Sep 13, 2012 at 1:24pm ET by Matt McGee

Hey Emma Watson fans: Be really careful about clicking on those search results. McAfee, the security technology company, says Watson is 2012's most dangerous celebrity to search for -- replacing Heidi Klum, who held that title last year. According to McAfee's Most Dangerous Celebrities study, searches related to Watson have a 12.6 percent chance of leading to a malicious website that offers spyware, adware, viruses and the like. When it comes to dangerous search terms, the landscape is decidedly female. The only guy to make McAfee's top 20? That would be Jimmy Kimmel, who ranks number [...]

Industry Survey: PPC Is Losing Ability To Generate Leads

Aug 30, 2012 at 8:02am ET by Matt McGee

SEO continues to be the top lead generating channel among U.S. digital marketers, while PPC's effectiveness as a lead gen channel is dropping significantly. B2B marketers are even saying that social media marketing is now more effective than PPC as a lead gen channel. That's according to the 2nd annual State of Digital Marketing survey from WebMarketing123, an online agency based in California. As they did a year ago, Webmarketing123 surveyed more than 500 U.S. marketers, 65 percent of whom self-report as B2B marketers. Reps from companies including GE, Sony, Cisco, Olympus, Bose and Fed [...]

Google Trounces Other Local Search Providers In UK — Study

Aug 17, 2012 at 5:40pm ET by Greg Sterling

Google has the most complete and accurate local search database in the UK, according to data and analytics firm Implied Intelligence. Previously we've published comparable US reports by the company: Yellow Pages Sites Beat Google In Local Data Accuracy Test Bing Ties Yellow Pages Sites For Most Accurate Local Data In these earlier US tests, yellow pages sites (i.e., Superpages) and Bing beat Google for completeness and data quality. However in the UK Google comes out on top. To conduct the test (performed in May) the firm created a sample of 1,400 local business records. Each of th [...]

Report: Tablets Offer Lower CPC, Higher Conversions Than Desktop PCs

Jul 25, 2012 at 10:51am ET by Greg Sterling

One of the key findings of the Q2 2012 Global Digital Advertising Update from Adobe (Efficient Frontier) is that search marketers can get more value from mobile campaigns than they now can on the PC. According to the report cost-per-click (CPC) prices are lower for both tablets and smartphones than comparable PC search campaigns and the ROI is higher in both cases -- although "conversions" are lower on smartphones. Adobe's data are drawn from "over 250 billion impressions and activity of 46 million fans for 225 companies in the automotive, CPG, financial services, media and entertainment, a [...]

Study: Clicks On Google Ads Are Nearly Double Organic Clicks For Commercial Searches

Jul 17, 2012 at 5:45pm ET by Pamela Parker

Clicks on paid search listings on Google were nearly double the number of organic clicks -- but only on keywords with "high commercial intent" in the US, according to a Wordstream analysis released today. Sponsored results, the research from the software company found, represented 64.6% of clicks on SERPs for commercial searches, while organic clicks only accounted for 35.4%. Wordstream defined "high commercial intent" by Google's own standards, including keyword searches that trigger a Google Shopping box or Google Product Listing ad. The company came to its conclusions by looking at data [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Stats: General

RKG Report: Search Growth Declines Slightly; Shakeup In Store For Shopping Space

Jul 11, 2012 at 5:46pm ET by Pamela Parker

Paid search's growth rate slowed a bit in the second quarter of 2012, but it still increased 29% year-over-year -- down from a 32% year-over-year growth rate in Q1. That's according to the RimmKaufman Group's latest report on digital marketing, released this week. Generally speaking, CPC's were down (6%) as compared to the same period last year, but click volume increased fairly dramatically (37%). RKG put together the report using stats from its clients, which include more than 30 of the top 500 etailers. Trends varied from engine to engine. Google's paid search spending grew only 32% i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: General | Stats: General

Chitika: iPad Leads Tablets With Web Usage But Only Has A 1.02% CTR On Ads

Jul 9, 2012 at 9:30am ET by Barry Schwartz

Chitika published a study today on tablet device usage share and the click through rate (CTR) on ads based on screen size. The study showed that 8 inch tablets such as Vizio and Pantech had the highest level of click through rates but the lowest level of web usage rates. Similarly, the 8.9 inch tablets such as Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and the Archos 9 had the second highest click through rates with the second lowest rate of Web usage rates. Apple's iPad is the leader on click through rate when it comes to measuring a single tablet device despite size. The iPad lead the 9.7" tablet [...]

