Search Engine News

Search Engine Watch 

• Google Won't Pause New Privacy Policy - Should They Have To?

  Google refuses to bend to EU regulators, who have asked the company to hold off on rolling out their new privacy policy. In the U.S., Google responded to a letter and attended a closed-door privacy briefing with members of Congress.

  
  

• Valentine’s Day 2012 Ideas for Marketers

  Valentines Day is less than two weeks away. For marketers looking to take advantage, Google and Microsoft adCenter have provided several ideas based on what users are already searching for. Top searches, products, and optimization tips.

  
  

• How Affiliate Sites Can Best Exploit SEO

  Affiliate marketing is now an industry worth billions, although it’s fiercely competitive. Close analysis of relevant keywords can help you discover lucrative niches that may be overlooked in the rush for the big-ticket high traffic keywords.

  
  

• Kick-Start Your PPC Campaign in 6 Easy Steps

  Now is the perfect time to make changes, giving you a good few months of “normal” search traffic to analyze before major events like Christmas begin to make their presence known. Here are some tips to make your PPC campaign stand out from the crowd.

  
  

• Trover: Local Search and Discovery Through Images

  Trover is a new mobile local discovery app built around geotagged images. Trover’s CEO discusses possible futures for crowdsourced location-based search directories and the potential these new platforms to deliver more relevant, personalized ads.

  
  

• Pot (Microsoft) Calls Kettle (Google) Black on Privacy

  Did you know Microsoft truly puts people first? Instead of having horrible, evil products like Gmail, Google’s search engine, Google Docs, or Google Chrome, Microsoft saves us with Hotmail, Bing, Microsoft Office 365, and Internet Explorer 9.

  
  

• Why the Twitter ‘Who Gives a Tweet’ Researchers are Wrong

  A recent study by Carnegie Mellon University, MIT and Georgia Tech researchers found that 25 percent of tweets aren’t even worth reading, according to participants. They believe better filters will help. Actually, they have it all backwards.

  
  

• Google Fined in France Because Google Maps is Free

  A Paris court has ordered Google France and parent company Google Inc. to pay €500,000 ($660,000) in damages, after a two year court battle with French mapping company Bottin Cartographes over their unfair competition complaint.

  
  

• How to Understand Your Google “Not Provided” Traffic

  By using the process outlined in this article, you can get a very good understanding of what the Google “not provided” data is in regards to what types of queries people are entering. Not exact, but good enough to make some solid extrapolations.

  
  

• Social TV Grows Up: Communities and Advertisers Flock

  Several applications have sprung up that tie real-world actions to online communities, and allow for an experience that goes beyond the TV screen and into the palm of viewers’ hands. Here are a few applications that we see as category leaders.

  
  

• Hackers intercept FBI, Scotland Yard call (AP)

  AP - Trading jokes and swapping leads, investigators from the FBI and Scotland Yard spent the conference call strategizing about how to bring down the hacking collective known as Anonymous, responsible for a string of embarrassing attacks across the Internet.

  
  

• EU probes new Google privacy policy (AP)

  AP - The European Union's data protection authorities have asked Google to delay the rollout of its new privacy policy until they have verified that it doesn't break the bloc's data protection laws.

• HP awards new CEO Whitman with $16.5M pay package (AP)

  AP - Hewlett-Packard Co. ushered in Meg Whitman as its CEO with a $16.5 million compensation package that hinges on the one-time politician's ability to lift the stumbling technology company's stock price during the next two years.

• Facebook Timeline feature unpopular, especially among Baby Boomers (Yahoo! News)

  Yahoo! News - The new mandatory Facebook Timeline is a surprisingly controversial feature. You either love it, or you hate it. And according to a new poll, it appears that almost all of you hate it. Overall, only 20% of those surveyed said they liked …

• Super Bowl bust: U.S. government seizes 307 domains for violating NFL copyrights (Yahoo! News)

  Yahoo! News - While many sports fans are preparing for Sunday's Super Bowl by organizing parties and shopping for TVs, the U.S. government is preparing in a different way. Just yesterday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency seized 307 different domains suspected of violating NFL copyrights. …

• NASA Launches Facebook Game to Test Space Program Knowledge (Mashable)

  Mashable - How much do you know about the NASA space program, Earthling?

• Apple, Motorola in patent struggle in Germany (AP)

  AP - Apple Inc. has temporarily blocked Motorola Mobility's attempt to have it withdraw several iPhone and iPad models from its Internet store in Germany, the latest twist in an extended legal duel over patents between the companies.

• Star Wars, Ferris Bueller drive Super Bowl ad buzz (Reuters)

  Reuters - The Super Bowl is still two days away but some advertisers already are looking like winners as their yet-to-be-aired commercials score millions of hits online and rack up pre-game buzz.

• Android Games from Capcom and Square-Enix on Their Way ... In Japan (ContributorNetwork)

  ContributorNetwork - States-side fans of video game consoles, from the first Nintendo Entertainment System to its modern successor the Wii, know what it's like for a game that looks awesome to only come out in Japan.

• Android lead smartphone platform in 2011, will be used by government (Appolicious)

  Appolicious - Android got some good news this week. Firstly, numbers released by comScore suggest the platform grew in the fourth quarter of 2011 in the U.S. Secondly, the U.S. government has decided to use Android devices as secure phones.