Google is now allowing users to “dismiss” ads that they view on the Display Network. This feature acts in a very similar fashion to YouTube’s longstanding “skip” option, and will likely draw rave reviews from people sick of being retargeted by the same campaigns/products. In a way this helps advertisers avoid over-saturating users that aren’t interested in the first place, which also helps prevent brand fatigue.
Source: Search Engine Land
Google has released version 9.8.1. Among the new features is the ability for users to add and edit dynamic search ads and product listing ads.
Source: Search Engine Land
Bing is now allowing Webmaster Tools users to submit links to their websites that they feel are spam or low quality in nature. Bing believes this disavow tool is best utilized as a way for them to better connect with concerns shared among webmasters, and it is more of a signal than something that could accidentally damage your website.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Google is testing a fairly radical (in every sense of the word) display for its organic sitelinks. Should you spot this test in the wild, it’ll look much like this search for SEO Book:
That’s a fairly significant change, and could have some pretty huge implications for click through rate, landing page, and overall user behavior. But keep in mind, this is only a test.
Source: Search Engine Land
iGoogle, Google Video, and Google Mini are just a few of the handful of services Google is discontinuing. None of these moves comes as a surprise as Google focuses on the things it does that make itself money. Google Video obviously has a supplement in-house (YouTube, anyone?), and iGoogle’s role in the user experience has diminished as people frequently keep their browsers open between sessions.
Source: Tech Crunch
A recent study seems to show that while older Americans tend to consider themselves slow to adopt technology, most reported they wholeheartedly embrace it. The results indicate while older Americans seem to love technology, they’re not completely invested in admitting it.
Source: Mashable
While Google and a few other sources claim that Chrome is the most popular browser in the world, one leading research site, Net Applications, places Chrome at number 3 behind Internet Explorer and Firefox. However, those rankings soon will change. Chrome’s market share is at 19.08%, less that 1% behind Firefox’s 20.06%. while Chromes market share has increased by 5% over the past year, Firefox’s has decreased by almost 3%
Source: Mashable
Despite Google’s comprehensive focus on local search results, YP still continues to hold some sway as a veteran of the local reference wars. The company released its Q2 “Local Insights Report” this past week, which pulls data from 563 million searches on its own network and around 11 billion impressions on its ad network.
Restaurant queries remain the clear frontrunner in user search topics, followed by financial services, auto repair, real estate, and beauty services. The areas that experienced the most growth over the past year include family services, wedding planning, pharmacies, security services, and florists.
Source: Search Engine Land
According to a new study from SEO firm Conductor, 20% of Google Knowledge Graph results for trending keywords are outdated. Specifically, one out of five high activity queries saw outdated results in the Knowledge Graph bar compared to only 4 percent for normal queries.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Even some of the smartest people on the planet are clueless when it comes to presenting data. In an embarrassing blunder sure to preclude street fights between physics nerds and typography nerds, the CERN ultra-brains opted to present their data on the Higgs Boson in the universally reviled font, Comic Sans. The move has drawn more professional criticism than any aspect of the data presented.
Source: Verge
Ian Lurie points one some of the more ridiculous parts of enterprise SEO in a fairly entertaining manner. (Thankfully) this column is the closest thing our industry will ever get to a Jeff Foxworthy joke.
Analysis By: Ian Lurie, Search Engine Land
Server logs will unquestionably increase your SEO knowledge and abilities. Dave Sottimano walks through the process through which you can utilize these logs to diagnose and solve Googlebot accessibility issues.
Analysis By: Dave Scottimano, SEOmoz
Alan Bleiwess is one of the most respected SEOs in the Internet marketing industry, and no one is better at systematically deconstructing a resurrected website than him. Bleiwess leads us down one website’s path to recovery, redemption, and prosperity.
Analysis By: Alan Bleiwess, Search Engine Journal
Patel’s article lays out how the transition from Google Places pages into Google+ Local pages effects your local SEO strategy.
Analysis By: Sujan Patel, Search Engine Journal
Even the best businessmen blow a save, so to speak. Andrew Dumont offers 10 of the most common reasons why you’re likely to bomb on a potential business deal at some point in the near future (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).
Analysis By: Andrew Dumont, SEOmoz
Google+ turned one this week, having endured through a punch-lined life akin to the way we currently talk about Lycos, Dogpile, MySpace and Friendster. However, John Sutter outlines a solid argument why it’s still an important platform, and why it’s still possible the fledgling social network will catch the public’s attention.
Analysis By: John Sutter, CNN
There’s all sorts of chatter and misunderstanding about CERN’s July 4 announcement of its Higgs Boson findings. This clear and crisp 3 minute video explains what the big deal is. Rocket Clicks veterans will quickly recognize the popular RSA Animate style to the video – it’s impressive how quickly very high-level information can be communicated in this format!
Analysis By: Minute Physics, YouTube
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We totally understand the immediate gratification that comes with a short-term marketing strategy. You can track the data and see the effects immediately. But focusing
One of the absolute first lessons I learned in internet marketing was if you put something one click away, you lose about 80% of your browsers. Not 20% … 80%, as in “four out of five people”. The second lesson was, people don’t remember, pass along, or promote long URLs.
Here are the hidden benefits of having your own word-of-mouth domains, and a 4 minute video demonstrationg how easy it is to set up these friendly URLs…
In this Weekly Update, iOS mobile ad CTR tops all competitors, U.S. adults use email and search engines the most, Yahoo! updates their image search interface, and more.
