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 Bing Search By License Feature Filters Images Based On Usage Rights Bing announced a new “Search by License” feature today that filters images based on usage rights. The new feature […]
Bing announced a new “Search by License” feature today that filters images based on usage rights. The new feature filters images with a Creative Commons license, helping users avoid the hassle of digging through image licensing details to find available photos. The “Search by License” feature has six different filters, making it possible for users […]
Warren “Ted” Ulle, also known in the SEO community for his handle “Tedster,” passed away with his family at his side Thursday night, June 27, 2013. Many of us in the SEO industry learned an incredible amount of knowledge from Ted over the years. In all honesty, his work and contributions to the industry, in […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Yahoo Rolls Out Search Alerts For Web Search, Images & Video According to the Yahoo Search Tumblr blog, Yahoo Search Alerts for Web Search, Images and Video launched today. In the […]
Bing announced changes to the way they allow webmasters to manage their “deep links” in the search results, while Google has quietly added up to ten sitelinks for a navigational query. Bing Deep Links Update Vincent Wehren, Senior Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Tools, announced on the Bing Webmaster blog that they have updated the […]
Google is now showing Google+ logos and icons for company profiles in the rich snippets portion of their search results listings. Ross Hudgens spotted the Google+ icon displayed next to the search result for the company’s listing. Rel=publisher markup is not required for the logo to show up. I believe all that is required is […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: DuckDuckGo Launches New Search & Content App For iOS DuckDuckGo (DDG) has launched a new iOS app called Search & Stories to go along with the Android app that’s been available […]
Paid search spend in the US increased 7 percent year-over-year in Q2 2013, according to IgnitionOne’s latest Digital Marketing Report. That’s up from a 2 percent YoY increase seen in Q1, though IgnitionOne found that total search spend fell quarter-over-quarter. Clicks and impressions both rose 5 percent, and CPCs ticked up 2 percent YoY. The retailer […]
The SEO industry has undergone significant changes in the last 12+ months. Search has gained greater legitimacy as a marketing channel as budget holders increase head count and invest in advanced technology. And, the SERPs themselves have undergone changes that have had many implications, including adjustments to the underlying algorithms that surface content. Here at […]
Yesterday, we covered the 2013 ranking factors from SearchMetrics, now let us share with you the Google ranking factors from a different company named Netmark. You can learn about Netmark’s methodology for determining these ranking factors over here, and you can see all the ranking factors over here. Here the top 10 ranking factors from […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Study: Google Local Carousel Results Win 48% Of Clicks, While Only 14.5% Of Clicks Were On The Map When using heatmaps to gauge interest levels for Google Local Carousel results, search […]
When using heatmaps to gauge interest levels for Google Local Carousel results, search marketer Matthew Hunt discovered that 48 percent of searchers surveyed clicked the Carousel results, while only 14.5 percent clicked on the map. Using the search term ‘Chicago Restaurants,’ Hunt asked 83 searchers to click on the area of the Google search results […]
Last month at the SMX Advanced Conference in Seattle, the head of Google’s webspam team Matt Cutts briefed the audience on the importance of mobile SEO. “You really need to be thinking about mobile,” said Cutts during his keynote session, “We’re starting to think a lot about mobile.” Not only is Google’s head of webspam […]
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 “Remarketing Lists For Search Ads” Coming Out Of Beta On the heels of releasing dynamic retargeting for retailers in AdWords, Google has announced it will be rolling out remarketing lists […]
In 2002, the US Federal Trade Commission issued landmark guidelines to search engines, to ensure they were make a clear distinction between their paid and unpaid listings. Now, the FTC has updated those guidelines, saying it has seen a “decline in compliance” since they were first issued. The FTC posted the news today on its […]
There appears to be an update underway, one that will be rolling out over a “multi-week” timeframe according to Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts. The update was announced by Matt on Twitter in response to a question about why some of the search results look spammy. Matt replied saying, “Yup we saw that. […]
In a horrific sequence of events, Oregon SEO consultant Michael Cottam lost both of his parents on the evening of June 16, 2013 near Myrtle Point, Oregon when Renae and Lola Cottam were murdered in their home before their house was set on fire by the suspected killer. Instead of sending flowers and gifts, Michael […]
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 New Top Movers Report Aims To Automate “What’s Changed” Reporting The new Top Movers report in Google AdWords shows you which campaigns and ad groups had the largest changes […]
Bing announced Bing For Schools today, a new program designed for K-12 US schools, scheduled to launch later this year. In an effort to help schools teach digital literacy skills, Bing For Schools will offer an ad-free search experience with SafeSearch settings to filter adult content and lesson plans attached to homepage images. The Bing […]
A couple weeks ago, we reported Google opened up invite requests to join a beta of the structure data dashboard. I signed up immediately and yesterday, I, along with other webmasters, received my welcome email to take a look at the report. To sign up, you can do so at over here – I am […]
