The Yahoo/Microsoft Search Alliance this week is beginning to transition Yahoo Search Marketing campaigns to AdCenter accounts in the UK, France and Ireland. The companies last month announced they’d begin testing adCenter ads on Yahoo in those countries. Organic results have been powered by Microsoft’s Bing for some time. Ramping of Yahoo traffic will begin […]
A recent article by fellow Search Engine Land contributor Matt Van Wagner on long-tail keyword management – as well as some recent experiences with several large-scale advertisers, inspired me to write this article on quantitative long-tail management. Too often, I have seen cases where marketers apply incorrect reactive rules on the long tail and kill it in […]
When I do an SEO audit on a webpage, one of the first things I check is the <title> tag. Why? Well, I have several reasons. In my book, the <title> tag possesses all of the following: It has the most SEO power of any tag on the page for establishing keyword relevance Its contents […]
Yesterday, Bing rolled out a new “Linked Pages” feature that looks interesting. But using the feature gives Bing permission to post to Facebook on your behalf. That’s a lot of permission that seems necessary only as a way for Bing to pimp itself. It also means your friends might soon be posting Linked Pages to […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Linked Pages: Better People Search Results Microsoft Bing announced a new feature named Linked Pages. The purpose is to make the search results for you and your friends more personalized […]
Microsoft Bing announced a new feature named Linked Pages. The purpose is to make the search results for you and your friends more personalized as well as richer. If I am friends with you and you do a search in Bing for [barry schwartz] you will see the following search result at the top: Linked […]
Conversion testing is the holy grail of ROI on the Internet. Every day, more of our customers start picking up their phones, asking what new test we are planning for their website. Or may that be a result of sales people “incidentally” dropping Conversion Optimization and in doing so, providing the big eye-opener to customers? […]
Due to the agile and complex nature of paid search, managing a paid search program can often degenerate into a constant barrage of fire drills and ad hoc report requests. I have been there and it is not fun. I have also found that there is a way to dig out of this chaos and […]
Google announced on the Google Webmaster Central blog that they are now adding video support for schema.org. They are doing this in combination with Microsoft Bing and Yahoo Search as a “joint effort.” Google says using the schema.org video markup is the “recommended way to describe videos on the web.” Google added that they still […]
Today is the 155th birthday of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, the German physicist who was able to prove the existence of electromagnetic waves. To celebrate his contributions to the world, Google has a special animated wave logo on their homepage. He built an antenna that was able to detect and measure electromagnetic waves and thus prove […]
Google+ Pages have sparked a lot of discussion in B2B marketing circles. The ability to add multiple management functionality, site verification, and easy to integrate Google+ badges have leadership teams asking whether this truly is the next social media platform B2B marketers must focus upon. However, all of the recent hype and scrambling to start […]
The mystery of Google’s stealth consumer product has apparently been conclusively solved. The NY Times is confirming earlier reports that Google is going to release “heads up display glasses” by the end of the year. The glasses — or literal Google Goggles in this case — will utilize a range of Google technologies and databases […]
Google has been improving its flight and hotel search results over the past few months, adding capabilities and polishing the overall experience. In accordance with that “iterative” approach Google announced today that flight search will now be available on mobile devices (browser only). To trigger the verticalized results, you need to specify that you want […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Scroogle’s Gone? Here’s Who Still Offers Private Searching You’ve probably read the news already that Scroogle is gone forever. It launched back in 2003 and was popular among searchers who wanted […]
You’ve probably read the news already that Scroogle is gone forever. It launched back in 2003 and was popular among searchers who wanted to get Google search results in a private setting. Now that it’s gone, where can searchers go for a more private search experience than Google and Bing offer by default? Here’s a […]
I’m obsessed with Google. (I mean, you kind of have to be if you’re in this industry.) But sometimes, you need a break from the hand that feeds. There’s no denying the power of advanced search queries, but you’d be surprised how many other and different prospects you can find without using the search engine […]
A week ago, we reported that Scroogle was being blocked by Google and searches on the privacy search engine were no longer working. Since then, the site continued not to work and now it is completely offline. The owner, Daniel Brandt, said he took it down “forever.” He blames both Google and DDOS attack by […]
As the first of the International Search Summits of 2012 looms large (at SMX West next week) I felt it was time to review what seem to be the most significant 10 issues for search marketers at this time. What’s interesting to note is that just one year ago, this list was very different. 1. […]
Yandex is the next in line to gain access to the Twitter “firehose.” The Russian search engine is announcing that it will begin integrating the Twitter feed into its search results. Twitter reported the deal to us late last week but declined to disclose its terms. As part of their agreement Yandex will have access […]
