Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Latest search engine traffic rankings reviewed
The latest search engine traffic has been released by comScore for January 2010 U.S. Search Engine Rankings
In January 2010, Americans conducted 15.2 billion core searches, with Google Sites accounting for 65.4 percent search market share. Microsoft Sites grabbed 11.3 percent market share, up 0.6 percentage points versus December.
January 2010 U.S. Core Search Rankings
Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in January with 65.4 percent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites (17.0 percent), and Microsoft Sites (11.3 percent). Ask Network captured 3.8 percent of the search market, followed by AOL LLC with 2.5 percent.
| comScore Core Search Report* January 2010 vs. December 2009 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch | |||
| Core Search Entity | Share of Searches (%) | ||
| Dec-09 | Jan-10 | Point Change Jan-10 vs. Dec-09 | |
| Total Core Search | 100.0% | 100.% | N/A |
| Google Sites | 65.7% | 65.4% | -0.3 |
| Yahoo! Sites | 17.3% | 17.0% | -0.3 |
| Microsoft Sites | 10.7% | 11.3% | 0.6 |
| Ask Network | 3.7% | 3.8% | 0.1 |
| AOL LLC Network | 2.6% | 2.5% | -0.1 |
* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.
Americans conducted 15.2 billion searches in January, up 3 percent from December. Google Sites accounted for 9.9 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites (2.6 billion), Microsoft Sites (1.7 billion), Ask Network (574 million) and AOL LLC (375 million).
| comScore Core Search Report* January 2010 vs. December 2009 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch | |||
| Core Search Entity | Search Queries (MM) | ||
| Dec-09 | Jan-10 | Percent Change Jan-10 vs. Dec-09 | |
| Total Core Search | 14,737 | 15,167 | 3% |
| Google Sites | 9,688 | 9,920 | 2% |
| Yahoo! Sites | 2,544 | 2,583 | 2% |
| Microsoft Sites | 1,576 | 1,715 | 9% |
| Ask Network | 545 | 574 | 5% |
| AOL LLC | 383 | 375 | -2% |
* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.
January 2010 U.S. Expanded Search Rankings
In the January analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed, Google Sites led the search market with more than 14 billion search queries, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.7 billion queries and Microsoft Sites with 1.8 billion searches. Bing experienced large growth during the month with an 11-percent increase in query volume to reach more than 1.5 billion searches. Craigslist jumped one position to #6 with 636 million searches, while Facebook grew to 395 million searches, representing a 13-percent increase from the previous month.
| comScore Expanded Search Query Report January 2010 vs. December 2009 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch | |||
| Expanded Search Entity | Search Queries (MM) | ||
| Dec-09 | Jan-10 | Percent Change Jan-10 vs. Dec-09 | |
| Total Internet | 22,741 | 23,163 | 2% |
| Google Sites | 14,019 | 14,045 | 0% |
| 10,101 | 10,378 | 3% | |
| YouTube/All Other | 3,918 | 3,667 | -6% |
| Yahoo! Sites | 2,629 | 2,670 | 2% |
| Yahoo! | 2,605 | 2,647 | 2% |
| All Other | 24 | 23 | -4% |
| Microsoft Sites | 1,620 | 1,772 | 9% |
| Bing | 1,399 | 1,549 | 11% |
| Microsoft/All Other | 221 | 223 | 1% |
| Ask Network | 696 | 736 | 6% |
| ASK.COM | 332 | 336 | 1% |
| MyWebSearch.com/ All Other | 364 | 400 | 10% |
| eBay | 680 | 659 | -3% |
| craigslist, inc. | 583 | 636 | 9% |
| AOL LLC | 588 | 576 | -2% |
| AOL Search Network | 325 | 317 | -2% |
| MapQuest/All Other | 263 | 259 | -2% |
| Fox Interactive Media | 424 | 403 | -5% |
| MySpace Sites | 416 | 398 | -4% |
| All Other | 8 | 5 | -38% |
| Facebook.com | 351 | 395 | 13% |
| Amazon Sites | 302 | 238 | -21% |
The key points are that Facebook traffic is still growing with the other largest moves being a surpring drop of traffic to YouTube- down 3% and the amazon group of sites which may be showing the post Christmas blues as they suffered a 21% fall.
Labels: Facebook, Google, search engine marketing, search engines, Yahoo, YouTube
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, March 09, 2010
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Friday, March 5, 2010
Twitter to copy Google's advertising business
Twitter is examining whether to post adverts tied to searches of its social networking website as a means of making money from its business.
Twitter has been working on different ways to generate revenues from advertising over the last six months and intends to use the $100 million it raised in financing last summer to fund this and other potential options, which are still in the process of being developed.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the idea is that if users search under the term ‘laptop’, they could generate an advert from an advertiser such as Dell. Such adverts would only appear in search results, however, and not in regular Twitterstreams.
Adverts would also be based on the standard Twitter format of 140 or fewer characters and be distributed via the third party software and services that use the organisation’s application programming interface to connect to its platform. Participation by service providers would be optional, however, and any resultant revenues would be shared with Twitter.
The organisation intends to work with advertising agencies and buyers to seed the programme, but plans to move to a similar self-service model to Google’s over time.
The scheme is expected to be launched during the first half of this year in pilot mode, but Twitter is currently still trying to work out such details as how advertisers would buy and price adverts. It is also considering how to refine its search mechanism to make it more useful to users.
Another issue is finding ways to gather user data in order to make targeted advertising more meaningful. The model works for Google because it has a reasonable idea of consumers’ identity and intent, but Twitter does not currently require users to provide any personal information when they sign up to its services.
The online search model was pioneered by Google, which now generates 97% of its £18 billion in revenues from advertising. Twitter users currently send about 50 million tweets per day, up from 5,000 in 2007.
Labels: Google, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Friday, March 05, 2010
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Thursday, March 4, 2010
Google search engine optimisation requirements official review
Dr Search's post yesterday in Google's own official search engine optimisation requirements exposed highlighted Google's own internal research into it's website.
Today I'm examining in greater depth the results of that reserach.
The first observation from the 49 page pdf is that metatags in the form of both the titles and descriptions are key search engine optimisation elements.
The heartening point is that Google admits that roughly 90% of it's own pages could do with improvements in these respects.
Nearly a third of it's pages need headings improvements.
