Record 9.5 Billion Video Ads Were Viewed in April 2012
181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 37 billion online content videos in April, comScore Video Metrix reported. Video ads saw another record-breaking month with nearly 9.5 billion views, representing 1 in 5 videos viewed online that month. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Today, 2:00am
Doodle 4 Google 2012 Winner Travels to Pirate Times
It’s the coloring contest that blows all others out of the water. Second-grader Dylan Hoffman of Wisconsin scored a $30,000 college scholarship, a $50,000 technology grant for his school, and a Chromebook as the winner of Doodle 4 Google 2012. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 9:00pm
Facebook Privacy Lawsuit Seeks $15 Billion
Hours before its IPO, Facebook was hit with a $15 billion lawsuit, alleging that the social network knowingly infringed on user privacy when it used browser cookies to track activity. The suit included more than 20 complainants. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 7:00pm
Google Chrome Becomes World's Most Popular Web Browser
Google Chrome overtook Microsoft's Internet Explorer to become the world's most popular web browser for a full week for the first time in its history. Chrome enjoyed a week-long surge in use between May 14 and 20, according to StatCounter. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 5:00pm
Yahoo to Sell Half of Alibaba Stake for $7.1 Billion
Yahoo holds a 40 percent stake in Alibaba, but will be able to reduce this by half. The deal also includes provision for a share buy-back plan for Yahoo and a potential IPO by Alibaba. Sale proceeds will be returned to Yahoo shareholders. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 3:00pm
Google-Motorola Deal Gains China's Approval
Google has confirmed that Chinese authorities have approved its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola. The deal is expected to be closed by this Wednesday, with the requirement that the Android system remain free and open to use for five years. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 1:00pm
6 Tools to Manage Your Twitter Followers
Managing Twitter followers can become a time consuming task, taking time away from actually sending messages and growing your influence. Here are a few free and paid tools that will save you time and provide all the important data you need. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 18, 10:00am
4 Ways to Rethink a Facebook Advertising Campaign
Facebook is a different medium than paid search advertising, with entirely unique advantages. Learn ways to restructure your paid social advertising paradigm without over-committing to media spend and track results and ROI on Facebook. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 18, 8:00am
For Better Facebook Engagement, Post on Topics Related To, But Not About, Your Brand [Study]
Facebook shares tips for Page managers looking to increase fan engagement with specific types of content posted to drive different types of engagement. Find out what they learned in an internal brand pages study of 23 brands across six industries. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 18, 2:00am
Google Launches Knowledge Graph, 'First Step in Next Generation Search'
Three new Google Search features are part of their “next generation search” project, Knowledge Graph. Info boxes, segmented results based on query context and suggestions based on popular queries negate the need to even click off the SERP for info. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 17, 2:00pm
Mobile Sites: Choosing an Implementation Process & Strategies
No matter your approach, the mobile landscape is a tricky, expansive space of uncertainty filled with twists and turns that would give even the most solid minded developer or site owner points to pause. Here’s a guide to help you go mobile. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 17, 9:00am
Why Your SEO & Social Strategy Should Include Pinterest
You don’t have to be a lifestyle-type site to win on Pinterest, you merely need to make your brand fun and create interesting, shareable images. Pinterest offers other benefits, including social links generated from content shared on Pinterest. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 17, 7:00am
Google NSA Relationship Secrecy Continues Despite Courts Efforts
Google and the National Security Agency's possibly secret relationship will remain secret. The Federal Appeals Court has upheld the NSA's decision not to release information confirming or denying if they have a relationship with Google. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 17, 2:00am
Ford Retains Confidence in Facebook Ads as GM Quits
Automaker tells ClickZ it will continue advertising on the social site. While General Motors may halt Facebook advertising, according to a Wall Street Journal story today, Ford has a different attitude toward paid promotions on the social site. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 16, 6:00pm
Life After Google Penguin – Going Beyond the Name
Don't try too hard to look for dates and names of updates. Rather, look more to the effects as Google’s algorithm evolves so you can adapt accordingly. What really matters is that Google is looking harder at link spam now, so you should be too. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 16, 9:00am
7 Time-Saving Google Analytics Custom Reports
The right Custom Reports can be incredible time savers. Instead of spending time digging around for important metrics, you can find what you need separated neatly into columns for some analysis that will lead to some actionable insight. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 16, 7:00am
Piwik Open Source Analytics: A Primer
With a focus on privacy and keeping data safe, Piwik is a web analytics package that aims to be a free software alternative to Google Analytics. Here are some of Piwik’s features and how it compares to other top-billing analytics packages. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 16, 5:00am
Make Second Tier Search Engines Part of Your Lead Generation Strategy
Google and Bing can only get you so far. If you work in an extremely competitive industry you may find yourself paying anywhere from $30 to $50+ per click. Working with second tier engine/networks can provide an abundance of traffic at a low cost. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 16, 3:00am
Social Media Ad Spending Forecast to Hit $9.8 Billion by 2016
Social media advertising revenues in the U.S. will grow from $3.8 billion in 2011 to $9.8 billion in 2016, according to BIA/Kelsey’s U.S. Local Media Forecast (2011-2016). The leap would represent a compound annual growth rate of 21 percent. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 16, 2:00am
