This day in search marketing history: March 14
Bing’s ‘Russian invasion of Ukraine’ results show Opinions section and timelines
2022: The Opinions section contextualized news-related listings for users, which could help reduce misinformation.
Let’s clear things up: Google’s ‘Florida 2’ algorithm update is not related to original Florida update
2019: Why some folks were calling this the Florida 2 update.
Google took down 2.3 billion bad ads, 1 million ad accounts in 2018
2019: The number of removed ads was down, but banned advertiser accounts nearly doubled from 2017.
Google launching Policy manager in Google Ads
2019: Coming in April, Policy manager would be the central spot to manage policy violations.
Google says it removed more than 3.2 billion bad ads in 2017
2018: The number of ads Google took down in 2017 for advertising policy violations nearly doubled from 2016, and cryptocurrency ads would soon join the list of forbidden ad types.
Google adding business descriptions in Google My Business & local panel
2018: Business owners would likely soon have the option to write and edit descriptions that showed up in Google’s local knowledge panel.
Report: Google earns 78% of $36.7B US search ad revenues, soon to be 80%
2017: Amazon and Yelp were expected to see the biggest search revenue growth rates in the US.
Google launches new effort to flag upsetting or offensive content in search
2017: Using data from human “quality raters,” Google hoped to teach its algorithms how to better spot offensive and often factually incorrect information.
Did Google’s Fred update hit low-value content sites that focus on revenue, not users?
2017: Google wouldn’t comment about the “Fred update,” but based on our own analysis, many affected sites saw up to a 90% drop in traffic.
Yext files for long-awaited $100 million IPO
2017: The company announced a revenue “run rate” of $100 million in 2016.
Google launches Trial Run Ads for apps in search results to let users play before installing
2016: The app streaming ads allowed Android users to play with an app for 10 minutes right from the search results.
Bing improves its math skills with interactive times table, geometry calculator & more
2016: Bing continued to build out its educational resources, adding a number of interactive answers for math-related searches.
Bing launches March Madness search answers, brackets and predictions
2016: Bing laid out its predictions for March Madness and gave the schedule, teams and live results.
Preparing to relaunch, Jelly wants to bring “humanity” back to search
2016: In SXSW conversation Jelly founder Biz Stone discussed #NextSearch with Danny Sullivan and teased the relaunch of his social answers engine.
Google Penalizes Two German Link Networks; One Being efamous
2014: Aside from efamous, Matt Cutts said Google went after another “German agency network,” but did not disclose which one that was.
Shopping Comparison: TheFind Finds Lowest Price More Often Than Google, Bing, Others
2014: TheFind said that 78% of the time it found the lowest price. By comparison, Google had the lowest price 42% of the time.
Google’s 3 Steps To Optimizing Your Web Site (One Page Cheat Sheet)
2013: Kaspar Szymanski, a Search Quality Strategist based in Google’s Dublin office, posted the official one-page Google SEO cheat sheet designed to dumb down webmaster and SEO-related techniques.
Google Testing New ‘Search Within’ Tool; Also, Bigger URLs In Search Results
2013: On certain queries, one of the options Google Instant showed was “Search Within,” which allowed you to limit your search to the specific website.
AdWords “Ineffective” Says eBay, Google “Meta-Pause Analysis” Contradicts Those Findings
2013: Wordstream CEO Larry Kim argued that the outcome of eBay’s research could be explained by the notion that eBay’s ad creative, bidding and keyword practices were poor.
Facebook Talks About Ranking Results In Graph Search, Confirms Plans For Post & Comment Search
2013: Details on how it used click-through rate, engagement and NDCG (normalized discounted cumulative gain) to “maximize searcher happiness.”
Google: Demographic Bidding Being Eliminated To Clear Way For New AdWords Features
2012: “This is a feature that we have to retire to introduce additional features down the line,” a Google spokesperson said.
Google Opens Kimono (Slightly) On AdWords Screening Measures
2012: Google said “hundreds” of people — engineers, folks who craft policies, and people who manually review ads — are on the front lines of keeping bad ads away.
Google Search Now Highlights “Latest Posts” From Google+ Pages & Profiles
2012: Appeared in the space where ads had traditionally resided. The format allowed people and brands on Google+ to occupy more of the top-half of the search results page.
US Subpoenas Apple For Details About Default iOS Google Search Deal
2012: The FTC was seeking similar information from handset makers and carriers.
Report: More Complex Attribution Model Shows Organic Search Significantly Undervalued By Marketers
2012: Report argued that “‘organic search’ should have been worth as much as 77.25% more than previously thought, and ‘non-branded organic’ should have been worth as much as 81.59% more.”
Google Adds Video Instant Previews To Some Results
2011: The video instant previews would show you several frames from a video and could even play the video preview when you moused over the thumbnail image.
Google Adds “Sale” Dimension To Product Listings
2011: Google would soon require three new types of data for feeds targeting the U.S., and one new type for those targeting the U.K.
Google’s Mayer: “We Do Have Too Many Products” In Local
2011: Google Maps. Google Places. Google Earth. Google Hotpot. Google Latitude. Google Street View. Different mobile and desktop versions. Different Android and iPhone versions…
Google Relaunches Street View Website
2011: There were new sections about the different Street View vehicles, as well as a non-technical explanation of how Google turns photos into Street View imagery.
