Here's a roundup of this week's columns and news stories for the week of Oct. 18 to 22, as reported by Search Engine Watch, as well as search news and tips from around the web.
Search Engine Optimization
5 Website Changes That Will Hurt Your SEO By Eric Enge
Significant modifications to your website can impact your short-term SEO efforts. Here's how to properly handle changes to the domain, URL structure, content, Whois record, and theme.
Latent Semantics and How to Check it in the SERPs by Frank Watson
Search engines use latent semantics to understand where certain keywords should be grouped. Take advantage of this for your SEO efforts when creating website content and improve your rankings.
On-page Optimization is Dead By Gareth Owen
Further proof that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics -- especially in SEO.
- Duplicate content sin #2: Default page linking - Conversation Marketing
- 6 Ways to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines - Social Media Examiner
- Looking for Input on Crawl Delay - Bing Webmaster Center
- Massive Link Drops in Yahoo Site Explorer: Yahoo Working With Microsoft To Fix - Search Engine Roundtable
- Thesis Tutorial: How to Conditionally Change Content - Michael Gray
- Are Exact Match Domains Too Powerful? Is Their Time Limited? - SEOmoz
- Three Key Tips to Justify a Bigger SEO Budget - ClickZ
- 5 Ways to Increase Your Non-Profit's Online Exposure [SEO Philanthropy] - Search Engine People
- Change Your Content Based on Traffic Intent - Michael Gray
- Universal Search - 29 Other Ways To Achieve Search Engine Visibility - Search Engine People
- Improved Web Page Classification from Google for Rankings and Personalized Search - SEO by the Sea
- SEO 101: Defining the long tail - Conversation Marketing
- Catastrophic Canonicalization - SEOmoz
- 5 Extreme Tactics for Removing a Reputation Attack from Google's Index - Trackur
- How and Why to Research Your Keywords Using Youtube-Based Tools - BlueGlass
- Google's View of HTML5 In Terms Of SEO & Crawling - Search Engine Roundtable
SEM Basics
- Keyword Forensics 101 - ClickZ
Search Advertising
Click Fraud Grows to 22.3% in Q3 2010 By Danny Goodwin
Click Forensics reported that the overall industry average click fraud rate rose to 22.3 percent, up from 18.6 percent in Q2 2010.
- Google Testing New AdWords Preview Tool - Search Engine Roundtable
- Query Paths in Search Funnels - Inside AdWords
- See potential placements for Google Display Network campaigns - Inside AdWords
- YSM/adCenter Feature Comparison #5: Budgeting, Bidding and Billing - Yahoo Search Marketing Blog
- Halloween Is Here--and Christmas, Too - Yahoo Advertising Blog
- Writing Good PPC Ad-text for your Campaigns - Vertical Leap
- Google's $2.5 Billion In Display Advertising Might Already Be Bigger Than Yahoo's - TechCrunch
- The Bid Simulator reaches a new level - Inside AdWords
- Avoiding accidental clicks Pt. 2: Use the right product - Inside AdSense
- Is Your adCenter Account Ready? - Yahoo Search Marketing Blog
- The Microsoft Advertising adCenter Fall 2010 (October) Release is Here! - adCenter Blog
- Is Lead Fraud, Click Fraud 2.0? A New AdSense Scam Targeting Google AdWords Display Network Advertisers - Webranking.com
- How Google Is Screwing Its Own Advertisers with Comparison Ads - Search Engine Journal
- Tracking your ad clicks with dynamic destination URLs - Inside AdWords
- 'Tis the Season for Placement Targeting: Optimize Your Ad Units - Inside AdSense Blog
Analytics & ROI
Wag the Dog: The Tail of Bid Management By Thi Thumasathit
Search marketers need to focus on maximizing relevance and conversion before bid management. Relying exclusively on bid management solutions to drive the success of a search campaign is letting the tail wag the dog.
