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/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
Google Stops Redirecting China Queries to Hong Kong Site In Hope For Licence Renewal
From: searchenginewatch.com
Google announced it is making changes to its approach in China. At stake: its ability to apply for - and hopefully obtain - the renewal of its Internet Content Provider (ICP) licence with the Chinese authorities. The deadline is tomorrow. The clock’s ticking.
Click to read the rest of this post...
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/iOIi3MTBmMs/100629-064215
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
EU Request To Retain User Data From Search Engines Sparks Widespread Anger
From: searchenginewatch.com
Search engines are a hot topic at the moment, especially for governments wanting to regulate them in one way or another. The most recent tension came from Pakistan’s decision that it will monitor Google, Bing, Yahoo (and other sites) for blasphemous content. Now it is the EU’s turn to try to impose checks on search engines through its controversial “Written Declaration 29.”
Click to read the rest of this post...
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/zTVdStpDVfg/100629-053942
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
Winning
From: google.com
A toddler wants what she wants, now. That’s a win.
A little later, when we’re more mature, we might define winning as getting what we want at the expense of someone else. I win when you lose. And yes, winning still means now, not later.
A demagogue cares so much about winning that he’d rather wreck the system itself than lose. It’s okay, he believes, to root for the failure of the republic or to destroy civility or democracy if it leads to something that could be called a win.
What happens when you define a win as getting closer to someone who wants the same thing? Or when you define it as improvement over time? Or in creating trust?
What if the win is the ability to give a true gift?
Read Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/pm6ue9H1ZcY/winning.html
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
Google Gets A Special Visit From Conan O’Brian
From: google.com
Hat Tip to Andy Beal on pointing our direction to this hilarious video of Conan O’Brien’s visit to the Googleplex. Apparently Conan has been making his rounds in the tech space - as he was at Twitter/Intel a couple of weeks ago.
<iframe class="embeddedvideo" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/u7TwqpWiY5s&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="280" width="500"></iframe>
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Read Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/FLW6WvJrqnc/sn-4-20100510GoogleGetsASpecialVisitFromConanOBrian.html
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
Facebook Continues To Be The Most Searched In March
From: google.com
Hitwise announced today that the search term Facebook was the top U.S. search conducted in the four weeks ending March 27, 2010. Overall, Facebook related terms accounted for eight searches across the three top 10 lists.
Yahoo! related terms accounted for six spots while MySpace terms accounted for four searches across the search engines. Other search terms that were among the top 10 searches for all three search engines include youtube, facebook login, craigslist and yahoo mail.
| Top Search Terms for the 4 Weeks ending March 27, 2010 | ||
Rank | Search Terms | Google.com |
1 | 1.17% | |
2 | youtube | 0.66% |
3 | facebook login | 0.58% |
4 | craigslist | 0.54% |
5 | myspace | 0.51% |
6 | yahoo mail | 0.50% |
7 | yahoo | 0.30% |
8 | ebay | 0.23% |
9 | yahoo.com | 0.19% |
10 | gmail | 0.18% |
| Source: Experian Hitwise | ||
Comments
Read Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/mvfmaklEIf4/sn-4-20100429FacebookContinuesToBeTheMostSearchedInMarch.html
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
Google AdWords Now Target iPad Users
From: google.com
With all the hype surrounding the Apple iPad, Google have announced they will now be supporting the device in the targeting options of Google AdWords campaigns. This expands the mobile device targeting list which already includes other devices like the iPhone and Android based smart phones.
To enable iPad targeting, edit your campaign settings and enable the iPad under Advanced device and carrier options
iPad targeting is going to especially useful if your content is strongly related to the device. Here are some examples:
- You run an iPad focused website/blog
- You are promoting iPad applications “ in which case you can link to the download link for your app.
- Your online store sells iPad related accessories
- Location based ads “ as many iPad users will be using the device on the go.
Others have also made suggestions that iPad owners will have a higher than average disposable income, so this could be another factor to consider in your ad targeting.
What do you think - will you be enabling iPad targeting on your campaigns?
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Read Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/Pnu2_jvkpOM/sn-4-20100420GoogleAdWordsNowTargetiPadUsers.html
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
What if My Competitors Point Spammy Links to My Site?
From: google.com
Posted by randfish
After last week’s Whiteboard Friday on the penalties paid links can incur, I got several questions about whether paid/spammy links could be used as a weapon to potentially harm someone else’s rankings. In this post, I’ll walk through why this is rarely the case, how you can defend yourself from potential scenarios and why this isn’t a great tactic to employ against your competitors.
