Posts Tagged ‘search’

Facebook and Co steal search sector’s crown

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

UK internet users have visited more social networking sites than search engines in one month than ever before.

Data released by research firm Hitwise shows that visits to social networks accounted for 11.88 per cent of all UK internet visits in May, compared to search engine visits which made up 11.33 per cent.

Facebook brought in the majority of users, claiming 55 per cent of all social networking and forum visits. YouTube comes a considerable way behind, with 16.5 per cent of sector traffic during May. Twitter finishes off the top three, with 2.08 per cent of all traffic.

In terms of search sites, Google dominates the market with Google UK and Google.com accounting for over 91 per cent of all search traffic.

Despite the ever growing popularity of social networking, Google’s dominance of the search market means it retains its position as the most visited website in the UK, accounting for 9.29 per cent of all visits. Facebook takes second place with 7.04 per cent.

By Richard Morris

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Posted in Google, Social Networks, searches | No Comments »

Going Places - Google revamps its local business search

Monday, April 26th, 2010

One in five searches on Google, and an estimated one in eight in total, are location-specific, and these types of queries are being requested of the search engine giant by 82 per cent of its users.

So to cater better for this type of query, Google has announced that it is changing its Local Business Centre’s name to Google Places.

“Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world, and we want to better connect Place Pages – the way that businesses are being found today – with the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google,” an announcement on Google.com said.

The new facilities being offered on Google Places include:

1. Service areas – allowing businesses to specify the geographical area they cover;

2. Free photos of businesses in certain areas to accompany their listings. At present this service is only available in 23 cities in America, five in Australia, and two in Japan, and;

3. Instant access, via a smartphone with a barcode-scanning facility, to an individual business’s Places page. Google is hoping that many retailers will offer customers special deals when they produce this code, as a reward for their custom.

Google is clearly targeting Places at small and medium-sized businesses, as, at an event aimed at just such an audience, it also announced ‘Favorite Places’, a refinement of its Google Places service, on which celebrities have been invited to post details of businesses they endorse, which are then displayed on a Google map.

Among the statistics Google rolled out at the announcement of Favorite Places were that:

  • More than four million business owners claim listings on Google Places
  • There are 50 million Place Pages, and
  • Place Pages are viewed millions of times each day.

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Posted in E-commerce, Google, Internet, News, Social Bookmarking, search, searches | No Comments »

Done in 35.9 jiffies - Google gets creative with search times

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

April Fool’s Day is certainly upon us and Google has decided to get a little kooky with its search result times

Normally displayed at the top of the search results in seconds, the US firm has decided to mess about with its measurements for April 1.

Tests show a search for the BBC comes through in 0.23 microweeks, while an Easter egg search comes back in 0.90e-15 epochs.

The most comical so far though has to be a search for choking which was returned at 0.35 times the velocity of an unladen swallow.

Google also announced soon after midnight that it had decided to change its company name to Topeka, in recognition of a town in Kansas which changed its name to Google last month.

The unofficial name change was a publicity stunt to highlight Topeka’s application to take part in Google’s ultra-high-speed broadband experiment.

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US State Department weighs in to criticise Australia's internet filter plan

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

The US State Department has now also spoken out against the Australian plan to force internet providers to filter black-listed web content.

The country’s parliament is due to vote on whether access to sites that contain child pornography, sexual violence, and detailed instructions relating to crime and drugs should be prevented.

However, there are concerns about how far the restrictions could go. Last week search firms Google and Yahoo spoke out against the idea, saying the remit is too wide and that internet filters could be got around, while the process of blocking content would slow down internet access.

America’s Department of State has now also given its views on the plan.

Speaking to The Associated Press, U.S. State Department spokesman Michael Tran, said: “Our main message of course is that we remain committed to advancing the free flow of information which we view as vital to economic prosperity and preserving open societies globally.”

Tran said the matter had been raised with Australian officials, but would not discuss further details.

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EU and US regulators wave through Microsoft/Yahoo! deal

Monday, February 22nd, 2010
Microsoft and Yahoo! have received approval from both the US Department of Justice and the European Commission for their search deal announced last summer, Search Engine Watch has reported.
 
Yahoo! will begin to rebrand its search facility under the Bing banner, and its paid search platform will become adCenter. However, Yahoo! ad reps will be responsible for implementing the deal across its sales partners.
 

Current timescales suggest that both companies want to complete the transition by the summer, but this could slip if its implementation puts in jeopardy revenues for this traditionally busy period.

Yahoo! also plans to continue looking at innovations in the way it presents the Bing results.

SEW’s expert industry watcher Nathania Johnson reports that search marketing companies are eager to start seeing the benefits of bringing the two powerhouses together. “I have talked to so many SEMs who say that their ROI on Bing is awesome, now they just want more traffic to maximize the conversions,” she reported on the SEW blog.

 

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Posted in Bing, Mircosoft, Technology, Yahoo | No Comments »

Google in tests to customise local search results for mobiles

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

"The keyboard on my mobile phone is as much use as a ….." (fill in the blank with your chosen simile).

