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Posts Tagged ‘search’
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011
Google claims Bing is copying its search results. Ouch! That’s a bold claim. Bing responds:
“We use over 1,000 different signals and features in our ranking algorithm,” Bing vice president Harry Shum said Tuesday, referring to the mathematical code that search engines use to choose their results.
I’d be curious to know if any of those signals and features include crawling Google’s search results. If so, that could be a problem. Here’s why I think that’s possible:
Suspicious of their new rival, Google engineers set up random results on their site for a series of unlikely search terms, such as “hiybbprqag.” (Google arranged for the nonsense word to point to a Los Angeles theater seating plan on its search engine.)
“Within a couple weeks of starting this experiment, our inserted results started appearing in Bing,” Google said in a statement on its official blog Tuesday.
Evidently, Google thinks Bing could be doing something underhanded as well. Just looking at this story, it doesn’t look good for Bing.
I think competition is healthy. I certainly think Bing has a right to improve its search results and try almost anything that it thinks may help searchers find the information they are looking for. But if a nonsense search term invented by Google appears in Bing’s search results, that’s a huge red flag. I’m about 99.9999% sure that should never happen.
So why not 100% sure? Well, because of this response from Bing:
Bing gets “a small piece” of the data for its algorithm “from some of our customers, who opt-in to sharing anonymous data as they navigate the web in order to help us improve the experience for all users,” Shum said,
If some anonymous Google employee submitted the nonsense search result to Bing in hopes that it might make the company look bad, then that would be on Google. That would certainly be unfair and nefarious. Is that what happened? It’s possible given that Bing does allow for anonymous data sharing by its customers. If I were Google, I’d want to know just how Bing got that search result in its own results. If I were Bing, I’d definitely want to make sure the problem isn’t with my own internal processes. Both companies have a reason to ensure the truth comes out on this one.
Tags: bing, google, search, search results
Posted in search engines | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010
SEOBook has an interesting blog post about the future of SEO, focused only on Google. The premise of the post is that SEOs should not focus on Google’s past, but on where Google is headed. That, of course, is great advice. Unfortunately, the post ends with
The changes come around the edges, especially for big companies like Google. There is a lot of risk to Google in making radical changes. Shareholders don’t like it. Why risk breaking something that makes so much money, and is so popular?
In other words, the future is going to be pretty much like the past. Should we celebrate?
Despite the underhanded criticism, I think PeterD is right on the money about some things. The future of search is local. And I think, to a certain degree, mobile – though Peter didn’t say that. What he did say is you’ve got to be where your users are. I take that to mean off site. So let’s narrow down the future of search to three things:
Small businesses in the future will make most of their SEO strides in local search. A subset of local will be mobile. Your users will want to find you on the go, and if you do search right they will. But you should also be prepared to meet your audience at Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and any other place off of your website that you think they may hang out. It’s won’t be much different than it is right now.
Tags: google, search, SEO
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
Ask.com has reported that it is leaving the search engine wars and taking up Q&A. Just as well. They were losing the war. BAD!
So what does this really mean? I don’t see this decision really affecting any of the other search engines in terms of market share or how they approach search. Do you?
The real answer to the question “what does this really mean?” is: It depends on how Ask.com implements its next phase of operation. Does it mean that Ask.com will now focus its efforts on Answers.Ask.com, or is something else going to happen instead? Let’s look to the Ask.com blog for clues.
We know that receiving answers to questions is why Ask.com users come to the site, and we are now serving them in everything we do. ?
OK, so Ask.com knows its audience. That doesn’t surprise me. However, simply stating that they plan to serve their customers in everything they do doesn’t really answer the question. Wouldn’t we expect that?
Ah, but what about this?
Unfortunately, this absolute focus means that we need to stop investing in things outside of providing users with the best answers, including making the huge capital investment required to support algorithmic web search development. This investment in independent web search is not required by our strategy, nor is it required in the marketplace. We have access to multiple third party structured and unstructured data feeds that, when integrated, can provide a web search experience on par with what we are able to produce internally, at much lower costs.
The emphasis above is mine. What this sounds like to me is that Ask.com is planning to become an aggregator. Will they just use other websites to provide answers to questions that people ask? If so, that will be an interesting thing to see.
There are already plenty of aggregators on the Internet, but what about aggregators that use data feeds to answer questions? Would it work? Do you think that’s where Ask.com is headed? Would you use it if it were?
Tags: search, search engine
Posted in search engines | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010
There is one simple way for most small businesses to increase their prospects for achieving high search rankings. It’s called geotargeting. And it can be practiced by almost any industry anywhere.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting that you should geotarget every page on your website if you are a business that targets globally. That might be self defeating in some cases. However, if you are a local small business trying to reach people in your own region then geotargeting is a must.
