Austin’s beloved Amy’s Ice Cream got a shout-out from Google’s Marissa Mayer at the SXSW Interactive conference today, as the new head of local shared her vision for a future enabled by the search company’s technologies. In the scenario Mayer described, she was at Amy’s — which she’d visited for the first time last night […]
Google’s perhaps inevitable encounter with a formal anti-trust inquiry in the US took a step closer yesterday. Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl, a vocal Google critic and the head of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, indicated that Google would be the subject of scrutiny by his committee in the 112th Congress. […]
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: Google’s Farmer Update, How It Should’ve Worked & SEO Help For Affected Sites It should be no surprise that Google’s Farmer update (AKA “Panda” update) dominated the conversation […]
Despite what many believe to be an overheated market for tech start-ups, Google hasn’t been shy about spending. Last week it bought security company Zynamics; today it reportedly agreed to acquire BeatThatQuote.com; it’s still waiting for Justice Department approval on the $700 million purchase of ITA Software announced last year; and it reportedly offered $5 billion for […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Ask Launches Local Conversations iPhone App Ask.com noticed some interesting behavior happening on its Q&A iPhone application. People were trying to have “conversations” in the comments area of the app, according […]
In a bit of a surprising interview on Bloomberg News, Kayak.com’s co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Paul English boldly stated that the travel search engine doesn’t fear Google’s entrance into the travel search market via the proposed acquisition of ITA Software. Kayak is officially listed as a member of the FairSearch Organization, but Google claims […]
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 Forecloses On Content Farms With “Farmer” Algorithm Update In January, Google promised that it would take action against content farms that were gaining top listings with “shallow” or “low-quality” content. […]
Politico is reporting, as have other outlets, that Google and the Justice Department (DOJ) are now negotiating intensely in the waning days of its investigation into the anti-trust implications of Google’s potential acquisition of travel software company ITA. According to the Politico article: The Justice Department has made it clear to Google that it’s willing […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: US Lawmakers Voice Concerns Over Google-ITA Deal Add a few US legislators to the list of parties that are airing concerns over Google’s plan to purchase air travel software provider ITA. […]
Add a few US legislators to the list of parties that are airing concerns over Google’s plan to purchase air travel software provider ITA. According to All Things Digital, two US House members and the Missouri Attorney General sent letters this week to Christine Varney, US Asst. Attorney General in the Antitrust Division, to express […]
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 Executive Believed Missing After Egypt Protests There are several reports that a Google executive based in the Middle East is missing after taking part in the protests in Egypt last […]
On Friday Reuters reported that Google and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) are exploring licensing guarantees as part of a potential “settlement” that would avoid litigation to block Google’s intended purchase of online travel software provider ITA. In addition the report says that the DOJ is also looking closely at issues of “search fairness” […]
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 Set To Advertise During Golden Globe Awards Microsoft is set to run a pair of television ads during Sunday’s broadcast of the Golden Globe awards, according to the Seattle PI. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Writing HTML Title Tags For Humans, Google & Bing I generally enjoy John Gruber’s writings, but today he’s dishing out SEO advice about HTML title tags. Some of it is bad […]
In a curious editorial yesterday the NY Times makes a kind of luke-warm argument against Google’s acquisition of travel software company ITA. Here’s the operative paragraph: Regulators must consider that if Google extends its dominance to the business of steering online customers to airlines and travel agencies, it would be in a position to charge […]
Microsoft has long and openly been involved in opposing some of Google’s high-profile deals and acquisitions. It helped scuttle the proposed Google-Yahoo search deal that paved the way for its own deal with Yahoo. It unsuccessfully opposed the DoubleClick and AdMob acquisitions. It also owns Ciao, one of the complainants that helped launch the recent […]
Last week it appeared that hotels reviews site TripAdvisor was blocking Google from showing its content on Places Pages. TripAdvisor never confirmed that it was doing so and Google attributed the absence of TripAdvisor reviews on Places to a technical problem. However what you might call “circumstance evidence,” as well as comments made by TripAdvisor […]
First there was the Google-Yelp dispute over reviews in Places (which was resolved). Now TripAdvisor appears to be preventing Google from showing its reviews on Place Pages. The first to report this yesterday was Tnooz. According to the article: Google is no longer able to stream in reviews from TripAdvisor to Places pages after the […]
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 News Dropping Sites, Reviewing Inclusion Standards Google News has recently dropped “a number” of websites that it says were not meeting the company’s quality guidelines. At the same time, the […]
