Yahoo’s up again in comScore’s latest search rankings. Reason? It seems largely due to non-search “slideshow” activity. Solution? Time to end the bullshit way search share figures are calculated. Chance of success? Probably nil, but it’s worth hoping for. Today’s figures, for share of searches in the US handled by the major search engines, show […]
Good morning from Seattle! The sun is shining outside and the coffee is flowing inside (as required by city ordinance) and day two of SMX Advanced is about to get started. Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President, Online Audience Business at Microsoft will be sitting down in a few moments for a Q&A conversation with Search […]
Responding to Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ declaration that on mobile devices “search hasn’t happened,” we’ve now written several times about how mobile apps of various sorts are essentially search by another name. Just to refresh your memory, here’s Jobs making that statement in April of this year: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuQWPGTBVE4&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] The specific app he references (in case […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Fighting The Oil Spill On Google: BP Versus The Lawyers As oil-poisoned pelicans are found on Gulf shorelines, lawyers and British Petroleum are looking to Google for help gaining public awareness. […]
Measuring How Search Ads Drive Offline Conversions ROBO – This Terminator-like acronym actually means "research online, buy offline." Despite the fact that well over 90% of all purchases are made at brick and mortar stores, a study by Yahoo and comScore found that consumers exposed to online retail marketing campaigns were more engaged and spent […]
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, Google Offering Dueling “Health Maps” Microsoft and Google both have ambitious electronic health records initiatives. But today both introduced “health maps” that enable data visualization on a mapping interface. Bing […]
YouTube continues to dominate the video search landscape, but Vevo is off to a good start according to the comScore numbers for April 2010. YouTube’s 43% market share remains light years ahead of everyone else in the space, with Hulu and Microsoft in second and third, respectively. ComScore estimates that YouTube served more than 13 […]
Steve Jobs’ interview at the D8 conference last night was widely covered and live-blogged. He covered lots of ground, from competing with Android, to rejecting Flash, Apple TV and AT&T’s network. Below I discuss selected (mostly search-related) parts of the lengthy interview. Putting to rest a very persistent rumor, Jobs said that notwithstanding Android and […]
Cookie cutters are a great idea… for making cookies. But when it comes to marketing, a cookie cutter approach can do more damage than good. Unfortunately, many search marketers do exactly that when they treat their keywords, ad copy, landing pages and customers all the same.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Woman Follows Google Maps “Walking” Directions, Gets Hit, Sues Is Google responsible for giving out bad directions through its Google Maps service? We’re about to find out. After Googling walking directions […]
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 […]
Mike Arrington just had a no-holds barred interview with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz at TechCrunch Disrupt. Bartz gave back as good as she got, at least in sound bites. As usual, I didn’t find many of her statements convincing. A highlight was her saying “Google is 90% search. That’s a fact.” It’s not. In particular, […]
It seems like a match made in SEO heaven: An old, trusted, powerful domain like Yahoo.com and a content factory like Associated Content. That partnership is coming soon thanks to Yahoo’s announcement today that it’s agreed to buy Associated Content. Financial terms were not announced, though some reports peg the sale at about $100 million. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Has Facebook’s Active User Growth Dropped 25% to 50%? Are a significant number of people cancelling their Facebook accounts because of privacy concerns? The easy answer would be for Facebook to […]
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 Search Funnel Reports—Tunnel Vision? On March 19, 2010 Google unveiled Google AdWords Search Funnel Reports via this YouTube video. This was a great day for proponents of multi-attribution marketing analysis. […]
comScore’s out with new search market share figures. Yahoo’s up, but did it “game” its growth with new navigational changes? Gaming figures is nothing new. But even if Yahoo effectively did, it’s the search volume — the number of searches — that people should care more about in deciding who’s “winning” and “losing” when it […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Keynoting SMX Advanced Seattle: Microsoft SVP Yusuf Mehdi Microsoft’s Bing is turning one year old, and according to just-released comScore qSearch data continues to gain market share at the expense of […]
Microsoft’s Bing is turning one year old, and according to just-released comScore qSearch data continues to gain market share at the expense of Google. We’re excited about our keynote conversation at SMX Advanced Seattle, where Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s Senior Vice President, Online Audience Business and a key executive on the Bing team discusses the evolution […]
The comScore monthly search data release is now such an anti-climax because it’s “leaked” a day ahead of time by financial analysts and then immediately republished by bloggers who receive the research notes. We’re on that list too. This month’s data (April) are a bit muddled because of UI changes at Yahoo and Google. Here’s […]
