IndustryWeekly Rundown: Lost Google Image Search Traffic, Facebook Search Ads & More
Weekly Rundown: Lost Google Image Search Traffic, Facebook Search Ads & More
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.
A new analysis says 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”.
All this and much more in our quick recap of search and social marketing news and tips from the past week.
Google search manipulation starves some websites of traffic – PCWorld
Harvard Business School associate professor Ben Edelman, who is a paid Microsoft consultant, puts out another anti-Google study, this time on flight search, and reports an “85% increase in click-through rates for paid advertising and a 65% decrease in click-through rates for non-paid algorithmic search links to competing online travel agencies.”
SEO
Google’s Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts answered a couple of questions on the YouTube GoogleWebmasterHelp channel:
A newspaper company wants to add an archive with 200k pages. Should they add it all at once or in steps?
Will multiple internal links with the same anchor text hurt a site’s ranking?
Google: Disavow Links Even If Removed As A Best Practice – Search Engine Roundtable
Says Google’s John Mueller: “While it’s really important for the web-spam team when processing the reconsideration request to see significant effort put into resolving the issue at its roots (on those external sites), it can also be a good practice to at least have those sites listed in your disavow file in the meantime (use them in parallel, don’t get bogged down with contact requests before adding them).”
How Google’s Image Search Update Killed Image SEO – Define Media Group
On a sampling of 87 sites – U.S. and international – image traffic is down 63 percent on average, with some verticals (e.g., Fashion & Lifestyle, Entertainment) seeing a 78 percent drop in traffic.
PPC
Q1 2013 State of Paid Search Report– The Search Agents
“Overall impressions increased 4%, click-through rate increased 15%, and clicks increased 11.7% … 8.8% increase in CPC and a 21.6% increase in spend, YoY.”
Google Loses Round In Lawsuit About AdWords Pricing – MediaPost
Google didn’t give Arkansas lawyer and AdWords advertiser Rick Woods of Arkansas “smart pricing” discount in six instances and didn’t geotarget his ads as promised. This case could potentially become a class action lawsuit.
A healthy advertising ecosystem– Inside AdWords
Google highlights its updated rules for downloadable software. Software must: be pre-approved by Google; offer one-click, complete uninstall; provide clear, full disclosure and transparency to people about what is being installed and what changes are being made to their devices; install itself on only one browser per download; and be bundled with and distributed by only reputable parties who comply with Google’s policies.
B2B Marketers Say Twitter is Now but Google+ Is the Future [Infographic]– Marketing Pilgrim
The most popular platform among B2Bs? 85% chose Twitter; 82 percent LinkedIn; 77 percent YouTube; 71 percent Facebook; and … at 36 percent, Google+. Yet Google+ will be 3x more relevant this year somehow, according to this infographic summarizing a B2B Marketing Social Media Benchmarking Report.
Bringing Google+ Comments to Blogger – Official Google Blog
New integration brings together comments made on Blogger blog posts, Google+ comments, and shared content that links to your blog post. Also, anyone wanting to post a comment will need a Google+ account.
Australian small businesses inch towards social media – Econsultancy
78 percent of (200) small businesses say they plan to increase their time on social media over the next year, according to Bibby Financial Services Australia study.
LOCAL
Borrell: There’s Money in Local Media – ClickZ
Traditional and pure-play local media companies are reaping healthy profits from digital sales, according to a new report.
MOBILE
A few reports on mobile advertising and usage. Check out:
Making your mobile search faster – Google Inside Search Blog
Google adds expandable sitelinks, or “quick links” (essentially sitelinks within sitelinks), as well as an experimental blue “Quick view” badge that only works with Wikipedia pages. Google Operating System explains how the feature really works.
Apple records and keeps users’ Siri queries for up to 2 years – Los Angeles Times
Data is anonymized after six months, but Apple keeps the data for product testing and improvement purposes for another 18 months. Turning off Siri will delete data from past six months.
Windows 8 App Refresh – Bing Search Blog
Bing News app is now customizable, offers offline reading, and supports RSS; Bing Maps now has “improved driving, transit and walking directions, as well as up-to-the minute traffic incidents notifications”; plus the Finance, Sports, Travel, and Weather apps have also updated.
Going Viral not Required to Succeed – with YouTube’s Lane Shackleton– Ramblings About SEO Blog
The product manager from YouTube’s monetization team chats with Eric Enge about being successful on YouTube, the role of organic search, AdWords for video, testing, measuring, and much more.
COMPANIES
Eric Schmidt Will Take Your Questions Now (Video)– AllThingsD
At D: Dive into Mobile, Google Executive Chairman was interviewed for about an hour. The only noteworthy bits coming out it: Android is on track for 1 billion activations by year’s end and he called Facebook Home a “tremendous endorsement” of Android.
Google Hacked? DNS In Kenya Hijacked By Bangladeshi Hacker– International Business Times
Some users visiting google.co.ke (as well as LinkedIn, Microsoft, and other sites) were redirected to a different website with a large “Hacked” stamp thanks to a DNS (domain name server) infiltration. Google wasn’t actually hacked.
Microsoft Reports Third-Quarter Results– Microsoft News Center
“The Online Services Division reported revenue of $832 million, an 18% increase from the prior year period. Online advertising revenue grew 22% driven by an increase in revenue per search.” Quarterly revenue was $20.49 billion.
Yahoo! Reports First Quarter 2013 Results – Yahoo Investor Relations
Yahoo reported revenue of $1.14 billion. Paid clicks increased 16 percent vs. Q1 2012; cost-per-click decreased 7 percent vs. Q1 2012. Search revenue was $409 million, up 6 percent vs. Q1 2012. Display revenue was $402 million, down 11 percent vs. Q1 2012. On the earnings call, CEO Marissa Mayer said Yahoo had more than 300 million monthly mobile users.
Google Exec Reveals Secrets To Its Brilliant, Tear Jerker Ads – Business Insider
Google’s “sappiest” employee and Creative Lab CCO Robert Wong and tear-jerker-in-chief discusses the art of storytelling and the importance of not taking “yourself so f***ing seriously.”
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