Associate Editor
Search Engine Watch
Google’s Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts has announced that a new ranking update, one that targets spammy queries is now live. Separately, Google is warning that if you have a bad mobile website, your search rankings will soon be hurting.
Taking some inspiration from Google, Yahoo's search results have gotten a makeover. Yahoo unveiled its brand new look today – one that includes a Google-like navigation bar, and search results that appear higher on the page and seem to load faster.
It's now been one week since Google Penguin 2.0 went live. Google's Matt Cutts promised the new generation of Penguin would go deeper, and it seems to have lived up to that promise. Here are some early findings from sites hit by Penguin.
It's been less than 24 hours since Google Penguin 2.0 went live, but there are already several reports of big changes. There are also many reports that, despite Penguin, Google is still ranking spam sites. You can now report this directly to Google.
Today's Google Doodle was created by a 12th grade Wisconsin student in honor of her best day: the day she was reunited with her father who returned home after 18 months of service in Iraq. It is the winner of this year's Doodle 4 Google competition.
In conjunction with the arrival of "Star Trek Into Darkness", Bing has added a couple of features that fans should appreciate: a home page Easter egg when you search for "beam me up" and a new language option to Bing Translator: Klingon.
A new Easter egg turns Google Images into a playable classic arcade game with a Google twist. Head to Google Images and type "Atari breakout" to fire up "Image Breakout" and start destroying rows of images by bouncing a ball into them.
There has been much speculation this week about some kind of major Google update. Google Penguin 2.0 was not the blame. But you can expect the next Penguin update in the next few weeks, Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts has confirmed.
Google has removed the link to Places search. The link, which had been located in Google's "More" drop-down menu option, is no longer there, meaning local businesses can only be found via search (paid or organic), Google+ Local, or Google Maps.
Not getting the search traffic you were hoping for? In a new Webmaster Help video, Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts reveals five of the biggest basic SEO mistakes webmasters make, and suggests a few ways to improve your website.
Bing may be getting a new logo. Microsoft revealed a few new logo design concepts during a Design Day presentation in Norway, including a white and gold "boomerang" logo for its Bing search engine. Could this logo soon become Bing's logo?
One page out gives Mozilla trouble with Google. Enhanced campaigns get Google+ annotations and an upgrade center. And it sure was hard not to see Eric Schmidt. Here's a quick recap of search and social marketing news and tips from the past week.
Google Instant Previews, which gave searchers a sneak peek of a website by hovering over a magnifying glass icon, has been removed due to low usage. Now Google has added a drop-down to view Cached or Similar results, or Share a page on Google+.
The European Commission is now seeking feedback on Google's cosmetic search result changes that aim to settle a years-long antitrust investigation. The EC also revealed some images illustrating what Google's results might soon look like.
The "Queen of Jazz" is in the spotlight today on Google's homepage. A colorful Google Doodle pays tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, who was born on this date 96 years ago. The American jazz vocalist won 13 Grammy awards and sold 40 million albums.
Google Image Search traffic is down 63 percent on average. Facebook tests Graph Search ads and debuts CPA bidding. Bing calls a search malware analysis "wrong". Here's a quick recap of search and social marketing news and tips from the past week.
Today's Google Doodle for Earth Day 2013 has a lot to experience. So much, in fact, Google created a "sightseeing checklist" to make sure you don't miss anything. You'll find all four seasons, animals, rain, wind and snow, and much more.
Search ad revenues once again broke records in 2012. Search remained the revenue leader at $16.9 billion, accounting for 46 percent of all Internet advertising revenue, although this figure doesn't even include mobile search ads in the IAB's report.
A month after hitting its highest U.S. search market share in February (67.5 percent), Google saw both Bing and Yahoo steal away what essentially amounts to crumbs from the giant pie that is Google's dominance, according to comScore.
Ever been watching a HD YouTube video and wondered what it would look like in crappy VHS quality? Me neither. But someone at YouTube did, and now we have a new YouTube Easter egg. Enable tape mode has been added to honor the first VCR's birthday.
