We seem to have by and large gotten past the period in which investors lived in constant fear of crashes; people no longer use terms like “double dip” and “depression” on an everyday basis.  There will never come a time when investors won’t want quick access to financial info, though, and so Google’s made some...

Yahoo! will be closing AlltheWeb on April 4, 2011, as we focus on other features to improve your search experience. Starting on April 4, 2011, www.alltheweb.com will redirect to Yahoo! Search at search.yahoo.com. Thanks for your understanding.

Chinese search engine Baidu has deleted 2.8m works from its online library, Baidu Wenku, in an attempt to settle a copyright dispute with writers."By Tuesday afternoon we had removed almost 2.8 million files, mainly from the Literary Works section of the site, which was the primary concern of the writers and publishers,"

As troubling as the situation is in United States, it is worse in Europe. That is why our filing today focuses on a pattern of actions that Google has taken to entrench its dominance in the markets for online search and search advertising to the detriment of European consumers.How does it do this? Google has built its business on indexing and...

Irony alert: privacy advocates may have the gigantic misstep known as Google Buzz to thank if and when a “Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights” comes into existence. Senator John Kerry stated today that the new agreement between Google and the FTC underscores the need for that sort of document. Interestingly, Kerry didn’t choose to...

by Stoney deGeyter Dear Client: I love you. I really do! But please, for the love of all that is good and holy, will you stop obsessing over search engine rankings? I get it, you hired me to perform Search Engine Optimization on your website. Why do we optimize for search engines? For rankings, right? Well, no, not anymore. It's been...

Today Google began rolling out their next foray into social recommendations. Google calls it +1, as they explain "the digital shorthand for "this is pretty cool.'"To recommend something, you click the +1 button on an organic result or ad you find useful. These +1's will then start appearing in Google search results for others in your social...

Google will be subjected to independent privacy audits for the next 20 years over charges that it "violated its own privacy promises"."Google Buzz fell short of our usual standards," Google said in a blog post.

Starting this week, Google Display Network advertisers will be able to specify topics, as opposed to just keywords, when contextually targeting ads. There will be over 1,750 topics and sub-topics to choose from. “Using topics to contextually target your ads offers broad targeting and reach and is a good way to connect with a large audience...

Salesforce.com on Wednesday said it acquired Radian6, a social media monitoring service, for $326 million in cash and stock.The deal, which is expected to close in the quarter ending July 31, gives Salesforce technology to monitor, track and analyze social media across properties like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, youTube and other sites.

Couldn’t make Link Love 2011? Don’t be sad. Here’s a round up of my notes from the conference – hopefully this will cheer you up a little. I will be seeing you at our next event though, right? You can sign up for Pro Boston now! Pitfalls, Mistakes and Traps for the Unwary – Wil Reynolds Wil has made mistakes when...

Eriq Gardner, a journalist who contributed this article to Ars Technica 3 months ago was being sued by the controversial Righthaven, but then Righthaven apparently decided to dismiss it. What would have made this case stand out from the plethora of other Righthaven-initiated lawsuits? Well, it would’ve been over an article that was actually...

Google may still not be willing to comply with Facebook’s Platform Terms of service to allow developers to use AdSense, but more networks are signing up. 15 new networks have signed Facebook’s policy, according to Inside Facebook. These include: - Adap.tv - AdJug - Adperio - Appatyze - AppCastNet - DogTime Media - DoubleDing - Improve...

I’ve mentioned incorporating living URL’s into your SEO strategy before.  Now that I have been experimenting with them for a while, I have some tips about using them a little bit more intelligently. If you read fashion magazines, you know that every year they publish a spring fashion update; bridal magazines publish new spring wedding...

Last week, Google was granted a patent that describes how Google might segment the content of a web page. Depending on the location of the content, a web page will get higher or lower rankings.

Apple and Nokia have been going at it for a while. In 2009, Nokia filed a patent infringement suit against Apple, and since then the two companies have been throwing arounds suits and complaints like hotcakes. Nokia says Apple in infringing on its patents. Apple says Nokia is infirning on its patents. Finally, a few days ago, a judge ruled that...

by Mike Moran It's yesterday's news. It's no longer sexy. It is less about inspiration than perspiration. I'm talking about paid search. If you remember the exciting days at the turn of this century when paid search was the hottest game in town, times have certainly changed. Paid search is now a normal, boring part of almost everyone's...

There seems to be a great deal of chatter about the devaluing of links on your basic syndication channels (article networks) after the Panda Update.WebmasterWorld Members discuss ideas on how to build links that would stand the test of time.

If you are searching for Open Source software, where do you find good directories and collections of OSS tools, and how do you evaluate the many candidates available? Photo credit: Ophelia Cherry Unless you are looking for popular popular open source software - such as the ones available in the SourceForge top downloads or the few ones backed by...

Google Suggest / Autocomplete has been causing grief for business owners for a while, especially after the launch of Google Instant. Searchers would have queries suggested that might include terms like torrent or scam. Back in January, Google started censoring piracy related terms. At SMX West, I saw a fun debate between Avi Wilensky and Othar...

SEOBook has posted a very interesting infographic from Jess.NET, about Google’s “Collateral damage” and “How the Evolving Algorithm Shapes the Web”. The infographic illustrates the story of Google’s rise to Internet power and the impact it has had on webmasters and publisher. While not covering every algorithm...

