Does Google’s Review Count Inflation Give Them An Unfair Advantage In Local Search?

We all know that monitoring online reviews is important for online marketing; but lately, it seems that not all reviews are created equal. In fact, Google+ Local reviews may have a greater impact than others on your online marketing effectiveness. According to Searchmetrics’ analysis of SEO…

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Why Google is broken and the Search Quality Team does nothing to fix it

Google is broken, at least it is in its regional versions. In fact, not all the updates rolled out in Google.com and English were rolled out outside of it. The lack of an EMD update, for example, is obviously the cause of many very low quality SERPs. But even Hummingbird is causing quality problems that Google probably had not foreseen.

Post from Gianluca Fiorelli on State of Digital
Why Google is broken and the Search Quality Team does nothing to fix it

Search Marketers: Keep Calm, Carry On

Everybody loves progress, but nobody likes change. This adage is particularly true any time Google announces major upgrades to AdWords. If recent comments on Twitter are any indication, Google this morning was gearing up to pull your hair, throw sand in your face and take your lunch money. None of…

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Introducing our global Google+ page for webmasters

Webmaster Level: All

We’ve recently launched our global Google Webmasters Google+ page. Have you checked it out yet? Our page covers a plethora of topics:

Follow us at google.com/+GoogleWebmasters and let us know in the comments what else you’d like to see on our page! If you speak Italian, Japanese, Russian or Spanish, be sure to also join one of our webmaster communities to stay up-to-date on language and region-specific news.

Google Webmasters from around the world
Hello from around the world!
Posted by Mary Chen and Andrey Lipattsev, Webmaster Outreach Team

Google’s 4/22 AdWords News: Features For App Ads, More UI Tools, No Wild Surprises

Anticipation has been running high among paid search marketers about what today’s AdWords announcement — dubbed “Step Inside AdWords — might hold, since Google began teasing the news. However, any fears of drastic changes in the vein of last year’s move to enhanced…

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5 Steps To Leverage Those AdWords Bid Simulations For Maximum Return

Though the basic concepts have remained the same, a lot has changed since Hal Varian released his bidding tutorial back in 2009 (video autoplay), especially with enhanced campaigns and those new mobile and location bid modifiers. One such change is that keyword-level simulations are now available…

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Why Yahoo’s Not Going To Steal The Search Default For iPhone Away From Google

Apparently Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer wants to be the default search for Apple’s Safari browser on iPhone and iPad and has been preparing to make a solid pitch. Well, we all want things we can’t have, and I’d be incredibly surprised if Yahoo got its wish here. Kara Swisher over at…

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States Threaten Action If Google Doesn’t Delist “Illegal Sites”

According to the Washington Post, 24 state attorneys general are trying to pressure Google to discontinue ads and the indexing of sites they argue teach or enable criminal activity. In particular, they continue to pressure Google to eliminate advertisi…

Are You Building Links Or Building A Business?

I think many of us can agree that the great thing about this industry is that it’s constantly evolving and new elements are continuously being added. For example, I love the role social is playing in helping companies connect with customers and the effect it has on search (links, mentions,…

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6 Steps To Boost The Profitability Of Your SEM Acquisition Program

Imagine that your job is to stand outside a barber shop and bring in new customers. If a businessman with shaggy hair comes walking by, you give him a big wave and a hello. If a bald man walks by, not so much. This analogy is used by Google AdWords to describe its Enhanced cost-per-click […]

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RKG: Q1 US Paid Search Up 17 Percent, Fueled By PLAs; Smartphones Drove Just 7 Percent Of Spend

RKG is out with its first quarter Digital Marketing Report today, showing US paid search spend increased 17 percent year-over-year. This echoes positive Q1 global growth trends reported by Covario (25 percent) and IgnitionOne (8 percent). Mobile device…

The War On Links

In case you didn’t notice, we are waging a war over links. Some would say that SEOs are at war with search engines, but I disagree. Search engines and SEOs have a symbiotic relationship; and without meaning to, we’ve killed the value of the link. The link, once a simple connector from…

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Report: Google Running Another Test To Map In-Store Sales To AdWords Ads

When Google introduced Estimated Total Conversions in AdWords last September, the company made clear it was working on ways to measure the impact of online advertising on in-store sales as it outlined the initiative to give advertisers a complete view of the effect their search advertising has on…

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Google Analytics Adds “Smart Lists” To Automate Remarketing List Optimization

Earlier this week, the Google Analytics team announced the release of Smart Lists, a new remarketing list type that automates list creation and management in Google Analtyics. Smart Lists are primarily powered by all that anonymized conversion data tha…