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Showing posts from October, 2011

Google Closing Buzz, Jaiku, Labs, Other Websites

Google  is beginning to crack down on whimsy. Historically, Google’s massive revenues from advertising products  like AdSense have allowed it to finance a slew of Internet products and Web apps, few (if any) of which make the company any money. This “shotgun approach,” plus a handful of startups it bought out, made the company’s portfolio of online services extremely diverse. Google is raking in  record-setting profits,  beating  Wall Street  expectations and bringing the company’s stock up to nearly $600 a share. Despite this, it’s decided to  close the doors  on a number of its services, including last year’s precursor to Google+:  Google Buzz . Google Buzz “Start conversations about the things you find interesting.” That’s the tagline for Google’s soon-to-be-shut-down social networking service, but not an explanation for why anyone would use it over Twitter and Facebook. And while it’s built in to Google’s popular webmail service, Gmail, it also caused a  “privacy nightmar

Webmaster Tools Search Queries data is now available in Google Analytics

Webmaster level: All Earlier this year we  announced  a limited pilot for Search Engine Optimization reports in Google Analytics, based on  Search queries  data from Webmaster Tools. Thanks to valuable feedback from our pilot users, we’ve made several improvements and are pleased to announce that the following reports are now publicly available in the Traffic Sources section of Google Analytics. Queries: impressions, clicks, position, and CTR info for the top 1,000 daily queries Landing Pages: impressions, clicks, position, and CTR info for the top 1,000 daily landing pages Geographical Summary: impressions, clicks, and CTR by country All of these Search Engine Optimization reports offer Google Analytics’ advanced filtering and visualization capabilities for deeper data analysis. With the secondary dimensions, you can view your site’s data in ways that aren’t available in Webmaster Tools. To enable these Search Engine Optimization reports for a web property, you must be both a W

Google Launches Trusted Stores Program

Yesterday, Google launched a new program – Google Trusted Sites. The program, which is aimed at reducing the risks associated with online shopping, will help consumers locate online stores that provide excellent customer service. Tom Fallows, a product manager for the Google Commerce Team said the following: “The Google Trusted Store badge is awarded to e-commerce sites that demonstrate a track record of on-time shipping and excellent customer service. When visiting a qualifying store, shoppers can hover over the Google Trusted Store badge and see metrics on the store’s shipping and customer service performance.” Currently, Google is testing the Trusted Sites program with several initial test partners including: O.co ,  Wayfair ,  BabyAge.com , and  Beach Audio . Over the next several months, Google will perform extensive testing of the badges and other aspects of the program to determine the overall impact of the new program on the test sites. All of the merchants included

Google Panda 2.5 Update

Earlier last week, Google pushed out an update to the Google Panda  algorithm. I didn't see it before going offline for the holiday but Google  confirmed  the update based on a  WebProNews story featuring DaniWeb getting hit again by the update. In fact, Dani from DaniWeb posted in the  Google Webmaster Help  forums complaining: However, we were hit again on Wednesday, September 28th, once again losing more than half of our traffic. I think this might even be a bigger hit than last time. I am still investigating whether or not this was another iteration of Panda that just went out or something different? Wow, lost half their traffic again, after all that work to get back in! SearchMetrics released their stats on who was hit the hardest by this update and Danny has a good summary of that at  Search Engine Land . Google said this update hit sometime on Tuesday and people started to take notice on Wednesday. Google confirmed it on Thursday. Here is the update hist

Real Time Google Analytics

Thursday, while I was offline again, Google  announced  a cool new feature to Google Analytics to show real time statistics. Google launched "Google Analytics Real-Time: a set of new reports that show what's happening on your site as it happens." Here is a screen shot: Some of you may see this feature now, for those that don't - you can sign up to get access to it early  over here . Until then, be on the lookout for it. How real time are these real time reports? People are saying about 3-4 hour delay. So that does not seem all that real time to me, does it? They also launched  Google Analytics Premium  for more services and support at a cost. Forum discussion at  Google Analytics Help ,  DigitalPoint Forums ,  WebmasterWorld and  Sphinn .