Again and again, Yahoo executives have stressed that the company isn’t going anywhere; they’ve said its search pact with Microsoft, for example, isn’t a sign that it’s giving up.  And now, one exec has made a much more forceful assertion, indicating that Yahoo intends to make lots of acquisitions this year. Steven...

Last month, we asked whether full article-copying could be ruled as fair use. We now know the answer. Yes, it can. Do you think duplicating an article in its entirety without permission is OK in some cases? Comment here. Righthaven, a company whose business model relies on copyright lawsuits for newspapers, has essentially lost its second fair use...

Earlier this week, Microsoft shared some numbers from the Microsoft-Yahoo Search Alliance (search and advertising deal), which saw Bing powering the back-end of Yahoo Search, and the merger of Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. “The data showed that from August 2010 to December 2010 Search Market Query Share for Bing rose 7.25%,”...

GSI Commerce, a public company that deals in ecommerce and interactive marketing services, should soon be the property of eBay.  eBay announced this morning that it intends to acquire GSI for a whopping $2.4 billion. GSI has built up an impressive business in some respects.  Its clients include Adidas, Bath & Body Works, FAO Schwarz, Godiva,...

A man who’s fielded questions about wars and the economy on an international stage might soon start to help a certain social network present itself in a more positive light.  Word is that Facebook would like to hire former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. Andrew Ross Sorkin broke the story late last night, reporting,...

Payments looks to be one of the most important battle fields on which the big tech companies are engaging. We’ve known for some time that Google would be getting into the NFC-based payment realm – in other words, you will be able to go to a restaurant or store and pay with your Android smartphone by waving or tapping, as opposed to...

eBay announced Monday that it will acquire GSI Commerce, an e-commerce marketing services company, for $29.25 a share--which will likely come out to be around $2.4 billion.

WebmasterWorld Members review the challenge of creating a 301 for over 50,000 pages.

Remember when an Italian court convicted three Google execs over a video uploaded to YouTube that featured a group of school kids bullying an autistic child? David Drummond, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes(3 out of defendants) were convicted for “failure to comply with the Italian privacy code.” Now in a case that has some...

by Stoney deGeyter Some time ago, we brought on a client in a pretty competitive field that had a limited budget. Our proposal outlined what we could do and also noted the limitations they would have with the budget they were willing to spend. Rankings could be achieved, but growth would be slow. It wasn't long before the client started...

Google’s lawyers have done it again. Yesterday, the company won a lawsuit against a number of disreputable firms, getting a judge to more or less agree that they’re scammers and award Google a $1.6 million settlement. The conflict started more than a year ago when different SEO professionals pointed out the existence of “Google...

Nevertheless, if the court goes along with the advocate general's opinion, something it generally does, the decision could have financial ramifications for Google if advertisers have less latitude to buy rivals' brand names as keywords for so-called sponsored links, analysts said.

I'm running a Joomla! website and I'm experiencing some performance issues.I ran into this problem a while ago and after extensive testing the host figured out it was an issue with the hard-drive combined with a CPU that couldn't cope and to low memory. So they gave me a new server with a new hard-drive, twice the CPU power and twice the memory....

Google announced the launch of a new ad format for AdWords today – the Media Ad format. These ads allow advertisers to place emphasis on video from the search results page. The new format works a little differently than the traditional AdWords concept, however. “To start, Media Ads isn’t targeted like typical AdWords ads on...

WordPress announced today that it has been working with Onswipe on a new WordPress plugin that makes sites more iPad-friendly or in their words, “reimagined for a touch experience”. OnSwipe is a platform that helps publishers make their content more appealing on touch-enabled devices through web browsers. The plugin makes your...

Staples said today it has launched a website focused on tablets to help people research and compare devices that fit their needs. Staples.com/tablets will offer side-by-side feature and price comparisons, photos, videos and business apps. Key features of the site include: *Videos such as “Why Buy A Tablet?” and “Tablet Specs to...

Printing company RR Donnelley said today it has acquired Journalism Online, a company aimed at helping news papers monetize their web content. Financial terms of the deal were not released. Three veteran media executives are behind Journalism Online including Steven Brill, founder of Court TV, Gordon Crovitz, a former publisher of The Wall Street...

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz might want to (yet again) take cover.  A new report is sure to rile her critics and at least a few shareholders, as eMarketer suggested late yesterday that Yahoo’s share of the U.S. search ad market will fall to a measly 8.1 percent this year. Compared to Yahoo’s 2010 market share of 10.4 percent, that would...

The number of Americans who accessed financial accounts (bank, credit card, or brokerage) via mobile devices reached 29.8 million at the end of 2010, a 54 percent increase over 2009, according to a new report from comScore. “More people are turning to the convenience of mobile devices for their financial service needs, fueled in part by the...

...you can choose to target or exclude your ads based on the user's physical location or the location of interest (for example, the location-specific terms in their search queries). By physical location, we mean the place where the user is actually located, such as 'New York City,' instead of the location that's included in the search query, such...

Two weeks ago, I had a chance to present on Actionable Metrics and Diagnosis at SMX West along with Vanessa Fox, Conrad Saam, and Jim Yu. It was my first time speaking at SMX West and was a great experience, so a huge thanks to SMX for having me speak. I want to share my slides and add notes for everyone who couldn’t make it or wanted more...

