Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
- All New Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools
Today, Microsoft launched a revamp of their Bing Webmaster Tools. I talked to them back in June, when they previewed the tools at SMX Advanced, and they told me that they were starting from scratch and rebuilding the tool from the group up. So how are things different? They say they are focused on three key […]
- 3 Faulty Assumptions To Avoid Making With Analytic Data
Analytics are great. They provide us with loads of good information. The danger is what we do with that information and in the assumptions we make. Here are three faulty assumptions I see regularly. Please share yours, too.
Your analytics tell you what people are searching for
Recently, while waiting to speak at an online marketing conference, […] - Report: Click Fraud Rate Up To 18.6 Percent
Click Forensics released their report on the overall click fraud rates for the paid search industry. They said click fraud was up from 17.4 percent last quarter to 18.6 percent in the second quarter of 2010.
The findings of the report said:The overall industry average click fraud rate was 18.6 percent. That’s up […]
- Bullseye! Hitting the right Demographic in Your Digital Marketing Campaign – SMN Webcast, Tuesday July 27
Search Marketing Now hosts a free webcast next Tuesday that explores recent research on online consumer behavior, highlighting variations among demographic groups. We’ll cover the differences between how consumers search and how they buy — and what you can do with this data to improve your search marketing campaign and reach your target customer. For […]
- Crowdsourced SEM “Marketplace” Trada Raises $5.75M From Google Ventures & Others
Trada announced a $5.75 million “C” round this morning. It was led by Google Ventures and early investor Foundry Group. Trada CEO Niel Robertson told me yesterday that the money will be used for to get into display (and eventually video and mobile), as well as to expand into non-US markets and develop new tools […]
- Are Your Competitors Purposely Bidding On Your Brand?
If you have agreements with advertisers who sponsor your brand on paid search, it’s important to monitor them to make sure they are using your brand or trademark terms according to your agreement. If they advertise using keywords containing no other words but your trademark or slogan, it’s easy to recognize that as a violation. […]
- Touchy Subject: Google Unveils New Borders In Maps, Earth
National borders may not seem important to the average Google Maps user that’s looking for a hotel or a place to eat. But when you’re mapping the world’s boundaries — as Google and other map providers are — getting them right or wrong can have international implications.
With that in mind, Google has announced “significant improvements […] - Optimizing Yourself For The Yahoo! Microsoft Search Alliance
David Roth is Director Of Search Marketing for Yahoo, as well as being a very large Yahoo advertiser. Offering an insider’s perspective, Dave provides some unique insights into the forthcoming Yahoo/Microsoft search alliance. Here are his tips and information that will enable both large and small advertisers, publishers, and webmasters to navigate the process smoothly.
- What’s New With Bing & Yahoo Search Alliance
Yahoo has provided an update on the current status of the transition over to Bing’s search technology.
On the organic side, Yahoo began testing Bing powered results. They are currently testing Bing powered results on about 25 percent of the traffic. They hope to transition over to Bing fully, sometime in September […] - Up To 25% Of Yahoo’s Search Results Now Powered By Bing
Right now, up to 25% of the Yahoo Search results are powered by Bing. Yahoo began testing Bing search results this month, currently there are live bucket tests underway on both the organic and paid side.