- How you should set up your web analytics team - Econsultancy
- Why doesn't the clickthrough data in Webmaster Tools match what I see in Google Analytics? - YouTube
- What your mother never taught you about Multivariate Testing - Econsultancy
- What You Need To Know To Increase Sales and Stop Traffic From Bouncing - Search Engine Journal
- Optimizing Conversion Rates with 5 Simple Qualitative & Quantitative Tests - Part 2 - Performable
- 3 Marketing Metrics Your Boss NEEDS To See - HubSpot Blog
- The Secret to Getting Approval for Targeting the Right Keywords - Search Engine People
- Traffic "Bait" and Ad Clicks: Perfect Market's Study Isn't Telling the Whole Story - SEOmoz
- Best Web Analytics 2.0 Tools: Quantitative, Qualitative, Life Saving! - Avinash Kaushik
- 5 Quick Google Analytics Hacks - SEOmoz
Social Media Marketing
How to Use Social Media in Christmas Marketing By Kevin Gibbons
At least 43 percent of marketers say they want to use social media as part of their Christmas online marketing. So how can you harness this tricky platform?
Social Intelligence for Facebook Marketing By Jason Cormier
How to shape strategies and tactics specific to fan engagement, application development/deployment, and advertising.
Social Media + Search Marketing = B2B Marketing Success By Ryan DeShazer
B2B marketers are increasingly using social and search together. Here's how to quantify those efforts and how the two will become even more closely aligned in the months and years ahead.
Facebook Privacy -- Again? by Kristine Schachinger
Hey, Facebook, stop being careless, stop being sloppy, and stop giving out all our data. Get a security team, and audit your apps and your app companies. If Apple can do it, so can you.
- Facebook's 6 Months of Territorial Expansion: A Timeline - ClickZ
- Is Facebook's Proposed User ID Solution Sufficient? - All Facebook
- Is Facebook Outing Gay Users to Advertisers? - Gawker
- Facebook And Zynga Sued Over Privacy - All Facebook
- Facebook Files Suit Against Spammers - ClickZ
- The 9 Worst Ways to Use Facebook for Business - HubSpot Blog
- Facebook's New Download Your Information Feature: What You Get - Inside Facebook
- Real Estate Marketing on Facebook: How Not To Do It - Small Business Search Marketing
- HUGE: Facebook Releases Admin Interface To Contact Likers - All Facebook
- Wowd Filters Your Facebook Friends For You With SmartFeeds - TechCrunch
- How Many Facebook Users Click On Ads? - All Facebook
- Mountain Dew, JC Penney Run Display Ads With Facebook 'Like' Buttons - ClickZ
- SmartTwitter Posts Your Tweets On Facebook, Minus The Noise - TechCrunch
- Twitterfeed Adds Easy Money Option for Publishers - ReadWriteWeb
- 5 reasons NOT to hire THAT social media expert - Econsultancy
- Who Owns Your Company's Social Media Strategy? - ClickZ
- 10 Questions for Social Media Measurement Success - TopRank Online Marketing Blog
- A Click to Action - Brian Solis
- Should You Outsource Your Social Media Marketing or Keep It In House? - Daily SEO Tip
- Brand Campaigns Drive Most Social Media Following - eMarketer
- Social Media Optimization for Public Relations - TopRank Blog
Link Building
Using Customers for Link Marketing By Justilien Gaspard
A few insights that will help you get your customers involved in creating links to your site.
- How to Promote Your Blog Old Content to Build Links and Traffic - Search Engine Journal
- Future of Link Building: STOP Calling It Link Building! - ClickZ
- Shake Up Your Link Building Efforts - Search Engine Journal
Local & Mobile Search
Google Simplifies Local Search Control By Danny Goodwin
Google is adding a "Change location" link to the left panel on its search results pages, making it easier for searchers to find local businesses and provide an accurate location setting.
Report: Google No. 1 & No. 2 Search Engine on iPhone By Danny Goodwin
Google is the source of nearly 97 percent of all iPhone search traffic, a combination of searches via the Safari toolbar and the Google home page, plus Google's app, according to a new report.
- Apple's Steve Jobs Rants About His Competitors: 'Open Doesn't Always Win' - paidContent
- Android Generates More Ad Revenue than iPhone (Or Does It?) - ReadWriteWeb
- Mobile Ad Vendors Predict Strong Holiday Sales - ClickZ
- Mobile Ad Spending Up Nearly 80% in 2010 - eMarketer
- Lawsuit stirs Google tablet intrigue - MarketWatch
- With Google Deal Under Investigation, ITA's OnTheFly For Android Takes Flight - TechCrunch
- AdMob Serves Its 300 Billionth Mobile Ad Since 2007 - TechCrunch
- Next Android Release To Be Called 'Ice Cream' - Forbes
- Help customers remember your phone number with new Vanity Numbers for Phone Extensions - Google Mobile Ads Blog
- Rovio uses Google's AdMob network to launch Angry Birds across platforms - Google Mobile Ads Blog
- Main Streets using Google SketchUp for Historic Preservation - Google LatLong
- Notorious Patent Troll NTP Locates A New Target: Yahoo - TechCrunch
- Yahoo Answers goes Mobile. - Y! Mobile Blog
- FourMillionSquare: Foursquare processes 4 millionth user registration - About Foursquare
- Local Laryngitis: Brands Need to Help Locations Develop a Voice in Social Media - ClickZ
- Google Places Moving Help Closer to the Dashboard? - Understanding Google Maps & Local Search
- Google Places And Their New Rejection Algo - It like 7th Grade All Over Again! - Understanding Google Maps & Local Search
- Google Places Embarks on TeleSales Campaign for Tags - David Mihm
- Google Maps Reviews Now Divides Google User Reviews From Others - Search Engine Roundtable
SMB Search Marketing
Enterprise SEM
Effective Search Marketing Strategy Determines Fate of Organizations By David Dalka
If you don't rank for core terms that matter to your business, you may find yourself going out of business. The cost and risks of doing nothing are exponentially growing.
SEM Agency Issues
5 Ways To Help Your Paid Search Team by Duncan Parry
If you want to improve your PPC sales figures, communication, optimization, automation, and education are key. Also, avoid becoming stale by allowing everything to be up for discussion.
International Search
Get Linked: How to Build Backlinks in Foreign Languages by Christian Arno
The foreign language Internet presents the greatest untapped resource of our time, and word is spreading fast of just how profitable it can be and how easy it is to rank highly in foreign language search engines.
244,000 Germans Demand Removal of Google Street View Imagery By Danny Goodwin
Google announced that 244,237 out of 8,458,084 households (2.89 percent) want images of their homes to be blurred when Street View map imagery launches in Germany's 20 biggest cities in a few weeks.
Google Stops Street View Data Collection After Canada, Spain Complaints By Danny Goodwin
Canada's privacy commissioner declared that Google violated the country's privacy laws, which followed news that Spain's Data Protection Agency plans to fine Google between due to the Wi-Fi data Google collected with its Street View cars.
Google Cuts Ad Contracts in China as Search Share Drops Again By Danny Goodwin
Google, which continues to lose search market share to rival Baidu in China, confirmed that they terminated the contracts of seven large AdWords resellers.
Google-Yahoo Japan Deal May Face FTC Scrutiny By Danny Goodwin
Rakuten, Japan's largest online shopping mall operator, has asked Japan's Fair Trade Commission to review the search deal Google cut with Yahoo Japan.
- Google to Combat India Piracy - Wall Street Journal
- China unveils its own version of Google Earth - Reuters
- Google's 'Double Irish' tax scheme saved it $3.1B - CNET News
- Russia Has Most Engaged Social Networking Audience Worldwide - comScore
- Google, Microsoft top web companies in Australia, Yahoo on the way up - The Next Web
- Voice Search in Russian, Polish, Czech and Turkish - Google Mobile Blog
- Google Shopping Launches in France - Google Merchant Blog
- Mobile web search on Android is the future? 247% increase in UK says yes - State of Search
- Your Long-Tail Influencers - ClickZ.asia
- The Road to Brand From Non Brand - An SEM Perspective - ClickZ.asia
- The Ugly Truth About Click-Through Rate - ClickZ.asia
- Umlauts, Accents, and Google - Search Engine Journal
Google News
Google Counters Bing/Facebook With 'Shared By' Social Search Results By Danny Goodwin
Google has quickly tried to counter Bing and Facebook's social search announcement by integrating social shares into their search results.
ABC, CBS, NBC Block Web Content From Google TV By Danny Goodwin
The three biggest U.S. networks have blocked access to full-length episodes of television shows that are available for streaming on their websites, meaning anyone who bought a brand new Google TV this week is out of luck -- for now....
Google Demo Slam: Compete to Make Google's Products Look Cool By Danny Goodwin
Google plans to use the Flash-based site to show off tech demos made by people using Google's products.
Google Renames Suggest 'Google Autocomplete' By Danny Goodwin
Google says the new name fits better with Google Instant functionality, but an added benefit is that it distances the company from a somewhat tainted Google Suggest name.
Google: Login, Make a Profile, Get a 'Happy Birthday' Doodle By Danny Goodwin
Google CEO Eric Schmidt makes no secret that he wants "people to be more logged into Google." In the hopes of giving people a reason to login (at least once a year), Google announced a personalized birthday Google Doodle.
- Creating stronger privacy controls inside Google - Official Google Blog
- Here's What President Obama Said At Marissa Mayer's House Last Night - Silicon Alley Insider
- Meet Google's New Search Boss: Udi Manber - Silicon Alley Insider
- Google Spent $1.2M On Lobbying In Q3, Up 11 Percent From Last Year - TechCrunch
- Israel to put Dead Sea scrolls online - AFP
- Google Finally Brings Back "Report Offensive Image" Link - Search Engine Roundtable
- How Google dominates the Web - Royal Pingdom
- Sony Explores Wider Range of Android-based Devices - PCWorld
- Google Ventures Backs Local Deals Aggregator Signpost -paidContent
- Google Groups Drops Support for Pages and Files - Google Operating System
- Drag and drop images in documents - Google Docs Blog
- The new Google Search Appliance--a bridge to the cloud - Official Google Blog
- Google Calls Microsoft Cloud Strategy A "Filibuster" - Silicon Alley Insider
- Bringing ultra high-speed broadband to Stanford homes - Official Google Blog
- The Top 25 U.S. Newspapers According to Google - Journalistics
- What If Google Stored All Our Medical Records? - Monday Note
Yahoo News
Yahoo's Bartz: 'I'm here to stay. Do I look like a wimp?' By Danny Goodwin
One day after Yahoo reported its Q3 earnings and Yahoo's board unofficially committed to stick with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz for the remainder of her contract, Bartz was interviewed by Fox Business.
Yahoo Copies Facebook Strategy with Y Connect By Danny Goodwin
Yahoo is planning a feature called Y Connect, in the hopes of driving and tracking traffic and to make more money from advertising.
- Let Starbucks (and Yahoo) Entertain You - Yahoo Advertising Blog
Bing News
A Bing State of Mind: Jay-Z Teams with Bing & Facebook to Promote Book By Danny Goodwin
Bing announced a multi-platform search experience and interactive game to help people decode Jay-Z's life and lyrics.
The Search Industry
- Identity and The Independent Web - John Battelle
- The Realtime Switch: OneRiot Transitions Search Partners To Topsy - TechCrunch
- Social Search Startup HeyStaks Raises $1.4 Million - paidContent
Online Video News
YouTube Leanback Adds Advertising for Google TV Launch By Danny Goodwin
Pre-roll and overlay ads now will be shown when you watch videos on YouTube Leanback, which lets you watch a playlist of selected videos without interruption in HD and full screen.
Viacom Hires High-Profile Lawyer to Battle YouTube on Copyright By Danny Goodwin
Viacom has hired appellate lawyer and former United States Solicitor General Theodore Olson.
Judge Orders Google To Give Up Harassers Info By Frank Watson
Will Tuesday's court ruling impact Google's policy of what information they keep in their search results?
SES Chicago
SES Chicago 2010 Coverage - Day 3 #SESChi By Danny Goodwin
A roundup of live blogging and coverage of the conference.
Maile Ohye Discusses Optimizing Sites for Google TV at SES Chicago 2010 By Greg Jarboe
You should begin optimizing sites for TV -- including Google TV.
Maile Ohye: Google Loves Your Ugly Baby, Plus the Future of Search #SESChi By Garry Przyklenk
What's now, what's new, and what's next for Google.
SES Chicago 2010 Coverage - Day 2 #SESChi By Danny Goodwin
A roundup of live blogging and coverage of the conference.
Jeffrey Hayzlett, Celebrity CMO: A Story of Kodak's Marketing Catalyst at #SESChi By Garry Przyklenk
Give credit where credit is due, Jeffrey Hayzlett rocked the house yet again at SES Chicago today.
SES Chicago 2010 Coverage - Day 1 By Danny Goodwin
A roundup of live blogging and coverage of the conference.
What's the Future of Search? SES Chicago 2010 #SESChi By Danny Goodwin
One of the big questions at SES Chicago this year is: what's the future of search? What do you think? What's the future of search?
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