WebProNews

Category: PaidSearchPro

PaidSearchPro

  • Google Launches ‘Paid Search Best Practices’ Email Newsletter

    Google announced the launch of a new email newsletter, which it will send out once a month to subscribing advertisers. It’s called Google Best Practices, and aims to give advertisers advice on improving their campaigns.

    “We get it. You’re busy. Staying on top of your AdWords game is important, but there are only so many hours in the day (or week {or month}) to read guides and watch webinars,” Matt Lawson, Director of Performance Ads Marketing at Google writes on the Inside AdWords blog. “That’s why the Google Best Practices team put together a brand new newsletter. It’ll be an email per month, and we’re designing it to take approximately three minutes to read in its entirety. We want the insights and recommendations in it to be worth the time you put into reading it. Even if it only takes three minutes to read, we want those to be three valuable minutes.”

    “Whether it’s a quick video or recommendations on using a new feature, we hope to include the type of insights that make you better at doing what you do, all while getting you back to doing what you actually do as quickly as possible,” he adds.

    There’s a sign up form here, which lets you o[pt in to receive email communications from “the latest in digital marketing news, research, insights, product updates, and event invitations from Google.”

    From the form, they’ll let you choose your industry and platform of interest so you can limit the emails you get accordingly.

    You can also keep up with our own AdWords coverage here.

    Image via Google

  • New Google Feature Means Businesses Need Apps For Search Marketing

    New Google Feature Means Businesses Need Apps For Search Marketing

    The world of search engine marketing is ever-changing, and it’s no secret that mobile continues to take over the desktop. Google has a new feature, even beyond a related ranking signal for organic search on mobile devices, that gives businesses more incentive to have mobile apps for search marketing purposes. It essentially expands as search marketing-related benefit device-wide, as opposed to limiting it to the actual search results page.

    At Google I/O, Google announced the launch of something called Google Now On Tap. It’s a new feature in the latest version of Android, which the company unveiled in developer preview. You’d be forgiven if you missed that particular announcement as the company made many of them.

    Google Now on Tap is essentially a way for you to utilize Google Now on your own terms rather than in the confines of Google itself. While Google Now already served as a virtual assistant, this makes it even more so.

    Do you see Google Now on Tap as a new opportunity to increase visibility of your content? Share your thoughts about it in the comments.

    “Since we launched Google Now, we’ve been expanding the ways it can help and do more of the work for you,” says director of product management Aparna Chennapragada. “You can get notifications like where you parked your car, news stories based on your interests, or help with travel like your upcoming reservations. We’ve also gotten better at giving smarter answers to some of your questions (‘Is my flight on time?’) and at helping you get things done across your apps (‘Ok Google, play Sugar on Spotify’).”`

    “We’re working to make Google Now a little smarter in the upcoming Android M release, so you can ask it to assist you with whatever you’re doing—right in the moment, anywhere on your phone,” Chennapragada explains. “With ‘Now on tap,’ you can simply tap and hold the home button for assistance without having to leave what you’re doing—whether you’re in an app or on a website. For example, if a friend emails you about seeing the new movie Tomorrowland, you can invoke Google Now without leaving your app, to quickly see the ratings, watch a trailer, or even buy tickets—then get right back to what you were doing.”

    “If you’re chatting with a friend about where to get dinner, Google can bring you quick info about the place your friend recommends,” Chennapragada adds. “You’ll also see other apps on your phone, like OpenTable or Yelp, so you can easily make a reservation, read reviews or check out the menu.”

    When the user taps and holds the home button, Google presents options for its best guess of what might be helpful in the moment. If it doesn’t provide the right thing(s), the user can say, “Ok Google” from any screen or app. If it works as advertised it’s pretty smart. If you’re listening to a band on Spotify, Google says you can simply ask “who’s the lead singer?” and it will get you the answer.

    As Google notes, it shows apps from your phone that may help with what you’re doing based on context. It might tap IMDb for movie review, OpenTable for reservations, etc.

    There’s an SEO element to all of this. App indexing. Google recently made App Indexing a ranking signal for mobile search results on Android devices, and announced that it’s starting to index iOS apps as well. Google Now on Tap is another reason to utilize app indexing.

    Clickz says Google Now on Tap “makes app search optimization more critical than ever.” Emily Alford reports:

    While the announcement comes as a boon to app developers, it also means that it’s now more important than ever for brands to think about App Search Optimization> (ASO) along with SEO, since Google is taking both into consideration for Now on Tap, according to Danielle Levitas, senior vice president of research and analysis for App Annie, which provides app ranking data and mobile analytics for businesses.

    “Part of the reason Google is providing deep linking is to give developers another way to be discovered outside of the app store,” says Levitas. “SEO is still critical, but you’ve also got to think about ASO, which has to do with keywords for discoverability, how an app is described, and even its reviews. But Now on Tap actually makes mobile and the app experiences easier for brands to execute because they can think about discoverability as a continuum as opposed to these two very disparate platforms.”

    Google says Now on Tap another way to get apps in front of users at the right moment. If you have an app with content that people need to see, well, that applies to you. Luckily, beyond app indexing, there’s nothing else you really have to do to be integrated with Now on Tap. Just have your app indexed by Google.

    While optimizing for Google via app indexing is one thing, businesses will also need to market their actual apps in other ways to drive app installs. The more people who have your app installed, the more chances they’ll have to actually see the content within via Now on Tap. As the Clickz article points out, a lot of downloaded apps are rarely opened, and Now on Tap could be just what those apps need to get more engagement from the users who downloaded them in the first place.

    In other words, if you’ve found app creation to be a waste of time in the past because you didn’t think people would really use your app, this means that people may actually use it more, provided that you can convince them of its usefulness enough in the first place to get then to download it.

    Google does say it will have more details about everything once the release of Android M gets closer. In the meantime, I really can’t urge you enough to get your mobile apps indexed, and if you don’t have a mobile app, now is a better time than ever before to build one or have one built. It’s becoming a matter of visibility in Google, and that’s not even taking the Google Play Store into account, which is now doing paid search results like Google Search.

    It’s actually possible that your business may be able to take advantage of Now on Tap in the future without having an app, as the company is reportedly considering including website content in the feature at some point, but that hasn’t been announced.

    Does your business have a mobile app? Do you expect Google Now on Tap to make a significant difference? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Images via Google

  • Rick Santorum Still Has a ‘Frothy’ Search Problem

    It looks like there’s a good chance that former Senator Rick Santorum is going to jump into the fray.

    He appeared on Fox News Wednesday to discuss his plans with Greta Van Susteren, which at this point is only an announcement to make an announcement. RickSantorum.com asks you to “save your seat for a special announcement on May 27. The site is currently paid for by “Rick Santorum Presidential Testing the Waters”.

    Let’s just say there a decent shot Santorum runs for the Republican nomination.

    And if he does, it’s important to note that he still has a bit of a search problem – albeit a much smaller one than he’s had in the past.

    – – – – – – – – – – –

    First, a little background.

    Years ago, Santorum drew the ire of popular blogger Dan Savage by making some unsavory comments regarding the gay community. During an interview where he stated the position that consenting adults have no expectation of privacy, Santorum equated homosexuality to bigamy and incest. He also made some comments relating homosexuality to bestiality, although he has maintained that the were taken out of context.

    Either way, Savage and some other activists were less than pleased. They launched a campaign to redefine the definition of the word “Santorum.” Through SEO tactics and link-trading, they were able to push a website called SpreadingSantorum.com to the very top of the Google search results for “Rick Santorum.”

    Over at SpreadingSantourm.com, you’ll find a brown splatter graphic behind a definition that reads “santorum (n): 1. The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.”

    Probably not what a Presidential hopeful wants showing up when people search his name.

    In 2012, the last time Santorum ran a GOP primary race, SpreadingSantorum.com was the very 1st results fetched for searched of “Santorum” and the third result when you searched “Rick Santorum” on Google. It wasn’t just a Google problem either, as both Bing and Yahoo showed similar results.

    Rick Santorum isn’t unaware of his “online reputation” issue. In 2011, he contacted Google and tried to convince the company to remove the result.

