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 Looks To Improve Maps With 300 New Staffers Problems in Google Maps are well known by now. From spam to bugs to its lack of support for local businesses, we’ve […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Has Facebook’s Active User Growth Dropped 25% to 50%? Are a significant number of people cancelling their Facebook accounts because of privacy concerns? The easy answer would be for Facebook to […]
Need another data point from the search world illustrating the rise of concern over Facebook’s privacy changes. How about that chart above? It shows a huge spike to traffic at wikiHow, which has a handy guide on how to delete your Facebook account. Earlier this week, I wrote about how there seemed to be an […]
Scroogle, a site designed for those who don’t want Google tracking their searches back to them, had some hiccups since the new Google design went live on May 5th. Scroogle worked by “scraping” the Google search results from https://www.google.com/ie, a service for Internet Explorer 6 users. Google has decided to discontinue that service redirect it […]
When working on a presentation about search today, I did a “how do I” search on Google to see what was suggested as topics. To my surprise, “How do I delete my Facebook account” was one of the top choices: Is this new? It could be that this suggestion has been there for months, and […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Facebook’s “Posts By Everyone” Feature: Do People Realize They’re Sharing To The World? It’s kind of crazy. I’ve been playing with Facebook’s “Posts By Everyone” search feature recently, and many people […]
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 Announces Q1 2010 Earnings: Income Up 87% Yahoo announced (PDF) their first quarter 2010 earnings and showed a revenue increase of 1% and income increase of 87% from the first […]
Google received a letter from “privacy officials” in 10 countries with a list of complaints and demands surrounding privacy. The letter focuses on Buzz and the privacy fiasco that surrounded its launch, as well as StreetView. Here’s an excerpt from the letter: Buzz is a “hook” for government officials chronically unhappy with Google’s stand on […]
What’s happening with all those inactive and deleted usernames that Twitter has? Some of them will continue to be held back for a few more weeks; some likely for much longer, Twitter cofounder Ev Williams said yesterday. I caught Williams between sessions at the Chirp conference yesterday and put to him a question that Les […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Report: Some Google ‘Hot Topic’ Searches Return 90% Malicious Links A blog post from cloud security company Zscaler suggests that some Google searches recently returned results with 90% malicious links, and […]
In light of its struggles with user privacy, Google Buzz is double-checking to make sure users have the service setup the way they want. Starting Monday afternoon, Google began showing a “Confirm your Buzz setup” screen when early adopters clicked the Buzz tab in Gmail. The screen shows who you’re following, and provides links to […]
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 Execs Still At $1/Year, But Company Cuts Other Perks Google’s trio of top leaders — co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, plus CEO Eric Schmidt — continued to receive $1 […]
Google Buzz is having a bad day. I reported earlier about the lack of search interest in Buzz, but there’s a potentially more serious legal problem coming: A group of 11 lawmakers is asking the FTC to investigate whether Google Buzz violated consumer privacy regulations. BusinessWeek reported over the weekend that 11 members of the […]
Brian Clifton (PhD) is an independent author, consultant and trainer who specializes in performance optimization using Google Analytics. Brian has been involved in web design and SEO since as far back as 1997, when he built his first website and started defining best practise to advise clients. From 2005-8 he was Head of Web Analytics […]
It’s important to keep a well-stocked search marketing toolbox. Third party technology vendors offer a wide variety of discovery and management tools and are absolutely vital in the research phase. A few weeks ago we took a look at some tools that allow you to upload and then track keywords on major search engines to […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Twitter Working On ‘Most Popular Tweets’ Search Project Twitter’s search team is working on a project to uncover the most popular tweets for any search query, but it’s unclear when or […]
With privacy concerns over various Google products seemingly cropping up every week, the company said today that it will soon let web users opt-out of being tracked by its popular Google Analytics software. The news comes in a blog post today that says a browser-based plugin will be available “globally … in the coming weeks.” […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: FTC Commissioner: Google’s Buzz Launch Was ‘Irresponsible Conduct’ An outgoing FTC commissioner has slammed Google over the way it launched Google Buzz last month, calling the episode a case of “irresponsible […]
An outgoing FTC commissioner has slammed Google over the way it launched Google Buzz last month, calling the episode a case of “irresponsible conduct.” According to PC World, FTC Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour also said Google and other online companies may face tougher penalties if they don’t do a better job of protecting consumer privacy. […]
It’s live blogging time again from SXSW. Today, the Social Search: A Little Help From My Friends panel gets underway.
