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SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 3, 2008

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Using Search to Analyze Brand Recognition GrowthWhat is your company’s brand awareness? Measuring brand awareness is important for understanding the impact of offline and online marketing strategies. Because brand awareness is […]

Barry Schwartz on December 3, 2008 at 5:02 pm | Reading time: 9 minutes

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Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Using Search to Analyze Brand Recognition Growth
What is your company’s brand awareness? Measuring brand awareness is important for understanding the impact of offline and online marketing strategies. Because brand awareness is affected by so many different marketing strategies, quantifying brand awareness is not always straightforward. One way to gauge interest in your company’s brand is to analyze keyword search patterns. Your analytics team may gain valuable insight by monitoring changes in search patterns for your company’s brand.
SearchBiz: The Economy Takes Its Toll On Google & Why Twitter Rejected Facebook’s Acquisition Overtures
The buzz today comes from the Wall Street Journal article, which you’ve probably already seen, called “Google Gears Down for Tougher Times.” In a related post, Silicon Alley Insider summarizes the piece with more than a hint of schadenfreude. The thrust of the WSJ story is that Google is trying to cut costs and reduce spending, which means getting rid of contractors, curtailing 20 percent time projects, shuttering services without traction (e.g., Lively, Google Page Creator) and reducing perks.
Search Engines Release Most Popular Search Trends of 2008
As 2008 comes to a close, the annual tradition of gathering up the most popular search trends continues. Breaking down billions of search queries into concise Top 10 lists isn’t an easy task but among the major search engines. Still, obvious trends emerge nearly every year, and typically revolve around international news stories, major events, celebrity news, gossip and natural disasters. (Quite often, those last few can be grouped together). Natural curiosity about political leaders, well known entertainers and amazing athletes typically fuel the daily buzz on every search engine, but major events like the 2008 Olympics and US Election always …
Yahoo Launches Search Assist For Image Search
Yahoo has rolled out the Search Assist feature to Image Search. For example, a search for images on barack obama will return images within the actual Search Assist bar. Here is a screen capture:
14 Questions On Google You Might Not Want To Know The Answers To
FaberNovel created a slide show titled, “Everything you always wanted to know about Google…But were afraid to ask.” The questions include:
Online Holiday Shopping Stats & Most Searched Gifts
Following up a report that online-only retailers experienced an 11% increase in visits for Black Friday 2008 (over 2007), Hitwise released additional numbers for Cyber Monday 2008, traditionally expected to be a better day in terms of online traffic and sales for e-tailers. Cyber Monday 2008 snapshot Among the top 500 Retail Web sites, the percentage of U.S. visits were down 1% on Cyber Monday 2008, compared to 2007. U.S visits to Brick and Mortar store Web sites (100 total) were down>4% on Cyber Monday. U.S visits to Online-only Web sites (100 total) were up 5% on on Cyber Monday. U.S visits to the Comparison Shopping Web sites were down 21% on yber Monday. U.S visits to the Catalog Web sites were down 4% on Cyber Monday.
Ask.com: Top Search Trends of 2008
“Maverick” earns bragging rights as the word of the year; Disney’s Tweeny-boppers take over the Top 10 list of celebrity-based searches; shopping for the best deals on travel and entertainment were top of mind in a tightening economy, and queries in the form of a question still reign supreme at Ask.com.
Google 2008 Year-End Zeitgeist; Fastest Rising Searches
Google’s official list of the most popular search activity for 2008, aka Zeitgeist, has yet to make its debut, but the search giant has been leaking out tasty tidbits of data to get us salivating for even more search data. The fastest-rising search terms of 2008 Obama Facebook Att iPhone YouTube Fox news Palin Beijing 2008 David Cook Surf the channel
Yahoo’s 2008 Year End Round-Up of Buzzworthy Searches
In addition to summarizing the most popular search trends overall, this year, Yahoo! dug deeper into the metrics of its vertical channels to get more granular information on what users searched for in 2008. With the launch of Buzz-up for publishers in 2008, Yahoo! also ranked the most buzzed stories and most clicked-on stories. In addition, there’s more Top 10 lists spotlighting different content around the network aimed at different usergroups including Yahoo! Food, Shine (women’s channel), Tech, Green, Shopping, Travel, Games, Movies, Music, Local and Hot Jobs.
AOL 2008 Year in Review: The Hottest Search Trends
The presidential election reigned supreme in the land of America (Online), as politically charged queries ranged across more than 40 categories in AOL’s annual lists of top Web, mobile and video searches. Celebrity news, captivating headlines and pop culture continued to captivate the online audience; emerging mobile devices bumped activity for social apps like MySpace and Facebook, as well as sharing videos downloaded via apps for the iPhone.
Live Search Adds Malware Warnings To Search Results
MSN’s Live Search has announced the addition of malware warnings to their search results pages. In doing so, Live Search joins Google and Yahoo in taking a proactive stance against potentially dangerous sites; Google began adding malware warnings in early 2007. Yahoo added SearchScan alerts in May of this year. The Live Search implementation is different from how the other two search engines show malware warnings. When a potentially harmful page shows up in the Live Search results, users see no warning until they actually try to click on the link. When they do click, a small “pop-up” box appears to the far right of the listing. Here’s what it says:
Search Month: November 2008 Search News, In Review
Search Month is a monthly newsletter that recaps stories covered on Search Engine Land over the past month. It’s also available by feed here. Below, news about Search Engine Land itself, then our 10 most popular stories from November 2008, then a major story for various search topics along with other stories related to those topics covered during November.
November 2008: Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories
Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from November 2008:
Proximic (”Don’t Call It A Newsreader”) Moves Into Mobile Search
Contextual content and advertising provider Proximic released an iPhone app, as the first step into a much broader foray into consumer-facing mobile search. The company’s underlying technology is called “pattern proximity matching,” which seeks to better understand pages and context through numerous points of relevance. Company CEO Philipp Pieper says that it can be used to match ads with content (or content with other content) but that it also offers a superior relevance algorithm for consumer search. However the new iPhone App “Proximic Agents” isn’t yet a full-blown search engine; it’s a more intelligent news reader — for now.