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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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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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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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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Thursday, December 24, 2009
Google’s tips to avoid duplicate content issues
Google have shared some insights into duplicate content and how the search engine deals with it.
Google Search Quality Engineer, Greg Grothaus, presents the video as part of the Webmaster Outreach program.
Greg clears up one of the most common myths in SEM: the duplicate content penalty.
Here’s how Greg explains it:
I’ve seen evidence of people kind of get worried about this and thinking that [being omitted from the search results] is a penalty Google are applying on their site. What’s actually happening is that we’re looking at the query the users doing and we’re saying we want diversity in the results we’re going to show a user.
So if someone searched for “fluffy bunnies” we want to show, as maybe page one, the wikipedia article on fluffy bunnies but we don’t want to show as page 2 the print version of the same article with the exact same text. So what we’re doing for that specific query, we’re omitting the print article.
How can you combat this? Here are some suggestions:
* Don’t attempt to manipulate search engine rankings by deliberately duplicating content. If the content is changed in some way or additional value is added, then this is ok. But don’t just copy another website word for word, Google see this as a big no no
* Don’t dilute your linking by backlinking to several URL versions with the same content.
* Make sure your URLs are user friendly in the search results. URLs with useless parameters may offset branding efforts and decrease usability.
* Make it easy for Google to crawl you site. More time spent crawling the same content means less time to discover the important content. So make sure that you have a sitemap- and update it regularly.
* Pick one “canonical’ URL for each page and ensure you link consistently within your site.
Dr Search has posted Greg’s video here, so you can check it out yourself. It’s about 15 minutes in length, so you might need to grab yourself a drink and settle into a comfy chair.
Dr Search- the Principle Consultant at the Search Clinic wishes you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Labels: Dr Search, Google, online marketing, Search Clinic, search engine marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, December 24, 2009
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Google pays no tax on £1.6bn sales in Britain
Google was accused of "ducking its social responsibility" whose informal corporate motto is "don’t be evil", as it emerged that it did not pay any tax on its £1.6 billion advertising revenues in Britain last year.
The firm, which has a substantial presence in London, diverted all its advertising earnings from customers in Britain to its Irish subsidiary.
The arrangement allowed Google legally to avoid paying more than £450m in corporation tax to HM Revenue & Customs in 2008.
The disclosure prompted politicians to criticise Google, widely lauded as a pioneer of the internet age, for “ducking its social responsibility” and for “tax avoiding”.
Accounts filed with Companies House in the past week show Google’s 2008 UK corporation tax bill amounted to just £141,519 — and that was tax on the interest generated by its cash pile in UK bank deposits.
Vince Cable, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, urged the search firm to “pay its fair share” of tax.
“Avoidance like this is hard to stomach at the best of times,” said Cable. “But when the country is in recession and everyone is feeling the pain, it really sticks in the throat — it means higher taxes for the rest of us.
“Google’s reputation will be severely damaged if it continues to behave in this way. It is ducking its social responsibility.”
Google says its structure complies fully with UK tax rules and that the company makes a “substantial” contribution to tax receipts wherever it operates.
About 13% of Google’s global revenues now come from the UK, and 770 staff are based at its London offices.
Accountants said that if the firm’s £1.6 billion UK earnings were paid directly into Google UK Limited, the London operation, it would have been liable for UK corporation tax of between 28% and 30%.
This could have raised about £450m for the public finances— enough tax to fund three NHS hospitals, buy at least eight Chinook helicopters or pay the annual salaries of about 15,000 policemen.
Any British individual or company who places an advertisement with the search engine pays a fee to Google’s European headquarters in Ireland, where corporation tax is levied at between 10% and 25%.
The Dublin operation’s latest accounts show that only €7.5m (£6.7m) of Irish tax was paid in 2008, even though the bulk of Google’s €6.7 billion (£5.9 billion) European earnings flowed into Ireland.
Austin Mitchell, the Labour MP for Great Grimsby, who campaigns against tax avoidance, said: “Google isn’t just sucking money out of local newspapers and other people who rely on advertising for a living — it’s also draining money out of the public finances.
“The search engine is a marvellous service, but the company is run by tax avoiders. If they are going to make so much money here they need to give more back to society.”
As well as paying little tax, Google UK Limited’s latest accounts disclose that it made modest charitable donations of just £5,662 during the year.
The document also reveals that Google’s highest-paid UK director earned nearly £1.1m — an 80% rise on the previous year.
The average British based Google worker earned more than £90,000 last year, with the company paying National Insurance and other social security contributions of £10m.
From the Sunday Times article at
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6962880.ece
The firm, which has a substantial presence in London, diverted all its advertising earnings from customers in Britain to its Irish subsidiary.
The arrangement allowed Google legally to avoid paying more than £450m in corporation tax to HM Revenue & Customs in 2008.
The disclosure prompted politicians to criticise Google, widely lauded as a pioneer of the internet age, for “ducking its social responsibility” and for “tax avoiding”.
Accounts filed with Companies House in the past week show Google’s 2008 UK corporation tax bill amounted to just £141,519 — and that was tax on the interest generated by its cash pile in UK bank deposits.
Vince Cable, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, urged the search firm to “pay its fair share” of tax.
