Google Is Looking Into Rap Genius Linking Scheme Masked As Affiliate Program
Yesterday, John Marbach exposed the popular music side, Rap Genuis, for starting an “affiliate” program in order to get unnatural links pointing to their web site. After it was exposed, Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, said, “we’re aware and looking into…
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Happy Holidays From Google On Christmas Eve: A Recap Of Google Holiday Logos Since 2008
Today’s Google logo includes a Happy Holidays greeting in time for Christmas Eve. Using a simple holiday portrait of a horse-drawn sled riding through the snow, the logo serves up results for the search phrase ‘Happy Holidays’. This year’s logo is a much more…
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Matt Cutts Implies Google Is Aware Of SEOs Bribing Bloggers
On Friday night, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts tweeted a link to a Gawker story named Shady Marketing Firms Are Still Quietly Bribing Bloggers. Matt said, “we’re taking action on hundreds of buyers, dozens of sites, & dozens of spammy writers,” in reference…
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Search Engine Land’s Most-Shared Stories on Twitter for 2013: Google, Google, & More Google
Welcome back, search marketing friends, to the second installment of our Search Engine Land Year In Review series. So far, you’ve seen the run-down of our top news stories to break in 2013 — now, we’re switching gears to the social side of things, kicking it off with Twitter. What…
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Google Still Working On Promoting Subject-Specific Authorities In Search Results
Remember the video Google’s Matt Cutts released in May, talking about the ten future Google SEO changes? One of those topics was about authority boost for authors and sites that are an authority on a topic? Well, Google is still working on that. In TWiG, This Week in Google, episode 227,…
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EU: Google Antitrust Concessions “Unacceptable” As Second Study Condemns “Rival Links”
European Union competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia announced Friday in a Spanish radio interview that Google’s second round of concessions in its current antitrust settlement proposal were “unacceptable.” The main obstacle to settlement is still Google’s treatment of…
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Search Engine Land’s Top News Stories Of 2013: Hummingbirds, Penguins, Pandas & More
As we get ready to close the books on 2013, the editorial team that brings you daily news and features on Search Engine Land and Marketing Land is going to look back at the most popular content we published during these past 12 months. Over the next week couple weeks, we’ll reveal our most…
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Google Again Updates iOS App With Improved Maps Integration
On the heels of a very recent iOS Maps update, Google has further updated and optimized its search app for iOS 7. Some of the changes are cosmetic: “iOS 7 styling and true full screen browsing” for example. There’s also improved image search for the iPad and better integration…
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Google’s Latest Transparency Report Shows Rise In Content Removal Requests From Russia & Turkey
Google announced today it has released its eighth Transparency Report since 2010 when the search engine began providing data on government requests to remove content. According to the latest Transparency Report covering the first half of 2013, Google saw a “significant” increase in the…
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Confirmed: Google Reduces Authorship Rich Snippets In Search Results
The head of search spam at Google, Matt Cutts, has confirmed with us that Google has applied a 15% reduction in the amount of rich snippets displayed in the search results. Matt Cutts announced at PubCon a couple months ago that this would happen, sayi…
Google Denies A Major Update On December 17th
Yesterday, most of the Google search results tracking tools showed major changes in rankings within Google’s search results but during my analysis of webmaster communication within the discussion forums and social space, I saw very little discussion around changes in rankings at Google. Then,…
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Google’s Matt Cutts On Search Spammers: “We Want To Break Their Spirits”
In episode number 227 of This Week in Google on the TWiT network, Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts answered some questions from the hosts Leo Laporte and Jeff Jarvis. In one question, Matt explained that Google aims to “break the spirits” of spammers in order to encourage…
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Report: Google PLAs Deliver 4X Revenue Lift For Retailers In Early Holiday Season
It’s probably not too surprising to hear that retailers have doubled their year-over-year spend on Google product listing ads this holiday season thus far. After all, the paid format of Google Shopping had just rolled out in the fall of 2012. What is stunning, however, is the four-fold…
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Nelson Mandela Ranks #1 On Google’s Top Trending Searches For 2013
Google has published its top ten global trending searches of 2013, with the recently deceased South African leader Nelson Mandela ranking No. 1 for this year’s top global searches: It’s perhaps unsurprising that the #1 trending search of 2013 was an international symbol of strength and…
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“Let’s Go Caroling” Google Easter Egg Gives Mobile Users Their Very Own Christmas Carol Karaoke Machine
Phandroid.com, a website devoted to Android news and updates, has discovered Google’s latest holiday-themed Easter Egg. When performing a Google search for “Let’s go caroling” on an Android or iOS device, the first result includes the question “Which carol would you…
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Google’s Matt Cutts: 25-30% Of The Web’s Content Is Duplicate Content & That’s Okay
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, posted a video today about duplicate content and the repercussions of it within Google’s search results. Matt said that somewhere between 25% to 30% of the content on the web is duplicative. Of all the web pages and content across the internet,…
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Microsoft Photosynth Creator Agüera y Arcas Joining Google
Last night the NY Times reported that the man primarily responsible for Microsoft’s Photosyth product, Blaise Agüera y Arcas, is joining Google. Agüera y Arcas is not simply an engineer or technician, he offers a rare combination of technical expertise, design and product vision. Agüera y…
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Google Squashes Backlinks.com, Another Link Network Outed By Google’s Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, announced on Twitter that Google has gone after another link network, this one is named Backlinks.com. Like with Anglo Rank, the link network Google outed the week prior, Matt Cutts took a line from their marketing material and then said “Au…
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Canada’s Competition Bureau Escalates Google Antitrust Investigation
Canada’s Competition Bureau (CCB) has indicated that it will proceed with a formal antitrust investigation against Google. The CCB had been engaged in a preliminary inquiry. A new CCB court filing requests a range of documents that will potentially show, according to the CCB, Google’s alleged…
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Sponsored Study Argues Google’s “Rival Links” Don’t Drive Enough CTRs To Rivals
Google’s original antitrust settlement proposal, negotiated with the European Commission, was attacked by Google competitors and critics as being a token concession to competition. Anti-Google lobbying group FairSearch.org sponsored a consumer study that argued Google’s presentation of…
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