A Google attorney told a federal judge today that the two sides involved in the long-running Google Book Search lawsuit settlement are negotiating an “opt-in settlement” in an attempt to finally put the case to rest. As The Laboratorium reports, Google’s attorney Michael Boni told Judge Dennis Chin that both sides “have been aiming for […]
The 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) “e-business report is out. Google, Bing and the entire “Internet Search Engines & Portals” category seems to have done well. In particular Bing and Ask improved significantly over last year. Facebook’s report card, on the other hand, is not as likely to make mom and dad happy. The […]
Who still uses yellow pages? San Francisco has even banned delivery without permission, assuming no one wants them. But a yellow pages industry group has a new survey saying that yellow pages are more trusted, more widely used and perceived by consumers to be more accurate when it comes to local information than search engines […]
Google launched Street View on Thursday in India, the second most-populous country on earth. But “launch” may be a bit of an overstatement because, in a country that’s also the seventh biggest in square mileage, Google is only taking photographs in one city: Bangalore. Google announced that it’s using both cars and trikes to photographs […]
Last week, in honor of the ubiquitous daytime talk show wrapping after 25 years of production, Yahoo released some search stats as the buzz leading up to the final show airing today (Wednesday, May 25, 2011) built up, with searches related to Oprah Winfrey rising 56% in the week prior. The queen of daytime has long been […]
At search engine marketing conferences, I am often asked for advice on how to hire people for in-house search engine marketing jobs. Usually over lunch a business owner turns to me and says something like, I came here to learn more about all this search engine stuff and what I learned is that I need […]
Wouldn’t it be great if there was one mapping service that offers everything you need to plan a trip to somewhere you’ve never been? Sure, map sites are generally pretty similar. You can see maps, find business listings, get driving directions, see images and stuff like that. But it’s actually more complicated than that. At […]
Recently, I had an amazing experience. I was invited to be a part of an all agency partner meeting. Throughout the day, we talked about various initiatives to ensure that the right partners collaborated on each to maximize the brand’s marketing dollars. However, we did something else that was far more valuable. We listened. The […]
Is your website’s URL structure based on the perceived logic of your boss’ teenage son? Or even worse, a software engineer? Search-engine friendly labeling systems are critical for long-term search engine visibility.
It’s only been 48 hours since Google expanded the Panda/Farmer update to all English language searches outside the US, and we’re already seeing reports about who the early winners and losers are. In some cases, the names are familiar if you followed the original reports when the algorithm change first hit in the US in […]
The Justice Department (DOJ) has signed off on the Google acquisition of travel software company ITA, but says Google must meet certain conditions. The Justice Department said that as originally proposed the acquisition would have “substantially lessened competition among providers of comparative flight search websites in the United States.” The DOJ is requiring Google to […]
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 Must Censor Google Instant In Italy For Derogatory Suggestions ZDNet UK reports the Court of Milan has ruled that Google has to filter the auto-completions that Google Instant provides in […]
It’s an extremely challenging time to be a link builder. Whether you see yourself as white hat, black hat, or as most are, gray, there has never been a time in my nearly two decades of being a content publicist / link builder when it was more challenging to keep up with the variety and […]
Google has bid $900 million (according to the Wall Street Journal) for an extensive patent portfolio owned by the now-bankrupt Canadian company Nortel Networks. The move is primarily defensive, as Google explains in a blog post: The tech world has recently seen an explosion in patent litigation, often involving low-quality software patents, which threatens to […]
Google has announced a new version of AdWords called Media Ads, aimed initially at marketers of major motion pictures with new releases. It will allow them to embed the trailer into their ad, and have it automatically come up first when someone searches for the title, or some variation of it. When someone clicks, Google […]
Google has won a $1.6 million settlement against five defendants that it sued in December 2009 over the use of Google’s name in what the company called “a widespread Internet advertising scam.” Today’s decision involves five of the 50 defendants that Google originally sued: Bloosky, Just Think Media, Crush, Hyper Interactive, Search 4 Profit, and […]
Earlier this year the Italian Communications Authority decided that YouTube was effectively a TV broadcaster and imposed the same rules and restrictions that apply to TV in Italy — and potential penalties for their violation — on Google. It said that Google is now legally responsible for any content appearing on YouTube. Now an Italian […]
Twitter’s 5th birthday celebration is underway — the company is sharing a new video, new website, blog posts, and has a national TV appearance on tap, too. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is scheduled to appear on tonight’s Conan show on cable network TBS. That’ll be the cap on what’s already been a celebrity-filled birthday. Twitter […]
As popular unrest has spread throughout the Middle East and led to the overthrow or ouster of governments in Tunisia, Egypt and potentially elsewhere (stay tuned), pro-democracy activists in China have also called for protests and a “Jasmine Revolution,” which is a reference to the Tunisian revolt. Ever vigilant against democratic reforms, the Chinese government […]
Google is making good on promises it made to speed its AdSense code, rolling out an overhaul aimed at relieving the drag on publishers’ Web pages. The company estimates that its helping pages load faster by a half a second or more, when, previously, Google acknowledged that its code could delay page loads by 12 […]
If all goes according to plan, Google’s Street View service should be driving through select cities in Israel soon and the photos could be online later this year. It’ll be Street View’s first move into the Middle East but, despite the obvious security concerns, the Israeli government says the service will be good for tourism […]
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 […]
Google is aware that some “good” sites have been hurt by the recent Farmer algorithm update and is working to fix the problem already. That’s according to a Wired.com story that focuses largely on Cult of Mac, an Apple-centric blog that lost 80% of its keyword rankings according to the Sistrix data that came out […]
Data has always been at the center of marketing decisions, but today it enjoys a constant, glaring spotlight! Results based marketing is here to stay, so it’s time to get the tracking machinery in place and get in front of the dashboard for some action. At a very basic level, you need to know which […]
Gazopa recently added stock photos to its image search engine. That isn’t exactly huge news in and of itself, but the interesting thing about Gazopa is the multiple ways you can search for images. The company has added a “stock photo” tab on its search results page, so a keyword search for office furniture and […]