Google Seeks Transparency

In Google’s case, I view the Search Quality Highlights series as Google trying to deal with accusations, especially by those on the anti-trust front but even from places like the New York Times, that Google Search is some type of black box that’s all designed simply to favor Google’s own properties.

Of course, Google said nothing so explicit when it launched its series last December. Rather, it spoke generally about being transparent:

 For years now we’ve been blogging about significant algorithmic updates like Panda and our recent freshness update. So, why do we need yet another blog series?

We’ve been wracking our brains trying to think about how to make search even more transparent. The good news is that we make roughly 500 improvements in a given year, so there’s always more to share.

With this blog series, we’ll be highlighting many of the subtler algorithmic and visible feature changes we make. These are changes that aren’t necessarily big enough to warrant entire blog posts on their own.

The series actually had a soft-launch last November, before being formalized in December. Since then, we’ve been getting a monthly laundry-list of changes that Google’s made to its search algorithms, changes that weren’t deemed big enough to warrant their own blog posts by Google, though some might disagree.

For example, in Google’s latest post at the end of February, Google announced the latest of its Panda Updates (anything Panda is generally big news), that it had dropped a method of link analysis (sparking all types of discussions among SEO folks about what was dropped) and added that its SafeSearch algorithm had been changed to make “irrelevant adult content” less likely to appear.

That SafeSearch change was directly responsible for causing searches on “santorum” at Google to no longer show a long-standing site defining “santorum” as a by-product of anal sex. It was a big change, worth of its own blog post I’d say, but instead it was relegated to being a bulletpoint.

Still, at least we did know some of the things going on, which is welcomed. And now we’re going to know more from Bing.

Bing Goes After Visiblity

Over at Bing, we’re told:

Today we are launching a new blog series we’re calling “Bing Search Quality Insights” aimed at giving you deeper insight into the algorithms, trends and people behind Bing.

This blog is the first in a series that will take you behind the search box for an up close view into the core of the Bing search engine.

Quality improvements in Bing are often subtle but often those little changes are the result of years of research. In the coming weeks and months, you will hear from members of my team on a range of topics, from the complexities of social search and disambiguating spelling errors to whole page relevance and making search more personal.

We will also highlight the ideas and projects we have collaborated with colleagues from Microsoft Research and academia to advance the state of the art for our industry. We hope this will not only be useful information for our blog readers, but that they will spark conversations that help us all move the search industry forward.

Unlike Google, Bing doesn’t really have an anti-trust transparency issue to deal with. Rather, Bing has an invisibility issue. Bing seems largely invisible to those who are wanting to search the web. Bing can (and does) have some of the same problems that will launch a million blog posts about Google. But no one cares, if they happen on Bing.

As for consumers in general, while Bing has grown its market share, that’s come mainly by pulling people away from Bing’s partner Yahoo, not from Google. Perhaps the new series will help focus more attention from consumers on Bing, which would be good. Bing’s an excellent search engine that should be considered.

Bing’s First Post Helps Google

Ironically, the first post in Bing’s series — about “Whole Page Relevance” — will also help Google on the anti-trust front. It explains how Bing “blends” results from its vertical search engines like Bing Video, Bing News, Bing Maps and Bing Images along with web listings and direct answers through a system called “Answer Ranking.”

Google does exactly the same thing, though a system it calls “Universal Search.” Google’s system has come under intense pressure over the past two years as somehow “favoring” Google over its competitors, including attacks by Microsoft-backed FairSearch.

Now we’ve got a blog post from Microsoft explaining how it does exactly what Google does, something both Google and third-parties such as myself have pointed out already. That makes it harder for some to attack Google over Universal Search, especially when Microsoft finally puts a name to what its own system is called.

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“It’s an initiative to see how we can better support our small business customers,” Tara Kriese, group product marketing manager for the search business group at Microsoft Advertising, told me.

The program doesn’t yet have a name, but its internal code name was Bing Express and it will eventually have a Bing-related brand. Kriese says this matchmaking between SEMs and small businesses is just the start of what will be a much broader program, though she wouldn’t reveal what future elements of the initiative might be.

So far, the company has been using an outside PR agency to reach out to expert SEMs, asking them to spend two hours mentoring small businesses on the phone in exchange for an undisclosed amount of free advertising on adCenter. They were also asked to develop three original blog posts on SEM and “the advantages of diversifying your marketing mix with search advertising on Bing.” It’s not clear where those blog posts will be published. The company also wrote a blog post that appears related asking for SEM expert volunteers, but asking them to keep the project secret.

