Goodbye, Google Toolbar PageRank

In 2016, Google confirmed that it would be removing Toolbar PageRank.

Google would still continue using PageRank data internally within the ranking algorithm. Only the external PageRank values shown in the Toolbar would soon go away completely.

The end of Toolbar PageRank was inevitable by this point. Google hadn’t updated PageRank scores since 2013 and PageRank has been slowly vanishing from their toolbars and browsers.

Toolbar PageRank originally become a visible, public metric when Google released its first version of the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer in 2000.

Dig deeper in RIP Google PageRank score: A retrospective on how it ruined the web.

Also on this day

Member of SEO community and her two children killed in Ukraine

2022: Tatiana Perebeinis, the chief accountant of SE Ranking, was one of four people killed in a Russian attack in Irpin, Ukraine.

Platforms that have suspended ads in Russia

2022: In addition to political and economic sanctions, the conflict in Ukraine prompted many crucial platforms to cut advertiser access to Russian audiences.

SEOPress WordPress plugin adds IndexNow support

2022: This gave another 200,000 sites that are using this plugin easy access to enable IndexNow on their WordPress sites.

Google brings Full Coverage news to search results

2021: Google announced it was bringing the “Full Coverage” feature you can find in Google News directly to Google Search.

Google Lens comes to Android devices through the side door — Google Photos

2018: Previously only available on the Pixel and Pixel XL, Google Lens became (indirectly) available on all Android phones through Google Photos.

Google amplifies musicians in Google search through the Google Posts platform

2018: Google launched Google Posts to all musicians who had Knowledge Panel details in search.

Google working to integrate AMP benefits into future open web standards

2018: Standardization would allow sites to implement, and benefit from, AMP features without adopting the framework.

Google rolls out AdWords account-level call extensions, among other call updates

2017: Business names in call-only ads, more detailed reporting and an expansion of automated call extensions were on the way.

Pinterest’s updated browser extension turns off-Pinterest images into search queries

2017: Pinterest’s extension would scan images on a webpage to show related pins. Those visual search results wouldn’t include ads.

Google Flights’ new search features let users filter searches by travel interests

2016: Travelers could perform Google Flight searches without entering a specific date or place.

Bing auto-tagging comes to Shopping Campaigns, Image Extensions

2016: Ad group tracking was also enabled via the utm_content tag.

Bing search for “periodic table” returns interactive periodic table directly in results

2016: Bing added a fully interactive, color-coded periodic table that shows up at the top of its results for a search on [periodic table].

Report: Google To Settle “WiSpy” Investigation With Attorneys General For Measly $7 Million

2013: And Google would admit no wrongdoing.

Search In Pics: Yahoo’s Mascot, Google+ Cake & Yahoo’s Birthday Party

2013: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Santorum’s Changing “Google Problem” — & Search Engine Land — Make The Rachel Maddow Show

2012: Search Engine Land got one of several shout-outs in the piece, along with some on-screen visuals.

Bing And Google Gain Market Share While Yahoo Drops

2012: Yahoo’s decline since 2011 was significant.

Ask.com Launches New Visual Q&A App “Pollroll”

2011: Pollroll, according to Ask, was “designed to facilitate the creation, distribution and sharing of poll questions and results.”

Google Bans Itself Again By Banning BeatThatQuote.com

2010: Google acquired and then penalized BeatThatQuote within a single day.

Google Makes Mobile Instant Previews Official

2010: Google’s Instant Preview feature, which let users view thumbnails of webpages in results, was officially being rolled out to Android and iOS devices.

Google Ventures Backs Another Marketing Company, Hubspot

2010: Hubspot garnered a $32 million series D funding round from Google Ventures, along with Sequoia Capital and Salesforce.com.

Google Confronting Spain’s “Right To Be Forgotten”

2010: A Spanish court was asking Google to remove data about a private individual from its index.

Foursquare 3.0 Aims To “Redefine Loyalty”

2010: The company hoped to “redefine loyalty,” with a range of new offer types and tools for merchants.

Enchantment: Guy Kawasaki On Why Your Focus Should Be On Working Magic

2010: He suggested that the overall goal for anything you’re trying to accomplish is to enchant others.

Google Adds Public Data Search Tool To Labs

2010: It included data from five new providers: Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD); California Department of Education; Eurostat; US Center for Disease Control; and US Bureau of Economic Analysis

Google Testing TV Search Service With Dish Network

2010: It allowed users to search content from Dish and web video (e.g., YouTube), and personalize a lineup of shows.

EU Privacy Push May Drive Google To Stop Updating Street View In Europe

2010: Google said it needed to retain an “unblurred” version of the photography for a year.

Microsoft To Launch Bing Ads In UK vs. “Goliath”

2010: Microsoft was about to roll out a “a multimillion-pound TV ad campaign” for Bing in the UK market, where it has less than a 5 percent share of searches. 

Google Local Business Center Adds Photos, Attributes, Maps Corrections & Stats

2007: You could adjust the marker for your business, add a photo to your listing, add custom attributes and see statistics on how your listing was performing.

Google Testing Showing Search Volume Numbers In AdWords Keyword Tool

2007: Google was showing actual numbers in search volume for the previous month for keywords.

Mark Cuban Subpoenas Google Over YouTube Videos

2007: Magnolia Pictures, Mark Cuban’s film studio, subpoenaed Google for the identities of those who uploaded his videos to YouTube.

5 Shiny Reasons Google Should Take Over Ford’s Twin Cities Auto Plant

2007: A fun and compelling pitch for Google to come to St. Paul, Minnesota.

Google Wins Google Earth Patent Case

2007: Google won the dispute dating back to 2002, when it was filed by Skyline Software Systems against Keyhole, which Google later acquired and whose software became Google Earth.

Microsoft’s “Third Era” Of Search Begins With Departure Of Search Chief Christopher Payne

2007: He oversaw Microsoft’s “second era” of search, when it developed a crawler-based search engine to take on Google.

Yahoo Adds Networking Features To Answers

2007: You could add Yahoo Answers users to your own personal collection of contacts, providing direct access to the questions they ask, answer, and star on Answers.

Ask City’s Shape Search Tool For Local Search Results

2007: You could go to Ask City, locate a location, draw a circle or square in a certain location and then search specifically within that location.

Baidu & Google Go Head To Head With Chinese Book Search

2007: Baidu and Google both wanted to be the largest and best book search service in China. 