    “I suspect if something was up there like that about Joe Biden, they’d get rid of it,” Santorum said. “If you’re a responsible business, you don’t let things like that happen in your business that have an impact on the country. To have a business allow that type of filth to be purveyed through their website or through their system is something that they say they can’t handle but I suspect that’s not true.”

    Google’s response was basically sorry, no dice. “[Google] does not remove content from out search results, except in very limited cases such as illegal content and violations of out webmaster guidelines.”

    And Santorum remained frothy.

    – – – – – – – – – – –

    Flash forward to 2015, and Santorum’s problems have been mitigated but not erased.

    A Google search for “Rick Santorum” shows no result for SpreadingSantorum on the first page. SpreadingSantorum doesn’t even show up on a search for just “Santorum”.

    But the ghosts of the past are still present.

    The top result (for a logged-out user) for “Santorum” is the Wikipedia page explaining the neologism campaign:

    Scroll down a bit and a 2010 Mother Jones article called “Rick Santorum’s Anal Sex Problem” is the 5th result below the news box.

    On Bing, the Wikipedia page for the Santorum neologism is the first result below the news box and image box.

    But it’s over on Yahoo where Santorum still has a big problem. Here’s what you see when you search “Rick Santorum”:

    SpreadingSantorum.com – preview definition and all – is the second result, directly below the one for his official site.

    Santorum also has a small domain problem. He’s locked up RickSantorum.com, which is lucky for him. But here’s where Santorum.com redirects:

    Of course, Santorum is far from the only candidate to have to domain problem. Ted Cruz didn’t lock up TedCruz.com, and now he’s getting trolled. Carly Fiorina didn’t lock up CarlyFiorina.org, and now she’s getting trolled. Rand Paul had to waste over $100,000 to secure RandPaul.com.

    – – – – – – – – – – –

    If Rick Santorum does indeed announce intentions to seek his party’s 2016 nomination, people will once again be searching his name

    If he’s lucky, they’ll use Google.

  • Google Universal Search Trends You Should Be Paying Attention To

    Google Universal Search Trends You Should Be Paying Attention To

    The appearance of Google’s Product Listing Ads (PLAs) in search results grew by 118% throughout last year, according to a new study by Searchmetrics. The study also found that video results are blended into 55% of keyword search results ‒ with four in five of the videos coming from YouTube.

    Have you been seeing more results from Google services lately? Let us know in the comments.

    “Overall a key takeaway is that Google’s own products (Google PLAs, YouTube videos and Google Maps) are becoming more prominent in Universal Search,” a spokesperson for Searchmetrics tells WebProNews.

    The company looked at search results for “millions” of keywords and analyzed the appearance of Shopping, Video, Image, News and Map integrations. Overall, they found that four out of five keywords produced at least one Universal Search integration. Video was the most frequent, appearing in search results for 55% of keywords analyzed. Images appeared in 40%, while PLAs appeared in 16%. News results appeared in 13% and Maps results appeared in 7%.

    Searchmetrics put out this infographic illustrating its findings:

    The Growing Presence of PLAs

    The biggest story here is the increase PLAs have seen, particularly as this has been a hot topic with Google’s European antitrust investigation situation.

    “In the case of Google I am concerned that the company has given an unfair advantage to its own comparison shopping service, in breach of EU antitrust rules,” said EU Commissioner in charge of competition policy Margrethe Vestager last month. “Google now has the opportunity to convince the Commission to the contrary. However, if the investigation confirmed our concerns, Google would have to face the legal consequences and change the way it does business in Europe.”

    According to Searchmetrics, “The share of Google Shopping PLA integrations more than doubled over the year, with the proportion of keywords for which at least one Google Shopping integration was displayed rising from 7.5% to 16% between January and December 2014 (there was a dip in the summer months, possibly because of the seasonal retail market slowdown). In total, Google Shopping PLA integrations account for 44% of all integrations shown across the millions of keywords analyzed – more than any other integration.”

    “The growth in the proportion of keywords for which Google Shopping Integrations are displayed represent increasing opportunities for retailers to buy Product Listing Ads and for Google to generate income from the now paid for Google Shopping service,” said Marcus Tober, CTO and founder of Searchmetrics.

    Video

    The firm’s video findings continue to to validate an increased focus on the medium on the part of businesses and marketers. While the percentage of search results pages showing video results actually fell over the course of 2014, videos appear more often than anything else by far.

    80% of videos displayed in Universal Search results came from YouTube. This certainly illustrates how important YouTube still is to marketing as Facebook has become a huge rival to the service.

    We recently looked at a study from Visible Measures, which found that for brands posting video campaigns to both channels, Facebook dominates viewership in the short term, but YouTube continues do so over the course of the video lifecycle. Search is obviously a big part of that.

    “If something is hot and of the moment, such as a newly released campaign, the Super Bowl, or even a cultural phenomenon like Fifty Shades of Grey, Facebook and similar social media sites are incredibly effective for driving the spread of timely content due to the trending nature of the News Feed,” said Visible Measures CEO Brian Shin. “But the strength of Facebook to promote trending content also highlights how powerful YouTube remains as a platform for continued viewership.”

    “Content discovery on Facebook is very much dependent on the Facebook News Feed, which is a function of what a user’s friends are sharing, as well as recommendations based on trends and a user’s interests. Because discovery is so dependent on sharing, viewership soon after content gets hot’ is strongest on Facebook,” Visible Measures added. “Conversely, YouTube acts as a depository for video and millions of users go there first, or arrive via Google search, to find video content. This user paradigm enables videos to have a much longer shelf-life on YouTube.”

    Meanwhile, a study from Advertiser Perceptions and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) found that 68% of marketers and agency execs expect their digital video ad budgets to increase over the course of the next year.

    Maps

    While the number of results returning maps content in Universal Search integrations is still much smaller than the numbers for videos, images, and PLAs, it’s worth noting that there’s significant growth here. In January 2014 only 2% of search terms delivered map integrations, but it was at 7% by December.

    “The more frequent appearance of map integrations in search results may be due to the fact that Google is skewing search engine results pages in favor of localized results which are becoming more important as search results become increasingly individual and more searches are conducted on mobile devices,” said Tober.

    Indeed, Google said in a blog post on Tuesday that more Google searches now take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.

    What do you think about the direction Google’s search results pages are heading in? Discuss.

    Image via Searchmetrics

  • Google’s Search Ad Revenue Growth Is Getting Uglier

    Google’s Search Ad Revenue Growth Is Getting Uglier

    It doesn’t look like things are improving for Google’s core search advertising business. There have been major concerns about it for a while now, and while Google’s latest earnings report doesn’t look too shabby on the surface, its growth rate is on a steady downward trajectory.

    BI Intelligence released this chart illustrating the decline in year-over-year growth over the course of three years.

    It doesn’t look good.

    Google did manage to post 12% year-over-year revenue growth at $17.3 billion for the quarter, while missing expectations.

    “Excluding the net impact of foreign currency headwinds, revenue grew a healthy 17% year on year,” said outgoing CFO Patrick Pichette. “We continue to see great momentum in our mobile advertising business and opportunities with brand advertisers.”

    Aggregate paid clicks were up 1% quarter-over-quarter and 13% year-over-year. Paid clicks on Google sites were up 25% year-over-year, while paid clicks on network sites were up 12%.

    Average cost-per-click increased 7% year-over-year and 5% quarter-over-quarter. On Google sites it was up 13% year-over-year and 3% quarter-over-quarter. On network sites it was up 2% year-over-year and 11% quarter-over-quarter.

    Desktop search revenues accounted for 38% of the U.S. digital ad sales in 2014, according to a recent IAB report.

    Image via Google

  • Yahoo Sheds Light On Search Performance, Future

    Yahoo reported is Q1 financial results on Tuesday with revenues of $1.04 billion, down from $1.08 billion from the same period last year. The company missed on the bottom line and on net revenue, but the search business has clearly received a major injection of new life thanks to the company’s partnership with Mozilla.

    The company reported an increase in search volume in Q1, with searches reaching a five-year high, citing the partnership as “key to this volume increase.”

