I’ve noticed something interesting on Twitter: the #followfriday craze has spawned loads of users saying “that’s great, but tell me WHY I should follow this person.” In the interest of cramming in those precious 140 characters, many people choose to just fill the space with people to follow, rather than explaining the reasoning behind saying […]
Our love affair with celebrity continues, as evidenced by news today from Yahoo that it served about five million streams of the Michael Jackson Memorial ceremony. That makes it the most streamed event in Yahoo’s history, surpassing the inauguration of President Obama in January, when Yahoo served 1.8 million streams. While watching the event online, […]
Oops. Bad, Google. Occasionally the service inserts direct answers to searches at the top of its results. It makes guesses at this, and in the case of michael jackson died, it’s making the wrong guess. Henry Elliss tipped us that Google’s showing that Michael Jackson died in 2007, at age 65. The problem? Google’s drawing […]
An extraordinary day of breaking news on Thursday led to record-breaking traffic spikes as people searched online for information about the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and, especially, Michael Jackson. And just like their counterparts in traditional media, the news divisions of Google, Yahoo, and Bing responded with sometimes extraordinary measures to ensure they were giving […]
Recently, I was at an internet marketing convention where the question was posed to a panel: “As a search engine optimizer (SEO), what would you advise your clients to do if an extra million dollars fell into their lap?” The response from the SEOs on the panel was essentially “invest it all in creating great […]
In the world of competition between and among websites, search engines and online publishers there is also the “behind the scenes” competition between Nielsen and comScore. Both want to be the source of record for traffic data and both are occasionally the subject of controversy. There was the incident early in 2008 where comScore put […]
While Twitter is looking at ways to be more search-ey, Google is apparently thinking about ways to be more microbloggy. Buried in a Reuters article about Google’s shareholders meeting yesterday is this paragraph about the company’s interest in the social web: “Company executives who appeared alongside Schmidt at the media briefing said Google was looking […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: How To Optimize Feeds To Maximize Your Exposure In Shopping Engine Results Each day millions of online shoppers turn to comparison shopping engines (CSEs) to compare prices, read reviews, research products […]
It was less than a week ago that health officials alerted the media to a possible pandemic of swine flu in humans. Since then, authorities have moved quickly to track the outbreak and reassure the public with precautionary measures. Here’s a look at some of the best sources of online information about swine, avian and […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Three new features just announced this week will make the already valuable Google Insights for Search an even stronger keyword research tool. Here’s a look at what’s been added: 1.) New data sources In addition to web search, you can now do keyword research for Image, News, and Product search, too. This opens up new […]
Hitwise reported that “for the past two weeks, the market share of US Internet visits to Gmail has been higher than visits to YouTube.” Accordingly, the measurement firm says that Gmail is now second only to Google.com in terms of visits among Google’s properties. Gmail has recently had a number of problems, with several outages […]
What a nice surprise to see on the front page of the Los Angeles Times today a story that features how important SEO is to web sites. It’s Web 101 for this experienced intern covers how a former magazine editor, Lois Draegin, has entered a new life of online editing after losing her job with […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Way back in 2007, an iProspect/Jupiter Research study found that two-thirds of those online are motivated to search online due to an offline channel such as a TV ad. Since 2007 was an eternity ago in internet time and search continues to grow, that number has surely only gone up. That TV ads cause viewers […]
Google Hot Trends can be a fascinating look at what has suddenly peaked the interest of Americans, and today everyone wants to know about the Superbowl. 35 of the 100 spiking searches have the word [superbowl] in them, and another 27 are Superbowl-related (including game-food recipes and team details). So how do searchers fare in […]
The Google AdWords team has launched a new mini-site, www.google.com/domorewithless, to help advertisers reach their goals in light of the current economy. The mini-site is really just a set of links to a variety of Google tools and services (Insights for Search, Google Maps, Google Analytics, etc.) available to online marketers or business owners. At […]
A reader tipped us off to how ASCII art of an airplane is showing up in the number two position at Google Trends. When we first looked ourselves, we thought the image was that of an airplane approaching a landing strip. But a reader suggests it represents a far more disturbing scene, that of an […]
Google’s official list of the most popular search activity for 2008, aka Zeitgeist, has yet to make its debut, but the search giant has been leaking out tasty tidbits of data to get us salivating for even more search data. The fastest-rising search terms of 2008 Obama Facebook Att iPhone YouTube Fox news Palin Beijing […]
Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from November 2008:
If you’re looking for more about how the Change We Need will be implemented by incoming President Elect Barack Obama’s administration, good news! He’s got a new transition website up: Change.gov. Bad news — you’d be hard pressed to find it in search being both new and being untargeted toward any search terms. SEO 101: […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
According to Google Trends, lots of people are currently trying to figure out where their local polling place is. So it’s time for a good reminder of what we covered earlier. Google Maps has a special area and search shortcut to help you find where you’re registered to vote, voting location hours and more. Searches […]
The chain-reaction of foreclosures, mortgage company failures, banking sector woes, and see-sawing stock market are making for a very scary-looking retail season here in the fourth quarter. The U.S. Department of Commerce recently said that business sales have dropped the largest amount in two years, further fueling speculation that the holiday shopping season might not […]
Anyone watching tonight’s US Presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama heard both candidates speak directly to “Joe The Plumber” several times. No, it’s not a fictional Joe. No, it’s not Sarah Palin’s Joe Six Pack. He’s a real person that Obama spoke to earlier this past weekend about economic concerns and taxation. But […]
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, “Q&A With Google’s Insights for Search Senior Product Manager” and this week’s free tips and tools.
Yahoo had a press day yesterday designed in part to pump up the media about the company’s prospects and progress post the Microsoft-fiasco. As someone who’s been positive about Yahoo, I oddly found the day leaving me less reassured, not more. In the end, ironically it might have been the Open! Open! Open! mantra that […]
Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from August 2008:
After reading yesterday about how savvy both US presidential campaigns seem to think they are about search marketing, I decided I’m going to take a closer look at watching them. In particular, I noticed yesterday that both seemed pretty lame when it came to tapping into rising queries that you can spot on Google Trends. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
As much as I’ve enjoyed comedians poking fun at John McCain’s ad that uses Paris Hilton to mock Barack Obama, even better is a new fake ad where Paris Hilton herself takes on McCain. People are clearly turning to the web to find it — Google Trends shows plenty of people seeking it in a […]
Google has launched Google Insights for Search, a tool that helps advertisers and marketers understand searcher behavior. The tool offers a comprehensive set of statistics based on search volume and patters. You can compare seasonal trends, geographic distributions, and category-specific searches, and you can group all these variables together to get extremely specific. In addition, […]
Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from July 2008:
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Another day, another Google Trends abuse. As spotted at Google Blogoscoped Forums, Google Trends on July 13th was showing “ǝlƃooƃ noʎ ʞɔnɟ” as the number one hot trend amongst blogs, news sites, and so on. I personally see it when I navigate back to July 13th in Google Trends. This comes right after the display […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Dave Shaw notified me of a weird character being displayed as a “hot trend” on Google Trends this morning. It appears that Google is displaying a swastika as 卐. This appears to be some sort of Chinese character, but the swastika is well known for its usage in Nazi Germany and has been a very […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google has added search volume numbers to the external keyword tool. The volume numbers are approximations, and I would guess are from the same sources Google obtains data for Google Ad Planner and Google Trends for Websites. Here is a screen capture of a keyword research search […]
Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from June 2008: