What's in your wallet? Probably nothing in the near future if Near Field Communications take off. Google Wallet launched today and ClickZ noticed that a search on Google for 'NFC' brought up a Mastercard PPC ad promoting the new partnership and organic results displayed a wikipedia entry for Near Field communications rather than the National Football Conference. At first SEW wondered if there was some extraordinary coincidence at play, as we assumed that football would be a more popular topic than tech. However, Bing displayed similar results and also it's not the season for football which might explain the different priority. Either way, it does furthere illustrate that user data, or at least clickthrough data is responsible for the ordering of results. This fringe tech topic is likely more popular on the internet, and thus gets more click throughs and with spikes in searches for NFC today, there are more obvious reasons to put results in this order. So, all in all nothing suspicious going on.
Anyway, here's a round up of the stories from around the web.
Industry
- In-house SEO Roles Grow Among Internet Retailer Top 500 - Search Engine Watch
Conductor study reveals that the number of Internet Retailer's Top 500 Companies with at least one In-house SEO role jumps by 24% in the 7 months before Thanksgiving 2010. Nearly half of those counted, increased the size of their SEO teams. - 5 Things Digital Marketers Can Learn from Traditional Marketers - Search Engine Watch
Digital marketers can learn a lot from traditional marketers. - How Google Might Choose High Quality Reviews to Display for Products and Businesses - SEO by the Sea
Patent offers some advice on what Google considers "quality" signals, including spelling/grammar, length, all caps, profanity/sexual content, and what are "high value" vs. "low value" words. - IDC: Google Knocks off Yahoo as US Display Ad Leader - PCWorld
Google dominates search ads with nearly 60 percent in Q1, followed by Microsoft with nearly 8 percent and Yahoo with 7 percent. - China's Baidu is Working on a Multi-language Search Platform - PCWorld
VP Shen Haoyu confirms Baidu has "global aspirations" outside China
SEO
- How to Turn a Google Penalty into Great Linkbait, by J.C. Penney - SEOptimise
JCPenney's manual penalty ended after 90 days, so why do they have so many links all of a sudden? More link buying, or some great PR? - Linkbait and Content Marketing - What Are Your Goals - Michael Gray
How to create content to build build awareness, build links, and send the right signals to search engines. - 30 SEO & Social Media ROI Analytics Resources - SEOptimise
What does the ROI for SEO and social media look like and how do you measure it? Thirty articles try to answer this question.
Analytics
- Search Helps Drive Q1 Internet Advertising to Record $7.3 Billion - Search Engine Watch
"Online advertising hit a new high of $7.3 billion in Q1 2011 – a 23 percent increase over Q1 2010 and the highest Q1 revenue level ever." - Conversion Rate Optimization: Consistency Pays - Search Engine Watch
"If your web pages echo the scent that hooks traffic, then your conversion rate from paid search, display, and email campaigns will soar."
Social
- Facebook to Launch Music Service With Spotify - Forbes
Could be launched within two weeks and would allow Facebook users to stream songs from Spotify's library. Won't be available in U.S. - 4 Facebook Marketing Tactics You Might Not Know About - SEOmoz
Are you using Facebook insights, comments, local business listings, and Facepile in your social media marketing?
Local
- Google Street View in India Faces Challenges - PCWorld
Google began collecting images yesterday, and is hoping to avoid government run-ins and privacy concerns by coordinating with local police and government agencies. - Google Leads Local Search But Word of Mouth Gets Leads - BIA Kelsey
More turn to Google than online yellow pages, review sites and social media, and friend's recommendations are huge for trying local businesses, report finds.
Mobile
- Google Wallet: Android NFC Payment System Announced - Search Engine Watch
Google Wallet will allow users of Android phones that have NFC chips to simply tap their phones on specially enabled electronic payment pads to pay for their purchases. Payments are backed by your own credit card or forthcoming Google Prepaid Cards. - Google Maps for Android Update Adds Check-ins, Reviews to Places Pages - Search Engine Watch
Google Maps 5.5 for Android was released yesterday, adding new "check in here" and "rate and review" buttons for Places pages, the ability to edit your home/work address for Latitude, and a reorganized transit station pages. - Email: The Gateway Drug to Mobile - Search Engine Watch
Now is the time to be creating and changing your web properties for the mobile user experience. - Franken pushes Apple, Google toward privacy policies for apps - CNET News
In letters, the Minnesota senator tells CEOs Steve Jobs and Larry Page that more transparency and control is required. - Google Chairman Will Visit Taiwan in 2nd Half of 2012 - CENS.com
Will push Android in person.
Video
- YouTube 3D vids viewable via Firefox, NVIDIA 3D Vision hardware - Ars Technica
HTML5-based 3D playback mode works only in Firefox 4 on 3D-enabled computers.
Technology
- 30+ More Tools to Automate Your Link Building - Search Engine Watch
"Link building automation tools can help you manage relationships and outreach, enhance link building best practices, and eliminate some of the information management overhead that might otherwise bog you down."
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