Why TikTok deserves a place in your SEO strategy
TikTok is adding new ways for businesses to be discovered, from Local Feed and AI summaries to creator reviews and TikTok Shop.
Topic: Portland
GEO x local SEO: What it means for the future of discovery
You can dominate local rankings yet disappear in AI search. Learn how to win the citations that actually drive local customers.
Google Search adds AI try-on, previews agentic checkout
Shop with AI Mode lets users find, try on, and buy clothing in Google Search using personal photos and live price tracking.
SEO today and beyond: 8 ways to balance what works now with what’s to come
From zero-click searches to AI advancements, here’s how to optimize for what works now while preparing for the future of SEO.
Pickup and delivery attributes, indoor Live View and more AI-powered features are coming to Google Maps and GMB
Google is packing more features, many commerce-related, into Maps, helping the company maintain its position as the intermediary between our online and offline activities.
Google Maps Android app adds ‘find parking’ feature to show you nearest parking garage
Starting today, Google Maps users can tap the “find parking” button on the Android app to see a list of parking garages and lots in 25 US cities.
Google Maps will tell you how hard it will be to find parking
Now you can plan enough time not just for driving to your destination but also the time it takes to park at your destination with the Google Maps app.
Why are payday loan ads still showing on Google after the ban?
A deep look at how the payday loan industry is able to keep advertising despite Google's policy changes.
SearchCap: Google penalties, Google appeals & 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: Don’t trust Google to structure your local dataApr 11, 2016 by Andrew Shotland As Google increasingly incorporates direct answers and other types of featured snippets into search results pages, columnist Andrew […]
Bing Brings Search To The Forefront Of The New Bing Maps Preview
Bing has made several search specific improvements to the Bing Maps Preview, that is currently in beta.
Expedia Adds Emoji To Its Title Tags To Increase Click Through Rates In Google
In an effort to increase SEO sales, Expedia tests adding Emoji characters to some of their page title tags.
SearchCap: Google Panda & Penguin, Bing Ads Upgraded URLs & Getty Images Partners With Bing
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 Ads Adding Support For Upgraded URLs The roll out will occur in two stages: one for AdWords imports and a second for full availability within Bing Ads. Link Risk Management: […]
Up Close @SMX Advanced: The Periodic Table Of SEO Elements
This SEO ranking factors session has become a much-anticipated tradition at SMX Advanced, as the substantial early morning crowd in attendance this year testified. Each year, a panel of SEO data experts present their up-to-date findings, test results, and best guesses as to what factors are primary in Google’s ranking algorithm. There are always surprises, […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 9, 2013
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 Places Expands To Canada, UK Bing Places is finally available beyond U.S. borders. The company announced today that local businesses in Canada and the United Kingdom — and search marketing […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 2, 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: Bing Advertising To Increase Transparency With “Quality Impact” How valuable would it be to work on improving your paid search keywords’ Quality Score? And which keywords should you focus on first? […]
Google Starts Shutting Down Its City Pages, Shifts To Google+ Local
Google is in the process of shutting down its collection of city pages — a change that follows the shift from Google Places to Google+ Local, and a change that may be reflective of a larger shift in direction for Google’s local efforts. Mike Blumenthal noticed yesterday that the Portland city page had gone missing. […]
Google Updates Earth For iOS With More 3D, Adds Default City Location To PC Maps
In early June, at its “next dimension” mapping event, Google promised more complete 3D coverage in Google Earth. Yesterday it rolled out new versions of Earth for iOS devices. The list of fully rendered 3D cities includes: “Boulder, Boston, Charlotte, Lawrence (Kan.), Long Beach (Ca.), Los Angeles, Portland (Ore.), San Diego, Santa Cruz, Tampa, Tucson, […]
Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Search Engine? Bing’s New TV Ads Have A Ranking/Bass Stop-Motion Flavor
If you know that Hermey The Elf longs to be a dentist, that Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer’s girlfriend is named Clarice, and if you can sing “Silver and Gold” as well as Yukon Cornelius, Bing’s new holiday ad campaign will be right up your alley. The Microsoft search engine’s newest video spots play off the classic Rankin/Bass Christmas […]
All Sales & No Service: Google’s Small Business Priorities Are All Messed Up
Google is, again, wiping the egg off of its company face this week after the New York Times exposed yet another way in which some users are manipulating Google Places to the detriment of unsuspecting small/local business owners. The latest issue involves unscrupulous individuals/companies marking other businesses as closed in Google Places. It’s a process […]
Google Offers Goes Live In Five New Cities
As promised, Google Offers is continuing to expand. Google has just announced its launch in five new cities: Seattle, Denver, Austin, Washington, DC and Boston. They join six other locations in four cities where Offers is already available: Portland, San Francisco, Oakland and three sections of New York City. But, wait! There’s more: As the […]
Google Offers Go Live In SF, NY & On Upgraded “Shopper” App
Following a relatively successful launch in Portland last month Google is now rolling out Google Offers in two more markets: San Francisco and New York. Google has also updated its Shopper Android app to include deals. The app is generally focused on products but now contains tabs that allow users to access the featured daily […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 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: Google Voice Search & Search By Image Comes To Desktops Mobile innovation is fueling Google’s search offerings for the desktop, as the company today announced two new search interfaces — Voice […]
Google City Sites May Compete With Yelp, Online Yellow Pages
