Parents are thinking much earlier this summer about searching for supplies in preparation for sending their kids back to school, according to Google data.

About 90% of consumers start an activity on one device and end on another, according to Google, which continues to tout that marketers should have the ability to tell what drives conversions.

Keywords are becoming less relevant when tracking search engine query rankings. One marketing company believes URLs will become the way industry verify the influence of a content topic on a Web site page. So it reversed engineered the process. Here's the new twist on an old method.

Content that indexes in search engine query results brands a company's image. Sometimes that content has little to do with the services the company offers. It really begins with an idea or belief. Much of that content initially gets posted to YouTube or Facebook.

Australian-based ABC News, which is produced by the News and Current Affairs division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is getting heat for out-bidding private organizations with taxpayer dollars on Google AdWords, according to one report.

Search marketers seeing a shift from desktop to mobile clicks on paid-search advertisements and links might find the answer in Gartner's latest PC numbers.

Google has access to every real-time Twitter tweet, but more than 90% are not indexed, according to a study. The company gained access to the Twitter data through a deal announced earlier this year.

Under Armour has begun serving promotions and coupons through beacons in a few of its brand stores. The alerts serve up to consumers who have downloaded one of the brand's apps, such as MyFitnessPal, MapMyFitness, and Endomondo. Similarly, It also plans to test the campaign in unidentified retail stores in Q3 2015. Here's how it works.

Google is building on the concept of ride-sharing and mobile apps through a carpool service it calls RideWith. It's a concept made popular by car services, not taxis, in Brooklyn and Manhattan. You make a phone call, request a ride, and a contracted individual picks you up and takes you where you want to go for a fee. Uber made it possible to pull out your smartphone, request a ride, and wait for a pickup.

Google PageRank typically comes to mind when search marketers think about search query ranking algorithms, but Microsoft has a similar ranking algorithm. This one won an award this week at the Machine Learning Intelligence Group.