“Avoidance like this is hard to stomach at the best of times,” said Cable. “But when the country is in recession and everyone is feeling the pain, it really sticks in the throat — it means higher taxes for the rest of us.
“Google’s reputation will be severely damaged if it continues to behave in this way. It is ducking its social responsibility.”
Google says its structure complies fully with UK tax rules and that the company makes a “substantial” contribution to tax receipts wherever it operates.
About 13% of Google’s global revenues now come from the UK, and 770 staff are based at its London offices.
Accountants said that if the firm’s £1.6 billion UK earnings were paid directly into Google UK Limited, the London operation, it would have been liable for UK corporation tax of between 28% and 30%.
This could have raised about £450m for the public finances— enough tax to fund three NHS hospitals, buy at least eight Chinook helicopters or pay the annual salaries of about 15,000 policemen.
Any British individual or company who places an advertisement with the search engine pays a fee to Google’s European headquarters in Ireland, where corporation tax is levied at between 10% and 25%.
The Dublin operation’s latest accounts show that only €7.5m (£6.7m) of Irish tax was paid in 2008, even though the bulk of Google’s €6.7 billion (£5.9 billion) European earnings flowed into Ireland.
Austin Mitchell, the Labour MP for Great Grimsby, who campaigns against tax avoidance, said: “Google isn’t just sucking money out of local newspapers and other people who rely on advertising for a living — it’s also draining money out of the public finances.
“The search engine is a marvellous service, but the company is run by tax avoiders. If they are going to make so much money here they need to give more back to society.”
As well as paying little tax, Google UK Limited’s latest accounts disclose that it made modest charitable donations of just £5,662 during the year.
The document also reveals that Google’s highest-paid UK director earned nearly £1.1m — an 80% rise on the previous year.
The average British based Google worker earned more than £90,000 last year, with the company paying National Insurance and other social security contributions of £10m.
From the Sunday Times article at
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6962880.ece
Labels: Adwords, Google, Pay Per Click Marketing, Search Clinic, search engine marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, December 22, 2009
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tiger Woods sex scandal better for websites 'than Michael Jackson dying', says Yahoo CEO
The Tiger Woods sex scandal has been "better than Michael Jackson dying" for helping websites make money, the head of Yahoo! has said.
Carol Bartz told an investor conference in New York that major Internet businesses and niche publications alike are benefiting from stories about the world No 1.
The scandal is "better than Michael Jackson dying" for helping Yahoo make money, because it is easier to sell adverts against racy stories than tragic events, she said.
"It's kind of hard to put an ad up next to a funeral," she added.
In response to a question, Miss Bartz even said Tiger Woods will "absolutely" help Yahoo hit its targets for this quarter, a comment the a spokesman later claimed was meant as a joke.
Google and Yahoo, which account for more than 80 percent of all Internet searches in the US and an even higher number in Britain, said they've seen a significant spike in traffic from people looking up Woods and his alleged extramarital affairs.
Yahoo says searches for the golfer's name are up more than 3,900 percent over the last 30 days.
However traffic levels have not matched the peaks seen in June following Jackson's unexpected death or Barack Obama's inauguration in January, both companies said.
Revelations about Woods' private life began emerging last month after he crashed his car outside his home in a gated community in Florida.
Yahoo has been more successful in capitalising on the Woods story than Google, according to Hitwise.
Hitwise says Yahoo and Yahoo News captured more than 17 per cent of all the traffic to major sites that came from searches of Woods' name. That's ahead of Tigerwoods.com, CNN.com and Google news.
Carol Bartz told an investor conference in New York that major Internet businesses and niche publications alike are benefiting from stories about the world No 1.
The scandal is "better than Michael Jackson dying" for helping Yahoo make money, because it is easier to sell adverts against racy stories than tragic events, she said.
"It's kind of hard to put an ad up next to a funeral," she added.
In response to a question, Miss Bartz even said Tiger Woods will "absolutely" help Yahoo hit its targets for this quarter, a comment the a spokesman later claimed was meant as a joke.
Google and Yahoo, which account for more than 80 percent of all Internet searches in the US and an even higher number in Britain, said they've seen a significant spike in traffic from people looking up Woods and his alleged extramarital affairs.
Yahoo says searches for the golfer's name are up more than 3,900 percent over the last 30 days.
However traffic levels have not matched the peaks seen in June following Jackson's unexpected death or Barack Obama's inauguration in January, both companies said.
Revelations about Woods' private life began emerging last month after he crashed his car outside his home in a gated community in Florida.
Yahoo has been more successful in capitalising on the Woods story than Google, according to Hitwise.
Hitwise says Yahoo and Yahoo News captured more than 17 per cent of all the traffic to major sites that came from searches of Woods' name. That's ahead of Tigerwoods.com, CNN.com and Google news.
Dr Search isn't surprised- "It's the old adage- Sex Sells".
Labels: Dr Search, Google, online marketing, Search Clinic, search engine marketing, search engines, Yahoo
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, December 10, 2009
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Speed matters- Britons lose temper after three minutes 38 seconds
It's not just Google- Britons last an average of eight minutes and 22 seconds before they lose their temper, according to new research.
It found that the Internet has increased people's service demands and is eroding the classic British trait of patience as more than half admitted they lose their temper quicker than ever before.
People have become so used to the speed and convenience of the internet that more than seven in 10 get angry if forced to wait longer than one minute for a web page to download.