From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)

Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

< March 7 | Search Marketing History | March 9 >

Google has confirmed that the February 2023 product reviews update is now finished rolling out. This update announced on February 21, 2023, has officially completed rolling out over a 14-day period.

February 2023 product reviews update. As a reminder, the February 2023 product reviews update started to roll out at about 5 p.m. ET on February 21. This update took 14 days to roll out after it was announced. So this update started on February 21 and lasted through March 7, 2023.

This update is similar to past product reviews update, but it was more widespread, impacting more languages than just English. This also impacted Spanish, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Polish languages.

Why we care. If your website offers product review content, you will want to check your rankings to see if you were impacted. Did your Google organic traffic improve, decline or stay the same?

Long term, you are going to want to ensure that you put a lot more detail and effort into your product review content. Make it unique so it stands out from the competition on the web.

If you need more advice on this update, see our previous story over here.

Previous product review updates. This is the sixth release of the product reviews update and was released on February 21 at about 5pm ET. The first product reviews update was launched on April 8, 2021, the second was launched on December 1, 2021, the third has been released on March 23, 2022, and the fourth was released on July 27, 0222, and the fifth was released on September 20, 2022.

Building authority has a compounding effect on how brands perform in organic search. And the acceleration of AI in search is only increasing the importance of developing authority, trust and credibility as a signal on the topics or areas you are known for or known to be helpful for. 

That’s according to new research from enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge.

Why we care. Economic uncertainty has kept marketing budgets flat (or even reduced) and put greater focus on SEO this year. But that also means SEOs are being asked to drive more revenue and conversions without a greater investment in SEO.

58% plan to use AI for content and SEO in 2023. Search marketers want to use AI-generated content – but they just haven’t quite figured out how yet, according to BrightEdge: 

• Only 10% of marketers use AI for SEO content generation, but 58% aim to this year.

One reason for that 10% figure is likely an abundance of caution. ChatGPT and similar tools can generate content quickly – but quality remains a concern due to AI “hallucination” and many SEOs worry Google will be able to detect and penalize AI content.

Google has warned against using AI-generated content for years – although that guideline has softened in 2023. Now, Google cares less whether a human or AI writes your content, as long as your content is helpful to people and not created to manipulate the search results. 

Why this change? Most likely because Google plans to soon add generative AI to its search experience.

90% of organizations prioritizing SEO in 2023. Building up brand expertise and authority delivers what BrightEdge refers to as “compounding value.” Basically, this means the websites that are winning in their industry/niche continue to increase their share of search.

• “As a result of SEOs focusing on high value, impactful work success in 2022, we are seeing more buy-in from organizations, with 90% of organizations prioritizing SEO in 2023,” said BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu.

For every $1 put into SEO today, organizations can find compounded benefits over time, resulting in greater ROI, Yu said.

This reminds me of Mike Grehan‘s classic “filthy linking rich” concept – that popular sites get more popular. Or, the better you do at SEO, the better you perform in organic search. Do you rank in Position 1 because you have all those links or do you have all those links because you rank in Position 1? 

Top 4 enterprise SEO concerns in 2023. BrightEdge also revealed the challenges SEOs are focusing on:

• Search engine updates (41%)
• Changing consumer behavior (33%)
• Technology advancements (14%)
• Competitors (12%)

Dig deeper. Organizations Are Turning to SEO Now, BrightEdge whitepaper.

SEM stands for “search engine marketing.” It is the process of combining SEO and PPC strategies to create a holistic internet marketing strategy that drives traffic and visibility through search engines based on a user’s search query. 

Originally called “search engine marketing,” the shorter phrase “search marketing” is often used as the umbrella term for SEO and PPC.

But today, much of our industry defines SEM as digital advertising strategies where you pay to have your website featured on the search engine result pages (SERPs). 

SEO and PPC are both forms of marketing on search engines. Organic search marketing and paid search marketing are different channels, but the goals and platforms are ultimately the same.

To attract the right visitors to your website so they can purchase, sign up for a service, or find an answer they are looking for.

For those who want to learn more about either SEO or PPC, see our guides below:

Let’s talk about SEM more…

Why is SEM, search engine marketing, important?

SEM is important because it is a data-driven approach to targeting your audience across all online channels and touchpoints. 

Search marketing is an effort on any search engine. This means you should care about “other” search engines, from YouTube to TikTok to Amazon to Apple to Yelp. 

Anything that can be searched for can be optimized. If it’s a platform that lets users search, and there’s advertising on it – that’s SEM. 

When marketers combine SEO and PPC, it creates an all-inclusive integrated approach to internet marketing that drives results. 

Just let the data show you. 

Auberge Resorts saw over a 126% return on investment from PPC and an 86% increase in organic traffic when merging SEO and PPC into one strategy. 

An energy supplier increased website traffic by 71% and received 86% more leads in Google Ads when pairing SEO and PPC together.

Coney Island Picnic needed a new website with ecommerce capability. With a new website redesign, the website ranked for over 775 keywords and went from 0 organic traffic sessions to 2,500 organic sessions per month in the first six months. 

On the paid side, the highest ROAS of 22.68x came from branded search campaigns, sparking increased brand awareness. 

Overall, Coney Island Picnic launched a new brand and sold over 1,000 products in just 90 days by combining SEO and PPC. 

Combining SEO and PPC is like adding fuel to the fire of your SEM strategy. You gain better insights into conversion rates, keyword performance and estimated traffic. 

Seven types of SEM 

When SEM originated in the early 2000s, SEM = PPC + SEO. 

Today, SEO and PPC have matured and grown into subsets of strategies. 

Now, there are seven types of search engine marketing – organic, paid, local, voice, image, shop, and social search. 

And there are eight types of PPC ads – paid search, display, remarketing, video, social, shopping, Gmail, and Amazon advertising. 

SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEO is the method used to improve the overall quality of a web page to search engines. You’re earning traffic through unpaid or free search engine results. 

SEO is just limited to search engines like Bing and Google. SEO is for all search engines like YouTube, Pinterest, Amazon, TikTok, etc. 

PPC

PPC, pay-per-click, is when an advertiser pays each time a user clicks on their ad. You’re buying traffic through paid search listings. 

Search engines can range from Google and Bing to Amazon to TikTok or YouTube. 

What is the difference between SEM vs. SEO vs. PPC?

