'Net Features : google, microsoft

Desktop Search On The Rise

Allison Howen — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:05:00 GMT

Despite mobile’s momentum, desktop search activity has been on the rise.

In fact, a recent comScore study reveals that October’s overall desktop search activity saw an increase of 8 percent compared to the previous month – with a total of 17,623 searches conducted.

Other statistics show that Google gained two-tenths of a percentage point and continues to lead the search industry with 66.9 percentage of the market share. However, Microsoft also gained a tenth of a percentage point and now makes up 16 percent of the search market share, followed by Yahoo at 12.2 percent.

This means that even though many Web workers have focused on mobile lately, desktops should still not be overlooked – especially during the holiday season. In the coming weeks consumers will be conducting a lot of searches, both on mobile devices and on desktops, and the only way to guarantee your business is found is by continuously monitoring your brand’s placement on the SERPs. For those Web businesses who need a little help to do so, check out Website Magazine's Master List of SEO Tools.

Bing Redesigns for Better Results

Linc Wonham — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:25:00 GMT

Microsoft gave the Bing search results page a facelift yesterday, going for “a fresh, de-cluttered experience designed to help you find the results you want faster”, according to the Bing Search Blog.

The redesign was based on dozens of experiments conducted over several months, and involved removing the left rail, minimizing the header, increasing the space between lines, consistently placing all results annotations and social data in one spot, among other things. Bing also claims that page-load times are faster and relevance is higher, and that more changes are on the way.

The redesign is noteworthy on a couple of different levels. First, it represents a clear commitment to simpler, cleaner Web design, which has been one of the most important trends of the past year. Secondly, as part of its ongoing competition with the undisputed search leader, Bing not only took a page from the Google playbook, but it out-Googled Google. The new design is actually cleaner than Google’s search results page, which was once the poster child for simplicity.

That very fact is an important one for anyone associated with Web design. When Bing first came onto the scene, it tried to compete with Google’s simplistic look by dressing itself up and over-accessorizing. After that strategy failed, now Bing is trying to add by subtraction. And when you put the two sites together, Google looks amazingly cluttered today by comparison (see below).

Who really needs all of those additional features when you’re making a simple search query? Do the extra elements on the page help or hurt the user’s end goal? I say they are a hindrance in the long run, and most of today’s website designs could stand to strip out similar unnecessary features that play little to no part in the ultimate goal of conversion.

However, judging from the comments on Bing’s blog, the early opinions are mixed – and some of the remarks bring up some very intriguing questions about what makes for the best, most user-friendly Web designs in the search field. WM urges you to go check out those comments, but before you do, take a look at the examples below and leave your overall opinions in our own comments section below.

What follows are Bing’s old search results page design, followed by the new redesign, followed by current examples from other engines including Google, DuckDuckGo and Blekko.

Please tell us which one is best, which is worst, and why.

Bing's old design

Bing's new design

Google

DuckDuckGo

Blekko

Friday 15 for Web Pros

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 20:00:00 GMT

Friday is the perfect opportunity to take a moment and look back at the most important and interesting business and technology developments of the week – those that will influence you in the future and likely are impacting some aspect of your Web enterprise right now. This week, let’s look at 15 key developments in the world of Web business.

- The Open Commerce Ecosystem of Ebay Arrives
Ebay has been the talk of the Web this week with its X.commerce effort, which aims to connect developers with merchants to create a complete commerce operating system. A few of the integrations announced at the Innovate Developer Conference include those with Facebook (integrating Open Graph functionality through Magento and GSI), Adobe (integrating its digital marketing platform), Kenshoo (which automates digital marketing campaigns) and online bookkeeping tool Outright.

- The Value of Real-Time Search Data
URL shortener bit.ly played its trump card this week – an immense set of real-time data. The company released a reputation monitoring service for enterprise customers based on its search technology which weighs results by cross-platform social engagement. Bit.ly joins several other vendors in the real-time search and analytics space including Topsy and Google.

