Google, the company that has been fighting against paid links and “thin” content, seems to be behind a campaign that’s generating both on behalf of its Chrome browser. File this under “what were they thinking.” “This Post Sponsored By Google” Aaron Wall wrote about the campaign today at SEO Book, spotting how a search for “This […]
First Google questioned Mitt Romney’s chances of winning the US presidential election. Now it’s suggesting that Austria is less important than Australia. You Say Austria, Google Says Australia In a search for Austria’s biggest companies, Google automatically changes the query and searches instead for Australia’s biggest companies: Forbes spotted the glitch, which is the second major problem […]
Scoreboard: Facebook guy – 1, Google guys – 0. Or, more accurately: Facebook guy – $17.5 billion, Google guys – $16.7 billion (each). Those are the estimated net worths of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as reported in the latest edition of the Forbes 400 Rich List — […]
Hot on the heels of last week’s Read/Write World effort, Bing Maps has announced another ambitious project that will improve its imagery collection. It’s called the Global Ortho Project and the goal is to provide consistent, high resolution (30 cms) imagery across every square inch of the United States and Western Europe by June, 2012. […]
The New York Times Company has confirmed recent reports that its About.com property was one of the sites that suffered traffic declines in the wake of Google’s recent Panda/Farmer algorithm change. Speaking during its recent earnings call, CEO Janet Robinson said that About.com “experienced a moderately negative impact on page views from the algorithm changes […]
Demand Media sites have suffered an estimated loss of about 40% of overall Google traffic since the Panda/Farmer update took effect. That’s according to new Experian Hitwise statistics measuring outbound traffic from Google to other sites, and reported today by Forbes. The Hitwise numbers suggest that about 0.57% of all outbound Google traffic went to […]
Many people might not believe that Microsoft, the company that a decade ago was often known as “the evil empire,” is now one of the most “ethical” internet companies, beating out Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook and other well-known online brands. That’s according to the New York-based Ethisphere Institute (EI), which produces an annual list of […]
One of the most competitive and interesting sports in reporting on what’s happening in the online world is the ongoing game of predicting the future. Just as we’re seeing regime change in North Africa and the Middle East, it looks as if we’re experiencing another tectonic shift in the universe of online ads.
Last week, J.C. Penney made the news for plummeting in Google rankings for everything from “area rugs” to “grommet top curtains”. Turns out the retail site had a number of suspicious links pointing at it that could be traced back to a link network intended to manipulate Google’s ranking algorithms. Google, in order to protect […]
What do you do if Google warns you about a violation of its paid links policy and you can’t find any such links on your web site? If you’re a small webmaster you might go to Google’s Webmaster Help forums and ask for help. But if you’re part of the website team at a major […]
Last week I wrote briefly about Google’s John Hanke’s move into a new role, based on a Forbes interview with him. Yesterday I got to speak directly with Hanke about his “new gig,” as they say. The former CEO of Keyhole came to lead the “geo team” (Maps, Earth) at Google after Keyhole was acquired […]
Satisfied with Google’s recent emphasis on improving user privacy practices, the FTC has ended its investigation into Google’s collection of personal data earlier this year via its Street View photography service. The commission is not penalizing Google for what happened. In a letter to Google attorneys dated October 27, 2010, David Vladeck of the FTC’s […]
People love lists. Publishers love lists too because they sell copies of traditional print newspapers and magazines and, online, they generate lots of clicks and page views. For example, the HuffingtonPost has become a veritable archive of slideshows: “the 10 best places to live,” the “hottest beach bods of the summer” and so on. US […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Official: Yahoo’s Results Now Come From Bing Yahoo just announced the transition from Yahoo Search powered results to Bing powered organic Yahoo search results is now complete. The search ads are […]
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 With Ratings & Reviews Matthew Mierzejewski posted a screen capture on the Rimm-Kaufman blog, showing reviews and ratings directly in the AdWords ads. As you can see in the […]
Yes, billionaires do have a lot of “green” but they can also be green and push green causes, technologies and issues. Because it’s Earth Day and because lists and slideshows of rich people drive page views Forbes has put together what it deems the world’s greenest billionaires. Investor Vinod Khosla is ranked first. Larry Page […]
Forbes covers AT&T’s forthcoming local recommendations site Buzz.com. It aims to be a place where people can get and share recommendations about local businesses. Despite my headline and that of the Forbes article it’s not going to be a reviews and social networking site like Yelp. Rather it may be more analogous to AlikeList or […]
