Above the Fold

When we think about user experience we aim to make it as painless as possible for users to find, and engage with, the content they are looking for. By placing huge expanding ads at the top of a page or filling the header and sidebars with unnecessary information, CTAs, ads, etc. we are hurting that experience. And now Google is confirming that those types of pages will have a harder time appearing in organic search results. Great news for user experience fanatics like us. Bad news for sites trying to milk every pageview for as much ad revenue as possible and sites that push real content lower on the page than is necessary.

Curious what sections of your site’s pages appear above the fold? Google has a browser size tool that overlays the percentage of users that will see the various sections of your page.

SEO & Design

This block level analysis emphasizes the need for an SEO strategy to sync up with and, in some ways, inform the wire framing and design of a website. It is also another indication that Google is getting better at calculating user experience and beginning to reward sites with good layouts, fast loading pages, easy/intuitive navigation, accessible/responsive design, etc.

At the end of the day, Google wants the best possible experience for their users – and so should we.

The researchers describe domain bias as “a user’s propensity to believe that a page if more relevant just because it comes from a particular domain.” Using data from a blind test of click activity, the study asserts that domains can influence a user’s preference 25% of the time. Even more surprising is that users would choose recognizable domains over results that were actually more relevant. The crux of search engine services is returning results relevant to a user’s query, so this behavior feels somewhat irrational. One potential rationale might be the trend of users ticking to the “safe neighborhoods” of the Internet to avoid viruses, poor content farm content or scams from Nigerian princes; people tend to trust the sites they already know and feel comfortable with.

An example given in the report compares CTR for similar ads when the domain is switched. In this instance, users preferred WebMD.com over GeneticHealth.com 25% of the time. Of note is that the experiment accounted for users randomly selecting answers by removing results from failed “honeypot tests” where click behavior was not consistent or proved erratic (about 10% of the time).

As digital marketers, we try to capture a user’s attention by a variety of tactics, though this report implies that a large portion of success on search engines is influenced by a domain name that could have been an afterthought in the online marketing plan. A big takeaway here is the importance of addressing the domain name early in the process, accounting for perceived credibility and trust with your property’s URL. Furthermore, pay-per-click advertising relies on Display URL’s to draw eyeballs and entice clicks. Since most PPC platforms require the Display URL to match the Destination URL, advertisers are stuck with their chosen domains. Ads for credible sites could benefit from this bias while new sites or 3^rd party advertisers could suffer on CTR.

The portal through which users interact is the search engine, so the question becomes whether algorithms will take into account this preference for credible domains when ranking results. The Microsoft research reveals that “search results concentrate over time on fewer domains with increasingly larger share of results pointing to the top domains.” We have seen this progression over time with 2009’s Caffeine update favoring brands on search results, and a recent algorithm update lending authority to “official sites”. Google may continue to give searchers what they prefer – credible and recognizable domains – though the result of which may lead to a future of homogenized search results.

But there is hope! New sites attempting to find a footing in search results can still take action:

• SEO best practices regarding technical elements and site architecture
• Relevantly applied microdata on content
• Elements of freshness and recent content
• Enticing PPC ads served to targeted searchers

Microsoft researchers have demonstrated the influence of domain bias in user click activity, though the fact that 25% of searchers were swayed by the URL means that 75% of searchers were not. There is still an opportunity for sites to create relevant content, apply good SEO tactics and rank for a variety of terms.

While not every SERP has been affected (results for [how many calories in an apple] may not require real time publishing updates), we have noticed the impact on general content not typically thought of in the realm of real time immediacy. For example, the below snippet includes “freshness links”, which are not always present and, in this instance, appear on the 11^th result and no other listings. Interesting also that the public +1 annotation is shown but does not appear on any other listings.

Publishing frequent (and unique) content is a good first step, but there are other actions to ensure Google is immediately aware of your content and treats it like the fresh nugget that it is.

• Dynamically update your xml sitemap, including <lastmod> timestamps
• Update your RSS feed – some in the SEO community believe there is a strong correlation between RSS and the “freshness links” in the screenshot above
• Promote the social sharing of your content – case studies have shown that frequently shared articles on Twitter get indexed quicker and benefit from perceived “freshness”
• Apply HTML5 <time> tags if applicable to your content

Relevance to a user’s query is still paramount, so don’t expect to see search results that are hyper-local (published 30 seconds ago) but are not the quality listings you would otherwise expect from your friends in Mountain View, CA. Following proper “freshness” protocol and being smart about how your content is released out into the world could help you capitalize on Google’s new obsession with fast and timely content.