When it comes to picking a domain name most webmasters are in a dilemma of whether to choose a keyword rich domain name that will get better rankings on Google or a branded domain name that is more likely to get more visitors to the site and be easier to remember. In recent times Google has been putting more emphasis on brand names over keyword...

Richard J. Tofel at Nieman Lab posted an interesting article, saying that, “someday, the sun will set on SEO,” and that “the business of news will be better for it.” Will the sun set on SEO? Tell us what you think. To sum up a lengthy post (at least my interpretation of it), the point Tofel makes is that publishers are...

Precedence setting, or lone case? I’m sure SEO experts who have discovered this case are interested to see what becomes of it. A South Carolina judge has found the SEO Firm, Bright Builders Inc., responsible for damages done by a counterfeit golf club site. The judge ruled Bright Builders was guilty of contributory trademark infringement,...

John Citrone, editor at the online writing community Xomba.com, says Xomba saw Google’s Panda update coming, and started preparing last summer, when it started to draw up a plan to prepare for an “algorithmic shift” from Google. “Around the first of the year, we began creating a new site design with new community networking features...

Online radio service Slacker said today it will begin offering users access to ESPN Audio content. Slacker users will have access to a dedicated station for sports entertainment, with the option to include ESPN SportsCenter headlines for hourly updates on any Slacker station, and and the ability to create custom sports stations with ESPN Radio...

Google has launched some better location-targeting controls for AdWords advertisers. Now, you can target or exclude specific physical user locations. “By physical location, we mean the place where the user is actually located, such as ‘New York City,’ instead of the location that’s included in the search query, such as...

A company that many people expected to fade away as dial-up connections became more and more obsolete will do just fine, according to a respected financial services firm.  This morning, analysts at UBS labeled AOL’s stock a “Buy.” That rating coincides with a price target of $25, which isn’t bad considering the stock...

We’ve been talking with a lot of people who have had their sites impacted negatively by Google’s recent “Panda” algorithm update. Our thinking is that the more sides of the story we hear, the more webmasters and content producers will be able to learn from it. With that, we had a conversation with Paul Edmondson, CEO of HubPages, which...

...we launched updates to the Bing for Mobile browse (m.bing.com) making it easier for you to get and view information while on the go.New features in this update include better and faster image search, real-time transit and directions, app search for the iPhone, and more. Utilizing HTML5, the new features are offered on Smartphone browsers for...

WebmasterWorld Members discuss the downsides of switching to using noindex.

As previously reported, Judge Denny Chin rejected a Google Books settlement proposal, which would have enabled Google to scan, digitize, and distribute millions of in copyright, but out-of-print books. Chin concluded in a court document, “In the end, I conclude that the ASA is not fair, adequate, and reasonable.” Believe it or not, the...

I believe in the web. I believe in organic citations. I love inbound marketing. We have built our business by believing in the flywheel and I desperately want that to be how our clients and conference attendees build theirs too. Some misconceptions have arisen following our link building conference last week and I just wanted to set the public...

This new feature (currently in beta) taps into Yahoo!'s unique opportunity to combine content and structured data and to provide a rich search experience.Search Direct predicts search results as fast as a person types, character by character, and presents those results dynamically, generating a fast, simple search experience that goes beyond a...

Blekko has partnered with SEO platform BrightEdge to fight search spam. Blekko is giving BrightEdge access to real-time link graph information, so companies can verify that their own links are legitimate as well as whether sites ranking ahead of them are using black hat or unethical standards to game search engine rank. “This is an...

Barring more legal maneuvering, the proposed Google Books Settlement – which would have cleared the way for Google to scan, digitize, and distribute of millions of in-copyright but out-of-print works – will not stand as is. This afternoon, Judge Denny Chin rejected the settlement, agreeing with opponents that it would give Google an...

Over the last year or so, I’ve received a number of pitches around my blog. Surprising to me, really. I guess I still think of this blog as a place where I merely share my thoughts on the digital marketing world around us. Seems odd to me that anyone would want to “target” me. As I’ve gathered these pitches, I’ve noted the good...

There are 129,004 people using the Personal Bocklist Chrome extension from Google. This is the browser extension that the company launched on February 14, ahead of the Panda Update, which lets users simply block domains from ever appearing in their Google search results. According to the extension page, it’s been getting 11,464 Weekly...

Anecdotal evidence suggests that it’s not unusual for children to have Facebook accounts.  You even hear of parents setting up the occasional account for an infant.  But it seems Facebook does try to enforce its terms of service and keep kids off the site, with one exec indicating it boots 20,000 youngsters a day. For the record,...

Nearly 13 million Americans who are on social networking sites will accept any request from a member of the opposite sex, even if they don’t know that person, according to a new survey released by ID Analytics and conducted by Harris Interactive. Men on social networking sites are more than twice as likely as women to accept any and all...

Links from high authority websites have the biggest impact on the position of your web pages in Google search results. If high authority websites link to your site with your keywords in the anchor text, the chances that your site will be listed in the top 10 results for that keyword increase dramatically.

Amazon has begun improperly using Apple's App Store mark in connection with Amazon's mobile software developer program.

Apple said today its iPad 2 will go on sale in 25 more countries this Friday, March 25. iPad 2 will be available at Apple retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers at 5 p.m. local time and online at the Apple Store beginning at 1 a.m. “While competitors are still struggling to catch up with our first iPad, we’ve changed the game again with...

Firefox 4 is available to download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in more than 80 languages.

Titles or headlines are a lot like promises, which you make to your readers.  If you deliver on the promise of your headline, your readers will thank you.  If you don’t, you will leave readers feeling ripped-off and cheated.  Getting your balance right is what this brief post is all about. Headlines have amazing...

German citizens may soon have the opportunity to wave at (or dodge) many more cars sporting 15 camera lenses.  In a big win for Google, a Berlin court has ruled that the Street View program doesn’t break any of Germany’s laws. A little refresher for anyone who hasn’t been following along: Germany’s the country in which so...

People who are supposed to receive big tax refunds might do well to consider investing the money in Google, judging by a new note from Citi.  An analyst representing the firm believes the company’s future is bright in more than a few ways. That’s been in question in recent weeks and months.  A financial chart showing the performance...

by Mike Fleming Possibly the biggest mistake you can make when analyzing your own web data or reporting other people's data to them is stopping at what happened.  Here's an example.... "Search Engine traffic rose 20% in the last 3 months." Sweet.  So, let's everybody meet at Outback for an awesome blossom with some extra awesome,...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released two new reports on Internet access and telephone subscribership in the U.S. The reports are based on data submitted by carriers to the FCC every six months. They track changes at the state and national level in the number of subscribers to Internet service in 72 combinations of speed, and...

When Google admitted that its Street View cars had recorded sensitive data sent over WiFi networks, there were many different reactions.  UK authorities more or less brushed off the incident, for example, while Korean police raided Google’s offices.  And now French regulators have landed somewhere in between, fining the company €100,000...

by Mike Moran Image by Joelk75 via Flickr I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about Google's Farming update and why it has caused such angst among search marketers. Part of that answer is simple--a lot of sites with high rankings suddenly saw them plunge. That will cause some angst, for sure. But I think there is something deeper going...

Online/interactive advertising revenue is forecast to reach $42.5 billion by 2015, nearly double 2010′s $21.7 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.4 percent, according to a new report from BIA/Kelsey. This growth is tied to anticipated improvement in the U.S. economy and a continued increase in overall local...

Wow. We’re all in a state of shock recovering from the totally awesome Link Building conference on Friday. Others have written far more detailed reviews but I wanted to push something out to show my appreciation for the speakers. (See photos from the day over at foliovision) I know I’m biased but the conference was the best SEO...

Have you seen this browser behavior in IE9? Click on a link to an HTML5 page, and the document mode that was set to IE9 is automatically reset to IE7.The problematic result is that the new canvas element does not work - as well as other HTML 5 goodies. And even more puzzling part is that the page has the HTML 5 DTD. There's a lot of detail to...

Negative reviews can come about not just because the customer's buying experience has failed.These reviews can stay online with original and scraper sites, despite satisfactory resolution.WebmasterWorld Members discuss how ecommerce businesses can best manage negative reviews posted online.

Just a few days ago I had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face, with SEOmoz founder and SEO expert Rand Fishkin. Rand had been invited by the LUISS University of Rome in conjunction with the American Embassy to deliver, for the first time, the business story of his company, SEOmoz: from the early days of dropping out of college, just a couple of...

Page's mandate now is to renew Google's energy and drive, and in some ways he is the perfect person to perform that task. He is also perhaps the quirkiest person to ever run a $30 billion company. Google has had a wild ride over its first 12 years. It's about to get even wilder.

Today the ICANN Board of Directors authorized the CEO of ICANN to execute the proposed registry agreement for the .xxx sTLD with ICM Registry.

Last week, rumors indicated that Google CEO Eric Schmidt might be in the running for the position of U.S. Commerce Secretary.  Now, the organization called Consumer Watchdog – which is perhaps Google’s most outspoken critic – has come out strongly against the idea. Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court and Privacy Project...

How about some good news? The Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit has dismantled a huge and complex botnet called Rustock, an operation given the credit (or blame) for 39% of all email spam. Writing on the TechNet blog, Richard Boscovich, Senior Attorney for the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit explained the complex of legal and technical action that lead...

One way or another, it’s sounding increasingly likely that Delicious will wind up with a new owner.  After a rumor suggested last week that Yahoo had sold the property for $5 million, a report’s now claimed that Yahoo is about to sell Delicious for perhaps 30 percent of that sum. Jay Yarow, the author of the fresh report, wrote,...

6 years ago, almost to the day, Will and I sat in my front room and started the company that became Distilled. It is with great pride that today I am able to announce Tom Critchlow will be relocating to New York and will open our 3rd office. A year ago this week, Rob and I flew out to Seattle to open our 2nd office. Just a year later the team...

WebmasterWorld members discuss the status of the Panda update at Google.

Google’s Blogger has launched a new feature called “follow by email”. The feature is pretty self-explanatory really. It lets users follow blogs via email. It’s a great idea that should’ve been implemented years ago. “Fresh content is the fuel that drives the blogosphere; it keeps readers coming back to your...

