Archive for the ‘International Search’ Category

International Search Summit Berlin: laws of international search marketing, KLM and international video

intl search summit2 International Search Summit Berlin: laws of international search marketing, KLM and international videoTo be honest, I was a bit shocked, when I entered the room for the first International Search Summit in Berlin this Monday. About 10 attendees were waiting for Webcertain‘s boss Andy Atkins-Krüger to launch the conference. The lack of local publicity for the conference, which isn’t known in Germany, probably caused this low attendance. Maybe also the combination with the “Localization World” didn’t work out. Translators and Search Marketers are two different species as Isabella Ballanti impressively showed in her presentation later on the day.

Calijn van Lennep, member of the E-Commerce team at KLM, was the first speaker of the day. She talked about how to manage a brand on global websites. Although this topic isn’t really search related, Calijn showed some interesting insights how KLM deals with global and local content on their 116 websites. Another interesting point was Social Media. Calijn said that KLM doesn’t have a real social media strategy, but they just try out things. During the ash cloud problems Twitter and Facebook were the most important communication channels though! (more…)

Doesn’t Cutts get Europe?

Ok, this is a bit of a bold statement, does Cutts get Europe? It seems like he doesn’t, at least if you look at the answer he is giving on a question Dave Davis asked. Davis asked:

“AdWords allows (and it’s pretty accurate) location targeting. Why can’t you guys allow multiple country targeting in Webmaster Tools instead of just one? It would solve an age old problem for webmasters targeting multiple countries.”

This is something which has been bothering me for a while. For example when I was at Searchcowboys I really wanted to target Europeans. That was impossible, it was either the Dutch or the US or the world. Here’s what Cutts answered:


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Google Italy ruling might very well turn out to be a blessing

Last week three Googlers in Italy were convicted to a suspended sentence after they had failed to respond quickly to an uploaded video on Youtube over a year ago which showed Italian youngsters harassing a young boy with Down Syndrom. The response around the web immediately was one of disbelieve. How could Google-employees be sentenced for something they weren’t even directly involved in? Some even came to the conclusion that the ruling was a disaster for the freedom of the web. This could change the web once and for all.

They could be right on the fact that this will change things. However, the ruling in Italy can also turn out to be a blessing in disguise. As I pointed out earlier Google is running into some cultural issues in Europe (and also China by the way). They now see that Europeans have a different take on some things than Americans do. Privacy is a big example of that. If you know Europeans the privacy-issues which now seem to be popping up every week will not come as a surprise. the New York Times analyses the problem very well. They see the clash between European privacy-demands and the US freedom of speech demands.

The fact that Googlers now are sentenced could very well trigger something which will be crucial for the future of the internet: a worldwide consensus on how the rules on the internet will have to work. (more…)

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