In the last Quarter of 2019, I’ve launched the Digital Marketing with Bill Hartzer Podcast. It can be found on most of the popular podcasting platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Deezer, Podcast Addict, and, of course, right here. Initially I’ve been uploading these podcasts to our YouTube Channel, so you can see the videos there. I’ll continue to upload future digital marketing podcasts there. [Continue reading]
Local businesses are getting unsolicited sales calls from a company saying they’re from Amazon Alexa. The local business apparently can purchase a listing on Amazon Alexa for a one-time fee of $69 plus a monthly maintenance fee of only $19 per month. I’ve spoken with at least four separate businesses across the United States, from South Florida to Texas to Indiana to South Carolina. They all say they’ve been called by someone saying they’re from Amazon Alexa, selling a similar listing service. [Continue reading]
A social media influencer has been sentenced to 14 years in United States Federal prison for the attempted hijacking of a GoDaddy domain name. According to a United States DOJ press release, "Rossi Lorathio Adams II, age 27, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, … [Continue reading]
Every month, there are over 5 billion searches on Google for restaurants. 3 billion searches for hotels. 1 billion searches for clothing stores. 600 searches for hair and beauty salons. 5 million searches for coffee shops (Google My Business data, … [Continue reading]
Google AdSense is getting rid of their iOS and Android apps in favor more a more favorable mobile experience. According to an email sent out to Google AdSense publishers such as myself, that means that they will no longer support the Google AdSense … [Continue reading]
Network Solutions, a Web.com company, along with Register.com, has suffered a data breach (they got hacked) in late August 2019. They did not discover this data breach until October 16, 2019. They're just notifying customers on November 1, 2019 about … [Continue reading]
The Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association, an organization I helped found back in 2004, is holding it's annual State of Search conference November 4-5, 2019. I'm the conference Chair this year--and it's being held again at the famous … [Continue reading]
I manage several Google My Business accounts for my clients. Google My Business provides data about how many visits the business has received, as well as how many people have seen the local business listing. This data is available for verified … [Continue reading]
Here we go again. I've written about this before and Google again is indexing search engine results pages in Bing.com. When I pointed it out, Google eventually removed it. And, better yet, Google is also indexing and ranking those pages and pages … [Continue reading]
Yahoo Groups is shutting down. On October 21, 2019 they will lock down Yahoo Groups so that no one can upload any more content. Then, on December 14, 2019, all previously posted content will be removed forever. I have been getting used to Google … [Continue reading]
There is a bug in Google My Business website URLs that causes a 404 error on most websites. Users who use the Google Maps app to click through to a local business' website address with certain tracking parameters will encounter a 404 error. Depending … [Continue reading]
Every year at this time I hand-pick a list of speakers that I recommend you meet and see speak--the information they bring to the industry and what you'll learn from them is invaluable. For all of the major search conferences, whether I'm speaking or … [Continue reading]
Google is shutting down Google Bulletin, as well as the Google Bulletin App, which will stop working in about two weeks. Bulletin is an app where you could create stories about your local community using photos, videos, and text. It was in beta in … [Continue reading]
Do you have a Google Account that you use frequently? I have more than one Google Account, but one that I primarily use for things like my calendar (Google Calendar), Google Drive (Google Docs, Google Sheets, etc.), and Gmail. If someone were to get … [Continue reading]
Fake email conference attendee contact lists are being sold and the latest targeted conference appears to be Pubcon Las Vegas. Emails that are going out to what a NextGenExpos thinks is a list of exhibitors seeks to sell that they're calling a … [Continue reading]
Google is saying goodbye to the old Google Search Console. In a post on the official Google Webmaster blog and a tweet, they said that from "now on, if you try to access the old homepage or dashboard you’ll be redirected to the relevant Search … [Continue reading]
A list of keywords that the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uses to watch all social media accounts has been revealed. If you use one of these keywords on one of your social media posts, there is a chance that it may cause the DHS … [Continue reading]
When someone (or a company, organization) doesn't renew a domain name, the domain name goes through a drop process. First the domain name usually enters a period of time when the current owner can renew the domain name. It's essentially put on hold. … [Continue reading]
Is Google required to list your business or your website in their search engine results? When I mention the word "list", I am referring to whether they are indexing your website in their search results or whether they are listing your business in the … [Continue reading]
Recently, I made the decision to completely remove my company's Google My Business listing. There are several reasons why I chose to not have my company's website listed in Google Maps any longer. But what's more interesting to me is the fact that … [Continue reading]