Baidu's new "tougher vetting process" for advertisers buying paid-search advertisements running across the search engine's network is one reason the company reported lower-than-expected revenue.

'Tis the season to do good. One company in particular continues to motivate Millennials to become "do-gooders" through social interactions to win concert tickets to see artists like Rihanna that they simply cannot buy.

The process allows brands to analyze each keyword to determine where the word would rank, why it would rank in that order, which companies also use the keyword and where they rank, and why the keyword might rank higher for a competitor compared with their brand.

Thanksgiving Day store closures and an increasing number of mobile searches with fewer clicks to purchase could make it an interesting holiday buying season this year.

Are consumers better off with Microsoft in the world? "Why does the world need Microsoft?" CEO Satya Nadella asked during an interview with "The Wall Street Journal." "Let's say we just disappeared. Would everyone be well served?"

Smaller companies master innovation more often than large ones -- but when small companies grow up it's important to remain rooted in an organizational structure that allows for innovation.

The combination of search, paid search and radio brings an interesting ad-targeting opportunity for national advertisers to reach a local audience based on the listener's location and taste in music or talk radio. It also supports cross-channel and cross device ad targeting.

eBay now has a chatbot for mobile powered by artificial intelligence. It debuted on Facebook Messenger earlier this week. ShopBot, as eBay calls it, aims to simplify the shopping process by searching for products across the marketplace.

Who are the supershoppers, and how do marketers reach them? Customers need to research and be willing to purchase from retailers or online stores they had not bought from before. Mobile has become the best way to find these "cool gifts" because search engines are aggregating the content for consumers in fewer searches.

About 30% of searches will be done without a screen by 2020. Technology such as Google Assistant for Home, Amazon Alexa for Echo, chatbots and software development kits from Microsoft, Soundhound and others will make this possible. By 2020, algorithms will alter the positive behavior of more than 1 billion global workers, according to Gartner analysts.