During the earnings call with investors and analysts Thursday, Google showed signs that its profitable search engine advertising business has begun to slow. The company's focus on other markets like YouTube content, biotech and hardware clearly signals an attempt to offset seasonal declines in search, but the biggest issue many heard on the call points to a declining cost per click.

Mobile budgets are finally feeling a little love as marketers plunk down more of their search budget to run smartphone search ads. Overall, marketers spent between 20% and 27% more in the quarter. With the flow of more money into mobile channels, however, come challenges to win bids and catch the eye of consumers on a small screen. Diminishing ad real estate on mobile search engine results pages (SERPs) intensifies the bidding process, making it more competitive. It means that brand marketers must rethink bidding strategies and tailor ad copy for mobile experiences to boost overall impressions.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration captured a spooky picture of the sun. Active regions or hot spots gave it the appearance of a jack-o-lantern -- just in time for Halloween. NASA said the picture, taken on Oct. 8, is a blend of intense light and energy captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Ironically, the keyword "pumpkin" or "jack-o-lantern" didn't make Experian Marketing Services' or Google's list of top costume searches. Here's what did.

A better question might be: How much does Google earn quarterly on paid-search clicks that never convert for brands? One major concern is the amount of real estate that engines devote to the paid search in query results, because it means they will have to pay for traffic they may have previously received for free from their organic listings.

The millennial generation remains a diverse group of consumers with a broad range of interests. One thing is certain -- the family dynamics continue to change. Parenthood changes them. Overall, millennial adults entering motherhood become more conservative, yet remain fun-loving. A recent study suggests they still like to search and research the best deals before sharing information on social networks. Not all agree with these findings.

Search engine optimization gurus, next year's your year. Gartner Research predicts that by 2017, half of the solutions created to support the Internet of Things will originate in startup. Not only will these companies with niche applications require SEO experts to optimize content -- they will also optimize hardware devices so software or operating systems on smartphones can identify them. Think about this: since 2013, about 650 million new physical objects have come online. 3D printers became a billion-dollar market and 10% of cars became connected. Enterprises will have more than half a million IP addressable objects by 2020.

The Age of You requires brands to build tighter, seamless experiences and to create what Interbrand calls a "mecosystem" through personalizing how and where people experience products and services, not just messages.

Selfies tell a lot about a person, but not necessarily what many think. Where people take the selfie, with whom, and how often they become the subject of the photos posted provides nuggets of data based on intent, but it may not be enough to put the resources behind the campaign. It may, however, provide fodder for search and social ad targeting.

Marketers know there's a wealth of information available to them through mining the data, especially from smartphones where experts expect to see more than 40% of traffic this holiday season. Once they find it, the biggest problem remains what to do with it. There's a lot of fear about getting it wrong. A good partner shows them how to identify the origin of conversations and people who listen to them, as well as all major competitors talking about a similar topic.

Real estate professionals typically have a basic understanding of search engine optimization. Among the 342 North American real-estate agents and brokers participating in a survey, 83% believe SEO offers the most important source for online lead generation, but only 4.9% said they generate referrals by optimizing content. It's not clear whether their attribution modeling or SEO tactics need work. Here's why.