Industry News

As part of the regular business analysis that I do on an ongoing basis, I like to keep an eye out for acquisitions made by search engines, and look at the technology that those companies being acquired have filed patents for. When I heard about...

As I reported from the airport Thursday night at Search Engine Land, Google's Matt Cutts said the Payday Loan Algorithm was rolling out but truth is, I haven't seen signs of it.
In fact, I've asked many folks in the black hat and spammy categories about this and they've seen nothing. There is only...

Last week, we reported that Google is improving their reconsideration request rejections with more feedback.

Well...

Google logo showing Ghana flag at top; Cameroon flag on bottom

Google scored a goal against itself by mixing up the flags of Cameroon and Ghana in a special logo highlighting the Mexico versus Cameroon match happening today in the World Cup. Well, it is Friday the 13th.

Google’s already fixed the logo and tweeted an apology with a pun: p.s. thanks to followers for calling attention to the graphical error in our Mexico vs Cameroon doodle. We’re not Ghana let it happen again.

— Google...

Benchmarks are an incredible tool for business owners and operators. They tell us where we sit on the spectrum and make our strengths and weaknesses transparent. Without them, we’re often left to wonder – am I any good at this?
(Kitchen pie chart via Jotun Türkiye)

Here’s a conversation I recently had with the founder of a marketing agency: Founder: How much should we be paying for entry level consultants? Rand: Maybe Payscale or Salary.com have good numbers? Founder: They’re all over the...

As you may remember, MetaFilter got nailed by an unconfirmed update on November 17, 2012 that Google denied.

Google has now confirmed that update, 1.5 years later...

Cotton Delo in Facebook to Use Web Browsing History For Ad Targeting:

But what Facebook is now enabling is far more expansive in terms how it uses data for ad targeting. In a move bound to stir up some controversy given the company’s reach and scale, the social network will not be honoring the do-not-track setting on web browsers. A Facebook spokesman said that’s “because currently there is no industry consensus.” Social-media competitors Twitter and Pinterest do honor the setting. Google...

As I reported last night out of the SMX Advanced keynote with Matt Cutts - the third version of the Google Spam Algorithm, also known as the PayDay Loan algorithm...

All of you who read here daily know about many issues Google has with Google Local, Google+ Local, Google Places, Google Maps for Business and all the other names Google has for it. It is a disaster, but Google My Business is aimed to fix all of that...