Even it's internal text links- a key algorithmic element of Brin and Page's mathematical calculations, need improvements in a third of it's own pages.
Conversely only a third of it's pictures and logos have correct links.
For the full Google report card, please see: http://www.searchclinic.org/google-seo-report-card.pdf
It is 1.64 Mb in size and in PDF format.
Dr Search at the Search Clinic openly lives by the adage- "Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day, give a man a fishing rod and you will feed him for life."
Yes you can learn and do your own search engine optimisation- but would you rather spend time doing what you do best- building your business or on improving your website?
Labels: Dr Search, Google, search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, search engines
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, March 04, 2010
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Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Google's own official search engine optimisation requirements exposed
Yesterday Google's announced it's own search engine optimisation requirements for it's own site.
Topics covered included- how many of Google's web pages use a descriptive title tag? Do we use description meta tags? Heading tags? While we always try to focus on the user, could our products use an SEO tune up? These are just some of the questions we set out to answer with Google's SEO Report Card.
Google's SEO Report Card is an effort to provide Google's product teams with ideas on how they can improve their products' pages using simple and accepted optimizations.
Google's blog says: "These optimizations are intended to not only help search engines understand the content of our pages better, but also to improve our users' experience when visiting our sites. Simple steps such as fixing 404s and broken links, simplifying URL choice, and providing easier-to-understand titles and snippets for our pages can benefit both users and search engines.
From the start of the project we also wanted to release the report card publicly so other companies and webmasters could learn from the report, which is filled with dozens of examples taken straight from our products' pages.
The project looked at the main pages of 100 different Google products, measuring them across a dozen common optimization categories. Future iterations of the project might look at deeper Google product web pages as well as international ones. We released the report card within Google last month and since then a good number of teams have taken action on it or plan to."
Dr Search wil ge going through the 49 page download and will post back for you.
Labels: Google, search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimisation
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, March 03, 2010
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Friday, February 26, 2010
Buzz causes Google a storm on data privacy worries
Good Customer Service is always the key to profitable businesses. However upsetting loyal users is only part of the danger. Like Microsoft before it, Google also risks antagonising business partners and regulators.
Any move into a new area can now seem like a naked attempt to grab market share, or a defensive gambit to shore up a weak flank.
The warning from Vodafone, for example, is a sign that mobile operators are starting to worry that Google’s dominant advertising business will eventually suck all the profits out of their industry.
That fear echoes the mobile industry’s distrust of Microsoft a decade ago, when it tried to extend its Windows monopoly on to phone handsets.
The warning from Vodafone, for example, is a sign that mobile operators are starting to worry that Google’s dominant advertising business will eventually suck all the profits out of their industry.
That fear echoes the mobile industry’s distrust of Microsoft a decade ago, when it tried to extend its Windows monopoly on to phone handsets.
In a telling moment earlier this week, Google revealed that 60,000 handsets a day are now being shipped with its Android software installed – a rate that exceeds the number of handsets carrying Windows.
For now, the mobile industry has not reacted to Google’s incursions by repelling it: its open-source Android software is viewed as an independent platform to counter giants such as Nokia and Apple, making Google still more of an ally than a threat.
After the rapid changes it has made to correct the missteps in Buzz, the privacy row will no doubt fade and users may indeed see the benefits in a social networking service tied closely to their e-mail.
For now, the mobile industry has not reacted to Google’s incursions by repelling it: its open-source Android software is viewed as an independent platform to counter giants such as Nokia and Apple, making Google still more of an ally than a threat.
After the rapid changes it has made to correct the missteps in Buzz, the privacy row will no doubt fade and users may indeed see the benefits in a social networking service tied closely to their e-mail.
But this week’s developments carry a clear message: if Google wants to keep the goodwill of customers and business partners as it continues to expand, at the very least it must work harder to convince them it truly has their interests at heart- rather than just it's own.
Labels: bing, Buzz, Google, Microsoft, mobile marketing, social media websites
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Friday, February 26, 2010
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Thursday, February 25, 2010
Buzz causes a storm on privacy fears II
Further to my last post on the botched launch of Buzz the fiasco, it has intensified a feeling that has been growing as Google has sought to extend its reach: that it is deliberately using its dominance in one area to gain a stronger foothold in new markets, much as arch-rival Microsoft did before it.
Antitrust regulators have already rebuffed Google’s attempt to forge a deal with Yahoo in search and are investigating its plans to extend its advertising reach into the mobile arena through the acquisition of Admob.
Antitrust regulators have already rebuffed Google’s attempt to forge a deal with Yahoo in search and are investigating its plans to extend its advertising reach into the mobile arena through the acquisition of Admob.
This week, in clearing a rival Microsoft search alliance with Yahoo, the US Department of Justice highlighted the arrangement’s importance in countering Google’s “dominance” of internet search and the advertising that accompanies it.
In any other industry, Google’s conduct would be considered good corporate practice. In the technology world, however, where start-ups with disruptive new products are romanticised and companies such as Apple and Google have built their brands largely on their ability to out-innovate rather than outmanoeuvre their competitors, it is often seen as unimaginative.
For ordinary internet users, there are clear potential benefits from Google’s strategy of extending its influence into more and more corners of the internet – as well as some obvious dangers.
Yet as the Buzz privacy debacle has shown, internet users have different expectations of the different services they use. Trying to merge them can lead to confusion and distrust.
Facebook has learnt this to its cost. In its pursuit of Twitter, where most communication takes place in public, it recently reset some of the default settings for its users so that more of their information appears publicly. As with Buzz, that brought an outcry from privacy interest groups.
In any other industry, Google’s conduct would be considered good corporate practice. In the technology world, however, where start-ups with disruptive new products are romanticised and companies such as Apple and Google have built their brands largely on their ability to out-innovate rather than outmanoeuvre their competitors, it is often seen as unimaginative.
For ordinary internet users, there are clear potential benefits from Google’s strategy of extending its influence into more and more corners of the internet – as well as some obvious dangers.
Yet as the Buzz privacy debacle has shown, internet users have different expectations of the different services they use. Trying to merge them can lead to confusion and distrust.
Facebook has learnt this to its cost. In its pursuit of Twitter, where most communication takes place in public, it recently reset some of the default settings for its users so that more of their information appears publicly. As with Buzz, that brought an outcry from privacy interest groups.
