The 10 Most Important Paid Search Developments So Far In 2014
It’s been a big year so far for product listing ads on both Google and Bing. Google started putting more ads in the Knowledge Graph. Bing followed Google’s lead on combining tablet and desktop traffic. And Google said it would begin stripping paid search queries from referrer strings….
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Google’s Matt Cutts: MetaFilter Hit By An Algorithm But Not Panda Or Penguin
Last month, MetaFilter, a news and discussion site from back in the old days, told us they got hit by a Google penalty years ago that had a major impact on their business. We posted our theories and details on this penalty in our post named On MetaFilt…
After Killing SES, Incisive Media Seems To Think “OMG” & Tries To Bring It Back
Incisive Media, which purchased the Search Engine Strategies conference when it was near the height of attendance, killed the brand entirely last year in place of a new ClickZ Live event. But now, after what seems to have been a disaster of the first C…
Open Letter: Why Search Engine Land Will & Won’t Cover Someone Being Penalized By Google
It’s been big news recently about major brands and Google penalties, and the floodgates feel open on people spotting even more brands possibly hit out there. Some new crackdown by Google? No. It’s the rise of hyperactive attention in this area, and that’s turning into a problem….
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Super Bowl 2014: How We Searched
I know, I know. Kids today are all about the hashtags and the Twitters, but turns out, we’re pretty good multi-taskers and are still really into searching too. As has been the case all six years I’ve been looking at how the Super Bowl impacts how we search, we use Google (and Bing and…
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Search Engine Land’s Most-Shared Stories on Google+ for 2013: What’s Right, What’s Wrong, What’s Next, & What’s Dead
Happy New Year to you, search marketing friends! Surely you’re eager to dive head-first into 2014, weighing predictions and forecasts of what’s next in the worlds of SEO and SEM, but we’ve still got an installment or two in our Search Engine Land Year In Review series! So…
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“NORAD Tracks Santa” Is Back With Bing For 2013 & Will Santa Tracking Match At Google?
It’s official. NORAD Tracks Santa, the annual Santa tracking effort run by the joint US-Canadian air defense organization, will be using Microsoft’s Bing for the second year to map Santa’s route. But will Google be mapping Santa on a different route, as happened when it ran its…
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After Two Years Of Broken Promises, Does Google Need To Explain More to Maintain Trust In Search?
For two years running, Google’s broken major promises about search. It began doing paid inclusion in 2012, which it once called “evil.” This year, it’s experimenting with banner ads it said would never be allowed. Both represent major philosophical shifts for the company…
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Are Google Searches The Best Way To Highlight Discrimination Against Women?
The United Nations is continuing its admirable and proper work of highlighting discrimination against women around the world, but is using Google’s autocomplete feature the best way to do it? UN Women, a UN entity formed in July 2010 that focuses on gender equality and women’s rights,…
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Infographic: What Is The Nofollow Tag; When & How To Use It
The nofollow tag is a way publishers can tell search engines not to count some of their links to other pages as “votes” in favor of that content. Why would publishers need to block such votes? Doing so can help them avoid problems with search engines believing they are selling influence…
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Infographic: An Anatomy Of Google’s Dynamic Search Results Page
Do you know your SERP? That stands for Search Engine Results Page. In the case of Google, it can be pretty hard to keep up. Google has multiple SERPs, with some elements that may only appear if your search is deemed especially local, or shopping-orient…
What The Government Shutdown Means For .gov SEO
As part of the US government shut down, many .gov sites have also shut down, replaced by messages like this: “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.” But one day, the government will start up again and government…
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Post-PRISM, Google Confirms Quietly Moving To Make All Searches Secure, Except For Ad Clicks
In the past month, Google quietly made a change aimed at encrypting all search activity — except for clicks on ads. Google says this has done to provide “extra protection” for searchers, and the company may be aiming to block NSA spying activity. Or possibly, it’s a move to…
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When It Comes To Google, Microsoft’s Ballmer Is Still Fighting Old Battles With Old Tactics
I’ve watched Microsoft fight Google in search for a very long time. Bing has come a long way, and I’ve been pleased to see a strong competitor emerge. But Microsoft hasn’t actually hurt Google’s share. It’s only robbed from its partner, Yahoo. So how’s Microsoft…
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Revealed: The 17 Other Search Engines The FTC Warned Over Paid Ad Disclosures
In June, the US Federal Trade Commission warned seven “general purpose” search engines — including Google, Bing and Yahoo — about the need to ensure they were properly disclosing paid ads. But 17 other “specialty” search engines were also warned. Which ones? The…
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Google: Today’s Enhanced Campaigns Rollout Will Take Several Weeks To Complete
Account managers have been bombarded with alerts in their AdWords dashboards for months now. Today, notices like the one below started appearing upon login to AdWords — upgrade your campaigns by July 22 or Google will do it for you. Now, in a new blog post, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice…
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The Definitive Guide to Technical Mobile SEO
At SMX Advanced, I moderated a panel about technical SEO. Google’s Maile Ohye spoke about SEO best practices for technical implementation of mobile sites based on how Google crawls, indexed, and ranks mobile content and presents it to searchers on mobile devices. She also talked about Google’s…
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Facebook’s Graph Search Then & Now: What’s Changed
Facebook has started rolling out Graph Search to all US English users, a move that comes about seven months after the product first launched to a small number of users in mid-January. Graph Search has gone through some changes since then, perhaps none …
Now Updated: The Periodic Table Of SEO Success Factors
Two years ago, we released ”The Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors.” Now we’re back with an update. We’ve introduced some new elements, adjusted a few rankings and given the table a more encompassing name, The Periodic Table Of SEO Success Factors. Clicking on the image…
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Mystery Solved: Why Mobile Safari Searchers Appear To Come “Direct” To Sites Rather Than Via Google
Since September, people using Safari in iOS 6 and searching on Google have appeared to publishers as they’ve come directly to their sites, as opposed to having been driving by search. At last, the reason behind the Dark Google cut-off of data has been found: mobile Safari doesn’t…
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