Without getting into the technical aspects of the change, the biggest potential impact would be on those of us who use keyword-level data to optimize site content, layout, user experience, etc.

Despite Google being very clear that this change would only impact less than 10% of queries, our initial reaction included questions such as, “How will we be able to optimize our site for branded vs. non-branded searches?”, “How can we connect user search intent to on-site behavior (i.e., conversions)?”

Before we get into the data we have seen over the past 10 days, here is an example of how we use keyword-level data to optimize a site:
Let’s say we have 20,000 users arriving on a site from organic search. We can divide those users into a few different groups to learn what type of content various users are looking for, what browsers and devices they are using, etc. Perhaps we want to compare people who search for brand terms (e.g., Jeep, new Jeep Wagoneer, etc.) to those who are searching for industry/category terms (e.g, SUV Reviews, new SUVs 2012, etc.). Using advanced segments in Google analytics, we can compare these two groups relatively easily and find that (as an example) those searching for brand terms are 3Xs more likely to download a brochure while those searching industry/category terms are 5Xs more likely to be on a mobile device and 12Xs more likely to search for a nearby dealer. Using this data we can change a site’s experience to better serve our various organic search audiences.

We’ve been keeping a pretty close eye on the data since Google implemented this change and, in general, it has had very little (if any) impact on our ability to measure organic search traffic, track users’ paths through the site, see where users are leaving, what devices users are searching from, etc.

Looking at data from a few different sites that we work on across several industries, here is the percent of organic search data that has been affected:

News/Magazine Site: 1.6%
Insurance Company: 0.9%
Home Improvement Company: 0.7%
Recipe Site: 1.5%
Food Company: 1.2%
Food Company: 1.5%
Pet Products Company: 1.2%
Luxury Home Goods Company: 1.3%

Just to make sure the data above is clear, using the News/Magazine site as an example, of all of the organic search traffic going to that site (over 15,000 visits over the past 10 days) only 1.6% or 250 visits were ‘blocked’. In other words, instead of seeing what queries brought those 250 search visits to the site, we see “(not provided)” as shown in the screen shot below.

So, at the end of the day, it’s not that concerning. Until that number starts to approach the 10% – 15% point, we can still do all of the keyword-level analysis we did before (including the example above) and feel comfortable that we are making decisions based on statistically sound data.

To review…

• This change only affects organic search data for users who are signed into their Google account.
• It does not impact your ability to appear in organic search results.
• This is not a change to Google’s search algorithm. Nothing is different in terms of what it takes to appear in organic search results.
• This does not impact paid search data. Those users’ queries will still appear in the data.
• The change will be seen in all analytics platforms, whether you are using Google Analytics, Webtrends, etc.
• This only applies to Google searches. Yahoo/Bing search queries will still be displayed.
• So far, the amount of data being blocked is so small that it is not worth worrying about.

If anything, it might even provide new data that we did not have access to before. For example, if we start to see that the (not provided) traffic really likes subscribing to our RSS feed, we definitely need to make sure that our feed appears correctly in Google Reader (since we know those users are signed into a Google account and are more likely to use Google Reader to manager their RSS subscriptions).

We’ll continue to watch the data (as we tend to do), but don’t expect any massive changes to your ongoing organic optimization efforts, measurement ability or traffic patterns.

Let’s say that you published decent content and Google deemed it worthy of ranking highly on its search engine. Hurdle #1 has been conquered. The next step is persuading a user to click on your listing  – you have a relevant keyword-rich title and meta description right? With any luck, you’ve just earned yourself a visitor. The user experience presented on the landing page now makes the difference between an engaged visitor clicking across multiple pages per visit and one who bounces immediately by furiously clicking the BACK button on his browser.

We ran a handful of tests where the query resulted in a desired link on the first page, which we then visited but immediately bounced and returned to the search results. The SERP had been adjusted slightly based on this behavior, which in Google’s eyes meant we were dissatisfied with the clicked result.

