23 Musings

Now I've just been proved totally wrong. I wrote a while ago that paid search budgets may actually start decreasing (slightly) or stagnating by the end of 2007 in travel as marketers got their heads around affiliates, other new behavioral ways of marketing online and moved back to seeing the huge value in SEO. Also a backlash against paying per click has been expected for some time as marketers try to get everything measurable on a CPA basis.

Seems that's not the case though. Robin Goad of Hitwise has a post which talks about some paid and organic search trends in travel and shopping sites through 2007. One really interesting chart shows that the Hitwise Shopping & Classifieds categories paid search activity actually decreased in 2007 compared to 2006. Travel on the other hand grew by 15-20% during the final three months of the year.

Also, there a great chart showing the trend for paid search traffic to the two categories from late 2006 to the end of 2007.Interesting dip around July 2007 there. Anyone hazard a guess at what that may be? I know it's not the busiest month of the year but that's a hefty drop in paid search spend.

Eye tracking company Enquiro Research has produced a report (sponsored by Google no less) which shows the importance for brands to be well represented at the top of both natural and paid search listings.

They say 'There is significant correlation between brands’ appearing in the top organic search and sponsored placements and consumer brand affinity, recall and purchase intent'. Well that's pretty obvious, but it's always nice to have these concepts validated by eye tracking (something that I place great value in as an insight and usability tool).

The most interesting findings are:

This shows that there is definite brand affinity and recall to be gained by being well positioned and using the brand name in your listings. Good advice for travel companies with January coming, I see so many travel listings that are just a destination name and no brand mention at all.

The full report can be found here.

I posted the other day surmising whether Yahoo is catching up in search based on some new metrics from Compete. The general feel from that post was that they weren't really and the numbers were questionable in value.

So, what should I see this morning? New, useful features in Yahoo's main search interface, the kind of features that make search a whole lot less painful for users and add a lot of value, helping users to target searches more effectively.

The first thing I noticed was that they have integrated images from Flickr and also playable videos, kind of like Google's universal search idea and equally as useful to the user. So if you search for a music artist (eg. Unkle) you should get images and video in the results along with useful additions such as links to albums, lyrics, photos and more videos. Next I did a search for a hotel (eg. 'hudson hotel new york') in New York (being the online travel buff that I am) and the top result in this case was a Yahoo Local listing for the hotel complete with map links, again extremely useful (although possibly doing themselves out of a small amount of ad revenue here). Another cool feature is the inclusion of custom results for searches such as health related (eg. 'lyme disease'), quick easy access to relevant info is the killer in search and here Yahoo have it spot on.

And then there's the biggest and most useful addition, and it's an addition that Google haven't yet implemented... It's an AJAX based search assistant panel that appears if it senses you hesitate while typing a search query. It works as an auto-complete assistant and also a guided search tool as it will both try to guess what you were typing and give you suggestions as well. This is extremely powerful and really makes search easier for the user. It also adds a lot of value to advertisers as it should mean more qualified clicks on paid search results as the searches are better informed.

I'm actually really surprised this has come out of Yahoo first, I've been waiting for Google to implement something like this for a while now but for once Yahoo have the upper hand. Now all they need to do is sort out the problems with their paid search results (relevancy, gaming etc), fix their algorithms for natural search and improve the interface and they could become my search engine of choice!

Okay, so Google are still miles ahead on market share in the search world. Below is the latest graph from Compete.com showing just how commanding a lead they have.
However, Compete have some interesting insight into quality rather than reach. Quality in search is rarely discussed and whenever it has been Google has always been assumed to be in the lead there as well due to their massive research and development capabilities.

That may be the wrong assumption though!

Compete have looked at a metric they call search fulfillment. They came up with this because even though there are many searches taking place on the major engines, not all result in a click on a result and a referral. In fact, according to their data out of approx 7.5 billion monthly searches only 5 billion result in a referral.

So, if Google looks like the leader from a search volume point of view, how about from a fulfillment point of view. The graph below shows an interesting picture...
So Google is not getting the referrals the volume suggests it should.

Yahoo seems to do really well from this which I find strange as the relevancy of results in Yahoo never seems as good to me as Google. Of course there are many other possible reasons for this, a couple being that the figures may exclude clicks on paid links and that Google returns much more useful snippets in the results than any other engine often negating the need to click through.

Of course Google's figures could be vastly inflated by all the agency types, SEO's and webmasters out there who perform daily searches to check their sites rankings without ever clicking on anything. It would be really interesting to understand those volumes!