Mark Morrissey, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Yahoo, told me that while only 3.5% of […]
Search News From Around The Web:
Applications & Portal Features
- Changes to the Edit My Preferences page, Yahoo Answers Blog
- Google News Down Again, Search Engine Roundtable
- How is Yahoo!’s New Content Farm Working Out?, Read/Write Web
Business Issues
- Google Spent $1.34 Million On Lobbying In Q2, Up 41 Percent From Last Year, TechCrunch
- Google takes the FTC to school, BuzzMachine
Local, Maps & Mobile
- Google Places (Maps) Reports Delayed, Search Engine Roundtable
- Google’s New Local UI Proving Conspiracy Theorists Right, Mihmorandum
- No Links on Google Local Business Results, BlogStorm
- Try Google Tags for free: Tag, you’re it, local business owners!, Google LatLong
Paid Search & Contextual
- Learn about remarketing with a live online course, Inside AdWords
- Skype Launches New Pay-Per-Call System for Advertisers, Marketing Pilgrim
Searching
- Ad News and Views from Around the Web, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
- What Is Google Editions?, The Atlantic
SEM Industry
- 3 Twitter Tools to Benefit from BlueGlass LA (Even Though You Couldn’t Go), blueglass.com
- InHouse SEO – BlueGlass LA, BruceClay.com
- Links Matter: How to Measure and Attain Them – BlueGlass LA, BruceClay.com
SEO & SEM
- 18 Simple SEO Items Commonly Missed in Web Development, SEO.com
- How to Perform SEO Competitor Research with Excel, Search Engine People
- SEO Site Tools – My Favourite Google Chrome Plugin, Vertical Leap Blog
- Webmasters Complain Over New Google Image Design, Search Engine Roundtable
- What to Know Before Hiring an SEO Agency, outspokenmedia.com
- Where do you see Google in 5 years?, YouTube
- Yup, SEO Can Be A Competitive Advantage, SEOmoz
Social Media
- Understanding and Establishing Micro Goals for Your Social Media Campaigns, Search Engine Guide
- 500 Million Stories, Facebook
- Facebook Maps Out User Stories With Bing, Bing Community
- First look at “revolutionary” social news iPad app: Flipboard, scobleizer.com
- Months after deleting your account, Facebook still publishes your name and picture, downloadsquad.com
- Social Web: Facebook Passes 500 Million Users & An Idea of What 500 Million Means Using World Population Estimates, ResourceShelf
Video, Music & Image Search
- Google Image Search Bugs, Google Operating System
Web Analytics
- Google Analytics Bombing: How to Hijack and Embaress Your Competitors, Goosh.co.uk
- YWA Quick Guides, Yahoo! Web Analytics Blog
Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:
- Improving Conversions, CTR and Quality Score – An In Depth Review Of AdWords Ad Sitelinks – A new and overlooked way to increase conversion rates and CTR (and by proxy improve your AdWords quality score). Fantastic, in depth article on AdWords Ad Sitelinks, how to set them up as well as use cases. An amazing first post from the latest member of the Redfly team. Go Sinead!
- Increase Conversion: The Key Principles of Making a Killer Landing Page – Welcome to the first installment of the ‘Increase Conversion‘ series. In the coming weeks we will bring you a host of different articles on how to increase your conversion rate throughout your marketing campaigns. This article will help to explain the key principles of improving conversion on your landing pages
- Linktoberfest! – SEO Infographic for Link Data Visualization – Here is some great visualization & information about link building from Vertical Measures where they included a fun graphic. Love the graphic guys!!!
- Link Building: It's a Popularity Game – This infographic shows how the game of link building should be played…
- Brands and the World Cup: who were the real winners and losers? – Spain has emerged as world champions and the excitement is over for another four years. 32 teams battled it out in South Africa for World Cup glory, but the game wasn’t just being played on the pitch; brands went head-to-head in a fiercely contested online marketing battle.
- Are We Over-Engineering the Link Graph? – Great breakdown by Nicola Stott. Yes, anchor text is important, but we are also over emphasizing the importance.
- Want More Link Juice? Here’s an Easy Way to Get It – Great post focusing on the internal link juice that is so often overlooked. A process is provided and examples of great pages to obtain internal links are mentioned.
- Facebook and SEO – should you care? – I had been getting a bit leary of all the hype around 'FaceBook Search – the Google killer' and decided to take a closer look at what's going on there. While there are some interesting bits with the OpenGraph stuff (I am a meta data geek tho) I don't really think it is something to worry about – what do YOU make of it all?