This day in search marketing history: March 18

Posted On 21 Mar 2023

By : peterzmijewski

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Learn what happened on this day in search marketing history – including developments in SEO, PPC, search and digital marketing.

Google Business Profiles new emergency help attributes for Ukraine support

2022: Google also added hotel attributes to define if hotels offered support to those displaced from Ukraine.

Brands, especially restaurants, need FAQs and ‘coronapages’ fast

2020: It was critical that precautions being taken were discoverable in search results.

Video: Martha van Berkel talks about structured data

2020: Does adding schema help improve your search rankings? Google said no but…

Google on the March 2019 core update: This is not the biggest update we’ve released

Google Ads now makes reporting column recommendations

2019: With this update, Bid Strategy Type was no longer a required column.

Waze conquers ‘digital dark zone’ with in-car, out-of-home ad coordination

2019: McDonald’s campaign showed drivers in-car ads that mirrored billboards.

Google Image Search launches colored filter buttons

2016: After testing various combinations, Google launched new filter buttons in the image search results.

Bing Ads testing Social Extensions: Link search ads to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr

2016: The ad extension was in beta in the U.S.

Bing partners with US National Park Service for #FindYourPark photo contest

2016: The winning photo would be featured on Bing’s home page during National Park Week and used as Bing’s Facebook and Twitter cover photo in April.

Search in Pics: Google Analytics With NASA, Google buffalo & Fiber office

2016: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

Yahoo Loses Market Share As Some Firefox Users Return To Google

2015: Google had become increasingly aggressive in trying to lure back users.

EU Antitrust Chief Says Google Settlement Essentially Done

2014: Amid criticism from politicians and Google’s critics, EU antitrust chief Joaquín Almunia essentially said that Google’s antitrust settlement proposal was a done deal.

Bing Ads Starts Allowing Keyword Variations Once Flagged As Duplicate

2014: Advertisers were able to start including multiple versions of keywords through Bing Ads Editor and the Bing Ads Upload API.

Yandex Buys Israeli Geo-Location Platform KitLocate

2014: The chief virtue of KitLocate was that it provided location to apps without using much power – unlike GPS or triangulation, which could drain mobile batteries.

GetListed Tool Relaunches As Moz Local

2014: Agencies and business owners could use the tool to research where their listings appeared online, manage claiming and verification and listings submission.

A Dilbert On Search Engine Keyword Research

2014: There was a fun search marketing-related Dilbert strip on the topic of doing and presenting your keyword research to your boss.

Google Penalized One Article On BBC’s Web Site

2013: Google’s John Mueller: “We found unnatural links to an individual article, and took a granular action based on that.”

Bing Webmaster Tools Adds Site Move Tool

2013: The tool let you move from one domain to another domain as well as from within a site; URLs to URLs.

Google Goes Beyond Answers, Starts Guessing Release Dates

2011: Google added a one box even when it only had a “best guess” at the answer to a search.

Yahoo’s AllTheWeb To Redirect To Yahoo Search April 4th

2011: AllTheWeb one of the search engines Yahoo acquired in 2003 to help build Yahoo Search, would sunset April 4, 2011.

SEO Held Liable, Fined In Counterfeiting Case

2011: A website builder and SEO firm was held liable in federal court in a case in which it was accused of enabling the sale of counterfeit goods.

Search In Pics: YouTube Socks, Yahoo Bowlers & Bing Armbands

2011: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Google Tests “Sponsored Map Icons”

2010: The Sponsored Map Icons were a new way to promote your business within Google Maps.

Google Will Let Web Users Avoid Analytics Tracking

2010: The company said it would soon let web users opt-out of being tracked by its popular Google Analytics software.

Google-Viacom Court Documents Out; Google Says Viacom ‘Secretly’ Uploaded Videos

2010: YouTube’s chief counsel accused Viacom of “continuously and secretly” putting its content on YouTube, and “deliberately” making the material look amateur.

Google Updated Maps For Mobile For Android

2010: An updated interface and some feature changes to help improve usability.

Google’s Matt Cutts On Keywords In The URL

2009: Cutts answers: “Does the position of keywords in the URL affect ranking?”

Twitter Search: Not Your Friend If You Tweet Something Bad

2009: Be careful what you say in a public setting and use social media tools to help you, not hurt you.

Financial Times Launches Newssift, A Business News Search Engine

2009: Newssift aimed to bring context and meaning that its creators said was missing from traditional keyword-based business news search engines.

Google Maps Opens Up Editing To Everyone

2008: Users would now be able to edit any details about a business or location, or add new businesses, even if they weren’t the business owner.

Yahoo Expects To Double Cash Flow In Three Years & Reaffirms 2008 Outlook

2008: Yahoo expected to double its operating cash flow in three years from $1.9 billion to $3.7 billion.

Search Biz: Alibaba Gains, Google Loses, & Eric Schmidt Says Don’t Call Me Daddy Anymore

2008: China’s Alibaba.com, in which Yahoo was a significant minority shareholder, enjoyed a massive 340% gain in net profit tied to China’s fast-growing economy.