For a non-European traveling to Europe Google Street View is a great resource. This weekend, for example, the NY Times ran a piece on the Italian region of Tuscany. I then went to Google Maps to investigate how much of the region was available via Street View — a fair amount. That enabled me to […]
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 Street View Finds More Trouble In Europe In a letter earlier this month, members of the European Union’s data protection group urged Google to make changes to its Street View […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Yelp Alleging “Extortion” It must be the season for litigation. Two class action law firms have filed suit in Los Angeles federal court claiming that Yelp […]
Three Google executives have been found guilty of criminal charges over a bullying video that appeared on the Google Video service. Google has responded with a blog post pledging to appeal the convictions and suggesting that they undermine “the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built.” The video involved a youth with […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Touch-Phones: Changing The Way We Search For most of us sitting in front of a PC, today’s search engines provide a “more than good enough” way to find information or entertainment […]
Google scheduled a privacy discussion for reporters and bloggers at its San Francisco offices a couple of weeks ago. The timing turned out to be unexpectedly ironic. The idea was to “walk through a short presentation about [Google’s] guiding principles for privacy, how we use data and some of our comprehensive privacy efforts over the […]
Postscript, February 17: The CBC article cited below has reworded its article and now says the Canadian government is “reviewing” rather than “investigating” Buzz. A semantic distinction, perhaps, but there’s apparently no formal government investigation happening in Canada at the moment, so we’ve updated our headline, too. We’ve also received a statement from Google on […]
Google says it may allow people to participate in Google Buzz without having it integrated within Gmail, in addition to offering a combined Gmail service. That may be a welcome move for users of both products, especially in light of the substantial privacy concerns voiced this week about Google Buzz. “It’s clear that interest 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: Good Bye Winter, Hello Santa Clara. PPC Marketer’s Dream Agenda I suppose the next best thing to dreaming about leaving the cold New Hampshire winter is to actually do it! Can’t […]
Although the phrase “Google yourself” has become part of our culture, a new survey suggests that less than half of Americans have actually done it. The numbers come from a December survey commissioned by Microsoft on the subject of online reputations. The survey polled about 2,500 consumers and recruiting personnel in the US, UK, Germany […]
Microsoft is the first of the major search engines to agree to the European Union’s demand that data retention be cut to six months. The company will now completely delete IP addresses after six months. Here’s what Microsoft said on the Bing community blog about the move: Today we sent a letter to the Article […]
Google’s decision to potentially pull out of China if it cannot operate without censorship is a remarkable story. The statement was made after Google discovered a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” on GMail. Google didn’t say the Chinese government was behind the attacks but that’s the clear implication. The attacks involved more than just Google […]
Google has revealed that the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were targeted last December in a hacking attempt. That, along with other issues, has convinced the company that it will no longer censor results China as the Chinese government wishes. In particular, Google has willingly allowed self-censored its search results since January 27, […]
Many headlines yesterday about two bloggers who received visits — and subpoenas — from the Transportation Security Administration after publishing a security directive that was emailed to them anonymously. The source used a Gmail account. So did Google get a subpoena, too? The company says it can’t comment either way, sending me this statement: We […]
There’s a new post on the Bing Search blog that talks at length about Bing’s search history features, introduces a couple new features, and seems to ding Google a couple times along the way over its recent privacy-related stumbles. Bing has added its existing search history controls — “Clear all,” “See all,” and “Turn off” […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Furor Over Google CEO’s Comments On Privacy One of the big themes of the week is privacy. Facebook just did a major overhaul of its privacy settings to promote more public […]
One of the big themes of the week is privacy. Facebook just did a major overhaul of its privacy settings to promote more public dissemination of user information and updates. There was an immediate outcry from some quarters as the site was a bit aggressive in setting users’ defaults to “everyone.” In addition, Yahoo got called […]
Wow. Asa Dotzler, community coordinator for Firefox marketing projects, is urging the world to add Bing to Firefox and dump Google, over comments Google CEO Eric Schmidt made about privacy. Does this mean Bing will finally be allowed into Firefox as a default choice for users?
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 Sues To Stop Online Scams Using Its Name Google is fighting back against the get-rich-quick and work-from-home scams that use its name. The company says it’s suing to stop what […]
Yahoo has introduced what it’s calling “Ad Interest Manager.” It’s a new kind of privacy and advertising dashboard for consumers where they can opt-out of behavioral targeting or, alternatively, indicate to Yahoo what they’re most interested in. Here are the features according to the press release out this morning: Yahoo!’s new Ad Interest Manager tool: […]