• Bing Compares Travel Destinations
    Bing recently rolled out improvements to its destination and hotel pages. Kelli Stuckart gives us examples of the changes, which include more images, detailed descriptions and user reviews. The site also adds search for enhanced hotel information in the destination comparison and other travel sections.
  • Follow Your World
    Google has added imagery update alerts in Google Earth. Notifications go out after new images are added, but but before -- not yet, anyway. With Google's Follow Your World application, folks can register points on the globe. Jeral Poskey, Google Earth support team, provides links to the neat little app.
  • 404s, Good, Bad And Ugly
    Matthiew Diehl explains the process of fixing 404 errors. First, he provides a definition. "The harmless 404 is when a website visitor mistypes a URL for a page that never existed," he writes. "The harmful 404 is when a page previously existed and has been removed from the site." Then he runs through how they are used.
  • What Search Contributed To Microsoft Q4 Earnings
    Microsoft Kinect, the add-on to the Xbox 360 entertainment console, and more than 300 million Windows 7 OS copies sold made the tech giant more profitable than Apple in the final quarter of 2010. Although search isn't a driver, Peter Klein in the question and answer session of the earnings call said the the Yahoo alliance was a key component for earned revenue per search.
  • How Smart Are Search Engines?
    They turn out to be about as smart as humans, according to scientist Stephen Wolfram, the man behind the computational engine WolframAlpha. He tested how the correct answers to "Jeopardy" questions appear in the title or text of Google and Bing search results pages. In a long blog post, Wolfram explains the test and how it related to "Jeopardy." He also analyzes the findings.
  • Rakuten And Baidu Partner
    Rakuten, Japan's largest e-commerce company, and Chinese search engine Baidu have agreed to invest $50 million during the next three years to build a new online retail site expected to launch in October, according to Adaline Lau. She tell us the duo will call the site Lekutian, and points to an English version of Baidu's blog to help English-speaking markets understand the company's strategy and view.
  • Doing Volunteer SEM For Nonprofits
    Many charitable organizations are strapped for resources. Helping to optimize Web sites for free is one way to give back, writes Keenan Steel. "Just get over the fact that your chosen charity's site will be horrible for SEO," he adds. "It might almost make you cry when you see a PR 6+ page with a title like 'Home.' See it as an excellent opportunity and make the on-page suggestion."
  • Google: Write Copy For SEO Ranking Or People?
    Demand Media, valued this week at more than $1.5 billion, runs an SEO content mill, according to Rich Ord. The publisher produces and posts content for the "sole purpose of ranking for thousands of keywords in Google." That kind of initial public offering valuation makes Ord wonder if Google has changed its practice from wanting content on sites written for people rather than search engines. So, he analyzes Google's approach and Demand Media's valuation to reach a conclusion.
  • Why Your SEO Campaigns Are Underfunded
    John Lynch believes SEO is underfunded based on four reasons. He tells us why short-term goals hurt long-term success, SEO work can turn into a nightmare when not done properly, some fall adrift in a sea of jargon, and organic search traffic isn't properly valued.
  • A Look At Google's Wonder Wheel And Image Swirl
    People and machines cluster keywords differently. Ann Smarty provides an example using the word "apple," and gives us tips on how to cluster generic search terms using two Google tools: Wonder Wheel and Image Swirl.
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