Advertisement

Upcoming Seminars: 5 Ghastly PPC Mistakes to Avoid - SEM Agencies and Reporting: Best Practices for Success

Stories Discussed In The Show

• Online Video Advertising + Search Engines = Opportunity For Small Businesses
  Much is being written and said these days about the rising future of online video advertising. Recent articles like one in the NY Times reporting Google’s move to test video ads in search results pages shows that the once abstract promise of online video advertising is now upon us....
• Google Analytics Benchmarking Feature, Data Sharing & Audio Ad Charting
  Google Analytics added a new benchmarking feature today. Users can now compare their site's performance to industry benchmarks, though only if they agree to share their data to help produce such aggregate benchmarks. Another feature added is the ability to see when your Google Audio ads run, in relation to...
• Google Debuts "Search Within A Site" Search Box Feature
  Yesterday Barry blogged about Google testing a search box for site search within general search results. Today the feature is being fully rolled out for selected queries. It's really an extension and elaboration of Google Sitelinks. The Google Blog explains: [O]ver the past few days we have been testing, and...
• Oops! Google's SSL Certificate Throwing Out Scary Warnings
  Everyone is noticing that when they go to their Google Account through AdWords, AdSense, Analytics, or any Google page that requires SSL, they are being prompted with a security warning. Typically, not a major deal, right? Well, not if you are trying to get customers to buy on your site....
• Hackers Launch Goolag: A Google Vulnerability Scanner
  Hackers turn Google into vulnerability scanner from Techworld reports a group of hackers named Cult of the Dead Cow (CDC) launched a search tool powered by Google to help see if your sites are vulnerable to a hacking attempt. The tool is named Goolag, and by typing in a domain...
• Hitwise: Google Users Older, Bigger Spenders Than Yahoo's
  Hitwise performed an interesting demographic analysis last week, comparing the breakdown of Google and Yahoo search users. What it found was that Google users skew older than Yahoo search users, bucking some of the conventional wisdom in the market about the relative composition of their audiences. Google users are also...
• Survey Says: Google Top Brand In UK
  Google takes UK's top brand spot from the BBC reports Google took the BBC's top spot in a Superbrands survey of the top brand in the UK. In fact, Google is the only company established after 1990 that is found within the top 50 brands in this survey. Microsoft secured...
• Microsoft Launches Search Prizes With Virgin In UK: Big Snap Search
  Microsoft runs prize campaign for Live Search users from NewMediaAge reports that Microsoft is yet running another search and win promotion. This time the contest is based in the UK, in partnership with Virgin. It is named the Big Snap Search. Users can go to bigsnapsearch.com and search, at the...
• Gates On Yahoo Acquisition: It's The Engineers We Want
  CNET reports on Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' speech at Stanford University yesterday in which he said that it wasn't the advertisers, the brand or the traffic so much as the engineers that Microsoft wanted in the Yahoo acquisition. Of course others in the company, including perhaps CEO Steve Ballmer, would...
• Official: Microsoft Management Reorg Announced; Dueling Ad Groups?
  We expected a management shuffle from Microsoft today, and now they've delivered it. The company has announced seven new senior vice presidents and seven new corporate vice president. I'll focus on the search and advertising front, where we now have two different senior vice presidents overseeing advertising. Best I can...
• Google Snubbed By Dow Jones
  As Canada's Globe & Mail reports, Google wasn't invited to join the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) when other, arguably less impressive companies were, in the first changes to the composition of the DJIA since 2004....
• Google, Yahoo, Microsoft & Other Search Engines Must Comply With EU Privacy Rules
  EU: Search Engines Under EU Rules from the Associated Press reports that the European data privacy regulators said search engines outside the EU also have to comply with EU's privacy regulations. The regulations require the search engines to require their users to consent to their data being collected plus give...
• Is The Time Ripe For Search Marketing Standards?
  Over the past ten to twelve years, various SEM practitioners have brought up the need for industry standards. I started asking the question in 1998, and others have brought it up since, but the industry seems to have a laissez faire attitude. Albeit, we've seen some standardization steps taken by...
• Andy Beal Launches Trackur For Monitoring Online Reputation
  When monitoring what people are saying about you and your brand online, you have two main choices. You can use Google Alerts as well as search a variety of social media and social networking sites manually, or you can pay a reputation management firm to do expensive monitoring for you....
• Bush - Tops For "Who Is A Failure" On Google
  For years, US President George W. Bush was tops on Google for searches on miserable failure until last year's Googlebomb "fix" solved his problem on Google. But Bush is back, sort of. People are spotting that Bush's official White House page is ranking tops for who is a failure on...
• AdWords + Video: Video Ads Come To Google Search Results
  We've been expecting them -- now they've arrived, video ads on Google. Google Tests Video Ads on Search Results Pages from the New York Times has confirmation from Google that they are out there, though I haven't seen anyone reporting them live and in the wild yet. It really shouldn't...
• Yahoo Maps Adds More Data, Other Improvements
  Yahoo Maps has announced a range of improvements. These include expanded global coverage, including better data and coverage of Eastern Europe; and, in the US, more "granular" neighborhood data for 300 cities and 12,000 neighborhoods. Functionality has been improved as well. Tiles are "lighter" for faster load times, colors and...
• A Big Roundup Of Link Building Tools
  Ask any link builder what link issues they're consistently asked about and one of them will be linking tools. Link building is such a time consuming and detailed process that it's only natural people look for tools and techniques to maximize their time. Those who spend a lot of...
• You'd Be Wise To "NoFollow" This Dubious SEO Advice
  For the past few months, I have been listening to some of my colleagues talk about the nofollow attribute and how to use it to sculpt a page's PageRank. I heard this SEO advice first at SMX in Stockholm and most recently at SMX in Santa Clara. Stephan Spencer...
• Upcoming Search Marketing Conferences: March-June 2008
  Doing your forward planning for the year? Google's Matt Cutts is, and this week, he posted where he's speaking over the next few weeks. In a similar vein, I thought it would be nice to list some of the upcoming search marketing events happening in the coming months:...
• Pew: Cellphones More Important To Users Than Internet, TV, Email
  Anyone who doubts how important mobile phones are and will become as a platform and marketing medium needs only to look at the latest Pew Internet & American Life report. Cellphones are now more important to US adults than the internet, television, landline phones and email. In addition, an increasing...
• Google May Launch Balloons Across World To Provide Mobile Access
  We have been covering how Google may provide internet access to those users who don't have it yet for a while now. While the Submarine Cable Negotiator job at Google was pretty interesting, I think this new story may be even more interesting. Floating a New Idea For Going Wireless,...