Apple

SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 30, 2012

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 Adds Medications To Its Knowledge Graph Searchers in need of medical information will begin seeing detailed information on medications as part of Google’s Knowledge Graph product. In today’s announcement, Google […]

Google

Google Adds Medications To Its Knowledge Graph

Searchers in need of medical information will begin seeing detailed information on medications as part of Google’s Knowledge Graph product. In today’s announcement, Google says it’ll source the data from sources like the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, the US Food & Drug Administration, the Dept. of Veterans Affairs and others. Here’s […]

Content

US, European Antitrust Regulators To Confer On Google Case

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the top two US and European antitrust regulators will meet in Europe next week to compare notes and discuss potential outcomes. Both are negotiating with Google to settle antitrust claims that would avoid formal legal action. The FTC’s Chairman Jon Leibowitz will meet with the EU’s Joaquin Almunia. […]

Platforms

Deep Dive Into Bing Webmaster Tools: Part 1

Over the last decade, search engine marketing has become a multi-billion dollar media channel powerhouse. It currently represents half of the $35B digital marketing budgets in the U.S., and it’s even bigger globally. The marriage between search practitioners and the engines has always been, at best, a work in progress. On one hand, search engines […]

Google Shopping

SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 29, 2012

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Competitor Analysis: Realize your Visibility Digital Marketing Depot will host a webcast Thursday Dec 13, 2012 at 1:00 EST (10:00PST). The webcast Competitor Analysis: Realize your Visibility will feature speaker Shaun […]

SEO

New To Using WordPress? 3 Must Have Plugins To Power Your SEO

Some of you are likely already aware of these plugins, while others will be hearing about them for the first time. These plugins are specifically for WordPress websites. These are only 3 of thousands of plugins available for WordPress. But these 3 are considerably strong and I would recommend them for most WordPress sites. Personally, […]

Google Shopping

Why Attribution Really Matters For Product Listing Ads

With the holiday shopping season in full steam, advertisers are continuing to invest significantly in Google Shopping via Product Listing Ad (PLA) campaigns. Given the different format of these ads, one might expect users to interact differently than regular search ads. Perhaps people interact with them earlier in the sales funnel because these ads have […]

Apple

SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 28, 2012

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 Attacks Google Shopping With “Scroogled” Campaign, Forgets It’s Guilty Of Same Problems Bing is attacking Google over its shift to a pay-for-play shopping search engine through a new “Scroogled” site, […]

Analytics & conversion

Why Your Content Marketing Needs To Be More Active

The Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs recently released their 2013 benchmarks on B2B content marketing. Reading it, you will be struck by two realizations: Content marketing is huge Content marketing desperately needs conversion optimization The “huge” part you probably already suspected from the deluge of blog posts out there on the subject. However, this report […]

Amazon

Amazon Opens Up Maps API To Kindle Developers, Google Street View Covers The Frozen North

After a several year lull the mapping segment is really hot again. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Nokia and Amazon are now competing fiercely in a newly reinvigorated mapping arena. Yesterday, Amazon announced that its Maps API is now generaly available to developers who want to integrate maps into their Kindle Fire apps. Google Maps isn’t available for Kindle devices. […]

Content

Curtain Rises On Act 3 Of Google Antitrust Drama As Larry Page Meets With FTC

Google CEO Larry Page met with representatives of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) yesterday, according to a Bloomberg report, as the company engages in antitrust-settlement talks to avert potential litigation. The article also says that formal settlement discussions have been going on for about a week. The Bloomberg piece also reports that the FTC “has […]

SEO

The Big Ask Of 2012: Do You Search For Team Kstew Or Rpatz?

Ask.com’s 100 million users remain almost as loyal as Twihards, prompting us to ask if searchers are on Team Jeeves or Team Diller when putting in their queries. For the 2012 installment of the series in hot searches, Ask added a new twist to the searcher saga, layering in a thicker plot and seeking a […]

Apple

SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 27, 2012

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Seeking Maps Fix, Apple Fires Mapping Team Manager And Asks Outsiders For Help According to a widely cited Bloomberg report published earlier today Apple has fired another executive in connection with […]

Google Analytics

9 Search & Social KPIs To Start Tracking Right Now

If you don’t measure what you’re doing in search and social media, how do you know if what you’re doing is working? How do you know if you’re helping or hurting your business—or having no effect whatsoever? How do you know that all those hours and/or wages aren’t being wasted? How do you know you’re […]

Content

How To Build The Best Relationships, Err…I Mean Links

What is it about SEO that makes people stop acting like people? Sure, it has your fair share of data mining in dark corners, but the SEO industry is brimming with personality, sometimes too much of it. So why is it that when it comes to link building, that personality is left to the wayside? […]

