Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: A/B Testing From Search To Conversion As I mentioned in a previous post, search marketers should work on finding the middle ground between a high CTR (appealing ads) and a high […]
For the fourth straight year, “facebook” was the most common search term in the U.S. this year — part of an increase in navigational searching that saw one-word searches rise 16 percent in 2012. That’s according to Experian Marketing Services, which announced its list of 2012’s top search terms today. The data covers search activity […]
Don’t worry, Google’s year in review for 2012 isn’t that predictable for the once in a lifetime calendar event. On the official Google 2012 Zeitgeist website, you’ll find their biggest list ever published, with a total of 838 lists from 55 countries, covering 1.2 trillion searches done worldwide. Digging in deeper, Google has divided the massive […]
People have strongly criticized Google for confusing local marketers by having two places to update and enhance local business information (Google Places, Google+ Local Pages). But there’s also something confusing about what Microsoft appears to be doing in local listings management. The company appeared to be trying to establish the Bing Business Portal as the definitive place […]
Remember in August Google launched a new algorithm we coined the Pirate Update? It basically looked at the number of valid DMCA takedown requests processed and used that data to downgrade the rankings of sites that were found to be abusive in this area. Since then, it appears some people have been abusing the algorithm. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Mobile Search Beyond Google: In App Search Tools A couple months back, I covered the rise of a new generation of Windows Phones, and how they will slowly bring more mobile […]
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, […]
Bing is attacking Google over its shift to a pay-for-play shopping search engine through a new “Scroogled” site, pledging that Bing has “honest search.” Great campaign, if it were true. It’s not. Bing itself does the same things it accuses Google of. It’s also another indictment of how little the FTC is doing to protect […]
As consumers prepare to get serious about their holiday shopping, Google is introducing new features to its pay-for-play Shopping search engine, including 360 degree product images, deals and discounts, and a collaborative shopping list. 360 Degree Views Start With Toys The company has started its effort to get 360 degree images of products with the […]
When is personalized search not personalized search? A recently discovered shift on how Google may alter your search results based on what you — and others in aggregate — previously have searched for may have you wondering how to answer that question. To understand the latest development, I think it’s helpful to go back and […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Priceline To Buy Travel Search Engine Kayak For $1.8 Billion Priceline is a public company that owns several other travel brands, including Booking.com, Agoda.com, Cheaptickets.com, Rentalcars.com and a few other travel […]
After last month’s major change to Google Shopping, making the service solely pay-for-play, the company is exploring ways for affiliates to participate via Product Listing Ads (PLAs) in the US. Google Shopping has been testing ways of working with affiliates for nearly six months in alpha and is now opening up the beta to additional […]
Yelp is now showing “Consumer Alert” warning messages on the profile pages of eight businesses that it says it caught in a sting operation trying to buy reviews. As the New York Times reports, Yelp conducted a sting operation in which one of its employees pretended to be an “Elite” reviewer and responded to review […]
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 Launches Disavow Links Tool Google has launched a new and widely anticipated “disavow links” tool. The tool was announced by the head of Google’s web spam team Matt Cutts, when […]
It would appear that Siri will be getting a little more searchy. As AllThingsD reported this afternoon Apple has hired William Stasior, the guy who took over at Amazon’s search engine A9 after Udi Manber left for Google. While Siri isn’t a search engine it can operate like one from a user perspective. With Stasior’s […]
Reuters is reporting that majority of those on the US Federal Trade Commission believe an antitrust case should be brought against Google. But if action comes, it doesn’t seem likely to involve Google being found to “favor” its own “vertical” search engines like local or shopping over competing ones. Apparently four of the five FTC commissioners […]
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 CEO Doug Leeds Proclaims Search Wars “Over,” Says Yahoo Can Be Great Again Ask.com has 3.5 percent of the search market according to comScore. Ask.com CEO Doug Leeds told Bloomberg […]
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, during an interview at the 92nd Street Y in New York last night, made the case that Apple should have kept Google Maps on the iPhone. “Apple’s done very well using our maps,” he joked. When asked directly about a forthcoming iOS Google Maps app, Schmidt gave the familiar line […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Apple Does The “Miracle On 34th Street” Thing, Promotes Third Party Maps In App Store In the beloved holiday film Miracle on 34th Street, people at Macy’s department store in New […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The E-commerce Product Video That Increases Revenue Per Visit Which video recipe will make your cash register ring more often and more loudly? It was the end of a 12-hour video […]
