Google Ads adds IP address and timestamp matching to Customer Match
Google Ads adds IP addresses and timestamps to Customer Match, promising stronger matching and new privacy considerations.
Topic: IP address
Google expands Data Manager API with GMP event ingestion
Google is helping advertisers unify measurement workflows and boost audience match rates across Google's advertising ecosystem.
Web Bot Auth, Google’s new experimental method to validate authentic bots
This is just a limited test now for some AI agents hosted on Google's infrastructure but it may roll out more widely sometime in the future.
Google Ads API tightens conversion data rules
Advertisers who don’t migrate to the Data Manager API risk broken conversion tracking when Google tightens Ads API data rules in 2026.
Google just lifted its 2019 ban on fingerprinting for advertisers
Google's decision to allow fingerprinting gives advertisers powerful cross-device tracking capabilities but raises privacy concerns.
Google Chrome IP masking could radically impact search advertising
Google's plan for IP protection would give them a monopoly on location data and drive up costs for advertisers.
Google explains the use cases for its different crawler types
There is Googlebot, special-case crawlers and user-triggered fetchers.
What are Identical Keywords and why they matter for Google Ads
Google Ads has clarified what identical keywords are. But does this tactic go against what Google has been preaching for years?
How paid marketers are fighting back against the Fake Web
Bots and fake users steal ad clicks, pollute audience targeting, and skew metrics. Paid marketers are learning to protect themselves.
Google to sunset Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023, in favor of Google Analytics 4
It’s time for search marketers to shake off the inertia and adopt Google Analytics 4.
Google Performance Max campaigns: What marketers should know
Performance Max campaigns use automation to help marketers drive more conversions. At SMX Next, Rodney Ip shows marketers how to use them to their fullest potential.
Microsoft list of Bingbot IP addresses released
Knowing which bot is really from Microsoft Bing and which is not can help you decide which rogue bots to block from your site.
List of Googlebot IP addresses released
Knowing which bot is really Google and which is not can help you decide which rogue bots to block from your site.
How working from home has thrown a wrench in campaign targeting [Video]
While working remotely has kept some businesses online, it has also made analytics and cookie data less reliable.
5 Ways To Crawl A Staging Server Before Important Site Changes Go Live (To Save SEO)
You can uncover many potential SEO problems with a thorough crawl of the staging environment, but what if it's not readily accessible? Columnist Glenn Gabe shares some tips.
Google Now Supports Crawling & Indexing Locale-Adaptive Web Pages
Google adds support for web pages that dynamically change their content based on IP origin or language settings.
Click Fraud
Click fraud is the process of generating disingenuous clicks. It can take place anywhere along the ad buying/selling chain, for example: Ad agencies who want to impress their clients so click on their ads a lot to drive up CTR Website owners who want to impress Ad Networks/Advertisers so click on their ads a lot […]
Is Your Local Pricing Strategy Blocking Search Engine Spiders?
eMarketer’s recent report on Global e-commerce growth showed online sales globally exceeded $1 trillion in 2012. They further indicate that global e-commerce will grow by an additional 19% in 2013, with the Asia-Pacific region surpassing North America in online sales. This reemphasizes the importance of articles like Andy Atkins-Krüger’s recent article on international pricing strategies and […]
Wolfram Alpha Gets Into Local Search — Very Badly
It’s unlikely to impact Google or Yelp in any way but Wolfram Alpha is getting into local search. According to a blog post today users can now search online or on its mobile apps for nearby businesses in a range of categories (chains only right now): Wolfram|Alpha now knows the locations of some 2.4 million […]
Google Revamps AdWords Location Targeting Tool
Google is unveiling some changes to its location-targeting tool in AdWords which allow advertisers to search and discover new targets, view targeted areas on a map, and get additional information about the audience likely to see the targeted ads. The first change involves a search interface that gives instant results on matching locations, locations that […]
Blekko Tightens Privacy Options, Will Keep User Data Only 48 Hours
As part of a series of updates to its user and search privacy options, Blekko says it will hold on to personal data for only 48 hours — substantially less than major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. Blekko, like other search engines, creates a record of visits that typically includes a searcher’s IP […]
Should You Ban A Country From Visiting Your Website?
Website owners often put a website online and let the entire world access its contents. Essentially, they are claiming to service the world. But how often is this really the case? We found that on average, 10% of our clients’ website traffic was coming from outside of their geographic target market. This average is from […]
German Govt. Says Google Analytics Now Verboten
In a move that could harm its country’s own businesses, Germany is targeting Google on privacy issues again — this time over Google Analytics. German privacy officials are concerned that Google Analytics tracks web users’ IP addresses, and that could violate an individual’s privacy. According to German news site The Local, Johannes Caspar, data protection […]
Google, Bing & Searching For The New Wikileaks Website
Looking for the Wikileaks website? Having lost one domain, and having its second site going down temporarily, it’s a challenge, even for the search engines.
