is the most important day in search marketing history: January 13, 2013 //
Matt Cutts teaches Washington, DC about Google
Matt Cutts (the head of Google’s Search Spam Team) was in Washington DC doing an “educational Tour” to show members of the US Federal Trade Commission and congressional staffers that Google search results don’t need government regulation.
A slide presentation of 89 pages, “Search Integrity,” was part of his visit to Google’s Washington, D.C. office.
Cutts stated the same thing Google has been telling search marketers for years: that Google’s results are determined using an algorithm, and not modified to rank certain sites well.
“I don’t know of any reason to manually change [search rankings] search rankings except for security reasons, court orders or spam. It is impossible to pay more for a higher ranking.
Matt Cutts, quoted in The Washington Post
You can read all about it at Mr. Cutts goes to Washington to prove that Google has integrity
This day, too
IndexNow officially shares URLs with Yandex and Microsoft Bing.
2022 If IndexNow was used to submit URLs for Microsoft Bing, Microsoft will immediately share the URLs with Yandex.
DuckDuckGo surpasses 100 billion searches
2022 The privacy-focused search engine has announced that it has surpassed 100 million all time searches.
Google suspends all political ads during the inauguration
2021 Ads that mention politics, impeachment and the inauguration were stopped.
Google January 2020 Core update rolling out later today
2020: Google stated that it would release a broad core algorithm upgrade called the January 2020 Core update.
Google Rich Results now reports on unloadable embedded resources
2020 This tool can now report on unloadable embedded resources such as external elements that are included in a page.
Google’s “My Business Provider” program replaces the “Trusted Verifier” for GMB outreach
2020: Resellers, SEOs and agencies were not eligible for the program. The proposed MBP also “must not have access” to the business listings they verify.
Google rolls out a desktop search redesign with black Ad label and favicons to optimize organic results
2020: After a few months of being available in the Google mobile search results, Google finally launched the new design for desktop.
Responsive Search Ads are available worldwide in all Microsoft Advertising Interfaces
2020: Microsoft suggested running five ads per ad group (including at least one RSA).
Video by William Alvarez about the importance of structured information and Google search
2020: Barry Schwartz talks to Alvarez about structured data and his passion for mentoring SEOs.
Zhou Youguang Google Doodle Honors Chinese Linguist Known as the ‘Father Of Pinyin’
2018 This animated doodle featured Youguang’s work, flipping the Os in Google’s name from Pinyin to Chinese characters (Guge ), and led to a Google search for “Zhou Youguang”.
Search in Pictures: Google Bollywood car and orange tree, & indoor bicycle parking
2017 These are the most recent images taken from the internet. They show what people eat at search engine companies, how and where they talk, their toys, and much more.
SEOs Puzzled, Confused by Google’s Mystery Update
2016 This is a summary of some of your questions, answers, and confusion regarding the latest Google core algorithm updates and Panda being part of Google’s core rank signals.
Bing adds an Internet Speed Test Tool to the Search Results
2016: Users were seeing the new feature of Bing when they searched for [speed test] and [internet speed test].
Google Maps for Android Now Features “Driver Mode” To Predict Your Next Stop
2016 This new feature will allow users to anticipate where they want to go and then recommend the best way to get there.
Bing Launches AreWeIn.net for NCAA March Madness Basketball Fans
2018: This site provided daily analysis of NCAA basketball teams. It predicted whether or not they would be in the tournament, and also showed how they would finish.
LinkedIn Gives Search A Promotion By Adding Better Post Results & Richer, Personalized Listings
2015: LinkedIn has a new custom search function that can help you find people and jobs faster.
Ryanair CEO Claims Airline is Working with Google on A Flight Search & Comparison Tool
2014: Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary stated that his airline had entered into a partnership agreement with Google and was providing flight pricing data to Google’s search engine in order to build a travel comparison and search engine.
Bing Supports Separately SSL Search Site. No Referrers Need
2014 A search made on Bing while it was on the HTTPS URL would still be HTTPS, keeping your searches safe.
Google: The ability to block sites from search results will return, but when?
2012 When Google’s search Plus personalized results format was launched, the ability to block websites from search results vanished.
Q4 reports: Search Advertising growing in efficiency
2012 Four reports pointed to an extremely successful fourth quarter 2011 for search advertisers from a variety of verticals.
Search Alliance Starts First AdCenter Testing in Europe
2012 Initial testing of the roll-out was scheduled for mid-January. It would involve as much as 10% of Yahoo!’s traffic in France and Ireland.
