Search results for "search engine"

Google may be looking into buying a flight search engine, reports Bloomberg.

Google is currently in talks with the Massachusetts-based software company ITA. The transaction could cost Google upwards of $1 billion. Bloomberg’s source noted that, though they are currently discussing plans for a buyout, the negotiations have not been finalized yet.

ITA is a developer of flight software that helps users make online travel arrangements. Its software is currently used by Orbitz, Microsoft, and several other airlines.

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information, and ITA does that for travel,” Henry Harteveldt, an analyst at Forrester Research in San Francisco, told Bloomberg.

The takeover could have serious ramifications for travel search engine optimization(SEO). The digital marketing firm Efficient Frontier found that Bing was making serious gains in the travel sector – in 2009, Bing increased its travel sector market share by 160 percent. Microsoft currently uses ITA for Bing’s travel search engine. The travel sector generated $88.4 billion last year, according to Bloomberg.

Apple may drop Google as its primary search engine, if the latest software update for the iPhone is any indication.

Last Thursday, Apple unveiled a new software update for the iPhone, iPhone 4.0 OS. One change that SearchEngineLand.com reported was that the Google search button in the iPhone mobile web browser was replaced by a generic search button. The search still goes through Google, but SearchEngineLand.com speculates that this could mean that Apple is looking to break away from Google in the update’s final release, which could have huge ramifications for search engine optimization (SEO).

Google and Apple have been on less-than-friendly terms ever since Google entered the smartphone market with the Android. By using Google as their default mobile search engine, Apple has allowed Google access to iPhone users’ search statistics and preferences, which could potentially be used to further the development of the Android.

Dropping Google for another search engine wouldn’t necessarily help Apple, though. Bing and Yahoo, the two leading search engine competitors of Google, are both tied to Microsoft, which also has a competing smartphone. Analysts have predicted that Apple will create its own search engine so it doesn’t have to rely on competitors, but that could take a few years to develop.

An analyst with investment firm Piper Jaffray says that there is a 70 percent chance that Apple will release its own search engine to compete with Google and Bing within the next five years, making for further complications in the future search engine optimization (SEO) market.

According to eWeek’s Clint Boulton, “as the search provider for the iPhone, Google also sees what iPhone users are searching for, which can help it tailor software and services for its own mobile smartphones. This competitive advantage has not gone unnoticed by Apple.”

While the mobile market could well be the primary catalyst behind Apple’s rumored move, its primary difficulty will be a programming one, writes TechTremor. Creating a search engine is a massively difficult endeavor, but the company’s extensive resources and increasingly strong urge to compete with Google could push it into just such an attempt.

While the world of search engine optimization (SEO) could be seeing a new competitor emerge, SEO professionals are already bracing for the disappearance of an old one… My prediction is that Yahoo will soon be taken over by Bing.

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Microsoft has announced several new features in its Bing Maps service, including Foursquare Everywhere and a significant addition to its imagery data.

The Foursquare update, according to Matt McGee of Search Engine Land, will add “Foursquare data into Bing Maps to show checkins, tips, badges, mayorships, and so forth from Foursquare’s API. Bing says this is rolling out in stages, so some users may not see it yet in the applications gallery.”

Additionally, McGee writes, Microsoft has added 2.4 million square miles of image data into Bing, and given the option of taking the Bing Maps World Tour, which takes users through all of the new image data added to the maps service since its inception in August 2009.

The improved integration of Foursquare into Bing Maps, experts say, may be the most important of the additions. As localization functionality continues to become more and more important – thanks to the growth in internet-enabled smart phone use – such features will be crucial to future search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

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Google announced yesterday that a new feature for Adwords analytics called “search funnels” would help search engine marketing professionals better understand the way in which paid clicks lead users to their sites.

The company said that its new feature would provide “data on how ‘upper-funnel’ keywords are assisting conversions before the last click. It also enhances basic conversion reporting for AdWords.” Google also noted that Google Analytics users would be able to import data from those accounts for use with search funnels.

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land reported that “until now, Google would only show you the last keywords that led to a conversion. In many cases, searchers will go through a searching process that includes research that might not lead to an immediate sale but may assist in a sale after a few more searches.”

Such a tool, as useful as it undoubtedly is for paid search marketers, is unlikely to be offered to natural search engine optimization (SEO) professionals anytime in the near future, due to concerns about privacy and security, according to Schwartz.

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Microsoft updates its Bing Maps application with more features, including one that integrates Flickr photos into its Streetside view, which presents an eye-level view of terrain. In the future, Microsoft plans to add real-time video, interior panoramas and constellation viewing to Bing Maps. The Bing road map for 2010 includes an increased focus on knitting together data from multiple sources for its results pages and structuring results more efficiently with help from third parties.

