Searchers looking for local businesses on Google Maps can now see brief, descriptive characteristics as part of the primary business listing. And they’ll be seeing the same things soon on Google.com, Places search and Google Maps for mobile, too. Google’s announcement explains that the terms come from “sources all across the web, such as reviews, […]
On Tuesday morning, SEOmoz’s Rand Fishkin presented evidence at our SMX Advanced conference that there’s a high correlation between Facebook Shares and ranking well on search engines. In afternoon, the head of Google’s web spam team Matt Cutts said that Google doesn’t see Facebook Share data at all. An SEO-search engine catfight? No, both actually […]
Google has announced an update to the algorithm that powers traffic estimates in AdWords’ Traffic Estimator, Keyword Tool and on the Keywords tab. The intention is that advertisers will have access to better numbers on estimated clicks, cost and ad position. Traffic estimates help advertisers get a sense of whether potential keywords are appropriate for […]
Late February, Google launched a substantial algorithm change (known as “Farmer” or “Panda”) aimed at identifying low-quality pages and sites. These are pages (often seen on so-called “content farms”) with text that is relevant for a query, but may not provide the best user experience. (Google calls it a “high quality sites algorithm”.) Today, Google has […]
It’s a well known feature of Google. Start typing in a search, and Google offers suggestions before you’ve even finished typing. But how does Google come up with those suggestions? When does Google remove some suggestions? When does Google decide not to interfere? Come along for some answers.
Twitter announced that it has improved its “Who To Follow” feature with better people search results and added a new advanced search page, making it easier to do such searches at Twitter.com. People Search Gets Subject-Specific Now when you search for a topic in Twitter’s search box, Twitter will suggest people to follow based on […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Transcript: Google & Bing On Whitelists & Exception Lists Last week at our SMX West show, Google and Bing spoke about how sites might get excepted from being harmed by particular […]
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 […]
Today at SMX West, the subject of the day was content farms. One session included the founder of (sometimes-called content farm) Associated Content, Luke Beatty, and focused on the good that can be learned from content farms, as well as what sites who have been hit by Google’s Farmer aka Panda update can do to regain […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Ask Launches Local Conversations iPhone App Ask.com noticed some interesting behavior happening on its Q&A iPhone application. People were trying to have “conversations” in the comments area of the app, according […]
Earlier, we wrote about a Wired article that looked at how the Cult Of Mac web site had regained traffic lost after Google’s recent Farmer Update algorithm change. A fix just for Cult Of Mac? A fix to the algorithm? Neither, Google has told Search Engine Land.
Google is aware that some “good” sites have been hurt by the recent Farmer algorithm update and is working to fix the problem already. That’s according to a Wired.com story that focuses largely on Cult of Mac, an Apple-centric blog that lost 80% of its keyword rankings according to the Sistrix data that came out […]
In January, Google promised that it would take action against content farms that were gaining top listings with “shallow” or “low-quality” content. Now the company is delivering, announcing a change to its ranking algorithm designed take out such material. New Change Impacts 12% Of US Results The new algorithm — Google’s “recipe” for how to […]
Google’s long created title tags from means other than using the HTML title tag, however, there are reports that it might be increasing the times it does so. A WebmasterWorld thread has dozens of webmasters complaining that Google is not using their HTML title tags. The HTML title tag is often used by Google as […]
Yes, Google might consider changing its ranking algorithm in response to an EU anti-trust investigation. However, that would fit in with Google’s general practice of changing its algorithm on a regular basis in response to anything the company thinks will improve its results.
