is the 19th anniversary of search marketing:

Google launches page layout algorithm

Google declared in 2012 that it would penalize websites with excessive ads on top pages.

Any site that had pages buried under tons and tons of ads was the target of the page layout algorithm update.

Google says:

It’s not a good user experience if the first part of a website you visit isn’t filled with content or devotes too much screen space to ads. These sites might not be ranked as high in the future.


Google’s Matt Cutts, Page Layout Algorithm Improvement

A message from Google’s AdSense team was also sent out that day encouraging publishers to add additional ads to their websites.

It’s ironic, isn’t?

The Top heavy update: Pages that have too many ads above the fold are now being penalized by Google’s Page Layout algorithm.

This day, too


Google explains why it removes Top Stories from main search results

2022. Google stated that it will remove duplicate links from its main web search results if the same link appears in the Top Stories slot. As long as the Top Stories section appears prior to the main web search results,


Google recipe markingup now requires specific times. No more time ranges

2022 Google has removed all references to time ranges from the recipe schema markup support documents.


Marketers and Google agree that the proposed ban on surveillance advertising is too extreme

2022 This legislation would have been a game changer for all digital marketers who advertise on Google, Facebook, and other advertising platforms.


Google Ads’ new Experiments page sheds campaign drafts, and adds experiment sync

2022: Advertisers don’t have to create a campaign draft anymore. Any changes to the campaign are automatically synchronized to the experiment.


Google increases enforcement of adult ad policies after Reuters discovers illicit ads

2022 Google search results revealed ads for high-risk investments, sex toys and liquor, which were in violation of UK regulations.


Google crawl stats now showing more

2021 This was a reporting change, and any change in crawling did not reflect any changes in search results.


DuckDuckGo is focused on privacy-minded users and pushes it to surpass 100 million searches in one day

2021 DuckDuckGo served the first 102,251,307 searches, surpassing the 100 million mark.


Video by Phillip Thune – How to find good writers and write good content

2021 Barry Schwartz chatted with Thune in this episode of his vlog series. He also discussed how SEOs have changed their approach to content development following Panda and Penguin.


Search in Pictures: A pig visits Google. Big teddy bear and a broken Google sign

2018 These are the most recent images taken from the internet. They show what people eat at search engine companies, where they live, and what they do with their toys.


Matt Cutts officially steps down from Google

2017: Cutts was appointed the new director for engineering at the US Digital Service. Since 2014, he was on leave from Google.


Study shows search words with the worst and best click-through rates

2017: Study analyzed the top 50 keyword “stems”. This allowed us to determine which terms were most effective in driving clicks, and more importantly, which terms weren’t.


DuckDuckGo exceeds 10 Billion searches with 4 Billion in 2016.

2017 According to the search engine, 4 billion searches were made in 2016.


Google Revamps Their Webmasters Portal with a Clean New Slick Design & Resources

2016: This resource has a new design and better organization. It also features three new features: webmaster troubleshooter (popular resources), event calendar, and webmaster troubleshooter.


Google Expandable PLA View Test Displays 16 Product Listing Ads

2016 PLAs displaced other ads and organic listings in order to take over the majority of the above-thefold real estate.


Now You Can Install Android Apps Straightly from Google’s Search Results

2016 You don’t need to visit Google Play Store.


Google Sends Mobile Usability Warnings to a Huge Number of Webmasters

2015 These notifications advised there were serious mobile usability issues on 100% of pages on the website. The pages will be “displayed” and “ranked appropriately for smartphones users.”


The BingYahoo PaidSearch Share Has Risen for Two consecutive Quarters [IgnitionOne]

2015: Advertisers increased their spending on the Yahoo Bing Network by 31% over the previous year (through the Bing Ads Platform). Google AdWords spending rose by 5%


Yahoo Search Testing Google Search Results Design?

2015 This page was straight out of Google’s search result design.


Google’s 2015 Martin Luther King, Jr. day logo designed by Ekua Holmes

2015 The Doodle featured Martin Luther King, Jr. surrounded by civil rights activists, with the American flag as the background.


Google: Paid clicks up 34%, while cost per click down 8% YoY

2012: While more people clicked on ads, advertisers were making less per click.


Nokia Now “Powering” Bing Maps

2012: Nokia branding will soon appear on Bing Maps mobile.


Google Maps Now Highlighting Borders Of Cities, Postal Codes & More

2012: Google Maps has added a feature that highlights in pink the borders of cities, postal codes and other borders based upon your search.


Track U.S. Congress Members’ Tweets

2012: PolikerUSA allows you to access the non-stop stream of tweets by Senators, Reps and President Obama.


Study: Google “Favors” Itself Only 19% of the Time

2011. “Even though Google lists itself as the first in [email]… Is it really anti-competitive that its competitor is prominently listed second?” Isn’t it more concerning if Google doesn’t list its rivals?


Google Makes Modest Comeback In China

2011 23.1% Chinese search users desired Google.


