automagically organizes Facebook friends through an algorithmic approach that looks at profile information, past interactions […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Search Engine Market Share Remains Steady In October, comScore Says There wasn’t much change in U.S. search engine market share during October based on the latest numbers that comScore is reporting […]
There wasn’t much change in U.S. search engine market share during October based on the latest numbers that comScore is reporting for the major/general search engines. The figures haven’t been posted on comScore’s website yet, but they have been distributed to industry analysts already. (Update: They’ve been posted now.) Here’s a look: Google: market share […]
Search engines want to populate the results with quality content written by experts as acknowledged by other Internet users. Documents with links from websites that have lots of links and documents with links from websites that have high quality links get rewarded. It is no wonder that when you ask a search engine reps how […]
Dan Harmon is the creator of the quirky quirky TV show Community (NBC). Harmon uses a unique circular device he calls an “Embryo” that defines the story arc of every show he writes. It maps the “hero’s journey” of the primary character through his or her 22 minute sitcom quest. It ensures that each episode of his […]
Efficient Frontier (EFF) and Macquarie Capital have released a new report containing a metric that should get everyone’s attention: the firm is projecting US mobile paid search spending (including tablets) could account for up to 22 percent of total search revenues by the end of 2012. The firm’s report also contains a “less aggressive” projection […]
Yusuf Mehdi, who reportedly is the ” longest-running executive in Microsoft’s Online Services Division,” (which houses Bing) is heading over to the company’s Xbox division. Reasons for the shift aren’t entirely clear. But Mehdi is a key executive for “OSD” and was instrumental in the creation and successful launch of Bing. According to the internal […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: ‘Think Insights’: Google’s New Research Hub Offers Data Porn For Marketers Lest you think that Google’s product streamlining has completely stifled any new developments, the company has announced a new research […]
Lest you think that Google’s product streamlining has completely stifled any new developments, the company has announced a new research center for marketers called Think Insights. On first glance, there’s almost an overwhelming amount of information in Think Insights … thus the “data porn” reference in our headline. If you love statistics and marketing, you […]
We talk a lot in the digital industry about the overlap between search media and display media, and how when planned and operated in unison, there is a 1+1=3 benefit model that magically appears, resulting in higher returns than could be generated by those channels on their own. But does this overlap really exist, and […]
Bing has added new options for editing and sharing inside of Bing Maps. The “Send” link on a Maps search result now has an option to send a business listing to a mobile phone via SMS. This is available to users in the U.S., UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Italy. There’s also a “Share” […]
When Q4 rolls around, in-house search marketers, like me, probably feel a heady mix of anxiety, dread and oddly, excitement. All this can only mean one thing, it is annual budgeting time! Stressful deadlines, aggressive goals, but also great ideas and opportunities all roll into a couple of intense weeks (and I feel for those […]
Ever encountered an ad-heavy page, where you struggle to find the actual content on that page? Google’s looking at penalizing those in its search results. The head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts, shared the news when speaking at the Pubcon conference today. Cutts said Google is testing algorithms that determine “what are the things that really matter, […]
As we reported a few months ago, Twitter has rolled out the “activities tab” for web users. This tab allows Twitter to operate more like a classic social network as you can keep tabs on your friends… pun intended. Here’s a look at how the activitiy tab looks: This tab shows items favorited by those you […]
Microsoft announced they are now ready to move forward with transitioning over the search ad technology from Yahoo to Microsoft in the European regions. Microsoft said, the “European roll out is scheduled to begin with the UK, Ireland and France in the second quarter of 2012.” Yahoo and Microsoft have already transitioned the search ad […]
Today being Wednesday, the odds are better than any other day you’ll share this post with someone else. Or so say the stats from social sharing service AddThis, one of several it compiled into an infographic. Other interesting stats? People tend to share the most around 9:30 Eastern Time (so we cunningly timed this post for […]
This morning Google is announcing that its Offers product is coming to five more US cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Brooklyn (NY). That brings to 24 the number of live Offers locations (although New York City is divided into three distinct areas). Google recently incorporated a broad range of other inventory sources and […]
Twitter and Mozilla have struck a deal that makes Twitter search one of the default search options in the new Firefox 8 web browser. It’s included in the Windows, Mac and Linux versions, which can be downloaded now. As Mozilla’s blog post explains, the Twitter search option can be used to search Twitter usernames, hashtags […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Facebook’s Zuckerberg To Charlie Rose: “We Just Do One Thing” Asked to reflect on the cultural differences between Google and Facebook, current Facebook COO and former Googler Sheryl Sandberg told Charlie […]
Asked to reflect on the cultural differences between Google and Facebook, current Facebook COO and former Googler Sheryl Sandberg told Charlie Rose that “Google is fundamentally about algorithms and machine learning . . . We start from a totally different place. We start from an individual: Who are you? What do you want to do? What do […]
A new feature of Google+ is Google+ Direct Connect, where typing the name of a company preceded by a + symbol will make that company’s Google+ Page appear as a suggestion in the search box, in the right circumstances. Who are the lucky few, so far? Here’s an alphabetical rundown, which reveals a number of […]
Google’s introduction yesterday of Google+ Pages for businesses will likely have a dramatic impact on +1s in AdWords. When businesses create a Page on Google+, they can link the page to their web site URLs and also to their AdWords account. When that’s done, +1s for any of the linked URLs — on web sites […]
From boardrooms to blogs, mainstream marketers are fixated on “Content marketing” and why it’s so important these days. In reality, savvy advertisers, PR pros, brand evangelists, SEOs, in-house and agencies have been leveraging content’s intrinsic power since the dawn of organized marketing activities. Wielded properly in the hands of masters, there are few tactics more […]
Whether it’s optimizing a website, running a commercial or managing a Twitter Feed, controlling your brand’s message is crucial to ensure your audience hears what you intend. TheInternet has evolved and controlling your brand’s message is more important than ever in the advent of a social Web. Site Audit: Search For Social Before I begin […]
Even if you’re one of the few people who say they love link building, it’s still the most tedious aspect to being an SEO. It seems like new sites pop up weekly, if not daily, as “yet another great way to get links.” While the creative part of you may be motivated from a new, […]
Along with the big announcement of Google+ pages yesterday, a search-specific feature called “Google+ Direct Connect” was also announced. The Google+ Direct Connect functionality will help to give Google+ pages more visibility in the search engine results pages when custom operators are used. What Exactly Is Direct Connect? Last month, Google retired the “+” operator, most likely in anticipation of […]
If North American-based businesses are to reach the rapidly expanding, increasingly sophisticated international Internet audience, they must get smarter about international search engine optimization. Just like domestic SEO, the international version boosts the likelihood that a particular website will rise to the top of search results, thereby enabling increased conversion rates. The challenge internationally is […]
Majestic SEO announced a new way to access data from the Majestic SEO tool. In short, it provides an easier way to get data from the tool over using the their API. Majestic SEO is a popular tool used by SEOs for competitive link analysis. The main alternatives to the tool include SEOmoz’s LinkScape, RankAbove’s […]