WebProNews

Tag: Search

  • Yahoo Search Gets Overhaul on Firefox

    Yahoo Search Gets Overhaul on Firefox

    Yahoo announced that it’s giving Firefox users in the U.S. a new desktop search experience. This includes a redesigned header and more prominent image and video results.

    The design will be especially noticeable when users search for famous people and movies. They’ll see a strip of related videos and images across the top of the page.

    “Taking a page from our redesigned Yahoo mobile search experience, Yahoo Search in Firefox delivers the most relevant results upfront so that you can take action right away,” says Mason Ng, VP of Search Distribution at Yahoo.

    Also on display will be movie info from IMDb, movie times and ticket purchasing from Fandango, listening/purchasing from iTunes, photos/reviews from Yelp and TripAdvisor, stats from Yahoo Sports, and personalized Flickr results in image search, which was actually announced separately the other day, and applies across browsers.

    “We have accomplished a lot over the last year,” says Mozilla’s Denelle Dixon-Thayer. “We worked closely with Yahoo to improve the search experience for our U.S. users. And, while we tend to be an opinionated and passionate project, Yahoo has been collaborative and flexible as we’ve provided continual feedback. Ultimately, these advances in the experience improve the competitive landscape for search which is good for our users.”

    The new design is rolling out on Firefox on Windows, Mac, and Linux in the U.S.

    As you probably know, Yahoo has an agreement with Firefox that puts it as the default search experience in the browser. Ever since then, Yahoo has tried to push users to that browser. To this day, Yahoo still displays an “Upgrade to the new Firefox” message at the top of its home page in other browsers.

    Images via Yahoo

  • Overstock Hurt By Google Search Changes Again

    Overstock Hurt By Google Search Changes Again

    Overstock.com has had a lot of financial trouble over the years as a direct result of how its content shows up in Google search results. It is perhaps one of the best examples of how drastically a reliance on Google traffic can hurt a business when things go wrong.

    Overstock released its financials for Q3 this week, with earnings down a reported 11% thanks in part to algorithmic changes at Google. This wasn’t the only problem the company pointed to, but it was a significant one.

    In the actual earnings report, Overstock said, “We are experiencing some slowing of our overall revenue growth which we believe is due in part to changes that Google made in its natural search engine algorithms, to which we are responding. While we work to adapt to Google’s changes, we are increasing our emphasis on other marketing channels, such as sponsored search and display ad marketing, which are generating revenue growth but with higher associated marketing expenses than natural search.”

    CEO Dr. Patrick Byrne told investors on a conference call, “Third of the problem was the Google search change, as it affects everybody. It affected — it was a little bit different this year than it was in previous years in some respects in who it helped and who it hurt. But we think we’ve already learned our way out of that.”

    These comments did not thing to help the company’s stock price, which immediately tanked by 17%.

    Overstock was famously penalized by Google for its search tactics in 2011. The company had been encouraging websites and colleges to post links to Overstock pages so students could get discounts. Before the penalty hit, the program had already been stopped, but thanks to a slow removal of links from some participating sites, Google caught wind of it and dealt a major blow to the company, leading to an ugly financial year for Overstock. They went from having top position search results to page five and six results.

    That debacle happened because of what Overstock did. These were unnatural links, and the company learned the hard way that Google won’t stand for them. This time, they just got hit by the algorithm as so many often do.

    Image via Overstock

  • Pinterest Profiles Get Revamp on Android, iPhone

    Pinterest is rolling out an updated mobile profile making it easier for users to get back to pins. It’s the first time they’ve updated the profile since 2013, and it has made things faster and easier to find pins while they’re on the go.

    According to the company, 80% of Pinterest users use the app on their mobile device.

    “A profile on Pinterest is like a library of all the things you like or want to try,” a spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews in an email. “More than 100 million people have saved over 50 billion Pins onto 1 billion boards, and we hope these updates make it easier to bring those saved ideas to life.”

    With the new profiles, recent pins and boards you’ve saved to are now at the top of the profile, and they can be sorted in alphabetical order. According to the company, they’ve heard from literally thousands of people that they’d like to be able to sort this way and to have a better way to find pins within their boards.

    “Sorting through your Pins and boards just got faster,” the spokesperson says. “If you have more than 15 Pins saved to a board, we’ve added filters to help you quickly see all your Pins for your most active topics. For example, if you’ve saved lots of recipes to a breakfast board, you’ll now be able to filter your Pins by topics like ‘waffles,’ ‘pancakes,’ ‘eggs’ and more. You can also explore other Pinners’ boards by topic.”

    As with much of what Pinterest announces these days, search is front and center with the new profiles. According to the company, early tests have shown that users who search their own pins are searching doing so 70% more with the new profiles. The number of those searching their pins in general has increased by 75%.

    Another element of the new profiles is that pins you’ve liked will automatically go to a board called “Your Likes” as the “likes” tab has been eliminated.

    Additionally, board covers are now a mosaic of your 6 most recent pins, and the profiles, designed for mobile, are just faster in general.

    According to Pinterest, people in early test have revisited their pins more often with the new profile.

    The new profiles are rolling out on both Android and iPhone.

    Images via Pinterest

  • Google My Business Gets Special Hours Feature

    Google My Business Gets Special Hours Feature

    Google My Business is getting a new feature that lets you pre-schedule specific hours for holidays or special events. Now that we’re into November, the feature couldn’t have come any sooner.

