Online holiday sales could reach $200 billion according to Adobe
Smartphones will drive the majority of online retail traffic and 42% of sales.
Topic: JCPenney
SearchCap: Voice input for Google mobile web search, paying for search analytics tools, more
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: What customers expect in the age of AI Jan 29, 2019 by Digital Marketing Depot Making big purchase decisions can be stressful, especially when the products are complex or expensive. People […]
Private blog networks: A great way to get your site penalized
Columnist Kevin Rowe explains what private blog networks (PBNs) are, how to identify them, and why you should steer clear.
AdGooroo Adds Mobile Paid Search Spend Insights, Releases List Of Top Mobile Search Advertisers
Search marketing intelligence firm, AdGooroo announced it is the first to provide insights into search advertising spend on mobile devices. The new mobile search data is now included in the company’s SEM Insights Tool, starting with data from the U.S., U.K. and Australia. Additional mobile insights now available include ad copy, impressions and clicks, click-through […]
Open Letter: Why Search Engine Land Will & Won’t Cover Someone Being Penalized By Google
It’s been big news recently about major brands and Google penalties, and the floodgates feel open on people spotting even more brands possibly hit out there. Some new crackdown by Google? No. It’s the rise of hyperactive attention in this area, and that’s turning into a problem. Hence this open letter, on how we’re planning […]
Expedia Lost 25% Of Their Search Visibility In Google Possibly Over Unnatural Links
The major travel website, Expedia, seems to have lost 25% of their search visibility in Google according to Search Metrics. It appears that drop was due to an unnatural link penalty, where Nenad called out Expedia over a month ago for possible paid links on article sites. Expedia.com’s Google Traffic Decline: Patrick Altoft noticed a […]
Rap Genius Back In Google After 10 Day Penalty, Ranks For Its Name But What About Lyrics?
Lyrics site Rap Genius says that it is no longer penalized within Google after taking action to correct “unnatural links” that it helped create. The site was hit with a penalty for 10 days, which meant people seeking it by name couldn’t find it. That’s been fixed, though it’s unclear how much traffic the site […]
Will Big Retail Rule Paid Search On Black Friday, Cyber Monday Again This Year?
Here we go, just over a week until Black Friday and Cyber Monday. All hands are on deck, budgets are ready to be unleashed. The big box retailers appear poised to yet again dominate paid search results for queries related to these all-important retail days. Over the last two years, the big box retailers have […]
Google Penalized One Article On BBC’s Web Site
Google did end commenting on why the BBC received an unnatural link notification despite offering us a “no comment” on our story this past Friday. Was the BBC penalized for unnatural links? Was it possible that the world’s largest news organization was not trusted by Google’s algorithms? The answer is, only one article was penalized. […]
Interflora Is Back: What Did They Fix & How Did They Come Back So Fast?
Interflora got penalized only 2 weeks ago, right after Valentine’s day with a huge coverage in the media and also a some-what indirect statement from Google’s Matt Cutts himself about Advertorials also counting as paid links if they pass Page Rank (i.e. do not have NOFOLLOW tags on them). Now, just this past Sunday, a […]
Interflora Gets Its Google Rankings Back, 11 Days After Penalty
Interflora, the major UK flower delivery service, is showing up again in Google’s search results — just 11 days after it was penalized. According to some tweets and posts on Google+, Chris Gilchrist was first to spot Interflora’s resurrection today. As you can see in the screenshot above, Interflora is ranking again on searches for […]
Will Google Penalize Chromebooks, Google Analytics, AdWords & Google+ For Using Advertorials?
A day after warning publishers against advertorials, will Google’s search team now have to penalize parts of its own company for running advertorials? Perhaps, and if so, it wouldn’t be the first time. It’s also another absurd chapter in Google’s war on paid links. Google Says: Advertorials, Beware! After news came out yesterday that Google […]
Google Says No Comment On Why Interflora Was Penalized
The popular UK flower website Interflora seems to have been penalized in Google. They no longer rank for their key terms, such as [flowers], [flower delivery] and related terms — nor do they rank for their own name [Interflora]. Here is a picture of the search results in Google UK for [Interflora]. As you can […]
Google Now Reports “Practically 100%” Of Manual Actions
Wondering if some human at Google has reviewed your web site and decided it deserves to be penalized in Google’s search results? Google’s now reporting such cases nearly 100% of the time. “We’ve actually started to send messages for pretty much every manual action that we do that will directly impact the ranking of your site,” […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 23, 2012
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Microsoft Turns Off Streetside Imagery In Germany Over Photo Blurring Concerns Here’s a shocker*: Microsoft’s Streetside service has hit a bumpy road in Germany. The company says it’s shut down Streetside […]
What Can We Learn From The Latest Brand To Be Called Out For Paid Links?
