Canada
Google Maps Adds More Cities to Transit Layer and Full Schedule
Google Maps has added more cities to its Transit feature. Transit helps people find public transportation schedules.
New full-schedule areas include:
- Calgary
- Hamilton
- Edmonton
- York Region in Canada
- East Midlands (UK)
- Houston (TX)
- 21 agencies in the state of Virginia
- China – connecting all provinces with 3100 train lines, covering 2700 stations and all major cities
Added to the Transit Layer are:
- Adelaide
- Atlanta
- Bonn
- Calgary
- Davis, California
- Hamilton, Canada
- Pilsen
- Sacramento
- Torino
- Toronto
- York region
Updates have been added in the Transit Layer for:
- Cape Town
- Johannesburg
- Pretoria
Related Reading:
Google Maps Updates Transit Site
New York City and Google Team Up for New Information Center
Google Maps Adds Comprehensive NYC Transit Directions
18 U.S., 3 International Systems Added to Google Transit
Google Launches Mobile App for Windows Mobile
Google has launched its Mobile App for Windows Mobile. It can be downloaded at m.google.com.
The app provides faster search. The origin of search begins in the app instead of first waiting for the browser to load.
Windows Mobile users in the US, UK, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany can download the Google Mobile App. The app has already been released for Blackberry, the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Check out this video to learn more about Google’s Mobile App for Windows Mobile:
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Ever since the Google grand slam on affiliate marketing which basically paralyzes a lot of landing pages and their subsequent “commitment” to ensure that surfers and adwords advertisers have “good” experience using google by forcing up to 10x times the cost of per click, a lot of marketers is forced to relook at their marketing [...]
Serious About Local: GetListed.org
Need to get your small business better ranked on the search engines and don’t know how? Well there is a tool out there now that will give you help – and it’s free.
Pat Sexton and David Mihm have joined forces to help small businesses get better listed locally in the search engines with the launch of GetListed.org.
The tool checks how well your site is optimized for local placement in the search engines. It runs a placement test in Yahoo, Google and Microsoft Local as well as the Best of the Web Local Directory. They concentrated on these as they did not want to swamp people with unknown sites, Pat Sexton told me. “We have been approached by others but are staying with the ones we have for the moment,” he added.
The system allows you to see any errors in your listings which is handy, as well as any reviews that exist out there.positive or negative.
The site has been well received since its launch – small business blogs have helped push the information out, Sexton noted. “We got out to a lot of real small business people already so we are happy.”
While only connected for the US – at the moment – they will be launching in Canada, the UK and Australia in the near future. Other countries and languages are slated for later integration.
“There was a lot of small businesses getting screwed by services that cost way too much,” Sexton said. Not anymore Pat – great job – am sure this one becomes an overnight hit.
Live Search Launches Firefox Search Suggestion Add-On
Live Search has released an add-on for Firefox, interesting since Firefox is a competitor to Microsoft’s browser Internet Explorer. The add-on enables search suggestions when using Live Search in the search box on Firefox.
The add-on is available for Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa, United Kingdom, and United States.
You can access the add-on here. It was created with an OpenSource standard and uses the JSON interface.
Related Reading:
Live Search Offers Tips for Optimizing Large Sites
Live Search Launches News Alerts Service
Microsoft Says HP Deal Will Help Counter Live Search Brand Challenges
Click Fraud Increased Slightly in Q4 2008
Click Forensics has released click fraud data for the fourth quarter of 2008. The click fraud rate grew slightly year-over-year. Here are the primary findings:
- The overall industry average click fraud rate grew to 17.1 percent for Q4 2008. That’s up from 16.0 percent in Q3 2008 and from the 16.6 percent rate reported for Q4 2007.
- The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 28.2 percent. That’s up from the 27.1 percent rate reported for Q3 2008 and down slightly from the 28.3 percent rate reported for Q4 2007.
- Traffic from botnets was responsible for 31.4 percent of all click fraud traffic in Q4 2008. That’s up from the 27.6 percent rate reported for Q3 2008 and the 22.0 percent rate reported for Q4 2007.
- In Q4 2008, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside the U.S. came from Canada (7.4 percent), Germany (3.0 percent) and China (2.3 percent).
“Based on the data we tracked in Q4 2008, it seems that the online advertising industry is not immune to the growing tide of cybercrime during this recessionary period,” said Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics. “Both the overall click fraud rate and the rate of click fraud originating from botnets were the highest ever in Q4 2008. In addition, we’ve started to see old schemes like click farms reemerge. Advertisers should pay close attention to these types of threats in their online campaigns throughout the year.”
Related Reading
Click Fraud: What It Is, How to Fight It
Rounding Up the Usual Click Fraud Suspects
Click Fraud Declines Slightly in Q2 2008
Q1 2008 Click Fraud Down from Last Quarter, Up from Last Year
Click Fraud: Somebody Is Cheating You
Rich Riley to Head Yahoo! Europe and Canada
Yahoo! is filling the void left by Europe and Canada head, Toby Coppel, by hiring from within. Rich Riley, head of Yahoo!’s Advertiser & Publisher Group in Europe, has been tapped to fill the role. He will be based in Rolle, Switzerland, where Yahoo! Europe’s headquarters are located.
Rich Riley has been at Yahoo! for almost ten years, joining the company with the acquisition of his startup, Log-Me-On.com. He rose up through the ranks and at one point led the U.S. Small and Medium Business Division.
