This day in search marketing history: January 20
Matt Cutts forks guest blogging, plus: Semrush buys Backlinko, ranking factor study, a Google search quality rater interview and more.
Topic: Google Offers
What’s Tops For “Offers” On Google? Google Offers – Which No Longer Exists
If you search in Google for [offers] Google will return the shuttered Google Offers page as the first search listing. But if you look carefully, you will see that Google has blocked the page from spiders within their robots.txt file and the page itself says “This site is no longer being supported.” Here is a […]
AdWords Offer Extensions Get Shut Down In Favor Of Google Offers
In February, Google announced the limited release of AdWords Offer Extensions, which allowed advertisers to dedicate extra real estate in their search ads to promoting in-store coupons and discounts. Offer Extensions didn’t make much of a splash when they debuted, and now it turns out they were sunsetted on November 1st. Google posted the following alert […]
Google Starts Shutting Down Its City Pages, Shifts To Google+ Local
Google is in the process of shutting down its collection of city pages — a change that follows the shift from Google Places to Google+ Local, and a change that may be reflective of a larger shift in direction for Google’s local efforts. Mike Blumenthal noticed yesterday that the Portland city page had gone missing. […]
WSJ: Google Prepares “Business Builder” For Small Business Marketers
The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend that Google is planning to combine a number of its products (internally developed and acquired) into a suite of tools and services aimed at small business marketers: Google plans to have its newest small-business service—which at one point it was calling Business Builder—up and running as early as […]
Larry Page “CEO Of The Year” — Investors Business Daily
When Larry Page took over the CEO role at Google last year the company was doing well. Now it’s doing better and so Investor’s Business Daily has named him “CEO of the Year.” The publication summed up its rationale as follows: [Page] reorganized the company’s management structure, redesigned the face of the company’s products and […]
Google Expands Offers To Five New Markets
This morning Google is announcing that its Offers product is coming to five more US cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Brooklyn (NY). That brings to 24 the number of live Offers locations (although New York City is divided into three distinct areas). Google recently incorporated a broad range of other inventory sources and […]
Google Offers Goes National, Still Makes Me Feel Excluded
Google Offers hasn’t rolled out yet to your city in the US? Google’s solution is its first “national” offer that came out today, $25 to spend at REI for $15. But as a person in a non-Google Offers city, I found the promotion just alienated me even more. Offers & The OC I live in Newport Beach, […]
Google Launches “AdWords Premier SMB Partner Program”
Google is introducing what it calls its “AdWords Premier SMB Partner Program.” It’s essentially a vendor referral program for small business (SMB) advertisers interested in working with AdWords. Google has developed a list of companies, many of whom were part of its “authorized reseller” program, to which it will refer SMBs. The involved vendors get […]
Google Offers Gets Personal About Daily Deals
Google Offers has recently begun offering personalization options that include selecting Offers that are based on interests and/or geography. It gives consumers the chance to avoid getting offers that don’t interest them, and offers advertisers a better chance at sending their offers only to people who are more likely to redeem the deal/coupon. On signing […]
Bing Expands Local Business Portal: Group Deals, Virtual Punchcards & New Print Collateral
Google may have most of the local traffic, but Bing’s local business tools are running laps around Google’s. When it launched in April, the Bing Business Portal already had outdone Google with several important features. Now, a new set of tools that Bing added within the past couple weeks puts it even further ahead of […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 3, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Hot At Sphinn: Digg’s Irrelevance, Facebook’s Timeline, Marketing Diversity & More One thing’s for certain in the online marketing industry: change. That was the frame for our “Discussion of the Week” […]
Google Gets Groupon COO Back, Offers Kicking Butt
As you may have seen last week, Groupon COO Margo Georgiadis, who replaced former COO Rob Solomon only a few short months ago, is leaving to rejoin her former employer Google in a new, more senior role. She will become Google’s president for the Americas. In leaving Groupon Georgiadis gave up a $500,000 annual salary and stock […]
Bing Makes Bid To Become Top Deals Destination
When Bing launched deals several months ago its partner was deal aggregator The Dealmap, which was subsequently acquired by Google. That forced Microsoft to turn elsewhere for deals and today, as a result, we’re seeing the launch of a new deals experience on mobile and the PC that pulls in content from a wide range […]
Google Offers Goes Live In Five New Cities
As promised, Google Offers is continuing to expand. Google has just announced its launch in five new cities: Seattle, Denver, Austin, Washington, DC and Boston. They join six other locations in four cities where Offers is already available: Portland, San Francisco, Oakland and three sections of New York City. But, wait! There’s more: As the […]
As Others Scale Back, Google Ramps Deals Program
Facebook and Yelp have both recently expressed doubts about the daily deals phenomenon, with Yelp explicitly raising questions about the sustainability of the large margins that companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial have generally enjoyed. Both sites will continue to offer deals of various kinds, but have scaled back their efforts. But what about late-entrant […]
Google Offers Go Live In SF, NY & On Upgraded “Shopper” App
