Search Engine News

Jennifer Laycock

Ask.com Promoting Hard Via Commercials

Now that they've said farewell to good old Jeeves, Ask.com is working on spreading the word about their updated service by buying up ad spots on popular prime time tv shows. The new series of commercials features animalistic internet searchers...

Jennifer Laycock

Google Print Ad Auction Falls Flat

Andy Beal links to an article in Business Week that talks about how Google's attempt at auctioning excess print ad inventory didn't quite spur as much of a deal as they thought it might. It wasn't but a month or...

Jennifer Laycock

Search Plays Important Role in Brand Marketing

Ran across an interesting article today over at Multichannel Merchant. The article talks about the power of search marketing when it come to overall brand advertising strategy. The article gives several examples of big brand advertisers that are successfully integrating...

Jennifer Laycock

Trellian Serves Up More Features for Keyword Discovery Tool

One of the most talked about search marketing tools of the past year is the Keyword Discovery Tool from the folks over at Trellian. It's fast becoming one of the most popular keyword research tools for search marketing professionals and...

Jennifer Laycock

New Study Continues to Confirm Importance of Tracking Offline Conversions

I've written before about the need to come up with a unique way to track the conversions that ultimately end up happening offline, despite starting with an online search query. A new study released today by comScore Networks highlights this...

Jennifer Laycock

Google Claims Victory Over DOJ

In a statement posted on their corporate blog, Google has claimed victory in their court battle against the Department of Justice. The case was brought forth by the government in an attempt to force Google to hand over large quantities...

Jennifer Laycock

Apparently Porn CAN Sneak Into Random Searches

It seems sort of ironic on the heels of the Google v the DOJ court case, but just this morning I had an email from search engine marketing expert Bill Hartzer asking me if I'd taken a look at the...

Jennifer Laycock

Google Base to Become European Marketplace?

The Financial Times ran an article yesterday that talked about Google's plans to use Google Base to launch an online marketplace in Europe. The article suggests that Google Base would allow small businesses that don't otherwise have the resources for...

Jennifer Laycock

Having Trouble Finding an SEM Firm?

While those of us in the industry hear fairly often from business owners that are having a hard time finding a qualified SEM firm to work with, we also tend to hear some stories from each other about the SEM...

Jennifer Laycock

Good Advice on Link and Possible Penalties

Aaron Wall has an excellent blog post today that talks about links and the ability of a competitor to harm your ranking by pointing links toward your site. Rest assured, even Aaron says that while this is technically possible, it's...

Jennifer Laycock

CafePress Serves up Contextual-Style Ads

I've been playing around today with the new contextual-style ad offering called TopicAds from CafePress. Regular Search Engine Guide readers will remember that my 30 Day Marketing Experiment focused on my use of CafePress to launch a new small business....

Jennifer Laycock

MIVA Offers Day Parting

This is my bad for not making note of it sooner, but apparently MIVA is now including simplistic management offers for day parting for pay per click advertisers. I wrote an article not too long ago that made mention of...

Jennifer Laycock

New Jersey Teen Exploits Google News "Backdoor"

One of the beautiful things for small business owners about Google News is the fact that several free press release services are picked up by the news engine, giving small businesses with limited funds a way to get their news...

Jennifer Laycock

Google and the Department of Justice Head to Court

It's already been about two months since Google and the Department of justice went head to head on the issue of a search engine's right to refuse to share its search records with the government. Basically, the DOJ requested records...

Jennifer Laycock

Are You Relying on Gmail for Your Small Biz?

Gmail has grown to be a fairly popular email system, especially for small business owners and folks that want access to good Webmail that can be accessed anywhere. When it was launched, with a full gig of storage space, it...

Jennifer Laycock

Pay Per Click Strategies Explained a Little Fuzzy

There's an article over at ClickZ today that attempts to explain the concepts of "drafting" and "hijacking" when it comes to pay per click advertising, but that leaves a pretty fuzzy impression over what the author believes constitutes hijacking. I've...

Jennifer Laycock

Google: Changing Business or a Business in Need of Change?

There's an article over at Business Week today that talks about some of the problems Google is having dealing with investors and Wall Street. The article throws some heavy criticism at the company over the way that it relates to...

Jennifer Laycock

MSN AdCenter Not Playing Well with Firefox

Danny had a good post over at Search Engine Watch earlier this week that talks about some of the problems Firefox users are facing when trying to use MSN's adCenter interface or conversion tracking. I'd noticed that Firefox users couldn't...

Jennifer Laycock

Pay-Per-Click Ads Make up 40% of Internet Advertising Revenue

There's an insightful article over at the Financial Times today that talks about the oddity of an industry that can account for such a large percentage of online advertising spend despite taking up just 5% of a user's time online....

Jennifer Laycock

Search Engine Strategies Round-up

It's Monday afternoon and I'm just now finishing up my trek through a week's worth of email. (and that's just reading it... I still have to write back to folks!) Many thanks to David Wallace for serving as guest blogger...

New Site Locates Sexual Offenders

The National Coalition of Victims in Action has launched a new site that helps locate sexual offenders in geographical locations. "Family Watchdog" uses a local map search function which then displays sex offenders in specific geographical areas. It is searchable...

Is Search Finally Shrinking?

Rebecca Lieb asks this very question after Google CFO George Reyes makes the public statement: "Clearly our growth rates are slowing." Is it true? Rebecca thinks not and provides plenty of evidence to support her beliefs....

Is the Cost of Domain Names Going Up?

Everything else is going up - why not domain names as well? Verisign struck a deal Tuesday with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN for short that will allow them to raise their annual price for...

SEO Cheatsheet by Rand Fishkin

Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz has made available his "SEO Cheatsheet" for downloading. This is the same sheet he hands out to conference attendees of one of his sessions at Search Engine Strategies in New York. It is a simple list,...

What Is the Deal With Duplicate Content?

This is a question that comes up in forums on almost a weekly basis - "Can duplicate content hurt me?" The answer in short is yes. So what are some scenarios where duplicate can exist and what can web site...