The push layer returns: Why ‘publish and wait’ is half a strategy
See how AI systems process content through five entry modes — and why relying on crawling alone limits visibility, speed, and revenue
Topic: Infoseek
Link juice: Is it the new snake oil of Google SEO?
Should you reject any SEO advice mentioning "link juice"? Here's a look at the term's origins and why you shouldn't completely dismiss it.
Goodbye Search Engine Land, SMX and Third Door Media
After more than two decades of writing about search and online marketing, as well as speaking at and organizing dozens of conferences, it's time to hang up my e-spurs and move on to other adventures.
On Google’s 21st birthday, a look back in time
Revisit a 1999 interview with Google co-founder Larry Page by Search Engine Land's Chris Sherman.
SearchCap: Google family led icon, link building and SEO audits
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: A basic SEO audit for small businessesSep 28, 2018 by Marcus Miller Most small businesses can perform a simple audit and improve their SEO considerably without involving an agency. Ten steps […]
Link building in the age of content skeptics
When Google appeared on the scene two decades ago, it quickly outshone popular search engines such as AltaVista, Infoseek and Lycos for two primary reasons. First, most search services were caught up in what would prove to be a fatal fad: turning their home pages into a “portal” for the internet while neglecting their core […]
Google marks 14 years as a public company
Today the search giant ranks as the world's third most valuable company.
10 big changes with search engines over my 20 years of covering them
Search Engine Land founding editor Danny Sullivan looks at how search has changed over the two decades he's been writing about it.
The Yahoo Directory — Once The Internet’s Most Important Search Engine — Is To Close
For some, it may seem like there has always been Google, and it’s always been the main way people have found things on the web. But before Google, there was the Yahoo Directory and its hand-compiled list of websites, organized into topics. Now, the venerable Yahoo Directory is closing. Yahoo shared the news today, a […]
A Eulogy For AltaVista, The Google Of Its Time
Goodbye AltaVista. You deserved better than this. Better than the one-sentence send-off Yahoo gave you today, when announcing your July 8 closure date. But then again, you always were the bright child neglected by your parents. The Amazing AltaVista You appeared on the search engine scene in December 1995. You made us go “woah” when you […]
SEO Remains A Viable Marketing Strategy For Anyone
Ah, another SEO is dead post from a non-SEO to get the blood rushing on an otherwise calm weekend. I’ve been ignoring these more and more lately, but in the wake of Google’s Farmer Update, it looks like everyone could use some history lessons. Don’t depend solely on SEO, but don’t neglect it, either.
Live Blogging Bing’s Future Of Search Event
Bing and Big Think are hosting”Farsight 2011: Beyond the Search Box,” a four hour event today in San Francisco looking at the future of search. We’ve got various luminaries lined-up. Google will be on a panel. There’s that whole Google says Bing is copying them thing that just happened. Plus, Blekko’s here — and it […]
Live Blogging Baidu CEO Robin Li At Web 2.0 Summit
Baidu CEO & Chairman Robin Li will be speaking today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. I’m here and will be live blogging his remarks, when the session begins. Li is set to speak at 5:15pm Pacific, and he’ll be interviewed on stage by John Battelle. Live blogging to start shortly. There’s also […]
How Google Could Have Bought Baidu And Other Fascinating Details About China’s Largest Search Engine
BusinessWeek has published a terrific and lengthy article on Chinese search engine Baidu, how it “won” China and its global aspirations. The following is the CliffsNotes version. Baidu holds a 73 percent market share in China, the world’s largest internet market. The company is worth $38 billion and is 57 percent larger than Yahoo. Its […]
Once The Most Powerful Person In Search, Srinija Srinivasan Leaves Yahoo
Back in the mid-to-late 1990s, the most powerful person in search was arguably Yahoo’s Srinija Srinivasan. If Yahoo’s was the “gateway” to the web in the way some think Google is today, Srinivasan was the chief gatekeeper. And now after 15 years, she’s leaving Yahoo. Srinivasan was Yahoo’s “Ontological Yahoo,” among other titles including being […]
The Google Decade: Search In Review, 2000 To 2009
The 2000s were notable as the first full decade of consumer search. The first decade ever where you could try to sum up what happened in search, as a consumer product. And what happened, in a word, was Google. In the 1990s, Google barely existed. If search were a religion, it was polytheistic. There were […]
Factery Labs’ New Fact Engine: Just What Real-Time Search Needs
Not a month goes by without someone launching a new real-time search engine; but after trying out most of them, there are few I use on a regular basis. Factery Labs is about to change that with today’s launch of its real-time fact engine at 1:00 pm ET. Where other real-time search engines focus on […]
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 also think search engines are acting a bit like cats getting a sniff of catnip. They’re high on real time search and acting kind of crazy. This week, Google […]
10 Year Retrospective: Search Engine Strategies To SMX: Search Marketing Expo