Labels: Buzz, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, February 25, 2010
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Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Buzz caused a storm on privacy fears
Google has caused a lot of anger since the catch up launch of Buzz it's social networking service.
Launched on February 10 2010, it is meant to give Google a stronger foothold in the booming social networking business, where it is rapidly losing ground to Facebook and Twitter.
Its main effect in the short term, however, has been to stir up an outcry over privacy that the internet giant could have done without.
It has also served to reinforce a bigger narrative about Google that has surfaced in other ways this week. This holds that the company is prepared to use its growing market power as a blunt instrument to muscle its way into new markets – and is not too concerned about whose feet it treads on in the process.
In one sign of these growing fears, even Vittorio Colao, chief executive of Vodafone – nominally one of Google’s business partners – raised a red flag over the potential spread of its search dominance into the mobile world. Regulators should take a close look at Google’s massive market share in search, he said, “before it is too late”.
The outcry included an official complaint to US regulators and left Google scrambling to stem the anger, with a public apology and two changes to the service announced within its first four days. In the aftermath of its recent decision to abandon censorship of its search results in China, this looked like another case of testing the limits of the “Don’t be evil” motto, only to later back down.
At the root of the problem is Google’s decision to use Gmail, with its 175m active users, as a launchpad for its latest push into social networking. All users were enrolled as soon as they clicked a link to look at the service, and many found the names of those they corresponded with most frequently by e-mail – usually a private list – became the basis for a public “social network” of contacts on Buzz.
It has also served to reinforce a bigger narrative about Google that has surfaced in other ways this week. This holds that the company is prepared to use its growing market power as a blunt instrument to muscle its way into new markets – and is not too concerned about whose feet it treads on in the process.
In one sign of these growing fears, even Vittorio Colao, chief executive of Vodafone – nominally one of Google’s business partners – raised a red flag over the potential spread of its search dominance into the mobile world. Regulators should take a close look at Google’s massive market share in search, he said, “before it is too late”.
The outcry included an official complaint to US regulators and left Google scrambling to stem the anger, with a public apology and two changes to the service announced within its first four days. In the aftermath of its recent decision to abandon censorship of its search results in China, this looked like another case of testing the limits of the “Don’t be evil” motto, only to later back down.
At the root of the problem is Google’s decision to use Gmail, with its 175m active users, as a launchpad for its latest push into social networking. All users were enrolled as soon as they clicked a link to look at the service, and many found the names of those they corresponded with most frequently by e-mail – usually a private list – became the basis for a public “social network” of contacts on Buzz.
That risked exposing the details of “estranged spouses, current lovers, attorneys and doctors”, according to the complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic), a privacy advocacy group in Washington.
Google executives concede that they did not do enough to warn users that their private contacts would be disclosed publicly. But they put this down to a mistake made in good faith and characterise it as one of the inevitable teething problems of a new online service.
“You can’t incubate these kinds of products in a Petri dish and pull back the covers on a fully baked opus,” says Bradley Horowitz, vice-president of product management for Google’s applications business. “If you look at any company that’s been successful in this space it’s because they have been able to iterate, refine, listen, stumble, dust themselves off, get up.”
However, Marc Rotenberg, executive director of Epic, says that Buzz’s privacy settings were in fact the product of a deep corporate agenda. “The way they could compete was to enlist all their Gmail subscribers. That’s a very clear corporate decision.”
Google executives concede that they did not do enough to warn users that their private contacts would be disclosed publicly. But they put this down to a mistake made in good faith and characterise it as one of the inevitable teething problems of a new online service.
“You can’t incubate these kinds of products in a Petri dish and pull back the covers on a fully baked opus,” says Bradley Horowitz, vice-president of product management for Google’s applications business. “If you look at any company that’s been successful in this space it’s because they have been able to iterate, refine, listen, stumble, dust themselves off, get up.”
However, Marc Rotenberg, executive director of Epic, says that Buzz’s privacy settings were in fact the product of a deep corporate agenda. “The way they could compete was to enlist all their Gmail subscribers. That’s a very clear corporate decision.”
Dr Search will continue my review of Buzz in my next blog posting.
Labels: Buzz, Facebook, Google, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, February 24, 2010
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Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Evil let loose after Google's buzz breaches email privacy
Once again Google has breached millions of peoples' personal privacy- this time with the launch of it's new social networking site Buzz.
The launch of the Buzz networking site has backfired badly
On Tuesday Feb 16th Eva Hibnick, a Harvard law student, opened her Gmail account and saw an offer for Buzz, a new service from Gmail’s owner, Google. She wasn’t interested. “I just clicked ‘No, go to my inbox’,” she said. Within hours she and millions of others realised that sometimes no means yes.
Now Hibnick is taking Google to court, and the search giant is left fighting a rearguard action in the latest skirmish over privacy on the internet.
Hibnick, 24, is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed against Google over the launch of Buzz, a social networking service that lets people bring their online connections together to share status updates, videos and photos.
With 146m users, the sheer size of Gmail instantly catapulted Buzz into the top ranks of social networking sites alongside Facebook and Twitter.
As Gmail users were quick to point out, though, they chose to join those networks, while Buzz’s new army was conscripted. The service raided a Gmail user’s contacts book to set up the social network.
The people we contact most frequently are not necessarily those with whom we have the closest relationship. Within hours of the Buzz launch, angry tales were being told of people’s contact details and other information being passed on to the “psychotic” and “abusive ex-husbands”.
Actress Felicia Day, Vi in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, found herself deluged with messages from strangers after posting one message on Buzz. “Buzz things turn up as a message in your inbox? Disabling now. Heart attack,” she wrote. Before Google changed Buzz, some fans would also have been able to see who Day emailed most frequently.
Hibnick and her lawyer claim that information she had a right to consider private had been shared among her Gmail contacts. “I signed up for a private email account, not for a social networking site. They can’t just opt you in,” she said.
“Basically all my email contacts were accessible. Everyone is so shocked that Google would do this.”
Fellow Harvard law student Benjamin Osborn, who is assisting on the case, said the initial problem was that it was not clear what information was being shared and with whom.