    When a business provides special hours to Google My Business for a known holiday in their region, Google will tell customers they’re seeing holiday-specific opening hours. If you don’t provide special hours for a known holiday in your region (even if you update your regular hours), Google will add a disclaimer to let customers know that “hours might differ” for the holiday.

    “The holiday season is fast approaching and with it customers looking for last minute gifts,” says Google’s Marissa Nordahl in the Google and Your Business Help Forum (via Rise Insight).”They are wondering when they can visit your business and counting on your business information being correct on Google.”

    “Special Hours are not just for the holidays,” she says. “With Special Hours in Google My Business, merchants can pre-schedule exceptional hours up to 365 days in advance. This feature is particularly useful for special events where normal business hours do not apply. Simply use Google My Business to tell us the date with special hours, and we’ll display those instead of the regular business hours for that date. No need to return and reupload your hours, we’ll display your regular hours automatically after the date you specified for your special event.”

    There’s a Google Help Center article about setting up special hours here. You can only use the feature if you’ve provided regular hours of course.

    Images via Google

  • Bing Ads Academy Training Program Announced

    Microsoft announce the launch of Bing Ads Academy, a new training program for advertisers to learn how to get more out of Bing Ads. There are courses for both newer customers and those who have been at it for a while.

    Bing Ads Academy consists of both online and in-person courses. They’re offered to premium customers working for agencies, as well as channel partners and tool providers.

    “Whether you’re brand new to PPC and need our 101-level content to get up to speed on the basics of setting up and running your first campaign, or if you’ve been managing PPC campaigns for years and want to get 301-level expert tactics for maximizing your return on investment, Bing Ads Academy can help,” says Bing’s Tina Kelleher. “If you’ve ever attended a webinar or a Bing Ads Connect event, then you already have an idea of what you can expect with Bing Ads Academy: on-demand virtual classrooms, as well as live, in-person trainers who will dive deep on specific topics to help you become more proficient in your Bing Ads campaign management and optimization skills.”

    “Because Bing Ads Academy is intended for people working in the premium segment of agencies, channel partners and tool providers, the primary content focus is on topics relevant to ‘Sellers’ (who pitch Bing Ads as a media buy to their clients) and ‘Do-ers’ (those who work within the Bing Ads platform on a daily basis),” Kelleher says. “The ‘Sellers’ will gain a better understanding of why Bing Ads is a smart buy for their clients and the ‘Do-ers’ can hone their ROI skills with specific strategies and tactics based on key features in Bing Ads.”

    Trainers include Eric Couch, Monica Orsino, Rachel Rogowin, and Purna Virgji. They all have extensive industry experience. You can learn more about their backgrounds and credentials here.

    Bing Ads continues to be an increasingly better business for Microsoft with the company recently reporting that it has turned a profit.

    “In search, we expect Bing’s strong trajectory to continue, remaining profitable for the remainder of the year,” said CFO Amy Hood.

    CEO Satya Nadella noted that Bing’s share is up to 20.7% in the U.S. with ad revenue growing 29% worldwide, helped by Windows 10 users asking Cortana over a billion questions. He later said, “I’m very, very excited obviously about what’s happening with Bing.”

    Images via Bing Ads, Chandler Dances on Things

  • RankBrain: Google’s 3rd Most Important Ranking Signal

    RankBrain: Google’s 3rd Most Important Ranking Signal

    RankBrain is reportedly the third most important signal Google’s search algorithms use when determining what content to show users in search results. Out of over 200 signals, this is one of the most powerful. And we’ve never heard of it until now.

    RankBrain was revealed in a Bloomberg Business interview with Greg Corrado, a senior research scientist at Google. It was introduced into Google’s search algorithm on a wide scale earlier this year, and according to the Corrado, it quickly became the third most important signal out of “hundreds”.

    Do you feel like Google’s search results have become significantly better this year? Have you noticed much difference? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    So what it is exactly? It’s apparently the first Google ranking signal that actually learns.

    For more of a quick “at-a-glance” look at what we know about RankBrain, go here.

    Corrado told Bloomberg, “The other signals, they’re all based on discoveries and insights that people in information retrieval have had, but there’s no learning.”

    According to the article, a “very large fraction” of Google queries are interpreted by the artificial intelligence system known as RankBrain. It also helps Google deal with “the 15 percent of queries a day it gets which its systems have never seen before,” such as “ambiguous queries, like ‘What’s the title of the consumer at the highest level of a food chain?’” the report explains.

    “RankBrain uses artificial intelligence to embed vast amounts of written language into mathematical entities — called vectors — that the computer can understand,” it says. “If RankBrain sees a word or phrase it isn’t familiar with, the machine can make a guess as to what words or phrases might have a similar meaning and filter the result accordingly, making it more effective at handling never-before-seen search queries.”

    According to the report, RankBrain has performed better than Corrado and company have expected, and has had a ten percent better success rate than humans at Google asked to guess which results Google would rank number one for various queries. Corrado even indicated that based on experiments Google has run, turning RankBrain off is as damaging to users as turning off half of Wikipedia pages.

    RankBrain is only one of many ways Google is increasingly turning to machine learning to improve its products. Google CEO Sundar Pichai discussed the company’s efforts several times throughout Alphabet’s Q3 earnings conference call last week.

