Search Trends - Search Engine Marketing

A seller of online marketing tools said on Wednesday it sued Google Inc., charging that the Web search giant has failed to protect users of its advertising program from "click fraud," costing them at least $5 million.

Click Defense Inc. filed its lawsuit, which also seeks class action status, on June 24 in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California.

Reuters Article

This should be filed under the "obvious news but I'll say it anyway" category, but here goes: According to a Media Post article, WebSideStory released current figures for search engine referrals for all the sites using their web analytics software and found that Google now accounts for 52 percent of all search referrals in the U.S. Yahoo accounts for about 25 percent and MSN came in at just 10 percent. Apparently those Google numbers include AOL, because I didn't see AOL mentioned anywhere else.

Those numbers are a little different, but not too far off of the ComScore numbers I saw quoted in a recent OMMA Magazine:
Google/AOL: 45.3%, Yahoo: 30.5%, MSN: 16.5%, Ask Jeeves: 5.5%

Another very interesting figure from the press release is that although Google clearly dominates U.S. traffic sources, Google actually brings in over 90 percent of the total search traffic in some countries! (Germany in particular).

Andy hit the nail on the head with his comments about Ballmer's recent statement that MSN Search will match Google's relevancy within 6 months. Besides the fact that relevancy is so difficult to measure, the search engines have reached a point where relevancy isn't really the issue anymore. All three major search engines give a set of results that are essentially of equal relevance. At this point, it's just a matter of marketing. It's a matter of either delivering something to your search engine users that differentiates you from the other guys. It's a matter of some kind of perceived advantage that your search engine has over the others. Everybody uses Google because they're in the habit. If you ask a typical Google user, they'll say it's the best search engine, but they probably don't use the others enough to really compare. The barrier that MSN needs to break isn't one of relevance, it's one of percieved relevance and quality that exceeds the other available choices. I think that's why Microsoft keeps making public statements like this. Even though nobody believes them, they're hoping that if they keep saying they are going to "catch" Google in terms of relevancy, index size, or whatever, one day people will give them a try and realize that their search engine's not so bad after all. A few might even like it so much it becomes their new favorite. It's all just PR and marketing. The irony is that MSN tries so hard to be cool, and they probably never will be. Google's become cool without even trying (or at least without looking like they were trying).

Dominic made a great comment over on ThreadWatch that a big part of MSN's branding problem lies in the fact that MSN Search is a stale, boring name. Why not rebrand it as something cooler? Nobody had heard of a Google until a few years ago, but now it's one of he world's strongest brands. Why not make up a cool sounding word for their search, how about MSN Zuppyzip? Or SqiggleSearch? Or PowerSocket? Or Zinger? Or Xenozip? O.k. those are pretty bad, but given some time and brainstorming, I'm sure they could come up with something more interesting than MSN Search.

Google unveiled a new personalized search feature through Google Labs. It's not 100% clear how it works, but apparently it uses a profile of basic interests that the user creates to customize the results by relevancy to the users' interests. I'm not sure how well it will actually work in a practical day-to-day search environment, but the concept is definitely interesting. It could have some practical applications. I like how it has the sliding meter that lets you personalize the results more or less depending on just how personalized you want the results to be. It also has a little graphic to show you which results are intermingled with the "normal" search results. Some search queries I attempted yielded no personalized results. It said there's not personalized results available, but it gave the option to edit my profile.

http://www.labs.google.com/personalized

I noticed that Patrick Gavin and Andy Hagans over at Text Link Ads have set up a new blog about link building - it's appropriately called the Link Building Blog. It's brand new, but looks like it will be a good source of insight into link building. I met Patrick at the WMW conference last fall. He's a great guy and knows his stuff when it comes to links. I've never met Andy, but he seems to know a lot about link building. He's been a link specialist for a long time and is now working for TextLinkAds. It appears to be Andy who will be doing most of the posting on that blog, with an occasional post from Patrick. I'll be watching to see what kind of knowledge they impart. The beauty of blogs is that you can get real experts giving out free tips and info that they wouldn't have dreamed of giving out for free 5 years ago. The desire to be a hot, cutting edge blog facilitates the flow of knowlege, which turns out to be great for all of us.

