Video: How Google Search Has Changed Since Launch
Google just released a video showing just how much their search engine has transformed since it launched way back in 1997. The search engine has come a long way since it started as a project at Stanford University, evolving into the quintessential hub for us to get information from today. The biggest change has been speed. Google’s index used to be months behind, with no focus on real-time content. As explained in the video, month-old content does not help people looking for up-to-the-minute news stories. Thankfully Google figured out how to get up-to-date results in their index,...
Read MoreGoogle Search Results Now Up-to-the-Minute Fresh
Google Fellow Amit Singhal announced on his blog that its newest update will bring searchers results that are more current than ever before. If a major event were to occur… NOW… you could search for it and start seeing news results about it within a minute or two. This is a major leap forward, building on the momentum of last summer’s Caffeine update (see our post, Web Presence Management and Google Caffeine). With this update, Google says up to 35% of searches will be impacted. Let me give you a timely example of the value of this new update. Last night, our house in...
Read MoreGoogle Increasing Privacy & Transparency, Hiding Valuable SEO Information
Ever wondered how Google decides which search ads to display for you? Soon you can see exactly why certain ads show up for you, even if they weren’t directly related to your current search. By clicking the “Why This Ad?” text link inside Google’s Ads, you’ll be able to see the reason the ad was displayed based on your search history. You can even block specific advertisers or entirely turn off ads. Check out a video on how to use the changes: In a change that is troubling for SEO campaigns, Google has implemented a new policy regarding searches. Anybody logged in to Google while...
Read MoreAol, Yahoo! and Microsoft Unite For Advertising Plan
It seems that competing against search giant Google was too daunting a task for Aol, Yahoo! and Microsoft to tackle on their own. Even combined, they account for less than 30% of the search engine market share in the US (Google dominates with 65%), but a new Ad deal will see these old competitors band together. The three companies plan to begin selling ad space on one another’s search results pages. Yahoo! Search is already powered by Bing, but this is a significant step further in their relationship. Aol, on the other hand, is doing this to avoid becoming irrelevant to...
Read MoreLong Tail Keywords and the State of the Search Engines
ComScore and Hitwise, the leaders when it comes to tracking the search engines, just released their data on search engine use in the US in August and it includes a few helpful SEO takeaways. Let’s kick things off with some of the numbers first and then bring it back to SEO. In August, there were 17.1 billion searches on US search engines, with just under 65% of them running through Google sites. Bing and Yahoo! combine for 31% with Ask and Aol fighting for the meager remainders. Bing and Yahoo! are very nearly evenly split in terms of search engine share. Considering that these two search...
Read MoreGoogle Buying Zagat May Impact Local SEO
Google recently purchased the premium restaurant review service Zagat to integrate into local search results. Zagat has been a trusted source for local restaurant reviews since 1979 (you’ve no doubt seen their guide books at the airport, library, etc…) but has experienced some hard times trying to integrate their services online. Having their ratings (based on a scale of 1-30) behind a paywall has let free competitors such as Yelp become the top online sources for reviews. In fact, traffic jumped 42% for Yelp up to 33.3 million visitors in July 2011 vs. 23.4 million in July 2010; while...
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