Category: Search Engine Watch

Google has managed to build or acquire properties in which users just naturally leave tracks. Is it all part of a grandiose scheme to build a massive graph that can help convert a search engine into a knowledge engine? Or is something else going on?

Link building isn’t as easy as it once was. Google Penguin changed the game. Now, rather than building links “the easy way,” SEOs must focus on building natural, relevant, and useful links – not the kind that exist only to increase search rankings.

A month after hitting its highest U.S. search market share in February (67.5 percent), Google saw both Bing and Yahoo steal away what essentially amounts to crumbs from the giant pie that is Google’s dominance, according to comScore.

Separate from Bing’s social sidebar efforts, the folks at Bing have added a “Pin it” button to the Bing image search results. No more copy-and-paste. No more extra plugins. Now you can Pin images you find directly from Bing to your Pinterest boards.

One of the most popular (and dangerous) to build a bunch of links quickly is by using a link network. Here’s how you can better understand what a network is, how to identify networked sites, and whether those easy links are too good to be true.

Unruly Analytics is a real-time gauge for brands and agencies who want to know how well they’re doing in social video. Users can find out exactly how many shares, views, and comments they’re generating during a time period at the touch of a button.

Another year of busted brackets, bets runs rampant, and anxious fans glued to NCAA college basketball action is in the books. So how did searches for each team and for the event as a whole change for the duration of the March Madness season?

Click fraud still occurs in paid search, and at some level always will. However, the engines do a solid job at monitoring the problem. The issue for search marketers is to ensure the metrics don’t go out of whack from a normal level of variance.

YouTube recently added five tailored Playbook Guides – for education, media companies, music, nonprofits, and sports – to be used in conjunction with Version 3 of the Creator Playbook, which is the main resource for site-wide best practices.

Yes, THAT Eric Schmidt is worried about privacy: “How would you feel if your neighbor went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their backyard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?”

Facebook is combining what it knows about its users’ behavior and activities on Facebook and off, with the help of data brokers like Acxiom, Datalogix and Epsilon. Brands can now target users across desktop and mobile – and offline entirely.

The three-year Google antitrust investigation might be over. An agreement means that Google must clearly label search results for its own services such as Google News or Google+, but it won’t involve any changes to Google’s search algorithm.

Google is the subject of yet another anti-competitiveness complaint, this one from UK Internet company Streetmap. The mapping alternative has had enough of Google giving its Maps preferential treatment, so they have put their lawyers on the case.

Video is a powerful way to reach audiences both for publishers and advertisers. Marketers already know people are watching online video more than ever. A new Adobe Digital benchmark report reveals what, when, and how people are watching.

Ever been watching a HD YouTube video and wondered what it would look like in crappy VHS quality? Me neither. But someone at YouTube did, and now we have a new YouTube Easter egg. Enable tape mode has been added to honor the first VCR’s birthday.

Annual U.S. social ad revenue is expected to reach $11 billion by 2017, according to BIA/Kelsey. The jump would represent a growth rate of over 18 percent over the next five years. Video and mobile social ads will be the prime growth motivators.

User experience, site usability, and onsite engagement have become more important for major search engines in their assessment of a site’s “rankability,” Use this checklist of tips to ensure your landing pages are sending all the right signals.

Most people don’t search for a solution to their problem until something triggers them to do something about whatever pain or longing they’ve been suffering. By understanding these common search triggers, you can make your paid search ads stand out.

A good commander is tested in his absence. Whether you are managing a marketing team, a company, or an agency, the only way to truly succeed (and scale) is to make sure you empower your team enough to do the job – even when you aren’t there.

Google Glass is going to be here in just a few months. Don’t expect a tsunami of change all at once. Instead, wait, watch, and get ready. Somehow, some way, Google Glass and Internet marketing are going to meet up for a magical connection.