Yesterday David Mihm was pointing out on Twitter that Google had created a number of new city sites or portals. They appear to be the phoenix rising out of the ashes of Hotpot. As I wrote yesterday on my own blog, this is Google’s effort to bring a number of initiatives together in a single […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 3, 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: Introducing: The Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors SEO — search engine optimization — is one of the most important marketing activities available to companies and publishers, but it’s too often […]
Groupon Files For IPO While Google Offers Could Be Its “Next Billion Dollar Business”
Google took its first daily deal baby steps yesterday with the launch of its first Google Offer in Portland. It was reportedly a hit for the business owner and a success for Google. According to CNET and ClickZ the first customer hit Floyd’s Coffee Shop within about 10 minutes of the offer going live. Overall, […]
Official: Google Offers Goes Live, First Portland Offer Arrives
[As promised below in our post from late Tuesday night, the first Google Offer just arrived minutes ago in my Gmail inbox. Here’s a screenshot, followed by the remainder of Tuesday night’s post about it.] Sometime in the next several hours, presumably thousands of Google users in the Portland, Ore., area will get an email […]
Live From D: It’s Google No-Longer-The-CEO Eric Schmidt
I’m at the D Conference in here beautiful Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is to be interviewed by our fearless host Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. Let’s see what he has to say. Postscript: See The Top 10 Things Eric Schmidt Revealed At D9 if you want the less stream-of-consciousness view […]
With Google Wallet Mobile Payments Era Is Finally Here
For more than a decade people have prophesied the end of cash and credit cards. And for the past two years the drumbeat around mobile payments has grown steadily louder with the adoption of smartphones. Now numerous companies are jockeying to participate in what expected to be a huge market that will eventually generate billions […]
How Yelp Crushed Citysearch & Yahoo Local … & Why Google Is Stealing Yelp’s Playbook
A fascinating study published last year compares the reviews and reviewers at three local business websites: Yelp, Citysearch and Yahoo Local. And, in explaining how Yelp overtook the other two, it also hints — in my opinion — at how Google is trying to beat Yelp by using Yelp’s own playbook. Citysearch and Yahoo Local […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 21, 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: AT&T: 43 Percent Of Local-Mobile Searchers “Walk Through The Door” There are a number of studies (e.g., Pew, Forrester) in the market that question how interested or engaged users are with […]
Google Offers Taking Signups In New York City, Bay Area & Portland
Google Offers, the company’s not-so-secret coupon program, is taking signups in three areas: New York City, San Francisco/Oakland and Portland, Oregon. Users can subscribe to get discounts via email in any or all of those available cities. After signing up, Google’s confirmation promises “regular emails” — which sounds like not necessarily “daily” — with discounts […]
Google Joins Forces With MasterCard On NFC To Test The Future Of Digital Marketing, Analytics
Google’s Gingerbread (Android 2.3) offers near field communication (NFC) support, which can be used for both “contactless payments” and marketing purposes. People tend to think about and discuss NFC in the context of “mobile wallets” and payments exclusively but there’s a great deal more it can do. For example, Google has been testing NFC-based marketing […]
Google To Test Mobile Payments In NY And SF
While Apple has reportedly decided to forgo NFC-related hardware/software in iPhone 5 because of a lack of standards, Google is to begin testing NFC-based mobile payments at selected stores in New York and San Francisco according to an article in Bloomberg: The company will pay for installation of thousands of special cash-register systems from VeriFone […]
Google Hotpot Places A Bet On Las Vegas
Google’s on-the-streets promotional blitz for its Hotpot ratings and recommendations service has landed a new home: Las Vegas. The company has just announced a local marketing campaign in “sin city” that’s aimed at upping usage of Google Places and Hotpot. As part of the launch, Google is giving away 10,000 free Las Vegas Monorail tickets […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 28, 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: Number Crunchers: Who Lost In Google’s “Farmer” Algorithm Change? On Thursday, Google announced a major change to its search algorithm, designed to weed out shallow and low-quality content from its top […]
Google Promotes Hotpot, Places In Austin In Advance of SXSW
When the digirati descend on Austin for the SXSW interactive conference next month, Google is hoping their smartphones will brim with local listings and reviews on Places and Hotpot. To that end, the company today began a promotion to get local businesses, along with Austin visitors and residents, on board with the search giant’s local […]
Google’s Eric Schmidt: “2011 All About Mobile”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt, writing in the Harvard Business Review (via RWW), says that Google’s 2011 initiatives are “all about mobile.” In his short piece he explains that geolocation on smartphones enables contexual personalization and a range of new possibilities and user experiences. But to realize that vision there are three infrastructure elements that must […]
Google Working On NFC-Based Mobile Payment Service: Report
Google has its eyes on a mobile payment service that would allow users to pay for common goods and services by waving or tapping their mobile phones. That’s according to a BusinessWeek report that cites “two people familiar with the plans.” BusinessWeek’s sources say the payment service could debut this year. It would be based […]
A Tale Of Three Android Phones: Droid 2, Samsung Fascinate & Google Nexus S
Over the past few months, I’ve been testing various Android phones. Overall, the platform has continued to improve, to the degree that I can easily swap an Android phone for my iPhone 4 and not feel a loss. But unlike the one-size-fits-all iPhone, each Android phone has its own individual characteristics. Below, a look at […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 10, 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: Q&A: Google’s Sengupta On The Chrome OS Cr-48 Laptop Yesterday, after writing my review of the Google Chrome OS Cr-48 notebook, I had a chance to catch up with Google product […]