Google has quietly dropped another search operator, the tilde (i.e., ~) search operator. Google Operating System blog noticed the lack of support for the tilde operator over the weekend. Reportedly, Dan Russell, a Search Research Scientist at Google, confirmed Google dropped the feature. Dan said the feature was dropped to “lack of use.” Dan told […]
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 Experiments With Social Search By Adding New Bing Boards To Search Results Bing announced today that they are adding a new social element to their search results with the introduction […]
Bing announced today that they are adding a new social element to their search results with the introduction of Bing Boards. Currently being created by, “…a small group of food and lifestyle bloggers, experts and social influencers,” the Bing Boards are a collection of images, videos and links focused on a specific topic pulled together […]
Google posted a new article today answering common questions about submitting reconsideration requests and managing your backlink profile. Google Search Quality representatives, Kaspar Szymanski and Uli Lutz, co-authored the article, going through the more common questions on this topic. Google says you should really only submit a reconsideration request when you receive a manual penalty […]
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 To Bing Ads Location Extensions: Directions Links To Maps, Multiple Location Listings, Reporting By Location A couple of new features are coming to Bing Ads location extensions, which launched in […]
Forrester, in its annual report on how consumers found websites during the past year, discovered that 54% of respondents found websites through natural search results in 2012, up from 50% in 2011. Social networks were the second-most preferred discovery resource, with 32% using them in 2012, up from 25% in 2011 and 18% in 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: New Updates To Bing Ads Intelligence, Excel Add-In For Keyword Research And Analysis Microsoft has released an update to Bing Ads Intelligence, the free Excel add-in for keyword research and keyword […]
Google has quietly updated the rankings article within the Google Webmaster Help documentation. The change is to keep Google consistent with their general change in messaging that content is what webmasters should focus on, not links. Previously, the article had a line that read: In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: DuckDuckGo Passes 3 Million Searches, Just 8 Days After Hitting 2 Million Another week, another traffic record in the alternative search engine space. DuckDuckGo (DDG) tweeted this morning about its latest […]
Last week, we began seeing complaints of the Google Webmaster Tools “Links To Your Site” report showing 80% or less of the number of links that should be displayed. Yesterday, I noticed the issue myself, and today, Google confirmed this is a reporting bug. In short, tons of webmasters who analyze their links using Google […]
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 Matt Cutts: Stock Images Do Not Impact Search Engine Rankings Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, said in a recent video that using stock images from a stock image […]
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, said in a recent video that using stock images from a stock image website has no impact on rankings. The question was, “Does using stock photos on your pages have a negative effect on rankings?” Matt’s answer was very short, he said “no.” There is no positive or […]
While the Google Knowledge Graph Carousel was launched nearly a year ago, more reports are confirming Carousel image displays appearing more often and for a wider variety of categories in SERPs. The Carousel display shows results in an image-focused fashion, listed horizontally at the top of the SERP. The new reports show an updated design, […]
Google appears to have quietly put an end to a long-running trial that added a “quick view” option next to mobile (smartphone only) search results from select websites. The feature offered searchers a fast way to see a lightweight version of a webpage without having to fully click through and load the page. We first […]
Up Close Coverage From SMX Advanced 2013 Recently, I attended the SMX Advanced session, “Authorship: The Deep Dive“, moderated by Elisabeth Osmeloski, and featuring speakers: John Carcutt, Advance Digital, Janet Driscoll Miller, Search Mojo, Mitul Gandhi, seoClarity, and Mark Traphagen, Virante, Inc. There were a number of interesting takeaways. Mitul Gandhi is up first. He […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Spurred By PRISM Scandal, StartPage & Ixquick Surpass 3 Million Daily Searches Alternative search engines are having a good week, likely thanks to public awareness and concern over data and privacy […]
In last month’s post about authorship, I shared that Google has been experimenting with inferring authorship for PDF documents in addition to webpages. This piqued my curiosity to see if any other indexable filetypes could also have inferred authorship. Microsoft Office Files PowerPoint files appear to infer authorship similar to PDFs and webpages, looking for […]
Yesterday, Google announced more changes to the Google mobile search algorithm, which we can expect to roll out shortly. This update is intended to improve the search experience for mobile users by “address[ing] sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users” — presumably by improving mobile rankings for sites that have been optimized according to their […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Facebook To End Sponsored Search Ads — For Now Facebook has said that it’s getting rid of sponsored search results for the time being. It’s not walking away from “search advertising,” […]
Bing commercials have been running rampant on TV lately — they have amped up their service and definitely have something to prove. Among other things, they’re becoming increasingly integrated into Windows 8, possibly increasing public interest in Bing. For many people (online marketers in particular), there is a tendency to forget that Bing even exists […]