    Gross search revenue was $956 million, up 20% year-over-year, while GAAP search revenue was $532 million, also up 20%. The company said search revenue from the Mozilla traffic is being recognized on a gross basis as a result of the terms of the agreement, and increased GAAP revenue and as well as TAC. Search revenue ex-TAC was $432 million, down 3% year-over-year.

    Paid Clicks increased 21% year-over-year, and price-per-click increased 3%.

    CEO Marissa Mayer said, “Yahoo is amidst a multi-year transformation to return an iconic company to greatness. This quarter, we saw encouraging revenue growth of 8%, with display revenue growing a modest 2% and search growing 20% on a GAAP basis. Our mobile GAAP revenue reached $234 million in Q1, growing 61% year-over-year. We anticipated that we would grow GAAP revenue ahead of revenue ex-TAC and EBITDA, and that’s precisely what we saw this quarter. For the next phase of the transformation, we will focus on accelerating our GAAP revenue growth while managing our margins and costs.”

    On the company’s earnings conference call, Mayer said (via SeekingAlpha’s transcript), “Mozilla is not only a high-quality deal for us, it is a profitable deal for us. For volume and long-term health of the partnership, introducing Mozilla users to and retaining them on Yahoo! Search is key, and we surpassed all expectations for new users and retention. We knew this was a landmark deal for both companies. From today’s vantage point, we would enter the partnership even more readily.”

    Yahoo has been aggressively trying to get people using Firefox. Not only has the company been displaying a download link on its home page and the home pages of some of its other popular web properties, it is even now sending Yahoo Mail users emails suggesting that they download it.

    That’s a particularly interesting strategy considering that they recommend doing so for safety reasons, and mention nothing whatsoever about search or or their partnership with Mozilla.

    Earlier this week, Yahoo filed a regulatory document with the SEC outlining recently announced changes to its long-standing search agreement with Microsoft. It includes a termination clause, which would allow either company to bail on the deal after October 1.

    Mayer said this about the amended partnership in her prepared remarks on the conference call:

    The amended agreement has a five-year remaining term and is distinctly similar to the prior arrangement, except that it reduces our exclusivity commitments on PC to 51%, addresses the traffic acquisition cost we pay Microsoft on a gross basis rather than a net basis, and lets Yahoo! call on Microsoft for search only, ads only, or both together, paying a fixed cost rather than a revenue share for items that we discard without display.

    I’d like to thank Satya and his team for the very constructive time and attention they dedicated to designing our go-forward partnership. We were very pleased with the renewed relationship, which improves the search experience for users, creates value for advertisers, and establishes ongoing stability for partners. We anticipate it will take several quarters to operationalize the new amendment…

    She also mentioned how Yahoo is extending its search capabilities to any app developer as part of the mobile developer suite it launched at a recent developer conference. She said that in the first five weeks after the event, Yahoo Search in Apps has been launched in partner apps that have reached over 60 million users. She said the company will continue to invest in the developer ecosystem to improve quality and monetization of partner apps.

    Naturally, Mayer was asked several questions about search during the Q&A portion of the call. On the company’s approach, she said they’re particularly interested in mobile and evolving context. They’re also looking harder at involving personal information like email, which the company sees as a place where it can innovate in search.

    Regarding that slight loss on search ex-TAC, she said this wasn’t due to the profitable Mozilla partnership, but more attributable “acute things” the company saw in Q1, such as “the search revenue guarantee being wrapped”.

    Also regarding the Mozilla partnership, Mayer noted that it’s only in effect in the U.S. and that there are “some international opportunities in the deal but none of those are in place at the moment.”

    Somehow, a potential Safari deal was never explicitly mentioned during the call despite Mayer’s enthusiasm about such a prospect on the company’s previous earnings call. She did, however, talk about potential distribution deals more generally, emphasizing the importance of maintaining volume, which she said is an indication of how Yahoo users value search, and that it’s “actually meeting their needs.”

    Partnerships are a way to maintain that volume, she noted, and the exclusivity piece of desktop search being reduced in the Microsoft deal gives Yahoo the ability to “innovate more” and the potential to “work with other partners”.

    “We could introduce our own features but it also creates a very competitive atmosphere where we all work each day to earn that traffic and the percentage that gets directed to various partners, including Bing, and so overall we really like that dynamic,” she said.

    You can find the full earnings report here.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • More European Regulatory Interest In Search Emerges

    Google has been under investigation by the EU for five years, and last week, the European Commission sent a Statement of Objections to Google alleging it has abused its dominant position in the market for general internet search services by favoring its own comparison shopping product in general search pages. It also announced a probe into the company’s Android business.

    In addition to all of this, regulators appear to be growing more and more interested in the business of Internet search, and are now reportedly taking a closer look at the industry as a whole, beyond Google’s dominance. Reuters is reporting that European regulators are preparing a “widespread inquiry” looking at not only Google, but also at Microsoft and Yahoo, aimed at determining if they’re transparent enough about how they display search results.

    This inquiry will reportedly explore the dominance of U.S. tech companies, and seek to determine if there is a level playing field for European companies. The report says:

    In a draft of the Commission’s strategy for creating a digital single market, seen by Reuters, it says it will “carry out a comprehensive investigation and consultation on the role of platforms, including the growth of the sharing economy.” The investigation, expected to be carried out next year, will look into the transparency of search results – involving paid for links and advertisements – and how platforms use the information they acquire.

    …

    The inquiry will also look at how platforms compensate rights-holders for showing copyrighted material and limits on the ability of individuals and businesses to move from one platform to another.

    The inquiry is expected to be announced on May 6. Meanwhile, the French government is looking at requiring search engines to display at least three rivals on their homepages and to “reveal the workings of their search ranking algorithms to ensure they deliver fair and non-discriminatory results,” reports TechCrunch.

    This may or may not actually become law, but if it does, search engines like Google would reportedly have to pay a penalty of 10% of gross revenues if it doesn’t comply.

    Image via Google

  • Yahoo And Microsoft Rework Search Alliance

    Yahoo And Microsoft Rework Search Alliance

    Well, they’re not breaking up just yet. Yahoo and Microsoft just announced that they have agreed to amend their search partnership following the delay of talks about how to proceed, which led to a lot of speculation that they may part ways.

    The companies have vowed to continue working together, and have “reaffirmed commitments made by both companies in the original 2009 agreement, while implementing changes to keep the partnership strong and productive”. Both companies, the announcement says, are “committed to maximizing the alliance.”

    “Our global partnership with Yahoo has benefited our shared customers over the past five years and I look forward to building on what we’ve already accomplished together,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “Our partnership with Yahoo is one example of the diverse partnerships we’ll continue to cultivate in order to have the greatest impact for our customers.”

    “Over the past few months, Satya and I have worked closely together to establish a revised search agreement that allows us to enhance our user experience and innovate more in our search business,” said Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo. “This renewed agreement opens up significant opportunities in our partnership that I’m very excited to explore.”

    So the rumors about Yahoo working to improve its own search offering are true, apparently. This should make it easier for Yahoo to succeed when the companies eventually do part ways.

    The amendments to the deal come in two main areas. Yahoo will have increased flexibility to enhance its own search experience on any platform. The partnership is non-exclusive for both desktop and mobile. Yahoo will continue to serve Bing ads and search results for most of tis desktop search traffic, it says. Presumably, this leaves Yahoo free to do what it wants on mobile, where it has been focusing most of its efforts.

    The company has been rumored to be in talks to buy Foursquare, which could bring some interesting things to the table on mobile, though other reports have dismissed the rumor as BS.

    The second area that has changed in the Microsoft deal is that there is an increased “agility and sales focus.” Microsoft will be the exclusive salesforce for ads delivered by its own Bing Ads platform, and Yahoo will continue to be the exclusive salesforce for its Yahoo Gemini ads platform.

    “Integrating the sales teams with those responsible for engineering will allow both companies to service advertisers more effectively,” the companies said in the announcement. “Microsoft and Yahoo plan to begin to transition managed advertiser sales responsibilities this summer.”

    “The partnership, formed in 2009 by both CEOs’ predecessors, established a transformative relationship between the two companies — one where Microsoft exclusively provided paid and algorithmic search services on PC to Yahoo,” it says. “The alliance also designated a revenue sharing agreement where Microsoft pays Yahoo a percentage of Bing Ads revenue delivered from Yahoo searches. This existing underlying economic structure remains unchanged with today’s updates.”