In a rare move, CNet News has managed to get frank explanations of privacy policies from the major search engines AOL, Ask.com, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

CNet sent the engines a survey and the responses are published here.

Google's Webmaster Central blog has an interesting post detailing their position with regards to the practice of creating startpages. Startpages are webpages with a lot of links about a specific topic. The startpages are hosted on a startpage domain and each separate startpage is maintained by an individual webmaster. The links on startpages are usually ordered by categories related to the topic of the page.

Great! They're useful starting points on the web containing a load of links and content relevant to what you are looking for.

But, can this practice be misused to spam search engines? Yes, of course it can. Create yourself a load of startpages with links into your own websites and services, make them keyword rich and highly optimised for search engine crawlers. There you go, a load of doorway pages which don't sit on your own domain and therefore don't get looked on as SEO spam.

A winning formula for unethical SEO's everywhere. This practice already exists and I'm amazed that Google hasn't taken the opportunity to frown upon this practice in this article on their blog! They do mention that link farms are against their guidelines, but no mention of whether they'll be looking to filter them out or not.

Most savvy web folk will know better than to try that, but there are bound to be some who will see Google's endorsement of startpages as a sign that they can try some less ethical practices to gain traffic and SEO link equity.

Google has retained its status as the top search engine in the US, logging more than half of all search queries last month.

comScore recorded 7.6 billion search queries in May, 3.9 billion of which were made from Google, giving the search engine a 50.7% market share.

That's a one per cent increase from April, when Google claimed a 49.7% market share, and an increase of more than three per cent since the start of 2007.

Google was also the only search engine among the top five to gain market share last month. Yahoo saw its market share drop from 26.8% to 26.4%. Microsoft remained static at 10.3%

Okay, take a look at the posts below and you'll see I haven't gone a day without... Altsearchengines, a blog aiming to encourage users to step outside the top 5 engines comfort zone is encouraging users not to use the big 5 today.

Their rules:

1. All day Tuesday, June 12th, don’t use any of the 5 major search engines.

2. Avoid Meta search engines, since most of them include the major search engines. (for this day only! Meta search engines are important; see the Great Debate Tuesday night!)

3. Likewise, the specialized vertical search engines may be too narrowly focused. (for this day only. It’s the vertical search engines that usually search the best; within their niche.)

4. Consider changing your homepage or downloading their toolbar. You can always uninstall everything and change back on Wednesday.

5. On Wednesday, leave a detailed comment under this post and share your experience with the rest of us. Which alt search engine did you chose? How would you rate the experience? (if you want to comment go here)

So if you're looking for an alternative here's the top 100:

50matches.com [HM] www.50matches.com
Accoona www.accoona.com
AfterVote {SEM} www.aftervote.com
Agent 55 www.agent55.com
Allth.at www.allth.at
Answers.com www.answers.com
Audiobaba www.audiobaba.com
Blabline www.blabline.com
blinkx www.blinkx.com
Blogdigger [HM] www.blogdigger.com
Bookmach www.bookmach.com
btbot www.btbot.com
CatchTomorrow www.catchtomorrow.com
ChaCha {#1 2006} www.chacha.com
ClipBlast! www.clipblast.com
Cognitionsearch www.cognitionsearch.com
Collarity www.collarity.com
Compete www.compete.com
Congoo www.congoo.com
CrossEngine www.crossengine.com
Cydral en.cydral.com
Decipho www.decipho.com
Deligio [HM] www.deligio.com
eTools.ch www.etools.ch
Exalead www.exalead.com
Factbites www.factbites.com
Faroo faroo.com
FeedMiner www.feedminer.com
Feedster ww.feedster.com
FindSounds [HM] www.findsounds.com
Fisssh! www.fisssh.com
FyberSearch www.fybersearch.com
GameSkoot www.gameskoot.com
GenieKnows (Games) www.genieknows.com
Gigablast www.gigablast.com
GoPubMed www.gopubmed.com
GoshMe {SEM} www.goshme.com
gravee www.gravee.com
Grokker www.grokker.com
Hakia www.hakia.com
Healthline www.healthline.com
iBoogie www.iboogie.com
Icerocket www.icerocket.com
indeed www.indeed.com
ixquick [HM] www.ixquick.com
KartOO *SEM* (tie) www.kartoo.com
Knuru www.knuru.com
KoolTorch {SEM} www.kooltorch.com
Kosmix [HM] www.kosmix.com
Krugle www.krugle.com
Ktorrents www.ktorrents.com
lijit [HM] www.lijit.com
Like www.like.com
LivePlasma www.liveplasma.com
Mojeek www.mojeek.com
MP3Realm mp3realm.org
Ms. Freckles www.msfreckles.com/?lang=en
Nayio www.nayio.com
nnseek www.nnseek.com
Nutshell www.nutshell.com
Omgili www.omgili.com
Pagebull www.pagebull.com
Picsearch www.picsearch.com
Pipl pipl.com
Pixsy www.pixsy.com
Pluggd www.pluggd.com
Podnova www.podnova.com
Podzinger www.podzinger.com
Purevideo www.purevideo.com
Quintura *SEM* (tie) www.quintura.com
Quintura Kids kids.quintura.com
Revolutionhealth www.revolutionhealth.com
Searchbots www.searchbots.net
SearchKindly www.searchkindly.com
Searchles www.searchles.com
SearchTheWeb2 www.searchtheweb2.com
SeeIt [HM] www.seeit.com
Serph www.serph.com
Sidekiq www.sidekiq.com
Simply Google www.simplygoogle.com
Simplyhired www.simplyhired.com
Slifter www.slifter.com
Sphere www.sphere.com
Sproose [HM] www.sproose.com
Srchr www.srchr.com
Sugarcode www.sugarcode.com
Surfwax www.surfwax.com
Swamii www.swamii.com
TheFind.com www.thefind.com
Trexy www.trexy.com
Turboscout www.turboscout.com
Twerq www.twerq.com
ViewFour www.viewfour.com
WasaLive en.wasalive.com
Wazap! www.wazap.com
Whonu? [HM] www.whonu.com
WiseNut www.wisenut.com
Wize wize.com
Yoople! www.yoople.com
Zuula www.zuula.com

