Is it just me, or does it seem like Google starts celebrating April Fools’ Day earlier and earlier every year? No company on the web takes April 1st more seriously than Google, as we’ve been covering for years now. So what about this year’s April Fools’ Day antics? Let’s have a look. Google Maps: Pokémon Challenge 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: IE8 Users Don’t Get Forwarded To Google Secure Search At the moment, users of IE8, still the most popular version of the Internet Explorer browser worldwide, are being sent to unsecure […]
Google announced last night that you can now, or in the upcoming weeks as Google rolls it out, customize and rearrange the order of the products and apps within the Google navigation bar as you like. Meaning, if you want to move up the Google Maps icon and move down the Google Sites icon in […]
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 Slaps Greek Sites With Penalties It appears that Google has taken action on spammers, potentially link spammers, in Greece recently. Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, responded on Twitter […]
YP and Yelp have announced a strategic partnership that will in the near future provide YP advertisers with an enhanced presence on Yelp and effectively bring Yelp into the YP Local Ad Network. There is probably a revenue sharing deal in the background but the parties declined to discuss terms. Yelp has existing content deals […]
Last year, David Mihm’s GetListed service was acquired by then SEO Moz (now Moz). Today, it relaunched as Moz Local. It’s a similar service with a number of enhanced capabilities, the most important of which is local listings submission. Agencies and business owners can use the tool to research where their listings appear online, manage […]
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 Reviewing “Not Provided,” Withholding Keywords From Organic But Not Paid Search Clicks When Google moved to secure search in October 2011, it was a blow to publishers, who began losing […]
Last month the Wall Street Journal reported that Yelp reviews were being integrated into Yahoo search results. This morning Yahoo formally announced the partnership: Now when you use Yahoo Search to look up a local business in the U.S. on your smartphone, tablet, or PC, you’ll see user reviews, business information, and star ratings from […]
Today at SMX West local data and marketing platform provider Placeable released findings from two related surveys it recently conducted online. The company polled consumers (n=1,000 US adults) and marketers (n=228) to gather data on local search attitudes and behaviors. Marketers were asked to discuss their behavior when they acted as consumers. Overall the marketers (as […]
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 Rolling Out Indoor Maps (via Nokia) Yahoo has started to integrate indoor maps into its newly upgraded mapping product. Even though Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer didn’t want to go head […]
Yahoo has started to integrate indoor maps into its newly upgraded mapping product. Even though Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer didn’t want to go head to head with Google in “local” (read: maps), Yahoo has been improving its mapping and local search user experiences of late. The inclusion of venue maps comes courtesy of Nokia’s Here […]
Google has been automatically upgrading Google Place listings from the old system to the new Google Places dashboard. With this upgrade, there may be conflicts that prevents the upgrade from completing. The latest conflict is that there are duplicate listing issues and Google needs you to step in, fix the issue and then complete the […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Tweet Showing How Google Itself Is A “Scraper Site” Goes Massively Viral Perhaps it’s SEOs’ “Oreo” moment, a tweet relating to search engine optimization that’s gained nearly as much attention as […]
In response to a string of cases where fake business/organization listings have been added to Google Maps, Google says it has removed those listings and put in place new hurdles to make it more difficult for this kind of abuse to get through its system. This latest run of problems came to light about a […]
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 Marketing Expo (SMX) West Begins In 2 Weeks – Register Now! Join the most accomplished internet marketers in the world at SMX West, March 11-13 in San Jose, CA. Check […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: AdWords Flexible Conversion Counting Officially Lauched, Welcome “Converted Clicks” and “Conversions” Earlier this month, we covered Google’s news to select advertisers that it would be rolling out new options for tracking […]
Google Maps users can once again right-click anywhere on the new Maps to get quick directions to or from the spot that they’re clicking. They can also use the “What’s Here” option to quickly get the lat-long coordinates for any spot on the map. These are two of many features that users have asked Google […]
A German design firm is claiming that Google and Google Earth have infringed its patent (USRE44550 E1) and is seeking triple damages under the notion that the infringement was intentional or willful. The firm, ART+COM (“ACI”), makes the following claims: The development history of Google Earth indicates knowledge and infringement by key Google employees Google Earth […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: McDonald’s & Cadillac’s Sochi Olympics TV Ads Spark Nearly 500K Online Searches Television advertising analytics firm iSpot.tv evaluated a number of key metrics for this year’s Olympic advertisers and found ads […]
Google took its new Maps site out of beta this week, but many users noticed that some of their favorite features from Classic Maps were missing. Not to worry, Google says. It’s aware of that and plans to bring at least some of those missing over to the new Maps site in the near future. […]
