Earlier this month, Travelocity's chief marketing officer Jeffrey Glueck generated a bit of a stir in the search marketing world after giving a speech saying his company found only 4 percent of non-branded search terms brought in bookings. Problem is, Glueck now says those figures weren't reported correctly. As it turns out, nearly 25 percent of Travelocity's conversions come from non-branded terms. But the big "assist" that non-branded terms are sometimes said to give to branded terms wasn't happening for Travelocity. It might happen for others, but Glueck's main challenge is for ma [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Search Marketing: Branding | Stats: Search Behavior

How many U.S. small businesses have websites? Is it 30%, 40%, 50%? Answering that question gets quickly into debates over the definition of a "website." For example, is a "landing page" or a "profile page" a website? Do the small business data provided by InfoUSA, Axciom, Localeze, TruelLocal (and now iBegin Source) constitute being online? Does being on Citysearch or InsiderPages or Kudzu or Yelp effectively substitute for a website? In a way it doesn't matter. The practical question is: can the business be found online and is that online presence enough to drive a call, a lead or a sale? [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Yahoo: Other | Yahoo: Search Ads

TimeSearch is an interestingly different search engine, since the focus is just on time, as one may expect from the name. It's the brainchild of Bamber Gascoigne, (a well known British television presenter of historical programmes and academic quiz shows) and HistoryWorld. The search options are fairly limited - to geographic areas of the world, themes (such as art, politics, science and so on), with the option of further limiting to specific sites such as the British Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston and so on. The searcher then pops into the search box the year they are interested in and T [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Engines: Academic Search Engines | Search Engines: Other Search Engines

Just a quick reminder for our SearchCap newsletter readers and anyone who visits Search Engine Land. Our first Search Marketing Expo event, SMX Advanced, happens in Seattle this June 4 and 5. We hope you'll be attending. If so, register before April 2 to save on getting a ticket! The show is aimed at intermediate-to-advanced search marketers. Here are some highlights from the agenda, ranging from networking opportunities, summits, debates and sessions offering tips: Networking: We have three different networking events. SMX Bash happens before the show starts and is open to all attendees (e [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Conferences

Previously, I've covered individually the latest search popularity figures for February 2007 in the United States that have been issued by the major ratings services of comScore, Nielsen//NetRatings, Hitwise and Compete. Now it's time to compare the figures from each of these services against each other plus look back over the past year, to see if there's any agreement on which search engines are winning and losing the search wars. The short story is that Google continues to rise and Microsoft's Live.com, after months of drops, gets some good news in a flattening off or actual gain in share, d [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: Popularity

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web: From Search Engine Land: comScore: Slight Google Rise, Status Quo With Rest In February 2007Now having covered the latest search popularity figures from Hitwise and Nielsen//NetRatings, it's time to look at those out from comScore. It's mostly the same old news -- Google up a bit, everyone else holding steady. Here are the figures, which cover the percentage of home, work and university searches... NetRatings: Google Spike, Live.com Rise In February 2007Earlier I wrote of the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Now having covered the latest search popularity figures from Hitwise and Nielsen//NetRatings, it's time to look at those out from comScore. It's mostly the same old news -- Google up a bit, everyone else holding steady. Here are the figures, which cover the percentage of home, work and university searches done in the US for February 2007: Google: 48.1% Yahoo: 28.1% Microsoft Live: 10.5% Ask: 5.0% AOL: 4.9% Here's a look over the past year: As you can see, Google continues to have incremental rises. The rest all remain relatively steady -- including Microsoft's Live.com, which after mont [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: comScore | Stats: Popularity

Earlier I wrote of the latest search popularity stats out from Hitwise and said those from other companies would be coming. Next up, Nielsen//NetRatings. The most recent figures out (PDF format) for February 2007 from NetRatings show a significant Google gain at Yahoo's expense. Live.com also shows a notable gain. But the figures also show the "search pie" itself grew massively. Here are the figures for February 2007, showing the estimated percentage of all home and work searches done in the United States that were handled by each search network: Google: 55.8% Yahoo: 20.7% Micros [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: NetRatings | Stats: Popularity

As humans, we have a limited capacity to consider our alternatives. Within our brains, there is a limited amount of shelf space available for us to temporarily put our options on to examine them and make our decision. We have cognitive limits to the amount of information we can process at any given time. When it comes to memory capacity, it seems that the limit for humans is seven, plus or minus two. This comes from a 1956 paper by cognitive psychologist George A. Miller called The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two. He referred to it as channel capacity, the number of cognitive an [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Google: User Interface | Search & Usability | Stats: Search Behavior | Yahoo: User Interface

Google has added support for its KML (Earth) format and the open GeoRSS format to the Google Maps API. I'm not a programmer, but what this means as a practical matter is that the GeoRSS standard gets a big boost. Developers and mashups builders can now use a range of formats to add data layers to Google Maps and their sites using the Maps API. And it also means that there will be more geo-data on maps and on the internet generally in the future. Google Maps and Google Earth (and maybe Coop and Google Custom Search Engines) are where Google is building its social media franchise. More on tha [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: APIs | Google: Earth | Google: Maps & Local

