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    Google testing new search design with AI answers over organic results

    Written on February 1, 2023 at 1:54 pm, by admin

    Google has reportedly started testing a new desktop search page design that integrates chat technology.

    We already knew Google wants to add chatbot features to search this year. A new CNBC report provides more details on what the experimental search page may look like.

    Google’s alternate search page. In one version of Google’s search results, the company replaced the iconic I’m Feeling Lucky button under the search bar with five prompts for potential questions. There was also a small chat logo” inside the far right end of the search bar, according to the report.

    Based on this description, here’s a fairly terrible rendering of what that would look like:

    Google’s alternate SERP. It sounds like this would push Google’s organic search results much further down the page. As CNBC explained:

    When a question is entered, the search results show a gray bubble directly under the search bar, offering more human-like responses than typical search results. Directly beneath that, the page suggests several follow-up questions related to the first one. Under that, it shows typical search results, including links and headlines.

    Now I haven’t seen this experimental design.

    However, based on how this was described, it may look similar to certain SERPs where there is a featured snippet followed by People also ask, then organic results. For example, [what is cheese made of]:

    So you could imagine the “gray bubble” in place of the featured snippet explaining how cheese is made (with an answer generated by Google AI instead of awarded to the source of the featured snippet here), and the “follow-up questions” replacing PAA.

    Why we care. Could this be what chatbot-style Google desktop search results will look like later this year? While it’s not a radical departure from the current Google desktop design, this would mean that visibility for websites – and perhaps traffic – will be impacted. If you thought Google was stealing your traffic and clicks before, well… it’s safe to say there will be many angry search marketers.

    What Google is saying. According to a Google spokesperson:

    Dig deeper. Jennifer Elias on CNBC (Google is asking employees to test potential ChatGPT competitors, including a chatbot called ‘Apprentice Bard’) also reports on how Google is also testing out its version of ChatGPT, which uses its LaMDA technology that includes answers based on recent events (which is is something ChatGPT can’t do at this time).

    The post Google testing new search design with AI answers over organic results appeared first on Search Engine Land.

    Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




    Internal linking for ecommerce: The ultimate guide

    Written on January 31, 2023 at 9:34 am, by admin

    Internal linking is a crucial aspect of any website, but it is especially important for ecommerce websites. 

    Internal linking helps improve the navigation and user experience for your website visitors and can also help improve your website’s search engine optimization (SEO). 

    This article will discuss the best practices for internally linking pages on ecommerce websites. To help illustrate these opportunities, I’ll use some of my favorite examples of ecommerce SEO done well – the portfolio of Williams Sonoma brands. (Disclaimer: I have no affiliation and have never worked on any of these sites.)

    But first, let’s lay the groundwork for why these tactics are so important.

    What is internal linking?

    Internal linking refers to linking one webpage to another on the same website domain. When a user clicks on an internal link, they will be taken to a different page on your website. These links can be words, phrases, or images.

    Internal linking is important because it helps people find the information they are looking for on your website and helps them move from one page to another.

    It also helps search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your website, making it easier to find in search results.

    What internal linking is not

    Internal linking is not the same as external linking. 

    External linking is when you put links on your website that take users to other websites. This can help them find relevant information from other sources.

    Using both types of linking is essential, but they have different purposes. 

    Why is internal linking important for ecommerce websites?

    Internal linking is an important aspect of search engine optimization (SEO) for all websites, especially ecommerce.

    While there are probably many more reasons than I’ve listed below, these are the four primary reasons that are always top of mind when working on an ecommerce website with tens of thousands, if not millions, of pages.

    It helps improve the visibility and ranking of a website on search engine results pages (SERPs) and improves the user experience by allowing visitors to navigate the website easily. 

    But, before we get into general best practices, as noted in the items above, it is essential to note the difference between navigational internal linking and in-content internal linking.

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    In-content vs. navigation internal linking: What’s the difference?

    In-content internal linking includes links within the content of a page (typically a blog post), while navigation internal linking is when you have links in your website’s navigation menu.

    For example, if you are writing a blog post about men’s shoes, you may want to link to a page about sneakers. This would help users find additional information related to the current page’s content.

    In contrast, navigation internal linking helps people find the main pages on your website and navigate your website more easily.

    With that explanation out of the way, here are 9 best practices for internally linking pages on ecommerce websites, broken down by in-content or navigational. 

    Navigation internal linking best practices

    Let’s start with some of the basics for a solid ecommerce website.

    1. Sitewide navigation menu

    The organization and utilization of your primary navigation are table stakes for a robust internal linking strategy.

    When a page is linked from the sitewide menu, it essentially means that it is linked from every page on the site, which can signal to Google that the page is essential. However, it’s necessary to be mindful of not overcrowding your menu.

    Across the Williams Sonoma portfolio of sites, the main navigation is a master class of effective internal linking strategy. I’ll use the below example from West Elm’s Kids section to illustrate.

    west elm kids furniture navigation menu

    1 and 2 – Category / Sub-Category Linking: West Elm links to crucial category pages from the sitewide menu, boosting these pages’ internal authority. The sub-category links assist in providing Google with a better understanding of the organization of the website and the semantic relationships between them.

    3 – Focusing on the user journey: Having dealt with this myself, I know design paralysis is a big blocker to purchasing furniture. With the Design Resources section, West Elm not only provides search engines an entry to all products in the category (All Kids & Baby Collections) but also answers common blockers to purchase (inspiration, in stock, etc.).

    Ross Hudgens summarizes the additional benefits of including this content more eloquently than I could:

    “Integrating content into navigation categories can help drive significantly more outcomes. Most people don’t care to visit “Resources” or “Blog.” This will lead them to ignore dropdowns like that.

    They want to solve a specific problem and are more likely to be driven down the path of reading up on it if it’s naturally embedded within each category.

    This will help drive users down the funnel, especially for products with a long sales cycle. In the nav, you can link directly to the hub category for the section that discusses that content. 

    If it doesn’t exist, that’s a hint your content hub could use better architecture around the actual problems people have.

    You can see how this powerfully ties together from an internal linking and engagement benefit point of view.”

    4 – Internally link to support business priorities: The critical thing to note about this example is the internal link doesn’t just say “Sale.” It is a specific sale (“Up To 40% Off Furniture”) aligned with the category.

    As you navigate each sub-menu, you’ll find that the sale references align with the primary category. Great use of deep linking, even within the sale section.

    5 – Internal link to support secondary KPIs: In an age where first-party data collection must be a priority, West Elm provides a clear CTA driving users into their design center to schedule an appointment. 

    While I cannot validate this, I would expect the data collected to be used to fuel additional marketing efforts. 

    Ultimately, if someone chose to utilize these services, I expect these average order sizes to be much larger (I know it was for me), which is also likely why they can offer these design services at no cost.

    6 – Portfolio-wide internal linking strategy: I’ve worked on many ecommerce sites that were part of portfolio companies. The typical approach is to add a bunch of footer links to the portfolio domains and call it a day. 

    This is the first time I have seen such a focused effort on utilizing an internal linking structure to elevate all domains in a portfolio. The important element to note here is that even the cross-domain internal link is highly relevant (e.g., West Elm Kids Furniture → Pottery Barn Baby & Kids Furniture).

    Kudos to whoever sold this enterprise SEO strategy!

