At the Bing Search event in San Francisco today, Microsoft unveiled a dizzying array of nearly across-the-board updates and improvements for Bing online and mobile apps. Some are minor and some are more significant. Most of these upgrades and feature enhancements will be available starting today or later this month. There are in fact so […]
Google Maps is clearly a strategic product for the company. But that’s even more true on the iPhone and Android devices — especially Android. One could even make an argument that search on Maps is more important than general web search on mobile for Google. For some time Google has been adding enhancements to Google […]
Clickability, or perceived visual affordance, is a key element of search-engine friendly website design. How do searchers and search engines perceive clickable and unclickable elements?
Talk about eating your own dogfood! Today, Twitter CEO Evan Williams took questions for an hour on Twitter, about Twitter, replying from his own account. What was he asked? Many questions about how the new Twitter works, from people who don’t yet have it. And if he likes cats (yes). I’ve compiled a transcript, below. […]
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 Maps Adds Photo Albums The experience of viewing place photos in Google Maps got a little easier this week. Google has announced that it’s now showing certain place images in […]
Bing has announced they have added transit directions in 11 cities. Transit directions can be used to determine the best way to get from point A to point B via bus, subway, or local rail. Bing released this feature for Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Yahoo Previews “Rich, Immersive” Search Experience Yahoo previewed a new search experience that’s coming this fall during its Yahoo Product Runway event this morning. The event focused on several Yahoo products, […]
Google’s Latest Word On Local This session is of particular interest since it involves word from Google’s Todd Rowe, Director of Global SMB Reseller Partnerships, and changes to Google’s reseller deals in the past year have affected many partners among the yellow pages and directories industry. Live blogging here at 8:30 AM, CST. Keep refreshing […]
In a lawsuit that will be closely watched Boston’s Skyhook Wireless has sued Google for patent infringement and interfering in its business relationship with Motorola. Skyhook’s principal business is providing location to third parties through the use of cell tower and WiFi location databases often referred to as “triangulation.” Skyhook’s system and technology is widely […]
We’ve all seen “virtual tours” of open houses on real-estate sites. What if every location, every restaurant, store, museum, theme park ride and airport had a virtual tour on Google Maps? In three or four years that may be the case as a result of the acquisition of an Israeli company called MentorWave Technologies (or […]
The full length trailer for the social saga based on Facebook debuted on JT’s official blog and Yahoo Movies earlier today: The full length movie is scheduled to be released in early October, bringing the story of Facebook’s rise to fame to the big screen. From the trailer, it looks like we’ll see quite a […]
The Cross-Media Attribution Battle Did that lead come from search? Or whas it PR driven? Or did it come from a traditional branding campaign? Who gets the credit? How do you divide it up? This session looks at the challenges in apportioning credit, necessary to better apportion budgets. [flv:https://searchengineland.com/video_assets/east09/cross_media_attribution_battle.flv 364 200] Moderator: Sara Holubek, Consultant, […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Doodle 4 Google Winner Announced: Melton’s Rainforest Habitat Google announced the winner of the 3rd annual Doodle 4 Google competition. The Doodle is viewable above and will be displayed on the […]
Google has announced the winners of its Street View Trike suggestions contest – a contest that started last October with Google inviting the public to tell the company where to send its trike for hard-to-reach Street View images. With nearly a quarter-million votes cast, Google says the winners are: Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, 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: 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. […]
At the recent Google Search Evolution event late last year, Google Engineering VP Vic Gundotra demonstrated search suggestions on mobile devices that varied by location. He showed that query suggestions could and would be different based on user location. Today Google is rolling that improvement out for the iPhone and Android devices. The geographic point […]
Live from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, I’ll be liveblogging what Google has dubbed “an inside look at the evolution of Google search.” As it turns out, it’s the unveiling of Google’s new Real Time Search, shown above, as well as search by voice and search by picture improvements for mobile. Real time […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Landing Page Testing: Choosing Between A/B Or Multivariate Approaches There are quite a few testing techniques available in the market. In this post I will dwelve into the two commonest testing […]
I’m just back from speaking at MarketingSherpa’s B2B Summits in San Francisco and Boston, where I was giving a joint presentation with a client on SEO. As part of that presentation, we talked about the role and impact of corporate blogging. The client is a professional services firm operating solely in the B2B space. Theirs […]
