Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Feeds
5540 items (5015 unread) in 3 feeds
Google
(325 unread)
-
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog (325 unread)
SEO
(4690 unread)
-
Emily Chang (347 unread)
-
Search Engine Roundtable
(4343 unread)
Search Engine Roundtable (6 unread)
-
Daily Search Forum Recap: November 17, 2010
Posted: November 17th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
-
Yahoo Clues Brings "Search Flows" To Keyword Research
Posted: November 17th, 2010, 2:47pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Yahoo Search Engine
Yesterday, Yahoo announced a very cool new search keyword tool named Yahoo Clues. I did a pretty detailed write up on it at Search Engine Land, so I will try not to repeat much of that here.
In short, this is a keyword tool that shows you data for only the most popular queries. Yahoo said the tool is also updated about every hour. The tool shows you demographic data, such as gender and age, income levels, geographic location and related keywords.
The somewhat unique part of this tool is the "search flow." It shows you the most likely preview query and next query on Yahoo after searching for that term. So for those iPhone normally search for these searches prior to search for iPhone:
- $8 million iphone
- iphone 4
- verizon iphone
- iphone price
- iphone rumors
And this is what they search for next:
- new iphone 2010
- iphone 4
- iphone price
- iphone verizon
- iphone rumors
The chain here is important.
For more on how this works, see the help documents and the video below.
Forum discussion at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.
-
Google News Asking Publishers To Tell The Truth With New Syndication Tags
Posted: November 17th, 2010, 2:40pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
One of the main issues Google has, especially with fresh news content, is figuring out where the first story or original story came from. Often you will see hundreds of different news agencies writing about the same news story, non citing where they got the news from. They all want to be known as the best, most accurate and breaking source of the news.
Google News announced a new set of meta tags that allow publishers to tell the truth. They want publishers to use the tag to either admit they are not the original source or lie and say they are the original source.
(1) syndication-source meta tag: Use this code <meta name="syndication-source" content="http://www.publisherX.com/wire_story_1.html"> when you want to say if Publisher X syndicates stories to Publisher Y.
(2) original-source meta tag: Use this code to say you are the original source: <meta name="original-source" content="http://www.example.com/burglary_at_watergate.html">
Google admitted they are "experimenting" with this and will see where it takes them.
Personally, I'd be shocked if it was used write by the main stream media.
Forum discussion at Google News Help & WebmasterWorld.
-
Google Voice For iPhone
Posted: November 17th, 2010, 2:35pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
I'll probably never use it, but Google Voice for iPhone may have been one of the most anticipated iPhone apps ever. Apple has finally approved the native iOS app to run on iPhones in the United States.
You can download it for free in iTunes.
The features include:
- Cheap rates for international calls
- Free text messaging to U.S. numbers
- Voicemail transcription
- Display your Google Voice number as caller ID when making calls
- Push notifications to alert you instantly when you receive a new voicemail or text message
- Most of calls will be placed via Direct Access Numbers, making them connect just as quickly as regular phone calls
- Call contacts from your iPhone Address Book or enter new numbers on the dialpad.
Forum discussion at Google Mobile Help and Google Blogoscoped Forums.
-
Remove Google's Instant Previews In Firefox or Chrome
Posted: November 17th, 2010, 2:30pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
Earlier this month, Google released Instant Previews. On the whole, I think most people like them, but there are many people who don't like them. There is no good way to turn off instant previews without turning off Google Instant.
Until now that is.
ArpitNext created a script for Firefox and Chrome that disables the Instant Previews from showing up on your Google search results.
So if you hate them and you use Firefox or Chrome, install it.
I monitor the forums and I see tons and tons of upset searchers over the instant previews. Again, I think for the most part, people are happy with it. But if you are not, you can not remove them.
Forum discussion at Google Blogoscoped Forums.
-
Google "Ads" From "Sponsored Links" Name Change Positive Impact on Click Through Rate
Posted: November 17th, 2010, 2:16pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
A couple weeks ago, Google changed the name of sponsored links to ads as the search ads label. I personally did not think it would have an immediate or long term impact on the click through rates on the ads.
But the Search Agents blog published a study showing click through rate is up since the change. Honestly, I am very skeptical of the data and it seems they are also.
They looked at over 80 million impressions and 1.5 million clicks between October 28 – November 10. Maybe that is the issue? This feature didn't really go live until November 5th I believe.
Either way - Search Agent promised to keep looking at the data to see if it had an impact. Not that it is all that easy to isolate the "ads" label as a variable from other Google tests or features that go live every now and then.
Here are their current findings based on what I posted above:
- Average position increased 1.5%
- Total impressions decreased 1.5%
- Total clicks increased 9.7%
- Average Click-Through Rate (CTR) increased 11.4%
- Average cost per click (CPC) dropped 2.3%
- Total cost increased 7.1%
Forum discussion at Sphinn.