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-MSFT Advertiser Transition To Start This Summer Yahoo and Microsoft have both shared updates on their plans to transition advertisers as part of the new “search alliance” between the two companies, […]
Google was hoping that the announcement of Apple’s iAd program would help with approval of the AdMob acquisition at the FTC. However that doesn’t seem to be the case; Bloomberg reported on Friday that the FTC seemed poised to try and block the deal: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission staff is urging the filing of […]
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 Tests Phone Numbers In AdWords Ads A reader sent us a screen capture of a phone number being listed in the Google AdWords ad text. The phone number is not […]
There seems to be no end to our collective appetite for watching video online. According to the latest comScore numbers, more than 180 million U.S. internet users watched video online during March. That number is a 3.5% jump from the February video viewing audience. As you’d expect, the vast majority of all this happened on […]
Wall Street is a curious place. A number of companies last week and this week reported very strong revenues suggesting that the recession is in fact over. But investors, disappointed that performance wasn’t even stronger, punished their shares perhaps with more aggressive expectations than were justified under the circumstances. Amazon and eBay are two examples […]
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 On Break Up: Cut Us In Half, They’d Demand Quarters Google isn’t mincing words in response to reports yesterday that a consumer advocacy group thinks the government should break up […]
Google has decided to change the name of what was called the “Google Local Business Center” to “Google Places.” The rationale, according to the press release, is to better connect Google Place Pages with the place where local business information is claimed, entered and enhanced: Why? Millions of people use Google every day to find […]
How many searches does Twitter handle per month? We’ve finally got a figure: 19 billion. That has Twitter doing over nearly five times the queries that Bing handles and about 20% of those that mega search star Google processes. But hang on. Even Twitter cofounder Ev Williams says the figures aren’t all apple to apples. […]
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 Medium Is The Message In Link Building In 1964, Marshall McLuhan proposed the idea “that media itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study.” He said […]
Twitter’s rumored Promoted Tweets are now official, launching only a day after the very similar TweetUp launched (will that be DOA?). Promoted Tweets has two phases, which might be described as an AdWords phase and an AdSense phase. The AdWords part is what is launching first. Marketers buy keywords (for now on a CPM basis) […]
In his iPhone OS 4 preview keynote last Thursday Apple CEO Steve Jobs made the following provocative (some would argue inflammatory) statement about search on mobile phones: On the desktop search is where it’s at; that’s where the money is. But on a mobile device search hasn’t happened. Search is not where it’s at, people […]
Sure, keywords and content are crucial parts of any local search marketing campaign. But your humble phone number may actually be one of the most important factors that leads to local search success.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Attribution Technology: What’s Best For Your Needs? A few months ago, I wrote an article titled Attribution: What It Is And Why It’s Important where I discussed two types of attribution: […]
On Wednesday we reported on Hitwise data showing Google’s search share declining for the “fourth straight month.” However the firm has always shown Google with the greatest share vs. rival metrics firms (comScore, Nielsen, Compete). Yesterday comScore published its March search numbers to clients and they were subsequently released in the financial analyst notes that […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Report: Some Google ‘Hot Topic’ Searches Return 90% Malicious Links A blog post from cloud security company Zscaler suggests that some Google searches recently returned results with 90% malicious links, and […]
ComScore’s quarterly look at the U.S. mobile platform is out and it includes good news for Google. The numbers show that Google’s Android platform has grown by 236% between November 2009 and February 2010, from 3.8% market share to 9%. The comScore report measures current mobile subscribers in the U.S. that are 13-years-old and older. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: SearchWeek: April 5, 2010 Search Week is an exclusive weekly newsletter for Search Engine Land premium members that recaps stories covered on Search Engine Land over the past week. Below are […]
Here are some tools that aren't specifically related to paid search, but are nonetheless valuable additions to your your search marketing research toolset.
Brian Clifton (PhD) is an independent author, consultant and trainer who specializes in performance optimization using Google Analytics. Brian has been involved in web design and SEO since as far back as 1997, when he built his first website and started defining best practise to advise clients. From 2005-8 he was Head of Web Analytics […]
It’s important to keep a well-stocked search marketing toolbox. Third party technology vendors offer a wide variety of discovery and management tools and are absolutely vital in the research phase. A few weeks ago we took a look at some tools that allow you to upload and then track keywords on major search engines to […]
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 Goes Live With “In-Stock, Nearby” Mobile Shopping In the range of thigs discussed at Google’s Search Evolution event in December Engineering VP Vic Gundotra demonstrated mobile shopping with real-time inventory […]