- Google+ Closes in on Twitter
The Google+ network/platform has surpassed the 40 million user mark, inching ever closer to the 100 million active users of Twitter but still quite a distance from Facebook's 800 million users. Revenue was up 33 percent year-over-year, and quarter revenues were just short of $10 billion for Google, but questions remain about its ability to foster social communities.

- Can Anyone Save Yahoo? Comscore Search Data
Comscore reported that Google’s share of the search market increased a half percentage at the expense of Yahoo – which fell to its lowest search volume levels ever. Perhaps an Alibaba acquisition isn’t such a bad idea, after all. While Yahoo! has a strong foothold in the display advertising market, the network might have seen better days.

- Let’s Take it Offline
Mobile payments company Square, which offers apps that allow merchants to process and manage credit card transaction with a swiping device that plugs in to the headset/microphone jack, announced that it is now processing 2$ billion in payments volume per year. Square also announced that it is dropping several requirements for new Swype merchants.

- Jumping on the KickStarter Bandwagon
Crowdfunding service Kickstarter has seen 1 million people sign up and offer financial support for projects listed on its site. Kickstarter also indicated that of those who have backed projects 89% of them have supported at least one idea that was successful.

- Search Ad Spend Rebounds
SEM and software provider Covario released its global spend search ad spend analysis which indicated that PPC spending was up 26 percent from the previous quarter and 24 percent versus the same period last year.

- A Local Vibe from MapQuest
MapQuest unveiled Vibe this week, a local search/mapping tool which identifies neighborhood-level hot spots. MapQuest Vibe profiles more than 50,000 neighborhoods, 27,000 cities and 50,000 hotspots in the U.S., reaching 98 percent of the population.

- Ad Boosters from GreyStripe
Mobile advertising network GreyStripe released several new industry-focused and social ad units this week dubbed Ad Boosters. The customizable “boosters” allows advertisers to direct users to take specific actions. A retail booster, for example, could include a “Find Store” button, a coupon or buy now button. This is somewhat similar to the way that Google has introduced the +1 button on its display ads.

- Foursquare Gets Real with Radar Notifications
It seems as if the hottest new trend on the Web is in real-time data retrieval, and now location-based social media service Foursquare is hopping on the bandwagon. Earlier this week they announced Radar, a new real-time feature that will sends notifications to users when they're close to businesses that fit into their "to-do lists", or any other Foursquare lists to which they've subscribed. This tool will be especially useful for driving relevant customers to local businesses when they're in a city or area that they're not familiar with.

-Location-based Marketing with Hootsuite
HootSuite acquired location-based marketing tool Geotoko this week. This geo-aggregation tool collects audience information from check-in tools like Facebook Places and Foursquare. The integration of this tool with HootSuite will especially help multiple location brick and mortar businesses better understand audiences, based on data such as location, sentiment and demographic. With this data, businesses will be able to reach out to consumers with specific offers, promotions and campaign adjustments.

- Google Commerce Goes Mobile
Just two years after Google Commerce was launched, this week Google announced Google Commerce Search for mobile. According to Google, the launch of Google Commerce Search for mobile came about after consistently finding an increasing number of shopping queries from mobile phones. Timberland is one of the first Google Commerce for Search customers, and claims that since its mobile-optimized website launched, mobile sales have grown 20 times faster than desktop sales.

- LinkedIn Acquires IndexTank

Linked acquired hosted search service IndexTank this week, which will integrate its technology with LinkedIn’s search. IndexTank’s real-time search technology already powers many searches, such as Reddit.com, Twitvid and Spoke. Currently, LinkedIn claims that it will release key components of IndexTank as open source software, which will allow others to run the IndexTank API.

- Microsoft and Skype Seal the Deal
Microsoft finally made it official with video/chat software application provider Skype after being in talks to buy the company since May. The software giant finally closed the deal and purchased Skype for $8.5 billion. For now, Skype will operate as an independent division, with their offices and employees remaining and over time it will be integrated into Microsoft products like Xbox Live and Windows Live.

- Facebook Friendly
Facebook, the reigning King of social media, recently acquireded the startup friend.ly, the company behind a popular social question-and-answer service featured on the social network. Friend.ly will still exist and operate as a standalone service on the site, while the company’s team will begin focusing on new projects at Facebook.