If we’re considering the original description of SEM, SEM is an internet marketing strategy combining both paid and organic tactics to increase your website’s visibility in search engines. 

SEO is the “organic” part of SEM. SEO is sometimes called “free” traffic driven by relevant content and healthy website performance. 

PPC is the “paid” part of SEM. 

The key differences between SEO and SEM are: 

• SEM requires both SEO and PPC to be called SEM. PPC is transparent and must state it is paid advertising. PPC is shown displaying the word “Ad” at the top. 
• PPC requires payment for every click (CPC, cost-per-click) or impression (CPM, cost-per-thousand impressions). 
• PPC can immediately show ROI, whereas SEO is a long game. 
• PPC is faster to test than SEO. 

Are there any similarities between SEM vs. SEO vs. PPC?

There is a lot of crossover between SEM, PPC, and SEO. 

Both SEO and PPC share these common similarities in creating an SEM strategy: 

• Increase the visibility of your website across search engines by optimizing your target audience and search queries. 
• Drive higher-quality traffic to your website by encouraging searchers to click on your website through paid ads or organic search results. 
• Deep knowledge and expertise in keywords and target audience to better understand the intent behind the search query and how your competition looks at the search term. 
• Requires A/B testing and experimentation to support a long-term strategy and ROI. 

PPC vs. SEO? Or PPC + SEO?

It depends on your business objective. PPC is better for quick, short-term gains and paired with SEO for a more extensive, long-term strategy. SEO is ideal for a more holistic, long-term approach encompassing UX, content, PR, etc. 

You need both SEO and PPC to succeed with an SEM strategy. PPC should be used to kickstart a campaign and experiment to understand your target audience better. It should complement your SEO strategy. SEO should be considered in all website and internet marketing tactics. 

OK, so now you’re probably even more confused. So, let’s back this up. 

SEM ≠ PPC? The confusing history

Let’s squash this here and now. SEM, search engine marketing = half SEO and half PPC. SEM is not the same as PPC, pay-per-click. You need both the paid and unpaid traffic to make up SEM. 

We’re bringing back the true definition of SEM. Let me walk you through this. 

SEM is about bringing both SEO and PPC together to promote your website or brand by increasing visibility on search engines through paid and organic traffic. 

So, why is there confusion about what SEM means?

That’s because Wikipedia and some top-ranked resources on the subject define SEM as an internet advertising model that drives paid traffic to your website from search engines like Google, Bing, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, etc. 

Sound familiar? 

That’s because it’s the exact same definition as PPC. 

Yes, we know that can be confusing – but that’s how things have evolved. Our article, Does SEM = SEO + CPC Still Add Up? explains the evolution in depth.

Our industry muddled the waters with articles like this describing SEM as pay-per-click. 

And again, articles like this describing SEM as paid advertising. 

In the early 2000s, search engine marketing, or SEM, was all about combining SEO and PPC into one strategy. SEM was understood as the playground where SEO and PPC play together to benefit all marketing humankind. 

Search Engine Land founder and now-Googler Danny Sullivan popularized the term “SEM” in 2001, stating:  

“My suggestion was that there should be an umbrella term, ‘search engine marketing,’ that covered both major activities: SEO + PPC.”

SEM worked to cover optimization for all activities in search engines, whether it be optimizing crawlers, managing paid listings or directories. It encompassed all marketing activity in search engines. 

When Sullivan popularized “search engine marketing” in 2001, marketing (and life) was much different back then. 

Think about it…

The first CAPTCHA was introduced and utilized by PayPal in 2001. 

Google introduced the Google Search Appliance in 2002. 

WordPress was released in 2003. 

Facebook launched in 2004. 

Google Maps was live in 2005. 

Marketing has changed. The last I heard the term “SEM,” Fubu was still popular. That’s why the true definition of SEM has been lost. 

It’s time to revitalize and bring back SEM. 

Let’s all collectively decide to stop calling SEM by its counterpart PPC. You need an SEM strategy to compete in today’s competitive marketing landscape. 

It’s kind of like the time some SEO professionals wanted to rebrand SEO “Search Engine Optimization” into “Search Everywhere Optimization” or “Search Experience Optimization.” But not. 

The reality is SEM, PPC, and SEO today are just marketing. 

Sullivan reiterated this point in 2014:

The person putting together an SEM strategy is likely the CMO or VP of Marketing putting together their overall marketing strategy. 

Two examples of SEM strategies in the wild

Example 1: Asana Rebel

First, I discovered a sponsored ad for Asana Rebel on Instagram. 

Then, I read a Women’s Health Magazine review about the best yoga apps. This is a naturally created review based on star ratings in the app stores. 

Finally, I decided to search for Asana Rebel to learn more, where we can see a paid ad at the top and the organic result at the bottom. 

About three days later, I was served this remarketing ad on Facebook. 

Example 2: MindManager

First, I started searching for MindManager on Google. 

I clicked on the ad for Monday.com. And within 30 minutes, I was served a remarketing ad on Instagram. 

Then, I stumbled across a paid review for Monday.com by Crazy Egg. This is likely thanks to a paid partnership or affiliate marketing team. 

These two examples are what a holistic SEM strategy should be by combing SEO, paid, social, affiliates, PR, etc.

Careers in SEM

It’s as rare to find an individual managing all SEM as it is to find a Spider-Gwen comic. 

However, marketers with a skillset in both SEO and PPC do exist. I was surprised to learn that 30% of SMX attendees reported doing both PPC and SEO. 

But, when you type in SEM in Indeed, there are no jobs with “SEM” in the title. 

SEM jobs are now “Directors of Marketing.”  SEM is in-demand. 

From 2021 to 2022, average salaries in PPC have grown by approximately 6.5% in the U.S., 5% in Canada, 6% in the U.K., and 11% in Europe. 

And the global SEO market is supposed to grow by $122.11 billion by 2028. That’s a big jump compared to the $65 billion in 2016.

As Sergey Alakov, SEO Manager for Catalyst Canada, put it perfectly:  

If you’re looking for a job in SEM, check out SEM career playbook: Overview of a growing industry and The latest jobs in search marketing here on Search Engine Land. 

The future of marketing is SEM

SEM can revolutionize every part of marketing. With AI and automation at the forefront of daily topics, PPC and SEO professionals will have fewer levers to pull to control where money is being spent. 

