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 Touts Conversion Boost With Call Tracking Solution
Call tracking pre-dates the internet. At times it has been the subject of intense debate about its use in online (local) marketing (see Related Entries below). However in Q4 last year Google launched its own call tracking solution: Google Call Metrics. Google Call Metrics uses the same technology that’s behind Google Voice. It generates a […]
- Google Revamps Labels On Ads To Comply With Industry Effort
Those “Ads by Google” and “i” labels on AdSense ads will soon be replaced by an “AdChoices” triangle icon and label, as Google moves to comply with an industry initiative from the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising. It will be the single largest roll-out of the “AdChoices” label to date, giving significant momentum to […]
- Survey: Android Most Desired OS By Non-iPhone Users
GetJar released data from a “global survey” about mobile apps and user behavior that offers positive news for the Android platform, which reportedly beats the iPhone in terms of “next phone” purchase demand by more than 2 to 1. The survey was sent to 25 million users in 190 countries. However there were only 2,500 […]
- Two Weeks Later, Google Lifts Ban On BeatThatQuote
Google acquired BeatTheQuote.com on March 7th, then the day after, Google penalized BeatThatQuote for violating the Google Webmaster guidelines. Guess what? BeatThatQuote has apparently been un-penalized by Google just two weeks after first being penalized. A search for their name in Google once again returns them at the top result: Is two weeks long enough? […]
- Googlers: Single With No Kids & Drinking Mountain View
Rapleaf published some interesting data comparing Google employees to Microsoft employees. TechCrunch published the report, which we will embed below as well. The study was made up of matching 6,000 Google employees and 16,000 Microsoft employees email addresses with grocery purchase behavior in partnership with a loyalty card aggregator. They determined a lot of interesting […]
- How To Find Hidden SEO Opportunities On Twitter
Even though the importance of choosing the best words for every tweet and bio has probably been discussed at length on Search Engine Land and others, paying attention to exactly these carefully chosen keywords can be used is the second half of the equation. There are many places on Twitter that may be the last […]
- Indistinct Links & Link Building In Difficult Verticals
Link building in social-unfriendly verticals can be a heartache. At one point, before the reasonable surfer concept was implemented, it was possible for many websites in taboo verticals like poker, payday loans and pharmaceuticals to get by on footer and sidebar links alone – meaning links that never saw the light of a user’s eyes […]
- Behind The Scenes At Yandex In Moscow
Yandex is one of the world’s leading search engines and number one in Russia. But what are they like as a company as few know too much about them! I visited their offices in Moscow…this is what I learned!
- The Leaky New York Times Paywall & How “Google Limits” Led To “Search Engine Limits”
How did we go from the New York Times seeming to single out visitors from Google with a “5 free visit per day” policy to supposedly all search engines being limited in such a way? And what’s up with there being no limit for visitors coming from anything that’s not a search engine, including Twitter […]
- Kadafi, Gaddafi, Qaddafi: In The Age Of Search, News Publications Still Struggle With Libya Leader’s Name
A decades-old dispute involving Libya remains unresolved. How do news organizations spell the name of Libya’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi? The exact spelling has a bigger impact these days, where people search for news. Use the wrong spelling, and your story might go missing. Can search tell us the “right” one? More below. Google News: A […]
Search News From Around The Web:
Applications & Portal Features
- AOL Begins Culling Content Sites, AllThingsD
- Mozilla Launches Firefox 4 and Delivers a Fast, Sleek and Customizable Browsing Experience to More Than 400 Million Users Worldwide, The Mozilla Blog
Business Issues
- Facebook Secondary Stock Just Surged To $34 — That’s An $85 Billion Valuation, TechCrunch
- Larry Page almost skipped web search for automated cars, Fortune Tech
- Verizon Wireless CEO says no interest in Sprint deal, Reuters
Local, Maps & Mobile
- Amazon Appstore Launches Today with 3,800 Apps for Android, AllThingsD
- Getting ‘mobile-ready’ part 1: Creating a mobile-optimized website, Google Mobile Ads Blog
- New Maps domains in 11 countries in Middle East & North Africa, Google LatLong
Link Building
- 4 Essential WordPress Link Building Plugins, Search Engine People
Searching
- Finding an obscure object of desire, SearchReSearch
SEM Industry
- How To Begin Your Search Marketing Job Search, Search Engine People
SEO & SEM
- Google Shows True Colors With BeatThatQuote Spam, SEO Book
- Google to Change Tablet Targeting Options, Rimm Kaufman
- Google’s Collateral Damage: SEO Cat & Mouse Game, SEO Book
- Google’s Page Segmentation Patent Granted, SEO By The Sea
- Google’s Rich Snippet Testing Tool Works In English Only, Search Engine Roundtable
- Google: Facebook Like Buttons Have No Influence On Rankings, Search Engine Roundtable
- Headsmacking Tip #18: Use Discussion Search as Competitive Intel, SEOmoz
- How Much Time Do You Spend Actually Doing SEO, Michael Gray
- How should I handle localized content?, YouTube
- Page Speed for Chrome, and in 40 languages!, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
- Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance State of the Union, adCenter Blog
Social Media
- 11 Proofs of Twitter’s Amazing Power, Matt McGee
- Improving Browser Security with CSP, Twitter Engineering
Video, Music & Image Search
- YouTube Offers Free Image Stabilization, New York Times
Web Analytics
- Issue with AdSense reports, Google Analytics Blog
Other Items
- 1000 @Google Talks videos now on YouTube, Official Google Blog
Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:
- Google's Collateral Damage: SEO Cat & Mouse Game [Infographic] – A fantastic infographic developed by the fine people of seobook.com & ByJess.net
- 35+ tips and tricks for sexier Google analytics reports. – There is however a wealth of data hidden behind its reporting tools in Google Analytics if you can just manipulate it the right way. This collection of tips, tricks and reports should hopefully get you off to a flying start.
- SEO Checklist: 60 essential checks before launching a website – Launching a brand new website or publishing a new site version is typically a straight forward process given that it is well planned and well organized. Failing to take into account all the known ranking factors or failing to build an SEO-friendly website can lead to low rankings in Search Results. As a result before publishing a website, the Webmasters and the SEO professionals should validate that they are aligned with the best current practices and that they have not made important mistakes in their SEO campaigns. In this article we list the most essential checks that one should make before publishing a website online.