    2. Sitewide secondary navigation menu

    The Williams Sonoma site portfolio uses a mix of global navigation menus. I’ll focus on the two in the screenshot below.

    mark graham secondary navigation

    At the top, again, we see a list of external links to ecommerce sites in the portfolio. (Gap also does this well.)

    Directly below the logo, Mark & Graham utilizes a row of “quick links” that are updated to support seasonal efforts, promotions and sales, new product categories, and other deep links to category pages that otherwise might not have a home in the fixed navigation menu (i.e., Occasions, Interests, etc.)

    This is an excellent example of secondary navigation that adds value to the user (and search engines) beyond just Find a Store, Shopping Cart, etc.  

    3. HTML breadcrumb navigation

    HTML breadcrumbs are typically displayed at the top of the category and product pages. They include a series of links that show the path a user has taken to reach the current page. 

    There are a handful of benefits of implementing breadcrumbs:

    They help users understand where they are on the website and make navigating to previous pages easy.

    A perfect illustration of this is Williams Sonoma’s utilization of breadcrumbs to build natural internal links to essential category pages based on my navigational path to the same product:

    williams sonoma oxo brand breadcrumbWilliams Sonoma’s “OXO” brand breadcrumb

    Williams Sonoma's mandoline slicers breadcrumbWilliams Sonoma’s “mandoline slicers” breadcrumb

    Williams Sonoma's all food prep tools breadcrumbWilliams Sonoma’s “all food prep tools” breadcrumb

    4. HTML sitemap

    An HTML sitemap is a page that lists all pages on your website and provides links to these pages.

    For example, you might include a sitemap on your website that lists all of the pages on your website and provides links to these pages, or you could use internal linking to highlight the most critical pages on your website.

    pottery barn html sitemap

    Creating a well-structured HTML sitemap and linking to it from the footer, as Pottery Barn Kids has done, ensures that most site pages are only a few clicks away, which aids in both user accessibility and SEO.

    pottery barn html sitemap footer link

    Since search engines crawl sites in a sequential manner and follow contextual cues, it is beneficial to have a single page that links to the site’s primary and secondary pages.

    This can be helpful for users looking for specific pages on your website and help search engines discover and crawl all of the pages on your website.

    Once created, it is essential to maintain an updated HTML sitemap on the site to ensure users and search engines can reach any page via minimal navigation.

    In-content internal linking best practices

    Ecommerce sites are notorious for lacking content – especially across category and sub-category pages. As a result, it could be argued some of these examples are “navigational” in nature.

    However, I might argue these implementations are less ‘standard’ for navigational purposes and typically buried at the bottom of the page (where content is generally added for category pages).

    5. Supporting category page content

    There are many ways to build in supporting content on category pages – that could be a separate article.

    In the example below, West Elm adds a few supporting paragraphs at the bottom of their category pages with additional heading tags and content that adds value to the user experience. 

    Within that content, they naturally include links to other category and sub-category pages, individual product pages, and even educational/blog content where it makes sense. 

    west elm in content internal linking

    6. Internal linking modules

    Above the supporting page content, Pottery Barn, Mark & Graham, and West Elm utilize a row of Related Searches (read more about internal link modules here).

    pottery barn related searches

    Pottery Barn Kids utilizes this same row directly above the footer.

    pottery barn kids related searches

    In all cases, these text links take the form of long-tailed keyword-rich internal links to sub-categories and product detail pages (PDPs).

    As you can see from the example above, this provides opportunities to build rich anchor text links to pages around color, texture, and even sizing – incredibly valuable for those long-tailed but highly-qualified searches.

    7. Related products/browsing

    Ecommerce SEO 101 requires a related products widget of some sort. This can help users discover additional products they may be interested in and is one of the foundational tactics for internal link building.

    However, what was traditionally reserved for the product detail page, has expanded to category pages, and even the “types” of related products have grown exponentially. 

    For example, Williams Sonoma uses the standard “Related Products,” while Pottery Barn uses a “Top Picks for You” widget on their category pages. 

    pottery barn category related

    On product detail pages, this implementation expands to a wide variety of implementations and names, typically with multiple rows per page in a carousel allowing for a more extensive list of internal links per page:

    pottery barn kids pdp related products

    These links are invaluable for cross-selling, upselling, and flattening the overall website architecture.

    8. Product attributes

    Where breadcrumbs might not be possible, product attributes can fill the void.

    When both can be used, they are an effective complement for each other and can reference any/all attributes a product might have:

    While this type of internal link is perhaps better showcased on another site (check out REI.com), I was able to find an example of this on West Elm:

    west elm product attributes

    In this case, “Learn more” links to the collaboration page for Scout Regalia. I would argue that a better anchor text implementation could be done here.

    There are broader opportunities across the collective sites to take advantage of interlinking among collaborations and brand pages on product detail pages themselves.

    9. User-generated content (UGC)

    UGC content can take on many forms:

    It’s hard to find fault in Williams Sonoma’s SEO strategy. This, however, is one area where there might be a significant opportunity.

    pottery barn ugc

    In the example above, a Pottery Barn associate left a response to a comment with a naked URL. However, the link is not clickable. 

    Generally, the Q&A section across the domains offers many opportunities for internal linking automation. 

    What are general internal linking best practices?

    Now that you have a roundup of the why and where to incorporate internal links, you might wonder “what to do” and “how to do it.” 

    A myriad of articles outlines these internal linking best practices very well, including Moz, Semrush, and, of course, Google. 

    I suggest you dive into the links above for a more detailed breakdown. In my opinion, the five most crucial internal linking best practices to follow, in no particular order, are below:

    How do I implement internal linking on my ecommerce site?

    Much of this may require some grunt work and a partnership with your development team to implement these strategies effectively.

    The implementation with the most bang for your buck (and potentially the highest level of effort) is internal linking modules. I linked it above, but I highly recommend reading this article from Holly Miller Anderson for more details.

    Alternatively, auditing your existing internal links to determine which pages could benefit from increased internal linking is always a great place to start.

    Paul Shapiro defines this process as determining “internal PageRank,” which is an intelligent way of thinking about it.

    No matter how you define it, the outcome of this exercise will no doubt provide valuable insights to get started.

    Maximizing internal linking for ecommerce

    Internal linking is an essential aspect of any ecommerce website. 

    By following the best practices discussed in this article, you can ensure that your website is easy to navigate for users and is optimized for search engines. 

    The post Internal linking for ecommerce: The ultimate guide appeared first on Search Engine Land.

    Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




    Meta advertising: 5 best practices for 2023

    Written on January 31, 2023 at 9:34 am, by admin

    As Instagram and Facebook continue to lead the social platform arena, Meta remains a media channel where advertisers must stay visible and competitive in 2023. Much has changed over the past year, with Meta releasing many new tools and features. Advertisers now have more resources to scale their campaigns faster than ever. 

    Meta continues to dominate machine learning, launching new automated campaign types proven incredibly efficient. Advertisers have more options to control certain elements in campaigns.

    The media giant also improved the experience of working with influencers, a value-add to advertisers who seek to focus on their brand awareness budgets over direct response.

    With all the new updates in 2022, several best practices were uncovered through rigorous testing, many of which prove vital for any brand’s long-term Meta advertising strategy. 

    Here are five recommendations to consider when running Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns in 2023.

    1. Leverage Advantage+ campaigns

    Advantage+ campaigns is a new feature Meta released in 2022. I’ve always advocated for Meta’s machine learning because they have mastered it. Advantage+ campaigns are a great addition to app and shopping initiatives. 

