Microdata is a way of labeling content within HTML in order to point out specific types of common information for search engines’ use/indexing.  Examples of this information may include descriptions of certain persons (name, occupation, etc.), product reviews (ratings, price, etc.), or recipe details (prep time, serving size, etc.).

Without getting overly technical, microdata is denoted by HTML tags similar to metatags (usually using <div> or <span>) to assign brief descriptors to items and properties on a webpage.  Below is an example Google provides of an HTML block of personal contact information without microdata and (below that) with microdata.

Without microdata:

With microdata:

Google explains the sample above like this:

• In the first line, itemscope indicates that the content in the <div> is an item. itemtype=”http://data-vocabulary.org/Person indicates that the item is a Person.
• Each property of the Person item is identified with the itemprop attribute. For example, itemprop=”name” describes the person’s name.
• This information could be marked up even further with microdata by assigning address properties to the subject’s location (Albuquerque, NM).

Marking up your site with these microdata tags is currently one of the best ways to put your content into context that makes it easier for search engines to read. Without them, your content appears to web-crawling bots moreso as one large collection of data, words, numbers, fact sets, etc., which is not nearly as search-engine friendly.  Microdata allows Google (or Bing/Yahoo!) to better understand and categorize all of the information on each page, which not only helps in improving SERP rank, but can also encourage higher CTRs by displaying in the search results the most relevant information to the searcher.

Applying microdata to HTML on a page about a restaurant such as its name, its location, its price range, as well as reviews will not affect the appearance of the content, but it will help Google better understand it and present that information in a way that is most relevant to the user. Below is an example of a Google SERP page using specified microdata to display to the searcher what are called “rich snippets.”

What’s more is that in June of 2011, the holy trinity of search—Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!—announced the joint alliance of schema.org, a site that provides a full directory of microdata properties and tags that webmasters can follow.  This means that all three major players in the industry have agreed upon a common foundation of microdata sets that is now quickly becoming standard in best practices for web development and SEO as HTML5 takes over.

The key here is that a user must be signed in to his Google profile AND have a social network connected to that account (LinkedIn or Twitter, for example). The new functionality is predicated on users being willing to synch up their accounts; a topic especially pertinent given the recent attention to data sharing on the web.

Some might argue that keeping certain accounts separate helps compartmentalize the primary uses of Twitter (sharing topics and communicating) and Google (seeking information or navigating websites), while combining could amplify the noise and clutter already threatening to overpower the web. However, the example given on the Google blog of researching a trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro might be a case where social recommendations could prove helpful. I would trust the opinion of my friends when deciding to climb the highest freestanding mountain in the world, or perhaps the less dramatic example of researching digital cameras.

A further question would be whether the algorithm accounts for your friends’ web behavior, outside of posts or recommended content, and integrates their random clicks and sites visited. This would take an assumption that their online behavior is indicative of my own, though the social search functionality described above is to a certain extent exactly that. Personalized results in this scenario could run the risk of becoming homogenized and lose their relevance along with their diversity.

Surely the Microsoft executives in Redmont, WA, are sitting back and laughing, confident that their business relationship to Facebook assures them of more relevant social search results on Bing. Google has been prevented from accessing Facebook pages and has a noticeable gap in their social search results. While this is clearly a value-add for Bing results, Facebook may not always be the top social sharing site. Furthermore, does this portend a dark future where competing search engines only show manipulated results from business partners that have mutually vested interests?

The phenomenon of social sharing does not appear to be slowing down and search engines are wise to take note of the direction web interaction is heading. Google is already quite fond of trusted brands in search results, though companies would be wise to prioritize their social footprint and maintain active community management with consumers. Grabbing that top spot in the SERP is vital to most web properties and engaging fans socially could land them right at the top of personalized search results.

I received an email at the beginning of September informing me that the Yahoo Ambassador program was being discontinued. Similar to Geocities being removed from the index, this marks another milestone in the evolution of Search.

It will be interesting to see whether Yahoo Ambassador badges remain on sites and how long people leave it on their LinkedIn profiles now that the program does not exist.

It was a good 4 years, but I suppose this means I have to change my desktop background to something other than my Yahoo Ambassador certificate.

Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.

Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.

Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way.

Distracting

Overall, I believe Local Search will see the most immediate and obvious impact from Google Instant. Anyone searching for anything beginning with a city name will potentially be incredibly distracted. For example, while searching for [chicago restaurants], I get to [chicago re] and see listings for real estate. Sure, why not look up home values in my neighborhood. In another example, while searching for [new york metro], I reach [new york me] – Hey the Mets won tonight.

While the claim is that Google Instant will help users “even when they don’t know exactly what they’re looking for”, it could, in fact, distract users with content they never intended to look for in the first place.

Diluting

Using another local search example, what happens when a user searching for [cincinnati mortgage] stops at [cincinnati mo] because they saw local movie times? And more importantly, what happens to the four paid ads that were triggered by a presumed movie-based query? If the user looked at the movie times for more than three seconds, all of the paid movie ads just received an impression (there are also other ways those ads could receive impressions). Already, there is a lot of chatter about rising impressions, diluted clicks, lower click-through rates, lower quality scores and higher costs.

Google has admitted that this may be the case. The Analytics, AdWords and Webmaster Tools blogs all say essentially the same thing:

With Google Instant, you may notice an increase in impressions

It will be interesting to see how this plays out on the paid search front. Especially the potential for competitors to bid on shortened versions of competitive brand terms. For example, Honda could place paid search ads on the term [corol] and have Accord ads show up before Toyota ads even have a chance to be displayed.

Spelling

This implication is partly in jest, but Google Instant makes knowing how to spell something quite unnecessary. I am ashamed to admit how often I rely on the ‘Did you mean…’ feature to correct my spelling. Before today, I would at least have to make a valiant effort to spell my complete query as accurately as possible and then sheepishly click submit before being gently corrected by Google. Now I just have to know the first few letters and without even having to click I am, potentially, shown what I was looking for.

These are, of course, only initial impressions after the first few hours. There will certainly be more discovery, questions and issues that surface in the coming days.

Branding vs. SEO

There must be a balance between snazzy/clever domains and search-friendly domains. Let’s use the Furminator as an example. This is a clever name for a pet brush, but it is not a category/industry term that people are already looking for. It had no search volume whatsoever before the product launch. To offset the lack of natural search volume, they had to put substantial money behind marketing efforts to build awareness and drive people to the site.

At the other end of the spectrum, they could have built their site at PetGroomingBrushes.com. This would not have helped with brand-related searches, but it probably would have earned a place among already existent category-level searches, saving them money by not having to run as many TV spots.

A few questions to help you decide whether to use a clever name or search friendly name:
- How long will this site/product live?
- How much online/offline marketing support will the site/product have?
- Do the new site/product stakeholders have the patience and money needed to create a new online brand?

Conjunctions and Homonyms

As a general rule, you should steer away from domains with words that can be spelled multiple ways.
For example, if you heard someone talking about a new site called ImHereWithYou.com, they could mean I am Here with You, Im hear with U, etc.

Words that make us cringe to see in domains:

I’m/I am
Here/Hear
There/Their/Theyre
To/Two/Too
Your/You’re

Numbers should also be avoided if possible to avoid confusion between the actual number and the spelled version (e.g. one vs. 1). Exceptions include numbers that are almost always in one form or another such as years (1998 vs. Nineteen Ninety Eight).

Adjacent Characters

If the last letter of the first word in your domain is the same as the first letter of the second word…keep brainstorming.
One of the more well known examples of this is Best Buy’s Giftag.com. Because there are two adjacent identical characters, users who heard the name would not know whether it was spelled GifTTag (the more obvious option in my opinion) or GifTag. To make this situation even worse. Best Buy did not bother to buy GiftTag.com. It is a parked domain probably absorbing a healthy amount of traffic from users trying to get to GifTag.com.

Other examples of bad adjacent character domains:
Maltairport.com (Official site of the Malta Airport) vs. MaltaAirport.com (parked)

Special Characters

Dashes should be avoided if possible. Google has had a grudge against them for some time since they generally reflect lower-quality, younger sites. That being said, in hyper-competitive environments their use could be warranted.