Can Paid Links Be Used as Weapons in the SERPs?
The short answer is “almost never.” But, as is typical in the SEO world, there’s a lot more in the long version.
In general, it’s very, very hard to bring down a white hat site/page ranking well in the search results. Although Google isn’t perfect at catching spam (e.g. our recent video featuring the success of some very obvious paid links in a well known network), they seem to be surprisingly excellent (almost prescient) at detecting the intent of links. My suspicion is that sites who buy links to prop up their own rankings have very different patterns than those who have competitors buying links to them. These patterns exist on the sites themselves, in other sites registered to the owners, in link footprints and in usage/search behavior.
It could, in fact, be that the “penalties” many SEOs often ascribe to paid links are in fact the result of a much more sophisticated analysis by Google looking at multiple aspects of a site’s presence before making a determination of the link intent. Given that, in nearly 10 years of SEO, I’ve only heard of two reasonably verifiable instances of “Google-bowling” (the process of pointing bad links at a site or page to hurt it’s rankings) working, my guess is that Google’s webspam team has developed some very impressive methods here.
Many SEOs have also suggested that a certain “bar of trust” can be achieved in Google, after which, negative links may be devalued, but likely don’t cause penalties or rankings drops. This makes a lot of sense to me (though it’s nearly impossible to prove), since “Google-bowling" is largely defeated and even good sites who stray into black/gray hat link building will simply find themselves wasting money, rather than being removed from the results (which could, for many popular brands/sites, cause a loss of relevance in the results for users).
Thus, if you are trying to wield paid links as a weapon against your ranking competitors, it’s far more likely to work against the new(ish) site ranking #65 for your keywords rather than those who’ve earned their way to the top spots with white hat techniques.
Defending Yourself from Potential Link Attacks
Have you recently broken the heart of a black hat link broker’s son or daughter? Stepped on a link farmer’s superhero cape? Talked smack about a nefarious panelist at an SEO conference not realizing they were just around the corner? The best defense, in this case, is a good defense (don’t go buying and renting links to others; you’re only enriching the spammers).
Many, many SEOs and webmasters worry a tremendous amount about spammy links pointing to their sites and pages. By and large, this isn’t a concern and it happens to every site on the web. Just look at some of the spamtastic links that point to SEOmoz (via this Yahoo! query):
If you see a collection of scraper sites filled with pharmaceutical, financial, legal, real estate and other questionable links with surprisingly well-optimized anchor text appearing in Google Alerts or your 24-hour reputation monitoring queries (e.g. http://www.google.com/search?as_q=seomoz&as_qdr=d&num=100 - which queries Google for all pages mentioning “seomoz" in the past 24 hours) don’t panic. If you exist on the web, you’re going to attract these types of links and the search engines will not punish you for it, even if you’re a relatively new, untrusted site.
However, if you start acquiring links that look an awful lot like they’re part of an intentional, paid link network (great anchor text, pointing to internal pages on the site, coming from footers and sidebars that contain other irrelevant, anchor-text rich links), there may be some cause for concern. Your best course of action is to submit a spam report to Google from your own, verified, Webmaster Tools account, noting that you have nothing to do with the links and want to make sure Google doesn’t think you’ve created, endorsed or paid for them.
This action is rarely necessary or worthwhile, but if you’re highly concerned about competitive conduct, it’s not a bad route to take. Of course, you’ll want to make sure you don’t actually engage in any black/gray hat activity yourself or it could trigger the wrong kind of review by a webspam team member.
Should I Buy Links to Push Down My Competitors?
Not unless you feel the link brokers of the world are more worthy than your favorite charity.
Seriously, the chances you’ll have a negative impact are far lower than the changes you’ll actually help (again, I refer back to our paid link WB Friday experiment in which the obvious link network had positive effects, even on the brand new site). The money is far better off spent on editorial content, public relations, social media campaigns and white hat SEO efforts for your own stite. Bringing someone else down may seem temporarily, emotionally satisfying, but it’s the wrong way to approach SEO (and life in general, if I may be so bold).
Looking forward to the discussion in the comments and happy to talk through the filtration processes and failsafes (or at least, my speculation) Google may employ.
p.s. The new Beginner’s Guide to SEO has more on understanding + recovering from search spam penalties.
Read Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/zbsmN3giZkE/what-if-my-competitors-point-spammy-links-to-my-site
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
Yahoo Publishes Web Content Style Guide
From: searchenginewatch.com
The publication of an online style guide and a site dedicated to helping publishers is another instance of Yahoo’s concentration on content, and move away from search.