    In prepared remarks (via a transcript of the call from SeekingAlpha), he told listeners, “Our investments in machine learning and artificial intelligence are a priority for us. Machine learning has long powered things like voice search, translation, and much more. And our machine learning is hard at work in mobile services like Now on Tap, which quickly assist you by providing additional useful information for whatever you’re doing, right in the moment, anywhere on your phone. If you’re an Android user that runs Marshmallow, try it out by long pressing the home button, when you’re in the Map, it’s very cool.”

    “Another example is the Google photos app, which leverages powerful machine learning technology to help people discover, organize and share their photos,” he added. ” It’s a great product that people love. In fact, in just a few months since we launched it at Google I/O, photos is now used by over a 100 million users who have collectively uploaded more than 50 billion photos and videos.”

    During the Q&A portion of the call, Pichai said, “On mobile search – to me – increasingly we see – we already announced that or 50% of our searchers are on mobile. Mobile gives us very unique opportunities in terms of better understanding users and over time as we use things like machine learning, I think we can make great strides. So my long-term view on this is, it is ask compelling or in fact even better than the desktop, but it will take us time to get there, and we’re going to be focused to be get that.”

    In response to a later question, he said, “Machine learning is core transformative way by which we are rethinking everything we are doing. We’ve been investing in this area for a while. We believe we are state-of-the-art here. And the progress particularly in the last two years has been pretty dramatic. And so we are – we are thoughtfully applying it across all our products, be it search, be it ads, be it YouTube and Play et cetera. And we are in early days, but you will see us in a systematic manner, think about how we can apply machine learning to all these areas.”

    Clearly machine learning is going to permeate more and more of the overall Google experience as time goes on, and with RankBrain having become such an important factor to search in such a short amount of time, we’d have to expect Google’s search experience to continue to improve rapidly.

    RankBrain has reportedly been deployed for a “few months”.

    So as a webmaster/site owner, is there anyway you can take advantage of this third most important ranking signal? Unfortunately, there’s probably not a lot you can do to directly influence how RankBrain views your content. That said, the signal could very well help Google better point people to your content as it better understands what users are looking for, particularly when it comes to long tail searches, which still account for a substantial number of queries Google sees on a regular basis.

    As for which signals are more important to Google than RankBrain, Google won’t come out and say, but experts in the field like Danny Sullivan think they’re most likely links (the signal that put Google on the map in the first place) and words (as in the words users enter in searches and the words on website’s page).

    Do you expect RankBrain to have an effect on SEO strategy? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • Bing Profitable, Microsoft Reports

    Bing Profitable, Microsoft Reports

    Bing is now profitable. Microsoft’s search engine has struggled to generate profits since it’s introduction in 2009, but the company reported its FY16 Q1 earnings on Thursday revealing that search accounted for over $1 billion.

    CFO Amy Hood said during the earnings conference call, “Search revenue increased to more than $1 billion this quarter and we passed an important milestone as our search business reached profitability.”

    She later added, “In search, we expect Bing’s strong trajectory to continue, remaining profitable for the remainder of the year.”

    CEO Satya Nadella noted that Bing’s share is up to 20.7% in the U.S. with ad revenue growing 29% worldwide, helped by Windows 10 users asking Cortana over a billion questions. He later said, “I’m very, very excited obviously about what’s happening with Bing.”

    Microsoft beat reporter Mary Jo Foley explains at ZDnet, “Microsoft has been working to streamline its search and advertising business business for months. Earlier this year, the company handed off its display advertising business (and possibly 1,000-plus of its employees working in that business) to AOL. The company also opted to get out of the map-data-collection business and sold off those assets and about 100 employees to Uber; its new strategy is to license/display other companies’ mapping data.”

    Meanwhile, Bing has been frequently upping its game in terms of ad offerings. Recent months have seen changes to the Bing Merchant Center, improvements to Accounts & Billing, the launch of a new Marketplace Trends visualization tool, new automation features for Bing Ads, the announcement of the Bing Ads Keyword Planner, improvements to conversion tracking, and new remarketing capabilities.

    Image via Chandler Dances on Things

  • Facebook Search Updated, New Optimization Opportunities?

    Facebook Search Updated, New Optimization Opportunities?

    Facebook announced some new search capabilities, potentially making the social network better for finding updates relevant to things you’re looking for or interested in learning about. Naturally, anything that makes it easier for users to find things can only benefit pages providing what they’re looking for.

    Are you making efforts to improve your visibility in Facebook search? Do you see this as a chance to get in front of more people? Discuss.

    In an email to WebProNews, a spokesperson for the company said, “Search is an important, long-term effort at Facebook.”

    Facebook users will now be able to search over both their friends’ posts and public posts.

    As Facebook VP of Search Tom Stocky writes in a Facebook update, “As you type in the search box, you’ll now see timely, personalized suggestions. You can dive into something that’s happening right now and follow popular stories as they unfold. You’ll quickly get a pulse for what the world is saying based on the stories, experiences, and perspectives that people have shared publicly.”

    “When a link gets shared widely on Facebook, it often anchors an interesting public conversation,” he says. “Now there’s a new way to quickly dive into that discussion. With one tap, you can find public posts about a link, see popular quotes and phrases mentioned in these posts, and check out an aggregate overview of sentiment. This feature is a first step—we look forward to people using it and giving us feedback so we can make it even better.”

    Facebook already claims to be getting 1.5 billion searches per day and that it has over 2 trillion posts in its index. But why exactly would you use Facebook for search? The short answer is that Facebook has a ton of content that traditional search engines just can’t give you.