And with first-party data, SEM professionals will become less dependent on data to back up decisions. Now, companies will need to rely more on the individual’s expertise and the understanding of how SEM fits into the bigger picture. SEM is the future of marketing. 

Stay up to date on all things search marketing

Search Engine Land has been covering search marketing since 2006. In addition to covering the latest news, Search Engine Land publishes contributed articles from a diverse group of subject matter experts featuring helpful search marketing tips, tactics, trends and analysis.

You can sign up to receive Search Engine Land’s free email newsletter, featuring a roundup of the latest search marketing news and insights, every weekday.

Google adds landing page load time to Quality Score

In 2008, Google AdWords confirmed a new addition to Quality Score: landing page load time.

Google said they did this for two reasons:

First, users have the best experience when they don’t have to wait a long time for landing pages to load. Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times only keep users from getting what they want: information about your business. Second, users are more likely to abandon landing pages that load slowly, which can hurt your conversion rate.

– Inside AdWords, Landing page load time will soon be incorporated into Quality Score

And what did Google consider to be too slow? Google was typically vague, telling Search Engine Land:

• “Our goal is to encourage advertisers with landing pages that are excessively slow to speed up their sites. It’s not possible to provide an exact number of seconds above which we would consider a site to load ‘slowly,’ since we adjust for regional and country differences in average load times.”

Read all about it in Load Time Confirmed As AdWords Quality Score & New Category Exclusion Feature.

Also on this day

Google Broad Core Algorithm Updates: Everything you need to know

2022: What is a broad core algorithm update? Learn the complete history of Google’s core updates, what they are, and what’s important for SEO.

Google’s ‘Russian invasion of Ukraine’ results includes new search features

2022: The new features included sections for background information, estimated casualties and photos of the conflict.

Microsoft Advertising announces new ad type for service providers

2022: Professional service ads could also be used to promote regional offices, branches or even national brands that provide relevant services.

SEOs beware: Link builders are back with bogus Domain Authority pitches

2019: In dozens of emails and countless social media posts, SEOs expressed concerns over DA score changes and the impact on their Google rankings.

Google AMP team launches ‘Render on Idle’ to load ads faster when browsers sit idle

2018: The feature worked automatically with DoubleClick AMP ad tag and for ad networks using Fast Fetch.

AMP rolling out to 1 billion more people in Asia

2017: Baidu, Sogou and Yahoo Japan were adopting the mobile framework.

Flickr’s new ‘similarity search’ feature makes it easier to find visually similar photos

2017: Flickr said its new search option used advanced technology to surface similar photos without much work on the user’s end.

Google tests clickable phone numbers in organic search results

2016: Google was experimenting with click-to-call on the organic side, which they had done with ads and local before.

App marketers can now upload customer IDs to AdWords for targeting on Google Display Network

2016: The new bulk IDFA/advertising ID upload feature helped developers try to re-engage users on iOS and Android devices.

AdWords API For New Google Shopping Campaigns Now Available

2014: The API was available to agencies and third-party platforms to facilitate large-scale implementations.

Google Stepping Up Merchant Feed Enforcement

2014: Google would begin to disapprove products with incorrect GTIN, MPN and brand identifiers and globally demote products with incorrect identifier_exists attribute

Search In Pics: Bing Street View Car, Google Toy Helicopter & Special Key

2014: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Did Google Just Penalize Another Link Network? SAPE Links

2013: Webmasters who had used the SAPE link network reported that their sites took hard penalties within Google, resulting in a huge downgrade in ranking.

Blind Study Finds YP Local Results Beat Google, Bing, Yahoo

2013: Thousands of queries were compared over a year.

Google Maps Might Be Banned In Germany Over Patent Infringement

2013: The judge reportedly called the patent, which describes how map data and local search results can be combined, a “big idea.”

Facebook Updates News Feed, No Impact On Graph Search (Today)

2013: Though some of the News Feed changes could eventually have impacted Graph Search.

Google Meets Miss Manners, Encourages Searchers To Thank Those Who +1’d Content

2012: If a searcher did choose to thank someone for the +1, they were prompted to thank directly on Google+.

Microsoft adCenter Launches Location Extensions In Ads

2012: Location Extensions allowed local business advertisers to display their addresses and phone numbers within the ads on Bing and Yahoo.

Google To Acquire BeatThatQuote.com

2011: BeatThatQuote.com was a price comparison website for loans and financial products. 

Google Controls 97 Percent Of Mobile Paid Search: Report

2011: The report also stated that mobile searches had a CTR that was 30% lower than desktop CTR.

Report: Expect More Aggressive Acquisitions From Google

2011: Having made a record 48 purchases in 2010, Google was “going to continue to be aggressive.”

Google Navigation Now Avoids Traffic

2011: Real-time traffic conditions and historical traffic patterns were factored into the routing.

Bing Tests New Top Bar Navigation & HTML5 Preview Coming Soon

2011: The new bar was larger, incorporating more of the Bing home page theme from that day. 

First Angry Birds Product Integration To Tout Bing

2011: Rovio and Microsoft struck a deal to integrate Bing search into the game.

Google Tests More TV Ads With AdWords Integration

2008: Google sent out more invitations for advertisers to test out TV ads within the Google AdWords system.

U.S. Pentagon Bans Google From Military Bases

2008: The ban came after StreetView photographs of Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio were found on Google Maps.

Microsoft’s Google Obsession, MicroHoo’s Asian Outlook, And Competing For Digg

2008: “So it may be my last breath at Microsoft, but we’re going to be there, working away, building share.”

Utah Neuters Search Ad Trademark Keyword Law

2008: In short, you could now legally bid on trademarked terms in Utah, assuming you complied with the search engine’s trademark policy in your country.

Friendster Partners With Google & Drops Yahoo

2007: Social networking site Friendster selected Google to power search and ads on its site.

Link Count Updates At Google & Yahoo Search

2007: Yahoo and Google were updating the number of links they account for each site.

Version 5 Of Google Desktop Released

2007: Improvements to desktop search included the addition of “preview search results.”

Send Destination Points From Google Maps To Your GPS Device

2007: BMW in Germany started supporting integration with Google Maps.

YouTube Blocked In Turkey

2007: Because a video was found that insulted Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

Ask.com’s CEO, Jim Lanzone, Calls Yahoo Paid Inclusion “Hypocritical”

2007: He found it “hypocritical to charge for something we need to do anyway” (i.e., crawl the web to find quality pages to present to the searcher).