Hibnick’s lawyer said Google could face statutory damages of $1,000 per occurrence — a potentially huge sum given Gmail’s size. But he added that the real aim was to force Google to put better checks and balances in place over privacy.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center, the watchdog based in Washington DC, has now asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether consumers were harmed and has asked the commission to demand that Google ask Gmail users to sign up for Buzz instead of enrolling them automatically.
Google moved swiftly to contain the crisis last week, dropping the automatic sign-up and offering clearer instructions on how to opt out of the service and keep messages private.
“We made some mistakes and we accept that,” said Peter Barron, Google’s head of communications. “But if you look at the way we responded, I hope people will see that we reacted quickly to those criticisms and made significant improvements.
“These days everyone leaves a data trail, whether it’s from shopping online, using your mobile phone or doing a search. When you use a credit card you are exposing far more about yourself than in an online search but people generally trust credit-card companies not to misuse their data. At Google, users’ trust is all we have. We take privacy very seriously and build privacy features into all our products based on the principles of transparency, choice and user control.
“Those features were and are present in Buzz, but we accept they could have been clearer. Buzz is not about making private information public unless you choose to.”
Don Cruse, a Houston based lawyer, said that what disturbed him most about Buzz was that it was automatic. In a blog he warned clients, and journalists, that they could end up sharing confidential contacts if they used the service. He said Google was “repurposing old data in a way that flouts our expectations of privacy”.
“People have an expectation of privacy with email. There are lots of famous examples of emails making it to people they shouldn’t have reached. But this was not an accident, it was a deliberate change in structure,” he said.
“The big story is that they wanted to set up a social network, something they have failed to do well in the past. The downside is that they have hurt the Gmail brand.”
The Buzz controversy is unlikely to end in epic fines for Google. Last year Facebook paid $9.5m (£6.2m) to settle a similar class-action lawsuit over Beacon, an advertising system that tracked Facebook users’ online activity outside the site and told other users what they had been up to.
Perhaps more damaging is the damage Buzz has done to Google’s image. John Quelch, a Harvard Business School professor, said it faces two problems in any new venture. “First, Google is a hostage to its publicly stated aim to ‘Do no evil’. That definition of evil is open to considerable interpretation. They have to be very careful that this aim isn’t viewed with cynicism rather than respect.”
Second, Quelch said the execution of Google’s search business is so far ahead of its rivals that people had high expectations of any new service. “They rather missed it on Buzz,” he said.
Dr Search suggests that if the financial penalty is a grand apiece that equates to a worst case scenario of a whopping $146,000,000,000 fine. That's equivalent to roughly it's entire shareholder value.
However even greater reputational damage has been done by reminding everyone that despite it's "does no bad" stance Google has past form on the rough and ready treatment of people's data privacy.
And a wake up call to those of you thinking of joining the GoogleWave- where all of your documents and files sit on their servers. Not just your emails.
Interview with Eva Hibnick on Times Online at:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article7034912.eceLabels: Buzz, Dr Search, Facebook, Google, Google Wave, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, February 23, 2010
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Facebook is the new threat to Google
Facebook is now sending more traffic to US news sites than Google- as the proportion of traffic from Facebook has tripled while that of Google News stayed static.
More people are coming to US news sites via Facebook and other social networking sites such as Twitter – supplanting Google News, which had been one of the primary sources of readers, according to research by the metrics company Hitwise.
During the past year, the proportion of traffic that Facebook sends to US media sites has tripled from around 1.2% to 3.52%, while that sent by Google News has remained roughly static, at around 1.4%, says Heather Hopkins, North America analyst for Hitwise.
The growing power of Facebook also means that publishers which want to demand money from – or alternatively to lock out – Google News because of claims that it "leeches" on their content could do so without fearing a dramatic impact on their reader figures.
With more than 400m users, Facebook forms the newest – and most unexpected – threat to Google, say some analysts.
Last weekend the search engine spent $5m on a TV advert during the Superbowl, puzzling many who do not see a threat from rival search engines such as Microsoft's Bing, which has less than half of its proportion of search queries.
But Hopkins notes in a blogpost for Hitwise that: "Facebook could be a major disruptor to the News and Media category. And with the Wall Street Journal already publishing content to Facebook, perhaps the social network can avoid the run-ins that Google has suffered recently with Rupert Murdoch. We will continue to watch this space."
Murdoch's editors and executives have repeatedly criticised aggregators such Google News, claiming it is leeching off their content by displaying snippets of their work. In the UK, the Murdoch-owned titles have gone as far as blocking access to their sites by Newsnow, a smaller news aggregator.
Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, has argued that publishers should take advantage of the traffic that it sends them – pointing out that it sends about 4bn such links per year.
But Facebook provides the perfect counterweight, where publishers can choose how much of their content they display and view how well it is followed. Sites such as Facebook and increasingly Twitter contribute hundreds of thousands of visits every month to UK sites, according to analysis by the Guardian.
John Minnihan, the founder of the software code respository Freepository, warns that Facebook poses one of the biggest threats to Google on the web. "With recent data showing a large uptick in 'Facebook as home page', [Google] may well indeed need to remind emerging generation who/what it is."
"In that case, the [Superbowl] ad makes some business sense. Whatever the real reason, it has nothing to do with 'sharing video more widely'. If FB dev'ed an integrated web-wide search engine, think about how much traffic would evaporate [from Google] overnite. That's nightmare stuff."
Tellingly, Minnihan's comments were made on Twitter — which Google is rumoured to be trying to compete with in a "social version" of its Gmail webmail product.
Google has already tried – and failed – to create a world-scale social network with its Orkut product, but been obliged instead to purchase access to Twitter's search results to provide real-time insight into what people are talking about.
Facebook's content however lies beyond its reach – and that could be crucial in the forthcoming months as news publishers in the US and UK consider putting up higher paywalls or demanding money from aggregators.
Dr Search found the social media news story on the Guardian's website at:
Labels: bing, Dr Search, Facebook, Google, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, February 10, 2010
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Monday, February 8, 2010
Google closes Blogger support- to save money
So much for Google's vaunted promise to “do good”. Dr Search has recently learnt that in order to cut costs Google will no longer offer support to it's Blogger clients who have the cheek to host their own content on their own servers, like the Search Clinic Blog.
Dr Search wasn't terribly chuffed last year when google's blogger usurped the Search Clinic favicon with their own favicon.
When questioned about this doubtful behaviour by Dr Search google claimed that it was solvable. However blogger's template doesn't actually allow for google's suggested changes.