Google has not agreed to comply with Facebook’s Platform Terms of service, and therefore developers trying to monetize with its ad networks are required to find other means from a list of networks that have agreed. According to Inside Facebook, Facebook’s deadline for developers to use only ad providers from its list was the end of...

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of American Internet users went online in 2010 for news or information about the midterm elections or to communicate with others about the campaigns, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That figure represents 54 percent of all voters, and and marks the second consecutive...

The company that supposedly turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google may now plan to one-up it in another way. A new report indicates Groupon is discussing an initial public offering that could value the organization at $25 billion, even though Google’s own IPO valued it at closer to $23 billion. We should note that $25...

We've now developed a new ads delivery technique to improve the speed of websites that display AdSense ads, so that it doesn't slow down your page content. We're very happy to announce that we've eliminated this slowdown for the majority of websites and for a number of browsers, and are seeing pages load as much as a second faster than before.At...

I checked the headers, and it *looks* like it might have come from Google. But the email itself looks kind of skeevy, and I'm not replying to it.If it *is* legit, suggest Google find a better way to communicate this - like through our account interfaces.

Webmasters have long wondered if Google maintains a whitelist that protects certain domains from penalties. As reported on SERoundtable, Google issued a statement to clarify the question. Their answer denies anything like a "get out of jail free" card, but it explains what they call "exception lists" or "exception logs."

by Stoney deGeyter Search engine marketing is an intense game of strategy, analysis, and patience. But, it's also a game with multiple, sometimes even conflicting, goals. Depending on who you talk to you, some will tell you SEO is about rankings, while others will tell you it's about conversions. It's a classic political struggle trying to...

A company that sells guitar-lesson DVDs online has settled with the Federal Trade Commission for a whopping $250,000 over charges that the company “deceptively advertised its products through online affiliate marketers who falsely posed as ordinary consumers or independent reviewers”. The company supposedly schemed to have fake positive...

by Mike Moran It was not a pretty sight. I watched the look on his face as he was shown a page from his domain that should not have been there. Precisely how it got there, no one knows, but it was clearly placed on his site by search spammers, out to get an advantage for some of their Web sites. It was a lovely little page about prescription...

"For Internet Intermediaries like SEOs and web hosts, this should be a cautionary warning," says Christopher Finnerty, one of the lawyers for Cleveland Golf."The jury found that web hosts and SEO's cannot rely solely on third parties to police their web sites and provide actual notice of counterfeit sales from the brand owners.Even prior to...

Google’s interest in professional-quality video continues to rise.  This afternoon, a company called Green Parrot Pictures announced that Google’s followed up a recent series of moves in the space by acquiring it.  Google appears to have big plans for the smaller company, too. To first provide a little background info: Green Parrot...

We waited to bring this story to you just in case the stock recovered (or took an even steeper dive) before the end of the trading day.  But U.S. markets are now closed, meaning we can report that Yahoo’s stock fell exactly 5.66 percent today. In fairness to Yahoo, almost everything with a ticker symbol suffered some damage over the past...

YouTube is inviting users to submit questions to Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu for an interview that will be streamed live on the site. The interview is part of the YouTube World View series and is in partnership with Israel’s Channel 2 News. The interview will be based entirely on the top-voted questions that are submitted. The...

eBay said today, for the first time, it is making it free to list up to 50 items per month in auctions at any start price, and free to add the “Buy it Now” option to those listings. Starting on April 19 the new options will be available. “As we look toward the future of commerce, eBay is positioning small sellers and larger merchants alike...

Google's Panda update caused a ranking drop for many websites. Google has a very long official discussion thread about this topic. The discussion reveals things that you can do to make sure that your website gets its rankings back.

The television was supposed to kill radio. The internet is supposed to stab television in the back. Email is supposedly going to be dead in a few years due to social media. I wonder if Twitter will commit harikari in 2020. What is it with technology and death? Now, Peter Vesterbacka, business developer lead for Rovio (of Angry Birds fame), has...

The final, consumer-ready Internet Explorer 9 is available for download starting at 9:00 PM PDT at www.BeautyOfTheWeb.com in 39 languages.With this set of browser releases, the best experience of the Web is on Windows.IE9 shows how your Web experience and browser are only as good as the operating system they run on...

Google’s often made a big deal about using automated solutions to handle problems.  The search giant hasn’t tried to address every single Google bomb individually, for example; it’s preferred to make algorithm changes that can tackle lots of weaknesses at once.  Only now an admission related to whitelists is getting some...

Dr. J. Craig Venter talked about the creation of synthetic life and its potential to solve world problems at SXSW Interactive today. Venter is credited as one of the first biologists to sequence the human genome. He founded Genomics, he Institute for Genomic Research, and the J. Craig Venter Institute. Now, he works at creating synthetic life...

AT SXSW Interactive, Bump.com (not to be confused with Bump Technologies), announced the launch of an interesting license plate messaging Android app and mobile site. The company says the app lets users “safely” send voice, email, photo, and SMS messages to a vehicle’s license plate. “Social, safety and business...

During SXSW Interactive, StumbleUpon launched a new advertising platform called Paid Discovery. StumbleUpon says Paid Discovery delivers “an engaged target audience directly” to advertisers without clicking through ads or links. “100% engagement, 100% of the time.” There are three versions of Paid Discovery: Light,...