    Meta does the work for advertisers by finding the right audience and the right creative. We have succeeded across app install and shopping (dynamic product ads). 

    To capitalize on Advantage+ campaigns, it’s essential to ensure you have a healthy amount of creative to get these running effectively. Meta recommends the creative assets they think will perform the best, but marketers can manually select the ones they desire. 

    Experiment with your options and try a combination of ads known to perform well while also letting Meta choose ads. By testing and optimizing what works, you’ll likely see an improvement in your cost-per-acquisition running with Advantage+ campaigns. Keep your eye on these for 2023. 

    2. Work with influencers

    Not a new tactic, but Meta has recently put forth new playbooks and guides to help advertisers work with influencers. 

    Influencers are a large part of B2C advertising budgets, and Meta has recognized that marketers want to leverage user-generated content on brand channels with paid media. 

    The process isn’t perfect, but here are a few key best practices to make your strategy go as smoothly as possible.

    Also, keep in mind that if you’re promoting Reels, advertisers can only add links to these if you create a dark post. If it’s important that you have a link, but you don’t want a dark post, Facebook recommends going with the “Story” placement.

    Advertisers working with influencers can additionally find success with the “Instagram Explore” placement, so it’s highly recommended to keep an eye on that one for 2023. We’ve seen our lowest CPMs and CPAs from Instagram’s new “Explore” placement and plan to increase spend here on future influencer initiatives.

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    3. Set up Meta’s Conversions API

    Yes, there are still many pain points and kinks to be worked out when setting up Meta’s Conversion API (CAPI). However, Meta has recently rolled out various setup methods to help more advertisers get up and running. 

    While CAPI isn’t mandatory, it’s worth keeping in mind since it’s a deeper level of optimization. With the new setup methods, it also appears Meta is (hopefully) working to offer more integrations for advertisers to get set up faster without needing a full dev team.

    After successfully getting CAPI set up and launched, we delivered our lowest cost-per-acquisition of the year in Q4. Our CPA decreased by 34% in our first month and 70% in our second month while optimizing for conversions using CAPI. We were able to feed a deeper data point to Facebook’s algorithm.

    Stay on the lookout for more Meta updates regarding CAPI setup. This is one feature you don’t want to miss out on.

    4. Use ‘open’ and ‘broad’ targeting

    Aligning even more with Meta’s machine learning algorithm, “Open” or “Broad” targeting will continue to be king when scaling your campaigns. 

    Meta’s algorithm can efficiently find the audience most likely interested in your ads and taking action when doing either of these two options:

    Open and broad targeting feeds Meta the most audience data to allow it to make the best optimizations, which is the best way to make machine learning work for your advertising efforts.

    5. Make the best of lead gen forms

    Long has been the theme of “less is more” regarding lead gen forms. This remains true in many cases. But if you’re struggling with the quality of leads, consider adding more questions to qualify the customer. 

    We’ve seen this successful when needing to drive quality over quantity. Yes, your front-end cost per lead will likely increase. Still, we’ve found that the quality on the backend significantly improves and decreases the efficiency of qualified leads while driving increased revenue for businesses.

    It’s also recommended to test manual fill for first name, last name and/or email address if you’re struggling with the quality. There is a balance to be found when it comes to manual fill vs. autofill so you’ll likely want to test a few variations to find what works best for your business. 

    Don’t have too many manual fill questions to avoid accidentally increasing the volume of abandoned forms. Consider additionally giving the consumer a short and sweet introduction on the form that details what they will get from filling out the form. This can be a snippet of a whitepaper or a few bullets about the company – whatever makes the most sense for your ad.

    Moreover, ensure your thank you page or the landing page you are driving the consumer to is engaging with helpful information and resources. This provides more education for the consumer to make decisions and can help build your retargeting audiences for nurture campaigns.

    Lastly, keep the creative for your lead gen forms scroll-stopping. You have seconds to grab someone’s attention in their feed and make them stop to open your form, so be bold! 

    The takeaway

    As Meta continues to evolve and unroll new features, one thing is certain – automation will become a core campaign tactic. 

    With automation at the forefront, advertisers have more ability to test and learn at a faster pace than ever with tools like CAPI and Advantage+ campaigns. 

    Furthermore, don’t hesitate to lean into open and broad targeting, where possible, to feed audience optimization. 

    2023 will be a big year for testing to see where advertisers can uncover additional efficiencies and remain competitive on Facebook and Instagram.

    The post Meta advertising: 5 best practices for 2023 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

    Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




    This day in search marketing history: January 31

    Written on January 31, 2023 at 9:34 am, by admin

    Google releases URL Inspection Tool API

    In 2022, Google released a new API under the Search Console APIs for the URL Inspection Tool. The new URL Inspection API let you programmatically access the data and reporting you’d get from the URL Inspection Tool but through software.

    Google’s URL Inspection Tool API had a limit of 2,000 queries per day and 600 queries per minute.

    Google provided some use cases for the API:

    Within a week, several SEO professionals developed free new tools and shared scripts, and established SEO crawlers integrated this data with their own insights, as Aleyda Solis rounded up in 8 SEO tools to get Google Search Console URL Inspection API insights.

    Also on this day

    Google Search Console error reporting for Breadcrumbs and HowTo structured data changed

    2022: This change may have resulted in seeing more or less errors in your Breadcrumbs and HowTo structured data Search Console enhancement and error reports.

    Recommendations roll out to Discovery campaigns

    2022: Google Ads also launched auto-applied recommendations for manager accounts and more recommendations for Video campaigns.

    Google Ads creates unified advertiser verification program

    2022: Google would combine its advertiser identity and business operations verification programs under a unified Advertiser verification program.

    Deepcrawl launches technical SEO app for Wix

    2022: Designed for small and mid-sized enterprises, the app automated weekly site crawls and detects issues ranging from broken pages to content that doesn’t meet best-practice guidelines for SEO.

    Pinterest rolls out AR ‘Try on’ feature for furniture items

    2022: The augmented reality feature, called “Try On for Home Decor,” let users see what furniture looked like in their home before buying.

    Meta descriptions and branding have the most influence on search clickthrough, survey finds

    2020: The majority of participants also agreed that rich results improved Google search.

    Microsoft: Search advertising revenue grew slower than expected last quarter

    2020: LinkedIn sessions grew faster than the previous three quarters, though revenue growth slowed slightly in the second quarter of its fiscal 2020.

    Bing lets webmasters submit 10,000 URLs per day through Webmaster Tools

    2019: Previously you were able to submit up to 10 URLs per day and maximum of 50 URLs per month. Bing increased these limits by 1000x and removed the monthly quota.

    Client in-housing, competition for talent top digital agency concerns

    2019: Marketing Land’s Digital Agency Survey found the sector was weathering digital transformation well, but the growth of data-driven marketing made it clear where they needed to hire.

    Quora adds search-like keyword targeting, Auction Insights for advertisers

    2019: Quora introduced three new metrics (Auctions Lost to Competition, Impression Share, Absolute Impression Share) to help advertisers understand how they performed in the ad auctions.

    Google’s Page Speed Update does not impact indexing

    2018: Indexing and ranking are two separate processes – and this specific algorithm had no impact on indexing.

    Bing Ads has a conversion tracking fix for Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention

    2018: Advertisers had to enable auto-tagging of the Microsoft Click ID in their accounts to get consistent ad conversion tracking from Safari.