It found that the Internet has increased people's service demands and is eroding the classic British trait of patience as more than half admitted they lose their temper quicker than ever before.
People have become so used to the speed and convenience of the internet that more than seven in 10 get angry if forced to wait longer than one minute for a web page to download.
As the internet continues to quicken up it's bound to place greater expectations on the offline world too.
"And with 37 per cent of people saying they have cancelled a service after being forced to wait it poses some real problems for companies.
Being kept on hold made Brits see red more than anything else, with the average person reaching their impatience threshold after five minutes and four seconds.
In today's fast food culture, restaurant rage kicks in after only eight minutes, 38 seconds, when the average diner will start to wonder whether the meal they have ordered will ever arrive.
People running late to meet a friend should not leave it any longer than 10 minutes, one second if they do not want to face their wrath.
And tradesmen arriving to a job more than 10 minutes, 43 seconds late should not expect a cup of tea from their impatient householder.
Finally, when receiving a text or voicemail, be warned that the clock is ticking as the average Briton expects a response within 13 minutes and 16 seconds.
The research found that younger people were much more impatient than their older counterparts. A third of 18 to 24-year-olds expect to wait up to 10 seconds for an internet page to load compared to only one in 10 of over 65s, most of whom were happy to wait up to a minute for a page to load.
Younger people are more impatient in the offline world too. Twice as many 55-64 year olds than 18-24 year olds were prepared to wait more than 30 minutes for a friend to show up for a meeting.
Frustrated youngsters are also more likely to get physical, with 19 per cent of 18-44 year olds having thrown something in anger after reaching the point of impatience, compared to just four in 10 of over 45s.
Top points of impatience:
"And with 37 per cent of people saying they have cancelled a service after being forced to wait it poses some real problems for companies.
Being kept on hold made Brits see red more than anything else, with the average person reaching their impatience threshold after five minutes and four seconds.
In today's fast food culture, restaurant rage kicks in after only eight minutes, 38 seconds, when the average diner will start to wonder whether the meal they have ordered will ever arrive.
People running late to meet a friend should not leave it any longer than 10 minutes, one second if they do not want to face their wrath.
And tradesmen arriving to a job more than 10 minutes, 43 seconds late should not expect a cup of tea from their impatient householder.
Finally, when receiving a text or voicemail, be warned that the clock is ticking as the average Briton expects a response within 13 minutes and 16 seconds.
The research found that younger people were much more impatient than their older counterparts. A third of 18 to 24-year-olds expect to wait up to 10 seconds for an internet page to load compared to only one in 10 of over 65s, most of whom were happy to wait up to a minute for a page to load.
Younger people are more impatient in the offline world too. Twice as many 55-64 year olds than 18-24 year olds were prepared to wait more than 30 minutes for a friend to show up for a meeting.
Frustrated youngsters are also more likely to get physical, with 19 per cent of 18-44 year olds having thrown something in anger after reaching the point of impatience, compared to just four in 10 of over 45s.
Top points of impatience:
- Waiting for an Internet page to load 3 mins 38 secs
- Waiting on hold on telephone 5 mins 4 secs
- Waiting for the kettle to boil 5 mins 6 secs
- Waiting for food in a restaurant 8 mins 38 secs
- Waiting for friends to show up 10 mins 1 secs
- Waiting for a tradesman to show 10 mins 43 secs
- Waiting for someone to reply to a vm/text 13 mins 16 secs
- Average 8 mins 22 seconds
Labels: Google, online marketing uk, search engine marketing, search engines
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, December 08, 2009
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Monday, December 7, 2009
Cyber Monday shoppers to spend £350m online today
Today is expected to be the busiest day of the year for UK retail websites, with bargain hunters expected to spend a total of at least £350m on Christmas gifts.
The first Monday in December – so called Cyber Monday, is the cue for a stampede as shoppers who see goods on the high street over the weekend use their office high speed broadband connections to place orders once they return to work.
This year’s forecasts from the IMRG, the trade body for online retailers, are exceeded by those of Kelkoo, the shopping comparison service, which predicts sales of £417m.
Total sales are expected to be £5bn for December, a 14 per cent increase on last year, according to IMRG.
“To reach that amount during a recession shows the huge resilience of the online sector,” said David Smith, IMRG director of operations. “People are turning to the internet to look for value.”
On the equivalent Monday last year, Amazon said it saw 1.4m items ordered in 24 hours. The website expects this to rise about 10 per cent this year.
The first Monday in December – so called Cyber Monday, is the cue for a stampede as shoppers who see goods on the high street over the weekend use their office high speed broadband connections to place orders once they return to work.
This year’s forecasts from the IMRG, the trade body for online retailers, are exceeded by those of Kelkoo, the shopping comparison service, which predicts sales of £417m.
Total sales are expected to be £5bn for December, a 14 per cent increase on last year, according to IMRG.
“To reach that amount during a recession shows the huge resilience of the online sector,” said David Smith, IMRG director of operations. “People are turning to the internet to look for value.”
On the equivalent Monday last year, Amazon said it saw 1.4m items ordered in 24 hours. The website expects this to rise about 10 per cent this year.
Shopping usually reaches its peak at lunchtime, between 1pm and 2pm.
