In Quality Raters’ Handbook, Google Adds Higher Standards For “Your Money Or Your Life” Websites

Google’s continuing push toward identifying expertise and authority on the web takes another step in the form of a new type of website/landing page classification: “Your Money or Your Life.” It’s explained in detail in a new version of Google’s “Search Quality…

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Conversion Metrics Now Available In Google AdWords Bid Simulator

The AdWords Bid Simulator tool now offers conversion estimates in addition to impressions and clicks to show how bid changes may affect conversion volume and values. For each bid option shown in the simulator, the bid simulator provides the number of conversions — both 1-per click and…

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Google Quietly Rolls-Out “In-Market Buyers” Targeting To Reach Imminent Purchasers

Though it hasn’t been officially announced, Google has started rolling out a new targeting feature on the Google Display Network in AdWords called In-Market Buyers. Listed under Interest Categories, the new In-Market Buyers segments are designed to target visitors whose site visitation habits…

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Holiday PPC Tips From Back-To-School Season: How BookRenter Faced Down Bigger Competitors & Rising CPCs

As online businesses prepare to ramp up their holiday paid search campaigns, it can be instructive to look at insights from the retail’s second biggest season: back-to-school. For BookRenter.com, an online text book rental company, back-to-school is its holiday season.  Jean-Michel…

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Down With Toolbar PageRank And Up With… What?

I’ve never been a big fan of Google’s Toolbar PageRank (TBPR) because, as you may know, it’s a metric that isn’t updated very often. It’s also been thrown around too much as a metric that gauges quality — and I’ve been doing this long enough to know that…

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AdWords Offer Extensions Get Shut Down In Favor Of Google Offers

In February, Google announced the limited release of AdWords Offer Extensions, which allowed advertisers to dedicate extra real estate in their search ads to promoting in-store coupons and discounts. Offer Extensions didn’t make much of a splash when they debuted, and now it turns out they…

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How To Troubleshoot Authorship Issues: Step by Step Flowchart

In October, I spoke at SMX East about some of the opportunities and challenges when implementing Google Authorship. At about the same time, a good friend of mine reached out to me with her authorship issue. While she appeared to have authorship markup …

New AdWords Terms & Conditions Roll Out In Europe, Middle East, Africa

Today, Google announced the roll out of a new set of Terms and Conditions for AdWords in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The changes are part of Google’s efforts to update AdWords T&C globally, in part, to reflect the impact of new capabilities. Mark Martel writes in the announcement…

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Google Testing Site Name & URL In Search Result Snippets

Last month we saw Google testing displaying the site name in place of the URL in the snippets of the search results. Now, Rubén reports Google testing a nicer approach, showing both the site name and the URL in the snippet. So when you search for this site, it will show “Search Engine Land…

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Google’s Matt Cutts: Don’t Worry About An SEO Down Side To Responsive Design, There Is None

In a video released today by Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, he said you don’t have to worry about there being a down side, related to SEO, when using a responsive design approach for mobile web sites. The question posed to him was: Is there an SEO disadvantage to using…

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How To Leave Anonymous Business Reviews In Google+

For a long time, I’ve had some doctor friends complaining to me that once Google Places changed over to the new Google+ format, all their patients lost the ability to leave anonymous reviews (thus hurting their business and their rankings). They asked me what to do; and I, in turn, asked my…

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Updated Google iOS Search App Includes Handsfree Activation, New Notifications, Reminders & Cards

Google released a new version of its iOS Search App today, with an extensive list of updates, including new notifications, reminder alerts, cards and a handsfree search activation feature. With the 3.1.0 version of the iOS Search App, iPhone 4s users can say, “Okay Google” or touch the…

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Google Hotel Finder Goes Mobile

Google’s Hotel Finder, which launched in June 2011, is now available on mobile devices. Google said all you need to do is go to www.google.com/hotels directly on your smart phone and search for your destination. Listings will come up almost immediately, giving you the ability to filter the…

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Marin Issues Google Enhanced Campaigns Impact Study

Today, Marin Software issued a report on the impact of Google’s move to enhanced campaigns based on $5 billion in annualized spend managed through its paid search platform. The study focuses on a year-over-year performance comparison covering the nine week period beginning the week after the…

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AdWords Updates Combined Search And Display Campaign Type: Who Should Use It?

This week, Google introduced a new campaign type called “Search Network with Display Select”. This replaces the former “Search & Display Networks” option. Both enable ads to run on Google search, Google search partners and the Google Display Network (GDN), but Google…

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Google Hummingbird & The Keyword: What You Need To Know To Stay Ahead

On September 26, Google told participants at its 15th anniversary event it had a new algorithm impacting more than 90 percent of searches worldwide. They called it “Hummingbird.” Google’s Amit Singhal later said it was perhaps the largest change to the algorithm since he joined…

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Google AdWords Yellow “Ad” Icon Spotted On Desktop SERPs In UK

The bold yellow “Ad” icon that started showing up in Google search results on smartphones in September, now appear to be  getting a test run in the UK. This weekend, Ashley Williams, SEO Project Lead at Summit Media in the UK, noticed the icon appearing in the SERPs for every query he…

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