As a result we started to question google's motives for trying to stealing third party blog content.
This lie has proved the unprofessionalism of google as their latest plans now attest. The balance of the communication with google is reproduced below:
http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/
The full text of the announcement at Blogger Buzz follows:
Last May, we discussed a number of challenges facing Blogger users who relied on FTP to publish their blogs. FTP remains a significant drain on our ability to improve Blogger: only .5% of active blogs are published via FTP — yet the percentage of our engineering resources devoted to supporting FTP vastly exceeds that. On top of this, critical infrastructure that our FTP support relies on at Google will soon become unavailable, which would require that we completely rewrite the code that handles our FTP processing.
Three years ago we launched Custom Domains to give users the simplicity of Blogger, the scalability of Google hosting, and the flexibility of hosting your blog at your own URL. Last year's post discussed the advantages of custom domains over FTP and addressed a number of reasons users have continued to use FTP publishing.
For that reason, we are announcing today that we will no longer support FTP publishing in Blogger after March 26, 2010. We realize that this will not necessarily be welcome news for some users, and we are committed to making the transition as seamless as possible. To that end:
* We are building a migration tool that will walk users through a migration from their current URL to a Blogger-managed URL (either a Custom Domain or a Blogspot URL) that will be available to all users the week of February 22. This tool will handle redirecting traffic from the old URL to the new URL, and will handle the vast majority of situations.
* We will be providing a dedicated blog and help documentation
* Blogger team members will also be available to answer questions on the forum, comments on the blog, and in a few scheduled conference calls once the tool is released.
We have a number of big releases planned in 2010. While we recognize that this decision will frustrate some users, we look forward to showing you the many great things on the way. Thanks for using Blogger.
Regards,
Rick Klau
Blogger Product Manager
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Labels: Dr Search, Google, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, February 08, 2010
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Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Search engines ranking- latest global results 2010
comScore has published a report on the global search market which shows more than 131 billion searches were conducted across the web in December 2009.
The top 5 leading countries in the search market are the United States, China, Japan, UK and Germany:
One of the interesting things to note from the report is the relatively slow growth rate of searches from China.
Whilst they are sitting second in terms of overall volume, their growth rate is by far the lowest amongst the top ten countries.
When you compare this to the high volume and growth rate from Japan, it is foreseeable that the Japanese, British and the Germans may claim second spot in the not to distant future.
Google continues to lead the way as the dominant search engine, followed by Yahoo! and Baidu claiming the number three spot.
If Google follows through on their threat to pull out of China, it’s possible that Baidu could pickup their lost market share and claim the number two spot above Yahoo. Which would be an interesting situation if you work at Yahoo.
Another two thoughts are these figues do not include Twitter, nor do they include the searches on google's You Tube.
Labels: bing, Facebook, Google, search engine marketing, search engines, Search Marketing, Twitter, Yahoo
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, February 03, 2010
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Larry Page and Sergey Brin Google's founders to sell shares
According to an SEC filing late last week, Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin “each intend to sell approximately 5 million shares” — over a period of five years.
This is not a reaction to any particular development in the market or perception of the outlook for Google; rather this is part of a plan to diversify their portfolios over time.
According to the filing:
According to the filing:
" These pre-arranged stock trading plans were adopted in order to allow Larry and Sergey to sell a portion of their Google stock over time as part of their respective long term strategies for individual asset diversification and liquidity . Using these plans, they can gradually diversify their investment portfolios and can spread stock trades out over an extended period of time to reduce market impact ."
Larry and Sergey currently hold approximately 57.7 million shares of Class B common stock, which represents approximately 18% of Google’s outstanding capital stock and approximately 59% of the voting power of Google’s outstanding capital stock.
Under the terms of these Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, and as a part of a five year diversification plan, Larry and Sergey each intend to sell approximately 5 million shares. If Larry and Sergey complete all the planned sales under these Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, they would continue to collectively own approximately 47.7 million shares, which would represent approximately 15% of Google’s outstanding capital stock and approximately 48% of the voting power of Google’s outstanding capital stock (assuming no other sales and conversions of Google capital stock occur).
Google has a dual class stock structure, consisting of Class A and Class B stock. Currently Brin and Page control about 59% of the Class B stock, but a minority of all outstanding shares. Class A shares have one vote each and Class B shares each control 10 votes.
At the end of the five year diversification term specified in the SEC filing, the two co-founders would own 47.7% of Class B shares. And together with CEO Eric Schmidt they would still own more than 50% of the Class B shares.
There have been unsuccessful efforts in the past to equalize the voting power of all shareholders.
One could argue that this dual-class stock structure enables Google to do things like stand up to the Chinese government, against the dominant logic of the market and potential objections of Class A shareholders (especially institutional shareholders). Indeed, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has criticized the move as “irrational.”
With the closing price tonight at $542 (£338) if the full 10 million shares were sold today they would generate around £3.40 billion in cash. However they would still have stock holdings worth approximately another £30 billion.
Google has a dual class stock structure, consisting of Class A and Class B stock. Currently Brin and Page control about 59% of the Class B stock, but a minority of all outstanding shares. Class A shares have one vote each and Class B shares each control 10 votes.
At the end of the five year diversification term specified in the SEC filing, the two co-founders would own 47.7% of Class B shares. And together with CEO Eric Schmidt they would still own more than 50% of the Class B shares.
There have been unsuccessful efforts in the past to equalize the voting power of all shareholders.
One could argue that this dual-class stock structure enables Google to do things like stand up to the Chinese government, against the dominant logic of the market and potential objections of Class A shareholders (especially institutional shareholders). Indeed, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has criticized the move as “irrational.”
With the closing price tonight at $542 (£338) if the full 10 million shares were sold today they would generate around £3.40 billion in cash. However they would still have stock holdings worth approximately another £30 billion.
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, January 26, 2010
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Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Now it's the Germans turn to attack Google
Coming hard on the heels of France's attempts last week to curb Google's activities (See France considers extra tax on Google, Yahoo and Facebook ) now the Germans are considering anti competitive legal rulings.
Last week, in a German magazine interview, government minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger suggested that Google was “becoming a giant monopoly.” She casually asserted that government action might be coming at some point if Google didn’t become more “transparent” and responsive to government concerns.