    “The diverse experiences and perspectives that are shared on Facebook can’t be found anywhere else,” says Stocky. “Your search results are personalized and unique to you and, as always, you can only see things that have been shared with you. Likewise, you control who can see your posts on Facebook and it’s easy to change the audience of your past posts any time.”

    Marketers have been keeping an eye on Facebook’s search efforts for quite a while now. When Facebook launched Graph Search a few years ago, it became clear that this was something the company was beginning to take seriously, and given that most businesses have Facebook pages (as they make for an easy, and pretty much mandatory online presence), being found in search results is of the utmost importance.

    This will be even more the case for businesses taking advantage of Facebook’s growing number of business and ecommerce tools, such as the new shopping and service sections recently unveiled for pages. If you’re using Facebook to sell things, the search function is likely going to be one of your best friends (or enemies).

    As Facebook continues to make improvements to search, there are a couple of places marketers will want to continue to monitor. Facebook has a site dedicated to what it’s doing in search at search.fb.com, for one. The company also announced on Thursday that has launched a new channel in the Facebook Newsroom called Search FYI. This should serve as the search counterpart to the News Feed FYI channel, which is used to announce changes to how Facebook shows content in the News Feed.

    The new search capabilities are rolling out in US English on iPhone, Android, and desktop.

    What improvements could Facebook make to its search feature that would help your business? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Images via Facebook

  • Do You Welcome A Yahoo-Google Deal?

    Yahoo announced its Q3 earnings on Tuesday, and also took the opportunity to reveal that it has entered into a search and advertising deal with Google.

    Do you look forward to seeing Yahoo search results powered by Google? Let us know in the comments.

    This isn’t the all-encompassing deal Yahoo was aiming for years ago ahead of its “search alliance” with Microsoft. Nor does it have the exclusivity that the Yahoo/Microsoft alliance had until recently. Google now just gives Yahoo more options and exists in addition to Yahoo’s relationship with Microsoft.

    Yahoo said in a press release, “In October, the Company reached an agreement with Google that provides Yahoo with additional flexibility to choose among suppliers of search results and ads. Google’s offerings complement the search services provided by Microsoft, which remains a strong partner, as well as Yahoo’s own search technologies and ad products.”

    The deal expires at the end of 2018 as long as it gains approval from the U.S. Department of Justice and regulators in India and the European Union.

    An SEC filing about the deal explains:

    Pursuant to the Services Agreement, Google will provide Yahoo with search advertisements through Google’s AdSense for Search service (“AFS”), web algorithmic search services through Google’s Websearch Service, and image search services. The results provided by Google for these services will be available to Yahoo for display on both desktop and mobile platforms. Yahoo may use Google’s services on Yahoo’s owned and operated properties (“Yahoo Properties”) and on certain syndication partner properties (“Affiliate Sites”) in the United States (U.S.), Canada, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Middle East, Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Peru, Australia and New Zealand.

    Under the Services Agreement, Yahoo has discretion to select which search queries to send to Google and is not obligated to send any minimum number of search queries. The Services Agreement is non-exclusive and expressly permits Yahoo to use any other search advertising services, including its own service, the services of Microsoft Corporation or other third parties.Google will pay Yahoo a percentage of the gross revenues from AFS ads displayed on Yahoo Properties or Affiliate Sites. The percentage will vary depending on whether the ads are displayed on U.S. desktop sites, non-U.S. desktop sites or on the tablet or mobile phone versions of the Yahoo Properties or its Affiliate Sites. Yahoo will pay Google fees for requests for image search results or web algorithmic search results.

    In April, Yahoo and Microsoft announced an amendment to their search partnership, saying they “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 said, are “committed to maximizing the alliance.”

    The changes gave Yahoo increased flexibility to enhance its own search experience on any platform. The partnership is non-exclusive for both desktop and mobile. Yahoo would continue to serve Bing ads and search results for most of tis desktop search traffic, it said.

    They said the changes also offered an increased “agility and sales focus.” Microsoft would be the exclusive salesforce for ads delivered by its own Bing Ads platform, and Yahoo would continue to be the exclusive salesforce for its Yahoo Gemini ads platform.

    GeekWire shares a quote from Microsoft on the Yahoo’s Google news: “We remain committed to the Yahoo syndication partnership and will continue to serve the majority of Yahoo traffic as outlined in our contract extension. Yahoo is a valued partner and we look forward to continuing to serve our advertising customers through the Bing Ads marketplace.”

    Yahoo CEO (and former Googler) Marissa Mayer said during a conference call discussing the company’s earnings report (via SeekingAlpha’s transcript):

    As part of this process, we’re going to be investing in understanding how to balance the marketplace of our search queries in terms of how to provide the best results as well as the best monetization, and so we see some opportunities in terms of providing coverage of more ads on more queries. We also see some opportunities in different international regions to just achieve a different blending.

    And I would also say we’re very confident in our Yahoo! Gemini platform for search. And when we look at mobile we actually, as you know, have a different view in terms of what mobile search should be over time and what the best possible ways to monetize that are and really provide value to advertisers. And so for us the Yahoo! Gemini platform is really where we want to invest particularly on mobile in new formats, new ideas, and so I think you should expect to see a lot of our mobile traffic move to Yahoo! Gemini and for us to basically develop a technology that does a good job competitively balancing both the Bing and Google opportunities in terms of monetization.

    Obviously a deal would mean that businesses using Google for advertising and optimizing for Google search stand to gain increased visibility across Yahoo properties where it chooses to show their ads and content. It will be interesting to see how Yahoo uses Google in conjunction with Bing and its own stuff.