Embattled Yahoo CEO Leaves With $7 Million After 5 Months
Yahoo has their fifth CEO in as many years, as Scott Thompson stepped down in the scandal over his padded resume. Investor hedge fund Loeb will exert greater control with three board seats, while Ross Levinsohn takes the interim CEO post. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 15, 12:00pm
5 Vital Facebook Reports Every Community Manager Should Know
Learn how Facebook Insights reports and public data sources can help you understand, at a granular level, the way your community consumes the stories you create, your fans demographic information, and how users are engaging with your competitors. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 15, 9:00am
PPC Warfare: Get Out of the Trenches & Gain a New Strategic Perspective
Sometimes you need to take a step back and review the PPC battleground from afar. Extract yourself from keyword-level analysis and take-in the bigger picture. Here are some motivational and rejuvenating tactics to help get you back on track. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 15, 7:00am
Yahoo Genome Brings Big Data to Advertisers
The big data-driven audience targeting system will combine Yahoo's registration, search, and behavioral data with information from 25 data sources, along with advertiser data, to perform predictive modeling for ad targeting and optimization. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 15, 5:00am
A Facebook Search Engine to Rival Google? Users Dislike That Idea [Survey]
A new survey finds 48 percent of respondents dislike the idea of Facebook launching its own search engine to directly compete with Google and Bing. The same survey also found Facebook could potentially capture 22 percent of the global search market. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 15, 1:00am
Facebook's Instagram Purchase Faces Government Review
Facebook's $1 billion acquisition of photo-sharing service Instagram is reportedly facing delays of several months, as U.S. regulators probe the deal. As part of the investigation, the Federal Trade Commission has contacted Google and Twitter. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 14, 9:00pm
Facebook App Center Announced
Facebook has unveiled plans for its App Center service, which will allow developers to offer their applications to users as both free and paid applications on the iOS and Android mobile platforms, as well as desktop- and web-based applications. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 14, 7:00pm
Yahoo Search Market Share Losing Streak Extends to 8 Months
Yahoo’s share of the U.S. search engine market continued to further dwindle in April, continuing a downward slide that began eight months ago in September, according to comScore – though Experian Hitwise paints a somewhat different picture. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 14, 3:30pm
How to Get Rid of Unwanted Backlinks
Hit by a Google penalty because low-quality sites are linking to yours? This process will help you conduct a backlink audit of your website, drill down to identify bad links, and share tools to help you hunt down people who can remove those links. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 14, 9:00am
5 Advanced (But Simple) SEO Analyses You Should Perform With Visitor Intelligence
Collecting the right data and attributing it to the right sources will help you understand how SEO impacts your business. Learn how to structure your data to enable analysis and reporting and SEO analyses you can perform with visitor intelligence. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 14, 7:00am
Multi-Channel Ads: The Importance of 'Scent'
TV or Mass Media ads create awareness and possible interest, so PPC, display or Facebook ads should pick up where the other ads leave off. But they can’t pick up anything unless they also carry a "scent trail" of keywords, terminology, and imagery. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 14, 5:00am
Google Search Results Test Adds More Instant Answers
Some Google users in a test group are seeing a big change to their search results. Search queries for movies, TV shows, people, sports teams, music, books are among those triggering these direct answers directly on Google’s search result pages. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 14, 3:00am
Google Webmaster Tools Gets a Facelift
Google Webmaster Tools has a new look that augments the new functionality Webmaster Tools received last month. The changes include a new look to the dashboard, redesigned menus and a style that more tightly integrates with other Google properties. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 14, 2:00am
A Mom's Advice: Master YouTube Annotations (& 3 Hairstyles for Mother's Day)
For Mother’s Day, we also interviewed another mom on YouTube: Mindy McKnight. She runs the Cute Girl Hairstyles channel which is so popular that the lead hairstylist for Hunger Games movie reached out to her to do a Hunger Games style on her channel. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 13, 11:00am
A Mom's Advice: Create a YouTube Schedule (& 3 Recipes for Mother's Day)
For Mother’s Day, we interviewed a mom with a successful YouTube: Betty Givan. She runs her cooking channel, Betty's Kitchen which is so well optimized that YouTube asked her to create a video to share her recipe for using meta data on YouTube. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 13, 8:00am
Mother’s Day 2012 Google Doodle Celebrates Moms With Animated Logo
Google pays tribute to moms this Mother’s Day, with a new animated logo that brings letters of the logo to life as Mom receives a flower and hugs from her kids. Google also featured “super-user” Google+, YouTube and Google Play moms on their blog. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 13, 12:00am
Facebook Tests Paid Status Updates With ‘Highlight an Import Post’
Facebook is testing a feature to see if users will pay a couple bucks to have their posts more prominently featured on the social network. The paid user posts would be placed atop news feeds and be marked as "Highlighted." Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 12, 3:00pm
Facebook Tests Paid Status Updates With ‘Highlight an Important Post’
Facebook is testing a feature to see if users will pay a couple bucks to have their posts more prominently featured on the social network. The paid user posts would be placed atop news feeds and be marked as "Highlighted." Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 12, 3:00pm
Apple Mapping iOS 6 Future Without Google Maps?
