Topic: Amazon.com

Is Facebook Becoming More Important Than Google?

That intentionally “inflammatory” headline is inspired by an article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday, “Facebook directs more online users than Google.” The article cites Compete data and says, “Facebook has passed search-engine giant Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is among the […]

US Dept. Of Justice: Court “Lacks Authority To Approve” Google Book Search Settlement

With a final “fairness hearing” scheduled for February 18, the US Department Of Justice has filed briefs (PDF) in opposition to the Google Book Search Amended Settlement Agreement (“ASA”). The DOJ commends the parties for their efforts to reach an amended agreement that addresses some of the problems with the original settlement but concludes that […]

SEO

The Google Decade: Search In Review, 2000 To 2009

The 2000s were notable as the first full decade of consumer search. The first decade ever where you could try to sum up what happened in search, as a consumer product. And what happened, in a word, was Google. In the 1990s, Google barely existed. If search were a religion, it was polytheistic. There were […]

SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 28, 2010

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Ballmer Blogs His Thoughts On Google, China Both current Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and former CEO Bill Gates have recently spoken out critically about Google’s stance on doing business in China. […]

SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 15, 2010

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: OneRiot Launches RiotWise Ad Network For Real-Time Search OneRiot has announced the full rollout of RiotWise, a service that it calls “the first ad network for the realtime web.” Today’s launch […]

Amazon Slaps UK Affiliates Using Search Marketing Techniques

Like Amazon did several months ago to U.S. affiliates, Amazon sent an email to their UK affiliates basically preventing them from using certain paid search techniques and free search techniques to drive sales to Amazon. The message sent to their UK affiliates yesterday read: After careful review of our Associates programme, we have made the […]

Nexus One: What Exactly Happened Yesterday In Mountain View?

The 1950s classic Japanese film Rashômon by Akira Kurosawa is an exploration of human perception, truth and how there can be widely differing accounts of the same event. The film’s plot revolves around the rape of a woman and murder of her husband and is told through dramatically differing accounts of four witnesses. The stories […]

Year In Review: Search Goes Mobile

The iPhone was introduced on June 29, 2007 and that was effectively the beginning of the mobile internet era. With the iPhone also came the acceleration of mobile search for Google, the default engine for the iconic Apple device. This year mobile became a cornerstone of Google’s strategy with a string of announcements, product tweaks […]

Google Images Testing “Infinite Scroll” Search Results

Google is testing a new interface for their Image Search feature. The interface allows you to see an infinite number of image results in the search results, simply by scrolling. This works similar to how Bing Image Search currently works, where you do not have to use the pagination to see more results. Instead, the […]

SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 10, 2009

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 & Real Time Madness Make no mistake. I think real time search is indeed one of the most exciting developments that’s happened in the search space in years. But I […]

Google Mobile Gets “What’s Nearby,” Voice Search Expands & “Goggles” Search By Snapping Pictures

The Google Search Evolution event today featured a fair amount of discussion of the impact of mobile on the future direction of search and the user experience. There was a flurry of announcements about mobile products and feature upgrades, summarized on the Google Mobile Blog. Danny live-blogged the event. Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering, […]

Google Now Personalizes Everyone’s Search Results

Beginning today, Google will now personalize the search results of anyone who uses its search engine, regardless of whether they’ve opted-in to a previously existing personalization feature. Searchers will have the ability to opt-out completely, and there are various protections designed to safeguard privacy. However, being opt-out rather than opt-in will likely raise some concerns. […]

AOL’s List Of Lists – Top Searches 2009

AOL has weighed in with a heavy hitting list of 2009’s top searches in the categories below. AOL’s top searched celebrities for 2009 michael jackson robert pattinson rihanna farrah fawcett kim kardashian megan fox jon and kate miley cyrus patrick swayze natasha richardson Oh, Edward. Patrick Swayze should roadhouse you from heaven. It surprising that […]

Two Essential Search Channels To Boost Holiday Sales

Here are a couple important areas for Industrial Strength search marketers to focus on right now, both of which are feed-based: Google Product Search and Yahoo! Paid Inclusion. Below I outline why these channels matter more than ever this holiday season, and how they can help you capture substantial traffic and sales. Google Product Search […]

Reflections On Chrome OS From A Consumer Perspective

Google hosted something of a formal “status update” on Chrome the operating system in Mountain View on Thursday. There we discovered the company is open-sourcing the code. We also found out it’s intended as a netbook OS (for now) and that Google is working with several hardware partners to create a better netbook experience (full-sized […]

Revised Google Book Settlement Filed & Live Blogging The Press Call

As expected, a revised Google Book Settlement has been filed today — about as late as possible. The agreement narrows the scope to the US, UK, Canada and Australia. It alters how revenue generated by “unclaimed works” will be handled. It formally grants retailers who license out-of-print books covered by the settlement — including Google […]