Apparently search engines are getting better at keeping users away from unsafe websites. Red sites failed the test by McAfee where as yellow should be warning users about the slightly dubious practices they employ.

Here's a great insight into how Google constantly evolves it's search engine algorithm from the New York Times.

Well worth a read if you have time!

Personalised search is going to be big! That's my prediction since I started using the feature on Google recently. It's made a huge difference to the quality and relevance of results I receive and made finding the information that appeals to me a lot easier. The idea of personalised search is that it learns from your searching and clicking habits so it can return results that are more likely to appeal to you. I've found that after a few weeks of use the amount of search engine spam that appears in the top 20 results has dwindled significantly for the majority of searches I perform, that alone is worth switching the feature on for!

So, from a user perspective, personalised search definitely looks like it is a good thing and the more intelligent Google etc can make it the more value it will add to the user experience. But the question I have is how will this impact on companies SEO (search engine optimisation) strategies going forwards?

The idea of a personalised search is that it learns from your queries and the results that you click on so it can return more relevant results to you. Initially, when you switch on personalised search you will get the usual results, ranked according to whatever search engines algorithm you happen to be using at the time. After a short amount of time you'll notice it begin to learn from your habits and present slightly different results. This means that you are overriding the search engine algorithm, but more importantly you are overriding a lot of the SEO efforts made by the site owners. SEO will still be key in bringing you to the top of the results in the initial searches, but as the personalisation kicks in the SEO efforts are going to matter less and less.

So, maybe site owners would be better investing in ensuring their websites are created in well formed code which adhere's to standards rather than link exchanges and copy writing specifically for SEO (as we know, search engines love well formed code)? Possibly... but SEO will still be an important method of ensuring you get good visibility in search engines. The factors that will probably (possibly, this is my supposition) become more important are things like well formed code, quality inbound (and outbound) links, pagerank (of course) and other factors that a good SEO can influence. Keyword density etc may be less important as personalisation takes hold of the web.

Personalised search is only going to get more pervasive as we move to a more intelligent and semantic web so this issue is only going to get more relevant to SEO's. I'd expect to see some new SEO theory emerging in line with the move to more intelligent search. A full-on semantic web however is another article entirely and could throw the whole SEO world upside down very suddenly...

Ask.com is the latest search engine to release a testbed interface to trial new technologies, ideas and try to simplify the task of searching the web for users everywhere.

Askx.com is a much more simplified interface making use of Ajax. It features a three-column layout with the left hand column being used for suggestions for broadening or alternate searches, the middle column featuring both the sponsored and organic search results and the right hand column featuring results from shopping, images and video.

It looks much better than the current Ask.com interface, much slicker and easier to use. The left hand column suggestions are really good, the alternatives are highly relevant to the searches I tested which is a really useful feature especially for research.