Yahoo China Sued For Linking To Unlicensed Music

2007: The case was filed in early January by “11 companies and seeks damages of 5.5 million yuan ($710,686).”

SuperPages Upgrades Mapping With Virtual Earth

2007: It added a range of sharing and personalization features built on top of the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform.

From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)

Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

< March 6 | Search Marketing History | March 8 >

“I just want to be very clear: Bard is not search.”

That’s according to Jack Krawczyk, the product lead for Bard, speaking during a Google all-hands meeting late last week, CNBC reported.

Why we care. Following a rushed introduction of Bard, there has been confusion within the search industry. Google is to blame for much of that confusion for the way it introduced Bard at the same time as it teased “AI-powered features” coming soon to search.

Why the confusion. Google’s introduction of Bard was rushed to upstage Microsoft’s introduction of the new Bing with ChatGPT integration the following day.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s blog post introducing Bard (An important next step on our AI journey) included images of ChatGPT-style responses to two search queries (“is piano or guitar easier to learn and how much practice does each need”; “what are the best constellations to look for when stargazing”).

Just like ChatGPT became synonymous with generative AI, Bard instantly became synonymous with these generative AI features in Google search. A Google spokesperson reached out to us quickly after our Bard story was published to clarify the difference:

• “Bard is separate from Search, so talking about the Search screenshots in the context of Bard isn’t accurate. Bard is one thing, and then generative AI features in Search are separate. Bard is a standalone experience, not in Search.”

Separating Bard from search. Apparently, even Googlers (who have been testing and improve Bard) are still also unclear about the difference between Search and Bard. One of the questions asked of Google leadership at the all-hands meeting was:

• “Bard and ChatGPT are large language models, not knowledge models. They are great at generating human-sounding text, they are not good at ensuring their text is fact-based. Why do we think the big first application should be Search, which at its heart is about finding true information?”

Krawczyk added to his “Bard is not search” response by adding “we can’t stop users from trying to use it like search.” From the CNBC report:

He said Google is still catering to people who want to use it for search, indicating that the company has built a new feature for internal use called “Search It.”

“We’re going to be trying to get better at generating the queries associated there, as well as relaying to users our confidence,” Krawczyk said. He added that users will see a tab that says “view other drafts,” which would point people away from search-like results.

“But as you want to get into more of the search-oriented journeys, we already have a product for that — it’s called search,” he said.

Dig deeper. Google execs tell employees in testy all-hands meeting that Bard A.I. isn’t just about search by Jennifer Elias via CNBC

Google seems to have rolled out a new blue highlight feature for some featured snippets in the Google Search results. Google may highlight specific text that is important in answering your query, directly in the featured snippet result. Also, the font size of the featured snippets with blue highlighted text is larger than featured snippets without blue highlighted text.

What is looks like. Here are some screenshots of queries that generate the new blue highlighted text featured snippet in Google Search:

Previous tests. Back in September 2022, Google tested this feature with both yellow and blue highlighted text. It seems Google has gone with the blue highlights, as all the examples I have seen are in blue and not in yellow.

Why we care. Will featured snippets that highlight the answer more prominently with these blue highlights reduce the click-through rate from a typical featured snippet? Will these maybe drive more clicks because of the highlighted text?

You may want to audit some of your more popular featured snippets to see if you are noticing more or less traffic after this change – that is, if the change impacted your results.

With the popularity of social media came the rise of “link in bio” tools which allow users to create a landing page featuring multiple links they want to share with their audience.

Initially designed to get around Instagram’s one-link rule, many brands and influencers now use them in other social media networks to easily share content with one link. Some even consider their link-in-bio page as a website replacement.

But, are they good for ranking in search engines? This article will look at ‘link in bio’ platforms from an SEO perspective.

‘Link in bio’ platforms from an SEO perspective

Also known as “link list page” apps or “social media landing page” tools, these platforms have virtually proliferated overnight.

They are characterized by short, trendy names that often combine with their unique top-level domains to create easily understood, phonetically spelled word-grams (like “linktr.ee” and “hoo.be”). 

Surprisingly, many popular social media influencers opt for these simplistic link pages when they can afford to have custom, standalone websites built to do whatever they wish.

But, websites can be challenging to maintain, so these one-page platforms have filled a significant market niche. 

That said, convenience and ease of use are not the only considerations when it comes to your online presence. Search engine optimization (SEO) still matters for improving a brand’s visibility in search results.

Popular and higher-quality web content tends to rank higher in search results, and one of the many ways search engines determine popularity is by analyzing links. 

In addition, popular social media profiles are likely to have already accrued large amounts of “ranking weight” as Google analyzes the link graph within the social network where the account is located.

Also, popular social media accounts may be mentioned in other social networks’ posts and on many webpages (i.e., news articles and elsewhere). 

If you have a big following on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or elsewhere, your link-in-bio platform may affect how effectively your link weight flows to other accounts where you are less popular or webpages you link to. 

So while you have many factors to consider when choosing a platform, don’t overlook the SEO element.

A comparison matrix follows to help determine which link list page platforms are the best, primarily from an SEO perspective. 

‘Link in bio’ platforms: A comparison

The best ‘link in bio’ platforms ranked with the best at the top and the worst at the bottom.

Notes on the SEO assessment

The sites ranked highest in the list enable users to add “follow” links. 

Years ago, Google recommended that sites allowing users to add links should add a rel="nofollow" in the code, which tells the search engine that the website is not endorsing the link. This halted the flow of any link weight value to the pages linked to. 

However, Google has recently stated that they will sometimes count the link weight.

They also added other attributes: rel="ugc" for user-generated content and rel="sponsored" for paid advertising or purchased links.

Despite the blurriness of Google’s stance, assuming they will not count it is safer.

The next criterion was whether the link-in-bio provider allows users to customize the URL.

This is an expected feature among all providers as they have allowed users to include their handles as part of the page URL – as signified in our list with [yourname]. 

(You should use a sequence that most closely imitates your main brand name. Example: As my name is “Chris Smith,” an ideal handle/username would be “chrissmith.”) 

Shorter URLs are generally more advantageous in organic search rankings, but this is such a marginal impact compared with other elements that we did not count it.

By the nature of the business, most link-in-bio providers have formulated nicely short URLs already.

Next, we considered the number of profile pages the platform has indexed.