Kelkoo found that about 70 per cent of people plan to shop online, while the IMRG’s research suggests that nearly three in four people who shop online will buy most of their gifts over the internet.
Christmas will be less frugal than in 2008, according to indications from Google. Searches for “Christmas gifts” have risen 22 per cent in the past year, while searches for “gold jewellery” are up 39 per cent and “diamond rings” 76 per cent. In contrast, searches for “coupons” were a theme last year.
According to Kelkoo, about 40 per cent of British shoppers plan to spend more on gifts than last year. The average household spends £665.
Kelkoo found that about 70 per cent of people plan to shop online, while the IMRG’s research suggests that nearly three in four people who shop online will buy most of their gifts over the internet.
Christmas will be less frugal than in 2008, according to indications from Google. Searches for “Christmas gifts” have risen 22 per cent in the past year, while searches for “gold jewellery” are up 39 per cent and “diamond rings” 76 per cent. In contrast, searches for “coupons” were a theme last year.
According to Kelkoo, about 40 per cent of British shoppers plan to spend more on gifts than last year. The average household spends £665.
Labels: Dr Search, Google, online marketing uk, Search Clinic, search engine marketing, Search Marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, December 07, 2009
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Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Bing's top 2009 searches
It is Bing.com’s very first appearance since officially launching as the decision engine, halfway through the year in early June.
Coupled with an $80 million dollar advertising campaign to rebrand the new search engine (formerly Live Search) and attract new users, it may have actually worked – since Bing also appeared on the 2009 Yahoo Year in Review, with searchers asking, “What is Bing?”
In fairness, Bing did officially release their Most Popular Searches for all of 2009, including data from the first half of the year as Live Search. Decidedly, Michael Jackson would have made it to the top of the list, whether it was Bing or Live Search.
Twitter seems to have infiltrated Bing in the same way, clearly users needed help trying to decide, “To Tweet or Not to Tweet?” Or could it be that the Bing-Twitter integration was that big of a deal?
In fairness, Bing did officially release their Most Popular Searches for all of 2009, including data from the first half of the year as Live Search. Decidedly, Michael Jackson would have made it to the top of the list, whether it was Bing or Live Search.
Twitter seems to have infiltrated Bing in the same way, clearly users needed help trying to decide, “To Tweet or Not to Tweet?” Or could it be that the Bing-Twitter integration was that big of a deal?
Top Overall Trending Topics on Bing in 2009:
1. Michael Jackson
2. Twitter
3. Swine Flu
4. Stock Market
5. Farrah Fawcett
6. Patrick Swayze
7. Cash for Clunkers
8. Jon and Kate Gosselin
9. Billy Mays
10. Jaycee Dugard
Top 3 Celebrity Searches:
1. Perez Hilton
2. Robert Pattinson
3. Megan Fox
Bing plans to unveil a relevancy quiz on Facebook, so you can test your knowledge of the most popular searches in 2009. Stay tuned to the Bing blog to find out more.
For a real-time look at what’s popular on Bing, don’t forget about Visual Search, where you can view the Top Albums, Top iPhone Apps, Top Movies and more at any given time.
1. Michael Jackson
2. Twitter
3. Swine Flu
4. Stock Market
5. Farrah Fawcett
6. Patrick Swayze
7. Cash for Clunkers
8. Jon and Kate Gosselin
9. Billy Mays
10. Jaycee Dugard
Top 3 Celebrity Searches:
1. Perez Hilton
2. Robert Pattinson
3. Megan Fox
Bing plans to unveil a relevancy quiz on Facebook, so you can test your knowledge of the most popular searches in 2009. Stay tuned to the Bing blog to find out more.
For a real-time look at what’s popular on Bing, don’t forget about Visual Search, where you can view the Top Albums, Top iPhone Apps, Top Movies and more at any given time.
Labels: bing, Microsoft, search engine marketing, search engines, Search Marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, December 02, 2009
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Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Top questions at Ask search engine
In true Ask fashion, we’ve got the answers (well…not complete answers) to what the most popular questions were on Ask.com during the year.
According to Ask.com, visitors are three times more likely to type search queries in the form of a question. Holding steady at 50 million visits per month (October 2009, ComScore), question based searches continue to grow year over year on Ask.
Falling in line with the most popular searches on other engines, questions surrounding the economic crisis and financial stability were among the popular categories, but it was the celebrity rumors that created the most comic relief in the search stimulus package.
Searchers were feverishly fighting off symptoms of the Swine Flu, while trying to get answers on a number of health and fitness issues. Popular question categories unique to Ask.com include the most popular searches on Ask Kids, and likely from the Ask.com / Nascar partnership.
