Google’s Quality Rating Guide Leaked Again; Here Is Version Five

Google’s Quality Rating Guidelines document has been leaked once again! Version 5.0 was leaked a few days ago, where Google has reportedly completely revamped the guidelines. Jennifer Slegg has documented most of the new guidelines on her blog. You can also read the full new 160 page…

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Google Giveth & Google Taketh Away Author Icons

Google recently announced they’d be removing a major element from their search engine results pages (SERPs) that they’ve been featuring for the past couple of years: author icons. Since this is something we Local Marketers have enthusiastically encouraged, what does this mean for…

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New Google AdWords PLA Test Groups Products By Price

This could get interesting. Last month, we saw Google running a test that ranked product listing ads (PLAs) by ratings and reviews in search results. Now, a new test groups and ranks products by price. In the screenshot below, provided by CPC Strategy, PLAs are grouped in two pricing stacks —…

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New AdWords Quality Score Info: What You Need To Know

By now, you’ve probably seen (or at least heard about) Google’s recent video and new white paper about Quality Score in AdWords. In fact, when I first heard about the updated Hal Varian video, I was a bit surprised, given that Google hasn’t bothered to update it for about five years!…

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Searching Movie Times? Bing Scores 100% For Showtime Results, Google Only 70%

Looking for the next showing of “Jersey Boys”? If you’re searching for movie times, chances are you’ll have better luck finding them on Bing than searching for a movie on Google. After the producers for the documentary “America: Imagine the World Without Her”…

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Leaked Documents Show How Yelp Thinks It’s Not Getting Screwed By Google

Yelp may once again feel Google is robbing it of its fair share of search traffic, with a study that’s been leaked to TechCrunch to prove it. A close read of that study actually shows that it proves the opposite — or at least, that it’s certainly not as damning as it sounds….

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Google’s New AdWords Editor Version Offers Shopping Campaigns Support, More Display Targeting Options

Roughly a month ahead of the rollover to Shopping Campaigns, Google has released a new version of AdWords Editor that supports the new campaign type. Google announced the old style of PLA campaigns will be shut down at some point in late August. Note t…

Semantics: Google AdWords To Replace “Delete” With “Remove” In Most Instances

It’s always seemed odd that choosing to “Delete” a campaign, for example, in AdWords doesn’t actually mean the campaign will be vaporized as if it never existed. It’s not possible to truly delete a campaign from an account — that historical data remains available…

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Head Of Google’s Web Spam Team Matt Cutts Is Going On Leave

Google’s Matt Cutts – who holds the title of “distinguished engineer” — is taking a break from his duties as Google’s chief web spam fighter. Cutts has announced on his personal blog that he’s taking leave through October. It will be the longest break Cutts…

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What Local Business Leaders Must Know About Search Engines And SEO

When I write about SEO and business success, I often realize that I’ve touched upon a point that merits a column of it’s own. This is one such column. It will focus on the fact that online and offline marketing have grown inextricably codependent — especially for local businesses….

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Navigating the new ‘Google My Business’ Places Dashboard

 Navigating the new ‘Google My Business’ Places Dashboard When Google My Business hit our computer screens mid-June it was an overnight change for many accounts. Minds were understandably boggled. For those who manage Google Places and Google Plus accounts, the new dashboard we saw come into play last year was bittersweet for many due to […]

Post from Sarah Bradley on State of Digital
Navigating the new ‘Google My Business’ Places Dashboard

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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Supreme Court Rules Street View “Wiretapping” Class Action Can Proceed Against Google

According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Supreme Court will not review a U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing a class-action lawsuit that argues Google violated the federal “Wiretap Act” when it intercepted private email and other personal data. The appellate court decision…

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3 Opportunities With Those New Google Shopping Campaigns

For those who are not necessarily familiar with Google Shopping campaigns — let’s clarify things straight away. Product listing ads (PLAs) are remaining the same as an ad format for end users, whether search marketers are using “old PLAs” or new Shopping campaigns. The…

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