Google Demands Speed—Do You Need A Content Delivery Network?
With Google upping the ante on speed of delivery as a factor in relevance ranking, even medium to smaller sites may now need to consider a content delivery network to supplement the performance of their primary servers. A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of computers used to increase the speed of delivery of […]
Google Introduces Expandable Map Ads For Mobile
At Google I/O Google VP Vic Gundotra and his co-presenters showcased a dizzying array of announcements and products to come. Included among them was Google’s iTunes competitor, soon to come to market, and well as a range of new richer mobile ad formats. Those new mobile ad formats have been gradually rolling out. This morning […]
Google Lets Users Opt Out Of Analytics Tracking, But Doesn’t Expect Many Will
Google has announced the launch of a browser plugin that lets users avoid being tracked by Google Analytics. The company warned two months ago, in the midst of loud privacy-related complaints, that it was working on such a tool. Google says the plugin will work in the following browsers: Internet Explorer, versions 7 and 8 […]
Microsoft Complies With EU Demand, First To Cut Data Retention To Six Months
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 […]
Yahoo Showing Local Results On Non-Local Queries
Following in others’ footsteps, Yahoo says it’s now showing its local shortcut on certain queries that don’t include a local modifier. When you search for the name of a business, or a local business category, Yahoo will show the local shortcut if it believes the search has local intent. For me, typing “pizza” into Yahoo’s […]
Google Starts Public DNS Project
Google is introducing their own public DNS (domain name system) today named Google Public DNS. DNS is basically the Internet service that converts a web address (i.e. searchengineland.com) to an IP address of a server. Google says in many cases, DNS can be slow and we all know how much Google is obsessed with speed […]
Google Expands ‘My Location’ On The Desktop, Tests Search Layers In Maps
Two pretty cool things coming out of Google Maps today: First, an official announcement that Google’s “My Location” feature is now available more widely on the desktop. Second, Google Operating System has discovered what looks like a test that lets users create “search layers” in Google Maps. More on that in a moment. If you’ve […]
Google Brings ‘My Location’ To The Desktop
Knowing where a searcher is when s/he conducts a search is one of the big promises and opportunities in mobile search. Advertisers want the precise targeting, and it’s also a convenience for the user who doesn’t need to indicate a location when looking for products and services. There are already several tools and services that […]
Google Confirms & Talks About Expanded Local Results
In a blog post today, Google confirms what we and others reported last week — they’re now showing local results on non-local queries. Google says they’re guessing the searcher’s location, “in most cases” by using your IP address. As I pointed out last week, this isn’t always the most accurate solution. And, as Greg Sterling […]
Anonymizing Google’s Server Log Data — How’s It Going?
Back in March 2007, Google promised to begin anonymizing log data to better protect user privacy. That kicked off a wave of privacy pledges from competing search engines. In addition, by agreeing to limit itself, it inadvertently got the European Union to demand even faster data destruction. Below, a look at Google’s progress toward its […]
Google: Expects Viacom Will Take YouTube Data Without User Info
Since writing my WTF! US Court Declares You Have No Privacy On YouTube article, more information has come out suggesting that Google will be able to turn over information to Viacom about what’s watched on YouTube without having to say who exactly who was watching it. Nor, does it seem, that Viacom itself wants that […]
Convertibles & Croatia: Google Thinks They Go Together
Check this out, a search on jennifer convertibles in Google shows for Embassy of the Republic of Croatia to the USA sporting a Jennifer Convertibles stock quote feature. Yes, Google thinks that Convertibles & Croatia are the same thing, in a sense. Both the main Jennifer Convertibles result and the Croatia site have a stock […]
Yahoo Paper: Finding The Local “Center” Of Search Queries
A new research paper from Yahoo and Cornell University — with search legend Jon Kleinberg as one of the coauthors — provides a fascinating look at how a search query such as "red sox" or "hurricane deal" can be centered around a physical location — including one that changes over time.
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, & Other Search Engines Must Comply With EU Privacy Rules
EU: Search Engines Under EU Rules from the Associated Press reports that European data privacy regulators said search engines outside the EU have to comply with the EU’s privacy regulations.
Will The European Union Decide IP Addresses Are Personal?
The head of an EU group looking into search privacy issues said yesterday that Internet Protocol addresses assigned to computers should be treated as personal information. Below, more about that plus a look at some comments about how the search engines have been reported to the European Parliament to be dealing with privacy.
Ask.com Launches AskEraser Giving Searches Ability To Search Anonymously
Ask.com has launched AskEraser, giving searchers the ability to search anonymously. Ask.com told us about this tool back in July, and six months later, it’s now live for all searchers to use. When a searcher activates AskEraser, Ask will stop recording the searcher’s search queries and cookie information. This information includes IP address, User ID, […]