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Google Search Offers Way to Easily Find Similar Pages in Results

Written on April 28, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Advertising, marketing

Google continues to change the face of the SERP’s (search engine results page) by taking more real estate on the first page with information that expands on the traditional “blue text link” results. Yesterday, they took a feature that has been around for a while but, as they put it in the Official Google Blog, “hasn’t been too visible” until now. Simply put, Google is telling its users what pages are similar in specific direct searches and taking out the need for another click to find them.

From the Google blog:

We’ve offered a “Similar” feature on results for a while now as a way to discover new, useful sites, but it hasn’t been too visible. Since we’ve been continuously improving this feature and we think it’s really useful, we’re now going to start showing these alternative sites more prominently. Starting this week, for queries where similar sites are likely to be helpful, we’ll display a list of “Pages similar” at the bottom of the results page. For example, this is the list of sites similar to Direct Relief International:

I first became aware of this from Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land who posted before the official Google announcement and shared a result he produced below

This kind of a result is much more interesting in many respects because looking for the right charity doesn’t feel like you are doing something competitive. Looking for information on search engine and Internet marketing, however, is truly competitive and most folks won’t be too thrilled about Google “advertising” for the competition when someone is searching for your site directly.

So how this new feature is rolled out by Google should be interesting to follow. Imagine one day if Google would ask each business “Who are you similar to?” and starts to find another way to generate revenue. I would hope this would never happen because then that means that the SERP’s were truly “for sale” rather than on merit. Some would say that’s the case today already but I’ll let you fight that out amongst yourselves.

Your thoughts?

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Google Search Offers Way to Easily Find Similar Pages in Results

Local Businesses Get Facebook Decals for Promotion

Written on April 28, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing

In an attempt to become even more ubiquitous, Facebook has started to send out decals to local businesses to put in storefront windows encouraging patrons to go the establishment’s Facebook “Like” page to do just that; like them. Here’s a picture

The above decal was sent to Mashable by an employee of The Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, CA. On the Mashable site is an accompanying letter telling the company about the “program” and offering a $25 credit to run Facebook ads to promote their page as well.

I, along with many others, have been encouraging people to put their presence on Facebook on every piece of marketing material because it just makes sense. Interestingly enough, most small business owners will say “That’s a great idea!” then never make a sign or anything to put by a cash register or hang in a window. That’s not because they don’t want to in most cases but they just don’t take the time to make something. Now Facebook can make something for them.

The sticker has a way to text your “like” of a business which is pretty neat. Of note, there has been no indication of just what criteria must be met to get one of these stickers. At a minimum, the business must have the minimum number of fans to get its own “vanity” page URL which means they are savvy enough to know the criteria and to follow through with the process. As for how long the page has been in existence or any other “measuring stick” for who will or will not see a sticker it is not known. I suspect the bar initially will be pretty high because sending out stickers to businesses with lame “like” pages wouldn’t serve Facebook very well. The Museum of Making Music’s offering is pretty extensive with YouTube, Flickr and event tabs which shows it is paying attention and trying to maximize its presence on Facebook.

Hopefully these stickers work better than the Google Map Place stickers that have gone up in windows but have not had the “sticking power” in some cases. Google keeps its criteria for who gets a decal a secret as noted in a forum response from a Googler

Can a business which didn’t receive a decal request one?

No, it is not possible for a business to request becoming a Favorite Place. Businesses can sign up for Local Business Center to become eligible and if they meet our criteria, they may receive a decal in the next wave.

Hope this helps, and I’ll keep you posted on requesting a new decal.
Cecelia

So customer centric and heartwarming on Google’s part huh? You can almost feel the concern for the little guy oozing from Cecelia’s “No it is not possible” response.

Maybe Facebook could learn a little something and be more open about how they will determine who gets a sticker. Wait a minute. Did I just say Facebook and “be more open about policies” in the same sentence? My bad. One can dream but asking for a miracle is maybe just a little too much.

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Local Businesses Get Facebook Decals for Promotion

YouTube Rentals for All

Written on March 22, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

YouTube experimented with renting videos on its site during the Sundance Film Festival in January. In the ten-day test, reports said they netted about $10,000 from the four films.