    Under Yahoo’s agreement with Microsoft, the latter powers at least 51% of Yahoo searches with Bing Ads on the desktop. On mobile, where Yahoo utilizes its own algorithm, Yahoo has more flexibility to deliver the mix its feels as best.

    I don’t know about Yahoo’s mobile search share, but Google recently said that mobile has overtaken desktop in terms of search volume worldwide.

    The Yahoo Google deal could fall apart just as their original deal did years ago if regulators don’t like the look of it, but it’s hard to imagine the companies aren’t confident about their ability to gain that approval. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with that.

    Do you think a Yahoo/Google deal will be good for businesses? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Pinterest Updates Billions Of Place Pins With Location Data And Info

    Pinterest Updates Billions Of Place Pins With Location Data And Info

    Two years ago, Pinterest launched Place Pins adding a travel magazine-like experience to the popular social/search site. These enabled users to see information like the address of a place, phone numbers, etc. in a format designed to look natural to the Pinterest experience.

    This week, Pinterest announced the update of seven billion pins with new location data and info. This is in response to travel becoming increasingly popular on the site/app.

    “With these updates, it’s easier to visit the places you’ve Pinned,” Pinterest says. “In just a tap, Pinners can get directions through Google and Apple maps, call a business, visit a website, view hours of operations and top reviews from people who’ve been there.”

    “As a discovery engine, we’re making it easier to discover new places to visit, restaurants to try and sights to see in your city and around the world,” it adds. “Now, when you save a Pin, we’ll show you other places to visit nearby on a map and other Pins people have saved from the same place.”

    As Pinterest puts more focus on this local search type of experience, it’s bound to open up new opportunities for businesses with physical locations.

    Pinterest is already presenting itself more and more as a search service (including to advertisers), and now that Pinterest is monetizing itself with promoted and buyable pins, it’s hard to imagine that some of this won’t translate to place pins as well.

    Considering that most small businesses consider phone call to be the most important success metric, Pinterest’s expansion of Place Pins is surely a welcome move forward.

    Here’s a look at the 20 top pinned places on Pinterest:

    1. Positano, Campania, Italy
    2. Musha Cay Island, Bahamas
    3. Hanoi, Vietnam
    4. Havasu Falls, Grand Canyon, Arizona, U.S.A.
    5. Petrohué Falls, Chile
    6. Jarlshof, Shetland, Scotland
    7. Kyoto, Japan
    8. Port Fairy, Victoria, Australia
    9. Glacier National Park, Montana, U.S.A.
    10. Tulum, Mexico
    11. Lisbon, Portugal
    12. New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.
    13. Kjeragbolten, Norway
    14. Marrakesh, Morocco
    15. Cape Town, South Africa
    16. Somoto’s Canyon, Nicaragua
    17. Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
    18. Milford Sound, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
    19. Reykjavik, Iceland
    20. New York City, New York, U.S.A.

  • Google Gives Updates On Panda, Penguin

    Google Gives Updates On Panda, Penguin

    Wondering what’s going on with Google’s Panda and Penguin updates? Well, not much has changed, but the company did address both at an industry conference.

    At SMX East, Google’s Gary Illyes reportedly said that the last Panda refresh is STILL rolling out. They had said up front that it was going to be a slow roll-out, and they were not kidding.

    It began in mid-July, and now it’s October, still going. So if you were still waiting to recover after being hit by a previous Panda update/refresh, you may still have a shot (assuming that you’ve taken steps to fix the problems that got you hit by the update in the first place).

    Penguin, on the other hand, has not come back around yet, though it shouldn’t be too much longer. Google’s John Mueller said last week that he expected it to happen before the end of the year.

    According to Search Engine Land, Illeyes said it will be in the “foreseeable future” and that he “hopes” it will be before the end of the year. He also reiterated that it will the real-time version that Google has been talking about for quite some time.

    Image via Google

  • Study: Local Search Gets Local Businesses More Clicks, Calls Than Any Other Channel

    Study: Local Search Gets Local Businesses More Clicks, Calls Than Any Other Channel

    Facebook may be doing more with is ads to help local businesses, but local search is still much more effective.

    BrightLocal recently released results from a survey (via Search Engine Land) finding that local search drives more clicks and calls than any other marketing channel as well as greater ROI than any other digital marketing channel.

    The firm polled local business owners in August in order to understand which marketing channels drive the most traffic, calls, and offline visits to local businesses. It covered “all types” of businesses including plumbers, accountants, dentists, etc. 477 people who optimized for 8,200 locations in the past year responded to the survey.

    It found that local search and organic search deliver the highest quality leads and that 34% would choose local search over any other channel. It also found that social media, display ads and Bing Ads deliver the lowest ROI.

    Here’s a look at how much time respondents dedicated o various channels:

    And here’s how they rated effectiveness of each channel:

    Businesses consider phone calls to be the most valued success metric compared to web traffic, search rankings, and significantly over customers actually walking through the door or inquiring via website. With that in mind, here’s what BrightLocal’s respondents reported about calls generated by various channels:

    Be sure to take a look at the full report, which provides a great deal of analysis and additional finding.

    Images via Thinkstock, BrightLocal

  • eBay Asks Sellers What They Think About Reducing Search Results

    eBay Asks Sellers What They Think About Reducing Search Results

    eBay appears to be thinking about limiting the number of listings it shows in search results to just five, with a link to see more. Currently, it shows fifty listings with the option for users to choose to display 25, 100, or 200.

