Tuesday, August 5, 2014
SearchCap: Google My Business Webmaster Tools, Google Pigeon Feedback & Bing Cortana Expands
Search In Pics: Google Cookie Tower, Android Framed & Google Whiskey Delivery
Monday, August 4, 2014
Google Quick Answers For Jewish Food Blessings
Google is now offering the answers for what blessings observant Jewish people should make prior to consuming food or drinks in their quick answers.
The term for blessing in Hebrew is ‘Bracha‘ and if you search for
SearchCap: Foursquare Experts, Google Blessings & LinkedIn B2B Tools
John Venn, Inventor Of The Venn Diagram, Gets Google Logo On His 180th Birthday
Born on this date in 1834, Venn came up with the idea of using circles to sort groups to illustrate their relationship to each other sometime around 1880
Offering users two circles, each with its own group of categories, the interactive logo delivers an answer combining category pairings via a Venn-diagram. For example, choosing “Sea Life” from the first group of categories, and “Has a Shell” from the second, gives you a sea turtle as shown in the following video:
Once the Venn diagram result is displayed, users can then go to “John Venn” search results, replay to choose new categories, or share their Venn-diagram result via Facebook, Twitter or Google
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Google Speaks About Difficult Decisions In Implementing “Vague & Subjective” Right To Be Forgotten
Searching For Movie Showtimes? Bing Scores 100% In Test, Google Only 70%
After the producers for the documentary “America: Imagine the World Without Her” accused Google of keeping the film’s showtimes out of Google’s search results, we conducted our own test to see how accurate Google and Bing were when it came to finding movie showtimes.
For movie title searches, both Google and Bing aim to display showtimes at the top of their search results, like this when searching “Tammy” on Google:
Google Solicits Feedback On Right To Be Forgotten
Google released a page at google.com/advisorycouncil that is asking Google users to submit their thoughts and feedback on the Court of Justice of the European Union mandate for the Right To Be Forgotten.
The question posed by Google is:
How should one person’s right to be forgotten be balanced with the public’s right to know?Google then explains in more detail:
A recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union found that European law gives people the right to ask search engines like Google to remove results for queries that include their name.Since then, we’ve received removal requests on all sorts of content: serious criminal records, embarrassing photos, instances of online bullying and name-calling, decades-old allegations, negative press stories, and more.
For each of these requests, we’re required to weigh, on a case-by-case basis, an individual’s right to be forgotten with the public’s right to know.
We want to strike this balance right. This obligation is a new and difficult challenge for us, and we’re seeking advice on the principles Google ought to apply when making decisions on individual cases. That’s why we’re convening a council of experts.
We’re just getting started, but during this process we also want to hear your input, too — this is all about your rights online, and the Internet provides an incredible forum for discussion and debate.
This is then followed by a feedback form that asks for their feedback in an open box. It also asks them if they want Google to follow up with them on this topic and if Google is allowed to publish what they’ve written.
The existing committee consists of:
Prof. Luciano FloridiSylvie KauffmannLidia Kolucka-ZukFrank La RueJosé-Luis PiñarSabine Leutheusser-SchnarrenbergerPeggy ValckeJimmy WalesEric SchmidtDavid C. DrummondFor more details and to give Google your two-cents, see google.com/advisorycouncil.
Related Topics: Channel: SEOFriday, July 11, 2014
New Google AdWords PLA Test Groups Products By Price
This could get interesting. Last month, we saw Google running a test that ranked product listing ads (PLAs) by ratings and reviews in search results. Now, a new test groups and ranks products by price.
In the screenshot below, provided by CPC Strategy, PLAs are grouped in two pricing stacks — one for “Up to $30″ and a second for “Over $30″. The products in the first group are shown in order by price. Oddly, there is one outlier in the second group — the $36.95 sandal from Nordstrom is listed after two higher priced shoes from Keen.
Search In Pics: Google Burgers, Android Dress Up & Inflatable Android Robots
Apple Maps To Offer Choice Of Google, Others For Directions
A GIF in the article shows that once a destination is located users will be able to choose directions from, presumably, any mapping-related app installed on their iPhones:
Starting in iOS 8, users will be able to run a search for locations in Apple Maps and use either Apple’s own driving and walking directions, or switch directly to another app already installed on your device via a simplified menu.It also shows users other mapping apps available for download — so it effectively becomes an app-discovery mechanism as well.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Google Issues Best Practices For Shopping Campaigns Ahead Of This Summer’s Big Transition
With Shopping Campaigns becoming the default campaign type for running Product Listing Ads on Google by the end of August, the search giant has issued a best practices whitepaper to help marketers make the transition.
The main points the paper dives into are product feed optimization and updates, Shopping campaign structure, bidding and mobile recommendations. Much of the best practices haven’t necessarily changed from the original PLA recommendations — use relevant titles and high-quality images — but there are good baseline reminders such as limiting title length to 50 characters to avoid truncation.
The recommendations on how to structure the new Shopping campaigns, though, will be particularly useful for marketers beginning to transition their campaigns. Google wants advertisers to think of their campaigns like a storefront and suggests focusing on product lines, profit margins and best sellers. Sounds simple when you see it, but they provide a good framework for thinking about how to set up new campaigns.
And, Google really wants merchants to be thinking about the mobile impact on their business and their Shopping campaigns. Advertisers with mobile landing pages should update their feeds for the new mobile landing page attribute, for example.
With new product feed specifications issued just yesterday, merchants will need to be paying close attention to their feeds and Shopping campaigns in the coming months to ensure their accounts are ready for the holiday push.
The whitepaper can be downloaded from Google directly or from its solution center on Search Engine Land.
Related EntriesNew Google Product Feed Specs Going Live Sept. 30, Including A Mobile Landing Page AttributeOptmyzr Launches Bid Management Solution For Google Shopping CampaignsGoogle Introduces New Content API For Google ShoppingStudy Finds Sweeping KPI Improvements With Switch To Google Shopping CampaignsRelated Topics: Channel: SEMNEW: Google Links To Apps Not Pages, When Searching For Musicians On Android
Google has introduced the ability to search for musicians on Android phones and then have apps with more information about them open up.
The new feature is integrated into Google Search and works with the following apps:
Google PlayYouTubeiHeart RadioSpotifyTuneInRdioThe feature only works for musicians. For example, a search for Katy Perry (as shown in the example above) brings up an information box about her, with links to supported music apps. Tapping on an app brings you into the artist’s page there. In contrast, a search for Perry’s “California Gurls” brings up no such links.
Right now, the feature also seems inconsistent. Links for Perry showed up when searching using the search box widget on a Samsung Galaxy S5; they didn’t when searching from Chrome directly. The YouTube link launched correctly into Katy Perry’s page on YouTube; the Google Play Music link didn’t load Google Play Music at all, though it did work correctly on a Nexus 10.
Outside the information box, links still open pages as has traditionally been the case.
The Bigger PictureGoogle has faced an existential threat from apps in mobile. Its all-purpose functionality on the PC didn’t translate into mobile; and the company was in danger of losing its internet “gatekeeper” role as smartphones become primary internet devices.
Google Now, voice search and other initiatives, such as the effort to index apps and deep-link app content, have been partly successful attempts to reinsert search into the center of the mobile user experience. This is more true for Android than iOS, however.
Numerous consumer surveys assert the value and reach of mobile search. But frequency and engagement are less on the PC because of apps (Maps is an exception). Against that backdrop Google has introduced the ability to search for music and then play it immediately in an installed app on your (Android) phone.
This is a useful capability but it’s important to see this in the context of what Google is trying to do more broadly in mobile search: make it more relevant by delivering “answers” and structured content in lieu of a list of links.
These are moves of necessity by Google, packaged as better serving consumers or doing “cool” things with mobile search. It is in part this behavior that has got Google’s critics and rivals so upset, as the company moves further away from its traditional SERP.
Related EntriesGoogle Sees Deeper App Content As Key To Mobile UsageGoogle App Indexing Adds 24 Android Apps & Expands To All English Content WorldwideGoogle Search Now Discovers Content Within Android Apps Related Topics: Channel: MobileRather Than Opt-Out Of Google, German News Publishers Demand 11% Cut Of Revenue
German news publishers are picking up where the Belgians left off, a now not-so-proud tradition of suing Google for being included in its listings rather than choosing to opt-out. This time, the publishers want an 11% cut of Google’s revenue related to them being listed.
The news comes from Jeff Jarvis, who writes that a group representing about half the major news publishers in Germany have a started an arbitration process demanding that Google pay 11% of revenue related to listing links to and descriptions of their content.
The actual suit (in German) from the VG Media industry group is here, which demands up to 11% of all gross sales worldwide (plus VAT!) of revenue related to its content, as of August 1, 2013.
Beyond What Leistungsschutzrecht Allows?From Spiegel (again in German, and working off a Google translation), VG Media includes twelve publishers including giant Axel Springer. The story also suggests that the publishers feel they have a right to demand license fees because Google’s use goes beyond a new German copyright law created last year.
That law, referred to as “ancillary copyright” or “Leistungsschutzrecht,” allowed search engines free use of single words or very small text excerpts. Apparently, the VG Media group still feels there’s use happening where payment can be demanded.
The move produced two major absurdities. First, it’s incredibly difficult to even know how much revenue would be generated, if any, by these links.
The Difficulty In Calculating A Publisher’s CutWithin Google News itself, there are no ads. So as Jarvis writes, “Are the publishers seeking 11% of 0?” But news content does appear outside Google News, within regular Google searches, where ads can be present.
To figure an 11% payment here, the publishers would apparently want to know any time their content appeared with ads on search results pages. Then, if any of those ads produced revenue, they want 11% of that.
It’s a difficult but not impossible task for Google to figure this out. It already tells publishers through Google Webmaster Tools what the visibility of their pages are like. It could clearly tell for a particular publisher if pages are showing in the top results.
More work would be required to tell if a publisher was present where there was an ad click. There’s an even bigger debate on whether a publisher being one of 10 to 30 links that might appear on a page should be given the entire credit for a click and thus 11% of revenue earned by it.
Publishers Aren’t Forced Into GoogleAll that is likely to get argued in arbitration. But that leads to the second big absurdity. Google isn’t forcing the publishers to be in Google at all.
Let’s do a little history.
Back in 2006, Belgian news publishers sued Google over their inclusion in the Google News, demanding that Google remove them. They never had to sue; there were mechanisms in place where they could opt-out.
After winning the initial suit, Google dropped them as demanded. Then the publications, watching their traffic drop dramatically, scrambled to get back in. When they returned, they made use of the exact opt-out mechanisms (mainly just to block page caching) that were in place before their suit, which they could have used at any time.
The case carried on for six years in total. In the end, it was settled in what’s become common when Google is in disputes with publishers. Google pledges some nebulous collaboration that will support the industry. See also the
SearchCap: German Publishers Against Google, iOS City Tours & Google Music Search In Apps
Monday, June 23, 2014
Get Your Business To 100% In Google My Business
Last week, Google started rolling out the new Google My Business platform to much applause from the industry. Several experts have provided excellent coverage already (thanks, Danny Sullivan and Mike Blumenthal)