Live Blogging From The Google Discover Music Launch Event

The expected Google Music Search is real, and our Google Music Search 2.0 Launches With Musical “OneBox” story provides the play-by-play of how it works. Be sure to read that! From me, the color commentary out of today’s launch event at Capitol Records in Hollywood. I’ll be live blogging the news. We’re expecting some musical […]

SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 22, 2009

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Can Search Marketing Generate Emails To Local Businesses? Local businesses typically use search marketing to achieve two main objectives: getting customer calls and walk-ins. They do this by publishing their address […]

Rumor: Here Comes GTunes, Google Music Service

Google is reportedly about to launch a new music service in partnership with LaLa and iLike (MySpace). — Update, October 28, 2009: This is now live. See our story, Google Music Search 2.0 Launches With Musical “OneBox” for more. — According to TechCrunch, users will access the Google music service through search: Users will be […]

SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 19, 2009

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Supporting A Global Brand Campaign With SEM On the heels of launching Yahoo campaigns in three countries in eight days on an incredibly tight timeline, it makes sense to take a […]

SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 15, 2009

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’s Q3: $5.94 billion, 7 Percent YoY Revenue Growth, 14 Percent Paid Click Growth Expectations were high for Google’s Q3 given some of the positive reports coming out about clicks and […]

Google Editions: Online E-Bookstore Coming in 2010

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, Google revealed its plans to launch Google Editions, an online store to sell e-books. The company says the store will launch in the first half of 2010 with about half a million e-books. The e-books will come from publishers with whom Google already works, and unlike Amazon’s Kindle e-reader/store, the […]

SEO

Shopping Site TheFind Relaunches As “Buying Engine”

If Bing can brand itself “decision engine” as a strategy to differentiate  from the leading “search engine” so can shopping comparison site TheFind. The latter is now calling itself a “buying engine” as a way to emerge from the anonymous sea of shopping search sites out there. This morning a redesigned TheFind went live with […]

SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 9, 2009

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Dissecting The AP & Murdoch Speeches Against Those Internet News Thieves Associated Press president Tom Curley and News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch both made speeches yesterday in China that are being […]

PPC

Yahoo Search Ads Now Filtered By Site Option

The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog announced the search ads displayed on Yahoo Search are now filtered based on the filtered sites you select on the left bar. For example, here is a search for a product in Yahoo Search: Notice all those ads? Well, when I filter the results to Amazon only, Yahoo only shows […]

SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 29, 2009

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Shashi Seth, Another Ex-Googler, Lands At AOL AOL announced today that it’s hired former Google employee Shashi Seth as its Senior VP of Global Advertising Products. While with Google, Seth was […]

SEO

Google’s Schmidt To Book Settlement Critics: What’s Your Solution?

As the proposed Google Book Search lawsuit settlement is debated, I’ve read calls from various critics that everything should go back to “square one” for a solution. Would Google be willing to do this? Google CEO Eric Schmidt says he’s open to ideas, but none of the critics are putting forward new solutions that would […]

Google Gives Some Ground In Books Row, France Moves To Protect “Orphans”

Google reportedly made a number of concessions to European officials concerned about the European implications of the Google Books Search settlement deal. The company is fighting on both sides of the Atlantic to gain regulatory and judicial acceptance of the deal previously announced, which has been criticized by a number of self-interested parties and legal […]

SEO

SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 21, 2009

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Will The TVAnywhere Initiative Miss The Point? The cable industry’s “TV Anywhere” strategy is much in the news this month, as a response to the rapid adoption by consumers of sites […]

Microsoft, Yahoo, & Amazon Will Fight Google Book Settlement

There are several reports (see New York Times and Wall Street Journal) that Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon will join a coalition aimed at challenging the Google book settlement. Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive, which is putting the coalition together, tells the Wall Street Journal that coalition members want the agreement revised, but aren’t […]

SEO

‘Augmented Reality’ Is Also A Form Of Search

We’re really just at the beginning of the era of “mobile search.” Even what we think of as “search” will be dramatically altered by innovations in mobile. In this first phase the transfer of what might be called the “query box” (and related links) into mobile is complete. In time, however, we many even come […]

SEO

Five More Search Tools You May Not Know … But Should

Have you ever needed to see the search results for another city — maybe because you want to see what PPC ads are shown somewhere else? Have you ever needed to see search results from a different country, or in a different language? Maybe you’re into real time search, and you’d love a place to […]

SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 10, 2009

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 Photos To Some Location-Based Search Results Google has announced a minor change to its search results page for some geographic-based queries. To fill in the white space that used […]