SEO News
Online Marketers to Spend More on Site Search Technology
Wednesday 4 August, 2010According to new research from Searchandise Commerce and iProspect the option of site search, that is a search engine located on a particular retailer’s web site, is a key element to enhance online shopping experience and therefore drive sales. Their survey revealed that 40% of online shoppers make use of site search option to find products they need on a retailer's site, whereas only 20% browse the home or landing page. According to another survey, this time from Econsultancy, published in association with search firm Funnelback, companies worldwide are increasing their investment in site search in order to enhance the user experience, encourage more usage of...[more]
Yahoo! Japan Becomes Google Ally
Tuesday 3 August, 2010Last week Yahoo Japan Corp, somewhat surprisingly, announced that Microsoft’s Bing won’t be powering its search, and that the company will use Google technology to run its search engine, instead. This is said to give Google almost absolute control over the third-largest search query market in the world. By teaming up with Yahoo! Japan, Google will be delivering more than 90% of Japan's Internet queries. At the moment Yahoo! Japan uses search-engine technology developed by Yahoo of the U.S. So how could’ve Yahoo! let this happen? The thing is Yahoo! Japan is independent of Yahoo!, who owns only 35% stake, but they’d believed it would follow the US company....[more]
Google Acquires Metaweb, a Web Database Company
Monday 2 August, 2010In its official blog, the world’s search giant Google announced that it has bought Metaweb, a search company that maintains a database of information it offers to website operators, wishing to collect topic-specific information on their web sites. The Mountain View-based giant believes that Metaweb can help better understand the anatomy of search queries and unique requests, and thus the acquisition of this company will "improve search and make the Web richer and more meaningful." Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Metaweb said it will continue to support existing customers, but won't take new ones while it’s integrating with Google. So...[more]
What is Google Slap and How to Avoid It?
Friday 30 July, 2010If you are a webmaster or an AdWords advertiser, you must have heard the expression “Google slap”. In fact, it is one of the biggest concerns for all webmasters, because none of them wants to see their site being Google-slapped. If you’re like most people then you know you don’t want it to happen to your site, but you don’t know exactly what it is or how to avoid it. Well, what a Google slap can mean? - Google has found your ad and associated content to be of such poor quality that it has considerably lowered your ad’s position in SERPs. In this case you will have to pay much more for your ad to show up at...[more]
Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, Tips for Optimising
Thursday 29 July, 2010In mid-July Yahoo! started testing both organic and paid search results powered by Microsoft’s Bing technology. "The primary change for these tests is that the listings are coming from Microsoft," said Kartik Ramakrishnan, Yahoo's VP of Search Product Operations. "However, the overall page should look the same as the Yahoo! Search you're used to – with rich content and unique tools and features from Yahoo!. If you happen to fall into our tests, you might also notice some differences in how we’re displaying select search results due to a variety of product configurations we are testing. Both Yahoo! and Microsoft had previously given details...[more]
Foursquare to Team Up with Google, Yahoo! & Microsoft
Tuesday 27 July, 2010Location-based social networking site, Foursquare, has officially announced that they are currently in talks with such search kings, as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, seeking to integrate search and Foursquare. Speaking to The Telegraph in an interview, Foursquare’s co-founder and CEO, Dennis Crowley, said, "Our data generates hugely interesting trends which would enrich search." "We can anonymise data and use it to show venues which are trending at that moment. Twitter helped the world and the search engines know what people are talking about. Foursquare would allow people to search for the types of place people are going to - and where is...[more]
Facebook Reaches the Milestone of 500 Million Active Users
Monday 26 July, 2010Facebook’s creator and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, on July 21th officially announced on the company’s blog, that the number of global active Facebook users had gone past the half-a-billion user mark. Not only does this fact make it the biggest social network in the world, but also the fastest growing and even able to create its own currency – ‘Facebook credits’. Given that it is the biggest social network in every country, except for Russian, Japan and China, the next milestone of one billion Facebook users is according to Mark Zuckerberg "almost guaranteed" to reach.Also, according to Facebook’s official blog it has already reached a milestone of 150...[more]
Is Directory Submission Still Worth Your Time?
Friday 23 July, 2010Are you having a hard time acquiring relevant links? Do you need to increase popularity of your relevant links or simply generate more traffic? Today, some webmasters claim that directory submission has become an outdated tool. While this is true to some extent, most people who have such opinion are likely to be those who have no idea how to correctly utilize directories, because it is still possible to rank well in Google through directory submission. Today, when it comes to submitting to directories many webmasters get suspicious for a number of reasons. For instance, Google is getting smarter every day and is very quick now to detect duplicated content. If...[more]
Fwix to Launch Hyperlocal Search Engine
Thursday 22 July, 2010Fwix, a real-time local information company is launching the beta version of the so-called Local Trend Search, which lets users search for what’s happening right now at more than 200 locations worldwide. The Local Trend Search service collects news, events, business reviews, government data, check-ins from Foursquare and Gowalla and presents them on a map of a given location. You can also extend the area of location to show a wider coverage on a larger scale. For instance, you may see all of the hyperlocal news in Westminster, London, and then pinpoint any other neighbourhood to see all of the most recent events in that given area. When you conduct a search...[more]
Can Gaming Fuel a Google Social Network?
Tuesday 20 July, 2010According to a report published on TechCrunch, Google is looking to extend its presence in the online gaming sector, as it has ‘secretly’ invested more than $100 million in social gaming platform Zynga. It is also said that Google is planning to launch Google Games, built partly on Zynga, who is the creator of the popular Facebook games, such as Mafia Wars and FarmVille. All of us know that Zynga and its 237 million monthly players make up a fairly big chunk of the social gaming market, and as said by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch, Google wants it. So Google is reportedly planning to launch its own Google Games platform, which might be a part of the...[more]
