Feb 22, 2013 at 8:31am ET by Matt McGee

Once in every five times that someone clicks a search result, it goes to one of five websites: Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, Wikipedia or Amazon. That leaves about 80 percent of search clicks for the rest of us. Going further, the top 500 websites received almost 50 percent of all clicks from search results, and the top 10,000 websites got almost 75 percent of all search clicks. All of this is according to the 2013 Digital Marketer Report from Experian Marketing Services (Hitwise). The company says that those five sites I listed above combined to get 20.07 percent of all clicks from US [...]

Search Engines More Trusted Than Social Media For News & Information [Study]

Feb 18, 2013 at 4:01pm ET by Matt McGee

When it comes to getting general news and information, consumers worldwide put as much trust in search engines as they do in traditional media -- and more in both than they do in social media. But, the numbers don't portray any single source as highly trusted, which suggests that consumers are at least trying to vet the accuracy and trustworthiness of what they find in today's information-saturated world. The data comes from the recently released 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer, the 13th annual global survey that uses data from "informed publics" -- college-educated individuals in upper inc [...]

Dear Google Alerts: Why Aren’t You Working?

Feb 15, 2013 at 1:33pm ET by Danny Sullivan

One of Google's oldest features is Google Alerts, where you can enter keywords you want to monitor and get an email report each day about any new search results that match those terms. It was awesome; but for several weeks, it's become nearly useless. My long-standing settings have been for Google to check each day against "Everything" and bring back any new listings with my name in them. That has meant it routinely finds blog posts, webpages and news articles with references. Here's a typical example from the end of November: Usually, there are a few new web mentions, occasionall [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Google: Alerts | Top News

Financial Analyst Affirms Google’s $1 Billion In “Default Search” Payments To Apple

Feb 11, 2013 at 7:25pm ET by Greg Sterling

Last year the FTC asked Apple to disclose the terms of Google’s "default" search presence on iOS. This was part of the US government’s broader antitrust investigation of Google, which is now over. To my knowledge, none of that information made it out into the public eye. However, at approximately the same time, an analyst at Macquarie Capital estimated that Google was making $1.3 billion annually in paid search revenue from iOS devices. Macquarie speculated that Google returned about $1 billion of that to Apple as part of the agreement that made Google the default search engine on the S [...]

Google Still World’s Most Popular Search Engine By Far, But Share Of Unique Searchers Dips Slightly

Feb 11, 2013 at 9:00am ET by Danny Sullivan

No question. Google remains the most used search engine in the world, far outdistancing competitors. But, over the past three months, its share of unique searchers had dipped below 80%, suggesting it has lost some regular searchers. Still, the huge percentage remaining at Google are searching more than ever. Meanwhile, has Yandex really taken the number four spot from Bing? comScore's Worldwide Search Figures The figures come from comScore. They weren't released publicly, but after they emerged on GigaOm, comScore has been providing them to other publications upon request. Most attention has [...]

Google’s Enhanced Campaigns Inspire Love, Hate And Hope For The Next Version

Feb 7, 2013 at 1:42pm ET by Pamela Parker

Tensions were high in the pay-per-click world yesterday, as marketers held their collective breath waiting for news of what were rumored to be "big changes" from Google AdWords. Indeed, it was big news -- the launch of Enhanced Campaigns, which let marketers combine separate desktop and mobile campaigns into one, with a variety of implications. Following, thoughts from marketers about what they like, what they don't like, what needs to be done now, and what they'd like to see in future releases. (Note: This is a significant update with a lot of inter-related changes, so we can't hope to get [...]

Super Bowl Commercials 2013 Edition: For Search Visibility, Most Brands Bought AdWords Too

Feb 6, 2013 at 6:26pm ET by Vanessa Fox

Super Bowl commercials aren't typically about direct purchases. Brands run them to create awareness and buzz and to make us feel all soft and fuzzy towards them through our adorable-foal/hot actor reunion-induced tears (thanks a lot, Budweiser!). For the last five years, I've tracked where advertisers are trying to send viewers, where those viewers are actually going, and in particular, if advertisers are taking full advantage of the furious searching that happens post-game. Both Google Trends and Yahoo data show that even as we turned to Twitter in droves, we also, as in past years, flock [...]

