Bing Piggy-Backing off Google’s work

February 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Bing appears to have been piggybacking off Google’s results. Considering Bing historically sucked at serving long tail results, it’s no surprise to see them do whatever they can to return more relevant results. I can’t decide if this is simply a brilliant use of competitive intelligence or laziness, or both.

Other non-search perspectives from Nate Silver of the wonderful political blog 538 (notes how Bing’s “It’s one of 1,000+ signals  we use”, is bogus) and Barry Ritholtz from The Big Picture (says Microsoft has always stolen) are worth a read.

Filed Under: Google, Microsoft

Only Four Scottsdale Internet Marketing Service Providers?

October 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

At least that’s what Google would have you think by only displaying four listings in the serp for ‘internet marketing services scottsdale’.  I was obviously part of some experiment because when I clicked over to page two it showed me ten listings, and then when I went back over to page 1 there were ten listings.  The same top four that appeared in my initial search result were also the top four that appeared when I went back to page one and had ten results.

search result with four listings

If this was rolled out with any level of consistency it would make rank tracking pretty difficult.  I tend to agree with Patrick Altoft in that rankings as we know them are a thing of the past, and now it’s more about the range of rankings you’ll have for a keyword at any given time as pages are constantly being reranked by things such as localization and personalization.

Filed Under: Google

How Effective are Bings Related Searches?

June 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment

A recent post over at the iCrossing blog (disclaimer: I work there) notes that around 3% of all Bing referrals come from the ‘related searches’ option.   I’d consider that to be a pretty decent initial usage rate, especially for a brand new interface.  But I can’t tell if this should be considered a success or a failure on behalf of Bing.

On one had I can see how it’s successful because a lot of people are utilizing it, meaning it’s aiding users in finding the answer to their query.  But on the other hand it signifies that Bing is not getting it right initially, and users are having to refine their queires in order to find what they’re looking for.

I wonder if Google was more aggressive with their related searches how much more they’d be used.  Or perhaps Google does a much better job of detecting initial query intent and delivers more relevant results so people don’t need related searches?  Google has loads of usage data (significantly more than either Yahoo or MSN) telling them what type of listings people clicked on based on the query entered.  They’ve probably used this to refine their results, which is one of the reasons you probably don’t see as many related results.  I wonder what the percentage of total Google referrals from the small sample set iCrossing used come from related searches.

Might be a good topic for a later post.

Filed Under: Google, Microsoft

Mechanical SEO is Dying Fast

June 12, 2009 By 1 Comment

Yesterday Google announced you can now notify them via Webmaster Tools that you are moving domains.  In addition they provide some ‘best practices’ so to speak on how to most effectively do this.

Recently Matt Cutts basically announced that PageRank sculpting was dead, saying that links tagged with nofollow don’t pass PageRank to the destination URLs, but do still inherit their share of PageRank from the page they exist on.

They can now also crawl links within Javascript.

Each day/month/year Googlebot is becoming much better at crawling the web and allowing poorly constructed sites to still get indexed and their pages ranked.  Mechanical SEO used to provide sites a significant advantage but that advantage is shrinking each day.

As the web becomes more social, attention and conversations are going to be far more important factors in how your site ranks than anything you can do technically.  As Stephen Spencer pointed out recently the Pinkberry website is friggin awful from an SEO perspective, yet still ranks very well due to it’s popularity.  The best pizza place in Phoenix has an atrocious site, yet amazing pizza, and almost 200 reviews on Yelp discussing how amazing it is (or how it’s not worth the 2+ hour wait, depending on which review you read).  Yet it ranks #1 for Phoenix pizza in Google.

Mintel recently put out a study which concluded word of mouth from friends and family is still the most important factor people consider when looking to buy products or services.

Mintel’s exclusive consumer survey showed most people who bought a product or service based off a recommendation did so on a referral from a friend/relative or husband/wife/partner (34% and 25%, respectively). Only 5% of respondents bought based on the recommendation of a blogger, the same for a chat room.

Word of mouth marketing is not going anywhere and will always be very influential in consumers decision making purchases.

Instead of worrying about PageRank sculpting, send an email to your best customers and give them something of value.  Encourage them to talk about you.  Don’t stress over how many pages you have indexed in the search engines.  Worry about how your business is perceived by those that matter, by those that talk about you offline or online.  Because no matter how good or bad or site is technically, if people are talking about you, the search engines will find you and rank your site.