    Google EU shopping rivals complain antitrust remedies aren’t working

    2018: They demanded more changes, saying their problems have intensified rather than improved since the EC ruling in June 2017.

    Google mobile-friendly testing tool now has API access

    2017: Developers could now build their own tools around the mobile-friendly testing tool to see if pages are mobile-friendly.

    AdWords IF functions roll out for ad customization as Standard Text Ads sunset

    2017: IF functions arrived to let advertisers customize ads based on device and retargeting list membership.

    Google launches Ads Added by AdWords pilot: What we know so far

    2017: Ads based on existing ad and landing page content were added to ad groups by Google.

    New AdWords interface alpha is rolling out to more advertisers

    2017: It would roll out to even more AdWords accounts in the next few months.

    Majestic successfully prints the internet in 3D in outer space

    2017: The 3D printer worked in outer space, and the Majestic Landscape was printed at the International Space Station.

    Nadella Would Bring Search Cred To Microsoft CEO Role

    2014: For the prior three years Nadella had run Microsoft’s Server & Tools business. Before that he was in charge of Bing and online advertising.

    Bing Ads Editor Update Gives The Lowly “Sync Update” Window Real Functionality

    2014: The sync window showed the total number of changes and the number of those that had been successfully downloaded from or posted to the account.

    What Time Does Super Bowl 2014 Start? Look Up!

    2014: Google showed the start time at the top of its results.

    Who’s Tops? Bud Light Is Unseated As Number One Super Bowl Advertiser On Google And Bing

    2014: Volkswagen garnered the top spot with the most ad impressions on Google.

    Search In Pics: The Simpsons With Google Glass, Oscar Mayer Car At Google & Google Military Truck

    2014: The latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

    Adwords For Video Gets Reporting Enhancements

    2013: Google added three new measurement features to the AdWords for video reporting interface (Reach & Frequency, Column Sets Tailored to Marketing Goals, Geographic Visualization).

    Jackie Robinson Google Baseball Player Logo

    2013: The Doodle honored Robinson for his 94th birthday.

    Google & Bing: We’re Not Involved In “Local Paid Inclusion”

    2012: A program that guaranteed top listings for local searches on Google, Yahoo and Bing? An “officially approved” one in “cooperation” with those search engines? Not true, said Google and Bing.

    Report: Search Ad Spend To Rise 27% In 2012

    2012: Search ad spend was expected to grow 27% from 2011 to 2012, up from $15.36 billion to $19.51 billion. And by 2016, it was expected to reach almost $30 billion annually.

    Matt Cutts Convinces Some South Korean Govt. Websites To Stop Blocking Googlebot

    2012: Cutts managed to singlehandedly convince some government reps to let Googlebot crawl and index their websites.

    DOJ Exploring “Search Fairness” With Google As Rivals Protest Potential ITA Licensing Deal

    2011: FairSearch.org opposed any such potential licensing deal.

    Review Sites’ Rancor Rises With Prominence of Google Place Pages

    2011: Google’s relationship with review sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp was as complicated as ever.

    Google’s Android Now “The World’s Leading Smartphone Platform”: Report

    2011: More Android handsets were shipped in Q4 2010 than other platforms.

    Blekko Launches Mobile Apps For iPhone, Android

    2011: Slashtags and the personalization that Blekko offered were even better suited to the mobile search use case in some respects.

    Topsy Social Analytics: Twitter Analytics For The Masses (& Free, Too)

    2011: You could analyze domains, Twitter usernames, or keywords — and they can be compared over four timeframes: one day, a week, two weeks or a month.

    Google Executive Believed Missing After Egypt Protests

    2011: Wael Ghonim went missing not long after tweeting about being “very worried” and “ready to die.”

    Apple CEO: Google Wants To “Kill The iPhone”

    2010: “We did not enter the search business,” Jobs said. “They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them.”

    Google Gets Fearful, Flags Entire Internet As Malware Briefly

    2009: Due to a human error, Google told users “This site may harm your computer” for every website listed in search results.

    Google Revenues Up 51 Percent, Social Networking Monetization “Disappointing”

    2008: Google’s Q4, 2007 revenues were $4.83 billion, compared with $3.21 billion the year before.

    Google’s Marissa Mayer On Social Search / Search 4.0

    2008: How the search engine was considering using social data to improve its search results.

    Report: Click Fraud Up 15% In 2007

    2008: The overall industry average click fraud rate rose to 16.6% for Q4 2007. That was up from 14.2% for the same quarter in 2006, and 16.2% in Q3 2007.

    New “Show Search Options” Broadens Google Maps

    2008: A pull-down menu allowed users to narrow or expand results for the same query and more easily discover non-traditional content in Google Maps.

    Google’s Founders & CEO Promised To Work Together Until 2024

    2008: Spoiler alert: Schmidt left Google’s parent company Alphabet for good in February 2020.

    Google Reports Revenues Up 19 Percent From Previous Quarter

    2007: Google reported revenues of $3.21 billion for Q4 2006, representing a 67% increase over Q4 2005 revenues of $1.92 billion

    Google Pushes Back On Click Fraud Estimates, Says Don’t Forget The Back Button

    2007: Google’s Shuman Ghosemajumdersome said third-party auditing firms don’t appear to be
    matching up estimated fraud figures with refunds or even actual clicks registered by advertisers.

    Google, Microsoft, & Yahoo Ask For Help With International Censorship

    2007: The search engines had to make “moral judgments” about international authorities’ requests for information when they do not have to do the same for US requests.

    Yahoo To Build New Keyword Research Tool & Wordtracker Launches Free Tool

    2007: YSM’s public keyword research tool was sporadically offline, but Yahoo had plans to offer a new public keyword research tool.

    Gmail Locks Out User For Using Greasemonkey & Reports Of Gmail Contacts Disappearing

    2007: The account was disabled for 24 hours due to “unusual usage.”

    Yahoo To Build “Brand Universe” To Connect Entertainment Brands

    2007: Brand Universe would create about 100 websites built around entertainment brands and pull together content from various Yahoo properties.

    Google Can’t Use “Gmail” Name In Europe

    2007: Due to a trademark of the term.

    Boorah Restaurant Reviews: Zagat On Steroids

    2007: Boorah collected reviews from existing local search and content sites, summarized and enhanced the data and built additional features on top.

    Q&A With Stephen Baker, CEO Of Reed Business Search

    2007: What was new with Zibb, a B2B search engines, and the opportunities he saw going forward in B2B search.

    January 2007: Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories

    From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)

    Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

    These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

    < January 30 | Search Marketing History | February 1 >

    The post This day in search marketing history: January 31 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

    Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




    New updates for the GA4 search bar

    Written on January 31, 2023 at 9:34 am, by admin

    Google has released three new updates for the GA4 dashboard, allowing advertisers to find information about current properties or accounts.

    Dig deeper. The following updates were posted by Google on their Analytics Help documentation.

    Find data stream details

    The following search terms allow you to open the details for a web or app data stream in the property you are using:

    Find the current property and account settings

    The following search terms allow you to open the settings for the property you are using:

    The following search terms allow you to open the settings for the account you are using:

    Go to other Google Analytics 4 properties

    The following search terms allow you to navigate to a different Google Analytics 4 property from the one you are using. Analytics shows you up to 7 properties that match the search query.

    Why we care. The additional information will help advertisers analyze streams, accounts, and properties in their GA4 accounts.