NEW OPTION FOR MORE RECENT RESULTS

The immediate bounce adjusted the search results to now show an option to “Get more results from the past 24 hours” below the listing that was just clicked. Google understands you were dissatisfied with the clicked listing and might be interested in more recent material. In addition to recent listings from the same domain, other sites are offered as well, potentially derailing the visitor from returning to your site. As well, a ‘Block Results’ link is now available for that extreme case.

Step 1: Searched Google for query [man of the house]

Step 2: Received the below listing and clicked-through to the site

Step 3: Immediately bounced from the site, returning to Google

Step 4: The listing has now been modified to include recent results & option to block

Step 5: Expanded recent results include other domains

BLOCKING ALL DOMAIN RESULTS

Two additional SERP tests revealed a “Block Results’ link immediately following the site bounce. This rather extreme action could have major repercussions for your site if the user was extremely dissatisfied with his landing page experience.

Step 1: Searched Google for queries [craig heimbuch] and [push present ideas]

Step 2: Received the below listings and clicked-through to the site

Step 3: Immediately bounced from the site, returning to Google

Step 4: The listing has now been modified to allow blocking the entire domain

Keeping visitors on your site is important for a number of reasons (business objectives, site engagement, brand loyalty) but now we see a potential negative impact on your organic search results as well. Creating a landing page (or just adapting your site in general) that allows a clean and easy user experience can benefit both your visitors and your organic search listings.

First, the +1 button relies heavily on using a well-connected Google Profile. Otherwise you are just a faceless searcher clicking +1 buttons without much context. While Google admits that +1 votes will affect organic search ranking and be shared publically (on this point they have been vague and left the door open to how public +1’s will be shared), the personalization is really the crux of why this feature might resonate with users. How many of you currently have complete Google Profiles synched with all your friends and networks? Not many, I would imagine. Encouraging users to opt-in to yet another web presence profile will be hurdle #1 for Google.

Who will this affect the most? Major brands should see minimal impact while content publishers could find a swing in ranking. Let’s take Nike, for example. They already rank definitively on the first few SERP pages, while other sites with a high amount of +1’s will probably not knock them off that pedestal. Furthermore, we can expect brands to acquire +1’s themselves and solidify their position. Content publishers, on the other hand, are more reliant on dynamic ranking and could find themselves assisted by +1’s (or, on the other hand, hindered if their content does not acquire these social votes).

Individual sites will start to post the +1 button in the coming months when it becomes available. Given the leverage that Google wields on the search results pages, many sites are reliant on organic search traffic and will adopt this new feature if only in the hopes of not being left behind. As with any algorithm update, this could open the door to manipulation, but Google has most likely accounted for that when integrating +1 as a ranking signal. AdWords ads will also feature the new button though Google has stated this will not be a factor in Quality Score. In both instances, the +1’s can be monitored and tracked through AdWords and Google Webmaster Tools, offering social metrics not as readily available with the Facebook ‘Like’ button and sharing valuable visitor insight.

Will this change the internet? A little. Though the type of site you run, either as an authoritative brand or content publisher, will determine how big an impact this change may have on your organic ranking. When the +1 button for individual sites is released in the coming months, we can expect to hear more about the affect on organic ranking and the social landscape in general. The US will see this featured rolled out first, though a global deployment will surely be announced shortly. Google has set up an experimental test of the new feature for users to see how their Google profiles might be affected.

We captured a few screenshots below while temporarily included in the test. We noticed Google engineers outside our office window, lurking and taking notes. The thumbnail snapshot features the latest Google cache of the page, though notably flash content is missing. This might serve well as a warning shot across the bow for those sites that do not employ a backup non-flash version. We might speculate that Google Webmaster Tools could allow a backup file directory or thumbnail location specified in a sitemap, similar to video sitemaps.

Taking it a step further, text related to the query is called out with orange borders and increased size within the thumbnail. The [Bill Bryson] example below shows how increased keyword relevancy could greatly improve click-through rate on ranked pages.

Some might recall a similar feature circa 2004 when AskJeeves.com implemented “binoculars” featuring a page preview on the SERP. A common complain at the time was a lack of recency in image snapshots. Six years later, in an environment of real time search, search engines can crawl and index pages much faster. In our test, when a thumbnail was not immediately available, one was created within 1-2 seconds.