Length

Obviously, shorter domains are better. We will generally try to stay less than 3 words and/or 5 syllables. As with all domain best practices, there are always exceptions, particularly if your domain is an extremely popular saying or phrase, or if you are targeting very specific long-tail search traffic.

Heard vs. Read

During domain brainstorming, it is rather important to consider what the domain actually looks like when written down. Something like Experts Exchange probably sounded like a great name for a site where programmers can share tips and advice. The question remains at what point someone finally pointed out that expertsexchange.com could attract some arguably irrelevant traffic.

Trademarks

Always ensure, particularly for large (expensive) sites, that the term is free of any existing trademarks. Conveniently, the people who have already trademarked your great idea will probably wait until your site is popular enough to warrant action. And it would be frustrating to spend a few years building up site traffic only to receive a cease and desist letter forcing you to change the domain.

Trademark Search

As mentioned previously, Google Caffeine is good news for brands – top brands will find it is easier to rank for industry-related terms. Caffeine also favors ‘information/news’ sites that are updated frequently. Finally, as we have already seen with the inclusion of live twitter feeds in SERPs, Caffeine will more aggressively spider and display real-time results from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

Have any of your SERPs changed in the past few days as a result of Caffeine?

Enhanced Video Search

Bing has begun to include four video results at the top of video related searches. They appear to show up more often than Google’s universal results.

Comparative search for [30 Rock].

Comparative search for [Modern Warfare 2].

Facebook / Wish Lists

Bing also introduced the ability to add products and gadgets to a Bing wish list and then push that wish list directly to Facebook. I searched for (what I would consider) popular items for holiday wish lists such as [ps3], [iphone], [madden 10 ], [modern warfare 2] but could not find an option to create a wish list. Either the program is not fully rolled out yet, or they need to do some usability testing. Despite not finding this function, I did notice a few differences between Google and Bing SERPs that warranted a mention.

Google still appears to be testing their product ad format.

In comparison, Bing continues to push their Cash Back program.

While we are searching for [ps3] on Bing…Is a page with 20+ results, broken into 7 categories by orange text, and 4-line green URLs really a better user experience? Bing executives keep saying, “People expect more than just 10 blue links”. That may be true, but I’m not sure I expected to see a page like this.

And really? No ads being sold for the keyword [ps3]?

Wolfram Alpha / Calculations

Users have become accustomed to searching on Google using queries such as [cups in a liter] and getting a quick easy answer at the top of the SERP. Bing is also now connected to Wolfram Alpha’s math engine to provide similar results.

Comparative search for [cos(36)].

Bing appears to be better at simple Algebra than Google. It will actually solve for X. I’ll be really impressed when it can do limits.

These changes will help Bing catch up (if not surpass) Google in terms of micro-functionality. But as our search sherpa pointed out earlier this week, Google is actively making small and large acquisitions that continue to make it a long uphill journey for Bing.

Lots of interesting things going at the GooglePlex lately so I think a quick recap post is in order.

First and foremost was the announcement that Google has acquired AdMob, one of the largest mobile ad networks, in an all-stock deal valued at $750 million. AdMob currently serves up 10 billion monthly ad requests. Combined with the massive AdSense assets, this will make it the market leader in mobile in a big way.

“I’m excited because I believe this will be an important moment for everyone involved in producing, consuming, or monetizing engaging products on mobile,” adMob founder and CEO Omar Hamoui wrote on the company’s website. “The truth is that the mobile industry has had no shortage of creative energy, amazing products, and talented entrepreneurs. But until now, it has always felt like those of us involved in this space played second fiddle to our online brethren. I believe that time is over.”

This move also provides Google, whose Android software is being used more widely in smartphones such as the Motorola’s new Droid, a key set of technologies to expand its advertising footprint beyond its signature text search ads.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said recently that the search giant planned to make about an acquisition a month, mostly small purchases, while making a large acquisition every year or two. AdMob is seen as one of the large acquisitions, though the money involved is small next to Google’s $178 billion market capitalization. Besides DoubleClick, Google has paid more only for video sharing site YouTube, which it bought for $1.7 billion in 2006.