Indexability and popularity may indicate how well they are likely to perform in search engines.

Also, the more pages a platform hosts, the more likely Google is to try to understand and use its signals and content. 

Finally, we also looked for other issues which limit the pages’ performance in search, including: 

• JavaScript-dependent links and content that Google is not interpreting.
• Robots.txt that are blocking search engines from crawling the pages.

As you can see, a number of these sites are highly JavaScript-dependent. While Google interprets some JavaScript successfully, it still has issues rendering such content, resulting in poor performance.

I considered whether Google shows the page content in cached version and text-only cached version.

Sometimes, the sites with JavaScript content delivery showed blanks, meaning Google likely may not see the executed page content.

In other, worst instances, JavaScripted sites showed all identical, generic snippets, further indicating Google did not see the unique page content. 

However, in a few instances, the content was fully rendered and seemed to be seen by Google.

Those sites may have adequately executed the JavaScript to be more machine-friendly and will likely perform well – assuming they have good titles, text, and links.

Based on all this, my top 10 are: 

• Linktr.ee
• Taplink.cc
• Carrd.co
• Instabio.cc
• Carbonmade.com
• Solo.to
• Direct.me
• WithKoji.com
• Wlo.link
• lynxinbio.com

What does Google say about link-in-bio pages?

To my knowledge, Google personnel have not said anything about link-in-bio pages. 

In general, Google is platform-agnostic. They are unlikely to take exception to anyone using such websites unless people are using the tools to try to manipulate rankings.

Using a link-in-bio page as a hub for your social media profiles is not breaking the rules.

Google likely wants individuals and companies to interlink their primary identity assets online for their knowledge graph.

If a subject has consistently interlinked between their social media sites and websites, it becomes easier to identify those items as part of the same entity.

Google search advocate John Mueller recently advised someone that when linking to your own social media profiles, they should not be nofollowed as you would likely trust links to your own profiles.

To nofollow the links is to convey that you do not trust or endorse links to your own properties. 

Mueller further recommends that when you link to your own social media profiles from your website, it is a best practice to use rel="me" to convey that the properties linked are related to one another and that they are the authoritative ones for your identity.

Based on all this, an implicit corollary could be that Google would generally prefer that your main link page should not have nofollow in the links to your other profiles. (I’m intentionally being jokingly disingenuous here with this deductive reasoning.)

The implications of link-in-bio pages on search

For those operating link-in-bio page platforms, there is an argument for not imposing nofollow on the links of those creating their one-page websites with you. Or, possibly, the appropriate parameter combo for links would be to use rel="me ugc" instead of nofollow. 

But, an even more critical issue is that the pages must be accessible to search engine spiders to work right on the web. 

• Robots.txt files must allow the link-in-bio pages to be crawled.
• JavaScript-dependent sites need to be constructed so that search engines can easily parse the content of pages. 
• If the links added to pages are being passed through a redirect URL for analytic purposes, those links ought to be 301 redirects.

For influencers and brands looking to use link-in-bio pages as part of their overall web presence management, the pages’ SEO-friendliness should be a key consideration over visual design options, costs, and other features. 

If you are building your social media presence, choosing a platform that considers proper SEO elements will help maximize your marketing efforts.

Your followers can easily find all your accounts, which may rank the highest they can for all the topics and keywords you focus on.

So you’re ready to document your content strategy.

You think you know what that entails – you need to write this down somewhere… right?

OK, you’ve got a blank Google Doc waiting with a blinking cursor. Now what?

What pieces should be recorded in your strategy document?

What information is a must to include?

Most importantly, why does it matter?

Whether you have nothing more than a verbal understanding across your brand or team about your content strategy and you’re finally writing it down, or you’re creating a strategy from scratch and documenting as you go…

We’ll cover it all in this guide, including:

• Why you should document your content strategy.
• Where to document your strategy.
• Why you should create a document that can be shared and read across teams, departments, and roles.
• What you should include in your content strategy document to guide your content marketing toward success.

What is a content strategy document, and why do you need one?

A content strategy is a plan that governs all of your content marketing activities, including:

• Researching and ideating content.
• Creating content.
• Publishing content.
• Distributing and promoting content.
• Tracking and measuring your progress toward your content goals.
• Maintaining your content.

That means a content strategy document is the written form of this plan. 

Why do you need to write it down? Why can’t you just start creating content, already?

Because content created without a plan is destined to fail. And writing that plan down helps you integrate content seamlessly into your brand. You’ll create content strategically, anticipating your audience’s content needs and filling them vs. randomly creating content and hoping it works. 

43% of businesses don’t have a documented content strategy or aren’t sure if they do. But, ultimately, the most successful brands and marketers create a strategy and document it.

More reasons why you should document your content strategy

Without a steady, solid plan behind you, your content marketing actions will be random guesswork. You’ll most likely create content based on assumptions rather than data. Your output will be inconsistent as a result, and so will your content quality.

Marketers who proactively plan are 3x more likely to report success than those who don’t.

Why is that? Without a strategy guiding your actions, you won’t have or understand:

• The deep why behind your content marketing – and what you’re ultimately trying to achieve.
• The specific metrics you should be tracking to reach your goals.
• A deep understanding of what your audience needs and wants from your content.
• The content types and formats that will bring the best results for your specific situation.
• When and where to post for the best visibility and engagement with your particular audience.
• Defined processes and workflows for creating, publishing, and distributing content – and who is responsible for each step.
• And so much more.

Lastly, a finished content strategy is a fantastic asset in your business and marketing, but it’s not the whole point of creating one. (Wait, what?) It’s true. 

Instead, the process of planning you go through to create that strategy is just as important. It requires research, thought, ideation, mapping, and plotting, which help you get crystal clear on the above items. 

That’s why all the work that goes into strategizing is worth it. It will make your content marketing 1,000x more powerful!

Where should you create your content strategy document?

A content strategy document can solve many problems and challenges you might face with content marketing. For that reason, you should think carefully about where you’ll document it.

The top content marketing challenges organizations struggle with include: 

• Creating content that appeals to different buyer stages. (61%)
• Aligning content efforts across marketing and sales. (50%)
• Developing consistency with measurement. (43%)
• Communicating internally across teams and silos. (41%)

But a documented content strategy solves all these problems. The act of strategizing answers the above questions (how do we create content for different buyer’s journey stages? How do we align content between marketing and sales? Etc.). 