This is a big commitment to the online publishing space and the style guide could become the AP stylebook for the web.
Click to read the rest of this post...
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/Jc4b-ecfjM0/100628-151700
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
Opportunities to speak at SES Hong Kong in September.
From: searchenginewatch.com
Up to 43 percent of the world’s online population will reside in Asia by 2013, according to projections from Forrester Research. And China will account for 17 percent of the global online population.
In mobile, eMarketer forecasts China will have 1.3 billion subscribers and 957 million mobile Web users by 2014. The consultancy projects there will be more people accessing the Web on their cell phones in the country than the entire population of the U.S. in 2010.
These are the facts as presented by editor Adaline Lau from ClickZ’s new Asia desk in Hong Kong. It’s a hugely exciting and rapidly growing marketplace. But entry to this marketplace is complex and requires a very carefully defined strategy. SES Hong Kong will provide an ideal opportunity for marketers to gain greater insights into the adoption and growth of search and social in the region.
If you’re on the client side, agency side or vendor and feel that you can offer practical advice and education on search and social in Asia, then here’s your opportunity to speak at the industry’s leading international event. SES Hong Kong takes place September 13-14 2010.
You’ll find the form to submit here.
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/brH3P5DoIpI/100628-121225
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
Beginner’s Guide on Social Media
From: sitepronews.com
Social media has been practiced now as a means for small business to establish their brands online without having to spend much. Unluckily, many are also fearful on the tasks that lies ahead. You may learn easily or in a difficult way, that depends on how secure you are in using web and technology generally.
You [...]
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
Beginner’s Guide on Social Media
Read Original: http://www.sitepronews.com/2010/06/28/beginners-guide-on-social-media/
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
How to Use Strong Keywords
From: sitepronews.com
Of all the important parts of creating excellent content, using strong, keyword-rich content is among the most important. Keywords, links and site visits help searchers find your content and website. Without strong keywords your potential visitors won’t find you. If you are not using the same keywords in your content and meta tags that searchers [...]
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
How to Use Strong Keywords
Read Original: http://www.sitepronews.com/2010/06/28/how-to-use-strong-keywords-2/
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
Never Mind Google, 16-year old Muqeet Is Launching Pakistan’s Dedicated Search Engine
From: searchenginewatch.com
Google. Pakistan. Rings a bell? No, this is not about the country’s Telecommunications Agency (PTA) keeping an eye on Google, Bing, YouTube and other websites for blasphemous content. This is about a brand new search engine that will launch on July 1st, all dedicated to Pakistan in terms of content. The trick? It’s been created by a 16 year old, with the business “insight” from his 19 year-old brother. I kid you not.
Click to read the rest of this post...
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/YscZmK8gDg8/100628-104654
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Monday, June 28, 2010
Promising Numbers From Facebook Video Advertising
From: searchenginewatch.com
At OMMA Video, Brett Wilson, co-founder and CEO of TubeMogul, presented some new research on the tradeoffs between video ad types on Facebook. On Friday, I visited TubeMogul’s offices in Emeryville, CA, and got a full report—at the company’s employee barbecue.
Click to read the rest of this post...
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/BWFaA0-d2vU/100628-102221
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Sunday, June 27, 2010
On the European Union search engine schizophrenia
From: google.com
The European Parliament has asked the European Commission to include search engines in the Data Retention Directive. This will force the search engine to store your searches and IP addresses, undermining the Commission’s attempts at protecting the privacy of European citizens.
Read Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pandia/vfbc/~3/4YOYDf3xNcI/3001-on-the-european-union-search-engine-schizophrenia.html
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Sunday, June 27, 2010
25 Ways to Ensure Shopping Cart Abandonment Doesn’t Happen to You
From: verticalmeasures.com
It’s one of the saddest things that can happen to an etailer, a nice full shopping cart abandoned; a conversion left by the side of the road, tumbleweeds rolling by as vultures circle above. You get the idea. But why did it happen? Why were your great products orphaned?According to Forrester Research, 88% of web shoppers say they [...] Related posts:
- 10 Deadly Internet Marketing Mistakes Small Business Owners Must Avoid
- Seven Ways to Improve Your Website’s Link Structure
- Funniest Ways to Get Links
Read Original: http://www.verticalmeasures.com/business/25-ways-to-ensure-shopping-cart-abandonment-doesnâ€(tm)t-happen-to-you/