Let’s segue to another announcement in the last few days, Google Commerce Search. Online retailers may find this helpful for improving the product search on their site, and potentially increasing sales and reducing bounce rates. Think Google Site Search, specifically tailored to e-commerce and product sites. Great timing as the holiday shopping season is looming.

So let’s look now at what Google owns:

• The largest display network online
• Largest mobile ad network
• A payment processor
• A conversion optimization engine
• Powerful analytics software
• An affiliate network

And while Google doesn’t expect any serious regulatory issues with the AdMob purchase, it did go the extra mile to try and point out how small of a deal this was in the big picture of overall advertising spending. It created a Web site devoted to the deal where it quoted competitors in support of the point that mobile ad budgets are tiny at the moment compared to the overall amount of money spent on online ads.

Bottom line here is that the 800 pound gorilla of the internet just got a bit bigger.

Google appears to have been the first to nuke Geocities from its index stating that once the domain was shutdown, resulting in massive broken links and a poor user experience, that it was an easy solution to remove them.

Here’s the site command view at Google:

It seems that Yahoo and Bing followed suit sometime over the weekend. I also checked Ask.com and AOL’s search and Geocities has been removed from those as well.

The scene at Bing?

This isn’t anything but a blip on the current search engine landscape, but as a long-time internet marketer, I thought it was worthy of mention. Again, the end of an era. And if you have any interest in SEO techniques with Geocities in the old days, feel free to give us a call and speak to our Director of Search.

While Ask.com may be a tiny player in the market with around 4% market share, they are still worth paying attention to. The IAC owned engine is now touting Ask Deals, a service that aggregates coupons and other shopping deals from across the web. There is now a tab on the home page for this, allowing you to sift through the myriad of offers on the web and you can even sort by store, ala Sears, Walmart, Best Buy and a host of other retailers.

Ask’s director of search technology, Ankur Choski, wrote in a blog post that the number of queries for “value-related terms” has increased by 50 percent so far this year and that 60 percent of consumers say they are using coupons more often.

And while this is an interesting consumer search trend, it should be noted that it’s highly unlikely to move Ask’s market share. After all, Bing is running their Bing Cashback program and Yahoo launched Yahoo Deals back in August with little fanfare. CPG marketers, however,  need to pay attention to these developments. Search is crucial and constantly evolving to suit the consumer.

It’s interesting to note that Google’s dominance is so entrenched that even innovation by a competing search engine won’t necessarily cut into its market share.

And speaking of Yahoo, allow me to segue here. While the big news has been the search partnership with Microsoft, there is still regulatory approval in the works, as well as a lengthy integration process which begs the question, “Does Yahoo! still care about search?”

Yahoo obviously doesn’t want to be seen as giving up the ghost while in limbo, so Yahoo GM David Pann wrote on Monday about several enhancements coming soon for Yahoo’s search advertisers.  Chief among the claims are improved technology to match ads to queries, new rich ads that can include video & images, and an interesting new tool that will allow marketers to run their campaigns offline. It’s a bit dubious to suggest that these are anything but band-aids with the impending advertising partnership with Microsoft on the way, however.

And because I can’t write a post without laying some Google info on you, allow me to leave you with this interesting read from last week’s Business Week Tech Beat:  Google’s Scott Huffman: Many More Search Features.

Scott Huffman runs one of the least-known units at Google: the evaluation team that measures the impact of every little proposed change to the leading search engine. And with some 6,000 experiments run annually, he’s pretty busy. Not to mention, he runs mobile search at Google, too.

The first half of the session was spent discussing Google Caffeine and it’s preference for brand sites, timely/relevant content, and alternate content (videos, images, PDFs, etc.). Upcoming opportunities in paid search were the topic of the second half of the session, focusing on product ads, video ads, and exclusive data partnerships with search engines.

Download a PDF of the full presentation or listen to the podcast and feel free to contact us if you have any questions or need clarification on any of the points. You can also read a related post that gives more examples of Google Caffeine’s effect on brand sites.

Keynote Panel: Digital Cincinnati: Infinity & Beyond!

I was also fortunate enough to sit on Friday’s keynote panel with John Young, Jeff Jones and Dave Knox. Several good points were raised regarding Cincinnati capitalizing on the digital expertise it already has and growing its reputation as a digital hub regionally and nationally. Listen to the podcast and view photos of the panel, keynote speakers and breakout sessions.