Whatever your answer to the above, it isn’t very likely to be complimentary.

But now, Google is attempting to short-circuit the process by refining its Search Suggestions for mobile devices.

Currently only available for iPhones or those running on Google’s own Android mobile comms platform, the facility works in a similar fashion to predictive text (so if that annoys the heck out of you, steer clear…) in creating suggesting search terms based on the first handful of characters you input.

Google’s blog announced the US-only rollout of the service with the claim that it “can meaningfully reduce the time and effort it takes to submit a search”. Of course the big question users will want answering is whether that search will be the one they were intending…

Google is intending to maximise the relevance of the results by offering suggestions based on the phone’s current or last location, as in the samples below, from Search Engine Watch:

By doing this, Google claims it can offer even better, more useful suggestions than ever before.

Interestingly, few early commentators were making the link between this improvement and the arrival of Google’s Nexus One smartphone…

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Top actor's knighthood brings massive search spike

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Sir Patrick Stewart sparks Google interest

Sir Patrick Stewart sparks Google interest

The British monarch's new year honours usually bring a flurry of interest in the people whose names appear among the great and the good, but the 2010 list sent interest in Shakespearean actor and Star Trek star Sir Patrick Stewart into the stratosphere.

Google’s search trends reported a massive spike in queries relating to the star when news of his knighthood broke. Between 3pm and 9pm on December 30, search volumes for ‘Patrick Stewart knighted’ took off massively.

The Google chart (above) shows numbers for Sir Patrick are consistently high, but by 9pm on December 30, he had risen into the top 20 most searched terms, and although the figures fell back later, he remained in the top 30 until 11pm BST.

Neil Yeomans, Lakestar Media’s head of SEO , who picked up on the movement, said he had never seen such a dramatic rise in popularity for a single search term.

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Posted in Google | No Comments »

Yahoo deal with Facebook seen as effort to regain influence on web

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Yahoo and Facebook have announced a link-up that will allow people to log into any Yahoo website using their Facebook details.

The partnership marks a significant milestone for the Facebook Connect service, which is already used by a number of sites including CNN and Yelp.

“This increases Facebook’s prominence as a big part of the social infrastructure of the web,” Ray Valdes, an analyst with Gartner, told the London Financial Times.

At the same time, Facebook is increasing promotion of its Connect facility, which allows its 350 million users to log into other sites using their Facebook ID.

By allowing users to log into different websites, taking their network of friends with them, Facebook hopes to provide users with an identity they can use across a range of sites.

“The social dimension is becoming a key part of the web experience,” said Mr Valdes. “It’s no longer sufficient to connect to content, we also need to connect to people.”

Yahoo is hoping that by embracing Facebook it can attract new users. The search company has been playing catch-up in social networking but has pledged under chief executive Carol Bartz to put social tools into many of its websites.

It has also attempted to become a more open platform, allowing users to customise homepages with a variety of widgets and applications.

“This will allow Facebook feed to be enriched by Yahoo content, and Yahoo to benefit from the Facebook network,” said Jim Stoneham, vice-president of communities for Yahoo.

Details of the non-cash deal are still being worked out. Yahoo said it expects to roll out the service in the first half of next year.

Already there is an overlap between the two sites’ audiences.

According to internet traffic analysts comScore, 52 per cent of Yahoo visitors are also using Facebook, while 84 per cent of Facebook users also visit Yahoo sites.

Yahoo still maintains one of the most popular collections of sites on the web. These include the photo sharing site Flickr, careers site HotJobs and its self-branded sports and finance pages.

The move also represents an attempt by Yahoo to claw back some of its influence in the web. “They were once a centre of gravity for the web,” said Mr Valdes. “That shifted.”

In the wake of a controversial deal that gave Microsoft power over Yahoo’s search engine, analysts said Yahoo could be ceding too much control.

“The risk for Yahoo is that they’re slowly giving up control of their user experience to other parties,” said Mr Valdes.

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Posted in Facebook, Social Networks, Yahoo | No Comments »

Google comment function a big step forward for 'webocracy'?

Monday, September 28th, 2009

User comments have always been one measure of a website's search engine ranking, but it seems they may be about to become even more relevant, with Google's introduction of Sidewiki.

This lets visitors to every website read and comment on its content, with the comments being incorporated by Google in its algorithm to determine site rankings.

Sidewiki is a new Google Toolbar feature allows web users to read and comment on any and every web site. Users need IE6 or later, or Firefox 2 or later to be able to install the toolbar.

SearchEgnineWatch reports that, unlike blogs, the most recent comments won't appear first. Instead, Google is using - what else? - a ranking algorithm to place what it deems the most relevant comments first.

It adds that very few sites are so far adopting the Sidewiki, but observers are hoping that more relevant content will be added in time.

Google has posted this introductory video explaining how Sidewiki works, but the comments so far submitted to it seem mostly to express reservations about the potential for spammers to hijack the comments. So no doubt, many people will be reserving their judgments until more is known about how Google intends to address this.

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Posted in Google, SEO | No Comments »