Happy Thanksgiving 2013 – Here Are Logos From Google & Others
Happy Thanksgiving (and Hanukkah – rare overlap) to all our readers. Today I wanted to share with you the logos, doodles, themes, designs and animations from the search industry…
“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…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Thanksgiving 2013 Google Logo Wishes Everyone A Happy Holiday With Banjo Music & Dancing Animals
To celebrate the holiday, today’s Google homepage includes a Thanksgiving themed logo complete with a banjo-playing fox, a dancing turkey and slew of forest animals building their very own vegetarian holiday meal. Clicking the play button in the middle of the logo starts a brief interactive…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Why I Hate WordPress Websites!
Do you hate WordPress? Are you getting constantly frustrated with picking up a WordPress site which someone else has developed? Well this post is to something you can point those developers to.
Post from Neil Walker on State of Digital
Why I Hate WordPress Websites!
Fifth Most Turbulent Day in Google This Year

Algoroo measured an extremely high level of SERP flux in Google last night indicating that something significant has changed in the way search results are displayed. This may reflect internal changes such as ranking or search quality algorithm updates. The jump happened on the 27th of November, following an unusually quiet fortnight between the 3rd and 19th and a rather active weekend just days before the big SERP flux.
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SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 27, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Google Keyword Planner Now Shows Trademarked Terms At some point recently, Google started to indicate terms that ar…
Google Keyword Planner Now Shows Trademarked Terms
At some point recently, Google started to indicate terms that are trademarked in the Keyword Planner with the TM mark. Dan Shure of Evolving SEO tweeted about the new feature, noting that McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” tagline is not marked as trademarked while…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Google Wants to Write Your Social Media Messages For You
A new Google patent describes a comprehensive social media bot, one that can analyze your past messages from social networks, email, text messaging, etc., and then suggest suitable yet seemingly personalized responses for various social platforms.
Google moves towards a fully-subscribed search service, to detriment of advertisers
Advertisers are required to sift and make sense of customer data coming in from dozens more channels than they ever were before. Social and mobile usage has quickly begun to play a huge role in changing advertisers’ landscape, and the marketer’s day job.
We know from working with global ecommerce advertisers that Google is the dominant analytics player.
- According to research carried out by Econsultancy in 2013, 90% of advertisers use Google Analytics (GA).
- 86% use the service to analyse site traffic and conversion KPIs.
- 75% rely on it to track online campaigns.
- Paid search is an important part of the equation for advertisers without doubt, with 61% reporting that they use GA for pay-per click optimisation.
This is where Google can capitalise profitably on the control it has over the analytics marketplace.
This month Google showed its hand by taking action that should have rung alarm bells loudly within the advertising community when it switched off sharing organic search keywords referral data.
The very marketers who have worked their way out of the ‘blind SEO’ optimisation days have now been sent right back to square one with the introduction of secure organic search.
Allegedly done for privacy reasons, the move will conveniently render increased investment in paid search as the obvious next course of action (where the privacy reasons don’t apply).
In a similar move earlier this year Google stopped ‘device level’ keyword targeting, meaning that advertisers had to buy mobile search words if they wanted to buy desktop search.
This means the advertiser has to invest more in search if they want to maintain their desktop search activity. In doing so Google has effectively handicapped marketers and will have pushed more brands towards a fully paid-up subscription model.
This quarter, we saw Google’s revenue figures leap 12% on last year’s figures, with consolidated revenues for Q3 at $14.89bn at the end of September.
Google is the only player in the digital space with the power to raise its revenues as rapidly as it has done in the past quarter. These strong arm tactics ensure that its stock soars, to a record high of nearly $1,000 per share.
As other media owners such as the New York Times have struggled to keep ad revenues at a steady rate, the search giant has made it clear to all advertisers that it values paid search much more highly than organic search.
Looking from my vantage point of 16 years worth of digital media and technology experience, it’s clear to see that Google’s revenue is boosted by its global dominance in advertising analytics.
