BrandVerity has identified basic signals that evaluate whether or not passing query data from the engine to the advertiser would affect the results of its paid-search campaigns. The company identified there major indicators, but the post points to brand bidding as the most important. It describes the concept where an advertiser other than the brand places bids on a brand's trademarked terms -- for example, Nike bidding on the word "Puma."

Google has acquired London-based Rangespan to support the back-office services in Google Shopping. Rangespan's Web site explains that it already has begun working with each of its retailers and suppliers to wind down Rangespan's services. CrunchBase describes Rangespan as an "automated supply chain service" enabling online retailers to expand product selections. It combines an order management system, supplier marketplace, customer protection system and product data catalog.

Twitter has released a study in partnership with The Advertising Research Foundation, Fox and DB5 called "Discovering the Value of Earned Audiences — How Twitter Expressions Activate Consumers" designed to discover how exposure to a brand mention in a Tweet affects the actions of consumers online and offline. The survey combines responses with behavioral data. The companies said they "intercepted" a sample of people who logged into Twitter during prime-time TV hours. The sample suggests how earned media has complemented owned and paid messages.

A consumer class-action complaint against Google, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that the company strong-arms smartphone makers. The alleged arm-twisting makes its search engine the default on Android devices through secret agreements with manufacturers that also require applications such as YouTube and Google PlayStore to occupy prime real estate on the device screens. Jeremy Kirk explains.

Google wants webmasters to carefully consider redirects that the engine views as manipulative and deceiving to searchers. Some call it cloaking. In an update to its webmaster quality guidelines it details the specific types of redirects. Violating the guidelines could land the site in a heap of trouble -- not just bring a slap on the wrist. After all, the rules belong to the one who owns the infrastructure.

What does it tell investors, and search marketers, about Google when they see seven top executives sell stock shares? Four did so after Q1 2013 earnings, and two of the seven decreased their holdings by more than 10%. There have been 5,780,543 shares sold, and zero shares purchased by employees (insiders) since January 2013, per Seeking Alpha. Revenue continues to grow slowly.

Link auditing can become daunting and complicated. A step-by-step guide from Modestos Siotos aims to help users with the link auditing process. A flawed link audit can send a site's ranking plummeting. He guides marketers through the process of making sure site issues are link-related, identifying the common misconceptions to avoid judging the impact of backlinks, how to build a bespoke backlink classification model, and more.

Google has revived the concept of stand-alone apps for Docs and Sheets, separating the two after launching and integrating the two a couple of years ago. Google said it will make it easier for users to quickly find, edit and create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on the go.

Bing released updates to Smart Search this week that it says will make it easier for users to search and find information stored deep in a Web site. Based on common tasks performed on Windows 8, Smart Search bases results on natural language. When someone searches for a way to "install a printer," Smart Search returns results that show the function resides in "Device Settings."