Belgian company loses lawsuit against Google from IT World reports that Google has won a suit brought against them by ServersCheck, a Belgian company. The company complained that the Google Suggest feature was helping people find pirated versions of its software. ServersCheck said that Google Suggest returned results for "ServersCheck Crack," ServersCheck Serial," and other suggested searches of illegal versions of the ServersCheck products, when a user began to enter in "ServersCheck" into Google Suggest. ServersCheck sued Google on May 17, 2006. The Commercial Court in Leuven, Belgium, ru [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Legal | Legal: General | Legal: Security | Search Features: Query Refinement

I've been traveling the past three days so am catching up on news -- including that of the new supposed YouTube-killer being launched by NBC Universal & News Corp. But while the official release calls this a new "site" coming later this year, more reading makes it clear we're talking about a video distribution network that will be anything but a rival to YouTube. In fact, it could even distribute video to YouTube, if the new company decides there's money to be made there. Below, a rundown on how it seems likely to work and the existing partners that will carry the content. De [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Search Engines: Video Search Engines

Google Operating System reports that Google is testing a new interface for how they currently display the navigation links at Google.com. Google moved the links that used to be directly above the search box to the very top of the page: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: User Interface

Viacom Sued Over YouTube Parody Removal from the Associated Press reports that Viacom has been sued by several activist groups for allegedly forcing YouTube to remove a video of "The Colbert Report." But Viacom says it never made such a request. The suit was filed in part by Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society in U.S. District Court in San Francisco a week after Viacom sued YouTube. Google and YouTube were not named in the latest lawsuit. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Google: YouTube & Video | Legal: Copyright

Google announced that Michael Moritz, a member of Google's board of directors since May 1999, will not seek re-election. Michael Moritz is a general partner of Sequoia Capital, before joining Sequoia in 1986 he worked at Time Warner and founded Technologic Partners. "I'm delighted to have played a role in these achievements and, along with my partners at Sequoia, look forward to identifying and supporting new businesses, in partnership with Google and others," said Moritz, in the Google announcement. Moritz is said in the announcement to be stepping down in order to spend more time focuse [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Employees | Google: General

President Jimmy Carter gave the welcoming remarks for Google Atlanta’s Open House Thursday. President Carter stated that his life has been transformed by Google, and that it would be hard to find many people in the developed world for whom that statement isn’t true. He gave a specific example of researching the Revolutionary War for one of the books he authored – his old habit of checking out 50 books at a time from the library has now been replaced by Google and he no longer knows the librarians’ names. President Carter noted that Google has brought together and benefited the whole [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Marketing | Google: Offices

Question: Why does your website deserve to be #1? Because I have the lowest prices Because I have better customer service Because I've been in business longer Because no one does this better than me None of the above The correct answer is: None of the above. Actually, all of those things canbe a factor as to why a website might appear higher up in the search results, but none of them represent the real reason. What is that real reason which any site deserves to be #1? I think that can be summed up as this: It provides something unique, interesting, compelling or valuab [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Search Marketing: General | Small Is Beautiful

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web: From Search Engine Land: News Corp. & NBC To Launch YouTube CompetitorNews Corp., NBC pull together to challenge YouTube from the LA Times reports that the two media giants are expected to announce a YouTube-like site as early as today. News Corp. and NBC Universal plan to announce as soon as today that they are creating an online video site stocked... Yahoo Says 12 to 15 Percent Of Clicks Are DiscountedAs Greg noted with Yahoo Appoints New Click Quality Czar, Yahoo has come o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

News Corp., NBC pull together to challenge YouTube from the LA Times reports that the two media giants are expected to announce a YouTube-like site as early as today. News Corp. and NBC Universal plan to announce as soon as today that they are creating an online video site stocked with TV shows and movies, plus clips that users can modify and share with friends, according to people close to the negotiations. NBC and News Corp. have already tied partnership deals with Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp., Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and News Corp.'s MySpace. The new video site is expected to launch some [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Google: YouTube & Video | Legal: Copyright | Search Engines: Video Search Engines

As Greg noted inYahoo Appoints New Click Quality Czar, Yahoo has come out to say that 12 to 15 percent of their search ad clicks are filtered out due to being fraud, invalid or for other reasons. Reggie Davis, Yahoo's new Vice President of Marketplace Quality, was clear on saying that these clicks were not 100 percent click fraud. In Danny's Revisiting Google's 2 Percent Or Less Click Fraud Rate, we see that Google puts the number of filtered clicks at under 10 percent. In today' SearchDay, Kevin Newcomb has a nice expanded write up on Yahoo Steps Up Click Fraud Efforts which is worth a re [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Legal: Clickfraud | Yahoo: Search Ads