    In related news, the latest comScore search market report is out, showing that Bing’s share in the U.S. has grown to 20.1% with Yahoo at 12.7%.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Google Expands Paid Search Into A New, Obvious Place

    Google announced the launch of paid search results on Google Play, which will help app makers get their products discovered and help Google add another revenue source.

    Google is only making the offering available to a limited set of users at first (from a pilot group of advertisers). This will happen over the course of the coming weeks.

    “App discovery plays a critical role in driving your continued success, and over the past year Google has provided best practices to enhance app discovery and engagement, as well as app promotion tools to get the most out of search and display advertising for developers,” says Google Play product management director Michael Siliski. “We are always looking for new ways to help you get your apps in front of potential new users. That’s why, in the next few weeks, we will begin piloting sponsored search results on Google Play, bringing our unique expertise in search ads to the store.”

    It probably has something to do with that revenue thing too. Google will make money on the ads while continuing to make money on app sales.

    Paid search in Google Play is not something I’ve ever given much thought to, but thinking about it now, it’s actually really surprising that Google is just now getting the ball rolling on this. Google Play hosts a reported 1.72 million apps.

    As Miguel Helft at Forbes writes in an interview with Google’s Sundar Pichai:

    Search advertising has been the most profitable big business in the history of the Internet, generating billions in annual revenue and income for Google. After applying it to Web search, Google expanded it to queries made on YouTube. Pichai said that by using the same model on Google Play, the company will capitalize on the app store’s growing momentum.

    “With more than 100 billion searches every month on Google.com, we’ve seen how search ads shown next to organic search results on Google.com can significantly improve content discovery for users and advertisers, both large and small,” he adds. “Search ads on Google Play will enable developers to drive more awareness of their apps and provide consumers new ways to discover apps that they otherwise might have missed.”

    According to Marketing Land paid media reporter Ginny Marvin, Google’s pilot test will only include app marketers, who are currently using AdWords, but their campaigns won’t be tied together on the front end. The ability to buy Google Play apps in AdWords may come later, she says.

    The company says it will be sharing more about the expansion of the new Google Play paid results in the coming months as it analyzes feedback and the results of the initial phase.

    Ryan Whitwam at Android Police writes, “In the early days of Android, developers had to be serious nerds to pay the platform any real attention. After all, the real money was on iOS…Developers will probably be happy to have better promotional tools in the Play Store, but things are going well already.”

    Google says Google Play reaches over a billion people in over 190 countries. They’ve paid $7 billion to developers (compared to a reported $10 billion annually paid by Apple to iOS developers).

    Kevin Tofel, who covers mobile for GigaOm, says Google’s paid search results will probably be more appealing to those who offer paid apps, but adds that even those with free apps “might be willing to splurge on ads for their software and work toward in-app purchases for revenues.”

    He also makes the point that smaller developers with limited funds will be at a disadvantage to larger ones with bigger bankrolls.

    Ultimately, however, Google’s news should prove huge for the Android developer ecosystem over time. Think about what paid search has done for business discovery over the years, and apply it to mobile apps. For niche apps, it could be game-changing.

    Google isn’t giving numbers on how many searches the Play Store gets, which is unfortunate, because it would surely be nice to know for all parties involved.

    Image via Google

  • Pinterest Search Gets Better For Men (And Some Growth Stats Regarding The Male Gender)

    Pinterest Search Gets Better For Men (And Some Growth Stats Regarding The Male Gender)

    Last year, Pinterest launched Guided Search, a revamp to its search feature enabling users to find things they didn’t necessarily know they were looking for. You can start with a relatively vague keyword, and get additional options to add to help “guide” you in different directions. It’s essentially a nice way of presenting search recommendations.

    The company has been hard at work on improving Guided Search, and on Friday, revealed some of what it has been working on.

    Pinterest has famously been seen as a more female-oriented service. While there are plenty of men using it, there’s no question which way the gender needle slants. The number of men has been growing, however, and improvements to Guided Search are reflecting that.

    “If you do a lot of searching on Pinterest, you may already have noticed the results you’re seeing are better than ever,” says Pinterest engineer Pei Yin in a blog post. “For example, say you’re looking for a new watch. Before when you searched Pinterest for ‘watches,’ your results would include mostly women’s timepieces. But now, men will see Pins and guides inspired by what other guys have Pinned, and everybody’s results should feel a lot closer to what they’re looking for. Of course if you ever want results for another gender, like if you’re shopping for a gift for someone else, you can always use the guides to fine-tune your search.”

    “These customized search results appear for thousands of different search terms,” Yin adds. “The next time you’re on Pinterest, try searching for hair, shoes or health and see for yourself how spot on your results are.”

    As the company notes, if you’re not getting content for your gender, you may want to check your settings and make sure you have the right one selected.

    A Pinterest spokesperson tells WebProNews, “We’ve already seen these improvements result in a double digit lift in engagement, similar to recent updates to the new user experience which show trending interests for each gender to choose from as they get started.”

    They also shared some new growth stats with us. For one, Pinterest’s male user base in the U.S. grew 73% year-over-year.

    “We’re not only growing among males, but on the coasts, where monthly active usage is much higher than other parts of the country,” the spokesperson says. “For example, New York is growing 50% faster than Minnesota, and DC 78% faster than Utah. The fastest growing states are Hawaii, New Jersey, Maryland, New York and Rhode Island.”

    On the gender note, the top interests followed by men include (in order): men’s apparel, technology, travel, gardening, recipes, gadgets, design, luxury cars, tattoos, and camping. Trending searches by men include: men’s short hair, cinema 4d, ham radio, cool watches for men, mens tattoo ideas, fixed gear, shoulder tattoo men, hifi, rat rod, and kayak fishing.

    Pinterest also shared some high-growth categories (% from 2013-2014):

    Geek: 175%
    Cars & Motorcycles: 134%
    Men’s Fashion: 122%
    Architecture: 119%
    Gardening: 91%
    Humor: 88%
    Health & Fitness: 84%

    % growth in categories from 2012-2014:

    Geek: 1414%
    Cars & Motorcycles: 844%
    Men’s Fashion: 787%
    Architecture: 657%
    Health & Fitness: 531%
    Gardening: 572%
    Humor: 427%

    Pinterest says it has a lot more improvements to search coming soon, and now that Promoted Pins are out (and doing well apparently), it’s certainly in Pinterest’s best interest to improve its search feature as much as possible, now that it’s being monetized.

    This week, the company announced that it has acquired the team and technology behind recommendation and commerce startup Kosei, which it will use to accelerate its discovery and monetization efforts.

    “The team includes some of the best minds in machine learning, data science and recommendation engines, who’ve created a unique technology stack that drives commerce by making highly personalized and powerful product recommendations,” Pinterest told us. “Among Kosei’s accomplishments is building a graph that understands more than 400 million relationships between 30 million products.”

    Asked about how the acquisition will affect Pinterest’s efforts in search and advertising, Pinterest said, “Over the years we’ve been building a system for helping people discover the most relevant Pins, and the Kosei team is a great complement to our existing technology (see how we’ve been using machine learning here). The acquisition of Kosei will enable us to move faster in our efforts to provide relevant recommendations across the service, as well as in ad targeting and measurement as we roll out Promoted Pins.”

    As Pinterest continues to grow its user base, it opens up more marketing opportunities for businesses on both the paid and organic levels. Read this for some insight into optimizing your content for Pinterest’s search feature.

    Image via Pinterest

  • Report Looks At Yahoo Firefox Deal’s Impact On Paid Search

    In November, Yahoo and Mozilla announced a new partnership, which would make Yahoo the default search experience in the Firefox browser beginning with version 34, which was released in early December.

    On Thursday, Merkle | RKG released its Digital Marketing Report for Q4 2014 (download page) looking at performance data and trends for Google, Yahoo, and Bing. It looks at a variety of aspects of search, but a section in the middle deals specifically with the effects of the Yahoo/Mozilla deal on paid search.