What are the key trends and predictions for online advertising? From mobile ads, to real-time bidding and ad-specific technologies, what are the key changes professional web publishers need to pay attention to? Photo credit: Cornishman In this MasterNewMedia guide to the future of online advertising, you can find the most authoritative and...

Four months ago, an internal Yahoo document leaked, letting the world know that Yahoo intended to “sunset” Delicious.  Now, there’s a sign Yahoo might have sold the organization for $5 million instead. To be perfectly clear: this has not been confirmed through official channels.  There aren’t even multiple anonymous...

Google’s best lawyers may want to start packing their bags for Washington, D.C. Today, Senator Mike Lee called for the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee to conduct an oversight hearing, and Lee identified Google as the sole target. That means Lee, a Republican from Utah, joined Herb Kohl, a Democrat from Wisconsin,...

Google's dominance in Internet search are among the issues the Senate's leading legislator on antitrust issues plans to scrutinize in the months ahead. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) specifically called out Google as a potential cause for concern. The senator in December urged the Justice Department to conduct a "careful review" of the search giant's...

Baidu, a “local Chinese Google”, who leads the search engine market with over 75% share (Google only has 19 percent), is also one of the biggest and popular websites in the world. Alexa currently ranks it as the 6th popular in the world, just above Wikipedia and below Live. As do most big players in the SE industry, Baidu offers various...

"Once you click the link to 'Block all example.com results' you'll get a confirmation message, as well as the option to undo your choice. You'll see the link whether or not you're signed in, but the domains you block are connected with your Google Account, so you'll need to sign in before you can confirm a block.Now when you click a result and...

Probably the biggest piece of search news today is Google’s launch of a domain-blocking feature. We discussed this more here, but essentially, Google has taken the functionality of the Chrome extension it recently released and turned it into part of the search interface. People will now be able to have more control over the quality of the...

YouTube said today it is launching the YouTube Creator Institute, a new initiative aimed at helping content creators improve their skills. YouTube has partnered with the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and Columbia College Chicago’s Television Department. To apply to the YouTube Creator Institute applicants will...

In addition to bringing you the most relevant results, search engines are many times fighting over presenting the most up-to-date pages to the searcher. That’s why Google has those time-related filters in the left, just below the “type” filters. Although recent content might be well of importance only to news-seekers, Google thinks...

The millions of users testing Firefox 4 will be automatically updated to this version and will join our Mozilla QA team in validating the new features, enhanced performance and stability and HTML5 capabilities in Firefox 4.The team has fixed more than 8,000 bugs since the first beta release of Firefox 4.

Google has introduced a new feature in Gmail Labs called Smart Labels, which are aimed at helping users classify and organize email. Users can turn on the new feature on the Labs tab in Settings, Smart Labels then organize incoming Bulk, Notification and Forum messages. Bulk mail includes newsletters and promotional email, which are filtered out...

StumbleUpon announced that it has raised a new $17 million series B round of funding, which the company will use to invest in the company’s discovery technology, expand to new platforms, and grow its employee base. The new funding comes from Accel Partners, August Capital, DAG Ventures, First Round Capital and Sherpalo Ventures. The last...

Google said today its apps marketplace has turned one and during that time it has grown from 50 to over 300 apps. Over the last year Google said its has learned the following: *Web app adoption is accelerating across every business function and need *You value web apps that work together — what we call integrated apps *It’s harder than ever...

Beginning this spring, advertisers will be able to leverage a new adCenter Quality Score for optimizing campaigns in the Bing+Yahoo search marketplace.* Quality Score will be on a 1-10 scale, and be calculated at the keyword level for each match-type being purchased* Scores are designed to represent how competitive your keyword is within the...

We will release the final version of Internet Explorer 9 for download beginning at 9 p.m. Pacific.

by Stoney deGeyter Engaging in competitive research before and during your SEO, PPC, Social Media, and Link Building campaigns is smart business. As they say, "information is power." But, too much information can also cause a handicap. It's not too difficult to be so inundated with info. that you get information overload or conflicting...

At retail stores, unusual payments often bring things to a halt.  Food stamps, tax exemptions, and even things like two-dollar bills can baffle cashiers (and computers) who aren’t used to dealing with them.  So to ease the burden Groupon puts on some businesses (and perhaps increase its influence), it’s possible we’ll see cash...

Google Ventures today joined Sequoia Capital and Salesforce.com Inc. in a $32 million Series D round for HubSpot. The company has now raised $65 million."We agree with HubSpot's belief that search engines, social media and mobile devices have fundamentally changed how businesses should market themselves," said Rich Miner, a partner at Google...

One of the challenges in the recent Man vs Machine Jeopardy game, which was easily won by the computer, Watson, was coping with contextual questions. I was not only about facts, but understanding what the question is about. Another fact is that people searches become more and more specific. Once, people would just type “cheese”. Today, as the...

Within Netflix, things look much the same today as yesterday.  The company hasn’t been hit by site outages, big resignations, or scandals of any sort.  But Facebook’s decision to let users rent The Dark Knight apparently spooked Netflix shareholders to the point they sent its stock tumbling 5.76 percent. That’s of course a big,...

Over the years, Google’s had to appear in French courts several times, and it now looks like a recent case didn’t go so well. Google’s been found guilty of breaching copyright laws, and unless something changes, the company faces a fine of almost $600,000. Granted, in objective financial terms, that wouldn’t mean much to...

