May 1, 2013 at 12:00am ET by Danny Sullivan

For the 20th anniversary of CERN making Web technology available to anyone royalty-free, the European science lab has restored the very first website to its original location. Could today's search engines of Google and Bing, which didn't exist when the site was first posted, find it now? Time for a test. The answer turns out to be tricky. Searching For The Page By URL The easiest test was to see which of them had the page listed by searching for it by its URL, which is: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html It looks like this, by the way: Google found it when I searc [...]

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 [...]

Search Engine Satisfaction Dips Slightly; Google & Bing Effectively Tied

Jul 17, 2012 at 12:01am ET by Danny Sullivan

Look out, Google. In the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index for search engines, Bing has practically matched the search leader's consumer satisfaction score for the second year in a row, with Ask.com not that far behind. Bing Barely Behind Google The scores look like this: Google: 82 points Bing: 81 points Ask.com: 80 points Yahoo: 78 points On the ASCI scale, 100 would be a perfect score. Google earned 82, or what I'd call a B letter grade. But Bing was just behind by one point, and that makes it effectively tied with Google. Writes ACSI: Once trailing Google by [...]

Did Penguin Make Google’s Search Results Better Or Worse?

Apr 25, 2012 at 7:35pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Google's latest search algorithm change designed to fight spam and improve its search results went live yesterday. Plenty of people are seeing its impact already. Better or worse? It's easy to find some examples of things being bad; it's hard to say overall if there's been a net improvement or not. Judging Relevancy Is Tricky I'll go through some examples, but let me start with some caveats. If you dive into some forums, you'll find plenty of people screaming. People tend to scream after any update that things have gotten worse because they've lost rankings. Few scream about how things have [...]

Dear Google: Crappy Results Like This Don’t Give The Impression You Care About Search

Jan 26, 2012 at 8:03pm ET by Danny Sullivan

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 [...]

Larry Page: Google+ Now Has 40 Million Users

Oct 13, 2011 at 4:30pm ET by Danny Sullivan

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 are [...]

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

What Wins In Google Universal Search? Videos, Images & Google!

Jul 28, 2011 at 2:16pm ET by Barry Schwartz

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 [...]

comScore Looks Back At Smartphone Growth In “Mobile Year In Review”

Feb 14, 2011 at 8:51am ET by Greg Sterling

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 [...]

Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

Feb 1, 2011 at 8:45am ET by Danny Sullivan

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 [...]

And The Academy Awards Oscar Nomination Goes To … Google & Bing!

Jan 25, 2011 at 11:59am ET by Danny Sullivan

When I started seeing tweets about Oscar nominations, I realized the Academy Awards nominee list must be out. Good time to test how well the search engines are doing listing them! Would Google beat Bing? Bing best Google? And how about Blekko, for getting me to a list? It seemed a draw between Google and Bing. Both of them listed news about the awards at the top of the page. Both of them had the official site listed first: Looking more closely, I wanted to give Bing the nod. It listed the main nomination page from the official site in the first position: Over at Google, it was [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features: General | Stats: Relevancy

Study: Google “Favors” Itself Only 19% Of The Time

Jan 19, 2011 at 5:22pm ET by Danny Sullivan

For the past year or so, there's been a rising meme that Google is altering its search results in ways to favor itself over competitors. Now a new study is out showing the opposite. Google is far more likely not to show its own products in the first spot of its search results. The survey is from Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School. Edelman is a long time Google watcher who regularly publishes interesting and detailed looks at search and advertising-related topics. Edelman has also consulted for Microsoft and is involved in a lawsuit against Google. Edelman [...]

89% Find Search Engines Do Good Job Finding Information, But “Noise” Is Issue

Jan 15, 2011 at 9:00am ET by Danny Sullivan

Has Google's relevancy gotten worse? A recent opinion poll suggests not, while at the same time confirming a concern that's been rising in anecdotal accounts -- there's too much "noise" surrounding the "signal." Rasmussen Reports surveyed 740 adult Americans on January 4-5 about a variety of search engine related issues. The key question that caught my eye? "In terms of finding what information you need, how do you rate today’s Internet search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing …excellent, good, fair or poor?" Most Rate Search Engines Well In total, 89% found that search engine [...]

Google vs. Bing: The Fallacy Of The Superior Search Engine

Jan 12, 2011 at 12:41pm ET by Conrad Saam

I can still remember when my when I first switched over to Google on the recommendation of my brother’s girlfriend. She’s literally a rocket scientist and carries a lot of intellectual weight with me; her endorsement was fairly simple – "it returns great results". To understand what "great results" means, transport yourself back 10+ years ago and try to remember the search user experience – one dominated by short tailed queries and multiple paginated results until you could find what you were really looking for. We didn’t complain because it was free and much better than that old [...]