Google’s Top Paid Bonuses For Executives Of 2011
2011: Nikesh Arora, chief business officer got $20 million in stock and $2.7 million cash.
Sergey Brin & Bono Up For Gorbachev Awards
2011: Mikhail Gorbachev was holding an international award designed for honoring “people capable of changing the world.”
Twitter Says Activity Levels Are Soaring
2011: Users were now sending 1 billion tweets per week.
StumbleUpon Expands Ad Platform With Brand Advertisers In Mind
2011: StumbleUpon Paid Discovery offered additional features and analytics, along with a higher cost than the existing StumbleUpon ad program.
YouTube, MSNBC Benefit From Quake-related Search Spikes, Hitwise Says
2011: The phrase “japan earthquake” had more search activity than always-popular one-word brand terms like “google” and “mapquest.”
The State of the News Media 2011: Americans Shifting to Online News, Still Only Paying for Print
2011: Between 2003 and 2010, online ad dollars were up, but not enough to account for declining print advertising.
WeFollow – New Twitter Directory From Kevin Rose
2009: You would see the top five people in popular categories such as celebrity, music and news. You could also drill down into any category to see all the people listed in them.
The Google Quality Raters Handbook
2008: A brief overview of some of the many points in the document.
Yahoo And Microsoft Hold Informal Talks About Combining Companies
2008: Microsoft representatives pitched their vision for a combined company and “Yahoo executives mostly listened.”
Search In Pictures: American Airlines Google Billboard, Yahoo’s Birthday Party, & Chris Gardner @ Yahoo
2008: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
The Big Viacom Sues GOOG & YouTube Roundup
2007: Going through the official company statements from both sides, the actual case, the importance of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s “safe harbor” provision and how Viacom scoured YouTube to build its case.
Google Anonymizing Search Records To Protect Privacy
2007: To better protect the privacy of its users, Google would anonymize the server log data that it collected after 18 to 24 months.
Google Webmaster Central Blog Jetzt Auf Deutsch
2007: German speakers could now keep up on the happenings with Google’s support for site owners in their native language.
Google Searches Used In Murder Trial
2007: Allegedly, a woman searched for “how to commit murder,” “instant poisons,” “undetectable poisons,” and “fatal digoxin doses,” days before her husband was murdered.
Microsoft Announces Tellme Acquisition
2007: Tellme had well-established consumer applications that could help Microsoft gain an advantage in the emerging and extremely competitive world of mobile search.
Microsoft Inks Distribution Deal With Lenovo
2007: Windows Live software and Windows Live Toolbar would be preinstalled on Lenova machines, replacing the Google Desktop and Toolbar applications.
AOL Offers New Local Search Format
2007: The centerpiece was MapQuest maps plus content and ratings from AOL Cityguide.
Ask On Ad Campaign: Fun Way To Wake The “Sleep Searchers”
2007: Ask CEO Jim Lanzone said it was all meant in good fun, not to be negative about Google, but
rather to wake “sleep searchers” up to the choices they have in search. Related: Ask’s Guerrilla Marketing Campaign Against Google
Blinkx Offers Video SEO Wiki & Whitepaper
2007: Main sections covered preparing video for search engines using meta-data and other information, what to avoid, and a good list of video search and sharing sites to submit your videos to.
From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)
- Google Performance Max campaigns: What marketers should know (SMX Next 2021)
- SMX Overtime: Enterprise SEOs explain tactical approaches for large implementations (2019)
- Live Blog Recap: SMX West 2013 Day Three
Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.
- 2022: 8 SEO costs that impact your ROI by Corey Morris
- 2019: Where Google got more inventory to show Responsive Search Ads ads may surprise you by Frederick Vallaeys
- 2019: Back to Basics: A beginners guide to voice search and digital assistants in 2019 by John Lincoln
- 2018: 4 concrete ways to use images to build links by Pratik Dholakiya
- 2018: How using search opportunities can guide link-building content strategies by Andrew Dennis
- 2017: Your guide to using Google Assistant and the Google search app on Android & iPhone by Danny Sullivan
- 2017: Selling the value of link building to management by Andrew Dennis
- 2017: 10 ad copy testing ideas you can use right now by Jason Puckett
- 2016: Google Posts are going to kill (at) local SEO by Andrew Shotland
- 2016: Is modern SEO more than the sum of independent parts? by Jayson DeMers
- 2014: How To Drive PPC And SEO Synergy In Large Enterprises by Ted Ives
- 2013: Need A Google Reader Alternative? Meet Newsblur by Gary Price
- 2013: The Recency Bump: In Retargeting Timing Is Everything by Frost Prioleau
- 2013: 10 Things Most SEO Consultants Hate by Trond Lyngbø
- 2013: Do Tablet Trends Support Google’s Shift To Combine Desktop & Tablet Targeting? by Matt Lawson
- 2013: Why Local Retailers Should Be Using Open Graph Markup by Paul Bruemmer
- 2012: 3 Step Model For Developing Insights Through Keyword Trends by Brad Neelan
- 2011: 10 Steps To Setting Initial Bids by George Michie
- 2011: In-House PPC Programs For Big Companies – Part II by David Roth
- 2011: Why Mobile SEO Is Mobile-Friendly by Brian Klais
- 2007: The 5 Secrets PPC Agencies Don’t Want You to Know by Jon Miller
< March 13 | Search Marketing History | March 15 >
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