Search industry goes deep into social media and online PR
Search goes super holistic at San Jose. Blogs, reputation management, content and communities are big on the agenda as well as the return of creative advertising, this time by way of Google and Yahoo!
Viacom fancies coy Bebo, and with good reason
This week’s Bebo acquisition rumour comes in the shape of Viacom, the also-rans in the MySpace courtship battle. With Bebo in no rush to sell, we don’t anticipate this latest industry gossip will become a reality anytime soon.
It is plainly obvious that Big Media Companies are now scrambling all of their M&A jets in search of social networking sites to buy. This was previously something that seemed a little bit like bandwagon jumping a few months ago, but now there is a real reason for it.
Is Google News on holiday?
What's happened to Google News today? Is Newsbot on vacation? We noticed that stories stopped being indexed at about midday GMT, and other publishers are reporting similar issues.
Highly unusual...
Why isn’t ebookers top of Google for a search on ‘ebookers’?
While doing some project-based research last week I noticed that ebookers isn’t on the first page in Google for a search on its own brand name. Ouch.
The travel group is currently paying Google for an Adwords ad, to achieve the brand visibility it needs, but it is puzzling as to why an established dotcom with many thousands of inbound links is failing to capture the number one spot for its own brand.
Google issues malware warnings
Google has begun issuing warnings to users if they are about to access a site containing harmful code.
Forming part of the 'Stop Badware' initiative, the alerts appear if users click on a link to a page known to host spyware or other malicious programmes.
Brand associations on both sides of the Atlantic
Online measurement company Hitwise has run a comparison of search terms associated with Yahoo!, MSN and Google in the US and UK, highlighting some differences in consumers' attitudes to the three portals on different sides of the Atlantic.
The study found that US consumers, for example, largely associate MSN with its portal content while in the UK, the brand is better known for communications tools Messenger and Hotmail.
Search engines to form anti-click fraud alliance
Search engines including Google, Yahoo and MSN have teamed up with The US’ Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) to develop ways of better measuring click fraud, according to the Associated Press .Set to be announced later today, the initiative will attempt to develop guidelines that would introduce more accountability into PPC advertising.
French government censors Greenpeace's mashup
The French government has instructed Greenpeace to remove a webpage featuring a customised Google Map with details of the locations of Monsanto’s genetically-modified cornfields.
The ban, issued via a French court, flies in the face of EU law, which states that this sort of information should be made available to the public by governments.
Eureka! Google optimises its PPC Adwords quality algorithm
Will Google’s decision to introduce an algorithmic element into its Adwords ‘Quality Score’ spell the end for sponsored keyword arbitrage and add further pressure to affiliates to clean-up their act?
Google launches Adwords click fraud tool
Google has responded to calls for greater transparency on click fraud by introducing a new tool for Adwords users that displays "invalid clicks".
Google business product manager Shuman Ghosemajumder explains: "The metrics of 'invalid clicks' and 'invalid clicks rate' will show virtually all the invalid clicks affecting an account."
This should provide advertisers with an overview of how Google is dealing with clicks already identified as possibly fraudulent, aka 'invalid', though for many marketers this might not be enough.
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