Ask.com’s Top Overall Questions of 2009:
1. How much should I weigh?
2. How do I get out of debt fast?
3. How do I get pregnant?
4. What is Twitter?
5. What is Miley Cyrus’ phone number?
6. What is the meaning of life?
7. When will the world end?
8. How long does marijuana stay in your system?
9. What are the symptoms of Swine Flu?
10. What time is it?
Again, Twitter questionably makes the cut. And isn’t 2012 the answer to #7? Does it strike anyone else as odd, that no one in the US was curious to ask if Michael Jackson was really dead? Read on…
Top Personal Finance Questions
1. What is a good credit score?
2. How do I file for bankruptcy?
3. How do I start my own business?
4. What is a short sale in real estate?
5. Who owns the Federal Reserve Bank?
6. How much is minimum wage?
7. How do savings bonds work?
8. What can I deduct on my taxes?
9. What is a trust fund?
10. What is a hedge fund?
Top Celebrity Rumors of 2009
1. Is Miley Cyrus pregnant?
2. Is Adam Lambert straight?
3. Is Lady Gaga a man?
4. Is Michelle Obama pregnant?
5. Is Robert Pattinson dating Kristen Stewart?
6. Did Chris Brown get Rihanna pregnant?
7. Are Jon and Kate getting a divorce?
8. Is Michael Phelps using marijuana?
9. Who is the father of Michael Jackson’s children?
10. Did David Letterman keep a secret bedroom is his studio?
Meanwhile, across the pond…an entirely different set of UK questions arose:
Ask Jeeves’ UK fastest rising searches of 2009
1. What is Twitter?
2. Have I got swine flu?
3. Is Lady Gaga a man?
4. Who is Aleksandr Orlov?
5. Is Michael Jackson dead?
6. Where is my nearest Primark?
7. Who is the father of Heather’s baby in EastEnders?
8. What is the Lisbon Treaty?
9. When will the recession end?
10. What is cervical cancer?
Needing a little bit of help to understand what brought on some of these questions? Ask UK provided some insight:
While Lady Gaga’s sexuality is at third on the list of rising questions, at number four is ‘ Who is Aleksandr (corr) Orlov?’ the animated Russian meerkat in TV adverts for an internet comparison website.
His catchphrase “Simples” has become a favourite among TV viewers and led to scores of queries from search engine users, including questions about where he comes from and the voice is behind him.
In fact he is voiced by Simon Greenall, who also starred as Geordie hotel worker Michael in ‘I’m Alan Partridge’.
Note that since this is the UK list, the 10th most asked question about cervical cancer, most likely can be linked to the cause of death for the reality star, Jade Goody, of the UK “Big Brother” edition, who made the “Farewell Searches” Top 10 list in Yahoo’s annual recap.
In support of the theory that at the close of the decade, our search habits are indeed changing at a much faster rate, Nadia Kelly, a spokesperson for Ask Jeeves, added:
“Last year we looked at our top questions on Ask Jeeves and found that the identity of the Stig from Top Gear was on everyone’s minds. This year, we have had a wide variety of unusual searches from Lady Gaga’s gender to TV meerkat to swine flu symptoms. It proves that more people than ever are turning to internet search engines for answers to not only everyday things, but weird and wacky subjects too.
The internet has become the virtual text book of choice for millions with its ability to give quick and accurate answers to even the most bizarre questions.”
Labels: Ask, search engine marketing, search engines
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, December 01, 2009
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Monday, November 30, 2009
Black Friday searches up 20% on last year
Google have released search figures that show queries for “Black Friday” rose by more than 20% compared to last year.
Furthermore, searches for “black Friday sales” and “black Friday ads” also showed impressive growth, rising 50% compared to 2008. Black Friday (the Friday after thanksgiving) typically marks the start of the holiday shopping season for consumers in the U.S.
The figures show that more consumers are taking advantage of the black Friday deals offered by various retailers on this day. The Google retail blog also shared some of the fastest rising search terms on the day, which included:
* “Walmart Black Friday”
* “Kohls Black Friday Ad”
* “Sears Black Friday Sales”
* “Target Black Friday Deals Online”
Hitwise also published their own stats about black Friday, which shows that big retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Apple saw a surge in traffic on the day.
The top visited Retail Website on Black Friday 2009 was Amazon receiving 13.55 % of U.S. visits among the top 500 Retail Web sites.
Walmart was the second most visited with 11.18 % of visits followed by Target.com with 5.65%, BestBuy.com with 4.62%. followed by Sears with 2.95%.
Among the top 20 sites visited on Black Friday 2009, The Apple Store saw the largest increase in visits compared to Thanksgiving day 2009 with a 110% increase, Staples saw a 47% increase YoY and Dell saw a 40% increase. Amazon had a 9% increase.
Labels: Google, search engine marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, November 30, 2009
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Friday, November 27, 2009
Search marketing- what's in the future?
If there’s one thing that both Google and Microsoft agree on, it’s that search marketing isn’t solved yet.
Google’s vice president of search product and user experience Marissa Mayer has said:
We’re all familiar with 80-20 problems, where the last 20% of the solution is 80% of the work. Search is a 90-10 problem. Today, we have a 90% solution: I could answer all of my unanswered Saturday questions, not ideally or easily, but I could get it done with today’s search tool. (If you’re curious, the answers are below.) However, that remaining 10% of the problem really represents 90% (in fact, more than 90%) of the work.
We’re all familiar with 80-20 problems, where the last 20% of the solution is 80% of the work. Search is a 90-10 problem. Today, we have a 90% solution: I could answer all of my unanswered Saturday questions, not ideally or easily, but I could get it done with today’s search tool. (If you’re curious, the answers are below.) However, that remaining 10% of the problem really represents 90% (in fact, more than 90%) of the work.
