ary 20, 2008 – This is the most important day in search marketing history

Matt Cutts is a guest blogger

Matt Cutts (the head of Google’s Webspam team) posted a message on his personal blog in 2014. He said, “Stick your fork in it; guest blogging is over; it’s getting too spammy.”

Google and Cutts hadn’t discussed guest blogging before. See:

This was however a strong, clear and unambiguous message that would be debated for months. Google’s webspam team would take a “pretty dim” view of guest blogging moving forward.

Okay, let me call it: If you are using guest blogging to gain links in 2014 you should probably stop. Why? Why?


Matt Cutts The fall and decay of guest blogging for SEO

Cutts’ post received hundreds of comments and generated lots of discussion on social networks. Cutts amended his post to clarify that Cutts wasn’t referring “high-quality multiauthor blogs”. He also added “for search engine optimization” to his title.

This day, too


Google Ads launches Placement Reports for Performance Max Campaigns

2022 Placement Reports could be created to show where advertisements were placed for Performance Max campaigns, as well as the number of impressions.


Semrush acquires SEO training website Backlinko

2022: Backlinko founder Brian Dean would curate and create original content for the Semrush Academy with his colleagues


Latest data from the January 2020 Google core updates

2020: Several data providers shared their insights on the impact of Google’s January 2020 algorithm update.


Amit Singhal, former chief of Google Search joins Uber

2017: Singhal was promoted to senior vice president of engineering and is responsible for Uber’s Maps & Marketplace divisions.


Search in Pictures: Tractor, indoor lifeguard tower, and wall art

2017 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.


Study: Quality backlinks and comprehensive content are still the most important factors in Google Rankings

2016 An analysis of over one million search results revealed a few ranking commonalities across Google’s top content.


Google Search Console Adds AMP Error Report

2016 This report allows you to drill down to specific error types or URLs.


Report: 2014 Was A Bad Year For Lyrics Sites In Google

2015: This niche was already looking worse in 2015.


Google Overtakes Traditional Media To Become Most Trusted News Source

2015: Google’s global brand strength was likely to be a factor in these rankings.


What Time Is The State Of The Union At This Moment? White House uses SEO to spread the word

2015 Neither Google or Bing showed direct answers. This is a list of web search results.


Bing tests a new news card that expands

2015: A Bing search for news-related terms would bring back a box/card with an arrow at its bottom that allowed users to click to expand the news section.


Yahoo Gains 1.6% Monthly Search Share at Google’s Expense in New comScore Data

2015 This gain is likely to be attributed to Yahoo’s Firefox default-search deal.


Expedia Loses 25% of Their Search Visibility in Google, Possibly Due to Unnatural Links

2014: Expedia witnessed large SEO visibility drops for many keywords including hotels, air tickets, car rental, and vacation.


Google Remarketing Ads Found To Violate Canadian Privacy Law; To Revamp Ad Review System By June

2014: Google stated that it has rejected active retargeting campaign involving CPAP devices, and increased searches for active retargeting campaign potentially related to sensitive interests categories.


Google Searches for Gmail Links You to Send A Message To A Google Accounts User

2014 This happened only if you clicked on the sitelink and were logged in to a Google Account.


Martin Luther King, Jr. Google Logo Marks a Holiday in Honor of Civil Rights Hero

2014 The illustrated Doodle featured a profile and images of Martin Luther King Jr., as well as images of doves representing King’s 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. It also included the Lincoln Memorial, where King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” civil rights speech.


Interview with A Google Search Quality Rater

2012: We learn about the hiring process, the Quality Raters’ criteria for evaluating websites, and details about the various evaluation tasks they performed.


Links to “Ask on Google+” Appearing in Google’s Search Results

2012: Google encouraged people on Google+ to ask their friends questions about [insert query here]


Bing’s new ad campaign: #Doing with Bing

2012: The new campaign was not about promoting the idea that people make decisions. It was more about encouraging people to do interesting things.


