Local Search

Google Settles Buzz Lawsuit With $8.5 Million Payment

Matt McGee — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 23:55:58 +0000

A busy day for Google on the legal front continues with news that the company has agreed to $8.5 million in payments to settle a federal lawsuit surrounding Google Buzz and privacy. According to AFP, court documents filed today show that seven plaintiffs will get no more than $2,500 each, lawyers that filed the case [...]

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Google Announces Can’t Be Missed Press Event On Search – What’s Up?

Danny Sullivan — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 23:08:38 +0000

Google’s announced a special press event for next Wednesday on search that “you won’t want to miss.” What big news could there be? Let’s speculate — but I wouldn’t get too excited. Here’s what the invite says: We invite you to join us on Wednesday, September 8, to share our latest technological innovation and to get an [...]

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Facebook Adds Popular News Articles To Search Results

Matt McGee — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:27:32 +0000

It’s sort of a baby step in Facebook’s efforts to improve its search results, but certainly worth noting here: Facebook is now showing news articles in its search results and ranking them by how many “likes” and “shares” the articles have received from Facebook users. The All Facebook blog says the number of friends who [...]

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SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 3, 2010

Barry Schwartz — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:00:32 +0000

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Texas Attorney General Investigating Google & Antitrust Issues Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is conducting an investigation into Google’s business practices as they relate to search listings, in particular whether Google is manipulating its [...]

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Texas Attorney General Investigating Google & Antitrust Issues

Danny Sullivan — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:08:05 +0000

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is conducting an investigation into Google’s business practices as they relate to search listings, in particular whether Google is manipulating its paid and editorial results in a way that violates antitrust laws. We received a tip about the investigation this week, and Google confirmed today that an investigation started in July. [...]

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German Court Finds YouTube Liable In Copyright Case

Matt McGee — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:53:18 +0000

A German court has found YouTube liable for copyright damages after one of its users uploaded copyrighted music videos. A Google spokesperson tells the AP that it’s evaluating the court’s decision and will appeal. The case stems around a YouTube user who uploaded several videos of singer Sarah Brightman. While YouTube specifically warns users not to [...]

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Google Power User Tips: SERP URL Parameters

Stephan Spencer — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:47:22 +0000

In Part 1, we looked at query operators for refining our searches. Now for Part 2, let’s look at parameters that we can add/modify in the URL of the the Google SERP (search engine results page.) The operators listed in Part 1 should suffice for most searches. Yet, certain types of searches are most efficiently accomplished [...]

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Google’s New Mobile Ads Take Users From Search To Store

Greg Sterling — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:30:40 +0000

Earlier this summer Google rolled out Expandable Map Ads for mobile devices. These ads appear on the mobile web and in apps. To participate advertisers must enable location extensions and be opted in to the content network for mobile. They begin as a banner that expands when clicked into a map with the option to [...]

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Google’s Spinning Buckyball Logo

Barry Schwartz — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:29:25 +0000

If you visit Google on Saturday, September 4th, or visit a Google property where it is already September 4th such as Google New Zealand, you will see a special Google logo. The logo is of a buckyball or fullerence, which is any molecule composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, [...]

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Google Adds Breadcrumb Support To Rich Snippets & Improves Testing Tool

Barry Schwartz — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:11:57 +0000

The Google Webmaster Central blog announced improvements to their rich snippets feature. The improvements include a way to tell Google how you want your breadcrumb URLs to appear and an improved rich snippet testing tool. The breadcrumbs you have seen before, we have pictures here. Sometimes you don’t like how Google shows breadcrumbs in [...]

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Think Like A Generalist So You Can Act Like A Specialist

Evan LaPointe — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:00:10 +0000

As I keep working on the message of “how” we get things done online, I’m getting clearer about this concept of generalized vs. specialized thinking and action. Those of you who know me or have read any of my Analyze This posts have probably heard this “lead pipes” example I throw around. The idea is this [...]

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SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 2, 2010

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:01:56 +0000

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 Showing Four Top AdWords Ads, Top One Google Mortgage Ad When I search for [mortgage rates] in Google, I am presented with dozens of Google AdWords ads on the search page. But [...]