Coming up with elegant, fitting and relevant solutions to meet the challenges of mobility, modes, media, personalization, location, socialization, and language will take decades. Search is a science that will develop and advance over hundreds of years. Think of it like biology and physics in the 1500s or 1600s: it’s a new science where we make big and exciting breakthroughs all the time. However, it could be a hundred years or more before we have microscopes and an understanding of the proverbial molecules and atoms of search. Just like biology and physics several hundred years ago, the biggest advances are yet to come. That’s what makes the field of Internet search so exciting.
Well, Dr Search agrees with the philosophy, if not the time lines.
Well, Dr Search agrees with the philosophy, if not the time lines.
Information discovery and dissemination is a science that is already hundreds of years old. Google, in its present state, is a small but significant wrinkle in that time line. What is exciting is that it’s marking an important change in how we look at information.
What Google has done is introduced a “Just in Time” information economy. It’s a little presumptuous to say that we’re at the beginning and that internet search marks an entirely new science. Really, this still comes down to how we seek and use information. The internet and search has represented a monumental shift, yes, but it’s not a new ball game. And I certainly hope we don’t have to wait hundreds of years for significant advancements in the state of search.
Microsoft’s Director of Product Planning Stefan Weitz also said in an Ars Technica interview with that we’re early in the game of search:
“’We’re not at where we’d like to be,’ Weitz began, and then dove in to explain that people are generally happy with how their search engine is working, until the data shows that they are not.”
So, there seems to be consensus that there’s a lot to do to improve web search. The question is, what does that improvement look like? A blog post by author and industry pundit John Battelle caught my attention:
I describe my frustration with search as it relates to helping me make a complicated decision: How to possibly buy a classic car. From it:
So first, how would I like to decide about my quest to buy a classic car? Well, ideally, I’d have a search application that could automate and process the tedious back and forth required to truly understand what the market looks like. After all, if I’m looking for classic Camaro or Porsche convertibles from the mid to late 1960s, there are only so many of them for sale, and they can be categorized by any number of important variables—price, model, region, color, features, etc. And while a number of sites do a fair job with a portion of the market, I don’t trust any of them to give me a general overview of what’s really out there. That’s where an intelligent search agent can really help.
So here, Battelle hits on the idea of search assisting in complex decisions. And then, from our own Search 2010 series of interviews, usability expert Jakob Nielsen voiced a similar concern:
I think we can see a change maybe being a more of a usefulness relevance ranking. I think there is a tendency now for a lot of not very useful results to be dredged up that happen to be very popular, like Wikipedia and various blogs. They’re not going to be very useful or substantial to people who are trying to solve problems.
In the same series of interviews, I talked to Marissa Mayer about where search may go, and she envisioned a more interactive set of search results:
We will be able to have much more rich interaction with the search results pages. There might be layers of search results pages: take my results and show them on a map, take my results and show them to me on a timeline. It’s basically the ability to interact in a really fast way, and take the results you have and see them in a new light. So I think that that kind of interaction will be possible pretty easily and pretty likely. I think it will be, hopefully, a layout that’s a little bit less linear and text based, even than our search results today and ultimately uses what I call the ‘sea of whiteness’ more in the middle of the page, and lays out in a more information dense way all the information from videos to audio reels to text, and so on and so forth. So if you imagine the results page, instead of being long and linear, and having ten results on the page that you can scroll through to having ten very heterogeneous results, where we show each of those results in a form that really suits their medium, and in a more condensed format.
The common theme, it seems to me, is aspiring to move beyond relevancy as the metric by which a list of search results is ordered to providing us with information that we can do something with. For that quest, there seems to be two different approaches.
Microsoft’s Director of Product Planning Stefan Weitz also said in an Ars Technica interview with that we’re early in the game of search:
“’We’re not at where we’d like to be,’ Weitz began, and then dove in to explain that people are generally happy with how their search engine is working, until the data shows that they are not.”
So, there seems to be consensus that there’s a lot to do to improve web search. The question is, what does that improvement look like? A blog post by author and industry pundit John Battelle caught my attention:
I describe my frustration with search as it relates to helping me make a complicated decision: How to possibly buy a classic car. From it:
So first, how would I like to decide about my quest to buy a classic car? Well, ideally, I’d have a search application that could automate and process the tedious back and forth required to truly understand what the market looks like. After all, if I’m looking for classic Camaro or Porsche convertibles from the mid to late 1960s, there are only so many of them for sale, and they can be categorized by any number of important variables—price, model, region, color, features, etc. And while a number of sites do a fair job with a portion of the market, I don’t trust any of them to give me a general overview of what’s really out there. That’s where an intelligent search agent can really help.
So here, Battelle hits on the idea of search assisting in complex decisions. And then, from our own Search 2010 series of interviews, usability expert Jakob Nielsen voiced a similar concern:
I think we can see a change maybe being a more of a usefulness relevance ranking. I think there is a tendency now for a lot of not very useful results to be dredged up that happen to be very popular, like Wikipedia and various blogs. They’re not going to be very useful or substantial to people who are trying to solve problems.