    Screen Shot 2015-09-18 at 11.38.10 AM

    EcommerceBytes reports that eBay has been sending a survey around to sellers asking them how they would feel about limiting product searches to the five “most relevant” search items. According to the report, these are questions eBay asked:

    How important is it to you to minimize the buyer’s search results to the most relevant items?

    How would you feel if a product search on eBay showed buyers only the top 5 most relevant search items? A link to see the other items would be provided.

    How would you feel if searches on eBay continued to return all items that match the search criteria, as is the case today?

    I’m not sure why users wouldn’t want to see as many results as possible as long as they’re sorted according to relevance, but at least they’re asking sellers about it.

    This was only one part of the survey, which according to EcommerceBytes, also included questions about fees, daily deals, advertising, and drop-shipping.

    Images via eBay

  • Google Will Make It Harder For Repeat Offenders To Get Back Rankings

    Google Will Make It Harder For Repeat Offenders To Get Back Rankings

    Google is not cool with you frequently violating their guidelines. Well, obviously they’re not cool with you violating them at all, but they do give second chances. If you screw up and get slapped with a manual penalty, you can fix the issue and file a reconsideration request, and get back into Google’s good graces.

    This will only go so far, however. If Google accepts your reconsideration request, and you keep violating guidelines after that, it’s not going to be so easy (if it was even easy in the first place) the next time.

    That’s the gist of a message Google is sending webmasters. The company’s search quality team wrote a short blog post on the subject, urging webmasters to take its guidelines seriously. It says:

    In order to protect the quality of our search results, we take automated and manual actions against sites that violate our Webmaster Guidelines. When your site has a manual action taken, you can confirm in the [Manual Actions] page in Search Console which part of your site the action was taken and why. After fixing the site, you can send a reconsideration request to Google. Many webmasters are getting their manual action revoked by going through the process.

    However, some sites violate the Webmaster Guidelines repeatedly after successfully going through the reconsideration process. For example, a webmaster who received a Manual Action notification based on an unnatural link to another site may nofollow the link, submit a reconsideration request, then, after successfully being reconsidered, delete the nofollow for the link. Such repeated violations may make a successful reconsideration process more difficult to achieve. Especially when the repeated violation is done with a clear intention to spam, further action may be taken on the site.

    Long story short, don’t violate the Webmaster Guidelines. If you do for some reason, and you get caught, and action is taken against your site, don’t keep violating them once you get your site back in the game. You’ll get caught again, and you’re going to have a much harder time getting your rankings back.

    If you need a refresher, you can find the guidelines here. Read it over, and know what Google considers spam.

    Image via Google

  • Does Pinterest Have A Place In Your Search Budget?

    Does Pinterest Have A Place In Your Search Budget?

    Pinterest is often thought of as a social network, and it is to an extent. You can follow people (including friends), and they can follow you back. You can interact with them and even send them direct messages. In these regards it’s very much in the same stable as Facebook, Twitter, and others. Like Facebook and Twitter, it also has a search feature. Pinterest wants marketers to know that this is more what they should be focusing on. Not the social aspects.

    Now that advertising on Pinterest is a thing, the company is working to get more businesses using it. The Wall Street Journal reports that in its ad pitch to companies, it’s trying to distance itself from social networks like Facebook and get advertisers to shift some of their search budget to Pinterest.

    Does Pinterest currently have a place in your search marketing budget? Your marketing budget in general? Does it deserve one? Let us know what you think.

    Pinterest Use Among Consumers Can’t Be Ignored

    Last month, we looked at research from Pew Research Center showing that the proportion of online adults who use Pinterest has doubled since 2012, though like other social platforms, didn’t experience significant growth in usage between September 2014 and April 2015. Still, in 2012, the percentage of online adults using Pinterest was 15%. Now, it’s 31%. 27% of those Pinterest users use it daily. That’s up from 17% last September.

    “Some 31% of online adults use Pinterest, a proportion that is unchanged from the 28% of online adults who did so in September 2014,” the study said. “Women continue to dominate Pinterest – 44% of online women use the site, compared with 16% of online men. Those under the age of 50 are also more likely to be Pinterest users – 37% do so, compared with 22% of those ages 50 and older.”

    Here’s a look at Pew’s demographic findings for Pinterest:

    Another study from Ahalogy polled over 1,000 people and determined that 82% are female and 18% are male, but that men on Pinterest have increased 4% since 2014.

    Beyond gender, the study looked at race, education, employment, marital status, age, household size, sexual orientation, pets, kids, and income. 75–80% identified themselves as white compared to 10% and 5% African-American. 45% have graduated college or postgraduate. 56% said they are employed with 15% saying they are a homemaker, 12% unemployed, and 10% students. Respondents were more likely to be single and living alone (33%), and less likely to be divorced (9%).

    82% of daily pinners are under 40. 88% heterosexual, and active pinners are more likely to have pets than not. 61% have dogs while 43% have cats. The number of active pinners with children dropped to 36% from 46% in 2014. Users are also more likely to be affluent with 45% having household incomes of at least $60k and growth in the $60-100k range.

    There are really a ton of different comparisons throughout that report, but here’s a look at categories most browsed by active and daily pinners:

    Here’s an infographic (via Social Media Today) highlighting even more from the study:

    Notice the parts that say 39% use Pinterst as a general search engine, 49% use it instead of browsing catalogs, and 35% skip e-commerce sites and look for products on Pinterest instead.