Filed Under: Google

Google Placing Less Weight in Footer Links?

March 4, 2009 By 2 Comments

Perhaps we want to rethink placing pages we want to rank in the footer.

A client recently launched a 5 page mini site which still has no links pointing to it (this will change very soon). Google has indexed the 3 pages linked to in the top navigation, but none of the other pages that are linked to from the footer. Yahoo has indexed no pages and MSN has indexed both the www and non-www versions of all pages due to 301′s not being properly set at launch.

This says to me that all things being equal, Google either:

  1. Places no weight on links in what it deems to be ‘the footer’ or a section of the site that exhibits similar qualities.
  2. Places significantly less weight on links in the footer relative to links from primary nav.

I’d still like to test links from within content to see how they impact which pages get indexed, but these findings were interesting nonetheless.  Anybody else notice anything similar?

Filed Under: Google

Origins of the SEO market

June 16, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Pre-Google, in the time of using Excite and/or Yahoo to search the web, I would conduct a search and go through the first 30 or 40 results to see if there was anything that seemed like it would answer my question. As I was new to search at the time, there were low expectations and I was willing to go beyond the top 10 to find what I was looking for.

When Google came along they provided unquestionably the most relevant results, and I began to find the answer to my queries much faster than with other search engines. As Google got better at determining relevancy and built their brand as THE place to go when looking for something online, I began to expect more from the engine. Instead of searching through the first few pages of results, if Google didn’t return what I was looking for on page 1, I would refine my query instead of looking through results 11-20.

By being the most relevant and well branded search engine, Google was enhancing the value of SEO. By providing the most relevant results and eliminating the need to search beyond page 1, or use competing engines, they created a market for getting listed on the first page, because if you weren’t on page 1 in Google you didn’t exist in my eyes. By consistently delivering the most relevant search results, they eliminated the need to go to page 2. Because they were so well branded and were the authority regarding finding information online, if I didn’t get what I was looking for within the top 10 results for my query, then I thought it was a problem with the way I was searching, and not with the results Google was returning. I was placing the burden of proof on myself to come up with the appropriate query, instead of on Google to understand my intent. The more I learned about search and Google’s goal of indexing the world’s information, the more I learned that ultimately the burden of proof was on them.

Do you think Google knew what the impact of their engine would be and if they had any idea of the value that they were creating within their SERPS that created the SEO market? To what level did they predict the impact and success of their engine branding campaign would have on people?

What do you think?

Filed Under: Google

What’s up with Dewey?

April 7, 2008 By 1 Comment

There has been plenty of chatter recently regarding the recent changes in the SERPS, which have since been coined ‘Dewey’. I’ve read much about what people speculate this update is about and many have said that they believe Google, whether intentionally or not, is giving more weight to spammy links. I saw a comment on WMW that sums it up pretty well.

“Seems to be a lot of consensus that the shuffling is about links and link value. I am in a highly competitive industry and I definitely concur. I’ve spent the past three days doing in-depth backlink analysis on the competitor sites that jumped ahead of our site (pushing us to #11 from #6) and they exhibit obvious link building practices that Google supposedly frowns upon…mainly link purchases. I’m coming across a lot of run of sites. We have been steadily cleaning up our paid links, which seems to have been a mistake.”

Although I personally haven’t seen any dramatic changes in the SEPRS that I track, I have seen evidence that lower quality links that Google supposedly frowns upon have been effective in incrementally improving rankings. Regardless of the effectiveness of these easily obtained low quality links, I feel that this is not the direction Google intends to go with how they give credit towards links, and to start acquiring low quality inbound links as your primary linking strategy due to changes brought about by Dewey could come back to haunt you shortly.

I believe what is being seen in the SERPS is more of the byproduct of an algorithmic flaw brought about by recent changes (similar to the position 6 issues a few months back) than the direction Google intends to go with their rankings. I can’t conceptualize why Google would voluntarily start placing more weight on links that require less effort to obtain and therefore more likely to be low quality/spam. If it is the case that these recent changes were a mistake, we are in for a huge shakeup in the not-too-distant future when Google gets it together and all these links that are proving so effective will be nullified and rankings will shift accordingly. Over the next few days/weeks I think it’s best to maintain a wait and see attitude. If nothing changes, it looks like it could be a plentiful season for link farms.