Small businesses are a particularly tough audience to reach, given they are often too busy running their businesses to spend time marketing them — especially when the marketing approach requires they learn about the complex world of bidding on keywords, and everything else a search campaign involves. Google has sought to solve this problem with AdWords Express, a simplified product that only requires that marketers set a monthly budget and write ad copy. Microsoft faces a particularly difficult challenge here, as those businesses who can set aside time for search marketing will likely look to Google, and perhaps only Google.

“[The initiative] comes from the mindset that there are small businesses who leverage agencies, but there are a lot of businesses out there that cannot afford to have agency partners,” said Kriese. “How can we expand the learnings from those folks and help them to learn about search, and learn about marketing, period.”

The interactions between the SEMs and small businesses will be watched carefully, and learnings applied to future parts of the initiative and potentially to product developments to make adCenter more user friendly to SMBs.

Rather than promoting the idea of making decisions, the new campaign is about people doing interesting things and uses the slogan, Bing is for #Doing. More specifically, the new TV campaign focuses on winter sports athletes and will include freeskier Bobby Brown along with snowboarders Kaitlyn Farrington, Gretchen Bleiler and Kevin Pearce.

Pearce, who’s now returning to action after a brain injury forced him to miss the 2010 Olympics, is the subject of the first TV commercial, which will air during the NFC Championship footbal game on Sunday and during the upcoming X Games.

The athletes’ stories will air on TV, and will also be promoted online via social media campaigns.

We wanted to share with you the logos and themes from the search engines for New Years! Google had two different logos, one for New Years Eve and the other for New Years Day.

Bing had an outstanding video home page background:

Yahoo had this nice Flash animated logo:

Ask.com:

Dogpile:

Baidu:

Sogou:

Also, you do not want to miss the best Google logos for 2011.

NOTE: For the latest news on the 2011 Santa Tracker, see our post: Where’s Santa Claus? The 2011 Santa Tracker List, From NORAD To Your Phone!

Where’s Santa? Google & NORAD Know

Let’s start with Santa. Since it’s not Christmas Eve, the site has a countdown until it begins Santa tracking operations for 2011:

The site also has holiday video messages and “Countdown Village,” where kids try to discover which part of the village is busiest:

On Christmas Eve, the real action begins. You’ll be able to track Santa Claus on a map, through your phone and watch videos. Google’s blog post explains more, as does our story from last year. Here’s also highlight from last year:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bing’s Calendar Of Surprises

Over at Bing, the Bing Magical Holiday Calendar is brand new. Like an Advent calendar, you can “open” one of the many items each day for a suprise:

Currently, selecting the first day plays a video highlighting key events from the year:

The video often swoops back to put the subjects in the context of a search at Bing:

Bing doesn’t have the video up on either its own Bing Originals channel or its YouTube channel, but it’s pretty nice.

The Bing blog post about the calendar says that it’s also offering the chance to win prizes, but I saw nothing like that myself. Perhaps that will be part of future surprises under those numbers.

Bing also has some cute Christmas TV ads running. See our previous post about that:

• Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Search Engine? Bing’s New TV Ads Have A Ranking/Bass Stop-Motion Flavor.

As for the Google-NORAD Santa Tracker, be sure to return to that on Christmas Eve.  To really understand all you’ll be able to do, see our detailed review from last year:

• Where Is Santa Claus? The 2010 Santa Tracker List, From NORAD To Google Earth

The Microsoft search engine’s newest video spots play off the classic Rankin/Bass Christmas TV specials, updating the plot and inserting Bing into the action.

One spot shows the Abominable Snow Monster trying to roar ferociously but evoking laughter rather than fear from those who hear him. So, he returns to his cave and searches for “scary monster,” watching and listening to videos until he perfects his frightening roar technique:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another shows Abominable, prospector Yukon Cornelius and Hermey use Bing to find an island vacation destination. They end up at the Island of Misfit Toys:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another spot has Hermey searching for videos and finds one showing Santa and Mrs. Claus playing with bubble wrap:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the last spot, Yukon Cornelius complains of back pain from pulling his sled, and Hermey uses his smartphone to find a remedy — hot yoga.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The videos were produced by Bent Image Labs, a Portland, Oregon, company specializing in stop motion animation that has previously done “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”-themed work for Saturday Night Live and Aflac.

The Bing spots are viewable online and will appear in holiday TV programming throughout the season, including specials like “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and “South Park Christmas.” They will also be seen during previews in advance of upcoming feature films in theaters, including “Arthur Christmas,” “The Muppets,” and “Happy Feet Two.”

