Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
- Google’s Matt Cutts: We Don’t Use Twitter Or Facebook Social Signals To Rank Pages
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, released a video today answering the question, “are Facebook and Twitter signals part of the ranking algorithm?” The short answer was no. Matt said that Google does not give any special treatment to Facebook or Twitter pages. They are in fact, currently, treated like any other page, according […] - Yahoo Search Goes Secure, Taking Referrer Data — An Indicator Of Yahoo’s Popularity — With It
By default, searches on Yahoo.com are now done through a secure server. That means more protection for searchers but less data for search marketers about how they are receiving traffic. Any visits from Yahoo done via search will appear as if someone came to a site directly. As a result, Yahoo’s apparent popularity as a […] - Google Now Changing The Top Search Filters Based On Query
Google is now dynamically changing the top search menu/filters based on the search query entered by the searcher. So now, what options you see at the top might differ or be in a different order based on the query you enter into Google’s search box. A Google spokesperson told us this based on noticing that […] - Study: Display Ads Drive Search Clicks After Two Weeks
Though there have been several studies on the impact of display ads on search queries, researchers from Harvard and Ozyegin University in Turkey sought to bring academic rigor to this discussion. Their findings are contained in a Harvard Business School paper entitled, “Do Display Ads Influence Search? Attribution and Dynamics in Online Advertising” (embedded below). The document is tedious and […] - Buyer Beware: 5 Tips For Spotting SEO Charlatans
I have written numerous times on the many myths that abound in SEO. But it seems that no matter how many times I try to bust these myths wide open, they still persist. Perhaps I am fighting an uphill battle here because the world of SEO unfortunately has its fair share of charlatans who want […] - Google Webmaster Tools Crawl Errors Reports Now Showing Errors On Final Redirect URL
Google’s John Mueller announced on the Google Webmaster blog this morning that the Google Webmaster Tools team has updated the crawl errors report to show errors on the final URL of the redirect, as opposed to the origin URL of the redirect. What this means is that Google is now showing the errors on the […] - Are You Using Your B2B Marketing Personas Effectively?
Is your company using customer avatars or marketing personas effectively? The idea of persona-driven marketing appeals to practitioners for a wide variety of reasons. It’s part of what I’d call core inbound marketing dogma. Yet, marketers are admitting that they’re not really using personas or that they’re failing to use them effectively. Let’s take a […] - Pinterest Adds Vegetarian, Vegan, Gluten-Free & Paleo Filters For Recipe Related Searches
Pinterest has updated its search features, making it possible to filter for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and paleo ingredients or recipes when performing food-related searches. According to the announcement, Pinterest is rolling out the new search feature on the web now, and has plans to bring it to its mobile site as well. Along with the […] - Expedia & Google: No Comment From Both About Possible Expedia Penalty
Expedia appears to have been hit by a Google penalty related to unnatural links. So what do Google and Expedia have to say about the situation? No comment. As covered yesterday, the visibility of Expedia listings in Google appears to have recently plunged, according to measurements by Searchmetrics: This comes after accusations last month, which […] - Keep Writing Quality Content: SEO Bloggers React To Matt Cutts’ Claim “Guest Blogging Is Dead”
Google’s head of webspam, Matt Cutts, caused an uproar in the SEO community yesterday when he published a blog post on his personal blog claiming guest blogging for SEO purposes is dead. In his post, Cutts offered a history of how guest blogging has moved from being a reliable source of high-quality content to now […]
Recent Headlines From MarTech, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:
- GoDaddy Super Bowl Ad Takes New Direction, Focuses On (Fully Clothed) Female Business Owners
- Facebook Advertisers Doubled Ad Spend in Q4 [Kenshoo]
- Facebook To Start Running Ads In Mobile Apps, Building Foundation For Mobile Ad Network
- Yahoo Makes Secure Search The Default
- How A Twitter Scavenger Hunt Helped Book Of Mormon Stir Up Excitement For Its LA Premier
- Survey: Doritos Super Bowl Ad To Score High Engagement, While Dannon & Oikos Fall Short
- Opera: Android Has Reach But iPhones Drive More Revenue
- 5 Ways To Kick Start Your Email Marketing This Year
- Simple Optimization Tests Everyone Can Run
- So You Want To Newsjack The Super Bowl? Here Are 6 Rules Brands Can’t Forget
- Gettin’ ‘GIFfy’ With It: Pinterest Experiments With Animated GIFs On Boards
Search News From Around The Web:
Industry
- Kenshoo Appoints Former Facebook and Google Executive Grady Burnett to Board of, PRNewswire
- Yext Named #20 on Forbes’ Most Promising Companies List, The Yext Blog
Link Building
Search Marketing
- Tipping the Scale, advertising.microsoft.com
SEM / Paid Search
- 5 Critical Factors for Optimized Mobile PPC Targeting, Search Engine Watch
- Bing Ads Editor Update: Upcoming Sync Setting Enhancements, advertise.bingads.microsoft.com
- PPC agency payment models: fixed fee, Econsultancy
Searching
- Google Alerts Now In HTML Format But Text Option Not Working, Search Engine Roundtable
- The All New Answers Site Goes Global!, yahooanswers.tumblr.com
- Google tests search results with dark colors on tablets and smartphones, allgoogletesting.blogspot.com
SEO
- 12 Months of WordPress Optimization in 2014, Search Engine People
- Simplifying SEO for Small Business: 9 Questions with an SEO Expert, blogs.constantcontact.com
- Complete Guide to Magento SEO, paulnrogers.com
- Guest Blogging and SEO: Still a Match Made in Heaven, quicksprout.com
- How Algorithm Updates Shape the Role of an SEO, Search Engine Journal
- SEO Penalty and Algorithm Recovery Timelines, ISOOSI Blog
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