Let’s do some comparisons for market intelligence purposes:
- I performed a Google search for auto mechanic and Google returned 6,970,000 results; I added Minneapolis to the same search query and got 527,000 results; when Los Angeles was added I got 326,000 results.
- Next, I searched for florists and got 14,400,000 results; I added Dallas to the search query and Google returned 1,130,000 results; for Miami I received 923,000 results.
- On a search for supermarkets I got 14,300,000 results; I added Manhattan to the search query and the results were narrowed to 498,000; then I changed Manhattan to Topeka and received 1,670,000 results; finally, I searched for supermarkets in hanover pa. and found 39,000 results.
So what’s the point? Notice that in each instance where a geotargeted place name was used the search results were narrower and fewer in number. That means your competition is less stiff for the geotargeted search phrases. Where there is less competition there is a greater chance of success.
Of course, you still have to follow the principles of good SEO, but if you do that and use geotargeted search terms with your most important key phrases then you’ll increase your chances of getting good search results for the phrases that you want to target. That will likely also lead to more business and that’s what you really want, isn’t it?
Tags: search, small business
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 2 Comments »
Friday, October 8th, 2010
UK search professional Patrick Altoft wrote a blog post saying that Google was testing full page previews in search results. I tried to corroborate his story with a U.S.-based report, hopefully from one of the many top-tier SEO experts who blog. The closest I came was this report from TechCrunch.
Two other sources that have written about this so far are ReadWriteWeb and Business Insider.
Note that all three of these sources are news sources, not practicting SEOs. There are a few more lesser known news sources that have reported on this as well. But all of the online news websites that have written about this point back to Patrick Altoft and offer no new insight.
So what’s going on here? It’s strange that no U.S. SEOs are reporting on this while only one UK-based SEO has discovered it and written about it. You’d think that if this were really happening then it would be all over the Web. But if you’ll read down the comments on Patrick Altoft’s blog then you’ll find this little gem:
Christian this was on google.co.uk I tried google.com but couldn’t see it.
That was Patrick Altoft responding to a reader question about the test appearing in the U.S. Evidently, this is a test that only took place in the UK, which makes me wonder how often Google conducts such tests. Do they ever test in Australia and nowhere else? How about Asia? Is this a common practice for Google to test new search features overseas but not in the U.S.?
What’s your take?
Tags: google, search
Posted in search engines | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
Chris Crum of WebProNews just made a bold statement: Facebook Likes Just Officially Became More Important to Search.
In actuality, he may not be far from the truth and his article brings out some very interesting and thought-provoking points, namely,
- There is a more direct connection between Facebook Likes and search.
- Facebook has something going for it that search engines don’t – content can go viral.
- Likes are easier to get than links.
- Most Facebook users are not bloggers, therefore getting to them click a Like button is easier than getting them to link to you.
- If people use the Facebook search feature and see relevant content then they will use the search feature more often.
- Can Facebook compete with PayPal? Imagine being able to make a purchase just by logging in to Facebook instead of filling out a long form every time they want to buy something online.
OK, some of that is still a ways off – like the Facebook log-in for purchases – but it’s not farfetched. I can see all of these developments taking place and they have the potential to make Facebook the most important web property online – even more important than Google.
Specifically, however, Facebook search could become more important than Google search if Facebookers start looking for relevant information through the social site and finding it. That will only happen if Likes are linked to search and Facebookers know this. I guess we’ll just have to keep an eye on it and see what happens.
Tags: facebook, search
Posted in Social Media | 1 Comment »
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
John Battelle is proud of the fact that he predicted Bing would surpass Yahoo! as the No. 2 search engine. OK, one point for John Battelle.
Dear John, that’s not really much of a prediction. When you consider that Yahoo! has been on the downward slide for about two years now and that it’s been public knowledge for most of that time that Bing would be taking over their search functionality, well, that kinda spells it out for us, doesn’t it?
Of course, no one could predicted exactly when Bing would pass Yahoo!, but I think all of us with an eye on the search industry have seen it coming.
So what’s the big news? According to Nielsen, Bing now has 13.9% of search and Yahoo! has 13.1%. Google is still way ahead at 65.1%. But if you add the Bing and Yahoo! numbers, which I think we should all start doing now, then that spells 27% for the Bing-Yahoo! team. Ask and AOL are still way down the line.
In fact, AOL lost 1.1% of its share of search (to Bing) and I think we might just go ahead and expect AOL to bow out gracefully. It’s not really a search engine anyway. It’s an aggregator and always has been. But fewer and fewer people are using AOL and I think that will continue to be a trend. Who will pick up those users? Probably Bing.