Greg Linden reports that Google has switched the algorithm they use for YouTube’s recommendation engine from their own to a variation of Amazon’s algorithm that was designed in the late 90s. This is an interesting move being that Google has the man power and smarts to build a fairly good recommendation on their own. But […]
Google has run a sting operation that it says proves Bing has been watching what people search for on Google, the sites they select from Google’s results, then uses that information to improve Bing’s own search listings. Bing doesn’t deny this. As a result of the apparent monitoring, Bing’s relevancy is potentially improving (or getting […]
Earlier this week, Google’s Matt Cutts announced the company would be releasing a new on-page spam detection technique to reduce the amount of content spam we see in Google. Cutts just confirmed the rumors that this algorithm is indeed live. Matt said the change to their algorithm to prevent low-quality scraper content in Google’s index […]
The concept of “search neutrality” that has recently emerged is an attractive idea to many, appealing to notions of even-handedness and fair play. However it completely breaks down when one seriously considers its implications in practice. We’ve written a great deal about the challenges and problems lurking behind “search neutrality.” Now in an academic article, […]
Has Google’s relevancy gotten worse? A recent opinion poll suggests not, while at the same time confirming a concern that’s been rising in anecdotal accounts — there’s too much “noise” surrounding the “signal.” Rasmussen Reports surveyed 740 adult Americans on January 4-5 about a variety of search engine related issues. The key question that caught […]
Both Google and Bing have added many social search features over the past year. There’s also been talk about using “social signals” to help rank regular search results. But are either of the major search engines actually using those social signals to rank regular search results? A bit, they tell me. In particular, your stature […]
Twitter is rolling out a directory to share suggestions for new users to follow, but it’s not a traditional A-to-Z directory of user listings. There is, however, a prominent search box atop the who-to-follow directory, and … just our luck … it accepts single-character searches. An alphabetical user directory wouldn’t really tell us anything, would […]
Generally, Google tries to show a varied set of search results, which among other things, means they’ll only show up to two results from any single domain for a query (at least, on the first page). Exceptions have always existed. For instance, if you search for a domain, Google might only show results from that […]
If you’re a Twitter user, you have a TweepRank. Or perhaps a TwitRank. Or maybe an AtRank. Whatever it’s called, it’s a personal reputation score that Twitter has given you based on your Twitter activity. And Twitter isn’t about to reveal it in the form of a little blue bar on your home page. Twitter […]
You’ve made the case for advanced optimization, implemented loads of slick technology and deployed across some or all of your paid search programs. Did you do the right thing? Did you make more money? If so, how much more? To answer the question “did I make more money” implies a baseline. Trouble is, you don’t […]
As was rumored last week, Twitter has formally introduced its latest advertising option: Promoted Accounts. Promoted Accounts will show up in the “Who to follow” section of a Twitter home page, and is fully algorithmic in deciding when and which promoted accounts to display. According to the company’s announcement, what and when you might see […]
Do a search for politics on Bing Social Search, and its new “who to follow on Twitter” feature offer exactly one person: Sarah Palin.
Google’s been under fire in various quarters, including the New York Times, that it should open up about how its ranking algorithm works. I think offering the exact formula would be difficult plus potentially give away trade secrets. But how about just listing some of the basic “ingredients?” Nope, said Google CEO Eric Schmidt, this […]
In January, I was invited to speak to Google’s search quality team about issues I had with Google’s search results. My topic? For queries where I know a subject really well, I often found Google provided some pretty poor results in the top listings along with the good ones. I wanted more perfection! With the […]
Prior to this week, Google would only show up to two results from the same domain on a single search result page. Now, Google has confirmed what many are seeing, where a single brand dominates a single page of Google’s search results. This is not a bug, this is not an anomaly, it is an […]
Some time ago, a gentleman by the name of Mark Cramer emailed me wanting to talk about the future of search. It was probably precipitated by the Search:2010 whitepaper we produced in 2007, where I talked to several search and UX notables, including Danny Sullivan, Chris Sherman, Marissa Mayer, Jakob Nielsen and others. Alas, Mark […]
It seems like the Google Alerts team is up to some new tricks. A couple weeks ago, Google tweaked the quality algorithm of Google Alerts and, although I missed it then TechCrunch noticed, they dropped the web alerts option. In regards to the quality change, Googler Marcel said: Regarding the volume of alerts, we’ve been […]
There have been several changes this week at Google that I found particularly interesting and wanted to summarize for you. Of course, yesterday’s May Day confirmation story from Vanessa Fox has details on the ranking algorithm change Google put into place earlier this month. That may be the biggest Google related webmaster story of the […]
Mashable reports that Twitter has confirmed they changed their trending topics algorithm last week. Twitter’s Trending Topics, which later allowed localize trends, shows the most popular subjects being talked about on Twitter. Twitter said they now not only look at what is most popular, but what is “immediately” most popular on Twitter. Meaning, the Twitter […]
Google’s Matt Cutts just posted a video on YouTube answering the question, “how many search algorithm changes were made in 2009?” In response to that question, Matt said Google likely makes a change per day to the search algorithm. They don’t necessarily release those changes each day, but they will release them in batches. But […]
The Google AdSense Blog announced they have made the “biggest performance overhaul” to the AdSense link units in history. This update was a “full rewrite of the link unit matching system,” which is pretty significant. Google tells us we can expect the link units to return better ads. The ad system uses a “more sophisticated […]
Google has kept a promise it made last year: Site speed is now a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm, and is already in place for U.S. searchers. But Google also cautions web site owners not to sacrifice relevance in the name of faster web pages, and even says this new ranking factor will impact very […]
Twitter’s search results have changed thanks to the addition of a feature that wasn’t much of a secret in recent weeks. When using search.twitter.com, or the search box on Twitter.com, the results now show up to three “most popular tweets” at the top, above the most recent results. For example, a search tonight for ipad […]
As Twitter continues to roll out its new home page, more users — new and old — are being exposed to the new “Top Tweets” feature. As we said yesterday, Top Tweets shows a collection of recent messages that scroll every couple seconds. That’s what it does, but the bigger question is, How does it […]
Twitter is testing a new home page design that introduces new users to a wider view of the site’s functionality by focusing on specific content and users rather than the more nebulous idea of trending keywords and hashtags. I can’t get the new home page to load, so here’s a look at the screenshot Twitter […]