    Pinterst Wants Your Search Ad Dollars

    As the Journal notes, while the social network ad space is becoming a more and more crowded playing field, Pinterest wants to focus on marketers’ search budgets as search is still the dominant part of the online advertising industry with 45% of digital ad spend in the U.S. in 2014 (eMarketer).

    The report says Pinterest has been “making the rounds” with advertisers, trying to convince them to look at its service with a search eye rather than a social one. It quotes a Pinterest exec as saying that Pinterest isn’t a place where people go to connect with family and friends, but rather to “go through the catalog and do searches”.

    Last month, the company hired the former head of Twitter’s brand advertising products Nipoon Malhotra to work on its ad tech. Malhotra also worked in search advertising at Microsoft (Bing).

    “Nipoon is a proven leader with the ability to execute and scale teams and revenue generating products,” said Pinterest head of product for monetization Jonathan Shottan in August. “We are thrilled to have him as part of the team as we continue to grow and innovate on ads and commerce.”

    There is plenty to potentially be gained from organic Pinterest search optimization as well. Here are some things to consider on that front. There are even opportunities for visibility in more traditional search engines like Bing and Google with a focused Pinterest strategy. Bing has been showing Pinterest content in search results for quite a while, but Google launched a new integration a few months ago.

    Do you view Pinterest as part of the search landscape? Do you treat it as such in your marketing efforts (either organic or paid)? Discuss.

    Images via Pinterest, Pew, Ahalogy

  • Google Gets New Logo, ‘Identity Family’

    Google Gets New Logo, ‘Identity Family’

    There’s a lot of change going on at Google. Last month, the company announced the creation of Alphabet, making Google just one company underneath the larger umbrella which also houses some of its more ambitious endeavors.

    But Google itself, which has seen a great deal of change over the years, is getting a new look, “identity family,” and “visual language”. Basically, it’s getting a new logo and look-and-feel. Google explains in a blog post:

    As you’ll see, we’ve taken the Google logo and branding, which were originally built for a single desktop browser page, and updated them for a world of seamless computing across an endless number of devices and different kinds of inputs (such as tap, type and talk).

    It doesn’t simply tell you that you’re using Google, but also shows you how Google is working for you. For example, new elements like a colorful Google mic help you identify and interact with Google whether you’re talking, tapping or typing. Meanwhile, we’re bidding adieu to the little blue “g” icon and replacing it with a four-color “G” that matches the logo.

    This can explain even better:

    It’s not just about the logo and dots though. Google has also upgraded the search results page on mobile. Here’s a look:

    On Android, the “home page” of the Google app has been adjusted to organize Google Now card by category to make things more predictable. The cards will shift and change size based on importance as the day progresses:

    Here’s a look at Google’s evolution:

    Images via Google

  • GiantGator Launches To Be ‘Most Extensive Search Engine for Freelance Jobs’

    GiantGator Launches To Be ‘Most Extensive Search Engine for Freelance Jobs’

    A new freelance job search engine called giantGator launched today, aggregating job postings for freelancers from a number of sources including Freelancer.com, eLance, UpWork, Guru.com, and others.

    A spokesperson for giantGator tells WebProNews, “Thanks to the Freelancer’s Union study, we know that an estimated 53 million Americans are freelancing – but how many freelance jobs are out there, and how easy are they to find?”

    The estimated number of posted freelance projects giantGator has aggregated since February is 1.36 million, and the average number of projects posted daily is 8,245. The typical lifespan of a posted project is about four days, it says.

    giantgator-infographic

    “These new numbers demonstrate how extremely fast-paced the freelance marketplace is operating,” the spokesperson says. “giantGator aims to streamline the daunting search process for freelancers by aggregating opportunities in one place.”

    The interface is simple, and certainly nothing fancy, but it’s useable, and to the point, which is really all you need when you’re looking for a job. No need to overcomplicate things.

    It gives you a couple of sliders that let you indicate what kind of wages you’re looking for (see image above), which helps you refine your searches.

    The running count of how many new projects have been added in the last 24 hours is nice too, as it can give you an idea of how much the job pool is being updated. You can also set alerts for specific searches.

    GiantGator can be used to search for jobs in writing, application development, database administration, design, sales, SEO, data entry, ecommerce, video services, marketing, lead generation, research, etc.

    Image via giantGator

  • Duke Kahanamoku Google Doodle Shines Light On Legendary ‘Big Kahuna’

    Duke Kahanamoku Google Doodle Shines Light On Legendary ‘Big Kahuna’

    Duke Kahanamoku (or Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku) is the subject of a new Google doodle honoring his legacy as the man who is largely responsible for spreading the sport of surfing. Kahanamoku, who won five Olympic medals for swimming, and was also known as “The Duke” and “The Big Kahuna,” was born one hundred and twenty-five years ago today.

    While water-sports were his main claim to fame, Kahanamoku had quite a collection of professions.

