Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Punctuation Search Results Upgraded By Google!

In a fresh upgrade involving punctuation marks, Google has updated its search results. So, now when you search for a “;” as in semicolon, you will now get search results. While some of the results are relevant, some may be not (the search for “/” slash reveals a music band with the same name on top). Here is what the search for “!” reveals:




This was reported by Google Operating System that Google was showing results for some punctuation symbols, as opposed to earlier, where it did not index them. Now you can see results for symbols/punctuation marks like:
  1. [.]- Full Stop
  2. [,]- Comma
  3. [:]- Colon
  4. [;]- Semicolon
  5. [#]- Hash
  6. [%]- Percent
  7. [@]- At
  8. [^]- Carat
  9. [)]- Brackets
  10. [~]- Tilde
  11. [|]- Vertical Bar
  12. ["]- Quotes
  13. [<] Less than/Greater Than
  14. [$]- Dollar symbol
  15. [!]- Exclamation Mark
  16. [‘]- Apostrophe
  17. [&]- Ampersand
  18. [ _ ]- Underscore
  19. [-]-  Minus sign
  20. [+]-  Plus sign
  21. [=]-  Equals sign
Do these searches for yourself and see.

Monday, January 23, 2012

How Google Made Money In 2011- Infographic!

Wordstream has put together an insightful infographic showing how Google earned a substantial $37.9 Billion in 2011 Advertising Revenues. The research was done by WordStream independently and is a follow up of the Google’s announcement of a “disappointing” 2011 Earnings.

What Industries Contributed to Google's Billion in Revenues? [INFOGRAPHIC]
© WordStream, a Google AdWords partner company.


Thursday, January 19, 2012

Jerry Yang Exits Yahoo!

Yahoo’s! co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang has stepped down from the company’s board. He announced his exit on Tuesday as he also gave up his posts on the boards of Yahoo Japan Corp. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

His departure news was made public in a press release. He wrote a letter and we quote, “My time at Yahoo!, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life. However, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo! As I leave the company I co-founded nearly 17 years ago, I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future.”

Industry experts believe that Yang left the company he co-founded in 1995, as a result of the shareholders pressure. It is known that Yang was criticized by shareholders since he had thwarted Microsoft's unsolicited takeover bid in 2008, while he was serving as the CEO of Yahoo. Yahoo's stock soared 4% on the news in after-hours trading Tuesday.

Yang’s departure comes two weeks Scott Thompson took over as Yahoo’s new CEO. Prior to this Thompson was the former president of PayPal. Thompson is now heading Yahoo’s efforts to compete with Google and Facebook as well as get more revenues for the company. Thompson was hired three months after the ouster Carol Bartz who served as CEO for 30 months.

Jerry Yang, the former Chief Yahoo!, served on the company’s board since March 1995. At present he owns a 3.6 percent stake in the company. He served as Yahoo’s! CEO from 2007 to 2009, where he had to step down following the Yahoo-Microsoft fiasco.

Source: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/jerry-yang-exits-yahoo/13065/

Bing Ousts Yahoo!, Takes The No 2 Position In December 2011-comScore Reports!

Bing is the second most popular search engine in the US (finally!), pushing Yahoo! to the third spot.

The number one position is held by Google (no surprises there) as revealed by comScore’s latest figures. At present Bing has a 15.1% market share in the United States, a gradual increase from its humble beginnings in June 2009 with an 8.4 percent market share.

Comscore Bing Yahoo

Bing is in the second position behind Google with 65.9 percent market share in December 2011, while the third place goes to Yahoo! which dropped to the third position on the US. According to comScore, here are the search engines listed by their ranks as well as market share in December 2011:
  • Google with a 65.9 percent share is comfortably on the top with an increase in the market share up from 65.4 percent in November. 12 billion of the total searches were conducted on Google.
  • Bing rose to the second spot with a .1 percent increase from November, to reach at the present 15.1% market share in the United States. 2.7 billion of the total searches were conducted on Bing.
  • Yahoo! takes the third position with a lower share of 14.5 percent as compared to the earlier 15.1 percent. 2.6 billion of the total searches were conducted on Yahoo!.
  • Ask came up 4th again at 2.9 percent market share with a total of 531 million searches.
  • AOL remained at 1.6 percent market share and powered 26.5 percent of searches.
The search numbers have also escalated in the month of December 2011 as 18.2 billion core searches were conducted in December, figure 2% more than the search numbers of November 2011.

