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 News Has Major Redesign: Personalization, Sharing & “News Stream” Offered
Today, Google News is undergoing its first major redesign since being launched in 2002. Gone is the default “section” view, replaced instead by a “news stream” view of stories. Creating a personalized collection of stories has been made easier, as is the ability to share stories with friends and others via email, Twitter, Google Buzz […]
- French Anti-Trust Authorities Find Google “Abused Dominant Position” In Turning Off Advertiser’s Account
French regulators said today that “Google had abused its dominant position in the internet advertising market when it barred a location data company from using its AdWords service,” according to a report appearing in the Financial Times.
The complainant is Navx, a company that provides “geolocalized content” of various sorts. The company complained to […] - Foursquare Hints At Evolution After Getting $20 Million
After a protracted set of M&A discussions with Yahoo and Facebook (and perhaps others), Foursquare announced that it had secured $20 million in funding from several VCs: Union Square Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. CEO Dennis Crowley discussed the funding and how it would be used in his blog post:
With this new round […] - Google In Discussions To Buy Travel Software Company, Will FTC Ground It?
Most people have never heard of ITA. However it’s the dominant company that provides reservations (inventory management) software and performs other functions for the travel industry. The company’s client list includes major airlines such as American and Continental as well as popular travel sites such as Kayak and Orbitz. ITA is foundational infrastructure for many […]
- Yahoo Publishes Online Style Guide As Printed Book, Gives SEO Advice
On July 6th, you’ll be able to purchase a printed book written by Yahoo called The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World. Putting aside for a moment the irony of providing an online style guide as a printed book, what’s this style guide all about?
The […] - Yahoo, Once King Of Keyword Research Tools, Now Recommends Others (Including Google’s)
Yahoo published their very own Yahoo Style Guide this week. We took a look at the SEO basics section of the style guide and noticed Yahoo has a list of keyword research tools. In that list, Yahoo recommends everyone from their competitor, Google to 3rd party tools from WordTracker and Keyword Discovery.
Many of […] - Creating And Maintaining An SEO Timeline
Nothing is more certain in the world of SEO than the fact that things will change over time. Rankings, search traffic, search algorithms and your website’s structure and content are all mutable. In order to maximize the value of your optimization efforts, it is important to know not only the nature of any given change, […]
- Google AdWords Glitch Stops Partial Ad Serving
The Google AdWords Blog wrote that yesterday at about 4:30pm to 7:30pm (EST), there was an AdWords ad serving bug that prevented ads from being displayed.
Google said the ads were not showing on Google.com and Search Partner sites at around 4:40pm. Google posted the issue at 6:30pm and updated the post about an hour […] - 5 Tips To Improve Conversion On B2B Landing Pages
Getting a prospect to your website is only half the battle. Successful B2B search marketing programs must also focus on the “post-click” experience. Here are five proven ways to improve B2B landing pages and increase your search marketing conversion rate.
1. Support your brand. Build trust.
Landing pages that are aligned with your brand demonstrate […] - Is The Hispanic Market Right For Your Brand?
Did you know that the US is the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking country? It’s true. In fact, there are 46.3 million Hispanics in the US today, and 20 million of them use the internet. Are you targeting the Hispanic market with search? If not, perhaps it’s time you considered doing so.
Understanding the opportunity
Clearly, the US […] - Six Risk Reversal Tactics For B2B Lead Generation
You can significantly increase both your conversion rates and the quality of your prospect list by using some of these risk reversal strategies on your lead generation web pages.
- Google XML Sitemaps Now Supports Multiple Types: Is the Sitemaps Alliance Over?
Since Google launched XML Sitemaps back in 2005, they’ve added specialized formats to enable site owners to submit content other than web pages. Until now, site owners have had to create separate Sitemaps for each content type:
Mobile News Video Geo Images Code Search
That’s now changed. You can now create a single XML Sitemap that contains any combination of these content […]
- Google Social Search, Now With Google Buzz
Google Social Search, which shows content from those in your social circle, is now tapping into a new source of knowing what your friends are writing about, sharing and creating: Google Buzz.
Remind Me: What’s Google Social Search?
For those unfamiliar with Google Social Search, it launched across all of Google in January, after initially rolling out […]
Search News From Around The Web:
Applications & Portal Features
- A Better Dashboard: Helping Detect Suspicious Log ins, Google Public Policy Blog
Business Issues
- Google Says Search Engine Partially Blocked in China, BusinessWeek
- Google’s China troubles continue; Congress examines U.S. investment in Chinese censorship, RConversation
- Viacom Fights YouTube In Court. But That Won’t Stop It From Selling YouTube Ads, AllThingsD
- Yahoo! Provides New Customer Care Services for Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, Yahoo Press Releases
Local, Maps & Mobile
- How To Report A Google Maps Problem, Search Engine Guide
- White Hat Uses Foursquare Privacy Hole to Capture 875K Check-Ins, Wired
- Quantifying the Mobile Data Tsunami and its Implications, Nielsen Wire
Link Building
- Basic but Essential SEO Link Building Tips, dailyseotip.com
- Trouble Linkbuilding? Write the Copy, Search Engine Journal
Paid Search & Contextual
- YouTube Ads Are Cheapest Source of Traffic, Search Engine Journal
Searching
SEM Industry
- AdSense: Behind the scenes – Meet Debby, Inside AdSense
SEO & SEM
- All Good Content Starts Here: Keyword Research, Search Engine Guide
- What is PageRank Good for Anyway? (Statistics Galore), SEOmoz
- AdWords DIMENSIONS Tab, AdWords Help Experts
- AdWords Includes Competitors Links in Product Extension Ads, AdWords Help Experts
- Getting Your Blog In Google Blog Search, Search Engine Roundtable
- GoogleBot Acting Weird, Search Engine Roundtable
- Improved keyword diagnosis — no appointments necessary, Inside AdWords
- Keyword Research and Analysis, Bruceclay.com.au
- Multilingual SEO Essentials: Research Your Keywords, Search Engine Watch
- Search Marketing Trends for Small Business in 2011, Online Marketing Blog
- The Bad Decision: A Parable, Will Hanke
- Webspam projects in 2010?, Matt Cutts
- What’s Next for Search, SEO?, Search Engine Watch
- Why Duplicate Content Is Good For You, Search Engine Journal
- Yahoo Plans Skippable Ads, Google Tests Cost-per-Action, MediaBuyerPlanner
- Yahoo! Search Marketing Desktop Launches Excluded Keywords Feature, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
Social Media
- Explaining Facebook’s Spam Prevention Systems, Facebook
- Foursquare Requests Now Much More Useful With “Friends In Common”, TechCrunch
- Twitter 12 Step Program, seoconsultants.com
- Applications Ask, You Receive: Simplified Permissions Launch, Facebook
Video, Music & Image Search
- Dear Flickr, what the RSS hell?, blog.arhg.net
- Professional caption services get “YouTube Ready”, YouTube Biz Blog
Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:
- Insights from Site Search in Google Analytics
- A Comprehensive Guide to Link Building via Blog Commenting
- The Social Media Strategy I Executed to Drive Over 1.3 Million Pageviews in 4 Days
- The Regrettably Short Story Of The Isolated Product Developer