Almost on cue several companies have filed diverse complaints with Germany’s Cartel Office about Google.
Those complaints, which have not yet been publicly released, involve the following, according to Deutsche Welle:
* German newspaper and magazine publisher associations the VDZ and BDZV have reportedly filed their complaints about uncompensated use of article snippets. There are also complaints about how publications are ranked in Google search and news results
* Shopping site Ciao, now owned by Micrososft, is upset about its AdSense contract (entered into before the Microsoft acquisition): “The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported that Ciao believes the contract to be overly restrictive, while not offering enough transparency on advertising revenues generated by AdSense.”
* Finally mapping site Euro-Cities asserts that the availability of Google Maps to third party sites for free is “is destroying its business model.”
These descriptions are based on second hand information and so it’s impossible to evaluate the merits of the respective parties’ claims.
While there may be merit to some or many of these claims, one gets the sense that there is lots of frustration being expressed in Europe and thrown at Google in the form of various legal theories to see what sticks.
However, as a general matter, Google’s size and market power is alarming many European regulators and they seem intent on finding ways of asserting more control over the company.
Labels: Google, Microsoft, online marketing, Pay Per Click Marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, January 19, 2010
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Bad customer support leaves Google's Nexus One users fuming
Despite all the hype, the launch last week of Google's Nexus One smartphone has been far from problem free, with many users left frustrated by the lack of customer support provisions.
Inadequate customer support facilities for Google's much-hyped Nexus One smartphone have resulted in the vendor's online forums being inundated with complaints from customers.
Google is selling its device, which was launched on Tuesday 5 January in the US, directly to end-users, which means that they are turning to the supplier as the first port of call to fix any problems.
But the company is currently only accepting email based customer queries, which it promises to reply to within one or two days. Many clients are saying that such a timeframe is too long, however, particularly if they are facing technical difficulties that require telephone support.
They are also unhappy at being passed from pillar to post if they approach partners Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC, or mobile carrier T-Mobile, for help. Various complaints indicated that T-Mobile often refers users back to either Google or HTC, while HTC transfers people on to T-Mobile.
Other people have complained about poor 3G performance, but said they were told by HTC customer service staff that NexusOne does not support the technology, although the device itself does.
Some long-term T-Mobile customers were likewise disgruntled that they had to pay more for the phone than new customers, while others were told that they were eligible for subsidies when Google's sales site indicated they were not. Yet more consumers were peeved about the fact that they placed an order but failed to receive confirmation as much as three days later.
Andy Rubin, Google's vice president of engineering, admitted to Digital Daily's John Paczkowski in an interview that: "We have to get better at customer service."
The European version of Nexus One, which is based on the Android open source operating system and will run on Vodafone's mobile network, is due to follow in the second quarter of this year. An enterprise version is also expected to appear at some unspecified time in the future.
Inadequate customer support facilities for Google's much-hyped Nexus One smartphone have resulted in the vendor's online forums being inundated with complaints from customers.
Google is selling its device, which was launched on Tuesday 5 January in the US, directly to end-users, which means that they are turning to the supplier as the first port of call to fix any problems.
But the company is currently only accepting email based customer queries, which it promises to reply to within one or two days. Many clients are saying that such a timeframe is too long, however, particularly if they are facing technical difficulties that require telephone support.
They are also unhappy at being passed from pillar to post if they approach partners Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC, or mobile carrier T-Mobile, for help. Various complaints indicated that T-Mobile often refers users back to either Google or HTC, while HTC transfers people on to T-Mobile.
Other people have complained about poor 3G performance, but said they were told by HTC customer service staff that NexusOne does not support the technology, although the device itself does.
Some long-term T-Mobile customers were likewise disgruntled that they had to pay more for the phone than new customers, while others were told that they were eligible for subsidies when Google's sales site indicated they were not. Yet more consumers were peeved about the fact that they placed an order but failed to receive confirmation as much as three days later.
Andy Rubin, Google's vice president of engineering, admitted to Digital Daily's John Paczkowski in an interview that: "We have to get better at customer service."
The European version of Nexus One, which is based on the Android open source operating system and will run on Vodafone's mobile network, is due to follow in the second quarter of this year. An enterprise version is also expected to appear at some unspecified time in the future.
Labels: Google, mobile marketing, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, January 12, 2010
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Monday, January 11, 2010
France considers extra tax on Google, Yahoo and Facebook
Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other online companies could be taxed extra under plans being considered by the French government.
A report, commissioned by the government, suggests firms such as Google, Yahoo and Facebook should pay a new tax on their online ad revenues.
The money could be used to fund legal alternatives for buying books, films and music on the internet.
But critics say the tax would be difficult to implement and Google says it could slow down innovation.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has taken a tough line on the increasing dominance of digital content.
France has just introduced tough new legislation aimed at removing those who persistently download illegal content from the net.
It has also gone head to head with Google over its plans to digitise the world's books, with a project to set up its own digital library financed by the government to the tune of £700m.
Additionally it is considering a law which would give net users the option to have old data about themselves deleted.
The proposals for a tax on content is still very much in the early stages and there are few details of how it would exactly work.
Patrick Zelnik, who contributed to the report and is also the founder of the French president's wife's record label, hopes the idea will be taken on board across the EU.
But Google is among those to have voiced opposition to the plan.
"We don't think introducing an additional tax on internet advertising is the right way forward as it could slow down innovation," said Olivier Esper, senior policy manager for Google France.
The better way to support content creation is to find new business models that help consumers find great content and rewards artists and publishers for their work."
A report, commissioned by the government, suggests firms such as Google, Yahoo and Facebook should pay a new tax on their online ad revenues.
The money could be used to fund legal alternatives for buying books, films and music on the internet.
But critics say the tax would be difficult to implement and Google says it could slow down innovation.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has taken a tough line on the increasing dominance of digital content.
France has just introduced tough new legislation aimed at removing those who persistently download illegal content from the net.
It has also gone head to head with Google over its plans to digitise the world's books, with a project to set up its own digital library financed by the government to the tune of £700m.
Additionally it is considering a law which would give net users the option to have old data about themselves deleted.
The proposals for a tax on content is still very much in the early stages and there are few details of how it would exactly work.
Patrick Zelnik, who contributed to the report and is also the founder of the French president's wife's record label, hopes the idea will be taken on board across the EU.