For advertisers, the challenge will be to gain true, unbiased information about which channels work best to reach users online.
Right now, I’m left still searching for an advertiser who saw a Google Analytics report extolling the virtues of Facebook ads and Yahoo! keywords.
As Microsoft Moves to Encrypted Search, Webmasters Could Lose More Keyword Data
Microsoft is reportedly looking at encrypting their Internet traffic, which would include their search results, in response to the NSA spying controversy where it is believed the NSA was able to gain access to Microsoft’s global communication links.
The Brave New World of SEO: Beyond Websites
We hear it regularly – the death knell tolling for SEO. In the past several years, we’ve been bombarded by a barrage of change in organic search, from Penguin to Panda to Hummingbird, from inbound link penalties to [not provided]. Let’s face it: the only constant in search is…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Reflective Dynamics to Offer a Black Friday Consulting Special
This Friday only, you will be able to use a special order button to be posted on Reflective Dynamics’ blog, to purchase an hour of consulting time with both me and Randy Ray at a steep discount. The special blog post will be removed after a short period of time (this post will, too, to prevent confusion). The discounted consulting time will cost you $99. We’ll make arrangements with you to speak sometime in December either by Skype or by telephone. If you live outside the United States the only available option is to consult by Skype. Randy Ray has been active in search engine optimization, online marketing, and Website development and management for more than a decade. He has worked with some of the best affiliate marketers, managers, and programs available. He’s also an incredible writer (in my opinion) and knows how to publish top-grade content. Randy has extensive experience as an editor for large Web directories, too, so he has reviewed thousands of Websites over the years. My work with search engine optimization began in 1998 but I have been developing and promoting Websites since 1996. In addition to managing my own Website campaigns I have developed and […]
3 Ways AdWords Scripts Will Make Your Holidays Merrier
The holidays are officially upon us, and if you’re reading this, I must give thanks to you for your time. When I still worked at Google, this was the time of year when new product launches came to a crawl since most advertisers were too busy to deal with change, and only the most persistent…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
A Guide to Google AdWords Bid Adjustments & 10 Top Strategies
Bid adjustments are a percentage change to a bid and allow for an increase or decease for better control of where and when ads are shown. Here’s how to effectively use bid adjustments and multiple bid adjustments, plus 10 tips for success.
How To Run A Successful B2B Social Media Marketing Campaign
Many marketers think of social media in the context of B2C companies: after all, 4 in 10 consumers buy products that they’ve favorited, liked, tweeted or pinned on various social networks. Yet, according to a recent study from MarketingProfs, 87% of B2B marketers use social media platforms in…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Apple Updates App Store Search Engine To Handle Spelling Errors
As I reported on Search Engine Land via TechCrunch, Apple has made some updates to their App Store search engine recently.
The most noticeable update is that the App Store will now return search results that have misspellings, typos…
Happy Hanukkah: Check Out Google’s Dreidel Decorations
A search for [hanukkah] or [dreidel] or [menorah] or other Hanukkah related search terms, Google will show dreidel decorations in the Google search bar.
This year, instead of going with Jewish stars like they did in 2012…
Google AdWords Poaching Clients Again?
A senior Google AdWords advertiser and consultant, Whitey, posted in the WebmasterWorld forums that he has seen new cases of Google AdWords employees stealing or trying to poach clients away from AdWords agencies…
OK Google: Give Me A Chrome Extension
Google announced a new Chrome extension that enables the “hotword” for searching Google without hands from your desktop – “OK Google.”
Yes, you can activate a Google search by saying “OK Google.” But only if you first navigate to google.com. Then, y…
11 Must-Measure KPIs for Content Marketing Success
Content has value beyond simple search engine optimization. Content marketing, when done correctly, has its own ROI as a channel, and thus must be measured by a set of unique KPIs, including links, engagement, social sharing, and conversions.