The test does not include paid links in this functionality, reserving thumbnails for organic results. The large preview pane takes up valuable real estate, covering paid ads and potentially decreasing user engagement with ads on the right. However, the page preview does not appear until the blue background is clicked, allowing a user to first browse sponsored links. To Google’s benefit, the page preview means users will spend more time on their results page and it’s worth noting that increasing eyeball duration is always a benefit when selling ads to those eyeballs.

**UPDATE 11/10**

The official name is “Instant Preview” and is slated to be rolled out across 40 languages in the next few days, though a demo interface is available now.  Interesting that once a user clicks the magnifying glass, Google loads all related instant previews on the SERP, allowing a user to simply mouse over the other results rather than continually clicking.

In other cases, and less frequently, the blue arrow (or triangle) appears on the 2^nd result.

The blue arrow icon does not appear to be a graphic though page code does show that inclusion is deliberate under a CSS span ID of “knavm” with the color and other attributes assigned via css.

If we see the blue arrow appearing on both 1st and 2nd SERP results, what then is driving this decision? Some potential ideas might be the most clicked link, the highest page rank or an authoritative brand page (similar to the algorithm update last month where brands are dominating SERP pages).

Perhaps we are just seeing a test of new HTML5 functionality. To determine if this is a regional or national roll out (or test), are other users seeing the blue arrow and on which result is it appearing?

UPDATE: We now understand that the blue arrow icon can be manipulated vertically with keyboard commands to scroll among search results, both paid and organic. We posted a related video on keyboard navigation of Google results.

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.

The claim made by Google is that this new approach reflects a “strong user interest in a particular domain”. Essentially they are just giving searchers what they want, a constant democratizing claim on the great benevolence of search engines. If the majority of users searching for [petsmart] have a preference for content on the official site, then a page 1 SERP dominated by the “petsmart.com” domain seems perfectly reasonable. This approach has been implemented in the past through “site links” that allowed deeper linking in line with the main result and has been traditionally reserved for brands and trusted domains.

Authoritative content, relative to a user’s particular query, to a certain extent deserves top billing. Let’s check off some organic ranking factors: Is the site trusted? Yes. Is there keyword relevance? If the query is [petsmart] and the domain is “petsmart.com”, then I would say we have high correlative relevance. Are users clicking on the petsmart.com links when they appear? Most likely, if that is the phrase they searched.

So, at issue with some bloggers is not really the contention that a brand should get top ranking but rather that the domain should dominate almost the entire SERP page. Again, we go back to the diversity argument. If users do not like the dominated SERP page they are given, they can always vote with their clicks and send a message that way. But what percentage of users will take the time to navigate to the 2^nd page just to prove a point. Few, if any. It has been reported by Chitika, a search-based ad network, that going from the 11^th spot (2^nd page) to the 10^th spot (1^st page) sees a 143% jump in traffic. So the pressure to make that first page, and the battle if you are not the brand authority, can be rather difficult.

It was also pointed out that phrases for which brand-dominated SERP’s have been witnessed (apple ipod, petsmart, nike) are very broad, not giving the engine much information on which to gather results. The search engine is then inclined to return so broad results from trusted sites as the best response to a vague query. A more focused search for [petsmart cincinnati] provides diverse results related to Cincinnati, which was my intent as a searcher. With around 70% of searches focused on long-tail keywords, users are become more adept at phrasing their query to obtain the content they want. In this regard, Google may be correct that branded sites should be trusted and offered prevalence, in so long as they meet the desired query. Otherwise, we can always vote with our clicks.

Search optimization can be a baffling and esoteric subject. Google’s search algorithm is a more closely guarded secret than the recipe for Coca-Cola. But for today, we’re going to break down one of the older and more important search tactics used to rank well in Google – links.

After all, you can handle all the on-page elements perfectly; proper title tags, great copy with just the right amount of keywords, proper H tags, etc, but if no one ever links to it, it probably won’t rank well. Why is that, you ask?

Simply put, a link is a vote for your site. Google sees links as a way of determining authority or relevancy.

In fact, before Google there was Backrub.
Google’s precursor in 1996 was called “BackRub,” a search engine research project headed by Larry Page at the computer science department at Stanford. Page reasoned that the entire Web was loosely based on the premise of citation – after all, what is a link but a citation? If he could design a method to count and qualify back links on the Web, as Page puts it, “The Web would become a more valuable place.”