Sue Decker, president, Yahoo! Inc., said, “The appointment of Rich Riley represents the next phase in the evolution of our European and Canadian businesses, enabling us to build on the great foundations laid by Toby Coppel. We are committed to continuing our growth as a leader in Europe and Canada.”
Commenting on his new role, Rich Riley, said, “Yahoo! is one of the leading global internet companies and a leader in both Europe and Canada. With our focus on creating brilliant starting points for consumers and being a must buy for advertisers, we will continue to grow these key businesses. I look forward to leading these businesses and driving Yahoo! forward in Europe and Canada at this exciting time.”
Google Buys Digital Historical Newspaper Archives from PaperofRecord.com
Google has completed the purchase of 20 million digitized historical newspaper pages from PaperofRecord.com. The two have had an agreement for two years and has now concluded in a sale that was voted on by shareholders of PaperofRecord’s parent company, Cold North Wind, Inc.
This should be quite an asset to Google’s historical newspaper initiative, announced in September.
PaperofRecord is based in Canada and was the first to digitize the entire history of the Toronto Star. In addition to digitizing newspapers in Canada, the United States, Mexico and Europe, PaperofRecord has digitized historical documents including he Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada’s longest serving Prime Minister.
“It is a bittersweet day for PaperofRecord.com. We are very pleased to have our legacy and vision of a 500 year, global, multiple language newspaper historical archive being placed in the stewardship of Google. As a Canadian entrepreneur, it is disappointing to not be able to muster the resources in our country to bring such a digital resource to its fruition at home. However, without the help and vision of a company such as Google, this immense, global, educational resource would not be possible on the scale that is being contemplated,” said R.J (Bob) Huggins, Founder and CEO of PaperofRecord.com.
Beam me up, YouTube!
On Friday, the YouTube Blog announced that the video sharing site was starting to test full-length programming. Apparently, YouTubers have been asking “to be beamed up with Scotty, to devise a world-saving weapon using only gum and paperclips, and to get your grub on at ‘The Peach Pit’.”
Hey, I’m not making this up. Go to the YouTube Blog and read it yourself.
Through a deal with CBS, YouTube is now offering “Star Trek,” “MacGyver,” and “Beverly Hills, 90210” to the 91 million viewers in the U.S. who watch 5 billion videos a month (54.8 videos per viewer). Yes, yes, comScore Video Metrix reports there are another 19.7 million viewers in the U.K who watch 1.4 billion videos a month on YouTube.com (72.4 videos per viewer). But, I’m sorry, I can’t find out how many there are in Canada.
Nevertheless, the YouTube Blog says, “These shows will be available in the new Theater View style we rolled out earlier this week, which provides optimal experience for watching full-length programming on your computer.”
Yes, yes, but what does this mean to search engine marketers?
The YouTube Blog adds, “As we test this new format, we also want to ensure that our partners have more options when it comes to advertising on their full-length TV shows. You may see in-stream video ads (including pre-, mid- and post-rolls) embedded in some of these episodes; this advertising format will only appear on premium content where you are most comfortable seeing such ads.”
Ah, ha! You knew there was a catch!
Still, in order to make it clear to viewers, YouTube has labeled all full-length videos with a Film Strip symbol so they’ll know what kind of content they’re choosing to watch and what type of ads they might see.
I can’t wait to share this news with Matt Bailey, the founder of SiteLogic. My business partner, Jamie O’Donnell, talked with Matt about Trekkie lore and web analytics at SES San Jose 2008. Matt was the first to analyze “the Red Shirt Phenomenon.” (As any die-hard Trekkie knows, if you are wearing a red shirt and beam down to the planet with Captain Kirk, you’re gonna die.) But, check out the YouTube video below to hear Matt’s analysis for yourself.
Measuring Web 2.0 with Star Trek – & SiteLogic’s Matt Bailey
By the way, Matt Baily will be teaching one of the Search Engine Marketing Training Workshops at SES Chicago 2008. It’s the Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness, which will be held on Friday, Dec. 12, 2008.
To prepare you for Matt’s workshop, here are some basic stats:
The Enterprise had a crew of 430 during its five-year mission (although, the show was only on the air for 3 years). In the 80 episodes that were produced, 59 crewmembers were killed, which represents 13.7% of the crew. So, that’s what Matt uses as the overall “conversion rate.”
Heck, I can’t explain it as well as he does. So, watch the video interview above — read his article over on the ClickTracks site — or prepare to be amazed during his workshop at SES Chicago.
Google’s “In Quotes” Search Helps the Spin Go Round and Round
Just in time for the debates (whenever they happen), Google has released a political search engine called “In Quotes.” The search engine helps people find what John McCain or Barack Obama have said about a variety of issues. (For elections in Canada, India, or the UK, see the drop-down menu in the top right hand corner.)
Sad but true, elections are often won and lost on one-liners, whether they be gaffes or zingers. Now, “In Quotes” will help passionate politicos perpetuate the sound bites fast and furious.
Interestingly enough, the “quotes” that appear on the front page are already soundbites culled by reporters. It would be a little more helpful if the search results provided excerpts from speeches posted on the candidates’ websites so that people could (finally) start investigating the context of what was said.
Related Reading:
John McCain Outspending Barack Obama in Search Engine Advertising
Obama v. McCain in Online Display Ads, Video Views, and Searches
Is John McCain or Barack Obama Winning the YouTube Vote?
Can Google Predict the Next President?
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