Google has released updates to its Chrome browser it says will make complex web apps run more quickly and be more responsive. Chrome has a new settings interface aimed at helping users get to the right settings quickly. A new search box displays settings users are looking for as they type. Users can also copy and paste a link into the Chrome...

Google's Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts commented on Google's latest ranking algorithm update. Their comments reveal why Google released the update which was named "Panda".

by Mike Moran I was at the Boston SEO Meetup last night talking about why white hat SEO is the way to go. (Slides are here, if you are interested.) The attendees were a mix of newbies (trying to find people to help them with SEO) and a number of us grizzled veterans. (I am not sure what it means to be grizzled, but it just sounded right.) But...

Businesses are being urged to sort out how they get consent so they can keep on using cookies.The changes are demanded by the European e-Privacy directive which comes into force in the UK in late May.However, the directive is likely to have an impact on the more general use of cookies that remember login details and enable people to speed up their...

Adobe is fighting Apple's blockade of Flash technology on iOS devices with an experimental software called Wallaby that can convert Flash files into HTML5.Wallaby, a cross-platform AIR app demoed in October, is now available to download on Adobe's Labs pages, as a technology preview for PC and Mac developers.

While several companies established a Fairsearch.org group in order to try and prevent the Google-ITA deal, claiming that it is a yet another step of monopoly (by Google that is) of the airline ticket market, Bing has decided not to complain, but to fight. In addition to purchasing a predictive engine for flight costs, the Farecast, about a year...

WebmasterWorld's monthly SERP monitoring and update thread for March 2011.

Best Buy has posted an iPad 2 FAQ page that should help those looking to purchase the device at the retail giant complete their task. After all, not every town has an Apple store, and there are over 1,150 Best Buys. The iPad 2 will become available at Best Buy at 5:00pm local time on Friday, March 11 – in stores only. There will be no...

Google has purchased UK price comparison site for financial products BeatThatQuote.com for £37.7 million ($61.3 million). News of the deal was confirmed by BeatThat.Quote.com managing director John Paleomylites on the company’s website. “Our team is excited about becoming a part of Google. We look forward to working with their engineers...

Fair warning: not much came of earlier rumors about this same possibility, and an identical outcome is possible this time.  But there’s word that Facebook and Skype are (again) in talks about introducing a video chat feature on the social network. Bloomberg, which is the source of the latest rumor, reported over the weekend, “Facebook...

Skype said today that for the first time advertising will appear in the “Home” tab of Skype for Windows starting this week. The first advertisers on Skype include Groupon, Nokia, Universal Pictures and Visa. Skype said ads would initially appear in the U.S., U.K. And Germany. Skype “Home” features a sponsored masthead space of 650 x 170...

The handful of investors who are able to get their hands on Twitter shares continue to have the utmost faith in the company. Another private market auction has taken place, and this time, eager supporters placed bids high enough to push Twitter’s valuation to $7.7 billion. To put that in perspective: AOL’s market cap is about $2.1...

For your business, it’s critical to deliver on your promises. When you use a marketing tactic to gain a follower, a customer or build your list, there’s usually some promise, explicit or implicit, that it will be worth the person’s time and effort. This is especially true when there’s a certain amount “what’s...

Today we announce something new, the launch of advertising in Skype, which will appear in the Home tab in Skype starting this week.Ads will appear in the US, UK and Germany and advertising sales for Skype are initially focused in those markets.

Foursquare and American Express have entered into a partnership that will see card users getting discounts at stores, restaurants, etc. via Foursquare. WebProNews recently exchanged a few tweets with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, following an article we posted questioning how Foursquare will continue to compete with Facebook and its Places...

Google basically called out Suite101 as the poster child site of what its “Panda” algorithm update was aimed at. Reports have found the site to be one of the hardest hit, and while the site has often been mentioned in the same breath as sites like eHow in the past, eHow has apparently gained from the update. When asked about it in a...

Teaming up with KAYAK, a leading innovator in travel search, allows us to provide a more comprehensive travel search experience. In the coming weeks KAYAK will provide flight search results in the U.S. from multiple cities, airports and airlines, giving customers access to a larger set of flight itineraries as they work to plan and book travel on...

by Mike Fleming Chad Summerhill wrote a nice post recently about something you should be doing if you manage your own PPC account and something you should be showing your clients if you manage accounts for others - visual statistically significant ad test results by time period.  Check out the "how-to" in that post. I did this exercise...

Growing rapidly, with about 200 million registered users and estimated to surpass the 15 million adult users in the US in 2011, Twitter has proved as a very successful venture in the past 3 years. Based on acquisition offers, the company value has increased from $3.7 billion in 2009 to about $10 billion in the closing months of 2010. Yet, the...

Update: A bit more information about Bing Deals… A Bing spokesperson tells WebProNews, "Mobile is an increasingly important space, and our mobile search strategy is focused on enabling customers to easily discover, access, and use the information, answers and content they need and want, anytime, anywhere with the convenience of their...

Wired Magazine interviewed both Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal and in the process got some helpful insight into the Farm Update. Some of the speculation we've had at WebmasterWorld is confirmed.The process of creating this update used input from human quality raters. They were asked questions like: "Would you be comfortable giving this site your...