Gmail to Provide Backup for Microsoft Exchange Users

Software Everywhere : feature — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:33:00 GMT

Just as Microsoft’s Bing has made the search environment a little too crowded for Google’s tastes, Google is doing the same thing to Microsoft with office productivity tools. Thursday’s launch of Google Message Continuity reiterates...(read more)

Facebook is UK's Biggest Display Ad Market

Mike Phillips — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:30:00 GMT

ComScore released an overview of the UK online display advertising market for Q3 2010, which not only showed strong gains for the medium as a whole but also lists Facebook as the UK's single largest display ad publisher on the Web. Facebook accounted for 68 billion display ad impression (does not include video ads or house ads), for a 31 percent market share. A distant second was Microsoft Sites (14 billion), followed by eBay (8.8 billion) and Google Sites (8.2 billion). This not only points out how large the Facebook audience is, but also the pervasiveness of advertising on the world's largest social network. And in the face of advertising, users have not abandoned the site on grounds of "intrusion." That's good news for advertisers.

Also according to the comScore findings, the display market overall enjoyed a 34 precent increase in ad impressions over Q3 2009, reaching more than 221 billion display ads. Display advertising is clearly on the rise once again.

Is Google Losing Its Grip on Search?

Linc Wonham — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:32:00 GMT

When Google Instant launched earlier this month, the relatively indifferent reactions from the Yahoo and Microsoft camps came as no surprise. No one expected Google’s competitors to come out and say that the world’s dominant search engine had just changed the industry forever.

Instead, executives from both companies suggested they’d each been working with real-time search technology for some time, and that their own visions of the future of search did not equate to what Google had given us with Instant. Predictable responses at the time, but now after three weeks of consuming Google Instant, we need to explore just what is the future of search.

On Thursday, Google announced some new features for Instant as well as the fact that it is now rolling out into 12 new countries in Europe and North and South America. Until then, it had been available in seven countries around the world.

Among the new features are a keyboard navigation desktop functionality that allows users to scroll through the search suggestions to find more instant results. Instant search has also been added to the Blogs, Books, Videos, News, Updates and Discussions options, but not yet to Images, nor has it been released for the browser or mobile yet.

The new features come a day or so after Google received criticism for perhaps being overly cautious in compiling its “blacklist” of potentially offensive words and phrases that are rejected by Instant. It seems that some of the phrases that wound up on the blacklist are hardly offensive, but I suppose Google will continue to update the list and should know by now that it will never completely satisfy everyone no matter what it does.

However, overall, I cannot say that Google Instant has dramatically improved my search experiences the past three weeks, and I suddenly find myself having a renewed interest in hearing what those executives from Yahoo and Microsoft had to say about their own solutions, wherever they may be.

Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi told an audience on Wednesday that both Google and his company “are focused on improving search performance for people. Where (the two companies) are different is that for (Microsoft) it’s about speed to task completion. It’s about getting what you want accomplished, not about getting a lot more results.”

Which is exactly what I’ve been finding in my Google Instant searches – a lot more results to sift through, which actually slows down the process. That’s not what I anticipated or hoped for when it was launched three weeks ago. Where Instant may save me time is by shortening the length of my queries, but what advantage does that serve if I spend more time looking for the results I want?

For Yahoo’s part, a senior VP of search products, Shashi Seth, was recently quoted as saying that Yahoo owns several patents on real-time technology and has been working on its solution for five years already. That solution, he said, will ultimately give users what they are looking for in real time, not – as in the case of Google Instant – more and more continuously updated search results.

That, it seems, is the challenge that real-time search technology faces – in accurately predicting our queries, not necessarily in how fast it can deliver and update the results.

What makes this a lot more interesting is the fact that Microsoft’s search engine Bing, now in alliance with Yahoo, is moving its way up the market share ladder with a bigger head of steam than most people expected. The idea of an actual showdown between Google and Bing was rather laughable as recently as six months ago, but not anymore.

As far as a real-time search solution and what it will mean for consumers, Web professionals and the future of search, it appears that the race is still very much on.