Citing a litany of concerns over competition, airfare, and technology, a US Senator is calling on the Justice Department to put conditions on Google’s purchase of travel software company ITA. In a letter to the DOJ on Wednesday, Senator Herb Kohl outlined a number of concerns over Google’s purchase of ITA — the independent software […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Blekko, The “Slashtag” Search Engine, Goes Live Blekko, the long anticipated search engine founded by Rich Skrenta, has finally opened to the public. The service offers an interesting way to “slash” […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Canada’s Yellow Pages Group Acquires Enquiro Canada’s Yellow Pages Group has acquired the well-known search marketing agency Enquiro and folded it into a new entity known as Mediative. As explained in […]
Zastavit means stop or halt. And that’s what the Czech government has told Google regarding StreetView image collection in the central European country. The stated reason, according to the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection, is that Google did not have the required license/registration to conduct the activity. It’s not the case that Google failed […]
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 Schmidt: ‘Next Great Stage’ Of Search Is Autonomous, Personal Speaking today at the IFA consumer electronics event in Berlin, Google CEO Eric Schmidt painted a vision of the future in […]
In what is becoming an annual ritual Google announces a dramatic acquisition, pundits speculate about the potentially market-changing impact and anti-trust investigators give it a long, hard look — only to allow it in the end. Last year the transaction in question was AdMob; this year it’s ITA software. Since the roughly $700 million deal […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: International SEM Goes Beyond Simple Translation: Q&A With Latin3’s Matias Perel Because only a fraction of the world’s population resides here in the United States, the idea of global reach is […]
Google Steps Up Acquisitions as Some Internal Projects Falter from Bloomberg reports Google has doubled their anticipated acquisition levels in 2010 and plans on keeping that pace going. In early January 2009 Google halted acquisitions, but in September 2009 said they would begin shopping for businesses to acquire again. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt said he […]
There’s nothing that jaded and weary conference goers love more than to see some “red meat” conflict between panelists during a session. And that’s what TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld repeatedly tried to elicit in an on-stage interview of Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman and Google’s John Hanke during the Social Currency CrunchUp event yesterday in Palo Alto […]
It's that time of year when many of us turn to the internet for information, advice and maps to help plan a getaway for some rest and relaxation. Although search engines may be an obvious place to start your quest, they often aren't your best bet for useful information, helpful advice or savvy planning tips. Here's why—along with an in-depth look at more useful alternatives.
In an on-stage interview during the Inman Real Estate Connect conference this week in San Francisco Google’s Carter Maslan said that the company was not pushing into real estate specifically or going to build a direct national database of property listings and become a “universal MLS”: “What we are doing in real estate is really […]
You may remember, or maybe you’ve seen, the Google Maps test that involves showing room prices as part of a hotel’s local business listing. We wrote about it in March when few users were opted in, but Google tells Search Engine Land today that the experiment is rolling out to more searchers over the next […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The Only Constant Is Change Lately, I’ve heard a lot of folks chattering about the hot topics of the day. Google traffic is down after their update, mobile SEO is the […]
Just after Google announced the widely anticipated acquisition of travel data and software company ITA I was told by Google PR that European authorities weren’t going to get a chance to approve or disapprove the deal because ITA’s EU revenues were “too small” to qualify for scrutiny. Yet there are a range of actions 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: Google Takes On Travel Sites, Courts FTC Action With ITA Acquisition Google has signed an agreement to acquire travel reservations software company ITA. The purchase price is reportedly about $700 million. […]
Google has signed an agreement to acquire travel reservations software company ITA. The purchase price is reportedly about $700 million. We speculated about this and the likely travel industry and potential regulatory fallout earlier this week. Google put up a site to explain and promote the deal. Indeed, Google knows it’s girding for a fight […]
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 News Has Major Redesign: Personalization, Sharing & “News Stream” Offered Today, Google News is undergoing its first major redesign since being launched in 2002. Gone is the default “section” view, […]
Most people have never heard of ITA. However it’s the dominant company that provides reservations (inventory management) software and performs other functions for the travel industry. The company’s client list includes major airlines such as American and Continental as well as popular travel sites such as Kayak and Orbitz. ITA is foundational infrastructure for many […]
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 AdWords With Ratings & Reviews Matthew Mierzejewski posted a screen capture on the Rimm-Kaufman blog, showing reviews and ratings directly in the AdWords ads. As you can see in the […]
Bloomberg News is reporting that Google is in discussions on what could be a $1 billion buyout of ITA Software, a company that provides reservation/information systems used by many well-known travel industry companies. Bloomberg cites “three people familiar with the matter” in its article, two of whom speculate that ITA could want up to $1 […]