Despite realizing that a raw count of links to a page would be valuable in assigning value/authority, Page also wanted to determine a methodology that would reveal not just who was linking to whom, but more critically, the importance of who linked to whom, based on various attributes of the site that was doing the linking. Sounds reasonable, right? A link from CNN should carry much more weight than a link from a 12 year blogger with three readers. So Page went on to develop a very complex algorithm that is now known as Google.

So enough on that, you’re here to learn about links.
Specifically “inbound” links, or links from other sites that link to you.

As stated previously, there are some links that are better than others. For example, Google values inbound links from .edu’s and .gov’s above other Top Level Domains because of their (supposed) non-commercial nature. But these are typically difficult to get so let’s focus for now on some basic link building tactics.

Link Building Strategies

Generic Link Building: This is the low-hanging fruit and often the first step in a link campaign. It involves submitting to directories, low-tier search engines and adding your URL to social profiles.

Content Link Generation: Specific content written for the purposes of distribution. Examples include press releases, article marketing, advertorials, blog sponsorships and product reviews.

Social Media – Social Bookmarking Link Building: As an added bonus, if you have compelling enough content you can actually drive a tremendous amount of traffic to your site with a front page of Digg link, for example. The list of sites to tackle is long but here’s some of the biggies: Twitter, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Delicious, Yahoo Buzz and Slahsdot, to name but a few.

Alternative Media Links: This is for creation of videos, widgets, podcasts and apps, all of which link back to your main website.

Audience/Blogger Generated Links:  Creating contests/sweeps to allow users to create/share content and link back to our site. An example could be a photo/essay contest for bloggers or even a Twitter contest asking people to retweet a specific message for entry.

Wikipedia Links: Wikipedia is one of the greatest authority web sites in Google’s eyes. There’s probably not a web site that ranks better for more diverse keywords than Wikipedia. Despite Wikipedia instituting no-follow tags (code to tell Google not to pass along any “value” or “trust” in the link to help combat spammers), it’s hard to not value getting links there. An example of how to achieve this properly would be to publish an original/compelling interview with a prominent person in your vertical that would allow you to add this as a citation to this person’s entry on Wikipedia.

Organic Links: Creating stellar, unique content that receives links simply because it’s awesome. Because it’s shareable. Because it’s valuable. This is the best scenario and one that consequently takes the most effort.

Syndication: An excellent tactic when pairing up with an authority site. For example, a colleague here on the search team runs a popular MMA website and worked out a syndication deal with Yahoo! Sports. In addition to the content deal, on every article that runs on Yahoo! Sports (another one of the greatest authority sites on the web) there is footer copy with embedded links pointing to MMAjunkie.com.

Anchor Text

So allow me a quick word about the actual text within the link itself, which is called anchor text, a crucial element in link strategy.

In the following example, if you use “here” as the words users are going to click on, you’re telling search engines that the page being linked to is about the topic “here”. If you use “Anchor Text” as the anchor text, you’re more accurately telling the search engines the linked page contains information about “Anchor Text”.

Read more about Anchor Text
is better than
Read more about Anchor Text here.

It’s very important to determine what the optimal anchor text is when beginning a campaign.

So that seems like a good primer. We hope this has been helpful for you and your clients as you start thinking about raising your websites visibility in the search engines.

Search engine optimization is a process, not a project. It takes time and diligence to achieve those coveted top rankings and the (free) site traffic that is the reward.

How Many Links Do I Have?

One last actionable tip. If you want to see how many links your site (or a competitor’s site) has in Google, you can use the command: link:http://www.yoursite.com on Google and it will return the relevant results. Now, Google doesn’t supply all the links for reasons too long to go into here, so if you want a deeper dive try Yahoo’s Site Explorer. There are plenty of other online tools to help as well.

Or better yet, feel free to reach out to our search engine optimization experts to learn more.

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.

Searching for [plane tickets] reveals the results below. The left SERP is the current Google, the right SERP is Google Caffeine.

As you can see, the Caffeine results give much greater weight to large airlines than online ticket brokers. Delta ranks 3rd and American, Northwest, JetBlue, United and Southwest are not far behind. The biggest drop can be seen in Travelocity’s ranking, falling from 1st to 5th.

