This day in search marketing history: March 17
Google AdWords further dilutes exact match, plus: DMOZ officially closes, Matt Cutts hints at HTTPS ranking signal and more.
Topic: Microsoft Silverlight
Google will stop using the old AJAX crawling scheme in Q2 2018
Googlebot will render the #! URL directly, making it unnecessary for the website owner to provide a rendered version of the page.
Yandex Rolls Out Mobile-Friendly Algorithm In Russia, Code Name Vladivostok
The largest Russian search engine has launched their mobile-friendly algorithm today.
Bing Maps Adds Hundreds Of Streetside & 3D City Images; Plus New HD Aerial Images
Bing announced a large maps update today, where they have added hundreds of Streetside images, 3D city images and new high resolution aerial images. Bing Maps now has over a 100 cities that support Streetside imagery available across America. The images are available in these cities: Alameda County, CA Fresno, CA Richmond, VA, Anaheim, CA […]
Bing’s Visual Search Is Gone (Has Been For A While, Actually)
The fact that almost no one noticed might be one reason why Bing has dropped its Visual Search feature … something that apparently happened months ago. To be clear, this isn’t traditional image search that we’re talking about; that’s still available at bing.com/images. We’re talking about the “Visual Search” tool/interface that Bing launched in 2009 […]
Bing’s Streetside Now Appearing In The UK
In April of this year Microsoft announced that its visual mapping feature, Streetside, was making its way to Europe. The BBC reported at the time that cars mounted with the now familiar 360 degree cameras were driving around London collecting images. The fruit of that effort has now begun to appear. Microsoft previously said that […]
SMX Advanced Liveblog: Social Data & Search With Bing’s Stefan Weitz
Day two of our SMX Advanced conference is set to begin shortly with a keynote session on the “Confluence of Social Data & Search.” Bing Director Stefan Weitz is due to give a presentation/demo and then chat with Danny Sullivan. With 10 minutes to go before we start, I see no evidence of pandas on […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 31, 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: Twitter Intros Instant Follow Button In a bid to increase its presence across the Web, Twitter today announced the “follow button,” a snippet of code that can be placed on any […]
Bing Maps Tweaks Streetside, But Silverlight Still Needed For Best Experience
Bing Maps has added what it’s calling a “significant enhancement” to its Streetside product, but the best version remains the one that’s only available with Microsoft’s Silverlight plugin installed. According to today’s announcement, the Streetside upgrades are both structural and functional. On the structural side, Bing has eliminated what it calls “bubbles” of street-level views […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 19, 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: Matteo Lopez Wins The 2011 Doodle 4 Google Competition Google has announced the winner of the 2011 Google 4 Doodle, “What I’d like to do someday.” The winner is Matteo Lopez […]
Bing Webmaster Tools Enables HTML5 Interface
I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable this morning that Bing Webmaster Tools no longer requires Silverlight. Now, if you login to Bing Webmaster Tools without Silverlight installed on your computer, you can see all the reports, graphs and charts that you were unable to see days ago. In July 2010, Bing revamped Webmaster Tools […]
New Google Tool Lets You Preview Instant Previews In Webmaster Tools
There’s a new toy available now in Google’s Webmaster Tools: It’s an Instant Previews preview tool that lets you see what any page on your website will look like in Google’s Instant Previews. The tool actually pulls double-duty, also showing a preview of what the page will look like in the Chrome web browser, too. […]
Bing Webmaster Tools Launches New Link Reports; Google Webmaster Tools Changes Theirs
Bing Webmaster Tools has relaunched inbound link reports for verified site owners (as announced at SMX East back in October). I dove in to check out what the new reports include. Google has recently revamped their inbound link reports, so I made note of those changes well. Read on for more details. Want a quick summary? […]
Bing Releases Huge Set of Upgrades: Maps, Local, Mobile, Travel, Image Search
At the Bing Search event in San Francisco today, Microsoft unveiled a dizzying array of nearly across-the-board updates and improvements for Bing online and mobile apps. Some are minor and some are more significant. Most of these upgrades and feature enhancements will be available starting today or later this month. There are in fact so […]
Live Blogging the Bing Search Summit
I’m in San Francisco waiting for the start of the Bing Search Summit. There are a huge number of things rolling out this morning. It will be interesting to see what they emphasize and demonstrate here at the event. I’m not the master of live blogging that Danny is but I’ll do my best to […]
Bing Maps Overhauls Interface, Exposes Map Apps To All
Bing has announced a series of updates to the Bing Maps interface, including a very welcome move to make its collection of Map Apps easier to find. Map Apps is a growing collection of tools that expand the capabilities of Bing Maps; some — like the Taxi Fare Calculator and Parking Finder — are extremely […]
Behold “The King Of Bing Maps”
This summer Microsoft held a competition to promote and popularize its Bing Maps developer SDK and Map Apps. I was privileged to be one of the three judges who reviewed the finalists and voted on them across a range of criteria. The other two judges were Josh Lowensohn from CNET and Joe Francica from Directions […]
Bing Maps Launches New User Interface
Bing Maps has been doing some cool stuff lately on the functionality side of things, but the look-and-feel has been pretty stagnant for about a year now — since Bing’s launch last summer. To remedy that, Bing has announced the full launch of its new Maps experience. Here’s what Bing Maps looked like in June […]
All New Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools
Today, Microsoft launched a revamp of their Bing Webmaster Tools. I talked to them back in June, when they previewed the tools at SMX Advanced, and they told me that they were starting from scratch and rebuilding the tool from the ground up. So how are things different? They say they are focused on three key […]
Track “Le Tour” (de France) On Bing Maps
The world of sport is still largely focused on the World Cup, now in its semi-final round. However biking enthusiasts know that the Tour de France has started and is already in its second stage. Bing has introduced a “Map App” that provides a wealth of information about “Le Tour,” including stats and standings by […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 4, 2010