Report: FTC Expands Anti-Trust Investigation of Google To Include Google+
2012 “People familiar with the situation” said.
Bing Tests New Bottom Home Page Bar
2012: A new bar was added to with a Popular Now and Weather, Image, and Video boxes.
Google’s SPYW, Kenya Imbroglios An “Ink Blot” Test For Google As Good Or Evil
2012 A startup that specializes in local search/directory said Google crawled their site to find local business leads. Then, it claimed in cold calling to the businesses that it had a partnership to sign them up.
Search in Pics: Google Cockroaches, Cutts With Horse Mask and Google Beer Pong
2012 These are the most recent images taken from the internet. They show what people eat at search engine companies, their play habits, where they live, and what toys they own.
Google Now #1 Search Engine In Czech Republic; 5 Countries To Go For Global Domination
2011 The Czech Republic was among six countries where Google wasn’t the dominant search engine (alongside Russia, Japan China, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and China).
Yahoo Search Now Powered By
2011:Bing powered the Yahoo back-end to organic search in Australia and Brazil.
Bing Improves Auto Instant Answers With Car Listings
2011 – Bing added new- and used car listings to a self-contained autos shopping page. This kept users in the Bing experience.
Experian Hitwise: Bing Searches Up 5% In December 2010
2011. Bing.com saw an 5% increase in search activity from November to December 2010. Bing-powered searches rose 2%
Google’s New China Plan – Target Display Advertisers. Report Says
2011 Google’s new strategy was to target Chinese companies to advertise in its dominant overseas search market. This business already accounts for about half of Google’s China revenues.
Europeans “Fishing” for Bad Google Behavior In Anti-Trust Inquiry
2011: This 120-question document was designed to “ascertain whether Google manipulated search result and used its popular platform in order to keep business and displace rivals in internet advertising.”
Topsy launches brand-friendly Twitter widgets
2011: Topsy’s social modules were embeddable widgets which brought Twitter content to any site.
AdWords Display URL Policy Change For Hosted Domains
2010 Google asked advertisers to display the subdomain portion of a domain that is hosted on blogspot.com, WordPress.com, or a similar domain.
Google ranks real-time tweets based on followers?
2010 According to Amit Singhal (a Google Fellow), it wasn’t about how many Twitter followers you had, but also the “reputed” followers.
Google’s China Gambit Day 2 Reaction
2010 This is a selection of the many reactions and responses that Google could pull out of China in case it can’t operate without censorship.
Nielsen: Yahoo, Bing Down, Google Up in December
2010: Gains By Google, AOL’s minor gain, and declines from Yahoo and Bing.
Harvard Professor Details New, ‘Insidious’ Form Of Google Click Fraud
2010 One critic of Google says that the company should cut ties with InfoSpace because of “a particularly insidious type of click fraud”. This involves a complex mixture of paid ads and affiliate traffic brokering.
Baidu – The Official Google Blog You Search Doesn’t Exist (& Don’t Even Try Looking for It)
2010 Anyone trying to search for the official Google blog article about Google’s decision to leave China because of censorship was not able to find it using Baidu, China’s most popular search engine.
Think Like a Blackhat by Matt Cutts
2009 Cutts explains what he considers a virtual “blight”, including link spam, open landing pages, hacking and other forms of spam. Cutts showed you how to think like spammer.
Carol Bartz, Autodesk’s new CEO at Yahoo; Sue Decker to resign as President
2009: Bartz was recognized for her deal brokering and management skills, but she had never owned an internet company and no advertising background.
Help Google Find “Empty Review Sites”
2009: Cutts stated that these pages could be in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and provided specific instructions on how to report this type of page to Google’s spam team.
Obama Stimulus Predictions and Search
2009 Retrospectively, it seems that relative search queries volumes (Obama Vs. McCain) were a good indicator of the outcome of November’s election. It appeared that they foresaw the recession.
Ask.com partners with NASCAR to say that “super verticals” will bring it back in the Search Race
2009: Soon: A NASCAR search tool? Ask is also the official search engine for NASCAR.
Google Maps Adds Public Transit Data In 50 Cities
2009 The Transit Layer will display the public transport lines/routes in the area that you are viewing.
Make Your ASCII AdWords Campaign More Interesting With Animated ASCII URLs
2009: How a single agency created animated racing ASCII cars for the browser address bar with JavaScript.
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Past contributions by Search Engine Land’s Subject matter Experts (SMEs).
These columns represent a snapshot of time. They have not been updated since publication, except where noted. These articles do not reflect Search Engine Land’s views.
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