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Official: Google Experimenting With Four Ads Above Search Results, In Mortgage Searches

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:43:51 +0000

Historically, Google has shown a maximum of three ads above its unpaid “editorial” search results. But now, the company is experimenting with four. Below is an example from a search for [mortgage rates] in Google: As you can see, there are four separate ads being displayed, rather than the usual maximum of three. The first one is one [...]

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Consumer Watchdog Airs Anti-Google Cartoon At Times Square

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:56:51 +0000

A Consumer Watchdog group is airing a cartoon that is named “do not track me.” The video depicts Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt as seducing children to come get their “free ice cream.” Then the cartoon version of Eric Schmidt talks about how nothing is really free and how Google gives away things in [...]

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SMX East: Possibly Our Best Yet

Chris Sherman — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:37:50 +0000

Still wondering whether to attend SMX East in New York on October 4-6? You can get a great overview of what to expect from the show from SMX East: A Personal Tour By Danny Sullivan, where Danny talks about the content and structure we’ve developed for the show. Like Danny, I’m really excited about this conference, [...]

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How To Use Social Media Monitoring Tools For Outreach Marketing

Joe Hall — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:17:04 +0000

Social media is all about engagement. Because of this, it is the perfect tool for outreach marketing efforts. Outreach marketing is the practice of seeking out individuals or organizations that have a shared interest in what you or your company has to offer. Sometimes, it is used in conjunction with direct sales, but often times [...]

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Your Daily, Weekly & Monthly Paid Search Routine

Josh Dreller — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:04:01 +0000

Now that you have your paid search account up, running, and are able to pull basic reports, it’s time to start setting up your schedule for handling all of the various tasks required to truly steward a successful SEM program. The amount of work you’ll be putting in will mainly be dictated by the [...]

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Google Opens Local Shopping Merchant Details

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:33:11 +0000

The Google Merchant Blog announced they have opened up the help documents for how merchants can submit content, such as local stock inventory levels, for their products. Google said this is still a limited beta program, which was first announced in March of this year. Google also said that if merchants are interested in being [...]

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AOL Extends Google Search Deal: 5 More Years

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:23:15 +0000

AOL announced they have extended their search deal with Google for an additional five-years. This includes Google powering AOL’s organic and paid search results. The deal also added in that Google will power search on mobile search, in mobile apps and content. Also, all of AOL’s video content will also be on [...]

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Apple vs. Google Part Deux: Social Networks And The “Battle For The Living Room”

Greg Sterling — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:13:56 +0000

Most of Apple’s announcements yesterday were anticipated. Still there were a few surprises; for example the specifics of the iTunes-based social network Ping, as well as the pricing of Apple TV 2.0 ($99). Apple pre-empted Google to some degree with both products. Business Insider does a nice job of contrasting the two TV initiatives and their [...]

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SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 1, 2010

Barry Schwartz — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:00:51 +0000

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 Maps “Sponsored Map Icons” Test Comes To U.S. Google Maps is now testing “sponsored map icons” in the United States. This was first tested back in March in the Australian version of [...]

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Google Maps “Sponsored Map Icons” Test Comes To U.S.

Barry Schwartz — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:00:59 +0000

Google Maps is now testing “sponsored map icons” in the United States. This was first tested back in March in the Australian version of Google Maps. The sponsored map icons are basically company logo enhanced points of interest icons. For example, instead of seeing a generic ATM machine icon on Google Maps, [...]

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Case Study: Which Online Grocer Has The Best Conversion Process

Paddy Moogan — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:15:08 +0000

Some of you may remember my debut Search Engine Land post which looked at the process for buying an iPhone 4 on various UK retailers. The article went down quite well so I’d like to repeat this process for another set of websites to see how they convert visitors into buyers. This time I’ve chosen [...]

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How To Identify Industry Specific & Mainstream Media On Twitter

Rae Hoffman — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:04:11 +0000

Need authority links? Twitter is one of the best ways I’ve found to get your site (or yourself as the case may be) on the radar of the journalists who decide what topics and websites are discussed (and linked to) in mainstream media. Interacting with the folks who report on your chosen industry on Twitter – [...]

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Google Search Now Indexes & Crawls SVG Files

Barry Schwartz — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:52:53 +0000

The Google Webmaster Help blog announced they are now indexing SVG files and documents. SVG is a royalty-free graphics format typically used on the web for fancy font usage. Google said: We index SVG content whether it is in a standalone file or embedded directly in HTML. The web is big, so it may take some [...]

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