Wikipedia Appears On Google’s Page One 46 Percent Of The Time, Compared to 31 Percent On Bing [STUDY]

May 7, 2012 at 3:13pm ET by Matt McGee

A new study suggests that Wikipedia gets better visibility on Google than it does on Bing. While that may not surprise much of the SEO industry, it contradicts what some Google employees have previously said, as well as another recent study on Wikipedia's search visibilty. Last week, Conductor released updated data about Wikipedia's search visibility, this time including Bing for comparison to its previous study that focused solely on Wikipedia's Google visibility. In the previous study, Wikipedia appeared on page one of Google 46 percent of the time, and on page two for 25 percent of [...]

For Social Media Marketers, SEO Is Much More Popular Than PPC

Apr 3, 2012 at 3:18pm ET by Matt McGee

Social media marketers are much more likely to also use SEO in their marketing efforts than PPC, according to a new survey out today. Social Media Examiner announced the results of its fourth annual survey, which this year had replies from more than 3,800 social media marketers around the world. When asked what other marketing channels they use, search engine optimization (SEO) was the No. 2 response behind e-mail marketing. Paid search -- or "online ads" as the survey called it -- was far down the list at number six. Sixty-five percent of social media marketers say they use SEO, compare [...]

Move Over, Wikipedia: Amazon May Be The King Of Google Rankings

Mar 23, 2012 at 2:31pm ET by Matt McGee

While the SEO industry has spent years decrying how well Wikipedia seems to dominate Google's rankings, it may be that Amazon.com is the real king of visibility. For most of the past 18 months or so, Amazon has shown up on the first page of Google search results more often than Wikipedia and currently lands on page one about 40 percent of the time, compared to just over 30 percent for Wikipedia. That's according to new research from SpyFu, which was published this week in response to our coverage of a Conductor study on Wikipedia's Google visibility. As you can see in the chart below, Am [...]

Survey: Google Pays Less, Harder Interviews But Better Place To Work Than At Facebook

Mar 23, 2012 at 9:23am ET by Barry Schwartz

Glassdoor has released their 2012 survey of best places to work in 2012 and Google has beat Facebook for the first time in four years in that survey. Google scored a 3.9 overall by their employees while Facebook scored a 3.7. In 2011 Facebook scored a 4.2 and Google scored a 4.1. Although Facebook employees earn about $3,000 more on average than Google employees and although the interview process is harder at Google than Facebook, Googlers in 2012 are more happy with their company than Facebook. Googlers seem to complain less about long hours and work/life balance issues than Facebook. I [...]

Wikipedia Appears On Google’s Page One Only 46% Of Time, Study Shows

Mar 20, 2012 at 2:50pm ET by Matt McGee

Wikipedia doesn't pwn Google nearly as much as the SEO industry thinks it does. In fact, according to a new Conductor study, Wikipedia showed up on the first page of Google's search results only 46 percent of the time in a study using 2,000 unique keywords. Conductor used one thousand informational keywords (like "lyrics" and "bridal shower ideas") and another thousand transactional keywords (like "headphones" and "where to find wall stencils") in its study; as you'd expect, Wikipedia has much more visibility on informational searches than transactional -- 60 percent for the former and [...]

msnNOW Is Driving More Traffic To Bing, But Is It Artifically Inflating Searches?