I think it's pretty obvious to all of us how much life has changed since the advent of the Internet. It has completely changed the way we communicate nnd especially changed how we access and share information. There was a CNN article on Friday about how life has changed with the Internet. It really has changed in ways I never could have imangined. I think we will continue to see some incredible changes as these kids from the "Internet Generation" start to enter the workforce. Internet usage will continue to grow, but more importantly, access will become ubiquitous and we will see applications that are beyond our wildest imagination. My feeling is that we are still on the front end of the Internet evolution, so all I can say is hang on, we're in for a wild ride.

Unfortunately I didn't make it down to New Orleans for the WebmasterWorld conference this time, so I'll have to settle for Rustybrick's coverage of the event over on Search Engine Roundtable. Here are a few of the topics covered so far:

Search Engines and Webmasters (always a good one)

Linking on a Dime

Super Session - Organic SEO or Die

Local Search - Issues and Opportunities

Writing for the Search Engines

Contextual Advertising Program Issues

Or see: Full list of topics covered

I found a nice list of Marketing & Advertising blogs over at Adverblog. This is good stuff that includes some of my favorite search marketing blog, but goes way beyond search into other areas of marketing and advertising.

Thanks to threadwatch for the tip.

I've been busy trying to catch up after my vacation, so I'm a couple days late noticing this one, but thought I'd mention it anyway. A couple days ago, Tim Mayer at Yahoo announced that they'd be updating the index with more pages and an updated algorithm. I like how Yahoo has taken the lead in being more up front with webmasters and SEOs about their updates. We always notice when the changes happen anyway, so they might as well at least play nice by giving us a warning. Of course, there's nothing we can do about the changes anyway, but it's sort of nice to hear about changes in search algorithms straight from the horse's mouth. Anyway, I guess the changes have already happened, although I haven't noticed a lot of changes for my sites so far.

I was so glad to hear that Brennan Hawkins was found alive and well. It seems like all too often those types of missing child stories don't have such a happy ending. Congratulations to the Hawkins family and to Brennan for surviving and making it home!

An interesting side note related to search engine marketing, I noticed a website, findbrennan.org, which shows up #1 in Google for "Brennan Hawkins" Below that site are mostly relevant news articles from the local and national media.

The interesting thing is that that domain name was just registered on June 18th--obviously sometime soon after Brennan had gone missing. Three days later the site is not only indexed by Google, but it is showing up in the #1 spot. Granted, there's probably not a lot of competition for Brennan's name, but it still goes to show you how quickly a website can show up under certain circumstances. I noticed several links to that site from various news articles, which undoubtably played a major part in the site being noticed and ranked where it is. The FindBrennan.org site was linked from the homepage of nearly all the local news media and even some national media. It goes to show you what high quality links can do for a site in a very short period of time.

The domain was registered (and presumably set up and run) by Jesse Fisher of WebPromo in Salem, Utah. I don't know if he knew the family or just volunteered to help with the website. All the exposure the site's gotten might benefit Jesse in some way, but I don't think that was necessarily the intention of the site. It was clearly built as a useful means of communication regarding the status of the search for Brennan. Now that the search for Brennan is over, what will come of the site? Who knows, but thank goodness he was found!

According to an eWeek report, Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed the rumors that they are developing the new Google Wallet payment system. However, he denied that it will compete with PayPal, saying it is a different type of service alltogether. Here's a quote from his official statement:

"The payment services we are working on are a natural evolution of Google's existing online products and advertising programs, which today connect millions of consumers and advertisers," Schmidt said in the statement. "We are building products in the area to solve new problems in e-commerce."

Even though he says it is not designed to compete with PayPal, I can't help but wonder if will eventually expand to the point where it could effectively replace PayPal, even though it is a "different type of service". Only time will tell.