McAfee’s annual report on the most dangerous celebrities to search for is out. To be succinct, searching for a celebrity can be extremely hazardous to your computer these days.

To quote McAfee:

“Fans searching for “Jessica Biel” or “Jessica Biel downloads,” “Jessica Biel wallpaper,” “Jessica Biel screen savers,” “Jessica Biel photos” and “Jessica Biel videos” have a one in five chance of landing at a Web site that’s tested positive for online threats, such as spyware, adware, spam, phishing, viruses and other malware.”

I was curious about the volume of monthly searches on her so I checked it out via the Google keyword tool and she’s apparently only searched on a little less than two million times a month. Jessica Alba at 5 million and Jessica Simpson at 6 million beat her out in terms of volume, but not in online danger.

Last years most dangerous, Brad Pitt, cooled off and fell to #10. Here’s the full list:

Here’s the full top ten, according to McAfee’s study:

1. Jessica Biel
2. Beyoncé
3. Jennifer Aniston
4. Tom Brady
5. Jessica Simpson
6. Gisele Bundchen
7. Miley Cyrus
8. Megan Fox & Angelina Jolie (tie)
9. Ashley Tisdale
10. Brad Pitt

If you’re curious, like me, about the most dangerous search terms overall, here’s the PDF report from McAfee on that. Enjoy.

Also increasing, not unexpectedly, is the share of total marketing spend that interactive will garner over the next 5 years. This amount, however, is a substantially lower than the amount suggested by 2007 Forrester research which predicted that total interactive marketing spend would reach $61 Billion by 2012.

As search marketing continues to incorporate other avenues of interactive marketing, it will be interesting to see how they continue to delineate between pure search marketing and email, display, or mobile marketing. If email newsletters are posted online when released and optimized for search, doesn’t that count as search marketing? When Facebook pages show up in brand related search results, is that social media or search marketing?

If the above statement wasn’t true over the last fifteen years, it certainly is now. Yahoo is now committed to the content and ad game, forgoing search to Microsoft. This probably shouldn’t be as big of news as it was.  After all, Yahoo used Inktomi search results to help supplement their directory listings way back in the day. And it was only a few years ago that Yahoo search was powered by Google.

So this Yahoo/Microsoft deal led me to wondering about what effects, if any, this would have on the international search universe. I have some fairly extensive international SEO experience having worked with a huge client with 70 locations across the globe and dozens of web sites catering to each individual country. Heck, we even had two Chinese language sites, one in Traditional and the other Simplified.

So while I’m on the topic of China, let’s take a quick peek at the search engine market share there, shall we?

Clearly, Yahoo and Microsoft have lost the battle in China. And despite multiple media reports to the contrary, Google is alive and kicking in the world’s most populous country.

Because of China’s major growth curve per Internet usage, Baidu is now up to 9% of all global search engine usage. Google’s global market share is actually going down due entirely to Baidu and doesn’t reflect the rest of the globe.

Which begs the question, just how is Google doing outside of North America?

What’s that? You’d like to see a chart showing this data?

Ask and you shall receive.

According to ComScore, Google has 60% of the US market, but 67% worldwide. Impressive. Microsoft has made few inroads abroad, and has 3% or less share in the U.K., Germany and Korea. Yahoo has one pocket of overseas influence: Japan, where its search share is 43%, close to Google’s.

In many top and growing Internet countries, including Germany, Canada, Brazil, Turkey and Italy, Google has more than 80% of the search market.

So no surprises there. Google is still the king of the jungle but there are still plenty of country/language specific engines that are very popular in some countries. But that’s another post.

So there’s a 30,000 foot view of the global  search landscape as it stands now. Next time, I’ll write about some of the things to bear in mind when working on international SEO.

Pity it took so long. I wonder what Wall Street thinks of this? A quick peek shows that Yahoo is down 10% this morning and MS is holding tight.

Allow me to give you a snippet of the press release from Microsoft:

“Yahoo! and Microsoft announced an agreement that will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.”