Source: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/bing-ousts-yahoo-takes-2-position-december-2011comscore-reports/13061/

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

How to Leverage From the New LinkedIn Company Pages!

In the social media sea, LinkedIn is considered to be the truly ‘professional networking platform’. Company pages always existed on the network; however, it was only recently that LinkedIn announced an update to company pages facilitating companies and small businesses to become more engaged on the network.

What can you do with new company pages?

The empowered company pages allows businesses to make their individual company pages (quite like Facebook) and can have fans/followers interact with them; give out company updates and news; share new and existing employees’ profiles; as well as new job opportunities.

Apart from that you can put out interesting status updates, and basically network and interact like never before. Make a connection with prospective business clients, customers, vendors, industry associates and even new potential new recruits. Yes, all of this is now possible, all you need is a smashing business page on LinkedIn.

hp-linkedin

Why should you have a company page?

The sheer number of users on LinkedIn is the main reason you must make an effort to stake your space on the network. The network is expanding rapidly and the other reasons you must have a company page are:
  • 122 million members to approach and connect with
  • People here mean business. Take your business forward. (A survey revealed 22.5 million people use LinkedIn and other platforms to research brands and products. In the year 2011, 21.3 million people came across a new brand through social media.)
  • Great spot for building a brand among peers and clients
  • Serious job seekers present here
A visit to the new LinkedIn Company Pages will give you a better view of what all possibilities are there for you to make the most of your LinkedIn company page.


How to make the most from your LinkedIn Company page?
Leveraging your company/brand is really easy. All you need to do is update a few details, and go all out with your ‘people approach’ to network better.

1. Update Your Profile- Begin with updating your Company Description, Company Specialties, Blog and other information fields. This is a great tips for showing up in search results too. With more content you show higher on search engine results for the services you offer. Make your profile a very rich informative one. It should stand its place between the 2 million or so business pages on LinkedIn presently. So you can use things like images, banners and links to your site and blog as well as videos from YouTube into your company profile. All these inputs not only provide great credibility in your brand but also make for rich and interesting content.

Words of advice here- while it is important to fill out the ‘Overview Page’ do not make it a replica of the content on your site. You have to give out the standard information about who you are and what you do and who you serve and how. But do this in an interesting and interactive manner.

Similarly, while filling up your ‘products and services’ page, list your key products, best sellers, but highlight the new offers here. Do not forget to link to your site, or to related videos on YouTube. You can also link to a positive product review you received. Basically try to integrate as much as you can, but do not duplicate your site on to the LinkedIn page.

Most importantly- while filling out the information, do not forget to use your company’s keywords!

2. Post Interesting Updates!: After you have filled out everything, then you must allow for status updates to be posted on your page. Apart from the regular updates about your new products and services and even job openings, post other interesting stuff too. You have to engage your fans/followers with informative and value-added updates. Give out industry updates as an expert and see your followers grow if they see you as a source of insightful news and information. Capture attention by posting videos/images to support your updates. You can save effort by connecting your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts so that the LinkedIn page is updated automatically when you send out a Tweet. Tools like HootSuite and Ping.fm are great for writing one update and updating it at the same time on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.

Most importantly- do not sound like a company news letter. Sound like and industry expert.

3. Try To Gather More Followers- Your updates and company page will flourish only when there is a decent and steady increase in the number of your followers. Yes, it is quite like getting fans for your Facebook page. So firstly, post your LinkedIn Company profile on other networks to get the followers there to follow you on LinkedIn too. With more followers, your updates will be shared more and your brand will truly spread. Building followers is an ongoing task that requires constant effort, as you have to try to get the relevant followers to reach your page. You have to be ready with the answers to ‘why should I follow you’ that the prospective followers have on their ming
Here are a few tips on the same:
  • You make the first move by following similar pages and other pages of your clients, vendors and customers.
  • Have all your employees join your page. Their contacts will see this can also come on board.
  • Invite your personal connections on your Page.
  • Add your LinkedIn page URL to your email signature.

nokia-linkedin

Remember, the more relevant followers you have for your LinkedIn company page, the more opportunities you have to be visible and build influence with your target markets!
  1. Network better and Connect with New Contacts in Groups and Answers – You must use LinkedIn Groups to get in with the industry peers and similar interests businesses. They are a great platform for learning more and even finding peers interested in your work. LinkedIn Answers allows members to pose questions and it is a great place for you to set yourself as an industry expert and highlight your ideas and insight. Explore Open Groups  to take part in enriching discussions and benefit from them while being secure in the knowledge that these open discussions are mostly picked up by search engines.
  2. Monitor Your Company Page’s Success- LinkedIn has a very useful Analytics tab for Company Pages that provides you with detailed data about the page. You can view the details and do an indepth analysis on who visited the page, what areas interest them, and how are you doing as compared to similar companies. These data graphs are a guide to help you work better to get more followers.
Follow these steps to get the maximum from your LinkedIn page. How  has your experience been till now? Do share your views.