Microsoft adCenter is making changes to its location targeting functionality that will bring it into line with the industry standard Google AdWords. Now, the “market” (distribution channel) will no longer be available as a targeting option. It will be replaced by “language” and “target location” as individual targeting options. Advertisers will be able to target […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: “Googler Killer”, Cuil, Patent Applications Acquired By Google Googler Killer, Cuil, which launched in June 2008 and went defunct in September 2010, have had their patent applications acquired by Google. Bill […]
Googler Killer, Cuil, which launched in June 2008 and went defunct in September 2010, have had their patent applications acquired by Google. Bill Slawski spotted the transfer of ownership of these patent applications this morning. The patents transfer to Google from Cuil include 20090240672, 20090240685, 20090241044, 20090241018, 20090241058, 20090241065 and 20090241066. This is not all […]
Enterprise SEO is all about mitigating risk. Slow and steady, fix what is broken, don’t let anyone do anything radical chasing the latest fads, don’t push the envelope into anything black or even grey and keep your IT department from inadvertently destroying your rankings. So what do you say when a large, branded site wants […]
Mobile’s overall share of Web traffic in the United States has increased to about 9% (according to StatCounter) which is also the same percentage of Quantcast’s Top Million sites that are deemed ready for mobile in 2012 according to data from the Mongoose Metrics Data Series. Since there wasn’t the same data pull last year, it could […]
Managing PPC accounts can be overwhelming. There is so much to-do, and no one ever has enough time. This leads most people to just make huge todo lists of items they either should be doing, or want to eventually do inside their account. The problem with to-do lists is that they are easy to ignore. […]
It’s a Golden Grahams kind of day … You and your marketing team have set up the first steps to your local presence: a Google Places Page. Life is good. A few days later, you check in and you see that your position and display are great—but what is up with the three star rating? […]
In 2011 Google enabled the ability to block search results with a new block sites feature. It now appears that you can block sites from showing up in the paid search ad results. Here is a picture with the “block all domain.com ads”: What is interesting is that this works for both those who are […]
Google has re-launched its AdWords Help Forum on a new platform and given it its own URL: www.en.adwords-community.com. That address redirects to a longer URL where visitors are welcomed to “the official Google AdWords Community.” AdWords-Community.com was one of several domains that Google recently registered, a list that included several variations such as adwordscommunity.com, www.adwordscommunities.com […]
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 Panda Update Costs Demand Media $6.4 Million In 4th Quarter? Demand Media posts $6.4-million loss in fourth quarter from the Los Angeles Times reports that Google’s Panda algorithm is mostly […]
Demand Media posts $6.4-million loss in fourth quarter from the Los Angeles Times reports that Google’s Panda algorithm is mostly to blame for Demand Media’s $6.4 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2011. Demand Media released their earnings report last night, showing revenues up 15% year over year, but profits down from a positive […]
The Dilbert cartoon above doesn’t speak well of the search engine optimization position. The cartoon ties people who do SEO as weasels and those that hire SEOs as an accomplice, someone who actively participates in the commission of a crime. It goes on to say the SEO will go ahead and “game the system” and […]
Every search practitioner, either paid and organic, has at some point received the same questioning phone call or email from their client or boss: “I’m was searching on Google for our natural listing (or paid ad) and I don’t see it.” Most of the time, this is due to the search engines personalizing their results for […]
Taking that first step to genuine SEO awareness can be difficult for SEO professionals as well as information architects and usability professionals. How can we make crossing that bridge easier?
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
Call it “Cookiegate” — or “Safarigate” perhaps. Late last night we got the Wall Street Journal’s piece: “Google’s iPhone Tracking: Web Giant, Others Bypassed Apple Browser Settings for Guarding Privacy.” Danny covered the article and its claims extensively at Marketing Land. This morning there’s an expanding debate about whether the WSJ mischaracterized Google’s behavior unfairly […]
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 Showing Fewer Than 10 Results For Some Searches? It appears Google is testing showing fewer than the typical 10 web search results, in what might either be a test or […]
It appears Google is testing showing fewer than the typical 10 web search results, in what might either be a test or possibly a bug. I spotted complaints in a WebmasterWorld thread where searchers were asking why is Google limiting the results for a search query on Google UK for bbc football, such as shown: […]
Retailers have used signage, billboards, newspapers, magazines, vehicles, buildings, radio, TV – just about every means imaginable to market their products and services. But never have we seen retail marketing spread exponentially in different directions since the advent of the Internet and the proliferation of computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones. In fact, the Internet and […]
Last month, I wrote about managing search in a decentralized marketing organization. We covered budgets, goals, alignment, etc. All good in theory, but how does it work in real life? To answer that question, I thought I would take a close look at how we’re working on one of our major marketing initiatives of the […]
Website structure and internal linking is one of the most inconsistent topics within search engine optimization. Not only are SEO practitioners frequently at odds among ourselves, we must compete with the often conflicting goals of designers, usability experts, and marketing or sales teams. There is a lot of disagreement out there. Look for yourself. Pick […]