Search Engine Land » Greg Sterling

Bing Now A Full Point Ahead Of Yahoo In Search Share — comScore

Greg Sterling — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:31:52 +0000

Today comScore reported January search share figures for the US market. We restrained ourselves this month, not posting on this subject before the official release, given the error that happened last time through one of the financial analyst firms and their early release of the data.

Google gained share vs. last month. However, the big news is that Bing is now firmly ahead of Yahoo in “explicit core search.” But using comScore’s expanded “total core search” definition Yahoo remains ahead of Bing.

Below are the official numbers; first explicit core search (no slideshows) and then total core search (including so-called “contextual search”):

Yahoo and Bing have now effectively changed places. Bing has taken share from Yahoo, while Google has been largely unaffected. Accordingly, the “search alliance” share of queries remains essentially flat at 29 percent.

Foursquare Brings More Search Refinements To Mobile Apps

Greg Sterling — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:16:14 +0000

Calling it “personalized search for the real world,” Foursquare brought its mobile Explore functionality into its recently redesigned PC website roughly three weeks ago, and added some new search capabilities in the process. Those capabilities included the ability to filter places results by four categories: 1) “I haven’t been to yet” 2) “I have been to before” 3) “My friends have been to” 4) “Have Foursquare specials.”

The mobile-PC cross-pollination continued yesterday as Foursquare brought some of those enhanced search capabilities back to its iPhone and Android mobile apps. Now you can filter mobile search results by places “I’ve been,” “new to me” or places “my friends have been.”

In addition Foursquare made it easier to set or change your location. You can now drag, pinch, double tap and zoom the map and find places within the desired neighborhood or city more quickly and easily.

The release notes also indicate that the company has introduced “improved handling of duplicate venues” and restaurant “menus and hours.”

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Survey: People Largely Negative About Google’s Personalized Search Results

Greg Sterling — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:48:54 +0000

Last month, market research tool provider Ask Your Target Market surveyed 400 US adults about their attitudes toward personalized search on Google. The results were reported today in eMarketer’s email newsletter. We went back to the source to check out the survey and discovered that the majority of respondents expressed ambivalence or outright dissatisfaction about Google’s new more personalized search results.

The first question asked was about the primary search engine used by respondents.

Primary search engine:

Source: AYTM, n=400 (1/12)

Then the survey explored respondents’ attitudes toward search personalization and Google+ participation.

Do you like the idea of personalizing search results based on past searches and info from your social networking sites?

Source: AYTM, n=400 (1/12)

A minority said yes (15.5 percent) they liked search personalization. But a clear majority were ambivalent or hostile to the idea (84.5 percent). Within that majority 45 percent said they did not want search results personalized at all. Of the three types of responses the “nos” were the dominant category.

There were two other survey questions fielded by AYTM about Google+:

Do you use Google+?
Would you be more likely to use Google+ if you knew you would get more tailored search results?

To the first question (Do you use it?) 19.3 percent responded “yes,” and another 20.3 percent said they had accounts that were not really used. The other 60.4 percent said they did not have Google+ accounts or said that they didn’t know what it was.

In terms of whether more people would use Google+ if they knew it helped personalize their results, 7.5 percent said “yes” they would be more likely to use it. However 44.4 percent said “no” and 48.1 percent said “maybe.”

It’s important to point out that this is just one survey and it’s not clear how representative the survey population was of the entire US adult population. It’s also important to observe that people often react negatively to change. However these results, if they can be generalized, represent a pretty strong negative reaction to the new direction Google is headed.

Postscript From Danny Sullivan: I wanted to add that with a further follow-up, it probably would have been incredibly easy to turn the 45% who said “No, I think everyone should see the same results” into a much smaller number.

For example, if the question had been: “When searching for football, do you think Americans and Europeans should see the exact same results?,” that probably would have given respondents reason to think further about the advantages to personalization.

Of course, the personalization in that case tend to be geographically-based (Americans would be more likely to see NFL information; Europeans about local soccer teams). But there are other examples where past history and social connections can help. That’s one reason why Bing, just like Google, uses both factors.

My experience has been that no one seems positive about any company wanting to personalize things for them when you ask. I always put the blame on this to Amazon, because of that one purchase you make that Amazon assumes means you are completely interested in that product forever going forward.

In addition, I don’t think people like the idea that any company could somehow “figure them out” and somehow assume it could personalize things for them.

But emotion aside, personalization can help (and can hurt), and it’s all about getting the balance right. I’d highly recommend anyone interested in more to read a post from Google last year about why it does personalization, as well as “The Filter Bubble” from Eli Pariser, which takes a critical look at personalization in general. Also see SMX East Keynote: A Conversation With Eli Pariser.