Alpha Scores Again With Rich NFL Data

Alpha.


Search in Pics: Google Boxers & 90+ Million Google+ & Gundotra Google+ Cadbury Bar

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.


Did It Not Make Sense to Change Your Face? Comments on Larry Page, The New Google CEO

2011 A reflection on Eric Schmidt’s role as Page’s former boss and the reasons the company might have made this change.


Leadership Change Overshadows Google’s $8B Earnings

2011, Google reported revenue of $8.44 Billion in Q4 2010. This is 26% growth year-on-year. Full-year revenues exceeded $29 Billion.


Eric Schmidt, Google’s Mobile Specialist: “2011 All About Mobile”

2011: GPS enabled personalization on smartphones and opened up new possibilities for users. Three infrastructure elements were required to achieve that vision.


Confirmed: Google Readies “Google Offers” Groupon Clone

2011 This occurred shortly after Google’s unsuccessful bid to acquire Groupon, which was worth nearly $6 billion.


Spain to Google: Anyone Can Censor Your Index

2011 Anyone could request to have some information removed from their computer. This would be a major change for Spain, Google and Yahoo, as well as Bing and Yahoo.


Google Dominates Top Free iPhone Apps In iTunes

2011 Two of the 10 best free iPhone apps ever were created by Google.


Google Voice Testing Number Porting: Turning point for the Service?

2011 Although it was limited to a small number of users, number porting was soon available to all who have a Google Voice account.


John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address Google Logo

2011: Google created the Doodle from the words of his speech. Google also included the middle G of John F. Kennedy’s speech as a picture.


Google AdWords – Advanced Mobile Targeting and App Downloads

2010: Advertisers can specify the type of device and carrier to which they wish to show their ads. Advertisers could also market their apps via AdWords to direct downloads from the iTunes App Store and Android Market.


Google Buys a Search Ad in Response to The China Decision

2010 For “Google Leaves China”, or “Google Vs. Baidu”.


SEOmoz Launches Open Site Explorer, A Competitor (Replacement?) Yahoo Site Explorer

2010: This report provided statistics such as the overall link count and the number of domains linking to a URL. It also included anchor text distribution.


Take the Google Webmaster Quiz

2010: “Fun, educational.”


Report: Microsoft and Apple Talk About Making Bing the Default Engine For The iPhone

2010 Microsoft was viewed as a pawn between Apple and Google.


Bing Silverlight Maps Releases Beta with New “Destination Maps”, and Local Events Apps

2010: Users can access a list of locations and details for local events in their desired (US) location with just one click


Wired – Monopoly, Microsoft and The Anti-Google Conspiracy

2009 This article presents Microsoft, together with other allies as the driving force behind an effort to end Google’s continued dominance in search (via Yahoo deal). After its failed bid for Yahoo.


Should Google Allow Advertisers to Opt-Out of Google’s Properties?

2009 An easy list of properties could give advertisers greater control in an age when Google wants to show more ads on less relevant areas.


Google PageRank: A Strange Case Of Hyves

2009 You could use the hyves subdomain to check if Google has penalized a domain. Then, check the PageRank for that subdomain.


Report: Google leads the U.S. Search Advertising Market with 76% Market Share

2009: Based upon an analysis of 92 million impressions and 600,000,000 clicks.


Google Shuts Down Print Ads

2009 This service was discontinued because it wasn’t the best solution.


Despite the Inauguration Google & Others Still Believe It’s President Bush, not President Obama

2009 Major search engines still had not caught up to the power shift.


SEM Vendors Launches and Other Ways To Locate SEM Companies

2009 You can fill out this form to find SEM companies.


GetListed.org aims to simplify local search marketing

2009: GetListed.org was founded on a simple principle: Small businesses should have an easy way to search for and claim local listings.


Google & Firefox2 Anti-Phishing Warning in Action

2007 How a phishing alert actually looked through the Google-Firefox 2 partnership. (It

It was also an inaccurate warning.

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 20 was first published on Search Engine Land.

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