Source: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/leverage-linkedin-company-pages/13055/

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Google Introduces Search Plus Your World!

Google yesterday added a new dimension to its existing search engine by introducing, Search plus Your World. This feature will integrate personal results, mainly from Google+, into SERPs. This essentially means that information like People, Pages and Profiles will now be seen on the result pages. Lets have a closer look at the features :

Personal Results from Google+ Available in SERPs:

Google Introduces Search Plus Your World

Users now have a choice about the kind of search they are interested in. Google has a personalization toggle icon at the top right hand side of the search page, the user now has a choice of including the relevant posts and pictures of his friends on Google+ or an option of drilling down unnecessary information by viewing normal result page.

Google Introduces Search Plus Your World

Making the most of their promoting edge over Facebook and other social networking sites, search result page interestingly shows only results from Google+, leaving out Facebook and others in the cold. Google officials have cited that, term of service set by Facebook and other sites prevents them from crawling through deeper and retrieve information.

Google+ Profiles In Search:

Google tries to reason out the main idea, behind the concept of incorporating Google+ profiles in search, through a published post on their official blog. The statement reads :

Every day, there are hundreds of millions of searches for people. Sometimes, it’s hard to find the person you’re looking for. Once you do find him or her, there’s no quick way for you to actually interact. Starting today, you’ll have meaningful ways to connect with people instantly, right from the search results.

Google Introduces Search Plus Your World

As the user types in the first few alphabets of a person's name, Google now autocompletes and bring up its own results in SERPs, where Google+ profile and other web results are highlighted. Once the desired person is found, users can view all the relevant web information that Google attributes to that person, bypassing all others sharing the same name. This will also allow the signed in Google+ users to add prominent Google+ profiles to their Circle directly from SERPs.

People and Pages:

When searched for a particular topic like cricket or laptops, Google will now show prominent people who frequently discuss it on Google+. This page will appear at the right hand side of the result page, encouraging users to strike meaningful conversations through Google+ and discover communities in an easy and never done before way.

Google Introduces Search Plus Your World

New Security Level for SERPs:

Search plus Your World result pages will share the same protection level as that of Gmail via SSL encryption. This could come in as a relief for many who are worried about their Google+ profile and posts, appearing in search results, will leave them vulnerable. However this feature will not work if the user is not signed in, once you've logged onto Google and a search is made then all your search results including your own personal contents are safe.

Search plus Your World will be rolled out in next few days for logged in users searching English keywords at https://www.google.com.

ReSource: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/google-introduces-search-world/13038/

Friday, January 6, 2012

Yahoo! Has A New CEO- It’s PayPal President Scott Thompson!

Yahoo has put out its formal press announcement announcing Scott Thompson as the new CEO. Yahoo has been looking for a new CEO since the ouster of Carol Bartz. This is what Yahoo has to say about appointing Thompson:

“Scott brings to Yahoo! a proven record of building on a solid foundation of existing assets and resources to reignite innovation and drive growth, precisely the formula we need at Yahoo! His deep understanding of online businesses combined with his team building and operational capabilities will restore the energy, focus, and momentum necessary to grow the core business and deliver increased value for our shareholders. The search committee and the entire Board concluded that he is the right leader to return the core business to a path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation.”

AllThingsD was the first one to report that PayPal president Scott Thompson was going to be designated as CEO of Yahoo. A few hours after the report, Yahoo has made the formal announcement.

As per the eBay bio, Thompson took the reins of PayPal’s president ship in early 2008. Prior to this he was serving as its CTO in charge of information technology, product development and architecture. Before joining eBay, he worked at Inovant and served as CIO of Barclays Global Investors and at Coopers and Lybrand on information technology.

Yahoo fired CEO Carol Bartz in September 2011, and since then had been looking for a new CEO to head the company.

Resource: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/yahoo-ceo-paypal-president-scott-thompson/13003/