Andy Atkins-Krüger founded Webcertain – the multi-language international search marketing services business that runs the International Search Summit alongside SMX in Europe – and also includes the in-house business which specializes in supporting internal agencies within big groups with the specialist language needs.
A conversation with a number of international search marketers recently showed that their range of experience ranged from expert to beginner, despite their influential career positions. By the way, this doesn’t mean they weren’t all highly talented people – their routes to their positions were just very different. The discussion did make me realise the […]
Talking to the Global SEO manager of a large organization with offices around the world, he was bemoaning the high turnover of staff and the difficulty of keeping people in SEO posts around the world with the right level of SEO knowledge and expertise to achieve their goals. It’s a challenge many organizations face. That’s […]
Google’s recent quarterly financial statements sounded pretty rosy overall. Many have much to celebrate in the figures. Stockbrokers and city analysts were much more worried about Google’s cunning share split. I haven’t seen a single commentator consider the US versus the rest of the world. Well, here it is! Let’s take the raw sales performance […]
No doubt many clients would love to imaging a world in which they didn’t have to deal with agencies or external resources. Niall Donohue won the Medallion Speaker Award at the International Search Summit alongside SMX Munich with a presentation which, at its heart, considered the best way to run Google pay per click campaigns […]
Did the headline catch your eye? I really wanted a teaser headline for this post which would entice people to read and discover the details of a new global search engine — but for that message, a teaser alone just wasn’t credible. But when I added the word “Apple” to the headline, it completely changed […]
Google speakers at both the International Search Summit San Jose and SMX West went to town on how multilingual website owners should proceed when geo-targeting their sites using the canonical and hreflang tags. Susan Moskwa provided a very helpful session on the Monday at the International Search Summit event and was followed by Maile Ohye […]
As the first of the International Search Summits of 2012 looms large (at SMX West next week) I felt it was time to review what seem to be the most significant 10 issues for search marketers at this time. What’s interesting to note is that just one year ago, this list was very different. 1. […]
People are generally vaguely aware that debates have been taking place in Europe over new legislation which principally affects the use of “Cookies”. European legislation is inevitably more complex than elsewhere because of the way it is drafted by the European Commission and then individually interpreted, translated and re-drafted by each country. Today, I’m focusing […]
Wall Street wasn’t terribly impressed with Google’s figures for the last quarter of 2011 announced after the bell last thursday. To a normal person, you would think that generating $2.71 billion profit and significantly beating your own previous quarters would be a cause for celebration. But these aren’t normal people and this isn’t a normal […]
For Yahoo, the new year got underway with the appointment of a new leader, Scott Thompson. Mr. Thompson’s appointment was announced on the 4th of January with him due to take up his responsibilities at the beginning of this week — so right now, he’ll be meeting his new team and finding out what really […]
Last Monday, Google announced that they had released “new markup for multilingual content”, see the webmaster tools blog post here. Even for those of us that work in the field of looking after global websites, this produced relatively unexciting headlines along the lines of “Google Launches New Multilingual Markup — Wow”. Big yawn. In fact, digging […]
Mindboggling. That’s the only word I can use to describe the fact that still today there are agencies and professionals who think that the right approach to generating keywords for international search marketing campaigns is to translate them. I have wasted so much of my time on this planet saying “Do Not Translate Your Keywords” […]
If you’re running a website which is published in anything from 20 to 170 countries, you have a mighty task ahead of you. One small update on a small part of the global content can result in a mammouth roll-out task to cover all the markets you publish in and create both cost and headaches […]
Last time, I was analysing the financial performance for the quarter of Google and demonstrated that internationally — excluding the UK — Google’s growth rate over last year was around 44%. We have now seen the same quarter’s figures from other major international search engines and we can conclude that Baidu’s growth rate in China tops […]
Google’s recent Quarter 3 2011 financial performance announcements saw a delighted Larry Page extolling the performance of the business, with 33% annual growth compared with the same quarter in 2010. He said the word that sprang to mind for the quarter was “gangbusters.” The income for the quarter was almost $10 billion. Where is this […]
Did you know there is a significant difference between the meanings of the words “global” and “international”? “Global” is frankly often the front end of a steamroller which crushes all before it in a form of harmonisation or centralization process. “International” on the other hand, at least for me, tends to imply more respect for […]
Did you think the search engine war was over and that Google had won? Perhaps you believed that there were a few outposts still resisting the Google conquest, but expected that they’d give in eventually? If so, you’d better sit down and take a strong drink as the first salvos in the new Search Engine […]
Recent discussions force me to return to the subject of translation versus SEO — particularly machine translation — as it seems this old topic has not yet gone away. For multinational sites, maintaining your site can be an expensive affair, and the cost savings of machine translation seem outstandingly attractive. But as my mother always […]
A few weeks ago, I spent a few days with the Baidu team in Beijing. My first conversation was with Kaiser Kuo who is the Director of International Communications and the very first topic we covered was in answer to the question, “What would you rather people better understood relating to Baidu and its position […]
The number one search engine in China is easily Baidu. But what are the people at Baidu really like and what would it be like to work there? Is this a typical Chinese or Beijing company? Or does Baidu more comfortably sit in an Extended Silicon Valley -- influenced by Californian attitudes but based a long way from the 101? And how does Baidu compare with both Google and Yandex?
