The Latest & Greatest In Digital Marketing News:

SEOlympics: Top Marketing Blogs of Ireland 

Consumers in Ireland actually spend more time and money online than the rest of Europe. In fact, 8 out of 10 Irish adults are using the Internet on a daily basis. The success of Irish vendors is attributed to the creation of a personality, and more importantly, they are engaging with their customer base through social media or a company blog. The top marketing blogs of 2014 are: Shane O’Leary and the Digital Marketing Institute. Search Engine Journal

More Than 80% of HTTPS URLs Display as HTTP in Google

According to a recent small-scale analysis, more than 80 percent of HTTPS URLs are not showing up in Google’s search results, said Gary Illyes, a webmaster trends analyst at Google. Despite being eligible for indexing – many of the HTTPS URLs don’t have any crawl issues and don’t have a noindex – these links are being displayed as HTTP URLs because of webmaster configuration. If a site supports HTTPS – to which Google gave a ranking benefit back in August – Illyes recommends using them. Search Engine Watch

PREDICTION: Apple Will Not Renew Google as Safari Default Search Engine

It’s being predicted that Apple and Google will not renew their Safari default search deal in the U.S. because both parties now have reasons not to renew. Sources told The Information that Apple’s decision will be based “on the quality of the product as much as the potential money made from search ads.” Google’s net profit from Safari is substantially less than the $1 billion it probably pays Apple. Given pressure to grow revenues and profits, Google likely wants to get out from under that $1+ billion payment to Apple. Search Engine Land

Amazon Opens Tmall Store to Boost China Sales

Amazon has opened an e-commerce store on Alibaba’s Tmall retail platform  to reach more Chinese shoppers online. This move will give Amazon and the international brands it represents greater exposure to Chinese consumers.  Tmall is China’s biggest online B2C platform and is owned by Amazon’s competitor Alibaba. That combined with Alibaba’s C2C platform, Taobao, boast a combined 334 million active buyers across China. Clickz

Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin Vulnerable To Hackers

Millions of WordPress sites may be exposed to a Blind SQL Injection vulnerability due to a security hole in the very popular Yoast SEO plugin. Originally, the plugin had been updated, but users still needed to upgrade the plugin manually. But later, Yoast announced that the WP team actually automatically pushed an update to WP installs that run an older version of this plugin. So many sites running this should be automatically updated. Search Engine Land