Blekko Launches Spam Clock To Keep Pressure On Google

Jan 7, 2011 at 2:19pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Every hour, one million spam pages are created. That's a stat that start-up search engine Blekko has now put out -- complete with a new "Spam Clock" showing a count-up of spam pages created since the first of the year. Currently, the Spam Clock estimates that there's been about 155 million spam pages made since January 1. Blekko CEO Rick Skrenta talks more about the clock on his personal blog here. Don't confuse that figure with the total amount of spam pages on the web. That figure is probably in the billions. How Bad Is Spam? And Is It Killing Google? Is spam a big problem? Sure -- s [...]

Related Topics: Blekko | Channel: Strategy | Features: Analysis | Stats: Relevancy | Top News

How The “Focus On First” Helps Hide Google’s Relevancy Problems

Sep 10, 2010 at 12:42pm ET by Danny Sullivan

In January, I was invited to speak to Google's search quality team about issues I had with Google's search results. My topic? For queries where I know a subject really well, I often found Google provided some pretty poor results in the top listings along with the good ones. I wanted more perfection! With the focus this week on Google Instant Search providing fast answers, I figured it was worth revisiting the quality of results. This post is largely built off the things I presented back in January, issues that are still continuing with Google. It explains how a "focus on first" can help cov [...]

Oh Say Can You See Ask.com’s Irrelevant Ads Showing On Google?

Nov 25, 2009 at 6:52pm ET by Danny Sullivan

I said from time to time, I'd highlight some bad search results I come across. Here's a killer -- a top ranking for us national anthem on Google that when you click on it brings up random web sites that have nothing to do with the song. Behind the scenes, there's an Ask.com connection. Let's dive in. Here's the listing: For those who can't view images, I'm pointing at the fifth listing, which says: gbjann.com Get an auto loan that's right for you. Compare auto loan rates of top lenders. ... Loan type : Sort by : State : City : New auto, 48 mo. New auto, 60 mo. ... gbjann.com/anthe [...]

The Myth Of Great Search Engine Results

Oct 23, 2009 at 6:54pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Too much time is often spent about the new features the various major search engines roll out or the latest deals they cut. Here at Search Engine Land, we can be as guilty of that as anyone. To correct it, I'll be spending more and more time highlighting poor quality search results that I encounter, in hopes of nudging the industry to improve things. Canaries In The Search Mine I've spoken and written for years that when it comes to search engines, I think there are two "canaries in the coal mine" that catch a whiff of something bad emanating from the search engines. The first a [...]

UK Report: 1 in 3 Kids Think Top Search Rankings Most “Truthful”

Oct 8, 2009 at 9:39am ET by Greg Sterling

A new and wide ranging report from the UK regulatory agency Ofcom about media literacy finds that 32 percent of UK kids aged 12-15 years old believe that the links/listings shown at the top of search results are the most "truthful." Here's how the report summarized this finding: Among children aged 12-15 who use the internet, almost all have experience of using search engine websites (94%). Those who use search engine sites were shown a list of options and were asked to say which, if any, apply in terms of the way results are shown on search engine sites. There is no clear consensus [...]

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

uTest’s “Battle of the Search Engines” Tests Bugs

Sep 15, 2009 at 9:31am ET by Barry Schwartz

uTest released a study they named "Battle of the Search Engines" which measured the relevancy of Google, Yahoo, and Bing based on "search results accuracy, page load speed, real-time relevance and usability." The report found that there were over 600 "bugs" found in the test. By "bug" I believe they mean links that lead to dead ends, i.e. broken links. I am not exactly sure how that measures "relevancy" of the search result, but it does tell us some things. In any event, here are the key points from the survey: 71% of respondents stated search results accuracy as the most important [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: Relevancy

Best Search Engine In Canada? Hitwise Says It’s Bing

Aug 19, 2009 at 11:26pm ET by Matt McGee

In a detailed report about the Canadian search landscape, Hitwise says Bing is the best search engine at producing "successful searches," beating out both Google and Yahoo, as well as their Canada-specific search engines. The chart above, provided specifically to Search Engine Land, shows that Bing is the 6th most popular search engine in Canada, but has the best success rate at 78.61%. That's about 2% better than Yahoo Canada (ca.search.yahoo.com), and more than 6% better than Google Canada (www.google.ca). It's important to understand how Hitwise defines a "successful search": "A [...]

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