    The post New updates for the GA4 search bar appeared first on Search Engine Land.

    Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




    Yahoo is making a return to search

    Written on January 30, 2023 at 5:32 am, by admin

    Yahoo Search seems like it will be making a comeback in the future. Yahoo has been dropping hints over the past couple of weeks related to this return and is also hiring a Principal Product Manager for the Yahoo Search platform to help lead these initiatives.

    The job posting. Yahoo posted a job listing for a “Principal Product Manager, Yahoo Search” a few weeks ago. The job posting, in part, reads, “We’re looking for a Product Manager for Search at Yahoo. We are looking for folks that are interested in pushing beyond the status quo to change the way folks interact and use search.”

    “As a Product Manager for Search, you will help develop our search strategy and roadmap and lead its execution. The ideal candidate will leverage strong organizational skills and deep subject matter expertise to partner with design, science, engineering, and other key cross-functional teams. You will determine what we prioritize for our customers in our search experiences and bring the vision to life. You will also lead the effort to discover and amplify content from across the vast Yahoo ecosystem to create new and innovative search experiences across surfaces and for our Search App.  The role is also responsible for identifying and documenting product and business requirements and taking them from concept to production, while working with a broad set of stakeholders that include marketing, sales, legal, editorial, design, UXR, and other teams,” it continues to read.

    Twitter hints. Yahoo has reactivated its Twitter account for Yahoo Search, posting teasers throughout the past couple of weeks. Here are some of those:

    Just popping in to remind everyone that we did search before it was cool.

    BRB making it cool again.

    — Yahoo Search (@YahooSearch) January 20, 2023

    The year of the ???? is said to bring tranquil energy and opportunity for prosperity. ????????

    Love that for us.

    — Yahoo Search (@YahooSearch) January 22, 2023

    Your last Yahoo Search. No cheating.

    — Yahoo Search (@YahooSearch) January 27, 2023

    Yahoo executives. Brian Provost, SVP & GM, Yahoo, posted on LinkedIn about this job listing and wrote, “There’s going to be so much innovation in Search in the coming years and there aren’t many places where you can immediately have an impact this big. Would love to hear from you if you have a passion for Search and building product experiences.”

    Karen Chin, Sr. Director of Product Management, Yahoo, also posted on LinkedIn, saying, “Looking to drive meaningful and innovative experiences for millions of users? We are looking for a seasoned Search Product Manager to take search into the next phase! Share and join us.”

    Jim Lanzone, Chief Executive Officer at Yahoo, took the helm of Yahoo in September 2021. Jim has a lot of deep roots in search. He worked at Ask.com for seven years, starting in 2001 as an SVP, Product Management, then in 2004 as the SVP and GM of Ask Jeeves and then taking over as CEO in 2006. After Ask.com, he became the President and CEO of CBS Interactive, then the CEO at Tinder and now at Yahoo as their CEO. It will be exciting to see what Yahoo Search does under Jim’s leadership. He is a creative mind that produced a lot of search innovation at Ask.

    Why we care. Personally, I cannot wait to see what Jim and his team come up with for Yahoo Search. I am excited to see what new ideas, interfaces, and concepts the team brings to Yahoo Search. Yahoo was a pretty big player in search in the early days, then the company continued to decline and even Google veteran Marissa Mayer could not save the company.

    But now Yahoo has a blank slate, and it will be very exciting to see if Yahoo can compete again.

    The post Yahoo is making a return to search appeared first on Search Engine Land.

    Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




    This day in search marketing history: January 30

    Written on January 30, 2023 at 5:32 am, by admin

    Analytics firm Jumpshot shuts down

    In 2020, following critical articles about its data collection and sales practices, analytics firm Jumpshot was shut down by its parent company Avast.

    Jumpshot was made famous within the SEO industry by SparkToro founder Rand Fishkin’s (heavily criticized and widely circulated) zero-click analysis and presentations.

    Articles from Vice, PC Mag and Motherboard claimed that Avast and Jumpshot were “secretly harvesting” users’ browsing behavior, packaging it and reselling without their full knowledge. 

    Fishkin defended the company and faulted the publications for what he said was incomplete and biased reporting.

    Read all about it in With Jumpshot shuttered, where will SEOs get their ‘zero-click’ fix now?

    Dig deeper:

    Also on this day

    Google merges its SafeSearch help information into a single new document

    2022: This document explained how SafeSearch works and added some troubleshooting. 

    Apple’s big maps makeover now available across U.S., Europe coming soon

    2020: The new-ish Apple Maps has a range of improved features and content

    Will the Discover feed be Google’s next cash cow? What advertisers are saying about Discovery campaigns

    2020: Early looks at the new campaign type and native ad formats that have had little fanfare since launching in beta.

    New Google Search Console adds a security issues section

    2019: In anticipation of the old Google Search Console going away, Google moved the security issues into the new version.

    Now your Google text ads can show on YouTube search results, too

    2019: Google began incorporating YouTube into its Search Partners network.

    Agencies say search, social spend will rise, but increases target 5 platforms

    2019: While Amazon and LinkedIn cracked the top five, Marketing Land’s Digital Agency Survey found second-tier platforms were much less likely to see spending increases in the coming year.

    Bing offers a trio of new local search APIs

    2019: Microsoft released three location APIs: Bing Maps Location Recognition, Bing Maps Local Search API and Bing Maps Local Insights API.

    Google publishes comprehensive guide to featured snippets

    2018: Google explained what featured snippets are, the various user interfaces and treatments you can get from these featured snippets and how they interact with desktop, mobile and voice search results.

    Bing Ads’ new Audience Segmentation feature makes list performance comparisons a breeze

    2018: Advertisers could quickly see performance by audience and benchmark against non-targeted users. 

    Report: Google AMP results in Google News more than double

    2017: A report found that AMP results shown in the Google News section for mobile users had more than doubled in the past several days.

    Fred Korematsu Google doodle honors Japanese internment camp survivor & civil rights activist

    2017: The Doodle featured Korematsu with his Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    Quickly See AdWords Performance By Search Query Length In Google Analytics

    2015: A new Word Count Query dimension in Analytics let advertisers quickly compare head terms and long-tail queries.

    Google Now Cards Integrated With Third-Party Developer Apps

    2015: Google Now could now be integrated with 30+ developer apps.

    Search “Super Bowl” & See The Best Search Results Page Bing Has Ever Had

    2015: Bing’s search results included original content and almost anything a fan would need to know before the game starts.

    Search In Pics: Google’s Greyglers, Yahoo Keg, 40 Penguins

    2015: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

    Google Q4 2013 Earnings Report $16.86 Billion In Revenues

    2014: That was an increase of 17% compared to the fourth quarter of 2012.

    Facebook Will Launch Graph Search For Mobile “Pretty Soon”

    2014: It had been over a year since Graph Search launched.

    Google Search Redesigns Stock Quotes “Card,” Drops Competitor Links, Then Brings Them Back

    2014: After attention was drawn to the fact it dropped links to competing financial websites, Google quietly restored the links.

    Yahoo Adds Local Business Snapshots Next To Search Results

    2014: The local business info included basic business information, photos, hours of operation and some data specific to the business type.

    Google Tests B2B Market With Google Shopping For Suppliers

    2013: The beta was open only to electrical and electronics industries.

    Bing On Super Bowl 47: San Francisco 49ers Twice As Many Searches Than Baltimore Ravens

    2013: 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick had 50% more searches than Raven’s quarterback Joe Flacco.