Feb 29, 2012 at 10:32am ET by Matt McGee

With its msnNOW site barely two weeks old, Microsoft is already reaping benefits on another property: increased traffic to its Bing search engine. But the way it's happening may also lead to artificial increases in Bing's market share numbers. First, the traffic stats: Experian Hitwise tells us that downstream traffic from msnNOW to Bing jumped 21 percent between the first and second weeks since msnNOW's launch on February 15th. That's in line with a separate report from Compete that says 23 percent of msnNOW users that didn't visit Bing in the week before launch did visit Bing after [...]

Google: 1 Billion People Will Use Mobile As Primary Internet Access Point In 2012

Feb 27, 2012 at 11:29am ET by Greg Sterling

Former AdMob executive Jason Spero, who is now Google’s head of mobile sales, took the stage earlier today at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona to offer up some new, global smartphone user survey data and 2012 predictions. The Google-sponsored survey had a sample size of roughly 1,000 respondents in each of the represented countries: US, UK, France, Germany, Spain and Japan. The data reflect that mobile search usage has nearly 100 percent penetration among smartphone owners, most of whom search at least once a week. Though it's not made clear in the data released I assume this [...]

Report: 52 Pct Of Local-Mobile Search Clicks Turned Into Calls

Feb 16, 2012 at 9:42am ET by Greg Sterling

Local-mobile ad network xAd released a treasure-trove of data from Q4 2011 this morning. The US-based information is drawn from mobile sites and apps that run its ads and the related user behaviors that xAd observes. These data are interesting in part because xAd has what is probably the largest network offering local search and display advertising outside of Google (AT&T might dispute that claim). The following were the most frequently searched local content categories in Q4: Ad performance reported by xAd exceeds comparable online CTRs for both search and display. The network s [...]

Why The Wikipedia/Google Search Results Study Is Flawed

Feb 14, 2012 at 3:09pm ET by Matt McGee

Many SEOs have been chatting this week about a recent study by Intelligent Positioning (first reported by Search Engine Watch) that showed Wikipedia ranks on Google UK for 99 percent of searches. Yikes, right? Wikipedia -- more specifically, Google's apparent love of Wikipedia -- has long been a sore spot in the SEO industry, so seeing a statistic like that is a big pile of salt in the wounds at this point. But it's really not a statistic to get worked up about because, in my opinion, the study itself was flawed. Study Methodology As Intelligent Position explains, the company used a [...]

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

Feb 7, 2012 at 9:47am ET by Greg Sterling

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 t [...]

Report: Search Ad Spend To Rise 27% In 2012

Jan 31, 2012 at 10:35am ET by Barry Schwartz

A new eMarketer study says that search ad spend is expected to grow 27% from 2011 to 2012, up from $15.36 billion to $19.51 billion. And by 2016, it is expected to reach almost $30 billion annually. Google will also retain dominant share of the search ad spend at 77.9%, up from 74.4% share in 2011. By 2014, Google's search ad share is expected to grow to almost 80%. Microsoft is expected to grow from 7% share in 2011 to 8.7% in 2014, while Yahoo is expected to drop from 6.7% share in 2011 to only 3% in 2014. The chart below shows overall search ad spend growth in dollars and as a perc [...]

Infographic: Search & Call Tracking

Jan 6, 2012 at 9:30am ET by Search Engine Land Infographics

Are you tracking search-related conversions that come in by phone? Perhaps you should, when 43% of them are estimated to come in that way. Ads that contain phone numbers are also said to have a 10% increase in clickthrough rate. These stats on search and phone calls, along with some general statistics about ad spending, measurement and ROI, are covered in this infographic from phone tracking service IfByPhone: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Infographics | Stats: General

Survey Says SEO The Single Most Important Marketing Channel For SMBs

Dec 8, 2011 at 9:35am ET by Greg Sterling

SEO: one channel to rule them all? A new "merchant confidence survey" from lead-gen company MerchantCircle/Reply.com, among 2,500 US small businesses, finds that search engine optimization is the marketing channel they would choose if they could choose only one. The question asked was: "If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?" The list of choices included SEO, paid search, mobile, social and traditional media. As you can see below SEO beats everything else by a mile. What's also interesting is how high "traditional media" ranked. [...]

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