What do you think? Will Bing ever be a true competitor with Google?
Tags: bing, google, search
Posted in search engines | 1 Comment »
Sunday, September 12th, 2010
One of the benefits that Google has claimed for its new product Google Instant is that it will save you time on searches. But will it?
Let’s review what Google Instant is exactly. Google Instant is Google’s new algorithmic innovation that delivers results to you as you type them in, which means you no longer have to wait until after you’ve typed in your search results to see what they are.
There are some definite benefits to this search feature. No. 1 of those is that there is huge potential to save some time on searches. Google claims you’ll save a few seconds for each search. However, you could end up spending more time searching. Here’s how.
Let’s say you want to find an auto mechanic near where you live in Chicago, Illinois. You type in “Auto” and you see a drop down menu of results that includes “autotrader”, “autozone”, “auto zone” and “auto locator”. Not seeing anything close to what you are looking for, you decide to keep typing. You type in the letter “m” and see another menu; it’s changed. Back up, you need a space between the “o” and the “m”. There’s another menu, which starts with “auto meter”, “auto museum” and a few other results. At the bottom you see “auto mechanic” so you click it.
Of course, you get a list of search results showing you auto mechanics. But are they all local? Chances are you’ll see a 7-pack or 3-pack Google Maps result. Maybe some of those are close to you and maybe some are not. But you don’t see any auto mechanics that are close to your neighborhood in Chicago. Back to the search drawing board.
This time you type in “chi” after “auto mechanic” and you get a narrower list of results. Did you save time? Maybe.
But what if what you are searching for is a bit more complex than auto mechanics? If you keep clicking on potential results in your drop down box while typing in search queries there may actually be a loss of time. Is that good?
We can discuss whether you’ll save or lose time on your searches, but from a business perspective, will Google Instant deliver you more traffic? I think it could. But you may have to tweak your SEO a bit. What do you think? Will you see more traffic as a result of Google Instant?
Tags: google, search
Posted in search engines | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
According to a report by Chitika, Bing has passed Yahoo! as the No. 2 search provider in the U.S. Google still holds No. 1 with more than 80% of all searches.
This isn’t really that a big a deal. Since Bing is taking over Yahoo!s search technology anyway, and that move should be finished by the end of this month, it really just means that Bing can count more searches in its share than it could before. With Bing holding onto 11% of the searches made in July and Yahoo! at 6%, that means the No. 2 search engine has the lion’s share of the 19% of search share that Google doesn’t have with a total of 17% of the complete pie.
Bing really passed Yahoo! in January of this year when it garnered more than 7% of search and Yahoo had just over 6%. Google at that time had 83.59%. Since then, it seems, Bing has taken a couple of percentage points away from Google. Now the question remains: Can Bing take any more search share from Google?
It will be a long road uphill for Bing, but I wouldn’t say it’s impossible. What do you think?
Tags: bing, google, search
Posted in search engines | 1 Comment »
Monday, August 16th, 2010
It’s interesting watching developments in emerging markets like search and social media. For the past decade Google has dominated search and has just grown its market share more and more while its competition has declined. It just hasn’t seemed possible that anyone could catch up. Then, enter Facebook.
Facebook and Google have not exactly been competitors. But, technically, they are.
Google is a search engine. Facebook is a social media platform. Its growth into one of the largest and most trafficked websites online is itself an extraordinary success story. As is Google’s. Even though these two companies appeal to their respective users in very different ways, they can be considered competitors in one very important respect. They compete for traffic.
You could also say they compete for advertisers. After all, advertisers want to spend their money where the greatest hope of success is. Generally, that means where the people are. Traffic.
In Facebook’s case, however, that hasn’t exactly proven to be a huge feather in the cap. Google AdWords is still the No. 1 choice for online advertisers, which makes Facebook’s recent acquisition of Chai Labs an extraordinary event.
Google has had so many acquisitions that not many people even notice them any more. And no acquisition has taken the company from its emphasis on search, which is a good thing. But Facebook has not made a habit of adding new companies to its portfolio. The fact that one of its first acquisitions is a search technology provider means that Facebook is planning to enter into Google’s domain – and it’s just as well since Google has entered into Facebook’s a number of times. The question before Facebook today is whether it can take a purchase like Chai Labs and churn it into a public offering that will help it to rival Google in the one area where Google has excelled better than anyone else? Can Facebook become a search monolith without compromising its ability to provide a social platform?
Tags: facebook, search, Social Media
Posted in Social Media, search engines | No Comments »
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