WebProNews

Google Seeking Not To Cross The Creepy Line

Google CEO Eric Schmidt while appearing on Fox Business made some interesting comments about Google's emergence as a huge Microsoft-like business power. I thought most interesting was Schmidt's statement about Google becoming like Microsoft, "Hopefully, we won't repeat the mistakes that Microsot made ten years ago that ultimately led to all these things that happened with them". Schmidt elaborated:

Duplicate Content on Google, Bing & Yahoo

Duplicate content is a common occurrence on the web and in many cases can hurt search engine rankings. While the search engines may not always technically penalize webmasters for duplicate content, there are still a lot of ways it can hurt. WebProNews is covering the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East in New York, where representatives from the three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) discussed how their respective web properties handle duplicate content issues. Following are some takeaways from each.

Where Google Stands on the "Keywords" Meta Tag

Google does not use the "keywords" meta tag in its web search ranking. Google's Matt Cutts explains this in a Webmaster Central video. This is not breaking news, by any means, but there are a lot of people out there that still put a lot of stock into this.

Social Media Will Not Replace Search

Nielsen has shared some interesting findings from its research on how Internet users discover content. The research mainly focused on how content is found through search, portals, and through social media.

Google Celebrates the Barcode

Google is celebrating the invention of the bar code today, with its latest doodle. There is an interesting history of the barcode available on Wikipedia, which of course is the top natural result in Google's search results for barcode (which you are taken to upon clicking the doodle).

The Most Loyal Traffic Comes from Facebook

There's no question that search engines can be a tremendous source of traffic. Social networks are also proving to be big traffic generators for a lot of content producers, and Twitter is one of the big ones. However, it is Facebook and Digg that are driving the most repeat readers according to a study conducted by online ad network Chitika. Traffic is great, but traffic that returns is even better.

Google on What it Takes to Deliver Search Quality

We often take for granted the results we get for any given web search. When we search, we expect to find what we are looking for. That's the way it should be. The average user doesn't normally consider what it takes for a search engine to deliver those results, but there are so many factors at play, working behind the scenes and coming together to (hopefully) deliver the user the information they seek.

Report Says Bing Sees First Monthly Decline

According to comScore, Hitwise, and Nielsen, Bing gained ground in August, but StatCounter has released info indicating that Bing has experienced its first monthly decline in the US, in September.

Will Google Eliminate the Need for Small Business Websites?

Google has people riled up with its latest local search effort Google Place Pages. Place Pages are a Google Maps feature launched last week, which serve the purpose of providing everything you want to know about a place (a city or a business) in one spot. For example, if you search for a specific restaurant, you should get web pages, directions, reviews, images, street view imagery, business hours, etc. Google lets businesses submit specific categories they want to include.

Ask Continues Breast Cancer Awareness Efforts

Update: Ask has transormed its homepage into a Breast Cancer Memorial as the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month has arrived. The Ask.com homepage will continuously change throughout the day as tributes are added in honor of survivors, those living with breast cancer, and in memory of those lost to the disease.