    Get Me To The Gulag: Google’s Map Maker Becomes A Political Weapon

    2013: Some people on Google+ have added satirical, fake reviews to locations in North Korea.

    Yandex Joins Bing, Yahoo In Using Nokia-Navteq Map Data

    2012: Yandex licensed data from Nokia-owned Navteq to offer better and more comprehensive maps coverage around the world.

    A Roundup Of New U.S. Government Search Tools

    2012: FAA Mobile Web App, USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, National Archives Transcription Pilot Project and more.

    Google’s “Instant Previews” Now On iOS (iPhone/iPad) Browser

    2011: Many iOS users on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad devices reported seeing the instant previews button on the right side of the search result.

    Google Adds Snow Conditions & Interaction Mobile Weather Results

    2011: Google showed live snow results on the search results for ski resorts. The weather results had a slider and larger real estate for interacting with the weather.

    Irony: You Need A Map To Find Google Street View On The iPhone

    2010: Google Street View was terribly unintuitive on the iPhone.

    Losing Hope With Yahoo, After Watching The Paid Search Division Stumble

    2009: Rather than fixing its problems and earning more revenue by doing something advertisers actually want, Yahoo seemed more interested in doing manual tweaks to advertiser accounts – without explicit permission – to generate more money. 

    Marin Software’s Multi-Conversion Tracking Helps Fine Tune Keyword Bidding

    2009: It enabled search marketers to define various kinds of actions or “conversions” (e.g., newsletter sign-up, ecommerce transactions, email capture).

    Google Universal Search Expands

    2008: In particular, Google Universal Search filled more than just 10 spots on the page, while shopping and blog search results were among the new resources being included.

    Yahoo Earnings Mixed, Company To Go Through With 1,000 Job Cuts Amid Uncertain 2008

    2008: Total revenue in Q4 was $1.83 billion, which represented 8% growth year-over-year ($1.7 billion). Full year 2007 revenues for Yahoo were $6.97 billion.

    Scientologists Google Bombed Or Not?

    2008: Searching for [dangerous cult] returned the Scientology website in Position 1. 

    Visualize Earthquake Data In Google Earth

    2008: The US Geological Survey and Google made global earthquake data available in Google Earth as one of the layers under “Places of Interest.”

    Google Adds Local Reviews In Search Results

    2007: Conducting searches on Google.com for local-specific information could now return local reviews and business comparisons.

    Yahoo Site Explorer Adds Features: Delete URL From Index

    2007: You could now delete URLs from Yahoo’s index with a click of a button.

    Yahoo Adds Link Badge In Site Explorer

    2007: Anyone could place code on their website to show off the number of links they have to a specific page or to their site. 

    Click Fraud Reaches New High, Says Click Forensics

    2007: The industry average click fraud rate in Q4 2006 was 14.2% versus 13.8% for Q3, 14.1% for Q2 and 13.7% for Q1. 

    Google Releases New Google Enterprise Search Application

    2007: The Google Mini would “enable companies to perform searches on intranets as well as internal business applications.”

    Google To Test SMS Feature In Orkut Brazil

    2007: The feature would let users send SMS messages to their Orkut friends from their mobile phones.

    Google Officially Adds Docs & Spreadsheets Integration With Gmail

    2007: When you received an email in your Gmail account, and it contained a Google Docs or Spreadsheet file, the file would have a link to “Open as a Google Document.”

    Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

    These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

    < January 29 | Search Marketing History | January 31 >

    The post This day in search marketing history: January 30 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

    Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




    This day in search marketing history: January 29

    Written on January 29, 2023 at 1:29 am, by admin

    Google penalizes French link network

    In 2014, Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted, “Today we’re taking action on a French link network that violates our quality guidelines (Buzzea).”

    Buzzea was less than thrilled about being called a link network, saying they “oppose this assertion since we never stopped wanting to keep the ethical side of sponsored articles focusing on quality and natural links created.” As a result of the penalty, Buzzea officially called it quits.

    Read all about it in Google Takes Down Another Link Network, France’s Buzzea.

    This was hardly the first link network Google had gone after:

    Buzzea would be just the first of several link networks Google identified and took action against later in 2014:

    Also on this day

    Facebook testing brand safety topic exclusions for advertisers

    2021: Citing advertisers’ brand safety concerns, Facebook said the feature would allow marketers to choose whether to show their ads alongside potentially sensitive content.

    Google has stopped deduplicating right-sidebar featured snippets

    2020: URLs shown in featured snippets that appeared in the right rail of Google desktop results would continue to be included in the main organic listings.

    Video: Lisa Barone on the early days of SEO blogging

    2020: In this installment of Barry Schwartz’s vlog series, he chatted with Barone about the older days of SEO and then moved on to how her career has changed over the years.

    How to know when it’s time to pay for search analytics tools

    2019: Search marketing experts offered feedback on when to pay for search analytics tools, factors to consider and making the most out of what you buy.

    Google adds voice input and spoken results to mobile web search

    2019: Google added a microphone to the Google.com search field on Android phones to enable mobile web voice search.

    Tell Google which report you are really missing in new Google Search Console

    2018: A button in the beta Search Console explained why all of the old reports had not been migrated.

    Merkle Q4 2017: Search ad click growth fell, ad spend rose 23% across Google, Bing, Yahoo

    2018: Bing and Yahoo saw search ad spend jump 32% year-over-year. Google spend slowed slightly from Q3.

    Adobe: Paid Search Spend Growth Slowed In Q4, Mobile Continued To Eat Into Desktop

    2016: Retail advertising spend on mobile Shopping ads nearly doubled year-over-year in Q4.

    Search In Pics: GoogleBot Band, Inside Out Post-It Art & Hangouts Pillow

    2016: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

    Google’s Matt Cutts: Don’t Try To Build Links Through Article Directories

    2014: That was Cutts’ answer to “Should I build links using article directories?”

    Report: Google Close (Again) To EU Antitrust Settlement

    2014: Two previous antitrust settlements were strenuously opposed and thus defeated by Google critics and competitors.

    Google May Be Forced To Pay $1 Billion To Patent Troll

    2014: Google was asked to pay $15.8 million in 2012. The plaintiffs were also seeking ongoing royalties, which the court awarded. 

    People, Videos, News: Twitter Adds New Search Filters

    2014: There were also “photos,” “people you follow” and “near you” filters to further refine results.

    Seattle Seahawks Take The Lead In 33 States For Bing Super Bowl Searches

    2014: Bing also measured player searches, with Broncos’ quarterback Peyton Manning winning 72% of the searches over Seahawks’ quarterback Russell Wilson.

    Bing Rewards Program Now Available On iOS & Android Devices

    2014:  iOS and Android users could earn Bing Rewards credits (toward gift cards for brands like Amazon, Xbox and Dominos) by performing searches on their phone.

    Advertisers Increased PLA Budgets By 600% In Q4; Trend Likely To Continue

    2013: Those advertisers were rewarded with higher click-through rates and lower cost-per-click than text ads.

    Study: Reviews & Images Drive Clicks In Mobile

    2012: Images and reviews were very important in capturing users’ eye movements and clicks.

    A Year Later Even Google Surprised By Success Of Click-To-Call

    2011: Google was seeing millions of calls every month and it had become a core part of a large number of mobile search ad campaigns.