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 Removed The Pirate Bay From Instant Search TorrentFreak reports Google has removed The Pirate Bay from showing up in Google’s search suggestions within Google Instant Search. Google Instant Search will […]
As Google shifts its Shopping search to a pay-for-play model, one key commerce company appears to be sitting on the sidelines — Amazon. As noted in a New York Times feature that ran over the weekend, consumers who search on Google Shopping can find Kindles from a variety of stores via the listings, but Amazon isn’t […]
Ubergizmo is reporting that Bing (not Google) will be the default search engine for the Amazon browser on the new Kindle tablets. (We were able to confirm this with Microsoft directly earlier this evening.) The original Kindle Fire used Google. Amazon is likely to sell several million of these new devices given their aggressive pricing […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Search In Pics: Google Belly Dancer, Ask.com Summer Party & Android Claw Crane In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people […]
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: Apollo’s Giant Leap In Computer Power Is One Small Step For Searchkind With the Apollo moon missions on many minds, after the death this weekend of the first moonwalker, Neil […]
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: Further Penguin Update “Jolts” To Come; Panda Is Smoother & Monthly Fasten your seat belt, if you’ve been spamming Google. The anti-spam “Penguin Update” will have more jolts in the […]
Google has done nothing illegal. Just the same some British Members of Parliament (MPs) are angry and will likely call company executives (probably Eric Schmidt) to testify about why Google doesn’t pay its “fair share” of taxes in the UK. According to published reports and company filings Google made £395 million ($620 million) in revenues […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Amazon Buys UpNext, Will We Soon See Kindle Maps? Amazon has done a really interesting thing: it just bought mapping app UpNext. UpNext is a 3D mapping company that started on […]
Amazon has done a really interesting thing: it just bought mapping app UpNext. UpNext is a 3D mapping company that started on the PC in 2007 and more recently shifted its focus substantially to smartphones and the iPad. While UpNext has not received the same attention as other mapping startups the company has slowly built […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The Current State Of PPC Keyword Match Types I’ll start with a big thank you! It’s been a busy few months with advertisers and Google forcefully exchanging opinions back and forth […]
Today ICANN, the organization responsible for administering “top level” domain names on the internet (e.g. dot-com, dot-org, etc) pulled aside the curtain and gave the world a glimpse of proposed new “dot-anything” names, including both the desired domain names and the organization wanting them them. It’s an interesting, and often bizarre collection of names and […]
In 2002, the US Federal Trade Commission created guidelines on how search engines should disclose paid placement and paid inclusion listings. It’s become clear to me over the past two weeks that the search engine industry has either largely forgotten these guidelines or is ignoring them. That’s why I’ve written a letter today to the […]
Google Product Search is getting a new name, Google Shopping, and a new business model where only merchants that pay will be listed. It’s the first time Google will decommission a search product that previously listed companies for free. The company says the change will improve the searcher experience, but it will also likely raise […]
While Google’s new smartphone bot has been announced, it does not appear to be widely deployed yet; at least that is what I said during a recent presentation in Sydney, where I had the pleasure of meeting Alistair Lattimore (Al). Al does CRO, SEO and agency management for Mantra Group, which is the second largest […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Snapshot, Sidebar Oh My: Live Blogging the Bing Search Summit Danny and I are here at the Bing Search Summit in San Francisco. For a comprehensive overview of the new Bing […]
A new study suggests that Wikipedia gets better visibility on Google than it does on Bing. While that may not surprise much of the SEO industry, it contradicts what some Google employees have previously said, as well as another recent study on Wikipedia’s search visibilty. Last week, Conductor released updated data about Wikipedia’s search visibility, […]
Google’s latest search algorithm change designed to fight spam and improve its search results went live yesterday. Plenty of people are seeing its impact already. Better or worse? It’s easy to find some examples of things being bad; it’s hard to say overall if there’s been a net improvement or not. Judging Relevancy Is Tricky […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Breadcrumb Trails Come To AdWords Display URLs on AdWords search ads are getting another element — breadcrumb trails, a set of links next to the URL that lets users navigate directly […]
Several weeks ago, I had the privilege of being part of a Search Marketing Now (SMN) webinar, it was sponsored by Optify and focused on B2B link building tactics. Scott Fasser, Director of Customer Experience at Optify and I shared a number of B2B linking tactics and then hosted a lively Q&A session. We ran out of time and […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The 1940 U.S. Census: Soon, A Searcher’s Treasure Trove Big news for genealogists, historians and even for people just curious about their own families: the 1940 U.S. Census is now available […]