Microsoft Asks Windows ...

Microsoft is trying to clean up the Windows Phone Marketplace and as part of this effort, the company just clarified some of its guidelines for developers who want to sell their apps in Microsoft’s app store. Among other things, Microsoft has decided to move to “a more stringent interpretation and enforcement of our existing content policy” for apps that are “‘racy’ or sexual in nature.” This is a problem we pointed early last month. As Matt Burns put it, Windows Phone has a nasty porn addiction . Microsoft clearly agrees and is thankfully trying to kick the habit. Microsoft, just like most of its competitors, doesn’t allow apps that contain “sexually suggestive or provocative” images or content. Swimsuits are fine. The company says that it will now pay “more attention to the icons, titles, and content of these apps and expects them to be more subtle and modest in the imagery and terms used.” According to Todd Brix, Microsoft’s senior director of the Marketplace, the company will contact those developers whose “racy” apps slipped through the earlier approval process and ask them to change their apps. Microsoft says that it is making this change to improve the shopping experience for all of its customers. It will also monitor its customers’ reactions and may remove apps that its users find offensive. Here are some of the images that would be acceptable under these new rules: Given all the problems Apple had with its rules for adult-themed apps, it’s probably a good idea for Microsoft to be proactive here. There are currently about 70,000 apps in the Marketplace and the store is growing nicely, though there have been some complaints about the quality of the apps in the store. In this context, Brix also used this opportunity to remind developers to keep the quality of their apps up. Developers, for example, aren’t allowed to submit the same app to multiple categories and can’t use more than five keywords per app. Since its launch, developers have also been trying to game the Marketplace by tagging their apps with popular tags (“Justin Bieber,” “YouTube” etc.) that had little or nothing to do with their apps. Microsoft now plans to crack down on this, too.

The TC NYC Mini-Meet Up...

As we mentioned before , we were floating the idea of a mini meet up in our own back yard and we definitely got quite a bit of interest. So here we go: Get ready for the TC NYC Mini-Meet Up on May 8 at Bar13 . We’ll run from 6pm until about 10pm, with potential evening activities for those still in the mood. Note that the date and location have changed since our last post. We would have completely filled the AOL offices if we tried to do it there. This isn’t a seminar, panel, a conference, or really anything that requires people to sit down at a desk and look through a PowerPoint. Instead, we simply want to look upon your beautiful faces and hear about how you plan on disrupting the world through technology. Over beers. To recap: We’ll meet on May 8 (that’s a Tuesday) at Bar13 , located at 35 East 13th St. and University Pl. The meet-up will begin promptly at 6pm and will end around 10pm, at which point we can all caravan to a bar for an after party. We’re also looking for sponsors. The more the merrier (since that means more beer). If you’re interested in a sponsorship, please send an email to john (at) techcrunch dot com with the subject: NY Meetup Sponsorship. To RSVP to the event, head over to our PlanCast page . Finally, if you’d like to connect with us pre-show time, you can follow me on Twitter at @jordanrcrook or John at @johnbiggs . Sponsors Yext helps provide amazing local search results with PowerListings, a local information hub that syncs listings across a network of premium sites and mobile apps. With Yext PowerListings, small and large businesses can quickly and easily update their business information, photos and specials from one central location. Today, Yext PowerListings syncs information for over 45,000 locations.

Google Highlights Searc...

Google has rolled out a great number of small changes to the search engine and UI over the last month, and now they have rolled them all into a big blog post for your consecutive enjoyment. We’ve highlighted a few that seemed more relevant, but there isn’t much here that’s life-changing. All the same, it’s good to stay up on changes like this, just in case you happen to do SEO for a living (scoundrel). “+” is now treated as a normal character when that seems to be the intent, along with %, $, , ., @, and #. Its days as an operator are probably over, though, except when you’re using it in an equation. Changing your password now logs you out from all your Google stuff, including Search. Better answers and live scores for Tennis, Russian Hockey, and UEFA Champions League games. Platform-specific results for app search – so if you search for Angry Birds, you’ll get different results on Android, iOS, and so on. Results are also richer, with stars, download buttons, and so on. The “Freshness” update that brought recent and differently-organized results to News searches has been rolled out more generally, apparently as a result of having acquired the “machine resources” to do so. Image search has gotten a handful up updates, including relevancy, better ratings for the quality of the source page (fewer trash pages google-bombing with popular images, presumably), and Safesearch changes. The +1 button will show in search results in more countries and domains. The rest of the list can be found at Google’s Inside Search blog . [ image source ]

BrightEdge: Here’s How ...

If your company shows up in both the organic and paid search results of a given search term, is that a good thing? Or a waste of money? That’s something that Google itself has been researching , and today, SEO service BrightEdge took a closer look at one advertiser’s approach for balancing search strategies. Specifically, it released a case study about how hotel marketing agency HeBS Digital used integrated tools from both BrightEdge and Adobe to manage organic and paid search results for Loews Hotels. The strategy supposedly paid off in a 63 percent increase in revenue from online room bookings and 44 percent ROI increase on targeted keywords. BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu says companies need to look at organic search results and search ads together, because “it’s all one search page.” Google’s research showed that 89 percent of paid search clicks are “incremental” (meaning that if advertisers stop running search ads, 89 percent of that traffic isn’t replaced by clicks on regular search results), and that even if your company is the very top organic result, that’s still true of 50 percent of paid search clicks — in other words, no matter how good your Google ranking, you still get extra traffic from buying ads. Yu argues that the situation is a little more nuanced, and that it differs from keyword to keyword. In some cases, the paid and organic search results can reinforce each other, while in others they’re more cannibalistic. Sometimes it makes sense to buy ads on a keyword where you already rank highly, sometimes it doesn’t. The solution? Test things out, “keyword by keyword.” That’s what HeBS Digital did, and it broke down its strategy into six steps: Select initial target site and keywords. Identify the top-ranking SEO keywords. Reduce your PPC bids on those top keywords. Move your ad spend to other keywords. Measure the impact on conversions. Repeat the process for other websites.

65% of Search Users Vie...

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project's "Search Engine Use 2012" report, nearly two-thirds of search users view personalized search results as a bad thing. Nevertheless, online Americans are more happy than ever with the performance of search engines.