Read more about the Dewey update:
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/016754.html
 http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3615693-6-30.htm

Filed Under: Google, SEO Tagged With: ,

Google is the Walmart of Search

October 30, 2007 By 1 Comment

Walmart dominates the retail space. It is far and away the world’s largest retailer and nobody else is in the same galaxy. They do around a quarter trillion (yes, trillion!) dollars per year. It’s absolutely mind-boggling. As I was reading an article about Walmart and how they completely dominate their space and deal with their suppliers, I couldn’t help but notice similarities with how Google controls the search space and works with webmasters. I have taken segments directly from the article (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html) and replaced Walmart with Google and related it to search instead of instead of retail. My version is in italics. You’d be surprised at how little editing was necessary.

Excerpts

“Wal-Mart is more powerful than any retailer has ever been. It is, in fact, so big and so furtively powerful as to have become an entirely different order of corporate being.”

Google is more powerful than any search engine has ever been. It is, in fact, so big and so furtively powerful as to have become an entirely different order of corporate being.

“For many suppliers, though, the only thing worse than doing business with Wal-Mart may be not doing business with Wal-Mart. Last year, 7.5 cents of every dollar spent in any store in the United States (other than auto-parts stores) went to the retailer. That means a contract with Wal-Mart can be critical even for the largest consumer-goods companies. Dial Corp., for example, does 28% of its business with Wal-Mart. If Dial lost that one account, it would have to double its sales to its next nine customers just to stay even. “Wal-Mart is the essential retailer, in a way no other retailer is,” says Gib Carey, a partner at Bain & Co., who is leading a yearlong study of how to do business with Wal-Mart. “Our clients cannot grow without finding a way to be successful with Wal-Mart.”"

For many site owners, though, the only thing worse than doing business with Google may be not doing business with Google. Last year, 65% of all searches conducted online were done on Google. That means being ranked in Google’s search results can be critical even for the largest widget companies. Wily Widgets Corp., for example, gets 68% of its traffic from Google. If Wily Widgets lost that traffic source, it would have to double its traffic and sales from the next nine largest search engines just to stay even. “Google is the essential search engine, in a way no other engine is,” says Bob Wiley, a partner at Wily Widgets., who is leading a yearlong study of how to do business with Google. “Our clients cannot grow without finding a way to be successful with Google.”

“No one wants to end up in what is known among Wal-Mart vendors as the “penalty box”–punished, or even excluded from the store shelves, for saying something that makes Wal-Mart unhappy. (The penalty box is normally reserved for vendors who don’t meet performance benchmarks, not for those who talk to the press.)”

No one wants to end up with what is known among webmasters as the “hand edit”–punished, or even excluded from the search rankings, for doing something that makes Google unhappy. (The hand edit is normally reserved for websites that blatantly violate Google guidelines or those sites that are knowingly operated by well known SEO’s.)

“There is also no question that doing business with Wal-Mart can give a supplier a fast, heady jolt of sales and market share. But that fix can come with long-term consequences for the health of a brand and a business.”

There is also no question that doing business with Google can give a site owner a fast, heady jolt of sales and market share. But that fix can come with long-term consequences for the health of a brand and a business.
Lessons to be learned:

  1. It is a poor business practice to put all your eggs in one basket. If you are relying on Google for a significant portion of your traffic/sales, you are setting yourself up for failure when Google has an algorithm shift or your site gets penalized, justifiably or not. They effectively own your business.
  2. Google currently owns the search space. If you are going to be playing in their space, it is best to play by their rules, especially if they supply most of your traffic. If you feel the need to take risks with your site, you should have a solid customer base along with a permission asset that allows you to successfully market to these people over and over again.
  3. Both Google and Walmart provide great services to end users. Although Walmart wreaks havoc on their suppliers margins, they do it to provide people with ‘Everyday low prices.’ Similarly, Google operates with the goal of having the largest most relevant index so people can find what they’re searching for.

There are many other quotes that could be applicable to Google in this article, but I have decided to only touch on a few. There are plenty of people out there who have their own opinions of Google who could find other segments of the article and relate it to their own personal experiences. I encourage you to go and read the article here, and let me know of any other similarities you can find between the two behemoths.

Filed Under: Google Tagged With: , ,