I used to be a keyword research freak. Seriously! If you found me at one of the big conferences in the early 2000s you would have likely heard me discussing the importance of keyword research. "Keyword research is the most important aspect of SEO," I would say. "Target the wrong keywords and it won't matter if you are #1 on Google or not." Yeah, I took it seriously. I still do, and that's why I'm sharing this experience from the WebmasterWorld forums.

Is anyone surprised that AOL renewed its search deal with Google? AOL CEO Tim Armstrong was one of the executives that negotiated the deal the first time around-albeit while "playing" for Google at the time. So, with AOL about as competitive as Yahoo in the search space, Google the incumbent provider, and Armstrong's connections, it made a lot of sense to just push this one through quickly, so that AOL can focus on its new content provider goals. Interestingly,

ChannelAdvisors' 2010 Consumer Shopping Habits Survey is out just in time for the holiday season. The free report provides valuable insights for anyone in the ecommerce, B2C space. So, what jumped out at me? Well, it wasn't so much that 59% of those surveyed start their gift search at a search engine -with 28% heading straight to a marketplace such as eBay or Amazon-but what did intrigue me were the starts on just how inconsequential brand recognition is.

If you watch a lot of TV-and TV ads- you'd think that those over 50 are interested in nothing more than popping a Viagra and making a little bowm-chicka-bowm-bowm . But, according to a new Pew study , those between the ages of 50 and 64 are getting just as excited about social networking. According to the study: Between April 2009 and May 2010, social networking use among internet users ages 50-64 grew by 88% -from 25% to 47%. During the same period,

What happens when you don't add Google TV to your television? Apparently, it turns into a freaky, one-eyed, monster that terrorizes your house, that's what! Check out these ads that are running to promote Logitech's partnership with Google TV.

I was all set to post a simple announcement that Yahoo had officially flicked the switch and changed its search results to Bing's. I had no plans to give Yahoo a hard time. Give it a break, I told myself. Let it prove to the world that it's not bailing on search. Then I read Shashi Seth's rebuttal to'well, no one in particular. I've heard some innuendo that with Yahoo! Search transitioning certain back-end functions to Microsoft, we are no longer a "search engine.

How much benefit do you get from being part of Twitter's limited test of Promoted Tweets ? Well, according to one of the participants, Zecco, life is pretty good at the top of the Twitter Search results! Over the past two months, Zecco sampled 50 Promoted Tweets and measured their effectiveness. In comparison to regular Tweets, Zecco saw an average 50% increase in engagement with Promoted Tweets and 200 to 300% increases in some cases. During this time,

* maybe Google has announced a change to the way it handles "branded" keyword searches. What are branded keyword searches, I hear you ask? Well, "apple" would be a great example of such a search. If you search "apple" you are-for the most part-looking for information on the electronics company. Well, Google is making changes to the old rule that prevented more than 2 pages from showing in its results pages from the same domain. In fact,

After months of development, I am delighted to reveal Trackur 2.0 . Along with a fresh new look, Trackur's social media monitoring tools now include: Facebook, Digg, and Delicious monitoring Inline Influence Rank scores for news sites and blogs Klout scores for Twitter users Alexa data And behind the scenes the database has been upgraded and we've switch the user interface to HTML5 and CSS3 What's more,

Congratulations! You did it! You made it to Friday! Yay for you! Your reward? Here, I prepared this Picks just for you. Enjoy! IBM to Acquire Unica Corporation Apple iAd partners say they're happy with early results Facebook Launching Official Live Streaming Channel: Facebook Live Magpie, the first service to offer in-stream ads on Twitter,

So, apparently there's a real movie being released in the fall, all about Facebook. No seriously! The Social Network will cash in on Facebooks popularity-and Mark Zuckerberg's exploits-and likely make millions of dollars. Will I go see it. Maybe. I'd at least be able to write off the ticket, the 32oz Diet Coke and the jumbo popcorn as a business expense. What I would like to see is this parody trailer for a fictional movie about Twitter, turned into a real movie.

So two small companies are about to get caught up in a copyright/patent infringement lawsuit. You may have heard of the companies: Google and Oracle. Now, lawsuits like this don't just come out of the blue. They're expensive and cause a lot of distraction for both the plaintiff and defendant, so you can bet that Oracle has had many "behind the scenes" conversations with Google about its alleged Java IP infringement. You can also bet,

You know the drill! Anyone Want to Offer Free SEO Advice to a Former BusinessWeek Editor?

Yesterday I joked on Twitter that: Top 10 lists are sooo 2009, this year's linkbait seems to be the "infographic" To which, Dr. Pete suggested that I should go ahead and put together a Top 10 List of Infographics! A great idea! Look, we both know that this is linkbait-a top ten list combined with infographics, c'mon!-but you have to admit, it's worth bookmarking or tweeting. Right? 1. The History of Marketing Channels 2. The Power of Local Mobile Search 3.

Ever get a negative review for your business and just wished you could give them a piece of your mind? Well, the next time you even remotely consider attacking your attacker-especially on a "neutral" site such as Yelp-remember this tirade from an Arizona restaurant owner. First of all. Wow! Look, even if you want to go on a tirade, you shouldn't . If your restaurant is so great and this reviewer is indeed a fake, then your raving fans will come to your defense.

I'm getting fed-up with the word games that Google plays with the media. On August 5th, we asked if Google and Verizon had made a secret pact to ensure Google's traffic received priority over Verizon's network. Google scolded the media-the NYTs mostly-tweeting: NYTimes is wrong. We've not had any convos with VZN about paying for carriage of our traffic. We remain committed to an open internet. Except,

Jim Kukral is the master at getting attention. I remember when BlogRush had the entire blogging community in a tizzy. Jim jumped on the overhyped-widget-bandwagon and grabbed thousands of email sign-ups for his alternative "BlogBucks" service. BlogBucks promised untold riches but ended up being nothing more than a spoof. Jim deleted all the subscribers but in just a couple of days proved that he was the master at gaining Attention!

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead? Who knew? David Meerman Scott, apparently .

I love Twitter. I also happen to love using the Twitter web interface. What I hate, is the new "Who to Follow" box. Why do I hate it? First, I don't need to clutter my Twitter stream by following more people thank you very much. Second, there is no way to collapse or delete the "Who to Follow" feature. I even tried "Xing" every suggested user in the hope that the feature would then give up. Did it? Nope, it just regenerated with a bunch of other names.

We are one day away from the start of the weekend! While you're making plans, enjoy these Picks: Schmidt: Google Now Activating 200,000 Android Units A Day [Video] Twitter Preparing "Shout Out" Feature Google Buys Java/Ajax Tool-Maker Instantiations Is anybody out there? Tech companies #fail at social media, says study Eric Schmidt: Every 2 Days We Create As Much Information As We Did Up To 2003 Facebook says ad spending is rocketing Google Buys Slide for $182 Million,