SEM 

Bidding on the competition: Is it really worth it?

Bidding on your competitors’ brand terms could yield positive results, but columnist Jacob Baadsgaard warns that it might cause problems in the long run. These days, bidding on your competitors’ branded terms has become a common practice for paid search advertisers. To be honest, the logic behind this trend seems sound. After all, if someone is typing in a competitor’s business name, they are interested in what your competitor has to offer… which means they are probably interested in what you have to offer. Plus, anyone who is searching for your competition is probably…

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Marketing 

President Biden Signs Executive Order on Cybersecurity

President Biden has signed an executive order aimed at improving US cybersecurity in the wake of major attacks. The last few months have seen multiple high-profile, crippling cybersecurity attacks on US agencies and businesses. SolarWindsimpacted private and public organizations alike, with the full extentstill under investigation. Most recently, Colonial Pipeline was hit with a crippling ransomware attack, severely impacting fuel prices all along the East Coast. The threat is exacerbated by hacker groups that are state-sponsored, giving them access to the funds and technology needed to wreak havoc. In response, President Biden…

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Bing 

Microsoft’s Catapult Project To Power A Bing Data Center Next Year [Updated]

After a successful test, Microsoft says it will expand its Catapult server project to all Bing servers in one of its datacenters in 2015. Microsoft told a microprocessor conference Tuesday about the results from its early testing. The PC World article gets into fairly technical details about the Catapult boards and their use of “field-programmable […] After a successful test, Microsoft says it will expand its Catapult server project to all Bing servers in one of its datacenters in 2015. Microsoft told a microprocessor conference Tuesday about the results from its early…

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google 

Google Ads to roll out dynamic exclusion lists in coming weeks

Dynamic exclusion lists can make it easier for your brand to avoid showing near unwanted content while requiring less of the advertiser’s time and attention ongoing. Brand safety has been top of mind for many companies over the past year, and Google’s new dynamic exclusion lists help advertisers avoid showing ads near content they wish to avoid. “Once advertisers upload a dynamic exclusion list to their Google Ads account, they can schedule automatic updates as new web pages or domains are added, ensuring that their exclusion lists remain effective and…

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Social 

Twitter Uses Prompts to Encourage Nicer Tweeting

Twitter is rolling out a feature that prompts user to be more considerate, with iOS and Android English-speaking accounts first to see it. One of the biggest challenges social media grapples with is discouraging bullying, vitriol and hateful content. Since the early days, social media has struggled with the best way to moderate such content, while still encouraging open, free-flowing discussion. Twitter believes it has found a solution, using prompts to warn people of potentially harmful content, and give them the opportunity to change it before posting. Based on feedback and…

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Social 

Facebook: You’ve No Right To Export Email Addresses (Unless It’s To Yahoo & Microsoft)

The Google-Facebook wars have heated up this past week over the ability for people to swap contacts between the services. In the latest round, a Facebook engineer says people have no right to export the email addresses of their contacts. Unless, of course, you’re exporting to Yahoo and Microsoft. I’ve been watching the events unfold […] The Google-Facebook wars have heated up this past week over the ability for people to swap contacts between the services. In the latest round, a Facebook engineer says people have no right to export the…

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SEO 

Your eleventh-hour SEO intel on Google’s Core Web Vital metrics

With page experience a definite search ranking signal moving forward, improving web performance and optimizing rich media becomes even more important to business success. If you ventured onto the web in the 1990s, you were inundated with content, left to your own methods of finding relevant information — until Google, that is. Back then, the now go-to search engine “began building algorithms that scored the content it was indexing against specific criteria,” and decades later, those criteria are still evolving. Google is a dominant voice in search and has a unique understanding…

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SEM 

How should your ad budget impact campaign building?

Wondering how to make the most of your AdWords budget? Columnist Brett Middleton shares his formula for calculating search impression share so that you can make ROAS projections based on budget reallocation. Everyone running a PPC account typically has a budgeting question they are trying to figure out. For those with a tighter ad budget, the question becomes, “How do I get the most leads for this limited amount of spend I have?” Larger accounts run into their own problems; finding points of diminishing returns and making small gains in efficiency while maintaining…

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Latest News 

Toyota Acquiring Lyft’s Self-Driving Division

Lyft has announced Toyota subsidiary Woven Planet is acquiring its self-driving division, Level 5. Autonomous driving is widely considered to be the next major evolution of the auto industry. Unfortunately, autonomous driving has been a difficult technology to crack for companies of all sizes. Tesla recently was called out by Consumer Reports for self-driving tech that’s easily fooled. Meanwhile, Level 5 was launched in 2017, with the goal being to have a majority of rides happen in self-driving vehicles by 2021. Instead, Lyft is now selling off its self-driving division after failing…

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Marketing 

FCC Announces Start Date for Emergency Broadband Program

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced the start date of its emergency broadband program. The FCC proposed emergency broadband measures to help low-income families have reliable internet access. The global pandemic has shone a spotlight on the need for high-speed access, although the cost associated with it can be a challenge. To combat this problem, Congress authorized the creation of a $3.2 billion initiative in 2020. The program will provide up to $50 for low-income households, and up to $75 for those on Tribal lands. The FCC has announced the program…

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