The topic of personalization will also be covered in-depth at our upcoming SMX West search marketing conference in San Jose Feb. 28-March 1, in these sessions:

Apple’s Siri Drives 25 Percent Of Wolfram|Alpha Queries

Greg Sterling — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:50:13 +0000

Yesterday knowledge engine Wolfram|Alpha announced an intriguing new paid service Wolfram|Alpha Pro. Gary Price wrote an overview of the new service, which will likely appeal to academics, data geeks and a range of other specialized users.

Wolfram|Alpha is by no means a mainstream search engine, yet it has managed to establish something of a beachhead and has a growing fan base. It owes some of that to Apple’s Siri, which chose Wolfram|Alpha as one of two structured data providers that tie directly into the personal assistant. The other is Yelp.

Wolfram|Alpha gets about 3.7 million daily page views and 17.3 visits per month in the US, according to Alexa data the site itself provides when you ask it about its own traffic.

According to an article in the New York Times tied to the Wolfram|Alpha Pro launch, “Siri accounts for about a quarter of the queries fielded by Wolfram Alpha.” However the company receives no branding on those results. Here are some examples of how Siri presents Wolfram|Alpha content:

Apple and Siri’s relationship with Yelp and Wolfram|Alpha are a kind of template for how the personal assistant will likely work with other third party data providers in the future.

Google: 41 Percent Of Super Bowl Ad Searches Were Mobile

Greg Sterling — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:40:11 +0000

A wide range of social and mobile data are being reported by various sources in the wake of last Sunday’s Super Bowl game. For example, ad network inMobi said 39 percent of survey respondents “used their mobile device in response to a TV commercial during the game” (discussing commercials, getting more information or watching TV ads again). However other sources, such as NPD Group, said that mobile usage didn’t live up to the pre-game hype.

But earlier today Google said that during the game, “41 percent of Google searches in the US related to Super Bowl TV ads came from mobile devices.” While this makes logical sense — people are sitting during the game with their phones in hand or pocket — it’s striking nonetheless.

According to Google, “Super Bowl ad related searches in the US rose 200% on desktop, 970% on tablets and a whopping 2700% on smartphones.” (Emphasis added.)

Google goes on to make the hopefully semi-obvious point that TV advertisers — indeed all advertisers — now need to be conscious of the presence of smartphones in the audience and integrate mobile into their campaigns in thoughtful ways.

The problem is that many Super Bowl commercials tried to use mobile in ways that weren’t particularly effective. As 360i’s David Berkowitz pointed out this morning, QR codes on TV ads is generally a bad idea.

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Google Still #1 Traffic Source For Most Of Top 30 Websites — Report

Greg Sterling — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:47:29 +0000

This may surprise no one: Google is the leading source of traffic for 23 of the top 30 websites. That’s according to Citi analyst Mark Mahaney in a document released yesterday to clients.

Based on underlying comScore data, the report analyzes visits to the top five websites in several verticals: Media, Retail, Travel, Auto, Finance and Health. It doesn’t discuss the impact or relative position of Facebook at all, possibly because Facebook is not yet a public company.

Mahaney points out that Google’s retention of the position of top traffic referrer is an accomplishment in a marketplace that is so “fluid” and intensely competitive.

The report has a number of key findings, which I’ve distilled here:

Google ranked as the #1 source of traffic for 23 of the top 30 Websites. “By contrast, the #2 (Yahoo!) and #3 (Microsoft) influencers accounted for 11 percent and 6 percent of traffic to the top 30 Websites.”

Google’s “influence is [very slowly] slipping”: Mahaney said that “Google has gone from delivering 17 percent of all the traffic to the top 30 Websites in 2010 and 2011 to 16 percent in 2012.” The one vertical studied in which Google’s influence has waned considerably is Heath (see chart above).

Yahoo and Microsoft’s traffic is flat: the report said that “Yahoo!’s and Microsoft’s share of traffic “has remained essentially flat from 2010 to 2012.” This is regarded as a surprise on both counts.

Mahaney said that flat traffic is positive for Yahoo given the market’s perception of the company/site as a “deteriorating asset.” By contrast this is “arguably something of a negative surprise [for Microsoft] . . . given signs of Bing Search market share gains.”

Under Threat Of Being Blocked Google, Facebook Comply With India’s New Internet Censorship Rules

Greg Sterling — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:01:42 +0000

After China and the US, India is the third largest internet market in the world. But India has philosophically aligned itself more with China in pursuing a policy of censorship toward publication of content deemed “offensive” or “objectionable” by individuals, groups or the government.

A recently enacted law seeks to remove all such content from the internet in India. Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were sued under the law and had been arguing in Indian court that it was all but impossible for them to comply as a practical matter. The law makes online publishers potentially liable for the acts of individual users and third parties (think “offensive” blog hosted on Blogger or “objectionable” video uploaded to YouTube).

According to a BBC report Indian Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said the following in December about the desired impact of the new law:

My aim is that insulting material never gets uploaded. We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue. [The companies] will have to give us the data, where these images are being uploaded and who is doing it.

