This Week’s Industry News
Compiled By Rocket Clicks
Carol Bartz Gets Donald Trump’d By Yahoo!
Since Carol Bartz took over as CEO of Yahoo! in 2008, she’s seen nothing but doom and gloom affect the once-dominant tech company. It’s no surprise then that she was axed Tuesday, leaving Yahoo! with the current CFO Tim Morse as a temporary fill-in until they find a new CEO.
Source: Search Engine Land
Google And Zagat Merge Together As One
Google has acquired Zagat Ratings for an undisclosed amount, effectively sending out a wave of expectations that Zagat will factor heavily into the search giant’s Places section. Zagat was once the Peter Frampton of restaurant review publications when print was still king, but the growing online restaurant aggregator industry pushed Zagat to a life of occasional nostalgic use and decreasing interest.
This most recent acquisition by Google teaches us a valuable lesson: If you’re a down-on-your-luck company, but still carry some weight in an industry Google still deems profitable, getting bought out by Google will resurrect your career like Bon Jovi.
Source: Search Engine Land
Three-Line Ad Sitelinks Have Been Spotted
Ad Sitelinks now come in packs of six or three lines, according to a recent update to the Google AdWords Help section. This falls in line with Google’s mid-August update to organic Sitelinks that expands their options to a maximum of six lines and 12 links to internal pages.
Source: Search Engine Land
‘Estimated Top Page Bid’ Debuts In AdWords
Google AdWords now allows you to estimate the bid amount required to land your text ad in the front page banner position of Google’s search results. This feature won’t be 100% accurate (but then again, many estimation tools rarely are), but it’s a good start for gauging what it would take to sit in one of the most profitable spots on the page.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Bing Is Finally Grabbing Some Of Google’s Market Share!
According to a recent Experian Hitwise report exploring search engine usage trends, Bing-powered searches rose from comprising 28.05% of all searches in July to 28.99% in August. This steady increase amounts to about a 4% market share shift between Google and Bing over the past year, and can largely be attributed to Yahoo and Bing’s search results partnership that began in August 2010.
Source: Search Engine Land
STATS: Twitter Users Follow Brands, Don’t Mind Promoted Tweets
According to a recent Twitter study conducted by eMarketer, 89.4% of all Twitter users follow brands, and just 10.9% of all Twitter users find Promoted Tweets annoying. Other relevant statistics include:
- Apparently users do interact with Twitter ads, as 14% of those surveyed have retweeted a Promoted Tweet
- Promoted Tweets have provided value in the form of a discount for 21.6% of users
- Twitters ads definitely expand brand awareness, as 21.2% of respondents said they learned about a new business through Promoted Tweets
The report itself, at the very least, shows encouraging news for the future of Twitter ads.
Source: eMarketer
STATS: Google Says 44% of All Last Minute Holiday Gifts Will Be Found Through Mobile Searches
Supposedly, the mobile shopping market will be a life-saver for last-minute shoppers during the holiday season. Google’s own calculations, and past trends, predict that 44% of last minute holiday gift searches will come on mobile devices.
The graph above illustrates the massive difference between peak search traffic on popular holiday shopping days (Black Friday, the weekend before Christmas) in 2009 and 2010. It should be noted that this projection doesn’t break mobile searches down by “search-to-store” shopping and mobile purchases resulting from a Google search.
Source: Search Engine Land
STATS: Pew Explores Mobile Phone Usage Trends
According to a recent Pew Research survey, 58% of smartphone users interact with geosocial and/or location-based services such as Yelp, Foursquare, TripAdvisor, or Google Maps, on their mobile device. The survey also found that 92% of respondents use their smartphone for text messaging, 58% access social networking sites, and 76% use their phones for email.
Source: Search Engine Land
Twitter Signs Contract Extension With Bing
Twitter has signed an extension to partner with Bing, avoiding the inevitable in-season gossip over what Twitter would do in the open market as a free agent. The terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed, but both companies had a playful exchange to announce the news on Storify.
Source: Search Engine Land
Google Offers Are Go In Five More Cities
Seattle, Denver, Austin, Washington DC, and Boston come on down! You’ve been selected as the most recent additions to the Google Offers lineup! The Google Offers website also features a list of 27 “coming attraction” cities that will get the daily deal program sometime in the near future.
Source: Search Engine Land
Notable Commentary
That Can’t Be Ruined By George Lucas
Rand Fishkin On Key Performance Indicators In Social Media
“When Rand Fishkin speaks, you listen” is a proven law of physics, and he’s provided a lengthy, useful look into measuring the Key Performance Indicators in social media. Although it’s hard to quantify the monetization impact of social media, Rand provides some interesting points on where social networks can fit into the buying process and conversion funnel.
Analysis By: Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz
Why Google Struggles With Local Businesses
In the wake of a New York Times investigation exposing the ease of Google Places manipulation, Matt McGee offers some insight into why Google’s attitude towards small businesses is out of touch.
Analysis By: Matt McGee, Search Engine Land
Search Engine Land: Yahoo! Could Use A Steve Jobs Clone
Greg Sterling explains a somewhat obvious formula for selection the right person to be Yahoo! CEO: Find a bold visionary like Steve Jobs, and just maybe, things will be OK for the floundering tech company. Unless their new CEO turns out to be the Tony Goldwyn’s character from The 6th Day, that task may be really tricky.
Analysis By: Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land
Display Is The Future Of Search Advertising
Josh Dreller explains why search retargeting will soon becoming a necessity for every online ad agency, and why display advertising is growing at a higher pace than text advertising in search engines.
Analysis By: Josh Dreller, Search Engine Land