But – you must write it down. That’s the key.

You need a written, centralized document that people and teams across your business can access and reference. You need to solidify the strategy to be shared, learned, and implemented repeatedly – and easily.

That means if your strategy is currently nothing more than a nebulous verbal agreement between your team, you’re sitting on a big opportunity to make it real and better.

If you’ve never talked about strategy at all and are currently just “doing content marketing” – that’s insufficient. You could be getting so much more from content.

For these reasons and more, sit down and strategize. Create an organized strategy document that’s easy to read and access.

Tips for creating a content strategy document

• Create your content strategy document in a shareable format, like in a shared Google Doc, or upload your document to Dropbox, Google Drive, or some other file-sharing platform. Ensure anyone on your team who needs access to the strategy can find it.
• Create sections for each major element of the strategy. Format your strategy for ease of reading and finding specific information.
• Include extra information like tools to use at different stages, links to those tools plus account/password information, screenshots of tasks and how they should be completed, links to templates and examples, links to related documents (like brand style guidelines), and anything else that helps your team execute the strategy.

Let’s be real: This will be a lot of work. You won’t be able to create a content strategy in a single day. It might take weeks or even months to complete.

But the difference between having vs. not having a strategy is quantified in light years. If you want real results from content, you’ll invest the time.

10 pillars to include inside your content strategy 

Let’s get down to brass tacks. What exactly do you need to include when you document your content strategy? 

• Err on the side of including more information than you need. If you’re unsure whether you should put it in your strategy – do it.
• Don’t get discouraged if this task seems neverending. You’re doing all this work now to save yourself later with a streamlined, set content process that brings in more and better results.

With all that in mind, here are the categories and questions your content strategy needs to answer definitively.

1. Goals: Why are you creating content?

Answer with: Your content marketing goals, including how they connect to your larger marketing and brand goals. What do you want your content to do, ultimately?

As you set goals, don’t be vague. Get specific about exactly what you want to see happening, thanks to your investment in content. 

For example, don’t just say, “grow brand awareness.” That’s a fluffy goal that’s hard to measure. Yes, you can do that with content, but how are you defining brand awareness? What does that mean for your business, specifically? 

Get more specific. Instead, say, “grow brand awareness by increasing our following on social media by 15% in 3 months and earning top rankings in Google for relevant keywords in 6 months to 1 year.” 

2. Audience: Who are you creating content for?

Answer with: The audience you plan on targeting with content. 

What do they look like? What do they do? What are their interests and preferences? What are the biggest problems your brand solves for them with your expertise and products/services? Where are they searching for information online? Where do they congregate on the web?

Note: As you move through each piece of your content strategy, give yourself time to research and analyze your findings. Then record those findings in the strategy.

For example, audience research will require a few weeks of study, from social listening to conducting surveys, to setting up interviews and sitting down with your potential prospects. 

If you already have a defined audience, return to your data on them and make sure it’s still accurate.

3. Platform: Where will you publish content?

Answer with: Your main content platform of focus. 

Will you create a blog on your website? Will you post content on social media? Will you create a YouTube channel? Consider your goals and resources and plan accordingly. 

For instance, to drive more traffic to your website, you should focus on creating an SEO blog.

4. Content: What content topics will you cover, and what types and formats will you create?

Answer with: The main topic areas you will lock into for content. They should be relevant to what you sell and what your audience wants. Then, choose the content format that you have the means to produce consistently and that your audience most wants to see. 

Videos, blog posts, podcasts, webinars, infographics, whitepapers, ebooks, case studies, and more are all possibilities. Keep in mind you may need to diversify to more than one type.

At this point, it’s helpful to create content templates for the formats you want to focus on. These can be used repeatedly for anyone who writes or creates your content, which builds consistency in your content.

5. Team: Who will create your content? Who will manage, publish, promote, and maintain your content?

Answer with: The person, team, agency, or freelancer who will be responsible for your content, from the seeds of ideas to finished pieces. 

If you have a team of people working on content, break each task down by who is responsible for what. (Who’s writing the content? Who’s editing it? Who’s posting and publishing it? Who’s promoting it?) 

If you’re a team of one, use this section to brainstorm how you can streamline content tasks and make them easier on yourself. Consider adding scheduling, editing, and optimization tools to your lineup. You can also create a timetable or schedule for yourself for completing various content tasks.

6. Schedule: How often will you post content, and to what channels?

Answer with: A rough content schedule, including how many blog posts you’ll publish to your main channel(s) each week or each month.

Consistency, consistency, consistency. Planning out a posting schedule helps you establish and keep it going. Be flexible because things can and do go awry, but plan for a general cadence of posts that will help establish your brand online.

7. Promotion: How will you promote and distribute content?

Answer with: A rough plan for promoting your main content on social media and email.

How will people discover your content? What are ways you can bring new audience members into the fold?

Make your promotion plan with your resources in mind. Posting links to your new content on social media is one of the easiest, low-cost ways to do this. If you’re more advanced and already have an established audience, including email subscribers, leverage that list and promote your content to people most likely to read it!

Lastly, don’t forget about organic search. This is another low-cost but highly effective way to increase your content’s visibility while bringing in ultra-targeted leads.

8. Tools: What tools will you need to execute every step of content marketing?

Answer with: The tools you or your team needs to execute content planning, creation, publishing, promotion, and maintenance. 

At a base level, you’ll need a content management system (like WordPress), a keyword research tool, an analytics tool, and an editing tool.

Add information about what tools you have in your tech stack. You could also use this section to keep track of your subscriptions and monthly costs.

It’s also helpful to return to earlier sections and list the tools you’ll use for each. For content creation, you could include links to your Grammarly, Canva, or Google Drive accounts.

9. Progress tracking: How will you track content metrics and KPIs? How will you measure results?

Answer with: Map your content goals to key performance indicators (KPIs). 

In a nutshell, this means making your goals actionable by attaching them to measurable metrics. For example, one way to track a vague goal like brand awareness is through measuring likes, comments, and brand mentions on social media over time.

Detail how you’ll track and measure your goals: what metrics you’ll focus on and what tools you’ll use to monitor them over time. 

10. Budget: What’s your content marketing budget?

Answer with: What you plan to invest in your content marketing actions. Calculate your costs in terms of people, tools, processes, and technology.

