Marketers are learning to use QR codes and other action codes more effectively. A new study of all 2011 issues of the top 100 U.S. magazines. It found that advertising drove the 439 percent increase in action codes from January through December.

Twitter has acquired security startup Dasient, which describes itself as an anti-malware vendor for large enterprises in the financial services, media, and online sectors. Its technology will be housed within Twitter's revenue engineering team.

After a slowdown in the fall of 2011, the share of adults who owned tablet computers or e-readers nearly doubled over the holidays, according to a new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. 19 percent of U.S. adults now own tablets.

If a major storm is headed you way, Google wants to be your information guide. The Google Crisis Response team is looking to be your go to information source on when a storm will strike, how bad will it be, and what resources are available to help.

In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, career con man David Whitaker spilled the beans on his experience as undercover operative Jason Corriente, an agent for wealthy clients seeking online ads. The sting led to a $500 million forfeiture for Google.

SEO Chicks have launched a competition for the next generation of search marketers. Have you been in SEO less than a year or have a desire to join the industry? If so, this is the competition for you.

Learn how you can track and collect significant conversion data and then bring it all together in one dashboard. Use these three levels of conversion data tracking that vary in terms of pros/cons, costs, effectiveness, and sophistication.

After a year's delay, Microsoft adCenter will start to power the PPC results on Yahoo UK in Q2 of 2012. Discussion of its potential for success aside, here are some useful links and an action plan for preparing UK paid search campaigns.

Yahoo's 2011 Q4 search revenue was $465 million, down 27 percent compared to the same quarter for the previous year. Yahoo attributed the decline to the search agreement it signed with Microsoft. Overall fourth quarter revenue was $1.3 billion.

Google today dropped the age requirement from 18 to 13 for teenagers who want to join Google+, bringing Google+ in line with Facebook's age policy. Bradley Horowitz, Google VP, product management, also announced new features for teen users.

Social is an important part of how online users will consume and spread quality content, but it has to be integrated in a manner that doesn't degrade core search functionality or sully searcher trust in what is the most utilized search engine.

Typically, TRX aims to spend $40 on online advertising for each sale it generates from its ads. When TRX tested YouTube for the launch of a new product, the company generated an advertising cost per sale of $14, about 65% lower than their average.

Russian search giant Yandex has added facial recognition technology to its photo hosting service, Yandex.Fotki. Yandex is leveraging Face.com's facial recognition technology to create a "smart" photo tagging service that lets users tag other people.

In an attempt to provide more accuracy on where your site ranks for search queries, Google is changing the way it calculates average position in the Google Webmaster Tools Top Search Queries and Google Analytics Search Engine Optimization reports.

Why Google+? The quality and corresponding engagement around your search engine visibility stands to either noticeably improve or gradually decline. Here are some recommendations on what you to do with your Google+ Pages for businesses and brands.

Google search has historically been about finding the best results for the many. Google Search Plus Your World is about finding the best results for you. Now, "you" are the enterprise. What could this mean for the future of enterprise SEO?

A new unified Google privacy policy is coming in March. The big change: Google clearly states that it will combine information from signed-in users from one product to other Google products in order to show more relevant search results and ads.

There is nothing worse for a webmaster/site owner than to wake up one day and find Google Armageddon has taken out all of their site's rankings and traffic. This framework should help you keep your head should the unthinkable happen.

Local small businesses rarely use Google AdWords to its full potential. AdWords can be a powerful tool to generate instant traffic. You can also test messaging for later use on other advertising platforms and enable remarketing to create branding.

While Google Analytics has its own set of merits, there are drawbacks. Many people don't want to continue to feed Google more data - and this trend is growing. Here are some ideas to help you choose the best web analytics solution for you.