Microsoft has unveiled Bing 2.0 at TechCrunch50 today, also known as Bing Visual Search, which allows people to “search by picture.” After much speculation following Microsoft’s annual meeting last week in Seattle, many had expected to see an update to Bing Maps, integrating Silverlight technology to display images of local businesses and locations within map […]
David Fischer, who’s had his hands in Google’s AdWords, AdSense, and Book Scanning programs (among others), is on his way out. Silicon Alley Insider is reporting from an internal Google memo that Fischer will take a sabbatical later this month and return to Google “at the end of the year” in a new role that […]
A company’s brand is its cornerstone. Given that, building your brand requires a balance of marketing efforts across various channels. Fortunately, search and social media are great ways to build your brand today. Social media’s role in branding More than ever before, a company’s brand is influenced by what consumers are saying about it online. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: SMX East Agenda Posted: All the Search Marketing Topics for All Skill Levels Come to Search Marketing Expo – SMX East for content so compelling, you may be implementing what you’ve […]
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 AdWords To Add Addresses On Ads: Location Extensions The Google AdWords Blog announced they will be allowing advertisers to add the full address to their search ads through location extensions. […]
Image search could use a little organization, especially when you’re searching for generic terms like place names — cities, states, or tourist/geographic attractions. Who wants to browse through a couple million images of Boston to help plan your first visit there? Yahoo is making it easier to virtually tour popular places with what it calls […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Reports: Yahoo & Microsoft Very Close On Search Deal There are several reports tonight that Yahoo and Microsoft are close to consummating a search and advertising deal. 24/7 Wall Street cites […]
Today, the question every small business owner needs to ask himself is: will search engine users be able to find my business online? The online visibility of a business is difficult to measure. Having a good website is just the beginning. SMBs need to be listed on leading directory sites, vertical and local sites and […]
Move over, Denny Crane: SMX has its own legal star programming and moderating panels in Seattle next month. In our fourth installment of our behind the scenes look at how SMX gets put together, Jeff Rohrs talks about paid search, law, fraud and what he’s looking forward to most at SMX Advanced. You are a […]
Back in 2000, there was a little-remembered but amazing survey that I love to cite showing how search engines had, in only a few years, topped the list of information resources consulted. They’d even pushed past family and friends. Now the times are changing, as family and friends have themselves become easily searchable resources. The […]
Your web site’s bounce rate may be a significant factor in your search engine rankings. If the bounce rate on your site is high, you could end up with lower rankings in the search engines. Correspondingly, lower bounce rates may actually offer meaningful ranking boosts. (Don’t know what a bounce rate is? Hang on—definitions below.) […]
In my last Industrial Strength post, Using Competitive Intelligence To Protect Your Brand, I wrote about how to use tools like Hitwise to protect your brand. I am going to explore this topic a bit more, but this time show some of the unique features of AdGooroo. Since I did not show an example of […]
Protecting your brand online is an ongoing activity. It requires hard work and due diligence. One area of concern is when others bid on your brand, or use your brand name in their ads. My current understanding of Google’s policy is that it’s OK to bid on a competitive brand name, but it is not […]
If you are like me, when you implement PPC campaigns one of the mental notes you have in your checklist is to go into the Campaign Settings for each campaign and prevent your ads from running on the content network. It turns out that this might be a mistake. At the recent SMX Advanced event […]
The most important thing you can do when talking to an SEO client (be it your boss in your company, or a different company you consult for) is to learn how to explain SEO in the simplest terms possible. When you are dealing with a non-SEO type, use the 30 second rule: explain it clearly […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web
In another case of major mapspam (discovered first by Imnotadoctor), an SMB-local internet market firm, Big Local, has captured many of the top positions in the Google Maps “onebox” for the category “internet consulting.” Below are some examples from various cities.
A new research paper from Yahoo and Cornell University — with search legend Jon Kleinberg as one of the coauthors — provides a fascinating look at how a search query such as "red sox" or "hurricane deal" can be centered around a physical location — including one that changes over time.
In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today’s in-depth look, “Geo-Targeting On The Engines,” and this week’s free tips and tools.
For a long time there has been a tug of war between developers and designers who love to use Flash and SEOs who know how bad Flash can be from a search engine crawler perspective. The designer wants the beauty of an all Flash site. The SEO wants to bring the site traffic. It’s a […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.