Groupon Founder and CEO Andrew Mason wrote a post on the company’s official blog about the things Groupon will not be transparent about.  "As press interest in Groupon has grown, I’ve found myself increasingly uttering two words that have always annoyed me: ‘no comment,’" says Mason. "We like to be as...

Tech companies poach each other’s employees on a regular basis; a week rarely goes by without something alone the lines of a Yahoo-to-Google or Zynga-to-Twitter transfer occurring.  Only it seems Microsoft’s getting more than a little tired of losing employees to Facebook, and may unleash a few lawyers in an effort to keep one...

With the recent Goolge’s algorithm update (which was quickly called “Farmer’s Update”, as it seriously affects the so-called “content farms”) and Blekko’s removal of twenty famous websites from its results, it seems that fighting spam is the hottest issue in the search engine market. Indeed, when we face certain enemy, it is very...

Google and Microsoft have joined forces to take down a Texas company's geotagging patent that they claim has been used in lawsuits against more than 300 entities, many of which are customers of the two companies. Microsoft and Google want to protect Google Maps and Bing Maps against this kind of activity.The complaint, filed in Delaware on March...

What are the key emerging internet marketing trends? Which are the new marketing factors to take into greater consideration in the near future? Photo credit: Absolut Vision, mashed-up by Robin Good In this realm, some of the most frequently asked questions I receive in my inbox include: "Hey Robin, should I invest extra energies on...

Many of the lower quality sites Google targeted with its algorithm update rely on Google AdSense ads for revenue. Many low quality sites have been created over the years just to make AdSense money. Obviously Google knows this, but when some of the big sites often labeled as content farms churn out mass content, there is potentially a lot of money...

Last week, Google launched a major update to its algorithm, which was positioned as one that would go after content farms. While some sites that are often attached to that label were in fact hurt by the update, some other sites that aren’t generally considered content farms became casualties as well.  Was your site impacted by...

To avoid any sense of false hype-building, we’ll admit right now: Softbank has already denied any involvement.  But rumor has it that Yahoo is in discussions to sell its stake in Yahoo Japan to Softbank, and a whole lot of people are hoping that’s the case. Yahoo Japan is, if you’ll recall, not exactly the Yahoo most...

I have been doing a good amount of testing lately, especially when it comes to anchor text links. The testing I've been doing is limited a little bit, but I thought I would share my results.The links I've tested have been always within the middle of a sentence, not links that appear in a sidebar, in a footer, or anywhere else on a page--always...

Our hardware acceleration is a bit different from what other browsers are doing. Like IE9 and Firefox 4, we do full hardware acceleration of all draw operations, but unlike those browsers, who only offer this acceleration on Windows Vista and Windows 7, our implementation will run on any OS with sufficient hardware support.This means we can have...

According to latest StatCounter data, Goolge has dropped below 90% of search engine market share – for the first time since July 2009. The presented figure of 89.94%, though is still a major headache for its competitors, Yahoo and Bing that combine to just over 8% of global search… In the European market the domination is even greater –...

Here's official news that many sites have been waiting to hear. Google fellow Amit Singal is quoted in Wired: "We deeply care about the people who are generating high-quality content sites, which are the key to a healthy web ecosystem," Singhal said. "Therefore any time a good site gets a lower ranking or falsely gets caught by our algorithm - and...

AOL has made some bold acquisitions lately – most notably that of The Huffington Post. Since then, however, the company has been losing some key staff members.  Two editors of AOL’s popular tech blog Engadget announced their resignations, citing "The AOL Way" of content production as a catalyst. Then last week, David...

Google and/or users of some of the company’s many products may soon be a little safer.  A company called Zynamics announced today that it’s been acquired by Google, and Zynamics specializes in reverse engineering tools and vulnerability research. The Zynamics site is pretty bare, but here’s a little bit of info for you: the...

"We are unhappy with the way Google uses our users' review on its Places page. However, there is no solution to the problem. Google's position is that we can take ourselves out of its search index if we don't want them to use our reviews on Places. But that is not an option for us, and other sites like us, such as TripAdvisor, as we get a large...

Facebook has launched a new version of its comments plugin, adding features like the use of social signals to order comments based on quality, improved moderation tools, the ability to add different log-in options, and better sharing of comments.  "The comments plugin is based on developer feedback and reflects the spirit of Facebook,...

Back in the fall of 2009, Adobe announced it was acquiring web analytics software provider Omniture. As a result of that acquisition, Adobe runs SearchCenter+, a paid search campaign management tool.  Adobe announced today that SearchCenter+ now allows users to integrate data from both paid search campaigns and organic SEO.  "Our...

Google has released one of the biggest ranking algorithms updates of the last months. The change noticeably impacts 11.8% of all queries on Google. How does this affect the rankings of your website on Google?

More Social RelevanceThe upgraded Comments Box uses social signals to surface the highest quality comments for each user. Comments are ordered to show users the most relevant comments from friends, friends of friends, and the most liked or active discussion threads, while comments marked as spam are hidden from view.

Recent consumer study conducted by comScore and GroupM revealed that although 64% of the users are likely to follow a brand on Facebook and/or Twitter, search engine is still the most popular initial step for the majority of purchases made online. The study shows that nearly 60 percent of future buys originate within the search engine websites,...