Beyonce, Blackout, Ravens And M&Ms — What We Searched For During Super Bowl 2013

Feb 4, 2013 at 12:16pm ET by Vanessa Fox

We hear a lot about how TV viewers often multitask with a second device, followed by evidence such as Twitter hashtag activity and Facebook likes. While we absolutely flocked to Twitter in droves yesterday during the game, we also did had search engines at the ready to provide us with those #infiniteanswers Amy Poehler was looking for in that Best Buy commercial. Most Popular Topic of the Day: Beyonce vs. The Blackout According to the (sadly now significantly scaled back) Google Trends, the popular topic of of Super Bowl Sunday was Beyonce, with over one million searches. Yahoo also found [...]

Searching for The Super Bowl Start Time: 2013 Edition

Feb 3, 2013 at 1:59pm ET by Vanessa Fox

Surely every organization managing an event site knows at this point that people want to know what time things start. And that those potential viewers are likely to turn to Google to find out. This year, Google just provides the answer right at the top of the page: February 3rd at 3:30 pacific. Just as we saw last year, the NFL understands what their target audience is looking for and has built a page that provides exactly what they need (that ranks first in the search results), as well as invites them to tour the rest of the site (which gives the NFL the page views they need - win/win!) [...]

The Lead Up To the Super Bowl: How Are We Searching?

Feb 1, 2013 at 4:24pm ET by Vanessa Fox

Since 2009, I've been writing articles here on Search Engine Land about how Super Bowl commercials influence online behavior and how well (or not) advertisers have taken advantage of that online opportunity. One clear trend has been that each year, these commercials trigger increased online activities. This is both because each year, we are more likely to juggle multiple devices while we watch the game (TV + mobile phones + tablets + laptops +....) and because we have so many more places online to interact. In 2010, we searched for information. In 2011, we went to Facebook and went to Y [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Search & Society

German Parliament Hears Experts On Proposed Law To Limit Search Engines From Using News Content

Jan 31, 2013 at 9:42am ET by Mathias Schindler

Yesterday, the Judiciary Committee of the German Bundestag -- Germany's national parliament -- held an expert hearing on a proposed "Leistungsschutzrecht" law for news publishers. The law, known as "ancillary copyright" in English, would require search engines and others -- perhaps even Facebook, Twitter and individual bloggers -- to pay news publishers if they link to or even briefly summarize news content. The hearing didn't result in a vote. It was the next step in a process that may lead to Leistungsschutzrecht becoming law or not. Below, some background on what happened at the hearing, [...]

Get Me To The Gulag: Google’s Map Maker Becomes A Political Weapon

Jan 30, 2013 at 2:52pm ET by Greg Sterling

On Monday, Google announced that "citizen cartographers came together in Google Map Maker" to help create a "new map of North Korea" for Google Maps. BuzzFeed was the first to point out that the new maps contained references to "gulag" and "concentration camp." Beyond this, some people on Google+ have added satirical, fake reviews to those locations. For example, Gulag 22 (a real place apparently), is rated as "excellent," with one reviewer saying, "Most exquisite checkpoint, made possible by Honorable Soldiers of Glorious Leader." Google+ offers its standard invitation for you t [...]

A Year Later, Google’s Block Sites Feature Remains Blocked

Jan 25, 2013 at 1:11pm ET by Danny Sullivan

In 2011, Google rolled out a feature allowing searchers to block web sites they don't like from appearing in its search results, which drew great attention. That got dropped last year, when Search Plus Your World was launched last January. A year later, Google says there are no firm plans for it to return. Google's Blocked Sites Feature The block feature, which was released in March 2011, placed a small "block" link next to any result in Google's listings: Clicking on that link prevented any pages from that web site from appearing again in your results at Google. At the time, Googl [...]