The Dear Sophie creative was especially popular among women between 16 and 20, and 36 to 49, who rated it extremely highly for likeability, attention, change and relevance. Other Google spots that made the top ten include The Johnny Cash Project, It Gets Better, Lady Gaga: Mother Monster and Mom & Pop: Daniel & Jennifer Northcutt.

Google’s success is especially notable given that the company had a long history of being wary of marketing spending. For quite a while, Google contended that its products spoke for themselves, and it relied on word-of-mouth to spread the word about new releases. In the last few years, however, the company has succumbed and begun marketing in earnest, even buying a Super Bowl ad.

Effective Bing ads include two featuring the Krochet Kids, a non-profit that trains women in Uganda to crochet, then selling the hats they make. The third highlights the Real Steel motion picture, showing how a person could find out about the movie, showtimes, and coordinate with friends using Bing’s features.

The element that unifies the effective ads is storytelling. Rather than simply explaining the product’s features, these ads tell stories in which the technology is the hero. In “Dear Sophie,” Gmail and the Chrome browser allow the new father to connect with his daughter. In “The Johnny Cash Project,” YouTube allows music video producers to share a crowdsourced video of Johnny Cash’s final recording. The Krochet Kids ad tells the story of the non-profit organization.

Additionally, Ace Metrix noted that Google’s success was also driven by extensive testing. Google releases videos on YouTube and can gauge reaction before committing to the big bucks for TV placement.

Fast Company has a fascinating article on Bing’s background images and how they are used to market the Bing service. While Google updates their logos to be fun and creative on special birthdays or occasions, Bing revamps their background with an image that stands out and leaves users asking for more.

If you haven’t noticed, Bing updates their home page background graphic daily (sometimes more often), with images and photography that are real eye catchers. They even add interactivity behind the background graphic by adding hotspots to the image, which lead to useful search queries.

Stephanie Horstmanshof, managing editor of Bing and the so-called “queen of the homepage” told Fast Company, “we thought it was a way to differentiate–to make things come alive and more approachable.”

How does Bing select which photo they want on their home page? Bing has a meeting every few weeks with a group of decision makers who review tons of user submitted photos and other photography and then pick the best to show on their home page. They don’t just look for pretty and interesting photos, they look for images that “makes you want to find out more about it,” said Horstmanshof.

After the photos are selected, a Bing writer adds the hotspots over the images and the background is scheduled in. The hotspots, along with the image, purpose is to drive more queries and show off Bing’s search capabilities.

The key here is to bring searchers back daily to use Bing more and more. I should note that Bing had the backgrounds and hotspots well before Bing was even a brand. Microsoft launched these background and hotspots under the “Live Search” brand, which failed to help Microsoft capture much market share. Bing, on the other hand, has been successful in increasing market share over the years.

Now when you search on Bing, you will see the “Rewards” link and icon on the right of the “sign in” link. Here is a picture:

Bing said that integrating this Rewards link into the header will give Bing users “easy and quick access to earning credits and redeeming rewards.” The feature should be visible for all US users using Internet Explorer 7 or later and the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari browsers.

Here is a picture of the Rewards menu showing earned rewards:

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Angry Birds, which boasts versions for the iPhone, iPad and Android OS devices, has a US audience of 25 million players currently. It’s also coming to Xbox LIVE on Windows Phone 7 later this spring, in another partnership between Rovio and Microsoft.

“Angry Birds is a phenomenon that is growing rapidly and our marketing team saw a great opportunity to work with Rovio to develop an integrated campaign that would engage Angry Birds fans with Bing and help them get to new levels,” said Lisa Gurry, director of Bing.

The deal has Bing appearing in the Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons applications, with contextual Bing searches integrated to help players find solutions for difficult levels and find the Golden Eggs. Bing says the integration will provide players with “over a hundred clues” to speeding through levels. It will last for “several months.”

“Bing helps people make informed decisions and now millions of Angry Birds fans can experience Bing to help them excel at the game,” wrote Wibe Wagemans of Bing Mobile, in a blog post about the deal.

Additionally, Bing is distributing a four video series featuring the Angry Birds characters. In the videos, the pigs use Bing to plot ways to steal eggs from the hapless birds.

The videos will be distributed via the YouTube channels of Bing and Rovio.

Though Bing has been praised for providing a quality search experience, it’s still working to gain a foothold in the popular imagination. Bing saw a 13% surge in searches in January, according to Comscore, but Google still dominates with 66% of overall search share.