Google

Google Wins Street View Reprieve In Germany But Confronts New Pro-Newspaper Copyright Restrictions

Google dodged a bullet in Germany this week as prosecutors in Hamburg decided, after a lengthy investigation, not to pursue criminal charges against the company over Street View WiFi data collection. Essentially prosecutors found that Google lacked the requisite “criminal intent” to justify prosecution. Google faces another, arguably more daunting legal challenge in Germany however. […]

Content

How PRWeb Helps Distribute Crap Into Google & News Sites

“What’s the use of PRWeb?,” tweeted Megan McCarthy of Reuters, trying to digest how that service ended up circulating a fake Google acquisition story. Come along, Megan and others, and I’ll explain one of the sorriest uses, getting crap into Google News and out into news sites. For those who somehow missed today’s big tech […]

Apple

SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 26, 2012

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Auto Industry Benefiting From Growth In Mobile Search Approximately one-third of all search traffic for auto industry related terms comes from mobile devices. This underscores why it is critical for auto […]

SEO

Auto Industry Benefiting From Growth In Mobile Search

Approximately one-third of all search traffic for auto industry related terms comes from mobile devices. This underscores why it is critical for auto manufacturers, local dealerships, reviewers and local automotive resources to render their sites properly for nearly half of their current traffic, but to also be at the forefront of getting higher visibility for […]

Content

Examining Real World Uses Of Rich Snippets & Markup

Semantic markup is becoming more and more popular in conjunction with large scale SEO. Adding rich snippets to send rich signals to alert search engines as to the relevancy of your content − whatever vertical they may appear in − is not only a wise move, but an SEO best practice. Included below is an […]

Google

Up Close: Using The “News Keywords” Tag For Google News

It’s been about two months since Google launched a “news keywords” meta tag for news publishers. How’s it going? Why didn’t Google the standard meta keywords tag? The company’s not saying, but it did shed a little more light on how to use the tag. Google launched the news keywords tag in September, designed as […]

Google

Google Ads Pitch Making Google Your Homepage

It can seem odd that people search for “Google” on Google, but they do. And for those who do within Google News, the company has been running ads encouraging them to make Google their homepage. I noticed this happening in the middle of last month, and you can still see it happening today: The ad […]

Local

What Is Foursquare’s SEO Strategy?

Two weeks ago, Foursquare launched a new version of its homepage which Greg Sterling touted as “taking on Yelp” by adding a search box. Naturally, my first reaction was to figure out what Foursquare’s new SEO plan. Imagine my surprise when I discovered there was none… First a bit of data. According to SEMRush, Foursquare’s […]

PPC

Why You Must Choose A Winning PPC Ad

One of the worst ways of testing ads is: Writing new ads Turning on one of Google’s ‘optimize’ features Letting Google serve your ads Writing new ads Let Google serve your ads repeat… However, I find this is a very common testing method. There’s a big problem with this method: there’s no delete. Just by […]

DuckDuckGo

Snoopy Logo From DuckDuckGo, Not Google

Today is the 90th birthday of the late Charles Schulz, the man who invented the comic strip Peanuts. To celebrate his life and contributions, we have a special logo from a beloved search engine. No, not Google, it is from the up and coming DuckDuckGo. Duck Duck Go has Snoopy looking over the shoulder of […]

Bing

Bing Testing Social Sidebar With New Look, More Answers

It’s been about six months since Bing unveiled its Social Sidebar, and the search engine is now testing a new format that drops the gray background and which shows more matching content from friends and social networks. Before & After Here’s an example of how the Social Sidebar still looks for most people: Here’s the […]

Analytics & conversion

Using Time To Stop Undervaluing Channel Performance

Standard channel performance analysis makes the assumption that a click from all channels behaves the same way. Picture your weekly performance report – in a given week you observe x clicks and y conversions coming from a given channel (eg PPC, Organic search, Display, Remarketing Facebook, etc). If one channel looks better than the others […]

Apple

How Web Retailers Can Profit With Semantic SEO

Semantic SEO is a fairly new Web marketing tactic that combines search engine optimization and semantic Web technology. Semantic SEO includes a focus on artificial intelligence to understand a user’s intent (i.e., the meaning of the query) in addition to the reliance on text, keywords and links in search algorithms. I wrote before about using […]

Google algorithm updates

2012 Year In Review: Important Shifts In Google SEO

During the last 12 months (November 2011 to November 2012), SEO professionals have witnessed stunning changes from Google that impact SEO. Reputation & Trust Two words I frequently saw or heard this year were reputation and trust. I am writing about the credibility of a website’s content, design, and external links, not reputation management as […]

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.