Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
- US Lawmakers Voice Concerns Over Google-ITA Deal
Add a few US legislators to the list of parties that are airing concerns over Google’s plan to purchase air travel software provider ITA. According to All Things Digital, two US House members and the Missouri Attorney General sent letters this week to Christine Varney, US Asst. Attorney General in the Antitrust Division, to express […]
- Google Promotes Hotpot, Places In Austin In Advance of SXSW
When the digirati descend on Austin for the SXSW interactive conference next month, Google is hoping their smartphones will brim with local listings and reviews on Places and Hotpot. To that end, the company today began a promotion to get local businesses, along with Austin visitors and residents, on board with the search giant’s local […]
- 3 Issues To Consider Before Focusing On More Traffic
In our collective day-to-day, it seems the conversations we hear tend to skew heavily toward one thing: the need for more traffic. The logic here is that more traffic leads to more sales, more revenue, bigger, better. But this is broken logic. You don’t want more traffic. You want more Benjamins. (Think you’re better off […]
- Updating Google Image Results For Online Reputation Management
Online reputation management is all about managing “image”, sometimes quite literally. In one of my recent engagements, I worked with a model who was concerned about her Google Image Search results. Many of the top pictures of her were unflattering and outdated — potentially costing her work. We crafted an online reputation management campaign that: […]
- Insights For SEM Service Providers: SEO vs. Search Engine Optimization Queries
Is typing in “SEO” the same as typing in “search engine optimization“? Not according to the data in AdWords. The queries in the search engine optimization data set are quite different than the data in the SEO data set. This was a bit of a surprise even to me. It turns out that there is […]
- Thomas Edison’s 164th Birthday Celebrated With Google Logo
Google is featuring a special Google logo, also known as Google Doodle, for the 164th birthday of Thomas Edison. The logo illustrates some of Edison’s most famous inventions including the electric light bulb, phonograph, and the motion picture camera. Edison holds over 1,000 U.S. patents and is the most well-known inventor of all time. Here […]
- Nokia Is The New Yahoo: Microsoft OS, Bing To Power Its Smartphones
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Today, as widely expected, Nokia adopted Windows as its smartphone software. Its other mobile operating systems, Symbian and MeeGo, will not entirely disappear but Nokia will be building and distributing Windows Phones as its primary competitive offering to go head-to-head with the iPhone and Android. That could […]
Search News From Around The Web:
Business Issues
- Will Google testify at Senate antipiracy hearing?, CNET News
- 10 Ways Google Is the New Microsoft, PC World
Local, Maps & Mobile
- Bing’s Local Search Feature Could Drive Clicks And Cash, MediaPost
- Google Places Quality Guideline Minor Update, Mike Blumenthal
- Google Places: Respond To Review Fixed (Again), Mike Blumenthal
Other Items
- Can Google ever be a neutral news provider?, The Guardian
- How to Handle Employee Activism: Google Tiptoes Around Cairo’s Hero, Wall Street Journal
Paid Search & Contextual
- Not All Google AdSense Publishers Are Crying Poor, Search Engine Roundtable
Searching
- Discover Pages Similar to the Current One with “Similar Pages”, Search Engine Journal
- Google Testing New SSSerps?, Mike Blumenthal
- The Bad Ol’ Days Of Search…What’s Next?, SEO Book
- The Future of Google’s Visual Phone Search?, SEO By The Sea
SEM Industry
- Video: Google Search Update, AdWords Goes Yellow & Thomas Edison’s Google Logo, Search Engine Roundtable
SEO & SEM
- 15 Questions That Will Change The Way You Think About SEO Forever, Search Engine Guide
- Blog Post SEO Tips: 5 Elements That Boost Rankings, Vertical Measures
- Does Google Index & Rank Based Off Of Title & Alt Attributes?, Search Engine Roundtable
- Search Engine Optimization to Lure Readers, New York Times
- Small Business SEO Tips: Marketing Checklist & Low Budget SEO Help, SEO Book
Social Media
- Developing Facebook’s New Photo Viewer, Facebook
- Do Not Follow This Social Media Advice, Small Business SEM
- Facebook Changes News Feed Settings, Some Users Only Shown Close Friends by Default, Inside Facebook
- Facebook Page redesign: 10 things admins should do RIGHT NOW, The Social Path
- How Twitter Could Remake It’s Platform To Help Small Businesses — And Make Money, www.businessinsider.com
- How We Increased Our Twitter Followers By 250% – Whiteboard Friday, SEOmoz
- Stop the presses: Facebook CTO says news next in social revolution, BBC News
- Study Reveals Top 6 Social Media Goals for 2011, www.socialmediaexaminer.com
- Twitter Plans Price Hike for "Promoted Trends" Ads, AllThingsD
- Twitter Stops Whitelisting Applications, regulargeek.com
Video, Music & Image Search
- Bing Bing releases a raft of new visual search galleries in the UK, The Bing UK blog
Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:
- A More ‘Organic’ Experience – On the RKG blog, Joy Barberio writes: "Google is pretty clever! The sponsored ads are looking more and more like organic listings recently. The two spaces are blending together. The new features, listed below, are both taking up more real estate on the page and feeling a lot like natural results."
- Facebook Page redesign: 10 things admins should do RIGHT NOW – A great article highlighting all the changes that were made with the Facebook Page redesign.
- Yes, SEOs do need to learn a programming language – An interesting article (and conversation) regarding SEOs needing to be able to program to be successful.