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!
AOL search data still available
The AOL search data saga continues, with news from Techcrunch that the first web interface to the 20 million search queries ‘mistakenly’ released by the firm last week has been published.
AOL admits ‘screw up’ over user privacy
AOL has apologised after “mistakenly” releasing the search histories of around 650,000 users onto the web.
The internet giant has come under fire in the past week after its research division made public around 20 million keyword searches performed by its subscribers. Although the information didn’t include users’ names, the move has attracted widespread criticism that the company had breached their privacy and left them open to ID theft.
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.
Yahoo! launches corporate blog
Do you fancy getting to know the boys and girls over at Yahoo! a bit better? If you do then good news. Yahoo! has launched its own corporate blog Yodel Anecdotal aimed at providing users with insights into Yahoo! and the faces behind the company.
Study sheds light on complex Search conversion paths
Research by 360i and SearchIgnite will make interesting reading for search marketers who want to build their understanding of how consumers are interacting with organic and paid search listings before converting.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.
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
