This Week’s Industry News

Compiled By Rocket Clicks Staff

Yada Yada Yada Google Panda 23 Yada Yada Yada

This is your monthly reminder that Google is constantly updating its Panda algorithm. This one affects ~1.3% of English-based queries.

Source: Search Engine Land

News Organizations Still Don’t Know How To Use The Google News Keywords Tag

Google’s news keyword meta tag has been live for three months, but publishers have ploddingly adopted the feature. According to data compiled by Blekko, just 5% of news publishers are using the tag. When you see the split of users and non-users, it explains a lot about the resources devoted to SEO in news rooms. Most major media outlets (Washington Post, New Scientist, PBS) use it, but smaller organizations are not as interested in devoting time to the tag.

Source: Search Engine Land

Feds Can Still Read Your Emails Without A Warrant

The Video Privacy Protection Act Amendments Act of 2012, which requires video service providers to allow you to opt out having your information posted on things like your Facebook page, also appeared to offer additional protection for your personal information.

The original bill included an amendment that would have required federal investigators to obtain a warrant before sifting through your emails. However, when the bill was passed that amendment was conspicuously absent. With the exclusion of that amendment, the feds are still able to access emails and other data stored on a third-party server as long as it’s 180 days old or older.

Source: Gawker

Lycos Is Making A Comeback

Remember when Lycos and its adorable black Labrador reigned supreme over the canis lupus familiaris-dominated era of search engines? Apparently it’s making a return to our consciousness in 2013. They’re ambiguous about their unique differentiator, but this is worth bookmarking, if only to use it with nostalgia once next year, before recommitting your search loyalty to Google.

Source: The Next Web

Yahoo Tests New Homepage

Yahoo seems to be testing a new homepage design. An improved user interface, a scrolling middle content section and search bar sticks out as just a few of the changes.

Source: Search Engine Land

Google Increases Presence Of Gmail Content In Search Results

Google began testing a feature that brings Gmail content into your search results in August. While this feature remains an opt in field test available to a limited number of users in the US, Google announced that it expanding the feature’s scope. Now you can search for your online purchases, hotel reservations, and event tickets.

Source: Search Engine Land

Social Media Used To Identify Early Flue Season

Start-up Sickweather used public tweets and Facebook statuses to determine that flu season had in fact started early this year, six weeks before the CDC made a similar declaration. Sickweather declared flu season underway with a tweet on October. 18. Co-founder Graham Dodge said that social media reports of the flu shot up 77 percent between August and December, up about 30 percent from the previous year.

Source: All Things D

Here Are The Five Most Annoying Words Used In 2012

“Whatever,” “like,” “you know,” “just saying,” and “Twitterverse.” Two of those “words” are phrases, but whatever.

Source: Mashable

Notable Commentary

Raising A Toast To 2012

The Current Impact Of Product Listing Ads

Google’s Product Listing Ad program is in full effect, which means we can start investigating how they’re impacting clicks and user behavior within Google Shopping. Benny Blum concludes that, under the current PLA construction, the ads produced lots of unqualified visitors to start, but since the influence of Amazon has receded considerably, businesses are starting to settle into a competitive marketplace with many areas of opportunity.

Analysis By: Benny Blum, Search Engine Land

‘Big Data’ Was The Buzz Word For 2012 – What’s Next For Analytics In 2013?

2012 was the year of Big Data, as more and more marketers and businesses latched onto the analytics revolution like a lamprey riding a Great White shark. This begs the question: what’s in store for 2013? Hint: Nate Silver would be proud.

Analysis by: Garry Przyklenk, Search Engine Watch

B2B SEO In 2013 And Beyond

Derek Edmond has an excellent column outlining how to prepare your B2B SEO strategies for 2013 and where to prioritize your planning heading into the new year.

Analysis By: Derek Edmond, Search Engine Land

Opening A New Chapter Of The SEO Playbook for 2013

What SEO metrics and strategies should you be focusing on in the coming 365 days? Tom Schmitz has a succinct breakdown of where Google is going in 2013, and how to alter your strategies to beat Google to the punch.

Analysis By: Tom Schmitz, Search Engine Land

The Robots Will Take Your Job

Increasing mechanization has certainly eliminated jobs in the past-there aren’t as many blacksmiths and cobblers out there anymore. The occupations many hold now resemble nothing people even 100 years ago could have imagined, and that trend will continue.

One estimate declares that 70 percent of today’s occupations will be eliminated by automation by the close of the 21st century. This second wave of automation is being spearheaded by advances in artificial cognition, cheap sensors, machine learning and distributed smarts. In other words, robots are going to take your job whether you like it or not.

Analysis by: Kevin Kelly, Wired