I'm a junkie for any kind of hard numbers related to search engine usage. It's always interesting to see what people come up with when it comes to which search engines people are using, how often they search, etc.

iCrossing and Harris Interactive recently did a study that 51% of online adults use a search engine when shopping for a product online. About half of them say they're shopping to eventually purchase at a local retail store.

Another interesting finding from the study: 56% of resondents didn't know the difference between the organic and paid search results. I wonder if people will ever figure that one out. 44% understand the difference, which seems pretty high compared to what I've seen quoted in other studies, but it's still amazing how few people really understand the difference. I don't know how much of that is the search engines' fault and how much is just due to ignorant web surfers.

Read more on Internet Retailer

MSN debuted its version of local search as a search option on the main search page.

I hadn't used MSN local or "near me" search much before, but after a few quick tests, it looks like it does a good job finding relevant results that are actually local to where I'm searching. I'm impressed by what I've seen so far. The web results are even more relevant than the local directory results in my preliminary searches, but it probably varies depending what you're searching on.

Clickz article about MSN local search

Word on the Net is that Google is creating "Google Wallet", which could potentially rival eBay's PayPal system, which has become the defacto standard for auction payments as well as many other online transactions. I read somewhere that PayPal fees account for something like 23% of eBay's revenue. Keep an eye on eBay's stock price with the news (or rumors) being circulated.

More from SEO Roundtable

I made it home alive from vacation. It wasn't the tsunami scare that almost killed me. It was all the activities, like bodyboarding, Sea World, Disneyland, tide pools, swimming, and rescuing my two-year old from the waves. That and the 12 hour drive each way. It's good to be home. I'll try to get back to writing about search engine related issues on Monday. For now, have a great weekend. I'll be wading through the hundreds of emails that piled up while I was gone.

I'm on vacation this week, so there won't be a lot of activity on this blog. Sorry, but the beach is more fun than blogging about SEO. It doesn't look like much is going on in the world of search engine marketing, anyway--well, there's always something going on, but nothing too earth shaking so far this week.

Just a couple quick things:

I noticed that Google is displaying Google Local results when you search on certain keywords and include names of cities. They might have been doing this for a while, but I hadn't noticed until I was doing some research for this vacation. Here's an example of a search for an Oceanside California Restaurant. I'm sure there are a lot of other searches that will pull up the local results, but that's one I saw it on.

The other thing I noticed today that I found interesting was Search Engine Watch's comparison of Google News vs. Yahoo News for stories related to the Michael Jackson verdict. Yahoo's human-powered news search came out on top on this one.

That's all for today. I've got some waves to catch. Laters dudes.

I check my email several times a day when I'm at work. I wouldn't consider myself obsessed with checking it, but it's my primary means of communication, so I try to stay connected with my friends, family, clients, etc. When I leave work, I don't usually worry too much about my email, although I can also check email from home or on the road if I need to. Here's a summary of a report from eMarketer:

In partnership with Opinion Research Corporation, America Online conducted online surveys with over 4,000 people over 18 in 20 cities across the country. They asked Americans about their e-mail habits, with the stress on "habit." The survey found that users rely on e-mail as much as the phone for communication, spend about an hour a day on e-mail and that 77% of them have more than one e-mail account. Does that mean they are hooked?

The survey shows:

* 41% of Americans check e-mail first thing in the morning
* 18% check e-mail right after dinner
* 14% check e-mail right when they get home from work
* 14% check e-mail right before they go to bed
* 40% of e-mail users have checked their e-mail in the middle of the night

More than one in four (26%) of us say we can't go more than two to three days without checking our e-mail. And we check it everywhere.

* In bed (23%)
* In class (12%)
* In a business meeting (8%)
* At a Wi-Fi hotspot (6%)
* At the beach or pool (6%)
* In the bathroom (4%)
* While driving (4%)
* In church (1%)

And we check personal e-mail on the job. A lot. The survey found that 61% of e-mail users who are employed outside the home check their personal e-mail at work, three times a day on the average.