In the same series of interviews, I talked to Marissa Mayer about where search may go, and she envisioned a more interactive set of search results:
We will be able to have much more rich interaction with the search results pages. There might be layers of search results pages: take my results and show them on a map, take my results and show them to me on a timeline. It’s basically the ability to interact in a really fast way, and take the results you have and see them in a new light. So I think that that kind of interaction will be possible pretty easily and pretty likely. I think it will be, hopefully, a layout that’s a little bit less linear and text based, even than our search results today and ultimately uses what I call the ‘sea of whiteness’ more in the middle of the page, and lays out in a more information dense way all the information from videos to audio reels to text, and so on and so forth. So if you imagine the results page, instead of being long and linear, and having ten results on the page that you can scroll through to having ten very heterogeneous results, where we show each of those results in a form that really suits their medium, and in a more condensed format.
The common theme, it seems to me, is aspiring to move beyond relevancy as the metric by which a list of search results is ordered to providing us with information that we can do something with. For that quest, there seems to be two different approaches.
Microsoft, with Bing, appears to be favoring Battelle’s “online valet” model—an all-knowing wizard that helps guide us through complex decisions. Indeed, the branding of Bing as a “decision engine” reiterates that aspiration. Bing’s strategy, still in it’s nascent stages, is to pick the categories where complex decisions and the need for more useful information abound: shopping, local, travel and health.
I believe Bing is on the right track, but they’re still are too bound to the typical search format. Even searches in these targeted categories don’t usually deliver a search page that offers substantially more useful results than Google.
I believe Bing is on the right track, but they’re still are too bound to the typical search format. Even searches in these targeted categories don’t usually deliver a search page that offers substantially more useful results than Google.
If the goal of Bing is to be a decision engine, it should rise to the challenge more boldly. For example, I’m thinking of buying a Prius, which, with all the trade-offs between a higher sticker price but potentially lower operating costs certainly qualifies as a complex decision. To echo John Battelle’s wish, I’d love a digital valet to go out and gather all the relevant information and then guide me through it. This is what Bing promises to do. Let’s see how it delivers.
Labels: bing, Google, Microsoft, Search Clinic, search engine marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Friday, November 27, 2009
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Speed- another reminder from Google
Google have given webmasters a strong indication that the speed of your website may become an even bigger organic ranking factor in 2010!
Here’s what Google’s Matt Cutts has to say on the issue:
“A lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast, it should be a good experience and so it’s fair to say if you’re a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus, or if you have an awfully slow site, maybe users don’t want that as much.”
Google already considers page load times as part of the AdWords quality score, so it’s a logical step for this to be included in organic listings too.
While it’s unlikely to have a huge impact on rankings (there are over 200 other factors) it would be a smart decision to prepare for its introduction ahead of time and get your site loading as fast as possible. Here are a couple of tools which can help you get started:
- Google’s Page Speed Tool – This is a firefox plugin from Google that enables you to see which areas of your site need improvement.
- WebPageTest.org – Another speed tool which provides optimization recommendations and other interesting stats.
Labels: Google, online marketing, search engine marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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Monday, November 23, 2009
How you can create a UK Bing local listing
Dr Search has had some questions from our UK readers who pointed out that the Bing local listing center was only accepting US based businesses.
While UK listings were showing in search results, this was sourced from other data providers and it didn’t appear there was any way to get your information included.
Well, thanks to one of our loyal readers, it appears you can! Microsoft gets UK local business listings from a company called Market Location.
Here’s a screenshot from multimap.com (owned by Bing) on how to get your business listed:
All you have to do is simply visit http://www.marketlocation.com/changereq/ and add your details!
There’s been a bit of discussion on the issue over at the Bing community forums, and some readers have confirmed the inclusion of previously unlisted businesses by using the form above.
So if you’ve got a UK business, add your details with the form above and please leave a comment if/ when you get included!
The Search Clinic wishes you Good Luck!
Labels: bing, Dr Search, Search Clinic, search engine marketing, search engines, Search Marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, November 23, 2009
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Tuesday, November 17, 2009
6 ways local URLs beat .com in international SEO
We’ll look at the top six reasons why local domains are for winners and dot coms for runners up.
Dr Search will also attempt to put on record why newbies to the promotion of international sites are seduced by the songs of the dot com siren and how to spot those who have been enchanted away on magical waves of sound.
So here are the six reasons why I believe local domains are the clear winners when trying to promote international sites.
1. Clear unequivocal geo-targeted signal
To own a country code domain or ccTLD (in this article called local domains), you actually need to go and buy them and register with a local authority. As such, the local domain has always represented the best controlled and strictest identifier of a specific geography. There are some exceptions of course, but these are mostly to do with certain domains, such as .tv (the tiny island state of Tuvalu) having found that their particular geography had a gold mine domain name it could use to generate revenue.
On several occasions I have been approached by engineers employed by search engine specifically who were working on geo-targeting of their results. In all cases they have given the local domain as the first and best signal they would look for in determining a local result.
2. Good site architecture
The argument is often put forward that it’s far too expensive to switch an existing dot com website with zillions of pages over to its relevant local domains in the various countries its owners wished to target. It can, of course, be expensive to switch the domain used and this needs to be done with great care.
1. Clear unequivocal geo-targeted signal
To own a country code domain or ccTLD (in this article called local domains), you actually need to go and buy them and register with a local authority. As such, the local domain has always represented the best controlled and strictest identifier of a specific geography. There are some exceptions of course, but these are mostly to do with certain domains, such as .tv (the tiny island state of Tuvalu) having found that their particular geography had a gold mine domain name it could use to generate revenue.
