I may be the only one who noticed, but it seems to me that 2009 saw an unusual amount of new comparison search tools released. Perhaps it was the launch of Bing, or the growth of real-time search? I don’t know, but something inspired programmers to develop new tools and sites to let us compare search results.
In this edition of my occasional search tools series, I’ll look at four comparison search tools that may have slipped under your radar.
Search3
According to November comScore data (published by TechCrunch) Google News is the second largest online news property in the world in terms of traffic. Yahoo ranks as the top global news site. Here’s the partial comScore list:
In the US Yahoo still ranks as number one but Google News reportedly falls down the list below the traditional news domains, such as NY Times and CNN. However, over at Nielsen (via Editor & Publisher) the numbers appear to be quite different than the comScore data above — especially the ranking of Google News.
Tim Cohn spotted that the Google Advertising Professionals Search is now live. It can be accessed at adwords.google.com/professionals/search and lets you search for certified AdWords professionals based on location and budget.
Your resolution list might look different than this one, but that’s not the point. The point here is that you actually have an SEO resolution list. Either get cracking on those projects that stalled in 2009 and find your success by managing the work smartly, or use some of these ideas to jumpstart your 2010 projects.
1) Hold an internal SEO summit
Sometimes it’s difficult for non-marketers to reasonably gauge the overall success of branding programs, because they have neither dashboard nor perspective to use as benchmarks. This post suggests easy-to-identify measurements to serve as general indications of the marketing department’s success in building a brand (henceforth referred to as [brand]) to top of mind with the general search and social media public.
We’ll follow the 9 clues with a simple questionnaire any stakeholder in [brand’s] success can forward to the marketing manager to help improve [brand's] public image.
As many of you know, Google started their holiday logo blitz earlier this week. Google has now posted four of (I believe) five logos they have for the holidays. We also have logos from Yahoo, Bing, Ask, DogPile, Baidu and many other search engines and search industry web sites. I wanted to share them with you today and update them tomorrow, as more come in.
Here are the logos:
Sam Palmissano has transformed IBM over the past decade or so that he’s been in top positions in the company. IBM isn’t just a mainframe hardware company any more—it’s involved in a wide range of businesses, throughout the world, and unlike many tech companies is still growing—and some of the best SEOs in the world have worked for/with IBM.
Today’s Barron’s has a profile of IBM, with some interesting quotes from Palmissano on a number of topics. Inevitably, with Google’s push into enterprise and cloud computing, the “is Google unstoppable” question arose.
December 26 is Canada Boxing Day. Bellow are some great resources for the Boxing Day Deals and the Boxing Week Discounts.
People don’t often make rational decisions. In fact, the capacity for abstract rational thought is only a recent evolutionary addition to our brains. We’ve mainly gotten by on our emotions and gut feelings. We may think we’re approaching something rationally, but most of the time we use after-the-fact rationalization to justify our intuitive and emotional decision making.
It’s a well-known maxim in marketing that people who are comfortable enough with their current situation aren’t good prospects for buying goods, services, or ideas — they simply don’t care enough to make a change.
Every year as the holiday shopping season ramps up, people ask me the same question over and over again “What do you want for Christmas this year?” I consider myself a pretty simple fellow, and always have a difficult time answering this question for a couple of reasons : one because I’m not used to getting gifts, and two because most of the gifts I receive I never use, and they end up in my misfit toy chest, packed away somewhere with my mini-DVD camcorder, PSP, iPod Shuffle, collection of hats too small for my enormous head and other stuff I just do not use or is outdated.
I find it sad that many people are absolutely unaware of Google advanced operators, or even if they do know about the advanced search, they never use it.
I for one use Google advanced operators all the time: when doing on-page diagnostics; searching for backlink opportunities, doing competitive research, etc, etc
So in this post I decided to share the best tools and tutorials that will help you remember and learn to use the advanced search (if you are not using it already):
Google Talk is becoming one of the most popular IMs (maybe that’s only my impression because most of my friends are SEOs and Googlers but I haven’t had the need to start any of my other instant messengers for ages).
So here’s the good news: you can use Gtalk not only for chatting – with the following Google Talk Bots you can have much more fun with your favorite IM!
Gtalk Bot ID: inezhabot@gmail.com
iNezha lets you subscribe to any feed using Gtalk. The syntax is pretty easy – you won’t need to remember anything:
We are in the midst of the largest algorithmic changes to Google’s relevancy since the Florida Update of 2003, and perhaps even the largest change for how marketers approach search since Google and Inktomi revolutionized the concept of citation based rankings. The interesting part of this change is that it is not focused on one concept, but rather several, that mixed together change the face of search as we move into the new year.
Google City Tours, the service that generates walking tours for important cities, has a new feature that lets you import custom maps. After logging to a Google Account, you can go to the importing page and select one of your maps.
The service would more useful if you could customize a tour by reordering sights and defining constraints. Other features that seems to be missing: saving tours, sharing and printing tours.
Earlier this month, Google launched personalized results by default for all users. SEOs should have already read Danny Sullivan’s analysis of the shift (which is quite excellent) and I also suggest checking out David Harry’s Guide on the topic. Sadly, despite some good advice, it appears that a lot of folks are still worried that this is somehow the “end of SEO” or demands a “completely new look at SEO practices.” Let’s do a brief analysis:
MapQuest or variations on its name represent five of the top 22 search queries in the travel category (in November) according to Hitwise. However Google Maps is solidly in first place now as the top mapping site online. That puts MapQuest in the position of having to figure out whether to be content with its second place position or do some things to try and regain the lead.
It’s not clear whether MapQuest could regain the lead; however, the company has introduced a number of features and upgrades recently in a bid to improve the look and functionality of the site:
TechCrunch has screen shots of Google AdWords ads targeting Joshua Schachter’s name, a former well-knwon Yahoo employee, leading to Yahoo’s recruiting web site.
In fact, Joshua Schachter tweeted about it yesterday, where he said, “yahoo’s running recruiting ads against my name. classy.” Soon later, Rasmus Lerdorf, another former Yahoo employee, tweeted he was being targeted as well.
Of course, this doesn’t mean someone directly in Yahoo was doing this. It can be a forward-thinking recruiting agency that did this or someone just having some fun. But to use Google ads to target the names of well known former Yahoo employees to recruit new employees, that is just classic.
ReadWriteWeb is reporting from “sources close to the project” that Yahoo will shut down MyBloglog next month. MyBlogLog doesn’t hold the blogging community’s attention today the way it did a few years ago, but if the report is true, it will disappoint many who continue to use the service.
There was a time in 2006 when MyBlogLog was arguably the hottest social networking tool online — certainly one of them. Bloggers everywhere raced to install the widget that (magically!) showed the faces of people who had visited your blog. It was social proof at its finest.
According to the Wall Street Journal Yahoo is compelling most employees to take the week after Xmas off, using vacation or unpaid leave. It is also shutting down offices until after January 1. The move is an effort to save money.
Yahoo employees over the past few years have been “encouraged” but until now not required to take the time off. According to Yahoo spokeswoman Dana Lengkeek “essential functions” will remain staffed during the period. Beyond “customer support” it’s not clear what those roles are from the article.
MapQuest or variations on its name represent five of the top 22 search queries in the travel category (in November) according to Hitwise. However Google Maps is solidly in first place now as the top mapping site online. That puts MapQuest in the position of having to figure out whether to be content with its second place position or do some things to try and regain the lead.
It’s not clear whether MapQuest could regain the lead; however, the company has introduced a number of features and upgrades recently in a bid to improve the look and functionality of the site:
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