But Google is among those to have voiced opposition to the plan.
"We don't think introducing an additional tax on internet advertising is the right way forward as it could slow down innovation," said Olivier Esper, senior policy manager for Google France.
The better way to support content creation is to find new business models that help consumers find great content and rewards artists and publishers for their work."
Labels: Facebook, Google, online marketing, Twitter, Yahoo
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, January 11, 2010
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Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Google's philosophy continues
Search Clinic complete's it's overview of Google's philosophy today.
7. There's always more information out there.
Once Google had indexed more of the HTML pages on the Internet than any other search service, our engineers turned their attention to information that was not as readily accessible. Sometimes it was just a matter of integrating new databases, such as adding a phone number and address lookup and a business directory.
Once Google had indexed more of the HTML pages on the Internet than any other search service, our engineers turned their attention to information that was not as readily accessible. Sometimes it was just a matter of integrating new databases, such as adding a phone number and address lookup and a business directory.
Other efforts required a bit more creativity, like adding the ability to search billions of images and a way to view pages that were originally created as PDF files. The popularity of PDF results led us to expand the list of file types searched to include documents produced in a dozen formats such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
For wireless users, Google developed a unique way to translate HTML formatted files into a format that could be read by mobile devices. The list is not likely to end there as Google's researchers continue looking into ways to bring all the world's information to users looking for answers.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
Although Google’s headquarters is in California, our mission is to facilitate access to information for the entire world, so we have offices around the globe. To achieve this, we maintain dozens of Internet domains and serve more than half of our results to users living outside the United States. Google search results can be restricted to pages written in more than 35 languages according to a user's preference.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
Although Google’s headquarters is in California, our mission is to facilitate access to information for the entire world, so we have offices around the globe. To achieve this, we maintain dozens of Internet domains and serve more than half of our results to users living outside the United States. Google search results can be restricted to pages written in more than 35 languages according to a user's preference.
We also offer a translation feature to make content available to users regardless of their native tongue and for those who prefer not to search in English, Google's interface can be customised into more than 100 languages. To accelerate the addition of new languages, Google offers volunteers the opportunity to help in the translation through an automated tool available on the Google.com website. This process has greatly improved both the variety and quality of service we're able to offer users in the most far-flung corners of the globe.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
Google's founders have often stated that the company is not serious about anything but search. They built a company around the idea that work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun. To achieve this, Google's culture is unlike any in corporate America, and it's not because of the lava lamps and large rubber balls everywhere, or the fact that the company's chef used to cook for the Grateful Dead. In the same way Google puts users first when it comes to our online service, Google Inc. puts employees first when it comes to daily life in our Googleplex headquarters.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
Google's founders have often stated that the company is not serious about anything but search. They built a company around the idea that work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun. To achieve this, Google's culture is unlike any in corporate America, and it's not because of the lava lamps and large rubber balls everywhere, or the fact that the company's chef used to cook for the Grateful Dead. In the same way Google puts users first when it comes to our online service, Google Inc. puts employees first when it comes to daily life in our Googleplex headquarters.
There is an emphasis on team achievements and pride in individual accomplishments that contribute to the company's overall success. Ideas are traded, tested and put into practice with an enthusiasm that can make you dizzy. Meetings that would take hours elsewhere are frequently little more than a conversation in the lunch queue and not many walls separate those who write the code from those who write the cheques. This highly communicative environment fosters a productivity and camaraderie fuelled by the realisation that millions of people rely on Google results. Give the proper tools to a group of people who like to make a difference, and they will.
10. Great just isn't good enough.
Always deliver more than expected. Google does not accept being the best as an endpoint, but a starting point. Through innovation and iteration, Google takes something that works well and improves upon it in unexpected ways. Search works well for correctly spelt words, but what about typos? One engineer saw a need and created a spell checker that seems to read a user's mind. It takes too long to search from a WAP phone? Our wireless group developed Google Number Search to reduce entries from three keystrokes per letter to one.
10. Great just isn't good enough.
Always deliver more than expected. Google does not accept being the best as an endpoint, but a starting point. Through innovation and iteration, Google takes something that works well and improves upon it in unexpected ways. Search works well for correctly spelt words, but what about typos? One engineer saw a need and created a spell checker that seems to read a user's mind. It takes too long to search from a WAP phone? Our wireless group developed Google Number Search to reduce entries from three keystrokes per letter to one.
With a user base in the millions, Google is able to identify areas of conflict quickly and smooth them out. Google’s distinguishing feature however, is anticipating needs not yet articulated by our global audience, then meeting them with products and services that set new standards. This constant dissatisfaction with the way things are is ultimately the driving force behind the world's best search engine.
* Full-disclosure update: When Google first wrote these "10 things" four years ago, they included the phrase "Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat." Over time they've expanded the view of the range of services they can offer –- web search, for instance, isn't the only way for people to access or use information -– and products that then seemed unlikely are now key aspects of our portfolio.
* Full-disclosure update: When Google first wrote these "10 things" four years ago, they included the phrase "Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat." Over time they've expanded the view of the range of services they can offer –- web search, for instance, isn't the only way for people to access or use information -– and products that then seemed unlikely are now key aspects of our portfolio.
This doesn't mean that they've changed their core mission; just that the farther they travel toward achieving it, the more those fuzzy objects on the horizon come into sharper focus (to be replaced, of course, by more fuzzy objects).
The full review can be viewed at:
Labels: Google, Search Clinic, search engine marketing, search engines
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, January 06, 2010
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Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Google's top 10 philosophy part 2
Search Clinic continues it's review of Google today.
4. Democracy on the web works.
Google works because it relies on the millions of individuals posting websites to determine which other sites offer content of value. Instead of relying on a group of editors or solely on the frequency with which certain terms appear, Google ranks every web page using a breakthrough technique called PageRank™. PageRank evaluates all of the sites linking to a web page and assigns them a value, based in part on the sites linking to them.
By analysing the full structure of the web, Google is able to determine which sites have been "voted" the best sources of information by those most interested in the information they offer. This technique actually improves as the web gets bigger, as each new site is another point of information and another vote to be counted.
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
The world is increasingly mobile and unwilling to be constrained to a fixed location. Whether it's through their PDAs, their wireless phones or even their cars, people want information to come to them. Google's innovations in this area include Google Number Search, which reduces the number of keypad strokes required to find data from a web-enabled mobile phone and an on-the-fly translation system that converts pages written in HTML to a format that can be read by phone browsers.
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
The world is increasingly mobile and unwilling to be constrained to a fixed location. Whether it's through their PDAs, their wireless phones or even their cars, people want information to come to them. Google's innovations in this area include Google Number Search, which reduces the number of keypad strokes required to find data from a web-enabled mobile phone and an on-the-fly translation system that converts pages written in HTML to a format that can be read by phone browsers.
This system opens up billions of pages for viewing from devices that would otherwise not be able to display them including Palm PDAs and Japanese i-mode, J-Sky and EZWeb devices. Wherever search is likely to help users obtain the information they seek, Google is pioneering new technologies and offering new solutions.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
Google is a business. The revenue the company generates is derived from offering its search technology to companies and from the sale of advertising displayed on Google and on other sites across the web. However, you may have never seen an ad on Google. That's because Google does not allow ads to be displayed on our results pages unless they're relevant to the results page on which they're shown. So, only certain searches produce sponsored links above or to the right of the results. Google firmly believes that ads can provide useful information if, and only if, they are relevant to what you wish to find.
Google has also proven that advertising can be effective without being flashy. Google does not accept pop-up advertising, which interferes with your ability to see the content you've requested. We've found that text ads (AdWords) that are relevant to the person reading them draw much higher click-through rates than ads appearing randomly.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
Google is a business. The revenue the company generates is derived from offering its search technology to companies and from the sale of advertising displayed on Google and on other sites across the web. However, you may have never seen an ad on Google. That's because Google does not allow ads to be displayed on our results pages unless they're relevant to the results page on which they're shown. So, only certain searches produce sponsored links above or to the right of the results. Google firmly believes that ads can provide useful information if, and only if, they are relevant to what you wish to find.
Google has also proven that advertising can be effective without being flashy. Google does not accept pop-up advertising, which interferes with your ability to see the content you've requested. We've found that text ads (AdWords) that are relevant to the person reading them draw much higher click-through rates than ads appearing randomly.
Google's maximisation group works with advertisers to improve click-through rates over the life of a campaign, because high click-through rates are an indication that ads are relevant to a user's interests. Any advertiser, no matter how small or how large, can take advantage of this highly targeted medium, whether through our self-service advertising program that puts ads online within minutes or with the assistance of a Google advertising representative.
Advertising on Google is always clearly identified as a "Sponsored Link." It is a core value for Google that there is no compromise on the integrity of our results. We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results. No one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust Google's objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust.
Thousands of advertisers use our Google AdWords program to promote their products; we believe AdWords is the largest program of its kind. In addition, thousands of web site managers take advantage of our Google AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to the content on their sites, improving their ability to generate revenue and enhancing the experience for their users.
Advertising on Google is always clearly identified as a "Sponsored Link." It is a core value for Google that there is no compromise on the integrity of our results. We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results. No one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust Google's objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust.
Thousands of advertisers use our Google AdWords program to promote their products; we believe AdWords is the largest program of its kind. In addition, thousands of web site managers take advantage of our Google AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to the content on their sites, improving their ability to generate revenue and enhancing the experience for their users.
Labels: Adwords, Google, Pay Per Click Marketing, Search Clinic, search engine marketing, search engines
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, January 05, 2010
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Monday, January 4, 2010
Search Clinic wishes you a Happy, Healthy and Wealthy New Year
The Search Clinic starts 2010 by looking at the oganisation that will statistically send the most traffic to your website- Google.
Google has a 10 Things Philosophy. Over the next few day we will be covering them all. But the Top 3 below are key for any online business:
Never settle for the best
"The perfect search engine," says Google co-founder Larry Page, "would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want." Given the state of search technology today, that's a far-reaching vision requiring research, development and innovation to realise. Google is committed to blazing that trail.
Although acknowledged as the world's leading search technology company, Google's goal is to provide a much higher level of service to all those who seek information, whether they're at a desk in Boston, driving through Bonn or strolling in Bangkok.
To achieve this, Google has persistently pursued innovation and pushed the limits of existing technology to provide a fast, accurate and easy-to-use search service that can be accessed from anywhere. To fully understand Google, it's helpful to understand all the ways in which the company has helped to redefine how individuals, businesses and technologists view the Internet.
Ten things Google has found to be true
1. Focus on the user and everything else will follow.
From its inception, Google has focused on providing the best user experience possible. While many companies claim to put their customers first, few are able to resist the temptation to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value. Google has steadfastly refused to make any change that does not benefit the users who come to the site:
* The interface is clear and simple.
* Pages load instantly.
* Placement in search results is never sold to anyone.
* Advertising on the site must offer relevant content and not be a distraction.
By always placing the interests of the user first, Google has built the most loyal audience on the web. And that growth has come not through TV ad campaigns, but through word of mouth from one satisfied user to another.
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
Google does search. With one of the world's largest research groups focused exclusively on solving search problems, we know what we do well and how we could do it better. Through continued iteration on difficult problems, we've been able to solve complex issues and provide continuous improvements to a service already considered the best on the web at making finding information a fast and seamless experience for millions of users.
Google's dedication to improving search has also allowed them to apply what they've learned to new products including Google Mail, Google Desktop and Google Maps. As they continue to build new products while making search better, their hope is to bring the power of search to previously unexplored areas and to help users access and use even more of the ever-expanding information in their lives.
3. Fast is better than slow.
Google believes in instant satisfaction. You want answers and you want them right now. Who are we to argue? Google may be the only company in the world whose stated goal is to have users leave its website as quickly as possible.
By fanatically fixating on shaving every excess bit and byte from our pages and increasing the efficiency of our serving environment, Google has broken its own speed records time and again. Others assumed large servers were the fastest way to handle massive amounts of data. Google found networked PCs to be faster. Where others accepted apparent speed limits imposed by search algorithms, Google wrote new algorithms that proved there were no limits. And Google continues to work on making it all go even faster.
Search Clinic points out that speed is a Google fixation. In 2009 they announced that it would effect a website's ranking in Pay Per Click casino and it may start to have an effect on free results ranking soon.
Labels: Google, Pay Per Click Marketing, Search Clinic, search engines, Search Marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, January 04, 2010
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