Following a relatively successful launch in Portland last month Google is now rolling out Google Offers in two more markets: San Francisco and New York. Google has also updated its Shopper Android app to include deals. The app is generally focused on products but now contains tabs that allow users to access the featured daily […]
Punchd Acquisition Builds Out Google SMB-Products Suite
Last week Google bought a company called Punchd (first reported by TechCrunch). It was a small acquisition but may turn out, in several respects, to be more significant than it looks. Loyalty Card on a Smartphone Essentially Punchd enables small businesses (SMBs) to run loyalty programs on smartphones, very much like paper punch cards (e.g., […]
Google City Sites May Compete With Yelp, Online Yellow Pages
Yesterday David Mihm was pointing out on Twitter that Google had created a number of new city sites or portals. They appear to be the phoenix rising out of the ashes of Hotpot. As I wrote yesterday on my own blog, this is Google’s effort to bring a number of initiatives together in a single […]
Google “Offer Ads” — Not Google Offers — In The Wild
I innocently searched on “webhosting” this afternoon and saw this result, with an ad unit I’d never seen before: a coupon embedded in the ad copy. I knew that Google was testing “Offer Ads,” not to be confused with Google Offers, but I’d never seen one myself. If you click “view offer” you get the […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 3, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Introducing: The Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors SEO — search engine optimization — is one of the most important marketing activities available to companies and publishers, but it’s too often […]
Groupon Files For IPO While Google Offers Could Be Its “Next Billion Dollar Business”
Google took its first daily deal baby steps yesterday with the launch of its first Google Offer in Portland. It was reportedly a hit for the business owner and a success for Google. According to CNET and ClickZ the first customer hit Floyd’s Coffee Shop within about 10 minutes of the offer going live. Overall, […]
Official: Google Offers Goes Live, First Portland Offer Arrives
[As promised below in our post from late Tuesday night, the first Google Offer just arrived minutes ago in my Gmail inbox. Here’s a screenshot, followed by the remainder of Tuesday night’s post about it.] Sometime in the next several hours, presumably thousands of Google users in the Portland, Ore., area will get an email […]
With Google Wallet Mobile Payments Era Is Finally Here
For more than a decade people have prophesied the end of cash and credit cards. And for the past two years the drumbeat around mobile payments has grown steadily louder with the adoption of smartphones. Now numerous companies are jockeying to participate in what expected to be a huge market that will eventually generate billions […]
Live Blogging The Google Wallet Launch Press Conference
Google’s Commerce VP Stephanie Tilenius took the stage this morning in New York to announce what everyone was expecting: Google Wallet. She said that Google wants to create “tomorrow’s best shopping experience” and “bring online and offline together” through an open payments platform. Google aspires to bring offers, payments and loyalty together at the point […]
Facebook Launches “Social Deals” To Challenge Groupon & LivingSocial
After several months of anticipation Facebook is launching its second deals program: Social Deals. The new effort more closely resembles Groupon-style daily deals, with several twists. The original “Facebook Deals” is now being called “check-in deals” to distinguish it from the new program. Check-in deals are free to users; they’re mobile centric and operate like […]
Priceline.com Founder Sues Google Over Offers Service
Although Google Offers hasn’t formally launched yet, the service is already facing its first lawsuit. Walker Digital, a private R&D lab that created and launched Priceline.com in the late 1990s, is suing Google for allegedly violating four of the company’s patents. The lawsuit, which asks the court for a jury trial, seeks unspecified damages and […]
Google Offers Taking Signups In New York City, Bay Area & Portland
Google Offers, the company’s not-so-secret coupon program, is taking signups in three areas: New York City, San Francisco/Oakland and Portland, Oregon. Users can subscribe to get discounts via email in any or all of those available cities. After signing up, Google’s confirmation promises “regular emails” — which sounds like not necessarily “daily” — with discounts […]
Google Aims To Boost Gmail Relevance With “Priority Inbox” For Ads
The signals used for Gmail’s priority inbox will soon be employed to tailor advertising in the app to more match users’ interests. The company says it will also be testing offers and coupons from local businesses in Gmail. The system will use Gmail user’s habits — whether they read messages quickly or mark them as […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 14, 2011
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: Block Sites From Google Results Using Chrome’s “Personal Blocklist” Google has announced that a new way to block certain sites from appearing in Google’s search results, though a special Google-made […]
January 2011: Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories
Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from January 2011:
SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 21, 2011
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 Preview Tool Gets Mobile-Focused Facelift Ever wonder how your AdWords ads look on different devices in different places? Google has added some features to its AdWords Preview tool in an […]
Confirmed: Google Readies “Google Offers” Groupon Clone
Google has confirmed that it is preparing a service called “Google Offers,” designed to compete with the popular social buying site Groupon. Google has told Search Engine Land: Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing […]