This Week’s Industry News
Compiled By Rocket Clicks Staff
Google Webmaster Tools Now Displays Freshest Links
Google’s Webmaster Tools now include a “download latest links” option, which allows you to view a report detailing Google’s most recently discovered links back to your site, as well as the date it was discovered. This is a pretty huge step forward for Webmaster Tools. Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Google Analytics Officially Kills Old Version
Many of us have been using the “New” version of Google Analytics for over a year now. Google has finally shut the door on the old version and moved everyone to the “New” one. The newer version focuses much more on real-time reporting, social and mobile integration, as well as Content Experiments – the replacement for Website optimizer. Source: TechCrunch
Analytics Data Is Now Available In AdWords…For Now
Syncing Google AdWords data with the Analytics interface has been pretty easy for some time, but the same can’t be said for the reciprocal action. However, Google is currently testing this feature, staying mute except for confirming the test and calling it a “small beta.” We can only hope it grows larger than the fish. Source: Search Engine Land
Study Finds Paid Ad Clicks Increase For ‘Commercial’ Searches
According to recent findings from Wordstream, users that search with commerce-based intent (in other words, looking to buy something) are 64.6% likely to click on PPC ads that match their query. Organic clicks make up 35.4% of these search engine interactions. There is some sense to this behavior: PPC ads are better targeted, and organic searches involving specific products or services often return less-than satisfactory results with at least a few instances of law quality websites. Source: Search Engine Land
Facebook Testing AdWords-Like Sponsored Display Ads Below Search Bar
Facebook is testing sponsored results in the search type head. This lets businesses try to divert traffic away from each other. These ads are sold on a cost per click basis and you can target people searching for any page, app, or place without the business’s permission. Source: TechCrunch
Google Tests Google+ Sharing Option Within Search Results
Google is testing an in-search feature that allows users to share a page on Google+ directly from the results, without even clicking on the page. Realistically, this isn’t that much different than the “share” button on Facebook posts, but has much larger ramifications given Google’s depth of economic influence. Source: Search Engine Land
Google Executive Leaves To Become Yahoo’s CEO
Marissa Mayer has officially left the tech giant to take the reins at Yahoo, the slingshot-less David to Google’s Goliath. The 37-year-old Mayer was Google’s 20th employee and has played a crucial role in the development of many Google products, so she’s clearly one of the best finds Yahoo could get to fill their vacant President and CEO seats. As a follow up, Danny Sullivan predicts that, under Mayer, Yahoo will likely make an ironic shift towards non-search business ventures. Source: Search Engine Land
Quality Score Calculations Now Include Device Type
Brad Geddes has a blog post detailing Google’s newest update to Quality Score: the inclusion of device type as a determining factor. Geddes says that the update makes it easier to understand the flaws and strengths in each of your device-based campaigns, and parses things out so you can judge each device-specific landing page by itself. Source: Certified Knowledge
The World’s Spam Has Slimmed Down 18% Thanks To The FireEye Diet
Atif Mushtaq, of the anti-malware firm, FireEye, spearheaded a successful campaign against the Grum botnet, this week. Grum once was responsible for as much as 1/3 of the world’s electronic spam distribution, as well as providing a vector for countless DDoS attacks. Recently, Grum’s influence has waned, and instead has been responsible for “only” 18% of the world’s spam. Source: Mashable
Google Search Spending Dips In Preparation For Comparison Shopping
Rimm-Kaufmann released their digital marketing report for Q2 this past week, and revealed that spending on search initiatives fell slightly in comparison to Q1. Among other findings in the report, the average cost-per-click dropped 10%, tablets continued to reign supreme over smartphones in the mobile paid click market (57%), and ad clicks increased by 37%. Source: Rimm-Kaufman Group
Pitbull To Play In Front Of Hundreds Of Alaskans
Pitbull is headed to the most remote Wal-Mart in the country on Kodiak Island in Alaska. It’s largely the result of John Hendron and David Thorpe of Something Awful, who worked tirelessly to take over a Wal-Mart-hosted campaign for Energy Strips. The campaign promised Pitbull would stop in to the Wal-Mart with the most likes on their Facebook page. That ended up being Kodiak with over 60,000 likes, nearly 10 times the population of the entire island. To Pitbull’s credit, he hasn’t shied away from the trip going so far as to invite Thorpe and Hendron to join him. Source: Mashable
Firefox 14 Encrypts Google Searches
Recently launched Firefox 14 encrypts Google searches by default but due to a Google loophole your search will still leak out to the search engine’s advertisers and Google Webmaster Central. The secure version of Google, Google SSL, Firefox 14 uses does prevent anyone-like the network administrator of a public or shared WiFi network- from looking in on your searches. Still, Google SSL will pass along your search information to advertisers if you click on their ads. Source: Search Engine Land
Notable Commentary
You’ll Read, Because They Can Take It
Why Facebook Ads Are Not A Waste Of Time Or Money
It really isn’t hard to work a Facebook reference into your late night TV monologue. With a pancake flat IPO and a new BBC “study” on wasting money with Facebook ads, confidence in the social networks ability to sustainably make money has never been lower. However, Miranda Miller argues that these jokes may be pre-mature, and the quotes around “study” are well-deserved, as the BBC’s methods run counter to what a traditional advertiser would do on Facebook. Analysis By: Miranda Miller, Search Engine Watch
Google Penguin = SEO Schadenfreude
After Google released the Penguin, a lot of black hat chickens have come home to roost. Those scrambling to clean up unnatural link profiles are starting to get used to messages a lot like this one: “Dude, if you spammed my blog, why should I spend my time cleaning it up for you? I think you should have thought about that before you spammed me. Link stays.” Analysis By: Thomas Hogenhaven, Thogenhaven
How To Not Fail At Link Building
Adria Saracino contends that many link building “strategies” often exclude the strategy part, resulting in a fairly unsuccessful campaign. She also breaks out the most common reasons for failed link building initiatives into sections, and uses an acronym/acrostic to explain how link builders can avoid these pitfalls. Analysis By: Adria Saracino, SEOmoz
The Influence Of Augmented Reality On Marketing
This eight minute TED talk explains how a touch of augmented reality could trigger a chain reaction in the marketing, social networking, and information-gathering world. Analysis By: Matt Mills, TED
Hans Rosling Discusses Dataset Comprehension Leading To Better Research Conclusions
Brilliant public health researcher, Dr. Hans Rosling, talks about the importance of understanding background data before forming conclusions based on surface-information. Oh, and also the connection between health, wealth, education, and how the world is converging. Analysis By: Hans Rosling, TED
