SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 10, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
- LinkedIn Lauches a Social News Site
If Digg and its myriad imitators were part of “social news 1.0″ then a recent wave of personalized news sites, including Flipboard and Zite for the iPad, among others represent social news 2.0 (sorry). You can add LinkedIn today to that list. This is a breakout product for the company that could become highly successful […]
- Whrrl Upgrades Personalization Engine To Fuel Discovery
How can you find a new restaurant, a well-curated boutique, or a artisanal cheese shop, if you never even knew it was there? Local search works well when people know what they’re looking for, but companies like Pelago, with its Whrrl application, are looking for alternative ways to enable those serendipitous discoveries. The start-up company […]
- Google & Bing Have Whitelists/Exception Lists For Algorithms
During the Spam Police panel at the SMX West conference, Google and Bing admitted publicly to having ‘exception lists’ for sites that were hit by algorithms that should not have been hit. Matt Cutts explained that there is no global whitelist but for some algorithms that have a negative impact on a site in Google’s […]
- New: Google Lets You Block Any Site From Search Results
Google announced you can now hide or block certain sites from showing up in the Google search results. When you do a search in Google, the search results will show a new link near the “Cache” link when you click a result and then return to Google. The link that Google adds to the search […]
- US Commerce Secretary Eric Schmidt?
President Obama is reportedly considering Google CEO Eric Schmidt for the soon-to-be-vacant position of US Commerce Secretary. That position is currently occupied by Gary Locke who is becoming US ambassador to China. Current ambassador Jon Huntsman, a Republican, is considering a 2012 presidential run and leaving his post on April 30. According to Bloomberg: The […]
- Eye-Tracking Study: Everybody Looks At Organic Listings, But Most Ignore Paid Ads On Right
Interesting new data about searcher behavior from a recent User Centric eye-tracking study: Whether using Google or Bing, all 24 participants looked at the organic search results for their queries, but between 70% and 80% ignored the paid ads on the right side of the page. User Centric studied the search behavior of 24 “experienced […]
- Foursquare Upgrades Its Business Tools With New Specials, Better Analytics
Consumers who’ve updated their Foursquare mobile apps are already using the many new features of Foursquare 3.0. Starting tomorrow (Friday, March 11), businesses that are marketing via Foursquare will also get access to a new suite of behind-the-scenes tools. Here’s a look at what Foursquare has in store for local businesses. Foursquare For Business: What’s […]
- Blekko Blocks More “Spam” Domains: 1.1 Million Of Them
Search engine Blekko has announced that it has now blocked 1.1 million web sites from its search results using a new system it calls “AdSpam,” and new pages from any web site won’t be added if they don’t pass muster. Blocking Spam Before It Gets In From the Blekko press release: “This new technology will […]
- SMX West 2011 Day Two Recap
Day two of the SMX West conference is now over and below you can find many of the live blog coverage from the day. Best of SMX West 2011, managinggreatness.com Building Buzz on Facebook: Getting Liked & Shared, BruceClay.com Building Buzz On Facebook: Getting Liked & Shared, outspokenmedia.com Building Buzz On Facebook: Getting Liked & […]
Search News From Around The Web:
Applications & Portal Features
- Google’s Homepage Promotes Gmail, Google Operating System
Business Issues
- AOL Commences Layoffs Tomorrow of Several Hundred Employees, AllThingsD
- Amazon.com Slammed With Lawsuit Over Instant Search Patent, TechCrunch
- Democrats ask Facebook founder Zuckerberg to keep lock on user info, The Hill’s Hillicon Valley
- Foursquare, Facebook, Founders, and Passion, blog.jayteebee.org
- Google Not Liable for Suggested Vanity Searches–Stayart v. Google, Eric Goldman
Local, Maps & Mobile
- Google Places Dashboard – There’s Good News and There’s Bad News, Mike Blumenthal
- New Street View imagery in Japan, Google Earth Blog
Link Building
- Link Building – Creating Encyclopedic Content, Michael Gray
Paid Search & Contextual
- 7 Ways to Counter Rising CPCs, Search Engine Watch
Searching
- Click-to-call emergency information, Official Google Mobile Blog
- Blekko Banned 1.1 Million Spammy Domains, But Still Shows CRAP… and Our Old Domain (changed 7 months ago!), feefighters.com
- SERPS More Volatile this Week than Last; Google Still Tweaking Panda, Conductor Blog
SEO & SEM
- What Keywords Do I Rank For?, SEOmoz
- Get Your New WordPress Blog Indexed In 24 Hours [checklist], Search Engine People
- Google’s Word Count Experiment, Google Operating System
- GoogleBot Crawling From China & Not California, Search Engine Roundtable
- How Mainstream Media Coverage Has Affected SEO, Google, Search Engine People
- How Not To Use The Canonical Tag For Paginated Results, Search Engine Roundtable
- If you were an SEO of a large company, what would you include in your 2011 strategy?, YouTube
- Landing Page Rendering Issues Detected in Google Adwords, Vertical Leap Blog
- Quick & Dirty Competitive Research for Keywords, SEO Book
- SEO on a Global Scale: Ranking Internationally, Search Engine Watch
- The Past, Present, and Future of [Content] Farming, Search Engine Journal
- Tweak Your Campaign and Track: Pay Per Click Strategies Part Two, dailyseotip.com
- What Does SEO Consist of?, SEOptimise
- Why The BEST Way To Learn SEO Doesn’t Exist Yet, SEO.com
Social Media
- New Facebook Pages Layout Becomes Mandatory, All Facebook
Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:
- At Discovery, Pushing Back Against the 'Content Farm' – An interesting perspective on how one big media outlet is trying to take a different approach to farming.
- How Ratings Extensions Gave a Boost to CTR for Shop Bedding – Case study on how adding a Google AdWords Ratings Extension to a PPC campaign increased click-through-rates. –
The recently introduced AdWords Ratings Extension has been very instrumental in boosting rankings, clickthrough rates, and Quality Scores for our campaigns.
The Ratings Extension works as follows: When an advertising site has 30 or more positive reviews on a third party rating site, that ad will show with an additional line displaying 4 or 5 yellow stars that indicate the average of the site’s rating score. - How To Build Social Media Awareness Into Your Website – Rather than require someone to retrofit a social media solution for your website, why not design it with social media awareness in mind?
- The Incredible, Remarkable, and Undeniable Power of Speed for SEO – I enjoyed this one because I have worked with both SMEs and large corps. One of the major advantages that the smaller companies often have is speed. They are more nimble and that can work to their advantage. All in all (another) great read from Glen
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