SEO

by The Traffic Wizard on SEO

SearchCap: Google Health, Google Maps Explore & Our App

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web.

From Search Engine Land:

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Industry

Local & Maps

Searching

SEO

SEM / Paid Search

The post SearchCap: Google Health, Google Maps Explore & Our App appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Source: SEL

 
by The Traffic Wizard on SEO

New Interactions Reporting In AdWords Follow On Video Campaigns Integration

adwords interaction reporting columns video campaignsAlong with the introduction of video campaigns into the main AdWords interface, Google has added new reporting columns to help marketers analyze campaign performance across channels.

Here’s a rundown of the new columns:

  • Interactions – These are the main actions people take with the ad formats — clicks for text and shopping ads, views for video ads, and engagements for Lightbox ads and the new Gmail ads.
  • Interaction Rate – Shows how often people interact with an ad after it’s shown to them—such as clicks divided by impressions for text ads, or views divided by impressions for video ads.
  • Avg Cost – This is the average amount paid for divided by total interactions—clicks divided by cost, or views divided by total cost.

You’ll notice each metric is labeled depending on the type of ad format being measured.

Another change is that Total rows are broken out by campaign type, instead of by network, and total rows will only appear for only the campaign types in the account.

The post New Interactions Reporting In AdWords Follow On Video Campaigns Integration appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Source: SEL

 
by The Traffic Wizard on SEO

SearchCap: New Google Logo, App Interstitials Penalty & Goodbye Search Queries Report

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web.

From Search Engine Land:

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Local & Maps

Link Building

Searching

SEO

SEM / Paid Search

The post SearchCap: New Google Logo, App Interstitials Penalty & Goodbye Search Queries Report appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Source: SEL

 
by The Traffic Wizard on SEO

Mount McKinley Becomes Mt. Denali On Google Maps; Bing Stays With Old Name

Denali in 1996, by Danny Sullivan

Denali in 1996, by Danny Sullivan

North America’s highest mountain has been restored to its native name of Denali, as announced by US President Barack Obama. The peak had been known as Mount McKinley since 1917.

The move has sparked some political debate, especially among Ohioan politicians who view it as a slight against Ohio native William McKinley, who was the 25th president of the United States. Alaskan politicians had been pushing for the change.

I was curious how quickly our major search engines may have changed the name on their mapping services. As it turns out, Google’s already switched over:

Google Maps Denali

On Google Maps, the peak is listed as “Mt Denali.” A search for the official name of “Denali” won’t find it, but “Mount Denali,” “Mt Denali” and even “Mount McKinley” will.

On Bing Maps, it’s still the old name that appears:

Bing Denali

A search for “Mt Denali” will find the mountain but shows the Mount McKinley name. “Mount McKinley” also finds it. “Denali” brings up the town of Denali.

Both Google and Bing also provide direct answer information for places along the right side of their search results pages. The name change has yet to come to these areas. For a search on “Mount McKinley,” both still list the peak with that name rather than Denali:

google mt mckinley

bing mt mckinley

Searching for “Denali” brings up information about the mountain but still with the Mount McKinley name:

denali google

bing denali

These direct answers for both search engines draw heavily from Wikipedia. Its page about the mountain has been changed to reflect the restored name of Denali.

And via Gary Price, at InfoDocket, here’s the actual order by the US Secretary of the Interior explaining the name change and why it’s happening.

The post Mount McKinley Becomes Mt. Denali On Google Maps; Bing Stays With Old Name appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Source: SEL

 
by The Traffic Wizard on SEO

SearchCap: Google News Editors Pick App, Google Home Service Ads & Mobile App UI

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web.

From Search Engine Land:

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Local & Maps

Link Building

Searching

SEO

SEM / Paid Search

Search Marketing

The post SearchCap: Google News Editors Pick App, Google Home Service Ads & Mobile App UI appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Source: SEL

 
by The Traffic Wizard on SEO

SearchCap: AdWords Snippet Extensions, Google Antitrust & Google Featured Snippets

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web.

From Search Engine Land:

  • New AdWords Structured Snippet Extension Is Rolling Out

    The latest extension gives advertisers more control in choosing which key features to highlight in their ads.

  • Google Comes Out Swinging, Denies All Antitrust Charges In Shopping Search

    In a formal filing and in a companion blog post by Google SVP and General Counsel Kent Walker, Google has vigorously denied that it has abused its market position in search. Instead, it characterized its actions and UI changes as directed toward quality and improving the user experience. In the blog post entitled “improving quality […]

  • How To Save On SEO Without Being Cheap

    Good SEO does not come cheap, but columnist Kaspar Szymanski has some tips for beginners on how to save on future SEO costs with a bit of streamlining and advance planning.

  • Swapped Out: Losing A Google Direct Answer [Case Study]

    When a client loses its featured snippet, columnist Glenn Gabe does some competitive analysis to try to determine why. His findings may shed light on what it takes to get a featured snippet in Google search results.