Microsoft-Yahoo Search/Ad Pact: Alternative to Google

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:50:00 GMT

Microsoft and Yahoo have finally forged an alliance after months/years of on and off negotiations. Microsoft will power Yahoo’s search tool while Yahoo! will become the exclusive sales force for both firms premium search advertisers.

The terms of the deal are for 10 years. Microsoft will be licensing Yahoo's core search technologies, and Microsoft's Bing will become the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo sites. Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.

Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo sites for the first five years. Yahoo sees the deal lifting annual operating income by around $500 million and capital expenditure savings of $200 million. Yahoo sees an annual operating cash flow benefit of $275 million.

"This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry. And I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development," said Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz. "Users will continue to experience search as a vital part of their Yahoo! experiences and will enjoy increased innovation thanks to the scale and resources this deal provides. Advertisers will also benefit from scale and enjoy greater ease of use and efficiencies working with a single platform and sales team for premium advertisers. Finally, this deal will help us increase our investments in priority areas in winning audience properties, display advertising capabilities, and mobile experiences."

This alliance presents a more significant threat to Google by offering a legitimate, viable alternative to advertisers by combining Yahoo! and Microsoft search marketplaces so that, according to the release “advertisers no longer have to rely on one company that dominates more than 70 percent of all search.”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the agreement will provide Microsoft's Bing with the scale necessary to “more effectively compete, attracting more users and advertisers, which in turn will lead to more relevant ads and search results.”

"Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers, and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company," said Ballmer. "Success in search requires both innovation and scale. With our new Bing search platform, we've created breakthrough innovation and features. This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know there's so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search."

Size of the Internet Audience

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:29:00 GMT

Comscore reported last week that the total global internet audience (age 15 and older from home and work computers) surpassed 1 billion visitors in December 2008.

The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the highest share of global Internet users at 41 percent, followed by Europe (28 percent share), North America (18 percent share), Latin America (7 percent share), and the Middle East & Africa (5 percent share).

“Surpassing one billion global users is a significant landmark in the history of the Internet,” said Magid Abraham, President and Chief Executive Officer, comScore, Inc. “It is a monument to the increasingly unified global community in which we live and reminds us that the world truly is becoming more flat. The second billion will be online before we know it, and the third billion will arrive even faster than that, until we have a truly global network of interconnected people and ideas that transcend borders and cultural boundaries.”

According to Comscore figure, Google was the most popular property in the world with 777.9 million visitors, followed by Microsoft Sites (647.9 million visitors), Yahoo! Sites (562.6 million visitors). Facebook.com, which has grown a dramatic 127-percent in the past year to 222 million visitors, now ranks as the top social networking site worldwide and the seventh most popular property in the world.

Google Apps Reseller Program Unveiled

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:42:00 GMT

Google announced the launch of an authorized reseller program for Google Apps.

While some might see this as a direct attack on Microsoft's core product line (which it very well may be), Web hosting companies should really be the entities worrying. If web hosting resellers shift from promoting entire Web business configurations over to Google Apps, small hosting companies could end up all but obsolete. For this to happen though, Google will surely need to beef up its own services. But the threat is certainly there.

For those unfamiliar with Google Apps, it is a SaaS package of business applications such as email, calendar, group site creation, and document collaboration (watch a video on Google Apps here). Over 1 million companies already use the product, and some 3,000 new businesses sign up each and every day.

The challenge, however, for Google is that many of the businesses right for Google Apps don't have the expertise or resources to implement it correctly and integrate it into their existing business processes. That's where authorized resellers come in. Google is aiming to steal away some market share from hosting companies by training affiliates to resell its application bundle.

The Google Apps Authorized Reseller program gives affiliates the opportunity to earn product and service revenue (20% on each $50 per user/per year price) from their new and existing customers by deploying Google Apps. Google provides resellers with the standard marketing collateral (sales tools and technical training) and management accounts (console to create and manage customer accounts).

Major Gains For Search in Q4

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:48:00 GMT

Online marketing intelligence provider AdGooroo released a report today indicating major gains in search during the fourth quarter.