* 47% check personal e-mail at work
* 47% check it sporadically throughout the day
* 25% check it first thing when they arrive at work
* 18% check it at lunchtime
* 8% during an afternoon break
* 2% right before heading home

Yeah, I think it's safe to say we are obsessed with email. Not everyone is obsessed with email, but neither is everyone obsessed with answering the telephone, but on the whole, we really, really, really need our email. My personal favorite is the 1% who check email at church.

Google has recently conducted a pretty extensive survey of busines-to-business buyers to determine where they research products and services to purchase. It's anecdotal that search engines carry the brunt of the research work these days, but this report should cement that in the minds of B2B businesses, hopefully helping them realize the importace of being listed at the top of the search engines.

Reported by MediaPost: During the research phase, according to the study, respondents use search 30 percent more frequently than print magazines and trade publications, the second-most often-used source. In the consideration and comparison phase, search engines were used 21 percent more often than trade publications and magazines, which were again the second-most used source, and five times more often than e-mail newsletters, which were the least-often used. And in the purchase stage of the buying process, search engines were used by 21 percent of buyers as their primary resource, with trade publications, content Web sites, and trade shows trailing at roughly 13 percent each.

The study, entitled "The Importance of Search in the Business Technology Purchase Process," was conducted in March and April of this year, and was performed by Millward Brown, which surveyed 900 people involved in corporate technology buying decisions. The study took into account both paid listings and information provided in the natural results.

MediaPost said in their article that the study was "unveiled", although I haven't seen any official press rlease from Google, nor have I seen the actual report or specific data anywhere just yet. I'll keep an eye out for the actual report and provide a link when I find it.

On Friday, Google announced a new experiement they call Google Sitemaps. Essentially, it's an xml datafeed that you provide for Google to know about every page of your site that you want indexed by Google. It sounds similar to a Froogle feed or even Yahoo's paid inclusion program. I can't help but wonder if it's Google's way of tyring to undercut that revenue stream from Yahoo by offering the same service for free. Google has designed this to be a new protocol that they're hoping will be adopted by all webservers and search engines. To use the new service from Google, you need to have an account with Google and you can submit sitemaps.

I think it's a great idea, and it will be interesting to see how this little experiment plays out. I'm sure there are those out there who will try to abuse this system like they do everything else, but if Google has good checks in place to catch cheaters, they can simply deactivate their accounts and/or remove the offending site maps. It could potentially be very good for webmasters who will get more of their web pages indexed, and of course Google, who will increase the size of its searchable index.

More about it from an interview by Danny Sullivan

I've been doing search engine marketing here in Utah for over seven years. Over that time I've come to realize that a lot of Utah companies don't really have a clue about online marketing, and especially don't understand search engine marketing. We recently did a study of the top 100 private companies in Utah, and found that an alarming number of them don't show up in the first 30 search results (first 3 pages) for their keywords in Google, Yahoo, or MSN. There were 82 percent that don't show up for their keywords in MSN, 79 percent didn't show up in Yahoo and 71 percent don't show up in Google. Only 7 percent of these companies' websites show up in the first page in Google for their keywords. I was amazed to see that 15% of the companies studied didn't even show up for their exact name!

We were looking primarily at the natural, or unpaid search listings for this study. We did note whenever we saw a company who was showing up in the sponsored listings, however, and only found 6 out of the 100 companies that were using Google Adwords or Yahoo Sponsored Search (formerly known as Overture). It is likely that other companies do some keyword advertising for keywords that are different than the ones we checked, but that wasn't really the purpose of this study anyway. It was focused more on the natural search listings.

My overall impression is that the lack of good search engine placement by these companies is not primarily due to competition from other sites. It appears to be due mainly to a lack of proper website optimization, incoming links with link text, etc. Essentially it is because of a lack of understanding basic search engine optimization principles.

We are located in Utah, which is why we chose to look at the top private companies in Utah, but I assume the results would be similar elsewhere. Search is very hot right now, but people don't really understand it. There is a huge market of people who are searching for products, services, and everything else. These customers are often ready to buy, it's just a matter of getting in those search results so the customer can choose to do business with you.