Google Launches Streamlined Image Search

Jan 23, 2013 at 8:00pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Like how Google Image Search works on a tablet? Good news, then. That simplified experience is coming to Google Images on the desktop. Out With The Old Currently, viewing an image through Google Image Search is a multistep process. You do the search, see several images and can hover to get a slightly larger thumbnail: If you want to see a larger version of the image, you have to click on the image, which brings up a bigger version superimposed over the actual web page the image is from: In With The New With the new system that's coming out today, selecting an image after a search br [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Google: Images | Top News

Google Panda Update Version #24; 1.2% Of Search Queries Impacted

Jan 22, 2013 at 1:16pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google has announced a new Panda refresh, making this version number 24. This refresh has a noticeable impact 1.2% of English based queries according to Google. The previous confirmed update was #23 and it impacted 1.3% of English queries on December 21, 2012. Prior to that was a refresh on November 21st that impacted 0.8% of queries. It seems like Google is now rolling out these updates every 4 weeks or so. Last week there were significant reports of a Google update, which Google denied. Here are all the releases so far for Panda: Panda Update 1, Feb. 24, 2011 (11.8% of querie [...]

Are Search Engines Driving Libraries To Extinction? Not Quite Yet

Jan 22, 2013 at 12:01am ET by Chris Sherman

With today's instant anywhere-anytime access to Google, Bing and Wolfram Alpha, where searching for information takes a few scant heartbeats via an internet-connected device, some people regard physical libraries as a quaint relics of a forgotten age. But new research from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project suggests just the opposite: that in fact, libraries are reinventing themselves as vibrant community-based repositories of important and sometimes eclectic print materials, but also offering a wide and creative range of services, access to apps, gadgets community spa [...]

The Power Of Headlines: The LA Times Gets It Right With Their Piece On The Inauguration

Jan 21, 2013 at 2:32pm ET by Vanessa Fox

Journalists call them headlines; SEOs call them titles and headings. Whatever you call them, they're the words that tell someone that your article is what they want to read. Look at Google News any day of the week for examples of headlines that give you absolutely no idea what the article might be about. Search engines don't know what to rank them for; users don't know whether to click. One trend I watch is that of searchers asking what time things start. For any event, you can be sure that searchers will take to Google to find out the start time. I chronicle this every year, for instance, [...]

Will [Not Provided] Ever Reach 100% In Web Analytics?

Jan 18, 2013 at 2:07pm ET by Vanessa Fox

With the news today that Chrome is moving to secure search, marketers may be wondering about the larger picture of using search data in Web analytics. The searches people do that lead them to a site is valuable data to an organization. What other data source do we have that gives us direct access to our customers' wants and needs? Sure, we can ask them, but customers can lie. Or choose not to answer. By looking at exactly what visitors have searched for, we can learn a lot about who our customers are, what they really want, and if we're providing it to them. Search marketers have valued [...]

Sign of Hope? Banned Advertisers Rises Just 8 Percent in 2012

Jan 18, 2013 at 12:52pm ET by Ginny Marvin

The battle against bad ads getting past the AdWords review process rages on. Google announced in a blog post this week that the company axed 224 million bad ads in 2012. That’s up 67% from 2011. The 2012 numbers underscore that there is no shortage of scammers, however they may also point to a sign of hope. The number of banned advertisers plateaued from 2011, rising just 8%. Last year the number of banned advertisers increased by 70%. That leveling off could mean Google’s efforts are paying off and scammers aren’t flocking to AdWords the way they used to. Last year, Google announce [...]

Adobe: Paid Search Opportunities Lie In Tablet Targeting And PLAs

Jan 17, 2013 at 10:53am ET by Pamela Parker

Where are the bargains in paid search these days? According to an analysis of the fourth quarter in paid search, Adobe determined that both tablet targeting and product listing ads represent great opportunities for marketers, where there's a substantial gap between cost-per-click (CPC) and conversion rate. Adobe came to its conclusions after looking at paid search spend across more than 2 billion impressions by its clients in the fourth quarter. Adobe's Media Optimizer unit came from the company's acquisition of paid-search-specific company Efficient Frontier. Paid search as a whole had [...]

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