    “We’re now able to assess the impact of the deal on Yahoo’s share of Firefox paid search traffic, which grew from 12% at the beginning of December to 30% by the end of the year,” it says. “However, digging deeper reveals that Yahoo’s share of Firefox 34 paid clicks has been in decline ever since the first big wave of updates in the second week of December. While the initial rollout saw Yahoo’s share rise to a peak of 43% on December 10th, that figure was just 36% by December’s end.”

    “This is primarily the result of users switching the default search engine of their browsers back to Google, as shown by the corresponding increase in Google’s share of Firefox 34 paid clicks throughout the month of December,” the report says. “All in all, it appears the deal will move about 2% or less of total paid search traffic from Google to Yahoo. This is far less than the 10%+ of paid traffic that stands to be on the table if Safari default search were to change hands, which news outlets have reported is a possibility in 2015.”

    Google has been showing concern about users sticking with Yahoo. It’s been showing Firefox users who visit its homepage a message saying, “Get to Google faster. Make Google your default search engine.”

    On Wednesday, the company tweeted:

    According to the Merkle | RKG report, Bing and Yahoo outpaced Google in paid search growth, not only because of the Yahoo Firefox deal, but also rapid growth from Bing Product Ads.

    Images via Merkle | RKG, Google

  • Another Publisher Goes After Google For Unpaid AdSense Earnings

    There’s been a lot of this going around lately. Publishers are getting banned from Google AdSense after Google tells them they’re in violation of their rules. This happens after the publisher accrues a sizable amount of earnings and readies for the payday. It also happens after Google reps have indicated that the sites were in compliance in the first place. That’s how the story goes anyway.

    Do you think Google is doing anything wrong? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Another publisher, SuperCrayCray, has come out suing Google over this. But first a little background.

    Similar stories have been circulating for years, generating varying degrees of attention in the media. Last year, the issue got possibly the most attention to date as a new mysterious, but ultimately debunked element came into play.

    The ‘Former Googler’

    Last spring, someone claiming to be a former Google employee accused the company of stealing money from AdSense publishers posting on Pastebin that they “took part in what I (and many others) would consider theft of money from the publishers by Google, and from direct orders of management.”

    “There were many AdSense employees involved, and it spanned many years, and I hear it still is happening today except on a much wider scale,” it said. “No one on the outside knows it, if they did, the FBI and possibly IRS would immediately launch an investigation, because what they are doing is so inherently illegal and they are flying completely under the radar.”

    For the curious, the entire post and “explanation” is still live here.

    After this made its way to the spotlight, numerous publishers claimed to have experienced similar treatment by Google to what was described. Basically, Google would ban their sites as payments became due, and they wouldn’t get their money. Various industry types poked holes in the story presented by the so-called ex-Googler, including the use of inaccurate terminology and the fact that Google only makes money on AdSense when it delivers the ads. In other words, it’s not in Google’s interest to ban successful sites.

    Google strongly denied the accusations, calling the whole thing “complete fiction.” Still, the theories and allegations persisted.

    A Criminal Investigation?

    The FairSearch Coalition, a group of Google competitors, which frequently complains to government agencies about Google’s business practices, called for a criminal investigation into the company’s AdSense business.

    “Google often tries to reinforce its image and reputation as a tech innovator rather than an advertising-funded corporation driven by profits,” it said. “But These recent allegations are another sign that Google’s thirst for profits comes at the expense of meeting its legal obligations and commitments to business partners it says benefit from its own dominance. In the past few years, the company settled for $500 million with the Department of Justice for assisting in the illegal sale of prescription drugs online, and several state Attorneys General have voiced concern over Google’s revenue from ads placed with YouTube videos that depict or promote illegal and other activities harmful to consumers and even children.”

    “Trust, but verify is an old maxim that applies to Google’s business too,” the coalition added. “The time may be near for another investigation into Google’s business practices. The outcome could very well be potential criminal and civil charges against the company, especially if top executives were aware of the practice, as they were in the illegal pharmaceutical ad sales.”

    FairsSearch member companies include Microsoft, Nokia, TripAdvisor, Hotwire, Expedia, Level, Foundem, ShopCity, Twenga, AdMarketplace.com, Travel Tech Association, Buscape Company, TheFind, Allegro, and Oracle.

    Class Action

    In May, a class action suit was filed against Google related to claims it was stealing money from publishers. This one was filed by consumer rights law firm Hagens Berman (which had previously filed another questionable suit against the company related to phone pricing). The suit claimed that Google “unlawfully denies payments to thousands of website owners and operators who place ads on their sites.”

    The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and alleged that the company “abruptly cancels website owners’ AdSense accounts often without explanation shortly before payments are due, and refuses to pay for the ads that ran prior to the cancelation.”

    “This wrongful practice has sparked numerous bitter complaints from website owners across the Web, with some reporting losses reaching thousands of dollars a pop,” said Steve Berman, one of Hagens Berman’s founding partners. “What we believe to be true from our research is that Google’s practice is likely hurting thousands of website owners and operators who feel they have no way to fight giant company like Google.”

    After the debunked Pastebin document came out, there were indeed numerous individuals commenting around the web that it sounded suspiciously like what had happened to them, sometimes matching time periods mentioned in the story. The law firm claimed the suit didn’t depend on that document’s merits.

    After the suit came out, GigaOm reported that Berman had represented Microsoft in the past, and speculated that the company was behind the whole thing. Considering that Microsoft is a major part of the FairSearch Coalition, it’s an intriguing theory. The publication, however, updated its report with a quote from Microsoft denying any involvement.

    More Allegations

    Several months later, a nineteen-year-old entrepreneur, who runs a text message site called MesTextos, claimed to have lost nearly $50,000 after Google decided the site didn’t comply with its AdSense rules. Business Insider reported at the time:

    In an email Google sent to Sami, Google says MesTextos was incentivizing or forcing people to click on ads to use the site, which is against the rules; Sami denies that. He says two different Google sales staff praised his revenue-generating efforts and, in separate emails, offered to help optimize his site to improve its performance. He says he wasn’t warned there was something wrong with his site until it was too late.

    The report included screenshots of the emails, which were in French, as well as a generic statement from a Google spokesperson, who wouldn’t comment on this particular case:

    … we always send a note to the publisher explaining which policy was in question and, in many cases, give them a chance to make changes to their pages to keep the account in good standing. Publishers are also given an opportunity to appeal policy decisions.

    According to the report, the ban came less than two weeks after Google sent the young entrepreneur an email offering to help him boost his revenues. He claimed to have spoken with the company, and that they told him “everything was good.” He also claimed to have “begged and pleaded with Google,” but was unable to figure out what Google actually thought was wrong with the site.

    Fast forward to last month. Business Insider says it has heard from seven companies that they have lost ad income when they were suddenly banned by AdSense, and that each company claims to have been following Google’s rules about ad placement.

    “Some were even encouraged or given approval by Google’s sales staff — only to be told they had been banned from the service, losing out on all the advertising revenue they had accrued,” Business Insider’s Lara O’Reilly writes.

    Last month, the publication reported on a “bunch of lawsuits,” against the company, including one from a company called Pubshare, which sued Google for about a million dollars, which was reportedly generated by AdSense before Google sent the company the following message:

    LAYOUT ENCOURAGES ACCIDENTAL CLICKS: Publishers are not permitted to encourage users to click on Google ads in any way. This includes any Complaint implementation that may encourage accidental clicks, such as placing ads near flash games or navigation bars, or placing ads and site links extremely close together.

    As the report says, the guy who runs the site and filed the suit claims to have been using the same format as other popular sites who were allowed to continue using AdSense. It also includes a quote from his lawyer, which would seem to represent the crux of most of these complaints:

    “Allowing an AdSense publisher to accumulate hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings without any warnings of improper practices, and then abruptly refusing to pay out any of those earnings by means of auto-generated form e-mails is the very definition of bad faith.”

    Google had reportedly asked for the suit to be dismissed, but a judge allowed it to continue. Meanwhile, the suits are piling up. Included in Business Insider’s report are: PubShare (claiming a loss of $1 million); a viral news site claiming a loss of $500K, a business accelerator site claiming $200K, a publisher claiming $300K, MesTextos claiming $46,000, a quiz site claiming $35,000, and a storytelling site also claiming $35,000.