    Google Mobile Image Search Gets Popular Images

    2010: When you visited Google Images on a smartphone, you would see “popular images” and a link to browse more popular images.

    Yelp Ratings Appear In Google AdWords

    2010: Google confirmed it was “testing a feature in which text ads on Google search results pages may include star ratings and links to third party sites that have reviewed the advertiser’s business.”

    Microsoft Earnings Beat Estimates Online Services Post Loss, More On Bing And The iPhone

    2010: Online Services, which housed online advertising and Bing, reported $581 million in revenue vs. $609 million the prior year ago.

    Goojje, A Google China Knockoff

    2010: It is a basic search engine, playing on the Google name and Google logo.

    Google AdWords Testing New Interface

    2009: The new interface looked similar to the charting/graphing system that Google Analytics used.

    Google Toolbar For Firefox Adds Chrome-Like “Most Visited Sites” Tab

    2009: The sites you visited most often were listed when you opened a new blank tab in Firefox.

    YouTube Searchers: It’s All About The Music

    2009: Hitwise research suggested that 72% of the site’s Top 50 search terms from December 2008 were music-related.

    Live Search “Auto Suggest” Add-On For Firefox Released

    2009: You could add it to your Firefox search box manually via the add-on from Live Search.

    Google TV Ads Tells How DVRs Affect Your Ads

    2009: Google’s TV Ads team announced the addition of new metrics detailing time-shifted ad viewings.

    Martin Schaedel (Lazerzubb) Killed In Plane Crash

    2009: Known widely by his online handle lazerzubb, he was a fixture at various events.

    Google Street View Car Kills Bambi, Removes Pictures Afterward

    2009: Google said the image was removed because of several requests from users using the Street View image removal option.

    Google’s Position Six Penalty (Or Bug) A Reality

    2008: Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed the behavior and said Google had already begun reversing it.

    Microsoft adCenter To Power Ads On Wall Street Journal Digital Network

    2008: This was a huge deal for Microsoft, giving their ad program exposure to 20 million unique users and over 330 million page views per month.

    Byzantine Legal Fight For Control Of Ask.com Parent IAC

    2008: It was “open warfare” between IAC CEO Barry Diller and Liberty Media, one of its largest backers and investors.

    Once Again, A Google Murder Case

    2008: A UK woman was convicted of trying to murder her husband after researching methods on Google.

    Google’s Brin Calls China Censorship A “Net Negative”

    2007: Brin was arguing that some information is better than no information.

    Google TV Rumors Not Legit

    2007: ‘Twas a hoax.

    Google To Build Second Life Metaverse On Google Earth In China?

    2007: Just lots of rumors. 

    Topix.net And Tribune In Mutual Classifieds Syndication Deal

    2007: Tribune had struck a deal that had Topix providing content and a back-end platform for general merchandise classifieds on their newspaper sites.

    News Search + Personalization + Social Media = Wikio

    2007: Wikio blended articles from major news web sites and blogs with commentary and tags from Wikio users.

    From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)

    Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

    These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

    < January 28 | Search Marketing History | January 30 >

    The post This day in search marketing history: January 29 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

    Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




    This day in search marketing history: January 28

    Written on January 29, 2023 at 1:29 am, by admin

    Google begins experimenting with featured snippets

    in 2014, Google started answering complex questions at the top of its search results with detailed responses (or answers) taken from websites.

    Does that sound like featured snippets? It should. Because it was.

    We know from Google that featured snippets were introduced in January 2014. We don’t know the official date Google began testing it, but this was the day Search Engine Land first reported on the new search feature.

    We didn’t yet know these answers were called “featured snippets” – Google’s Gary Illyes revealed the name in June 2015 – but clearly that’s what we were seeing. All Google would say at the time was: “we’re always experimenting with different types of answers, but we don’t have more details to share at this point.”

    Read our coverage of what was then an experimental feature: Google Search OneBox Answers Are Getting More Detailed

    Also on this day

    ‘Untitled’ search results sending users to spam sites, Google ‘working on it’

    2022: Google’s Danny Sullivan said it was “something our systems normally would typically catch, so we’re checking on it to improve.”

    SEO community mourns Hamlet Batista, advocate for automation in SEO and beloved friend

    2021: Those who knew him, admired him, learned from him and loved him, were left reeling from the loss.

    Google Search Console launches new removals tool

    2020: The tool temporarily blocked URLs from showing in Google and showed outdated content and content filtered by SafeSearch.

    A visual history of Google ad labeling in search results

    2020: A look back at how Google had treated ads in search results, from blue shading to the latest version of today.

    Botify partnership with Microsoft brings real-time content indexing to Bing

    2020: Immediate indexing and more control over content were the benefits for publishers and site owners.

    DuckDuckGo has other ideas for Google’s EU search choice screen

    2020: The changes included more search engine options and an introductory screen aimed at reducing bias.

    Google AMP errors widely reported by webmasters and publishers

    2019: This was a Google issue and would be resolved.

    DuckDuckGo is growing fast but not enough to grab SEOs’ attention

    2019: The search engine’s share was small but some of its metrics were better than Bing’s, according to a third-party analysis.

    Google Updates The General Guidelines Section Of Their Webmaster Guidelines

    2016: It expanded on examples about how to help Google find your webpages, how to give them better ideas on what those pages were about and how to make webpages that are good for visitors.

    iPhone Users, The AdWords App For iOS Has Arrived

    2016: You could check AdWords campaign performance, change bids and adjust budgets from your phone.

    New US Presidential “Candidate Cards” Are A Disaster For Google’s Search Quality

    2016: They added little value in return for Google giving up its valuable search results space.

    Yahoo Redesigns Home Page & App To Deliver Consistent Experience With More Relevant News

    2016: With its nearly infinite news stream, Yahoo users no longer needed to open news articles in multiple browser tabs.

    Google Now Supports Crawling & Indexing Locale-Adaptive Web Pages

    2015: Google added support for webpages that dynamically changed their content based on IP origin or language settings.

    Bing Maps Shows Super Bowl Spirit With New Venue Map, Streetside & Hi-Res Venue Imagery

    2015: The updates involved new satellite and ground-level imagery, and a detailed seat map of the stadium itself.

    Google’s Matt Cutts Explains That Older Sites Won’t Always Keep Their Current Rankings

    2014: Cutts answers the question, “How can an older site maintain its ranking over time?”

    Google Issues Subtle Warning To Affiliates That Have “Thin-Content”

    2014: The warning was mostly directed at affiliate sites in the “adult” industry.

    Moz 2014 Industry Survey Results: Google Webmaster Tools Ranked Top SEO Tool

    2014: 68.8% of participants planned to focus on conversion rates and performance metrics in response to Google’s elimination of keyword data.

    Google Showing Date Selector In Knowledge Graph Carousel For Hotels

    2014: You could click on the start and/or end date and a calendar pop up would show up to change your check in and check out dates. 

    The Search Agency: CPC Increases Across The Board, Weaker Bing Ads Spend In Q4 2013

    2014: The report showed paid search spend rose 37.4% year-over-year.

    DeepMind Buy Another Google “Moonshot” Of Sorts

    2014: “It’s not hard to imagine that machine learning and AI would have broad application across Google, from search and mobile … to advertising, robots, autonomous cars, security and the connected home.”

    5 Tactics Super Bowl Advertisers Are Using To Boost Their Paid Search Campaigns

    2014: Five trends from the Super Bowl advertiser ads that ran on Google and the Yahoo Bing Network.