Microsoft has integrated new features into its Bing Maps application as it continues to battle Google for U.S. search engine market share. The latest features continue the bulking-up of Bing Maps that has taken place over the previous few months and follow the road map for Bing that Microsoft laid out in January at the Consumer Electronics Show.

One of the new features is a technology preview of the Streetside Photos application, which attaches geotagged Flickr photos to a particular location in Bing Maps’ eye-level Streetside view of terrain. Historical photos will also be incorporated, allowing users to see a particular neighborhood as it looked in the past. Microsoft is working on video overlay technology that will attempt to unite real-time video with street-level imagery, something it promises to demonstrate in more depth by the end of 2010.

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On December 3, 2009 Greg Sterling had posted an article saying that Google Suspends Local Listing Ads – For Now.  Well it seems that they have suspended them indefinitely since they completely remove the section of their website that was deticated to the local listing ads.  Take a look at the screenshot below:

This is what I end up on after performing the search query “Local Listing Ads” (LLA) and click on the number one result, Google’s own page dedicated for these ads.  Well it seems that the beta test didn’t go over as well as they thought or they are about to launch some nationwide model.

If you are unfamiliar with Local Listing Ads, they are/were an advertising medium that Google offered to it’s Local Business Center clients where they would pay a flat monthly fee to have a advertisement placed above the map-pack and below the search field.  This advertisement was given a blue pin icon so it could stand out from all the red ones.

I thought this was one of the best values for a local business since you are paying a flat fee to have arguably the best position on the SERPs.  One downside seemed to be that more competitive markets would yield rotating LLA in order to keep the clicks equal.  If your market was not highly competitive the value appeared to be greater on the consumer’s end.

Google announced the beta release of Local Listing Ads on October 6, 2009 and suspended them on Dec 3, 2009.

The ads were only released in the San Francisco and San Diego metropolitan markets.

A new technology in development by Cisco Systems could provide additional refinements for search engine optimization (SEO) by helping to improve the web crawlers that the major engines use to index pages.

The new technology would use “routers, multilayer switches, and any other suitable device” to capture the URLs of websites that traditional web crawlers may be unable to access because they are unconnected to the crawler’s previously known network of sites. The patent was originally filed last year, but was published by the U.S. patent office on December 17.

BNet describes the technology as an “elegant solution” to one of the central problems with traditional web crawlers. “Any page receiving any amount of traffic would seem to be one whose location should be known,” writes Erik Sherman on that website.

Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals should be aware of the possible implications of the Cisco technology, which could have an effect on their carefully crafted SEO campaigns, experts say. Some speculate that the technology could improve the comprehensiveness of search engine results.

Foundering search giant Yahoo is said to be looking to offload its “Hot Jobs” employment listing service for “the right price” in the wake of declining search performance and a pending deal with Microsoft to have that company’s Bing search engine take over search functions on Yahoo’s still-popular internet portal.

Reuters reports that company insiders say that Hot Jobs – in addition to Yahoo’s Small Business unit – was on the block for a hoped-for fee of anywhere between $350 million and $500 million.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, speaking at an investor’s conference earlier this week, joked that Yahoo owed a great debt to Tiger Woods for the revelations about the golfer’s personal life that spiked search traffic across the internet. She also confirmed that Hot Jobs was not central to the company’s strategic vision moving forward and could be sold.

Bartz also blamed the company’s declining search numbers – and consequent diminution of relevance to the search engine optimization (SEO) market – on the failure of toolbar deals with HP and Acer that would have seen Yahoo toolbars pre-installed on PCs manufactured by those companies.

Specific queries, for which the competition is less fierce in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), can drive truly impressive conversion rates, according to Search Engine Land columnist Eric Enge.

Enge writes that, despite the fact that the benefits of long tail search engine optimization (SEO) having been obvious for years, many clients are still unaware of the potential upside to targeting highly specialized queries. He uses the example of a camera retailer, which, by tailoring SEO to specific camera makes and models, brings in more customers who are ready to purchase their products.

The basic assumptions from which Enge works in making his assertions is that roughly 70 percent of search traffic comes from the long tail, 20 percent from what Enge calls the “chunky middle,” and only 10 percent from competitive “head” search terms. The latter can be useful for driving traffic, but conversion rates are usually low, and the investment is frequently not worth it.

Seach engine optimization (SEO) campaigns that carefully target the long tail should see a spike in ROI, according to Enge and numerous other SEO experts.