At a conference in Houston on Thursday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke critically of Google’s recent decision to stop censoring its search results in China. Paraphrasing some of Ballmer’s statements, Forbes says Ballmer called it an “irrational business decision” on Google’s part. Ballmer suggested that Google’s decision to no longer filter out internet searches objectionable […]
From Search Engine Land: Google Adds More Answers & Info To Search Results Google has announced a pair of changes to its search results pages that make its search results pages more informational and give searchers information they’re looking for without having to click away from Google.com. […] comScore: US Has Most Searches; China Slowest […]
Google has placed fourth in Forbes Magazine’s ranking of the Best Places to Work 2010. That’s the same place the company ranked in the 2009 list. In explaining “what makes it so great,” Forbes says: The search engine king is hiring again: Google plans to add thousands of employees to its payroll in 2010. Though […]
One of Google’s more vocal critics says the company should cut its ties with InfoSpace over what he calls “a particularly insidious kind of click fraud” that involves a fairly complex combination of paid ads, affiliate traffic brokering, and spyware. Harvard assistant professor Ben Edelman also wants Google to repay the affected advertisers and be […]
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 […]
Forbes has published its annual list of who has the most money in America and Google’s co-founders and CEO Eric Schmidt are among the very richest of the lot. At the top is perpetual leader Bill Gates. Among the top 100 roughly 10 percent made their money from tech or the Internet. However four 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: The Link Builder’s Guide To Analyzing SERP Dominators For Link Opportunities This article walks you through the tools, processes and strategies for identifying the most powerful players in your keyword space […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Finally, Yahoo 360 To Be Shuttered In July More than 18 months after first saying that Yahoo 360 would close, the company has finally announced a date: July 13, 2009. Why […]
Another publisher is complaining that Google isn’t giving them their “fair share” — this time Forbes CEO Jim Spanfeller. Google makes $60 million off the Forbes brand, he claims (with no proof), and boosting “quality publishers” like Forbes would help Eric Schmidt’s web sewage problem. This is from the publication that sells paid links that […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
An Illinois small business owner is suing Google and 46 other companies because he says they’re infringing on his business name: Android Data. Forbes reports that the lawsuit was filed Tuesday, and seeks almost $100 million in damages from Google and all other companies in the Open Handset Alliance, which includes T-Mobile, Motorola, Toshiba, Sprint […]
The Yahoo corporate blog announced that phase one of the Yahoo home page test is about done now. Yahoo has taken in a lot of feedback since launching a limited test of the new home page back in September 2008 and has decided to try some new things. Yahoo has decided to add more third-party […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
At one point or another, most of the big online media companies have talked about buying Facebook. Yahoo is rumored to have made an early offer of almost $1 billion for the company, which was (obviously) turned down. But as the MicroHoo discussions appeared to be deteriorating, Microsoft apparently made some formal inquiries about Facebook’s […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Forbes is out with the latest billionaires list, and Google executives are well represented. Plus, Yahoo president Susan Decker saw a 63-percent increase in her salary, with a 29-percent bonus increase from last year.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Forbes offers an interesting profile, “The Golden Touch,” of two of Google’s initial VC investors, John Doerr and Michael Moritz. Both of these men got fabulously rich off their Google shares: “Their personal gains, according to Forbes’ estimates, are likely north of $800 million apiece.” Moritz has kept his stock but given up his board […]
According to a new post on the Google Webmaster Central blog, the supplemental index is no longer, well, supplemental. Google has long had a two-tiered index and webmasters have generally feared the second, supplemental tier. A Forbes article earlier this year called it “Google Hell“, as historically, those pages weren’t crawled as often as those […]
In August, Google CFO George Reyes announced that he was retiring. Reyes joined Google in 2002 and was the executive who helped the company through its IPO and subsequent growth. Forbes now estimates his stock is worth more than $200 million. The same article in Forbes also speculates that Google may have some trouble replacing […]
We were contacted by Google’s DC-based spokespeople after we repeated the Forbes pseudo quotation of Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying that the company would “definitely” participate in next January’s 700 MHZ wireless spectrum auction: “Schmidt now says Google will definitely participate in the auction.” Forbes itself updated and corrected the piece to reflect that Schmidt […]
Last week Forbes wrote that Google will “definitely” participate, according to CEO Eric Schmidt, in the upcoming 700MHZ wireless spectrum auction. Also last week, Google partner Sprint said that it was ending its relationship with wireless broadband provider Clearwire to build a nationwide WiMax network. (Sprint is a member of the Android Open Handset Alliance.) […]