    In another report, BI points to a comment it received from former Googler Fili Wiese, who used to be on the company’s Ad Traffic Quality Team, which handled click spam and invalid clicks:

    So one thing that may not be clear here is that Google loses money too when a publisher gets banned. All money that is not paid out is in full returned to the advertiser, so Google also does not make any money. It is also important to keep in mind that Google is the client and the publishers are the suppliers. The publishers are responsible for the quality of the traffic they are delivering to the advertisers of Google. Google AdSense is just the platform which makes this easy and possible. If the publisher delivers traffic that can result in invalid clicks then the advertiser is paying for this. The trust of the advertisers is of utmost importance. Without this Google AdSense would not be possible at all. Ask yourself, would you want to keep paying for low quality products, such as invalid clicks?

    A common theme among a number of the complaints is that Google allegedly assured the sites that they were compliant ahead of the banning.

    Business Insider shares a screenshot of a conversation between an AdSense rep and the site owner in which the rep did assure them that “no additional action is needed” on their part.

    The report makes an important note that the folks at Google who are lending such approval are separate from the staff that bans publishers.

    SuperCrayCray

    Now there’s SuperCrayCray. Marketing Land brought this one to the spotlight. SuperCrayCray is a content site that seems to follow the BuzzFeed model (which seems to be working out pretty well for BuzzFeed I might add).

    SuperCrayCray says Google suspended its account the very day it was supposed to get paid. It claims to have accrued $535,000 in earnings, which were supposed to be paid out in October. The site says Google suspended it on the grounds that it “encouraged accidental clicks,” and like others before it, it claims to have gotten approval on its site and clicks from a Google rep.

    Once again, there’s a chat record, which appears in the suit. This occurs between Denis Gayev (SuperCrayCray’s co-founder) and Ryan J (an AdSense rep):

    Denis: We reported our selves previously in the month asking to verify if our site is fully complaint (sic) with all TOS [Terms of Service]. We never received a response, does that normally mean that it was checked and no issues were found?

    Ryan J: Correct, warnings are resolved once you mark them as such. If there is a future issue the policy team will get back to you.

    Denis: Honestly, our biggest concern was our CTR on our ads. We wanted to confirm if it was inline with whats normal. We wanted to double check that the CTR was not in anyway a result of accidental clicks, or what not. Is that something that’s checked periodically when a site scales quickly? Or is that something checked in the 2 week period?

    Ryan J: We do validate all clicks and impressions and are monitoring it constantly. The CTR you are seeing is within the normal range. I’m also not seeing any concerns are you site, ex. implementation that could cause a high amount of accidental clicks.

    Ryan then allegedly confirmed that the site was set to receive a payout, and the same day another co-founder of the site sent a message to an AdSense rep to make sure high click-through rates he was seeing was okay and that the ad placement wasn’t generating invalid clicks. The rep responded that Google found implementations to be “correct,” and that they appreciated the “honesty” and “efforts” to keep the account in good standing.

    Several days later, yet another AdSense rep allegedly recommended the site not change anything.

    So after all this confirmation that everything was copacetic, the site spent $300,000 promoting its content before being denied the $535,000 it’s owed and having the account suspended. Allegedly.

    Google has been relatively quiet on the matter.

    AdSense is said to account for roughly a third of Google’s revenue.

    Do you believe the publishers’ stories? Do you think Google owes them their earnings or do you think they’re really violating Google’s guidelines? Does Google need to do a better job of communicating problems? Discuss.

    Image via Google AdSense (YouTube)

  • Yahoo Takes Major Search Partner Away From Google

    Yahoo may have lost its way in search over the years, but it would appear that CEO Marissa Mayer is determined to bring search back to the forefront. Going to head with her former employer in its specialty may not be an easy feat, but she’s doing everything she can, it would seem, to cement Yahoo’s brand back into search relevance. Keep in mind, Yahoo was the king of search at one point, and a lot of people are frustrated with Google for various reasons (look no further than the comment sections on our Google search articles for proof of that).

    Can Yahoo make a significant comeback in search? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Yahoo and Mozilla announced a strategic five-year partnership making Yahoo Search the default search engine for Firefox in the United States both on mobile and desktop.

    “This is the most significant long-term partnership for Yahoo in five years,” a spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews. “As part of this, Yahoo will introduce an enhanced search experience, which U.S. Firefox users will receive first in December 2014.”

    This is huge news for both parties as well as for search in general. Google has been the global default search experience in Firefox for the past ten years. While Chrome has emerged in the meantime, Firefox remains a popular browser, and should give Yahoo a significant boost in searches.

    Here’s what the desktop web browser market share looked like last month (via Wikipedia):

    The Mozilla Google deal came up for renewal this year, and Mozilla decided to review its competitive strategy and explore its options.

    “In evaluating our search partnerships, our primary consideration was to ensure our strategy aligned with our values of choice and independence, and positions us to innovate and advance our mission in ways that best serve our users and the Web,” said CEO Chris Beard. “In the end, each of the partnership options available to us had strong, improved economic terms reflecting the significant value that Firefox brings to the ecosystem. But one strategy stood out from the rest.”

    Firefox will on longer have a single global default search provider. Mozilla says it’s adopting a “more local and flexible” approach with different partnerships for different countries. While Yahoo is the U.S. partner, it’s Yandex in Russia and Baidu in China. In all, Firefox will have 61 different search providers pre-installed across 88 different language versions. Google will still be among those options, and it will continue to power Safe Browsing and Geolocation features in Firefox. Google will also remain the default in Europe.

    That could change, however, and given that Mozilla and Yahoo are now buddies, you have to wonder if Yahoo will eventually take the reins there too.

    Mayer said, “We’re thrilled to partner with Mozilla. Mozilla is an inspirational industry leader who puts users first and focuses on building forward-leaning, compelling experiences. We’re so proud that they’ve chosen us as their long-term partner in search, and I can’t wait to see what innovations we build together. Yahoo, we believe deeply in search – it’s an area of investment, opportunity and growth for us. This partnership helps to expand our reach in search and also gives us an opportunity to work closely with Mozilla to find ways to innovate more broadly in search, communications, and digital content.”

    “Our teams worked closely with Mozilla to build a clean, modern, and immersive search experience that will launch first to Firefox’s U.S. users in December and then to all Yahoo users in early 2015. The interactive and integrated experience also better leverages our world-class content and personalization technologies,” she said. “Search inspires us because we think it’s something that will change and improve dramatically, and because fundamentally, search is about human curiosity — and that is something that will never be finished.”

    “Search is a core part of the online experience for everyone, with Firefox users alone searching the Web more than 100 billion times per year globally,” said Beard. “Our new search strategy doubles down on our commitment to make Firefox a browser for everyone, with more choice and opportunity for innovation. We are excited to partner with Yahoo to bring a new, re-imagined Yahoo search experience to Firefox users in the U.S. featuring the best of the Web, and to explore new innovative search and content experiences together.”

    In recent years, Yahoo has become known more for its display advertising business than its search business, but in its most recent earnings report, it actually revealed that it’s doing better in search. The company saw its eleventh quarter of year-over-year search revenue growth with price-per-click up in most regions.

    “We continue to find ways to enhance the performance of our search ads through better user interfaces and higher quality traffic and as advertisers ultimately find our search ads more valuable,” Mayer said at the time.

    She also talked a little about search on the conference call that followed the earnings release. She said, “When we think about what will search look like, on a phone, on a smaller device 10 years from now, we think it looks pretty different then it looks today. We really like the Aviate technology that we acquired we’ve been looking at how can really enrich the experience such that its not a lot of different answers perfectly ranked but actually the one answer you need when you’re on the go, or you’re working in a more constrained display, real constrained screening environment.”

    More on the Aviate acquisition here.

    As you probably know, Yahoo made a deal with Microsoft in the pre-Mayer years, which saw Bing powering Yahoo search, but it’s become increasingly clear that Mayer isn’t a big fan of the deal, and it will likely end eventually. Having a partnership with Mozilla will help it better compete with both Google and Microsoft, which of course uses Bing for its Internet Explorer browser.