Move over JC Penney. Another brand is getting attention over buying links, this time Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corporation. Today’s news is less news and more a reminder of lessons that SEO companies, clients and publishers all need to keep in mind, to avoid trouble. Josh Davis drew attention to the DBCC situation in his […]
Home Depot To Correct Misleading Link Request
It read like one of those bad link requests you get. Link to me, and you’ll rank better. It even suggested hiding the link. But the request was from Home Depot, to its network of nearly 2,000 service providers. Now that it’s come to light, the home improvement store chain says it is correcting the […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 15, 2012
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 Create An SEO Positive Company Culture My message today is to tear down the walls: not the ones in your website but in your company, between and within divisions. […]
Google’s Jaw-Dropping Sponsored Post Campaign For Chrome
Google, the company that has been fighting against paid links and “thin” content, seems to be behind a campaign that’s generating both on behalf of its Chrome browser. File this under “what were they thinking.” “This Post Sponsored By Google” Aaron Wall wrote about the campaign today at SEO Book, spotting how a search for “This […]
Bing Bans Holiday Deals Sites, Including One By Group That Created Cyber Monday
Ironically, the trade group that created the Cyber Monday concept had its own CyberMonday.com site lost in cyberspace this week. Lost, that is, if you tried to use Bing to find it. The site, along with some Black Friday deals sites, have been deliberately dropped from Bing as being too “thin” in content. Bing’s Version […]
Google’s Locksmith Spam Problem Hits The New York Times
The New York Times’ interest in the underbelly of SEO continues today with an article that details Google’s struggle to fight locksmith spam in Google Places. While not as deep as the Times’ recent articles on J.C. Penney’s SEO tactics and floral industry SEO, it nevertheless casts Google — again — as unable to keep […]
Roundup: Key Analytics Takeaways From SMX Advanced
At this week’s SMX Advanced show, several sessions touched on a variety of advanced analytics theories and tactical tools to measure the impact of your website traffic, and improve ROI and user engagement metrics. Here’s a quick review of the key issues being discussed. Google Analytics Pilot Integration With Webmaster Tools Generally, there was excitement […]
SMX Advanced Liveblog: ‘You & A’ Keynote With Google’s Matt Cutts
Day one of our SMX Advanced conference is wrapping up with a late afternoon tradition: Danny Sullivan’s “You & A” conversation with Google’s top spam cop, Matt Cutts. The session is due to start at 5:00 pm PST but, just between us, it’s bit hectic up front and gut feeling is that we’ll be a […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 25, 2011
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 Ireland Greeting A Google Street View Car Wouldn’t it be cool to know when a Google Street View car was planning on taking pictures of your office or home? Most […]
Google’s Matt Cutts Riffs On J.C. Penney, Panda Update & Other SEO Topics In Live Webchat
Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed this morning that Google has lifted J.C. Penney’s SEO penalty, that the Panda update will continue to rollout internationally and offered numerous SEO- and search-related tips in a live webchat on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel. More than a thousand viewers tuned in but, for those who weren’t able to […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 23, 2011
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 Buys Sparkbuy: Comparison Shopping Site Now Closes, Team Remains Google has acquired Sparkbuy, a comparison shopping site that has focused on laptops. The site closed today as part of the […]
90 Days Later, J.C. Penney Regains Its Google Rankings
J.C. Penney appears to be back in Google’s good graces after a 90-day penalty that removed the retailer from appearing prominently in Google’s search results for both short- and long-tail phrases. The company has regained first- and second-page rankings on a number of terms that were mentioned in a New York Times exposé of Penney’s […]
New York Times Continues Paid Link Outing Stories, Looks At Online Flowers Industry
Over the weekend, the New York Times published a story called Trying to Game Google on “Mother’s Day Flowers”. Yet more big companies got outed for buying links, but this time, Google didn’t say the links had helped. The story covers how top web sites that rank for search terms related to online flowers sales […]
Another Company Outed for Paid Links: Sequoia-Backed Milanoo
A story on TechCrunch today notes that a Sequoia-backed shopping site called Milanoo appears to be spamming Google with hoards of paid links that are helping them rank for things like [cheap dresses] and [evening gown]. They got news of the situation by way of a site called Digital Due Diligence that checked Milanoo’s backlink profile […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 24, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: AdWords Advertisers Can Now Optimize By Conversions Optimizing based on click-through data? That’s so 2010. Google is now letting AdWords advertisers automatically optimize what ads display most based on conversion rates. […]
Google’s Action Against Paid Links Continues: Overstock & Forbes Latest Casualties; Conductor Exits Brokering Business
Last week, J.C. Penney made the news for plummeting in Google rankings for everything from “area rugs” to “grommet top curtains”. Turns out the retail site had a number of suspicious links pointing at it that could be traced back to a link network intended to manipulate Google’s ranking algorithms. Google, in order to protect […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 16, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Visualizing Google’s Dominance Of Mobile Advertising A report on mobile apps report released today by security firm Lookout is being used to discuss the relative sizes and growth of Apple and […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 14, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: New: Block Sites From Google Results Using Chrome’s “Personal Blocklist” Google has announced that a new way to block certain sites from appearing in Google’s search results, though a special Google-made […]
3 Tips To Detect & Fix Mobile Search Leaks, Improve Your CTR
I’m pleased to join you with my first installment for the new Mobile Mondays column. As a long time Analyze This columnist, I appreciate SEL making space for the mobile marketing conversation. Mobile marketers love the data Google announced recently at the “Think Mobile” event. First, they shared that one in seven queries (15%) now […]
Yahoo’s Year In Review 2010 Of Top Searches: My, How Much You’ve Grown
Sound the vuvuzelas! In what surely will take top honors for the list(s) to end all lists this year, Yahoo! has unveiled its annual Year in Review for 2010, featuring at least 25 categories of Top 10 most searched for topics. This year’s special searches cover everything from the usual celebrities and gossip headlines, to […]