    As Google explains, “The story of Duke Kahanamoku–the Hawaiian who, in 1912, first drew the world’s collective gaze upon the art of surfing–reads like mythology. Born in Honolulu in 1890, he is credited in over a dozen feature films, surfed the world’s most imposing swells before Californians knew what surfing was, won five Olympic medals in swimming and was elected sheriff of his beloved home county thirteen times.”

    duke-kahanamoku

    “The Big Kahuna was a tremendous athlete, to be sure, and by all accounts staggeringly cool, but he also had a proclivity for heroics–one morning in 1925, just as dawn crept into the summer sky over Newport Beach, a 40-foot fishing vessel called the Thelma found herself in the grip of a sudden and violent squall,” the company adds. “Waves hammered the Thelma’s deck, and the vessel succumbed to the thrashing breakers, stranding its crew in the surf. The Duke, who watched from the shore as he prepared for that morning’s ride, rushed headlong into the maelstrom with his surfboard and, along with three friends, managed to wrest twelve men from the clutches of the Pacific.”

    In other words, the man was a true hero, but as if that weren’t enough, as Google notes he also played a role in helping the Hawaiian Islands achieve statehood in 1959 about nine years before his death.

    Here’s some rare footage of what is said to be Kahanamoku at Waikiki Beach in 1939:

    Google is showing the doodle throughout North and much of South America as well as in much of Europe, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Japan. August 24 also happens to be Ukraine Independence Day, and in that country, Google is honoring that with its own doodle.

    Other subjects Google has run doodles for on August 24 over the years include the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, and the 112th birthday of writer Jorge Luis Borges.

    Images via Google, Wikimedia Commons

  • Deez Nuts Swings Past Hillary Clinton in Google Searches

    Deez Nuts Swings Past Hillary Clinton in Google Searches

    I’m not sure what to say about Deez Nuts, a 2016 Presidential “candidate” that is currently polling better than the majority of the Republican primary field in multiple states.

    I mean, it’s funny. Don’t say it’s not. We’re all 12 and this is funny. On the other hand, I’m sad. I’m so sad and I’m scared.

    Anyway, Deez Nuts is really a 15-year-old boy from Iowa. Last month, Brady Olson filed with the Federal Elections Commission as an Independent, and the rest is history. Some pollsters included Deez Nuts in their polls, and he racked up 9% support in North Carolina, 8% in Minnesota, and 7% in his home state.

    Now, he’s more searched-about than Hillary Clinton:

    If you’re wondering what Deez Nuts stands for, here’s his platform. He believes in deportation of illegal immigrants, full rights for abortion and same sex marriage, and the Iran Nuclear Deal.

    Here’s a compilation of news anchors around the country being forced to say Deez Nuts. God bless America. God help America.

  • Google’s Twitter Integration Hits Desktop

    Google’s Twitter Integration Hits Desktop

    In May, Google announced new Twitter integration into its search results on mobile devices. This was the result of a deal between the two companies, which gives Google access to all of Twitter’s tweets in real time.

    Last week, some in the UK reported seeing a similar feature appearing in results on the desktop. Asked about it, Google said it was just experimenting.

    While the company didn’t go so far as to write a new blog post about it, it updated its original announcement on Friday to say: “We’ve extended this to desktop now too, and in English everywhere.”

    Screen Shot 2015-08-21 at 3.46.20 PM

    So there you have it. Now tweets have much more reach on Google, and that will likely increase as time goes on. It appears that for now, the queries for which Google surfaces the functionality are still very limited.

    More more on what this might mean for you, read this and this.

    Images via Google

  • Google Could Easily Rig an Election with Search Results, Says Study

    Google Could Easily Rig an Election with Search Results, Says Study

    Search results wield the power to color one’s view of any person, place, or thing. This is a given. And being the far-and-away biggest search engine in the world, Google wields most of that power. Of course, in order to sleep at night, we all have to assume that Google will, ultimately, restrain from using that power to nefarious ends. At least not too nefarious.

    Though it should be obvious that Google plays a huge role in most Americans’ perceptions, it’s certainly unnerving to think about the search giant swaying an election.

    But that’s exactly what Google has the power to do, according to researchers.

    Psychologist Robert Epstein says, unequivocally, that your next president could ascend to the oval office with the help of some Google search algorithm tweaks. And he has some data to prove it.

    Epstein set up a very basic experiment. Take a bunch of undecided voters, give them the choice between two candidates, set them loose to search said candidates for 15 minutes on a Google-like search engine, and see if it sways their opinions.

    And boy did it ever.

    From Epstein’s write-up at Politico:

    In our basic experiment, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups in which search rankings favored either Candidate A, Candidate B or neither candidate. Participants were given brief descriptions of each candidate and then asked how much they liked and trusted each candidate and whom they would vote for. Then they were allowed up to 15 minutes to conduct online research on the candidates using a Google-like search engine we created called Kadoodle.

     

    Each group had access to the same 30 search results—all real search results linking to real web pages from a past election. Only the ordering of the results differed in the three groups. People could click freely on any result or shift between any of five different results pages, just as one can on Google’s search engine.

     

    When our participants were done searching, we asked them those questions again, and, voilà: On all measures, opinions shifted in the direction of the candidate who was favored in the rankings. Trust, liking and voting preferences all shifted predictably.

    How much of a shift? Epstein says favorability ratings for the candidates jumped anywhere from 37 to 63 percent which, given elections are often decided by small margins, is a pretty big deal.

    It’s not far-fetched when you think about it. if you searched for a candidate, and you mostly see negative headlines pop up on the first page of search results, it’s reasonable to think your opinion of said candidate may suffer. Flip that to positive results, and you could understand how Epstein thinks Google could easily promote certain candidates.

    Of course, one would have to believe that Google would want to influence an election. I mean, who knows? It’s not as if Google is a massive corporation with a multitude of vested interests.

    Would that be evil of them?