    Google Details How It Responds To Government Requests For User & Search Data

    2013: Governments routinely ask search engines like Google for access to user data for various reasons. Google said they take each request incredibly seriously.

    Google Promoting AdWords Express In Google+ As Way “To Get More Followers”

    2013: Google was apparently trying to cross-promote AdWords Express and Google+. 

    With $14 Million More Q&A Site ChaCha Soldiers On

    2013: Over the previous 18 months, ChaCha had seen 2 billion questions and organized 129 million Q&A pairs.

    Two Weeks In, Google Says “Search Plus Your World” Going Well, Critics Should Give It Time

    2012: Amit Singhal told Search Engine Land: “… People are judging a product and an overall direction that we have in the first two weeks of a launch … We’re clearly not done. The product is not complete. It will improve.”

    Google Logo For Largest Observed Snowflake

    2012: It happened 125 years earlier, in Fort Keogh, Montana.

    Google launches algorithm to fight low-quality scraper content

    2011: The change to their algorithm was to prevent low quality scraper content in Google’s index. It impacted slightly over 2% of queries.

    Microsoft Q2 Revs Almost $20 Billion, “Bing Division” Still Losing Money Despite Search Revenue Increase

    2011: Online Services, which houses all Microsoft’s online operations including MSN and Bing, posted a $543 million loss. That was up from $463 million in 2010.

    AdWords Homepage Gets More Modular, Customizable

    2011: Google redesigned the homepage for its AdWords advertiser interface in an effort to bring more relevant, customized information up front for marketers.

    Bing Travel Now Offers Destination Comparison Tool

    2011: Bing’s destination pages let searchers compare several destinations at once in a side-by-side layout.

    Google’s Legal Woes Not Impacting Brand: Survey

    2011: Did scandals or an antitrust investigation make people less trusting of Google or tarnish its brand? Not at all.

    Google, Connecticut-led Coalition Agree To Negotiate WiFi Data Collection Issues

    2011: Google and the Connecticut-led coalition of 40 US states would begin negotiations aimed at settling issues related to Google’s collection of personal data over unsecured WiFi networks.

    Google Event on Feb. 2 To Showcase Honeycomb, Tablets

    2011: Demos of several tablets were expected

    Search In Pics: Google Mannequins, Google Voice Signs & Freezing Yahoo

    2011: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

    Google Maps’ Search Suggestions Get Personal

    2010: Google tarted personalizing search suggestions that appeared on Google Maps.

    Survey: Only 42% Of Americans Have Googled Themselves

    2010: That was slightly higher than the 36% of UK consumers who had done so, but far less than in Germany (59%) and France (56%).

    Google Updates Google Book Search After Apple iPad Launch

    2010: Less than 24 hours after Apple announced the Apple iPad, Google announced improvements to the Google Books home page.

    Google Formally Introduces “Clickable Phone Numbers” In Mobile Search Ads

    2010: It was a call for the price of a click on mobile handsets.

    Bing Debuts In-Depth Stock Pages

    2010: Bing’s “Stocks and Funds page” offered in-depth information for users following or doing research related to stocks and finances.

    Ballmer Blogs His Thoughts On Google, China

    2010: “We have done business in China for more than 20 years and we intend to stay engaged, which means our business must respect the laws of China.”

    Click Fraud Rate Hits Highest Level Yet

    2009: Click Forensics estimated the overall average click fraud rate for Q4 2008 at 17.1%, the highest level since they began tracking it in 2006.

    Yahoo Tries To Justify Automatic Account Optimization

    2009: The purpose: to help small- and mid-sized advertisers suffering from “performance issues.”

    Pew: Young Or Old, Search Cuts Across Age Categories

    2009: Search was almost equally used by all groups across the board.

    New “Addressless” Search Feature On Google Maps

    2008: Users could get directions or locations of businesses without inputting a destination address.

    Google Experimental Search Adds Info View & Map View

    2008: Google added map view and a new info view that allows you to show different results on the page.

    Google A “Mystery Buyer” In Colorado?

    2008: “It’s like dealing with the CIA.” 

    Today Is “Data Privacy Day;” Bush Admin Launches Internet Monitoring Initiative

    2008: Google added a new video to its existing series of privacy videos, plus it developed a privacy booklet (PDF) to educate consumers and parents about online data privacy.

    New UK-Based Real Estate Search Engine DotHomes Launches In US

    2008: DotHomes sought to become “the Google of property search” and was crawling for listings.

    Google Lego Logo: Google Offers Lego 50th Birthday Wishes

    2008: The Google logo was made up of legos.

    YouTube to Begin Revenue Sharing for Video Providers

    2007: This would give original video creators the ability to earn revenue each time their videos were watched on YouTube.

    Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

    These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

    < January 27 | Search Marketing History | January 29 >

    The post This day in search marketing history: January 28 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

    Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




    Yandex ‘leak’ reveals 1,922 search ranking factors

    Written on January 27, 2023 at 9:27 pm, by admin

    A former employee allegedly leaked a Yandex source code repository, part of which contained more than 1,900 factors the search engines uses for ranking search results.

    Why we care. This leak has revealed 1,922 ranking factors Yandex used in its search algorithm, at least as of July 2022. Perhaps Martin MacDonald put it best on Twitter today: “The Yandex hack is probably the most interesting thing to have happened in SEO in years.”

    Yandex is not Google. If you plan to read the full list of Yandex ranking factors, remember that Yandex is not Google. If you see a ranking factor listed by Yandex, that doesn’t mean Google gives that signal that same amount of weight. In fact, Google may not use all of the 1,922 factors listed.

    That said, a lof of these ranking factors may be quite similar. So reviewing this document may provide some useful insights to better help you understand how search engines, such as Google, work from a technological standpoint.

    The bigger picture. The code appeared as a Torrent on a popular hacking forum, as reported by Bleeping Computer:

    …the leaker posted a magnet link that they claim are ‘Yandex git sources’ consisting of 44.7 GB of files stolen from the company in July 2022. These code repositories allegedly contain all of the company’s source code besides anti-spam rules.

    Yandex calls it a leak. Because the code appeared on a popular hacking forum, it was first thought that Yandex was hacked. Yandex has denied this, and provided the following statement:

    “Yandex was not hacked. Our security service found code fragments from an internal repository in the public domain, but the content differs from the current version of the repository used in Yandex services.

    A repository is a tool for storing and working with code. Code is used in this way internally by most companies.

    Repositories are needed to work with code and are not intended for the storage of personal user data. We are conducting an internal investigation into the reasons for the release of source code fragments to the public, but we do not see any threat to user data or platform performance.”

    Dig deeper. You can find more coverage of the leak on Techmeme.

    Yandex ranking factors list. MacDonald shared the full list of 1,922 factors here on Web Marketing School. I highly recommend downloading it, as I fully expect Yandex will try to scrub this information from the internet. There is also a translated version on Dropbox.

    Alex Buraks also has an ongoing Twitter thread analyzing the various ranking factors. Many are what you’d expect to see – PageRank, text relevancy, content age and freshness, lots of end-user behavior factors, host reliability and many link-related factors (e.g., age, relevancy, etc.)

    Some of the ranking factors SEOs are finding surprising: number of unique visitors, percent of organic traffic and average domain ranking across queries.

    The post Yandex ‘leak’ reveals 1,922 search ranking factors appeared first on Search Engine Land.

    Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




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