Google quietly announced within the Google Help forums that they have made a clarification update to their Place quality guidelines to help business owners know what they can name their business within Google Local and what they can not. In short, Google is allowing a single descriptor within the business name, if and only if […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Yandex Reports Revenue Up 37% In Q4, Ad Network Revenue Nearly Doubles Russian search giant Yandex reported a strong Q4 2013 today, with overall revenue up 37 percent from Q4 2012 […]
Bing has quietly updated their Webmaster Guidelines to include a stern warning to webmasters who think they can use keyword stuffing techniques to manipulate their rankings and get away with it. The warning says Bing may demote the site or delist the site that is using keyword stuffing. The new section was added sometime yesterday […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: New Google Maps Comes Out Of Preview Today Roughly last May at Google’s “I/O” developer conference, the company introduced an updated version of its desktop Maps experience. Since that time, it […]
Roughly last May at Google’s “I/O” developer conference, the company introduced an updated version of its desktop Maps experience. Since that time, it has been in “preview,” allowing users to go back and forth between the “classic” and new versions. Today, it’s coming out of preview and soon will be the default PC Google Maps […]
Bing announced they have added three new Bing apps for the Windows Phone and refreshed several of their other apps. The new apps are Travel, Food & Drink and Health & Fitness. Bing Travel App The Bing Travel App helps you discover places to visit by providing destination guides, rich photos, expert reviews and more. […]
Millions of us have asked Google to play weatherperson. In order to get an answer to one of our oldest and most basic questions, we type a variety of words and numbers — city names, neighborhoods and ZIP codes, plus words like “weather,” “forecast” or maybe “temperature” — into the Google search box, and Google […]
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 Ads Expands Mobile Sitelinks Coverage In US, Will Roll Out To EU Markets Bing Ads announced today that it will complete roll out of sitelink extensions on mobile devices in […]
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 Matt Cutts On Being A Spam Fighter: Looking For Patterns & Always New Spam Efforts Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts posted a longer video today answering what it […]
According to a report appearing today in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Yahoo will be incorporating local content and listings from Yelp into its main search results. As the article points out, Yelp has a similar deal with Microsoft-Bing and, of course, with Apple (maps). Yelp has an API that permits third parties to use […]
When one looks across the local digital landscape there are many companies and apps but few consumer “brands.” In specific verticals, like travel or automotive, there are companies such as TripAdvisor or Cars.com. But “horizontally” on a national level there are very few top-of-mind, major players. That list starts with Google and Yelp and could […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Update: “When Do The Olympics Opening Ceremonies Start?” Now You CAN Ask Yahoo Yesterday, I wrote about my search experience in trying to find out when the Olympics Opening Ceremonies will […]
Some business owners are receiving emails from Google requiring them to reverify their listings within three-weeks or their listings will be removed from Google Maps and Google+ Local. The emails contain the subject, “Action Required: You have 3 weeks to save your Google Places Listing.” It is unclear how many businesses have received this notification […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: “When Do The Olympics Opening Ceremonies Start?” Whatever You Do, Don’t Ask Yahoo Who knew a simple question would be so hard to answer? Yesterday I searched across all three engines […]
Last week Telenav acquired Skobbler for roughly $24 million in cash and stock. Skobbler is based in Berlin, Germany and is to OpenStreetMap (OSM) what Red Hat is to Linux according to Ryan Peterson of Telenav. For those not aware, OSM is the Wikipedia of digital mapping. It relies on a global force of over 1.5 […]
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 Roll Out Flexible Conversion Counting, Says Goodbye To 1 Per-Click, Many-Per-ClickThis morning, Google announced in an email to a number of advertisers that upcoming changes will give advertisers […]
Google quietly pushed out an update to the iOS version of the Google Maps app that now checks for faster routes to a destination as you drive. The new iOS version of the Google Maps app and the Android app will notify you if there’s a faster route available while you are in transit. Here […]
You’re gonna say to yourself, “That looks a lot like Google’s local search results.” I’m talking about the latest interface change that Yahoo has announced: the display of local business information alongside search results. The local business info includes basic business information, photos, hours of operation and some data specific to the business type — […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Days-Old Error In Google Search Causes Gmail User To Get Thousands Of Emails Earlier this week, we reported a glitch in Google Search, where clicking on a link after a search […]
A judge has determined patent-holding company Vringo is entitled to additional royalties from Google in a patent infringement case involving Google AdWords. The order stems from a case brought by Vringo subsidiary I/P Engine in 2011 that claimed filtering technology used in Google AdWords violated two of its patents. A jury found in favor of […]