So, it looks great, loads quickly, is functional and ultimately useful. Wonder how long it will be till some of the features get pulled into the main Ask.com site.

Yahoo's new paid search advertising system is being offered to new accounts now. Originally it was just offered to exisiting accounts in October.

Yahoo's counting on the new system as a way to grasp some market share back from Google. I believe they need more than just a new system. Simple issues such as preventing people from bidding on tradmark keywords would get Yahoo a lot more love from their advertisers.

However I do feel the main reason Yahoo can't compete with Google on paid search is due to their natural/organic search algorithm being so poor. Users go to search engines to find information, most of that information is found in the natural results so if the natural results are no good..... Without this core audience of searchers the paid results just don't get the volume of clicks and conversions that advertisers want from a pay per click campaign.

Horrifying news today that Britney Spears is still the most searched for thing/person on the internet in 2006 (according to Yahoo)!

Quite why she is so interesting is beyond me, but it certainly shows that her PR firm are doing their job.

Yahoo have a breakdown of the most searched for terms in various categories here, and they've done quite a nice job of visually representing the searches in their interactive version. Also, a nice touch to include Flickr links and some content from Yahoo Answers turning the usually boring year end Buzz Index into something much more mashed up and interesting.

There are so many different social networking sites out there now where users have their own profile pages to tell the world (or just their friends) about themselves but how do you go about finding someone??

Well you could go and search every one of those sites in the vain hope of coming across the person you're looking for. Or you could Google for them and hope that one of their profiles has been indexed in the engines database.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a search engine that focused on finding people rather than things? All search engines at the moment have algorithms tailored to finding information however abstract, not in finding a person or people. I'm surprised Google haven't released a find people option with a slightly different algorithm biased towards people. In this age of information overload it would be a real boon for people searching for friends, old colleagues, prospective employees (imagine the benefits a headhunter could derive from this).

A new service called Spock (currently in beta) is promising to bring people search up to date. I've signed up for the beta, but yet to have an invitation so that's all I can tell you at the moment. I'm hoping it may do everything I've written about above, I'll update as and when I find out more!

The latest to launch a mobile search platform is Ask.com. They're using the Skweezer technology which compresses and optimises web pages for deliver on a mobile device. The service also allows mobile users to dial numbers direct from links although at this stage they are saying it is ad free. That's a surprise considering the recent announcements and progression of mobile pay-per-click/call from the other big search engines!

Of course the use of Skweezer technology means all you webmasters better brush up on your SEO techniques for mobile devices!

Paid search is a highly effective way of getting more people to your site and converting them to sales. The beauty of paid search is that through careful selection of keywords and optimisation of bid limits you can aim your adverts at people at varying points in their purchasing journey. By exploring the metrics and intelligence you gain from running a paid search campaign you can uncover your customers searching habits giving you a really good insight into how they find your products.

We've experienced huge growth in our paid search campaign, but when you delve into the figures you realise that you can be double counting sales from other sources (affiliates, banners, organic search) a lot of the time. This is all good however and as long as you are treating your online marketing activities as a cost of sale (and you're coming within your target limit) then it's working well for you.

There was a time where paid search results were scorned and seen as less trustworthy than the natural results. I would always scan and click organic results and rarely paid any attention to the paid results until that is I started running a paid search campaign myself. It was only then that I realised the value of paid results. Search engine marketing specialists spend a huge amount of time optimising campaigns to get the best results (and conversions) which of course means they are working hard to give the user the most relevant results possible.

In it's infancy, paid search was often something a company felt it had to do, and they most times dabbled in this area without much experience or advice. Nowadays the wealth of search engine marketing agencies add much needed insight and knowledge to campaigns, and as they are working to get you sales (or users, registrations etc) it's in their interests to do the job well.

Figures just released by Performics (a division of DoubleClick) suggest that we could see an increase in online sales of up to 53% this coming holiday season driven by paid search. Of course some of this increase is down to the increased sophistication of tracking and many sales are counted across other sources (affiliates etc again) but this really doesn't matter as it's just demonstrating how important it is to be involved in paid search if you sell a product online.

So it seems that paid search is becoming more trusted by the consumer. It would be really interesting to see figures from a search engine comparing the number of clicks on paid links compared to organic for a number of specific, high volume search terms! In my opinion, even if your website positions highly in organic results, if you have something to sell then you should be in paid too (or your competitors will be).

Paid search is a bit of a hobby of mine so I'll be posting much more on it in the future!