The debate about what should -- and shouldn't -- show in a Google search result for "santorum" has been well-documented, at this point. But I'd like to use this now famous search to illustrate something else: how it appears Google is taking its eye off the ball of being a search engine. Searching For Santorum: A New Surprise I did a search for santorum a few minutes ago, and this is what I got: See the YouTube link showing up there? It helps illustrate all that I think many people are feeling is wrong with Google right now. It's a pretty bad result, and it's also something getting there p [...]

Related Topics: Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Google: YouTube & Video | Stats: Relevancy | Top News

As part of Google's earnings announced today, CEO Larry Page announced that Google's social network, Google+, now has 40 million members. That puts it still well behind Facebook's 800 million, closer to Twitter's 100 million, but doesn't seem to count "active" users. Page said in the earnings release: "We had a great quarter,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google.  “Revenue was up 33% year on year and our quarterly revenue was just short of $10 billion. Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark. People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we [...]

Related Topics: Facebook | Google: Google+ | Stats: Relevancy | Twitter

Searchmetrics has conducted a data analysis on what type of content appears most often in Google Universal Search results, as well as which sites are most visible in them. Video and image content wins, as does content hosted on Google's own properties. Universal Search Loves Video, Images The most revealing data from the study, which the company provided to us and which may appear on its site soon, is that having a video is one of the best ways of showing up in the top results at Google. The chart below shows up videos are by far the most found results in Google, with image content a di [...]

Related Topics: Google: SEO | Google: Universal Search | Google: Web Search | Stats: General | Stats: Relevancy | Top News

comScore has released "The 2010 Mobile Year in Review," which compiles data the company has mostly already released in various forms from the previous year. However it's nice to have it all in one place. The report covers the US, EU and Japanese markets at a high level. It largely depicts the growth of smartphones across markets, the competition among the various operating systems and some of the demographics, attitudes and behaviors of mobile users. Outside the US the degree of smartphone penetration is larger in relation to the overall market. However the US smartphone market will [...]

Related Topics: Google: Mobile | Stats: comScore | Stats: General | Stats: Relevancy

Google has run a sting operation that it says proves Bing has been watching what people search for on Google, the sites they select from Google's results, then uses that information to improve Bing's own search listings. Bing doesn't deny this. As a result of the apparent monitoring, Bing's relevancy is potentially improving (or getting worse) on the back of Google's own work. Google likens it to the digital equivalent of Bing leaning over during an exam and copying off of Google's test. "I've spent my career in pursuit of a good search engine," says Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow who ove [...]

Related Topics: Copygate | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Stats: Relevancy | Top News