Google led in Q4 with first-page advertiser growth of 58.0 percent, followed by Live Search with 42.3 percent. Yahoo! trailed with a mere 8.8 percent, surprisingly low given the brisk pace of online holiday sales.

“Ad coverage on the search engines continues to provide a reliable indicator of advertising activity and is the focus of increased industry chatter,” said AdGooroo Founder Rich Stokes. “The Q4 report shows that we measured large increases in ad coverage on Google. Microsoft ad coverage fell, on the other hand, likely indicative of their continuing focus on ad quality control and holistic search. Yahoo! showed little change in ad coverage from other 2008 reports.”

Other significant findings contained in the report include:

A combined Microsoft/Yahoo! entity would increase large advertiser counts on the Live Search network by 157 percent, making a strong case for Microsoft acquiring Yahoo!.
Microsoft continued to close the gap in advertiser share with Yahoo: In Q3, Yahoo! led by 17.6 percent, but this lead has narrowed to 3.0 percent at the end of Q4.

Those interested in learning more can view and download a complimentary copy of the report, “Search Engine Advertising Update – Q408” in the AdGooroo Research Library.

YouTube Ups the Advertising Ante

Mike Phillips — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:30:00 GMT

You don't need to be reminded about the proliferation of online video and what it can do for your business. The trick has always been how to get those millions of eyeballs on your video and, ultimately, to your website. YouTube - the world's most trafficked video site - has a solution ... pay for it.

Google is ready to cash in on their $1.3 billion investment in YouTube. This week they announced two important developments in their plans to monetize on the world's most popular online video portal. First, video publishers are now able to purchase sponsored search results on the YouTube home page with YouTube Sponsored Videos. Based on a cost-per-click basis, publishers can set maximum bids on keywords in an automated online auction to appear next to user search results.

There is a reason this is so significant. YouTube accounts for an enormous portion of Internet traffic. And the numbers continue to grow. In terms of search, perhaps its time to reconsider the "Big 3" of search and start talking about the "Big 4." The chart from Compete below shows why. And take a look at the numbers at the bottom - YouTube is outpacing every one of the "Big 3" in the past year. In fact, YouTube is on pace to supplant #3 on the list. After all, when people come to YouTube, they search.

Also announced, YouTube will start including AdSense with video embeds. Previously limited to YouTube's website, AdSense ads will appear on the bottom 20 percent of videos that are embedded on other websites - a very large, previously untapped marketplace. This is separate from regular AdSense accounts, but available to YouTube partners. This is certainly welcome news to video publishers, who were undoubtedly missing out on revenue when videos were embedded on other websites. The revenue generated from these ads will be split between YouTube and the YouTube partner. To get involved, you can submit an application.

Comscore August Search Rankings

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:38:00 GMT

Is Search at a Tipping Point?

Comscore released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace today. Americans conducted 11.7 billion core searches and Google extended its lead by 1.1 percentage points, to 63 percent of the searches conducted (up from 61.9 percent in July). However, the total number of searches was virtually unchanged from July.

AOL (4.3%) and ASK (4.5%) made modest gains (+0.1 and 0.3 respectively) while both Yahoo (19.6%) and Microsoft (8.3%) slipped slightly. In the comScore August 2008 extended search analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed (which includes partner searches and cross-channel searches), Google sites led with 10.2 billion searches, a 2-percent increase versus July. Yahoo! sites ranked second with 2.4 billion searches, followed by Microsoft sites with 1 billion and AOL LLC with 839 million.

Paid Search, Traffic Syndication and the Big Three

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:01:00 GMT

One of the main misconceptions those new to PPC advertising have is that where they place their budget is the source of the traffic. In reality, most paid search solutions utilize some syndication sources to increase the total number of searches available. That's pretty much standard practice in the paid search advertising industry. But how does advertising that is syndicated compare to pure search referrals? Efficient Frontier has released some incredibly interesting insights showing where click referrals are coming from and the ROI for each of the big three networks - Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

Interesting to Note:
You've probably heard advertisers complain that using the content network at Google results in poor conversions, while utilizing the search network alone yields the best results (especially if you understand match types). This seems to hold true based on the chart above.