Ten years ago today, I had the privilege of organizing the first ever search marketing conference. On this anniversary, a look back at how things were then and have they’ve changed in a decade. In 1999, search marketing itself was about five years old. People had been doing search engine optimization to generate traffic from […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 14, 2009
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 2.0 “Visual Search” Launches, Allows Search By Pictures Microsoft has unveiled Bing 2.0 at TechCrunch50 today, also known as Bing Visual Search, which allows people to “search by picture.” After […]
A Look Back At The Old Search Engines
The Six Revisions blog complied an excellent list of the classic search engines, some dating back to the 1990s. His list includes screen shots of both the old and current (if available) versions of HotBot, Excite, WebCrawler, Ask Jeeves, Ask.com, Yahoo, Google, Dogpile, AltaVista, Lycos, MSN Search, Bing, AOL Search, Infoseek, Go.com, Netscape, MetaCrawler, and […]
Twitter’s Real Time Spam Problem
And so real-time search begets real-time spam. We knew this would happen, but it’s annoying and becoming a growing problem. Question is, will Twitter do anything about it, beginning with removing its “Trends” feature?I got an up close & personal look at how bad Twitter “trend spam” has become when this week, our SMX Advanced […]
Long Time Yahoo Search Scientist Jan Pedersen Joins Microsoft
The Yahoo-to-Microsoft defections continue with news today from paidContent.org that Jan Pedersen is the new chief scientist for Live Search. This one isn’t exactly a defection, because Pedersen comes to Microsoft from Amazon’s A9.com. But he was Chief Scientist and VP, Search and Advertising Technology Group, at Yahoo prior to that. And before his Yahoo […]
Human Hardware: The Subconscious Side of Search
In the last column, we explored some studies that indicate that conscious will might not be the cause of our actions, but instead might be just one of the effects of a motivator still undefined. Conscious will could simply be a feedback mechanism that helps us keep track of our actions and hides the degree […]
Google Takes Top Prize At SMX Search Bowl
Last night was the first ever SMX Search Bowl. Basically, the Search Engine Land team created fifty questions that were asked to the various teams. The teams consisted of two players from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, Live Search, and the SEM All Star team. Danny displayed the questions on the screen and the first team to […]
Is The Time Ripe For Search Marketing Standards?
Over the past ten to twelve years, various SEM practitioners have brought up the need for industry standards. I started asking the question in 1998, and others have brought it up since, but the industry seems to have a laissez faire attitude. Albeit, we’ve seen some standardization steps taken by the search engines themselves. Google, […]
Search 3.0: The Blended & Vertical Search Revolution
This has been a remarkable year. After years of no real dramatic evolution in search, the third generation finally arrived. Google calls it Universal Search, and I’ve been tending to say “blended search” as a generic name for the change that’s now hit all the major search engines. But in doing the agenda for our upcoming SMX West conference, a […]
Meta Keywords Tag 101: How To “Legally” Hide Words On Your Pages For Search Engines
If there’s anything I particularly hate when it comes to SEO, it’s the meta keywords tag. I so wish it had never been invented. It’s practically useless, yet people still obsess over it. In this article, I’ll explain more about why you shouldn’t worry about it except perhaps for misspellings, as well as which search […]
Search In The Year 2010
If I ever had to build a search engine, or more precisely, the interface of a search engine, this would be the team I would want to bring together. When I came up with the idea of looking forward three years and speculating on what the search results page may look like in 2010, these […]
Understanding Search Engines Duplicate Content Issues
I admit it. I am a search engine geek. Because I have a passion for understanding search usability, one of my particular interests is duplicate content filtering. If you want to really irritate searchers, present the same content to them in all or most of the top 10 positions in search results. In the past, […]
Report From The Field: Search Engine Strategies China
SES China is always a fascinating experience. Although the content is similar to other SES shows around the world, there are notable differences ranging from unique perspectives on the Chinese and Asian markets to a variable “schedule” that seems to work fine for locals but is guaranteed to drive anyone from a western culture accustomed […]
Google Launches “Universal Search” & Blended Results
Google is undertaking the most radical change to its search results ever, introducing a “Universal Search” system that will blend listings from its news, video, images, local and book search engines among those it gathers from crawling web pages. The new system officially rolls out today for anyone using Google.com and searching in English. Not everyone will see it […]
Autonomy To Reclaim Blinkx, Then Spin It Off
The relationship between enterprise search company Autonomy and video search company Blinkx has always been confusing. PaidContent.org now reports that the "weirdly secretive relationship" (I agree) is getting clearer. Autonomy is to exercise an option to take over Blinkx, then appears to be spinning some consumer-facing search technology that its owns (and I believe Blinkx […]