So here are the basic details:

• Yahoo will not receive an upfront payment
• Ten year deal
• Bing will become the default search engine on Yahoo, according to AdAge. Bing therefore would be able to claim 28 percent of the search advertising market, according to the latest comScore figures.
• Yahoo’s search engine will use the Bing brand
• Yahoo will “take on exclusive representation of Bing inventory”
• The WSJ says that Yahoo will also sell ads on some other unspecified Microsoft sites
• Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, however, will be the underlying sales technology platform
• The companies expect some interest from the Justice Department, which was reportedly an earlier sticking point for Yahoo’s board
• Microsoft may ask for the Justice Department’s approval, before going forward with the deal. The Justice Department, of course, did not okay Yahoo’s search advertising partnership with Google last autumn.

Does Google now have legitimate competition? Time will tell.

Despite the bad economy, search engine marketing (SEM) spending continues to grow in the US. According to the “Search Engine Marketing in 2009” report by [x+1], 65.4% of senior-level SEM executives plan to spend at least as much on SEM in 2009 as they did in 2008. In fact, 13.1% percent want to increase spending by more than 20%.

The article goes on to explain that 60% of companies who were using search as a lead generation tool, were not satisfied with the results. Only 1 in 5 expecting their search efforts to perform “very well”.

I would argue that this reveals not that search engine optimization and marketing efforts do not provide a valuable return, but instead that 4 in 5 search marketing agencies/consultants were not properly planning for, optimizing, measuring, and reporting the results of their clients’ search campaigns accurately.

While often a formidable task (particularly for non-ecommerce-based campaigns), assigning an ROI and showing the inherent value in paid and organic search efforts is pivotal to the effectiveness of the campaign. The idea that 60% of companies are not satisfied with search results, tells me that they are simply measuring the wrong things. Metrics such as ‘impressions’ or ‘clicks’ are all-to-often given a disproportionate amount of attention. And while these can be useful indices of search volume and intent, they do not represent the true value of paid and organic search campaigns.

Agencies and clients alike must move beyond impressions and clicks and instead focus on goal conversions and the potential synergies your campaigns gain from your search efforts.

For example, it has been found that combining paid and organic search efforts can result in significant lifts in brand affinity, brand recall, and purchase intent. However, if these are not being tracked or reported, these indirect benefits of search marketing will never be recognized.

In another example, users exposed to display advertising were 22% more likely to produce a sale than those who were not exposed (even if they did not click on the ad), according to a September 2008 study by Atlas Solutions. Nonetheless, if only the direct performance of the display ads (potentially quite dismal) is reported, it is easy to see how companies could think they are not worth the investment.

Properly establishing conversions, assigning monetary values to those conversions, and accurately measuring the direct and indirect results of paid and organic search engine marketing campaigns must be an inherent aspect of any company’s search marketing analytics and measurement strategy.

Plus, who doesn’t love charts?

No surprise here. We can see that the ad campaign lift for Bing has petered out and they are back where they started. See, the problem is that for you to keep increased market share, you have to have a decent product. Or at least improved. Long story short, no surprises here:

It’s good to see Ask hanging in there despite them also spending money on TV advertising instead of improving their technology. The following type of list is always interesting to me. Some sick traffic below.

But my favorite is next. Top search terms. On the Internet.
Clearly there is no basement on stupidity. Equally clear – companies cannot assume they do not need to optimize for brand terms simply because they have a short/memorable domain. Whether it is laziness or habit, users are still going to search engines to access well-known brands as opposed to typing a URL into their browsers. For these users, access to a brand is dictated not by the familiarity of their domain, but by the brand’s SERP home page.

Allow me to throw a few other anecdotes at you.

The average number of searches per month per user on Google? 74.
Total Google searches per day? 350+ million.
Share of toolbar searches? Google, of course, #1 at 60%.

OMMA came out with a neat little “search engagement” or search conversion data measure which simply shows the percentage of total users to a site who conducted a search on said site. Here’s the numbers:

Google: 93.5%
Ask Network: 86%
Yahoo Sites: 68.8%
Time Warner Network: 63.6%
Microsoft Sites: 47.2%

That’s it for today. We’ll be back with more scintillating search tidbits soon.