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Fighting The Oil Spill On Google: BP Versus The Lawyers As oil-poisoned pelicans are found on Gulf shorelines, lawyers and British Petroleum are looking to Google for help gaining public awareness. […]
Microsoft Considering Search Apps, Like In Bing Maps
Microsoft is doing some innovative things in allowing third party apps into the Silverlight version of Bing Maps. And the company may do something analogous in search, according to Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie in an interview at the D8 conference: [Interviewer Walt] Mossberg also elicited a bit of news from Ozzie, who confirmed Microsoft is considering […]
Google “Default” Search On The Apple iPad
Google announced a bunch of its services iPad-ready: YouTube (sans Flash), GMail, Maps and Voice Search. And Google also says in the same blog post, “As with Mac computers and the iPhone, you’ll find Google Search in the top right corner of Safari.” So it would appear then that Google will be the “default” search […]
Microsoft Announces Raft Of New Bing Features: Improved UI, More “Answers” And Of Course Foursquare
I think there’s no question that Bing is a success. People had widely expected it to fail (as Live Search had) when it entered the market. Instead it has steadily gained share and has even prompted some UI enhancements and changes from Google. Google is not “threatened” by Bing in any real way (today). But […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 17, 2010
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 […]
Now View The Night Sky In Bing Maps
Roughly two years ago Microsoft introduced “WorldWide Telescope.” At first it required a software download. It then was made available as a Silverlight web app. Today it’s being integrated into the new Silverlight version Bing Maps. In other words, you can now “look up at the sky” and see how space looks over that geographic […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 8, 2010
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 Pitfalls Of A/B Ad Split Testing, Part 1 Most search advertisers have no question that testing ads is a good thing, and can lead to much higher performing campaigns. But […]
Liveblog: Steve Ballmer Keynote At SMX West
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer makes his first address to the search marketing community today at SMX West in Santa Clara. Danny Sullivan will sit down with Ballmer for a “fireside chat” that will also include time for Q&A from members of the audience. NOTE: Microsoft has now posted a video and a transcript of the […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 12, 2010
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: We May Remove Buzz From Gmail Google says it may end the marriage between Buzz and Gmail. That may be a welcome move from users of both products, especially in […]
Google Offers Beta Features In New “Maps Labs”
Microsoft introduced some impressive new features and imagery in Bing Maps at the TED conference yesterday. With its new Silverlight version Bing has advanced online maps to a kind of “next level” (albeit one right now for power users perhaps) that jumps ahead of Google in terms of innovation (i.e., deep zoom, Photosynth integration, video […]
Bing Demos StreetSide With Flickr Photos, Live Video & “Bing Sky”
Today at the TED conference in Southern California, Microsoft’s Blaise Aguera y Arcas demonstrated a new crowdsourced-version Bing Maps that integrates photos and even live video that is shared by others. Microsoft will also soon launch what we’ve dubbed “Bing Sky,” the ability to use Bing to look up in the sky and see what’s […]
Bing, Google & Yahoo Gear Up For The 2010 Winter Olympic Games
With the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada just days away, the engines are unveiling their special coverage sections and search features in anticipation of spiking user searches and social conversations about the winter games and Olympians. Here’s a preview of the features from each, along with preliminary medals for search […]
Satellite Images Of Haiti Earthquake From Google & Bing Maps
Both Google Maps and Bing Maps offer ways to see the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti. Below, a look at how to see before and after images, taken by satellite. Plus, several 360-degree ground level videos you can view. 360-Degree On-The-Ground Video Immersive Media has released a number of 360-degree view videos of […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 22, 2010
From Search Engine Land: Google Adds More Answers & Info To Search Results Google has announced a pair of changes to its search results pages that make its search results pages more informational and give searchers information they’re looking for without having to click away from Google.com. […] comScore: US Has Most Searches; China Slowest […]
Bing Maps Challenge: Try Silverlight Version, Maybe Win $100
Microsoft wants people to download (or update Sliverlight) so they can use the new and improved Bing Maps. To create that incentive, as well as to get people to explore the new Bing Maps, Microsoft is offering chance to win a $100 gift card as part of the “Bing Maps Challenge.” The challenge game takes […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 20, 2010
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 Search Ad In Response To The China Decision The Wall Street Journal noted that Google has purchased search ads for queries done on Google.com for “Google Leaves China” or […]
Bing Silverlight Maps Comes Out Of Beta With New “Destination Maps” And Local Events Apps
Microsoft is taking the beta tag off its innovative Bing Maps Silverlight site, which we wrote about previously when it initially launched. According to Microsoft users will be transitioned to the new site and prompted to download Silverlight if they don’t already have it: First off, if you go to the Bing Maps AJAX site […]
Google Mulling Several Ways To Integrate Ads On Maps
A number of articles appeared that speculate about or discuss ads on Google Maps (PC and mobile) now and in the future. Google Maps is one of Google’s most successful and valuable properties — arguably even more so in mobile — and the company is going to be both careful and thoughtful about how it […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 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: URL Shorteners Come To Google & Facebook Google announced a new URL shortening service Goo.gl. It doesn’t replace Bit.ly and others because it only works right now with the Google Toolbar […]
MapQuest (Finally) Launches Street Views With “360 View”
We’re more than two years in with street-level photography, although Google was the only game in town for most of that time among the majors. There were also less-well-known independents such as Everyscape and MapJack. Then two weeks ago, Bing made a big splash with a very enhanced Silverlight version of Bing Maps and national […]