Put it all together and document your content strategy

There are a lot of moving parts to a content strategy. But they connect to the moving parts of your content marketing activities and processes, guiding them strategically toward success.

If you don’t have a strategy documented yet, mountains of untapped potential for your content are waiting in the wings. 

That also means if you’re doing content marketing and not seeing the results you’d like, there’s hope. 

For better content that grows your brand, sit down, strategize, and document. 

Google Webmaster Tools adds user administration

In 2012, Google Webmaster Tools added a much-wanted feature: user administration.

Site owners could finally give people access to their Google Webmaster Tools account without having to share their own usernames and passwords or make them go through the verification process.

Site owners could grant three types of access: Owner, Full or Restricted.

Read all about it in Google Webmaster Tools Finally Adds User Administration.

Also on this day

Analysis of 250 million SERPs finds no-click story more complex than it appears

2020: Overall, the study found a blended desktop and mobile zero-click percentage of about 44%.

Majority of consumers want standards and tougher action against review fraud

2020: Survey found that U.S. consumers wanted severe financial penalties for retailers that didn’t protect review integrity.

Duplex-powered Google Assistant restaurant booking expanding to more states and users

2019: Google announced that Pixel phone users could use Duplex via the Google Assistant to book restaurant reservations over the phone in 43 U.S. states.

Moz on Domain Authority 2.0: How SEOs should (and shouldn’t) use it

2019: A conversation with Moz’s Russ Jones about what had changed.

Google’s Gboard for Android keyboard now supports 300+ languages

2018: Google said Gboard for Android covered 74% of the world’s population.

Disney theme parks now on Google Street View

2018: Users could now virtually tour almost every inch of Disney’s many theme parks.

Conductor will help WeWork offer ‘holistic’ proposition to enterprise customers

2018: It would now be able to manage customers’ physical and digital presence.

Google is shrinking AdWords’ view-through conversion window default

2017: The conversion window would default to one day at the end of March.

Google to shutter Trusted Stores program in favor of new reviews program

2017: The new program would be integrated with Google Merchant Center.

Google ‘related picks’ now showing under some top stories carousels

2017: Google looked to show you more AMP top stories by adding a query expansion feature in the mobile search results.

FAQ: How to get Google Assistant on your Android phone

2017: Google Assistant was officially available for many Android phones, but the rollout would take time.

Google Mobile Friendly Update Currently Doesn’t Differentiate Some Desktop Ranking Signals

2015: Google was experimenting with breaking out certain ranking signals on a mobile versus desktop basis.

Google Debuts AdWords Dynamic Structured Snippets

2015: Automated extensions displayed content from ad landing pages.

Google Says It Is Working On Improving App Discovery Within Web Search

2015: Google was looking into ways to improve app discovery through App Indexing in web search, as a way to help searchers discover helpful content within apps that they didn’t yet have installed.

Google Changes Car Insurance Links After SEOs Complain

2015: Google quickly changed its keyword-rich anchor text in a recent blog post to avoid controversy around link spam and link schemes.

Search In Pics: Google & Muppets, Yahoo Yodeling & Google Hamentashen

2015: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

As Google Upgrades Google Maps Business Listings, Conflicts Happen Including Duplicate Listing Issues

2014: Google was sending out notices of the duplicate place listings conflict via email to those impacted.

Yahoo Rolling Out Indoor Maps (via Nokia)

2014: Improved maps were part of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s overall effort to boost search usage.

Google Demotes The Pirate Bay UK Search Ranking

2013: Google was demoting the rank of the search result for the phrase [Pirate Bay], the well-known BitTorrent tracker, on the UK version of Google.

Enhanced Campaigns: Offer Extensions & Location Targeting Explained

2013: A new reporting tool made it easier to see what location targets triggered your ads and where your users were when they saw your ads.

Microsoft’s ViralSearch: Search Engine For Measuring Tweets & Viral Content

2013: ViralSearch analyzed news, videos, and photos shared within Twitter to see how many shares there were throughout the user base, over time and over generations of users.

Twitter Improves Mobile Search: Top Tweets, Autocomplete & Web Browser

2013: Upgrades to the Twitter mobile app included an improved relevancy engine for top tweets, improved auto-completion for search and an easier web browser for results.

Associated Press To Use Google Maps For Super Tuesday Results

2012: AP would supply the feed of vote results and subscribers would be able to use Google Maps to display on their websites or on other platforms.

Israel: Google Street View Will Be “Good For Tourism & Image”

2011: Despite the Israeli government’s apparent enthusiasm for the service, there were reports that Google would move slowly in Israel.

Google Maps Allows Third Parties To “Close” Local Businesses

2009: Anyone could go in and request that a business listing be permanently removed because the location was, allegedly, permanently closed.

AdSense Publisher Sues Google And Wins

2009: The judge said, “I don’t think I have the power here in Palo Alto small claims court to make you reinstate his account, but I think you owe this young man $721.”

Microsoft Cashback Comes to the MSN Toolbar

2009: If the users wouldn’t go to Live Search for Cashback, Cashback would go to users. At least their toolbars.

Search and Trends On Twitter Begins Showing Up

2009: Many Twitter users were noticing the new search bar and trends tab.

Importance Of SEO Makes Front Page Of Los Angeles Times

2009: As part of her new job, a woman discovered that how people search — and maintaining a search friendly website — was an essential part of the content process. 

Search In Pictures: Yahoo Birthday Cake, Ask.com Bus & Google Ski Hat

2009: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

Yahoo Maps Adds More Data, Other Improvements

2008: Improvements included more “granular” U.S. neighborhood data for 300 cities and 12,000 neighborhoods.

Google & Yahoo Execs Stay On $1 Salary

2007: Meanwhile, four top Google executives each received a $250,000 raise.

Google’s Schmidt At Tech Conference Talks On Mergers, Ads, Apple & Arrogance

2007: Google said they were “just at the beginning of our ability to target ads. There are many new technologies coming.”

Dissecting Microsoft Slams At Google As Copyright Infringer

2007: The more Microsoft painted itself as some type of pure protector of copyright, the harder it would fall as people found examples where it failed to meet expectations.

Report: Google Gaining, But Baidu Still Dominates In China

2007: Apparently Google’s increased investments in China were paying off. 

More Google Phone Rumors

2007: Google acquisitions and partnerships, plus the Google & Orange talks and Google & Samsung partnership, with some insider information, led many to believe Google was working on a mobile phone.

Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

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