    Interestingly enough, it sounds like Bing doesn’t think it will really ever be able to take significant market share away from Google when it comes to core search.

    For what it’s worth, the Yahoo/Bing partnership saw its biggest paid search market share increase in five years in Q3.

    As far as Firefox goes, Mozilla is doing plenty to keep its flagship product relevant, which will only help Yahoo in the United States. It recently announced some major privacy-related initiatives, and that’s something that’s been on a lot of people’s minds, particularly since the whole NSA/PRISM scandal came to light. By the way, under the partnership, Mozilla says Yahoo will support Do Not Track in Firefox.

    Mozilla is also courting developers with a new Developer Edition of Firefox.

    As of this summer, Mozilla is under new leadership as Beard became CEO, though he’s been “deeply involved with every aspect of Mozilla” since 2004.

    Google’s dominance has been helped by partnerships like the ones it has held with Google and Apple over the years, but those are starting to break down. Apple has also been distancing itself from Google reliance in a variety of ways over the past couple years.

    Google is too big at this point to face any major threat, but losing such significant partnerships has to hurt it to some extent. And if you’ll recall, when Google released its latest earnings report, one of the storylines was whether or not Google’s core business is actually in trouble. Some analysts seem to think it might be as growth has slowed. Google has also seen twelve straight quarters of ad price decline.

    In case you haven’t noticed, Yahoo has been making a lot of acquisitions over the past couple years, and has been launching major overhauls to its core products while getting rid of others so it can focus on the ones that really matter. It’s hard to argue that Mayer hasn’t breathed new life into the company since she took over.

    Yahoo doesn’t have to become top dog in search again to have a major impact on the web and businesses. Either way, for the first time in a long time, it would seem that Yahoo has plenty to be excited about when it comes to search.

    Do you use Firefox? Yahoo Search? Do you you think Yahoo is headed in the right direction? Discuss.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Bing: We’re Not Giving Up On Search [Updated]

    Update 2: Asked for additional comment or further clarification on Stefan’s comments, the spokesperson says, “We have nothing further to share.”

    Update: The initial headline to this article was “Bing Abandons Hope Of Competing With Google (In ‘Pure’ Search)”. Bing apparently takes issue with this. A spokesperson says it’s a “misrepresentation of Bing’s position, as well as Stefan Weitz’s statement. Bing is not giving up on search.”

    Well, the headline didn’t exactly say “Bing is Giving Up On Search,” but clearly they’re defensive about it. I’ve reached out to Bing for a more official statement.

    It’s unclear if they were okay with Search Engine Land’s version: “Bing: It’s Unlikely That We’ll Take Search Share Away From Google”. It’s also unclear if the Register’s quotes were inaccurate. So far, I don’t see any updates on either of these articles. Take from that what you will.

    Original article: It’s been a while since we’ve heard much about the “Bing it On” challenge, which was Bing’s attempt to convince people it provided a better search experience than Google, even though the challenge stripped out key features of both search engines. It did little to advance Bing’s market share.

    The holidays are just around the corner, and we haven’t seen any new “Scroogled” campaigns (because it’s a play on Scrooge, not “Screw Google,” remember?) emerge yet. That could still happen. These ads didn’t always focus on search, but stretched into other areas like email and computers.

    It appears that Bing is basically abandoning hope that it will actually take a significant amount of market share away from Google when it comes to pure search. Bing’s Stefan Weitz spoke at the Web Summit this week. The Register (via Search Engine Land) shares some quotes from him:

    “The question is, where is search really going?” he said at the Web Summit conference in Dublin today. “It’s unlikely we’re going to take share in [the pure search] space, but in machine learning, natural language search… and how we can make search more part of living. For us, it’s less about Bing.com, though that’s still important. It’s really about how we can instead weave the tech into things you’re already doing.”
    …

    “For pure keyword search, we’re around 30 per cent in the US, not so much in Europe,” he said. “But search in different areas of life? That mix is to be determined. I’m committed to making sure we have our fair share of search in the future.”

    In terms of advertising, the Yahoo Bing “search alliance” saw its biggest paid search market share increase in five years in Q3, according to research released by IgnitionOne. This followed Yahoo’s search market share hitting its lowest point ever in the summer, though things are looking up for Yahoo on the search front based on the company’s latest earnings report.

    Image via Bing.com (Yes, you can just type in a “W” and get a suggestion to go to www.Google.com).

  • Teresa Giudice Reportedly Filming New Season of ‘RHONJ,’ Home To Be Searched

    Teresa Giudice may be behind bars when Bravo officially begins filming for the seventh season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

    But that doesn’t mean she won’t be signed on for the series.

    As a matter of fact, Radar Online reports Teresa has already begun filming for the upcoming season despite the big reunion blow-up.

    A source close to the 42-year-old reality star recently shared details about Teresa’s decision to stay onboard.

    She and Joe are reportedly swimming in debt and since he’ll be left to raise their four children alone while she’s incarcerated, the income from the show will help keep things afloat.

    “It was a no brainer for Teresa to decide to do the show, because she obviously needs the money to pay off mounting debts,” the source explained. “The producers were thrilled, because it will result in a ratings bonanza.”

    Although she definitely needs the income, she reportedly has one request – substantial payment for her four daughters’ time on camera.

    “Teresa is using the girls as leverage to get more money,” the source claims. “She knows viewers will want to see how they are coping with the fallout from their parents’ legal problems.”

    However, Teresa and the show’s producers have yet to come to a substantial agreement on any type of payment for the girls. Regardless of the monetary agreement they decide on, the bottom line is Teresa will reportedly keep her job.

    But, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean her troubles are over. On Nov. 4, a new report was released outlining the terms of her probation once she’s released from prison.

    She’ll reportedly be monitored by a probation officer who will be allowed to search her home for contraband at any time without notice.

    The court order states Teresa must “must “permit a probation officer to visit him/her at any time at home or elsewhere, and shall permit confiscation of any contraband.”

    Although of the details aren’t totally clear at this point, fans can still look forward to seeing it all when the seventh season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey premieres next year.

  • Yahoo Is Doing Better In Search Than Display

    Yahoo Is Doing Better In Search Than Display

    Yahoo came out swinging with its third quarter earnings report and conference call on Tuesday, posting solid results ahead of analysts’ estimates. One particularly noteworthy takeaway was that the company’s search advertising business brought in more money than its display business. This is the first time this has happened since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO.

    Search revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs was $450 million, up 6%. Paid clicks were flat year-over-year, but price per click increased about 17%.

    “This quarter represents our 11th quarter of search revenue growth year-over-year on a revenue ex-TAC basis,” Mayer said during the company’s earnings call. “Our price-per-click is up in almost all regions as we continue to find ways to enhance the performance of our search ads through better user interfaces and higher quality traffic and as advertisers ultimately find our search ads more valuable.”

    Display revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs was $396 million, down 6%. The number of ads sold did increase about 24%, but price-per-ad decreased about 24% at the same time.

    Meanwhile, Yahoo’s native ads have experienced triple-digit year-over-year growth.

    During the Q&A portion of the call, Yahoo was asked how search compares to display specifically on mobile.

    CFO Kenneth Goldman responded, “The search is somewhat higher than display. We don’t give the exact breakout, maybe we’ll in the future. But in search it’s also growing a little bit faster as well than display year-over-year.”

    Mayer said, “When we think about what will search look like, on a phone, on a smaller device 10 years from now, we think it looks pretty different then it looks today. We really like the Aviate technology that we acquired we’ve been looking at how can really enrich the experience such that its not a lot of different answers perfectly ranked but actually the one answer you need when you’re on the go, or you’re working in a more constrained display, real constrained screening environment.”

    More on the Aviate acquisition here.

    Mayer was also asked about its relationship with MIicrosoft in terms of whether it’s wrong to think of Yahoo as a distributor of Microsoft search. She basically sidestepped that one. It’s no secret that she’d not a fan of the arrangement.

    The subject came up again later in the call, and she offered, “I think on a whole we’re very bullish on search. It’s always been part of the Yahoo! We like where it’s going in future of mobile. We think it’s a right area for innovation and is an area that we have been investing in. We are coming to the mid-point of the ten-year agreement and we may want to contemplate changes on both sides. So Microsoft has some right to that point so do we. And we are working through this with Microsoft.”

