Changes Afoot At Search Engine Land & Marketing Land Columns

I’m pleased to announce that we’ve made some changes in our columns line-up to better showcase the great work contributed by our talented columnist-practitioners. The biggest change is that we’re moving some of our columns from Search Engine Land to Marketing Land, so we want to…

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German Publishers Opt-In To Google News — For The Moment

Following the enactment of a controversial copyright law in Germany, Google said that it would require publishers to formally “opt-in” to Google News or be excluded from results. Accordingly major German publishers have decided to do so — for now. The new law, which went into…

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Rejoice! Safari Is Once Again Providing Google Referral Information In iOS

Since last September, people using Safari on iOS devices and searching on Google have appeared to publishers as if they came directly to their sites, not via Google. Now, the problem has ended, with iOS now apparently having been upgraded to support the “meta referrer” tag. No, this…

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Google Honors Maria Mitchell With Logo To Celebrate Her 195th Birthday

Today’s Google logo celebrates the first professional female astronomer in the US, Maria Mitchell. The animated logo depicts Mitchell atop a roof, staring at the stars with a handheld telescope. Before becoming a professional astronomer, Mitchell discovered a comet in 1847 that was named Miss…

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Google Reportedly Testing Local News Card For Google Now

Google is reportedly testing a local news “card” for its Google Now predictive search product. Quartz first reported on the project, and says it’s currently only being tested internally by Google employees. The revelation came from an interview last week that Quartz did with…

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Report: Building Contractors Number 1 Local Ad Category

Restaurants is still the most widely searched local business category according to YP’s Q2 Local Insights report. However restaurants doesn’t even show up in the top 10 when it comes to advertising spend. According to YP data, the following list represents the most searched local…

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Google+ Local Reviews Now Pop Up As Overlay, Rather Than In New Page, In Google Search

If you search for a keyword phrase that triggers local listings in Google’s Web search results, such as searching for [barber], Google will show you Google Business listings. If you click on the reviews on one of those listings, instead of taking you to the Google Business Local page, Google…

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Google: Links In Press Releases Should Use Nofollow Like Paid Links

Friday we broke the news that Google updated their link schemes webmaster guidelines. Now that the dust as settled, I aimed at getting more clarification on what Google meant by the new example around keyword rich anchor text links within articles or p…

In Memoriam: Ilya Segalovich, Search Engine Pioneer, Leader & Visionary

Ilya Segalovich, co-founder of Yandex, Russia’s largest search engine, was disconnected from life support on July 27. During routine cancer treatment, he unexpectedly slipped into a coma earlier in the week from which he did not recover. I had the honor of knowing Ilya personally. In addition…

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Google Changes How AdWords Quality Score Is Reported

In a post today, Google announced it is updating the way AdWords quality scores are reported. The changes will roll-out globally over the next few days. The updates are designed to “tie your 1-10 numeric Quality Score more closely to its three key sub factors – expected clickthrough…

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Google Warns Against Large-Scale Guest Posting, Advertorials & “Optimized Anchor Text” In Press Releases

Google has quietly updated the link schemes document under their Webmaster guidelines to add large-scale guest posting, advertorials and optimized anchor text in articles or press releases to the list of types of links that violate their guidelines. Th…

Google To Shutter Its Google+ Local iOS App Next Month

With the newly updated Google Maps app for iOS out, Google has announced its plans to shut down the Google+ Local app for iOS on August 7th. There’s been no official announcement that I’m aware of yet, but both 9to5 Mac and Mark Traphagen posted a Google email detailing the shut down…

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Did Google Maps Lose England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?

The United Kingdom (to use its short name) is a complicated country, actually made up of four countries across two islands. If you were looking to understand it better, forget Google Maps. That’s because the service has lost the constituent countries of England, Scotland, Wales & Northern…

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RIP Ilya Segalovich, Yandex Co-Founder & CTO

Ilya Segalovich, Co-Founder & CTO of Russian search engine Yandex, has died suddenly at the age of 48. Segalovich had been responding well to cancer treatment before unexpectedly succumbing to complications early this morning, according to a statement released by the company. Segalovich…

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Bing Product Ads To Run In Closed Beta Through Holiday Season

Upon hearing the news that Adobe was releasing support for Bing Product Ads through its Media Optimzer platform, I asked Microsoft about about the status of the product ads launch. In a new statement to Search Engine Land, David Pann, GM, Microsoft Advertising Search Group, said: “We are on…

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Google Pays Tribute To Renown Biophysicist Rosalind Franklin

Today, Google is paying tribute to British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin on what would have been her 93rd birthday. The logo highlights Franklin’s contribution to DNA research with an illustrated image of the biophysicist examining the double helix structure of DNA…

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Report: Google PLAs Dominate CSE Channel Like Never Before [CPC Strategy]

CPC Strategy’s latest Shopping Comparison Engine report shows Google’s grip on the market only tightened in Q2. Across performance metrics, Google PLAs (product listing ads) continue to outperform other CSEs by wide margins. For example, in Q1, Shopping.com, Pricegrabber and Amazon…

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Google Adds Enhanced Campaigns Bid Adjustment Reporting To Google Analytics

Google announced today that Bid Adjustments reports for AdWords enhanced campaigns are now included in Google Analytics. The reporting, found in the Advertising section under Traffic Sources in Analytics, are designed to help advertisers analyze the pe…