Yandex now has deeper cash pockets following its IPO -- so where and in what type of expansion is the company going to expand? Moving west and south perhaps? There are good competitive reasons why Yandex needs to take its battle with Google to other markets -- but it also needs to be secure at home -- in Russia.
Based on the growth of active users in markets such as Russia and Turkey, maybe it's time to consider changing the targeting of your international business. Meanwhile, the most active users and the most active population in Europe right now is Dutch! Who would've guessed?
Privacy is a much discussed topic and most focus seems to be privacy issues in Europe. But people have different attitudes to privacy throughout the globe with some having an intense fear of compromising their privacy or identify. How does this affect search? And where are the most privacy senstiive nations>
How do you get around the fact that you don't speak the language but are still responsible for achieving your goals in a particular target market? Are there strategies you can adopt to help -- or pitfalls to watch out for?
Do we need to look at different ways of thinking about Page Rank in international markets -- especially when it comes to link building? New data suggests a significant variety of link graphs between countries -- which link builders need to build into their strategies and planning.
It is seven years ago this month that Chris Sherman first asked me to speak on a panel in London on the subject of multilingual or international search – with an emphasis on the SEO! I’m delighted once more to be presenting on “speaking in tongues” and even more pleased to be following SMX in […]
If Google reigns supreme and leads the majority of the world’s markets taking a comfortable first place, why would the company decide to dramatically expand its sales and marketing efforts? This is a question many analysts were asking following Google’s recent first quarter 2011 results announcements – and with good cause, when you start to […]
If search engines -- such as Yandex in Russia -- are generating their search query algorithms automatically using "machine learning," does that mean we need a re-think of SEO practices? What is "machine learning" in this context and how does it work? Yandex may be a "regional" search engine, but they're putting forward some challenging views of how search engines are developing and will develop in future!
How does Yandex compare to Google? Can a regional search engine success really survive in the longer term? Ilya Segalovich thinks Yandex can and reveals that Yandex has greater international aspirations. But to expand, Yandex really has to win the Russian market -- compare the statistics coming out of Russia and decide what the future might hold! There are lessons here for search marketers everywhere!
Yandex is one of the world's leading search engines and number one in Russia. But what are they like as a company as few know too much about them! I visited their offices in Moscow...this is what I learned!
With all the talk of algorithm changes -- do you have a robust method for undertaking effective forensics on your international site? There are 5 key aspects you should consider to achieve a safer and smoother ride to success starting with country-to-country ratios and turning to Donald Rumsfeld for help?
For just about the last decade, Naver has been the dominant player in the south Korean search market holding a share of some 70%. However, this doesn’t mean that Naver is not worried about competition — including from global players such as Google. How many other industries do you know where the principal worry is […]
If you're building a search marketing campaign globally, you want to know what your options are. What are the alternatives to Google? Are there still any alternative or do we just log on to Google and go?
Google is a fearsome animal, hungry to eat up all search engine market share in its path. It’s global too, and with huge resources behind it. Imagine then, that you’re the leading search engine in your own domestic market and some nearby neighbors and Google arrives. You wouldn’t exactly be thrilled right? Then, after a […]
Russian and Chinese investors are increasingly calling the shots with their investments ranging from Groupon and Facebook to many other lower profile investments. Outside of North America, they are becoming increasingly influential.
Do you need to localize your website to reach local markets anymore? Maybe not since Google last week rolled our a feature to many markets globally, to automatically translate a keyword and search for results from webpages everywhere in every language? What does this mean about our future strategies? Do we need to have a fundamental re-think about international search?
If you're planning to trade in international markets -- or in some cases even if you're not -- you need to take steps to protect your intellectual property. Whilst this is wise if you're launching just in the US, it's even more critical to plan for this in the wilder reaches of the five continents as retrospective action can be difficult and very expensive.
So global search marketers, should you be studying major religious festivals to understand their impact on your peaks and troughs — after all they may explain why your seasonal patterns globally don’t match what you’re used to. Making notes of the major festivals which will take place during your campaign year in the markets you are targeting can help.
Is it true that when Russia thrives, Russian internet search engine Yandex also thrives -- whilst Google claims it is close on its heals? Or is Russia opening up to more western forces such as Facebook? The statistics show some interesting developments which don't follow the patterns of other markets!
Google Instant certainly got people talking -- where it was rolled out that is because it didn't make it to rest of the globe instantly. Comscore has released figures showing its impact on search shares in the US -- but what are the predictions for the rest of the world. Will Google Instant be a runaway global success -- instantly?