Apparently that was enough to impress YouTube. Recently they opened the rental program to many publishers. Barry Schwartz blogs at Search Engine Roundtable that he found an “Enable Rental” option in his account the other day. Clicking the button let him edit the revenue sharing options to his video to include rentals.

YouTube is letting its publishers set their own rental length (ie the amount of time users will have to view the video, 24 hours to unlimited), as well as rental price ($0.99US to $19.99US). YouTube has to approve the video for rental. Until it’s approved, the video is labeled “Video submitted for rental consideration” in the publisher’s account and available for free on YouTube.

Barry points to a YouTube help forum on the January rental program for more details. Naturally, the comments are home to several complaints, mostly about the original rental test run. However, two users complain of problems with removing videos from the rental program—one had all ads disabled on his video after he removed it from the rental program, making it impossible to make money from, and the other accidentally deleted his videos when trying to remove them from the rental program. So be careful out there.

There’s no official word on the exact revenue split for YouTube and the content publisher.

What do you think? Will you rent or offer videos for rental on YouTube? What kind of revenue do you think the company is seeing from this?

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YouTube Rentals for All

I Want To Be Like Rhea Drysdale

Written on March 15, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: book, seo

Posted by Sarah Bird, Esquire

May It Please the Mozzers,

I haven’t written on the blog in months, but I

Google Targets Spammers With New Local Business Listing Guidelines

Written on November 3, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object

Google has tweaked its guidelines for local businesses that use the Google Maps Local Business Center. The new guidelines are listed on Google’s Business Listing Quality Guidelines page. On Search Engine Roundtable, Barry Schwartz shows both the old and new guidelines, while on his blog, Mike Blumenthal charts the differences between the two versions.
According to [...]



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Google Targets Spammers With New Local Business Listing Guidelines

Yahoo Adds Delicious.com, Other Data To Site Explorer

Written on October 19, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object

Yahoo continues to add new data to its popular Site Explorer tool and, for reasons unknown, doesn’t tell anyone about it. Today, Barry Schwartz reported on Search Engine Roundtable about several new additions to Site Explorer’s data:

Key Terms
Delicious Activities
Top Delicious Tags
SearchMonkey Objects

Barry posted this screenshot showing the new features as they related to Search Engine [...]



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Yahoo Adds Delicious.com, Other Data To Site Explorer

Google Says Domain Registrations Don’t Affect SEO, Or Do They?

Written on September 9, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object, seo

Over at Search Engine Roundtable today, Barry Schwartz writes about the latest comments from Google about domain registration and its impact on SEO/search rankings. In this case, it’s Google employee John Mueller suggesting in a Google Webmaster Help forum thread that Google doesn’t look at the length of a domain registration:
A bunch of TLDs do [...]



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Google Says Domain Registrations Don’t Affect SEO, Or Do They?

Did Microsoft’s Bing Give Google Permission to Mess With Its Magic Formula?

Written on August 13, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

We all know that Google is often caught testing tweaks to its search interface, but has it stepped up its efforts on the back of Bing’s apparent success?

I ask because it appears that Google has been unusually active in tweaking the magic formula behind its success. The latest was spotted by Barry Schwartz and shows yet another test of product images in AdWords:

Combined with other recent interface changes and the public testing of a new search index, it makes me wonder if this is all part of Google’s natural evolution, or a knee-jerk reaction to the threat posed by Microsoft’s Bing. The new search engine has brought an entirely new way of searching to the masses–Ask.com historians, note the use of the word “masses–and I believe Google is reacting to Bing.

Google’s actual motivation, I’m not sure of. Perhaps the search engine now has strong enough competition that it’s fast tracking updates that are long overdue. Or, perhaps Google feels more comfortable with making changes to the “ten blue links” now that it’s seen Bing’s success with its interface.

Whatever the motivation, it’s hard to argue that Bing’s ability to compete will be directly tied with Google’s willingness to keep evolving search.

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Did Microsoft’s Bing Give Google Permission to Mess With Its Magic Formula?