The SEMI BLOGCurrent Trends in SEM, SEO, PPC, Behavioral Retargeting, Online Reputation Management, etc.

According to CNN Money, Google has agreed to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. What could this mean for you and mobile marketing as a whole? The SEMI team will explore this a bit in a minute...

What will a .com mean in a year?  Will it still be the most coveted suffix to a URL?  Why am I posing these questions?  Well – ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) recently gave the go ahead for virtually UNLIMITED domain names. 

The Instant Preview function which was just recently launched by Google has changed the way PPC will now work.  The preview function (represented by a magnifying glass which is called a spyglass) worked well with the organic placements and now Google has switched this over to the PPC area.  What does this mean?  Well, for one, you better have darn good content on your PPC landing page because the spyglass will pull information relating to the search criteria.  

Well, if you haven't heard by now, here you go.  Facebook has sunk to an all-time low by hiring a PR company to leak false information about rival, Google.  According to PCWORLD.com, the PR company, Burson-Marsteller, was hired by Facebook to do a smear campaign against Google. 

Ever wonder how you keep seeing banner advertisments for a particular company all over the web and think to yourself...."are these guys following me??" Well, trust your instincts, because they most likely are. The technology is known as behavioral retargeting, or more plainly, retargeting. 

The power of Search Engine Marketing cannot be underestimated.  If you have an ecommerce site, the more visibility you have, the better return you will most likely receive.  If you’re just launching a new website, then I would focus on SEO and PPC.  PPC will gain you immediate results and SEO is more of a longer term play. 

So, you built a website – congratulations.  What keywords do you show up for in Google besides your company name?  What keywords do you want to show up for in the search engines?  Does your site have any backlinks?  Is it set up with a proper SEO framework ie; robots.txt? xml sitemap? 301-redirects?

Looks like someone else is suing Google now.  A U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Harold Lloyd in San Jose, CA has ordered Google to hand over their metrics for their adsense program on parked domains as well as error pages. 

Google has officially rolled out its High Quality Sites algorithm as of yesterday and it does not appear that the programmer community is very pleased with this. Known as

Well, lets go back in time briefly to the beginning of what we know today as "Search Engines". Search Engines are the dewy decimal system of the digital age. Bet you never thought you would hear that phrase again....well, we'll say it again...the dewy decimal system of the digital age!!! Remember that massive index card catalog in your local library that housed the location of every book, magazine, and periodical in the entire place?