Deconstructing “Search Neutrality”

2011 An associate professor at NYU Law examined and dissected the arguments for search neutrality in an academic article.


Google Knol Still Alive and Fixed, but Questions Remain About Its Future

2011: Google corrected a bug that rendered Knol look like it was a ghost town.


Google Shows Maps Options with New Widget Display

2011: Google officially launched a new Google Maps display, making the various viewing options more easily visible.


CBS TV Series “The Good Wife”, Discredits SEO

2011 Let’s see the court record, for “The Good Wife”, and all good citizens. SEO, or search engine optimization, is a legal and effective way to drive visitors to websites.


Google Opens Up Downloads To Iran But Blocks Iranian Government

2011 Google has opened Google Earth, Picasa, and Chrome software downloads to Iran after years of not allowing them.


Search and The 2011 Sundance Film Festival

2011, Bing served as the official search engine for the Sundance Film Festival’s website. YouTube also had two channels dedicated to the event.


Real-Time Search Engine Collectiona Hits Pause

2011 The company made a “step back” in order to retool their approach.


Google Announces the Fourth Doodle 4 Google Competition

2011 “What’d I like to do someday …”


Google’s Paul Cezanne Logo

2011 The original logo was created by a Googler as an oil painting. It was then digitalized.


Google Modifies How It Handles Synonyms

2010 Google has “extended this to words our algorithms very confidently believe mean the same thing even though they are not spelled the exact same as the original term.”


Bing updates autosuggests with news & trending queries

2010, Bing has added “breaking news” and “hot trending queries” to autosuggest. Updates are pushed out every 15 seconds.


Microsoft Meets EU Demand. First To Reduce Data Retention to Six Months

2010, Microsoft was the first major search engine to accept the European Union’s request that data retention be reduced to six months.


Yahoo Search Marketing Launches New Network Distribution & Import Campaigns

2010: Yahoo advertisers have now access to the new network distribution and import campaign.


Google Can Tell Us What Men And Women Really Think?

2010 What Google Suggest had a to say about men and women’s real thoughts.


Google New York Expanding

2010 Google expanded its New York office, which was already huge, by 57,000 square feet.


Google Testing “Preferred sites” Option in Search Preferences

2009: Participants in this experiment were able to add a list sites to their search preferences page and designate them as their “preferred websites”.


Report: Search Spending Off 8% In Q4

2009: Search ads spending by advertisers less than $50,000 per month decreased by 23%, and by advertisers spending more than $200,000 per month on search, their spending fell by 9%.


No Surprise: IAA Survey Shows Concern Over Google Market Dominance

2009: 65% said that one player dominates the online advertising market and that there are “limited options and prices for online advertisers”.


Google Drops iPhone Optimized iGoogle Pages

2009: Google stated that they dropped the iPhone version because they wanted to “ensure you all see the same version of the iGoogle mobile site.”


Live Search News Adds Email Alerts

2009 These alerts could be sent to you either once a week, twice a week or every other day. You can subscribe by section or search phrase.


Some Parallels between Obama and Yahoo’s Carol Bartz

2009 At times of crisis, both Carol Bartz (incoming Yahoo CEO) and Barack Obama (incoming President) were in charge of their respective administrations.


GDrive: It’s Alive! Or so it appears

2009: New buzz and speculation.


Google & Others Martin Luther King Jr.’s Logos

2009 How search engines honored Martin Luther King Jr. Day.


Checking Out Allcheckin Travel Search

2007 – Some thoughts about a travel search option.


Yahoo Launches Personal Finance Website

2007 This sub-site provided “free tools, how-to guides, and budgeting tips for tax planning and real estate planning as well as saving for college and retirement.”


Google Book Search To Add Chinese Books

2007 With the goal of having 3,000 titles in Google Book Search by the end of 2007, the initial launch would have been approximately 1,000 books.


Search Engines’ Test Beds

2007 A summary of the various ways that search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Ask.com used “spin-off” sites to test new features.


Yahoo tells Belgian Newspapers That They Did Nothing Wrong

2007: Yahoo stated that they didn’t violate copyright laws when “publishing snippets or links” to their newspapers.


Google, Microsoft & Yahoo To Develop NGO Conduct Code

2007 This was done to support the companies’ Chinese ventures and paint a better picture of the search giants for the public.


Yahoo Debuts U.S. Schools Search Tool

2007: The results were plotted on a Google map. You could sort the data by school district, distance to a particular location, grade level or type of school (public, charter, private).


Looksmart Gets a Facelift

2007: Looksmart made it easier for users to search and create topics that can be used to organize saved pages. It also improved the toolbar and browser buttons to save pages.


Google Picks North Carolina For Server Farm

2007: Google expected to invest approximately $600 million in their new data center, and hire 210 people.

Search Marketing Expo ( , SMX).

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.

Search Marketing History

The post January 19 was first published on Search Engine Land.

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