Apple's upcoming iOS 6 release will be reportedly be headlined by the debut of Apple's own mapping application, replacing the Google Maps application which has been part of the platform since the release of the first iPhone. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 12, 1:00pm
Google Might Have to Pay Oracle $150,000 in Copyright Damages
The judge who is hearing the case said that the most Oracle may end with as a result of that infringement was statutory damages – which are limited to just $150,000. Oracle had originally been seeking billions of dollars in damages from Google. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 12, 11:00am
Scamworld? How The Verge Wrongly Smeared All Internet Marketers
An open letter to Joe Flatley and management at technology publication The Verge, who painted all internet marketers as snake oil salesmen in a misguided piece entitled “Scamworld: ‘Get rich quick’ schemes mutate into an online monster.” Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 11, 1:30pm
Insights From the Recent Penguin & Panda Updates
An analysis of websites that have been hit by Google Penguin and Panda in recent weeks offer some helpful ideas for those looking to clean up and recover. Here’s an overview of what tactics hurt sites and what you to do if your site was affected. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 11, 10:00am
Optimizing to Lifetime Value of Customers to Maximize SEM Performance
Credit card companies and savvy direct marketers know the importance of optimizing campaigns toward acquiring the right type of customer: those who buy more frequently, or buy larger ticket items. Here’s how SEMs can leverage this concept. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 11, 8:00am
Why Search Agencies Should Tune Into the Display Buzz
Display is on its way to becoming a $200 billion industry. By choosing to purchase display through an ad exchange or DSP, agencies will be making a safe and smart investment in display advertising offerings both now, and in the future. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 11, 6:00am
CIVETS: New Global Marketing Opportunities in Emerging Economies
Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa are regarded as the next wave of emerging economies. Marketing opportunities are there for the taking. Here are some reasons you might want to move now and gain an early advantage. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 11, 4:00am
Google, Mozilla Accuse Microsoft of Restricting Browser Choice in Windows 8
Mozilla has accused Microsoft of failing in its commitment to give users a choice in browsers. Mozilla says Internet Explorer will be the only browser able to run on Windows 8, at the expense of rival browsers like Firefox, Safari and Chrome. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 11, 1:00am
Bing Introduces 3-Column Search Results With Snapshots, Social Sidebar
Bing will soon debut a big search results redesign. Rather than forcing social results into the main organic results, Bing will unveil a three-column design with organic results as the main pane, “entities” in the middle, and social on the right. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 10, 2:00pm
Google Commissioned Report Aims to Protect Search Engine Free Speech Rights
In drawing comparisons to newspapers and other media outlets, scholar Eugene Volokh makes the case against government intervention in search results with a compelling argument to protect the First Amendment editorial rights of Google's algorithm. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 10, 1:00pm
4 Ways to Use Pinterest for Market Research
What’s top of mind with your customers today? Whether you’re looking to expand into a new market or gain insights about your customers, learn how Pinterest can help you discover a variety of opportunities and even help improve website usability. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 10, 9:00am
SEO & Search: 9 Tips for Managing an Ambiguous Brand
If you find yourself working with a brand with an ambiguous meaning, you can carve out a strong presence in search listings and attract qualified clicks and resulting sales; but it does take time and patience. Here are nine ways to do it right. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 10, 7:00am
Link Building on Partial Keyword Combinations
Some websites want to rank for keyword combinations with every U.S. city, maybe even combined with a large range of services. Acquiring links for the individual recurring parts of your keyword combos is the best solution, but how does it work? Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 10, 5:00am