    Image via Tumblr

  • Report: Yahoo/Bing Sees Biggest Paid Search Market Share Increase In 5 Years

    The search alliance between Yahoo and Bing saw its biggest market share increase against Google in five years in Q3, in terms of paid search in the U.S., according to a new report from IgnitionOne.

    The report says the partnership saw its best showing since Q1 2009 as it increased to 25% compared to Google’s 75%.

    Yahoo/Bing is also getting more expensive, it says, with a 5.8% drop in traffic year-over-year, but a large increase in CPCs.

    Paid search spend for phones surpassed tablet spend, increasing 18.5% over the previous quarter. Phones saw triple digit growth in search metrics including impressions, clicks and spend, it says.

    The report also says third-party network decline caused a ripple effect.

    “Search spend decreases 32% YoY as advertisers pull out of Google partner network,” the firm says. “As impressions drop, CTR continues to climb, largely due to advertisers pulling out of display networks and third party search partner networks which have naturally lower CTRs.”

    “Paid Search continues to evolve and become more integrated with broader digital marketing efforts. Marketers and their technologies have become more sophisticated as they seek to drive the highest return on their advertising spend and marketing efforts.” says IgnitionOne President Roger Barnette. “Marketers and advertisers are getting better at finding users wherever they are on whatever device they are using.”

    You can check out the whole report here.

    Image via IgnitionOne

  • Kenshoo Partners With Atlas For Search Marketing Reporting

    Kenshoo Partners With Atlas For Search Marketing Reporting

    With Advertising Week here there is a lot of ad news coming out, but the biggest piece is that Facebook announced the launch of the new Atlas.

    In its announcement, Facebook named Omnicom as an agency-wide ad serving and measurement partner. Kenshoo just announced a partnership with Atlas as well. It will provide marketers with reporting and optimization for search campaigns by combining Atlas’ tracking with its own campaign management tools. Deduped campaign performance data from Atlas will be automatically imported into Kenshoo Search.

    “Kenshoo’s industry-leading software was designed to deliver infinite optimization by leveraging insights from each channel to inform the next,” said Will Martin-Gill, SVP of Product for Kenshoo. “Partnering with Atlas to provide clients access to highly accurate, deduplicated data saves them time and improves the efficiency of their campaign optimization within Kenshoo.”

    “Forecasting, budgeting, portfolio optimization, and campaign automation are hallmarks of Kenshoo’s best-in-class predictive marketing software; combining these with Atlas delivers the industry’s most accurate cross-channel reporting and optimization solution by relying on one source of truth that accounts for how consumers move across channels,” he added.

    Kenshoo is a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD), and put out a study a few months ago about the effects of Facebook Ads on paid search performance.

    At Atlas product tour is available here. Here’s more on Kenshoo’s integration.

    Image via Facebook

  • Farrah Abraham Is A Stripper Now, Doing It For Research

    Former Teen Mom star Farrah Abraham is now keeping busy doing research on how to run an adult establishment — at least that’s how she explains her new job as a stripper at the Palazio Gentlemen’s Club in Austin.

    “A friend of mine works there and I’m researching,” she said. “I’ve been trying out all the roles that make up a gentleman’s club, including cocktailing and dancing. There’s management and there’s cooking too.”

    She says her work there can be likened to how Jennifer Aniston prepared for her role as a stripper in the film We’re the Millers, the big budget comedy in which Aniston starred with Jason Sudeikis.

    “It’s how I get the information to write my books and do my movies. Unfortunately, I’m not free to talk about what those future projects may be. But I’m interested in hearing all the women’s stories. And while I’m doing it I’m getting paid. I’m getting paid to play a role and get informed.” Abraham said.

    Farrah Abraham works the pole

    According to Abraham, this research has even allowed her to learn more than she initially expected:

    “I’ve learned that this industry has class, strength, and has taught me life skills to better myself for my daughter’s future. I’m thankful and shocked that my job shadowing has lead me to another amazing opportunity. Palazio Gentlemen’s Club has shown me and other women how we should be respected, treated, and cared for and not to settle for less.”

    Abraham was initially hired to wait tables, and was later offered to work as a stripper. “The club loved how hardworking and focused I was,” said the 23-year-old mother of one. “So they offered me a $544,000 agreement to be a celebrity house feature.”

    Palazio, through their manager BeBe Montgomery, also said: “It benefits everybody. It’s really fun. I hired Farrah as a waitress about a month ago and then we talked about it. She decided to switch to dancing. And then we talked again and came to an agreement for six figures. We’re really happy and excited.”

    The agreement will have Abraham work do research at the club two nights a week, Wednesdays and Fridays, through the end of the year.

    Image via farrahabrahamofficial, Instagram

  • Farrah Abraham Claims She Is Stripping For Research

    Farrah Abraham Claims She Is Stripping For Research

    People have done a lot of strange things for the purpose of research, and Farrah Abraham is jumping on the bandwagon. The former Teen Mom star recently started stripping at a Gentlemen’s Club in Austin, Texas.

    Farrah learned early that sex sells and she has been using her looks and her body to make her as much money as possible. Farrah starred in a porno film titled Farrah Superstar: Backdoor Teen Mom and also has her own line of sex toys. Farrah is also the author of an erotic novel series and says that she is only stripping to gain knowledge of the industry for a future project.

    “A friend of mine works there and I’m researching,” Farrah told E! News. “I’ve been trying out all the roles that make up a gentleman’s club, including cocktailing and dancing. There’s management and there’s cooking too. It’s job shadowing that I hope pays off. In the same way Jennifer Aniston researched her role as a stripper, that’s what I’m doing. It’s how I get the information to write my books and do my movies. Unfortunately, I’m not free to talk about what those future projects may be. But I’m interested in hearing all the women’s stories. And while I’m doing it, I’m getting paid. I’m getting paid to play a role and get informed.”

    Farrah insisted that the club is not sleazy and said that she is happy to have been offered a job there.

    “Palazio Gentlemen’s Club has shown me and other women how we should be respected, treated and cared for and not to settle for less. The owner, management and staff have all been caring and wonderful to work with,” she said.

    The club is also happy to have Farrah stripping and allegedly charges customers $500 to watch her strip for just 10 minutes.

    Image via YouTube

  • Farrah Abraham Stripping For Research?

    Farrah Abraham Stripping For Research?

    Farrah Abraham, everyone’s favorite Teen Mom trainwreck, made waves with a sex tape and book deals. She then released a line of sex toys.

    Now, Abraham has taken up stripping.

    She was recently hired at Palazio Gentlemen’s Club in Austin, Texas for a waitress position, which quickly turned into a stripping position.

    Farrah Abraham‘s motives for her career choice are what is making news right now. Not that her sex toy line isn’t getting publicity. That has been quite the talk of the nation for a while.

    But, her stripping gig in Austin is somewhat of a surprise.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWYggmhQBSs

    An insider said this of Farrah Abraham’s new career,

    “She was hired a couple of weeks ago as a cocktail waitress but wanted to make more money dancing, so they moved her up to the stage. She was on all three stages, the main stage and two side stages.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOPCfUoz51I

    Hmmm, money as the motive?! Not Farrah Abraham!

    Well, not according to her, anyway.

    Farrah Abraham says that she is just like Jennifer Anniston.

    “I’m doing research,” the 23-year-old explained. “A friend of mine works there and I’m researching. I’ve been trying out all the roles that make up a gentleman’s club, including cocktailing and dancing. There’s management and there’s cooking too. It’s job shadowing that I hope pays off. In the same way Jennifer Aniston researched her role as a stripper, that’s what I’m doing. It’s how I get the information to write my books and do my movies,”

    Farrah Abraham continued, “Unfortunately, I’m not free to talk about what those future projects may be. But I’m interested in hearing all the women’s stories. And while I’m doing it, I’m getting paid. I’m getting paid to play a role and get informed.”

    It’s not about money! It is simply a step stool to Hollywood and a respectable acting career.

    What do you think? Is Farrah Abraham desperate for money or doing research?

    Image via YouTube