Helicopter View Added To Google Maps

Google added some new design and feature elements to Google Maps. Helicopter View is one of the  cool features  Google added last week. It basically flies you through your driving directions. Google said, "Using the 3D preview; however, you can get aerial view of the route, as if you were in a helicopter flying above the road." Here is a video of it in action: Google also cleaned up the design of Google Maps. Many small tweaks here and there. This is documented in  this blog post . Forum discussion at  Google Maps   Help .

Facebook’s New Advertising Strategy Is Brilliant and Unexpected

Facebook  and Google get compared a lot these days, but with its new advertising strategy, Facebook is adapting Google’s ad strategy to its social media. Improving advertising on the popular social network is not a new or particularly innovative idea. Still the transition from advertising as a message-delivering medium to a platform for social sharing is a radical departure for Facebook. It could be the Facebook advertising solution that turns advertising partners (brands) into better social media communicators and gets Facebook members to start recommending and sharing advertisers as much as they do they latest cat video. As for the  Google  comparison. Recall that in the early days, Google had a choice: Take money from advertisers for higher search rankings or ignore such offers and focus on making its search engine the best it could be. Google at first didn’t know how it would make money. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin figured that if they built a better mousetrap, the

HOW TO: Leverage LinkedIn for Your SEO Campaign

Erin Everhart is the director of web and social media marketing at the digital marketing and web design company, 352 Media Group . Connect with her on Twitter  @erinever . There are two ways to conquer web marketing: good content and even better relationships. The problem is, any SEO pro has already identified this. Try targeting blogs as link resources. Not only do  people trust blogs , they’re one of the most effective ways to both build your brand awareness and get high-quality content links that point back to your website. On the other hand, blogs are often overrun with coverage and link requests from online marketers. If you have any chance of getting your content to the top of the pile, you’ll have to find unique ways to reach your bloggers — and  LinkedIn  is just the tool to help you do it. Let’s say you’re working on an SEO strategy for a new restaurant in Atlanta. Part of your promotion is to encourage different local food bloggers to tour the restaurant, sample th

Sean Parker Joins Twitter, With An Apology to Zuckerberg

Napster  co-founder and former  Facebook  president Sean Parker is appearing in our newsfeeds with increasing frequency these days. First, there was the  Forbes  cover. Then there were the Facebook ads asking users to “Like” Sean Parker on Facebook, which  Gawker  discovered was part of an effort to build up buzz for an upcoming blog. On Monday, we learned  Rhapsody had signed an agreement to acquire Napster , the music-sharing site he helped start (though there is some dispute about his exact role, and whether he was a co-founder of the business along with creator Shawn Fanning) at age 19. Parker sent his first  tweet  Monday afternoon, apparently apologizing to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for joining a rival service. It reads: “Sorry Zuck, I had to do it eventually. (Actually  @scooterbraun  made me do it.)” Scooter Braun is Justin Bieber’s manager. As  The Next Web  points out, Parker has been planning his Twitter debut for some time.  His account  already has verifi

Google UK Shopping Displaying US Results?

There are recent complaints at  WebmasterWorld  that Google Shopping / Product Search in the UK is showing way too many U.S. based stores. One Google Merchant said: I'm seeing this more and more recently. If I do a search for something (I'm based in the UK and using google.co.uk searching 'the web' rather than just UK results), I used to see primarily UK-based results - especially if the search was product/shopping based. Now I'm seeing lots of US sites in the results, and as a user it's very frustrating. From a webmaster's point of view it's also highly frustrating. The question is if this is a temporary situation or if Google has truly lost the plot in terms of some of the results it's showing. Many other webmasters confirmed seeing the same issue. I personally cannot replicate the issue, but maybe that is because either it is fixed or I am searching on the wrong words? Do you find this to be an issue? Forum discussion at  We