On several occasions I have been approached by engineers employed by search engine specifically who were working on geo-targeting of their results. In all cases they have given the local domain as the first and best signal they would look for in determining a local result.
2. Good site architecture
The argument is often put forward that it’s far too expensive to switch an existing dot com website with zillions of pages over to its relevant local domains in the various countries its owners wished to target. It can, of course, be expensive to switch the domain used and this needs to be done with great care.
However, when corporations calculate the cost of making the change, they tend to give less financial value to the ongoing cost of SEO and of compensating for not having the relevant local domain. This could mean additional local hosting costs or even substantial link building to overcome the inherent disadvantages of the dot com.
Many great SEOs will repeat to you over and over again how important it is to have good site architecture. I’m a firm believer that using local domains for your site is a very good place to start when structuring your site.
3. People generally buy locally
Purist SEOs may not see conversion factors as the most important in recommending which steps a client should take. However, I firmly believe users read URLs in the search engine results and that it has a direct impact on how many of them click on links. Say you’re looking for a “second hand car” and you live in Germany. If you know nothing else about a website, which is most likely to be the most compelling: “secondhandcar.com” or “secondhandcar.de?” To me, it is clearly the latter.
Even beyond the results page, the local domain plays in the mind of the user. “If this is a .de and I live in Munich, then they’re more likely to deliver” is a reasonable conclusion for most folks to draw.
4. Link attractiveness
Having a local domain also helps in your link building programs. Other sites in the same country are much more likely to link to you if you have a local domain. But it’s especially true that they’ll be more interested in receiving links from you if you’re local—after all, they need local links too. Many local directories will only accept local domain names in any case.
5. More powerful internal linking
Links between sites of the same dot com are less valuable, in my view, than links between truly international versions using local domains. So a site which splits its dot com into many countries has an opportunity to reap some benefits from the many different domains it now controls—subject to the normal caveats such as having quality content and offering a good experience to the user.
6. Resistance to the shifting sands of algorithms
I can’t prove this one to you, but after more than a decade of experience I’m convinced that local domain sites tend to be more stable in results than dot coms which move up and down when search engine algorithms change.
Enchantment from the dot com sirens
Why do so many talented SEOs first conclude that dot coms are just as acceptable as local domains when they first start working in the international field? The first issue is that many look at the situation in the UK as a test case for what happens internationally.
Many great SEOs will repeat to you over and over again how important it is to have good site architecture. I’m a firm believer that using local domains for your site is a very good place to start when structuring your site.
3. People generally buy locally
Purist SEOs may not see conversion factors as the most important in recommending which steps a client should take. However, I firmly believe users read URLs in the search engine results and that it has a direct impact on how many of them click on links. Say you’re looking for a “second hand car” and you live in Germany. If you know nothing else about a website, which is most likely to be the most compelling: “secondhandcar.com” or “secondhandcar.de?” To me, it is clearly the latter.
Even beyond the results page, the local domain plays in the mind of the user. “If this is a .de and I live in Munich, then they’re more likely to deliver” is a reasonable conclusion for most folks to draw.
4. Link attractiveness
Having a local domain also helps in your link building programs. Other sites in the same country are much more likely to link to you if you have a local domain. But it’s especially true that they’ll be more interested in receiving links from you if you’re local—after all, they need local links too. Many local directories will only accept local domain names in any case.
5. More powerful internal linking
Links between sites of the same dot com are less valuable, in my view, than links between truly international versions using local domains. So a site which splits its dot com into many countries has an opportunity to reap some benefits from the many different domains it now controls—subject to the normal caveats such as having quality content and offering a good experience to the user.
6. Resistance to the shifting sands of algorithms
I can’t prove this one to you, but after more than a decade of experience I’m convinced that local domain sites tend to be more stable in results than dot coms which move up and down when search engine algorithms change.
Enchantment from the dot com sirens
Why do so many talented SEOs first conclude that dot coms are just as acceptable as local domains when they first start working in the international field? The first issue is that many look at the situation in the UK as a test case for what happens internationally.
This is not a good idea as the UK is a very odd example indeed where US sites are often as acceptable to British folks as home-based UK ones. The balance between .co.uk and dot com in the UK is NOT typical of how it works in the wider world.
Second, the structure of a site’s geo-selector—the method by which countries and languages are chosen—plays a key role in sharing link values around the site. Dot coms have an advantage here,but only because using local domains shows up the poor structure of the geo-selector. With improvement, they will easily overtake the dot com.
The third reason is that SEOs just love research and data. So they head into the search engines and check some keywords and then assess how many dot coms or local domains show-up. I have seen this so many times.
Second, the structure of a site’s geo-selector—the method by which countries and languages are chosen—plays a key role in sharing link values around the site. Dot coms have an advantage here,but only because using local domains shows up the poor structure of the geo-selector. With improvement, they will easily overtake the dot com.
The third reason is that SEOs just love research and data. So they head into the search engines and check some keywords and then assess how many dot coms or local domains show-up. I have seen this so many times.
The problem with this approach is that you would have to check a huge number of keywords to get a sensible result, you’d have to check the correct language keywords and you’d have to work out how competitive the sector is. If it’s relatively uncompetitive—more dot coms will show up. And if you use the wrong keywords… well, that’s a story for another column.
Labels: Dr Search, online marketing, online marketing uk, search engine marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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