Google has apparently removed phone numbers from the so-called 7 Pack of organic local results. The numbers were present as recently as 24-36 hours ago. Immediately below is an example of a recent search result for “dentist, San Francisco” (within the last several weeks) and then for the same query this morning: The result on […]
There’s a way in which the just-released iPhone version of Wolfram Alpha makes more sense than the web version. The web version suggests a Google-like general search engine, which it is not; it’s a “computational” or “fact engine” with a more limited range of use cases. It does what it does well — offer a range of […]
Is it possible that, say a couple years from now, you might visit Yahoo.com and its Bing-powered search engine, but actually search Google, instead? It seems so. PaidContent reports on Yahoo’s appearance Wednesday at the 2009 Deutsche Bank Technology Conference, where Burke Colligan, a senior director for Yahoo Front Doors — the company’s user experience […]
If you could have had a crystal ball in 2004, would you have known that the power of online marketing is hiding within conversations? Did you consider that the content you put on your homepage holds little salt with readers unless it can be backed up with outside information? People still want the same thing […]
As an in-house SEO, where does the legitimate scope of your activities end, and those of somebody else begin? Are you being a useful and valid contributor, or simply poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong? What is rightfully within your scope may surprise you. Successful search engine marketing requires you to collaborate with […]
Did you come to our site and have a message appear before you could read a story? Those are called "overlays," and they’re becoming more commonly used by various web sites as an effective way to communicate with visitors. If you saw one of these, we’re sorry to have interrupted your reading, but hopefully you […]
Your web site’s bounce rate may be a significant factor in your search engine rankings. If the bounce rate on your site is high, you could end up with lower rankings in the search engines. Correspondingly, lower bounce rates may actually offer meaningful ranking boosts. (Don’t know what a bounce rate is? Hang on—definitions below.) […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Have you ever heard a search engine optimization (SEO) professional use the term user experience during a presentation, in an article or as part of a sales pitch? On the web, user experience (commonly abbreviated as UX or UE) is a term used to describe the overall perception, experience, and satisfaction that users have as […]
As I reported last week, Yahoo SearchMonkey applications are now available to searchers. The Yahoo Search blog posted details last night, saying that searchers can now add SearchMonkey applications via either the gallery (which is in beta) or through promoted links from application developers or web sites. The gallery contains only 39 applications so far […]
Microsoft has said that between “2 and 10 percent” of site searches lead to a 404 error page. The company thus decided to create what it’s calling the “Web Page Error Toolkit.” It’s a web application that uses either Live Search (or another engine of the site owner’s choice) to provide a custom error page […]
Last week, Microsoft Live Search expanded the description that appears below Wikipedia results and added navigational links to major headings within the Wikipedia article. Google has long been gently mocked by the search marketing community for ranking Wikipedia results highly for a large percentage of queries, but the general searching population tends to find these […]
I’ve got no problem if Microsoft wants to “bribe” searchers to use its search engine. Even Google has done the same. But the Live Search Cashback program rolled out today seems a pretty inept way to do it, far more likely to disappoint and frustrate than woo searchers.
Yahoo made a range of mobile search-related announcements today at CTIA. At a high level, these include: Open oneSearch (Search Monkey for mobile), Search Assist for mobile, voice-enabled oneSearch, and “idle screen” search.
My family was recently in Boulder, CO—a place we had hitherto not been. Nice town, but where to go? We spent most of our time at The Spot rock climbing gym because our kids were competing in the bouldering national championships. After a day of intense heart-stopping competition, with thrills and spills set against a […]
Perhaps it was lucky fate that Anders Hjorth (of Relevant Traffic, a European SEM agency) and I didn’t have too much time to compare notes going into the panel “Tuning Ads for Quality Score” at SMX Stockholm last week. Fortunately, the presentations didn’t overlap too much. The interesting thing is the overlapping conclusions we drew […]
Yahoo has informed me that they have launched Yahoo Search Assist in the UK. If you go to https://uk.search.yahoo.com/ and conduct a search, you will see the Search Assist feature: Yahoo launched this in the US earlier this month.
Linkbait, link juice, PageRank, paid links—all of these terms are commonly associated with one of the fundamental building blocks of successful search engine optimization (SEO): link development. One of the problems with link development gurus is their obsession with 301 redirects. Heck, I have even heard search engine software engineers tout 301 redirects as the […]
Expectations of mobile search and local mobile search in particular are rising. As mobile ad networks form, mobile M&A activity heats up and the search engines pour greater attention and resources into their mobile offerings one could say we’re on the cusp of a new mobile era. Indeed, as much as I’m reluctant to use […]
This week kicks off the first of our guest writers on Just Behave. This week, I’m pleased to welcome Michael Ferguson from Ask.com. Michael is senior user experience analyst for Ask.com, looking at how people seek, acquire, and act on information. He informs product development with user context and design recommendations. Michael has analyzed search […]
I admit it. I am a search engine geek. Because I have a passion for understanding search usability, one of my particular interests is duplicate content filtering. If you want to really irritate searchers, present the same content to them in all or most of the top 10 positions in search results. In the past, […]
The adCenter blog announced that they have made improvements to the ranking algorithm to take into account several quality factors. The factors include:
I’m generally suspicious of surveys that say things you’d expect them to say by the company that commissioned them. In this case, ClipBlast — a video search site — sends word of a survey covering frustration with video search. Still, I’ll pass along some stats and the press release, for what they’re worth. The key […]
One of the reasons I tend to focus on “organic” search engine optimization (SEO), as an online marketing strategy is that the majority of search results come from the natural spidering process. Admittedly, searchers tend to look at and click on the top results from both the paid and unpaid listings. However, after carefully evaluating […]
For the past three weeks we’ve let members of usability teams from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft talk about a user experiences on their respective sites. Today, I’d like to point out what was interesting in each of these three interviews. In talking to each of them, I couldn’t help but notice the pervasiveness of the […]
I was thrilled to hear Google was offering Google Maps For Windows Mobile recently. I’m a big Windows Mobile user, and I’ve often felt abandoned by Google on my device. But actually finding that app using my Windows Mobile device turned out to be an incredible challenge. The same was true trying to find Microsoft’s […]
Yesterday’s rollout of Yahoo’s new Panama search advertising ranking system has been both praised and criticized by advertisers (see Panama is LIVE! – for some and Yahoo’s Panama: The Switch Is Flipped on The New Ad System). Praised, because the new system is streamlined, easier to use and offers more campaign management tools. Criticized, because […]
Aaron Wall has an excellent write up named Optimal Word Count & Web Page Copy Length. In short, Aaron explains that there is “no universal correct or incorrect answer to how much content is right.” Aaron then goes through tips on how to write good content, that is easy to read and “optimized for user […]
On Friday, we reported briefly on a new eye tracking study from Microsoft on how users interact with search results. I spent some time doing a deep dive into the survey, which is full of interesting information. Among the findings is that search marketers may need to be more concerned about getting into the top […]
Ad and image placement: a policy clarification from the official Google Inside AdSense blog covers issues about placing images next to AdSense units, something that seems to have grown in popularity as a means of encouraging clicks. In short — don’t. Google doesn’t want images to appear related to AdSense links: We ask that publishers […]