Google, Facebook and others had argued that they had no control over individuals and should not be held liable for their conduct accordingly. They said they cannot “pre-filter” material generated by millions of users. This is what would be called a “prior restraint” against free speech in the US.

Indian courts have been unsympathetic and demanded that the companies comply or be blocked entirely “like in China.” The BBC says that the companies have now complied and removed offending material at issue in a particular civil lawsuit.

However the overly vague nature of the statute on which these claims are based almost guarantees that Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and other online publishers in India will face a steady stream of litigation from individuals or groups “offended” by this or that image, article or video.

Stock image used under license from Shutterstock

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Yahoo Launches Mobile-App Search (For PCs) In The UK

Greg Sterling — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:10:29 +0000

Over the weekend there was coverage of a seemingly new feature on Yahoo search: mobile-app search. However that actually launched in the US in the middle of last year. The recent coverage was triggered by the launch of the app-search capability in the UK, which is new.

The UI has been improved somewhat since I last looked at it. As an app search tool it’s quite nice. Neither Google nor Bing offer anything comparable in their main search engines. Of course users can search directly for Android apps in the Android Market.

Somewhat ironically one of the mobile apps that Yahoo discontinued in a recent purge of mobile products was the Yahoo mobile equivalent of app search for the PC (AppSpot). Here’s what it looked like when it launched in June, 2011:

Other mobile apps recently shuttered by Yahoo include the following:

Yahoo Meme (iPad and iPhone)
Yahoo Mim (iPad)
Yahoo Answers (Android)
Yahoo AppSpot (Android and iPhone)
Yahoo Deals (iPhone)
Yahoo Finance (BlackBerry)
Yahoo Movies (Android)
Yahoo News (Android)
Yahoo Shopping (iPhone)
Yahoo Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone)

The apps will continue to function but won’t be “supported” or updated, according to a Yahoo statement.

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Report: National Marketers Love Local, Fail At Basic Tactics

Greg Sterling — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:18:24 +0000

GMS Local, an initiative from GroupM focused on local search and local digital strategies, recently conducted a survey of national marketing executives (mostly in the retail sector) about their localization strategies and tactics. The survey was fielded in September and November 2011. What the agency found was considerable enthusiasm for local-digital marketing. Yet there was also a surprising lack of sophistication in many of their tactics.

GMS Local found that most of the respondents spent more on local vs. national advertising and more generally on digital than traditional media marketing:

70 percent of marketers surveyed said they spend greater than the national average (60 percent) of their advertising budgets on local vs. national initiatives.
70 percent of marketers surveyed answered that they spend greater than the national average (25 percent) of their local advertising budget on digital media.
83 percent of marketers surveyed expect their local online spending increases to be more than the projected national growth (25 percent) over the next three years.

However, the agency observed, “There is a large gap between the perception marketers have of their local position and the reality of what they actually implement.” For example, large numbers of respondents failed to actively manage their locations’ listings and a substantial minority failed to use local paid search.

To their surprise, GMS Local concluded that there were some very basic local tactics that these national brands were failing to utilize:

With as many as 45% of survey respondents not invested in directories (e.g., yp.com and superpages.com), nor actively managing their business listings (e.g., Google Places, Bing and Local.com), and not employing the relatively standard practice of running geo-modified paid search, this exposes the need for education about the fundamentals of local online advertising and opportunities for national brands to connect with consumers at the local level.

Insufficient funding, a lack of education or just plain ignorance were the factors behind the flawed national-local approaches according to the survey. You can read the full report here.

Stock image used under license from Shutterstock

Yandex Joins Bing, Yahoo In Using Nokia-Navteq Map Data

Greg Sterling — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:28:14 +0000

Russian search giant Yandex announced that it will be licensing data from Nokia-owned Navteq to offer better and more comprehensive maps coverage around the world:

Yandex . . . has purchased a license for digital maps supplied by the leading global location content provider, NAVTEQ. These digital maps will be used in the development of a detailed world map for the Yandex.Maps service.

NAVTEQ has provided Yandex with maps from all over the world, including highly detailed maps of Europe, North America, Australia and developed countries in Asia. These maps show intercity motorways, urban traffic networks, streets and buildings. Yandex.Maps will gradually add new content both to its desktop version and to its mobile application that supports all major platforms. Using the Yandex.Maps API, website owners can embed maps of various countries into their resources.

The company has been running a test with Navteq data in Turkey. Above is an image from Yandex Maps (pre-Navteq) of the San Francisco Bay Area. Yandex now joins Bing and Yahoo in heavily or totally relying on map data from the Nokia subsidiary.

The reliance of major search engines like Bing, Yahoo and Yandex on Navteq for mapping data sets up a kind of global divide of sorts among mapping sites “powered by” Navteq and Google Maps (and those in its network). There are other, independent mapping providers out there like deCarta as well.

Yandex recently lead a $30 million round in independent search engine Blekko. Yandex operates in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Turkey and has a presence in Palo Alto, where its Yandex Labs is based.

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