  • Twitter B2B Top-Dog Targeting: Thursday’s Psychographic Hot House

    Ever had a product or service to promote to the C-Suite within a large corporation and wish you could reach the CEO, CFO, CMO or all of the above? In last week’s post, we showed you how to target the C-Suite on Facebook in Nail B2B Authority Targeting: Psychographic Targeting Hot House. In this week’s […]

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Industry

Link Building

Searching

SEO

SEM / Paid Search

Search Marketing

The post SearchCap: AdWords Snippet Extensions, Google Antitrust & Google Featured Snippets appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Source: SEL

 
by The Traffic Wizard on SEO

SearchCap: Google Local Pack Study, AdWords Scripts & Facebook M

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web.

From Search Engine Land:

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Industry

Local & Maps

Link Building

Searching

SEO

SEM / Paid Search

The post SearchCap: Google Local Pack Study, AdWords Scripts & Facebook M appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Source: SEL

 
by The Traffic Wizard on SEO

SearchCap: Cortana On Tap, Google Map Maker Expands & Google Mobile Image Search

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Industry

Local & Maps

Link Building

SEO

SEM / Paid Search

Search Marketing

The post SearchCap: Cortana On Tap, Google Map Maker Expands & Google Mobile Image Search appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Source: SEL

 
by The Traffic Wizard on SEO

Cortana For Android Is Officially Available For Download In US Beta

cortana-logo-1920

A month ago Microsoft’s virtual assistant Cortana became available for download in a pre-beta release. Now an official US beta version of Cortana for Android is here. An iOS version is coming soon.

The full Cortana experience and functionality are available to Windows 10 and Windows Phone users. But because Cortana for Android doesn’t access your email or read your calendar it can’t deliver the same depth of functionality and features on Android. Nonetheless I was able to use Cortana in its beta form today for a wide range of tasks:

  • As a voice-enabled search engine for web queries
  • To initiate texts and calls with voice
  • Set alarms
  • Create reminders
  • Create meeting and calendar entries
  • Get driving directions (it uses Google Maps)
  • Conduct local searches near me (this was a standout feature)

From a technical standpoint I don’t know what prevents Cortana currently from reading my email (Gmail) or Google Calendar. On the iPhone I actually rely more heavily on the Outlook mail app, which presumably it could access and thus would deliver a more complete experience on that platform (we’ll have to see).

Cortana for Android

In its current form you can’t ask Cortana things like, “What time is my flight tomorrow”? as you can with Google. Google knows because it accesses your email and calendar entries that contain the flight information. From this information Google can also surface useful links and content in Google Now (e.g., “things to do in Miami”) and tell you its time to leave for the airport or meetings based on traffic.

When Cortana doesn’t know something (like my flight time) it translates that question into a conventional search query and serves a page of mobile web results, which may or may not be relevant to the particular need need or question at hand.

For those interested in swapping Cortana for Google Now, the former can be permanently substituted for Google Now by swiping up and selecting “complete action using Cortana  . . . always.” The “Cortana Now” content experience, however, falls short of the current Google Now experience.

More narrowly, as a voice-assistant and speech-enabled search engine, Cortana can probably go head to head with Google. But, in addition to the other limitations, it can’t launch apps or initiate functions hands free — as you can by saying “OK Google” or “Hey Siri” (less reliably).

Cortana is part of Microsoft’s broader effort to “colonize” Android — to deliver an increasing range of Microsoft experiences on top of the Android OS. It’s analogous to Netflix riding on top of internet access provided by Comcast.As another recent example, Bing launched its version of Google “Now on Tap,” called “Bing Snapshots.” Though it’s really a demo app for developers, it offers contextually relevant search information for any app installed on your Android device.

Cortana for Android is already pretty good and will likely improve over time. However there won’t be much motivation for Android owners to use it regularly unless or until it can access the personal information stored in mail and calendar entries. If it can do those things it might be able to give Google Now a run for its money.

The post Cortana For Android Is Officially Available For Download In US Beta appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Source: SEL

 
by The Traffic Wizard on SEO

Google Controls 65 Percent Of Search, Bing 33 Percent — [comScore]

google-bing-logos2-1920

In the simplest terms, the world of organic search is roughly two-thirds Google, one third Bing. Those are the July 2015 “powered by” numbers provided by comScore for the US search market.

In terms of non-network share, Bing saw a tiny 0.1 percent gain in July and so did Ask. Google was flat with 64 percent, unchanged for the past three months. Yet Google’s market share is down from 67.6 percent a year ago.

comscore july 2015 search rankings

Together Bing and Yahoo combined in July for 33.1 percent market share. AOL will soon be a Bing-powered search property. If that were the case today, the share of Bing and Bing-powered searches would represent 34.3 percent of all query volume.

The post Google Controls 65 Percent Of Search, Bing 33 Percent — [comScore] appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Source: SEL