In another example, we compared a search for [diapers].

In this case, there is one change that we felt warranted pointing out. Huggies, a Kimberly-Clark brand, does not appear in the first ten pages of results under the current Google algorithm. However, in Google Caffeine, they are on the first page – ranked 5th.

Clearly, this is a term they would like to rank for (and probably should), and I’m sure the folks at Huggies and Kimberly-Clark will be happy to see that. However, why is there not a prevalence of more diaper brands on the first page as in the [plane tickets] example above? Where is Pampers, Luvs and other diaper brands?

As a side note for all you SEOs out there, take a look at the Huggies page that is ranking:
http://www.huggies.com/CountrySelector_Generic.aspx
Now look at a page that does not appear on the first page of results:
http://www.pampers.com/en_US/home/
Which is better optimized for the term ‘diapers’?

Clearly, Caffeine is giving a substantial boost to brand sites regardless of optimization efforts for brand and category searches.

If you’d like to test how your brand performs under the new Google Caffeine algorithm, you can use any of these tools to see side-by-side results:

http://www.facesaerch.com/caffeine/
http://www.comparecaffeine.com/
http://cartercole.com/googlevsgoogle.html

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.

We have organized these moments into the following categories:

• Organic Web Search
• Paid Text Ads
• Organic Image Search
• Organic Video Search
• Organic Maps Search
• Social Networking Sites
• Mobile Search
• Website Landing Pages
• Analytics and Measurement

Download the PDF to learn 50 Ways Search Marketing Can Change Consumer Behavior

“I was doing a bunch of web searches,” he said. “And most of what I found were results for listings on Lakehouse.com and other lakehouse listing websites. And while this gave me good visibility to individual properties, it wasn’t helping me answer the question of what lake might be the best place to buy.”

Having identified several lakes, he started typing the lake names into his search query. Surprisingly, he wasn’t able to find anything that gave a good overview of the lakes he was interested in. That is until he clicked out of curiosity on the “Image” search link at the top of Google’s search page.

The image search brought up a host of photographs and one detailed map of a lake. He said he clicked on the lake map and was taken to a realtor’s page who specialized in properties on the private lake in question. Having learned a bit more about the lake in general, he then looked at some of the listings highlighted by this realtor. After viewing several listings, he was required to register in order to see more. He did and eventually found a small lakehouse that really appealed to him.

Within 5 minutes, the realtor associated with the website called to see if she could answer any questions about the lake or the specific properties he was interested in. After a few more e-mails my buddy made an appointment through this realtor to visit the property to have a look for himself.

Talk about a successful conversion funnel! This realtor had generated trial in a matter of minutes, initiated by a search-optimized lake map that was a part of her lake overview landing page. And what a timely example of what Brian MacDonald outlined in his recent post: Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) are the New Home Page.

Neil Eatson, U.K. head of media and search at AKQA, said, “I say it to so many of my clients: The search engine is the new home page for brands and businesses. People just don’t see home pages anymore…

AdAge 07/02/09

When users perform a long-tail search, home pages are often absent from the results. Instead these results will include highly specific content from deep within websites. In essence, the user has just been presented a personalized home page with various content areas to select from. Users are then able to begin exploring your site having bypassed your home page along with your meticulously planned conversion funnels.

How does this affect your search engine optimization efforts?

As search engines become more sophisticated, so must your search marketing strategy.

Alternative Discovery -
Optimizing your entire site is more important than ever as search engines become more proficient at finding and displaying pages and content buried within your site. Making it easy for users that find content aimed at alternative discovery (e.g. PDFs, Word Documents, etc.) to visit to your website, or find more related information is pivotal to achieving conversions.

Landing Pages -
Beyond optimizing your current pages, creating custom landing pages for the express purpose of appearing in long-tail organic search results is often necessary. Traditionally used as part of a paid search campaign, landing pages can serve a similar purpose organically by delivering custom-tailored content and intuitive conversion paths to users finding your content via search.

Analytics & Measurement -
Having the right tools in place to analyze how users are arriving at your content and their behavior once they get there is the first step toward competing for long-tail digital shelf space.

But for me, it always comes back to kickass content.

To rank with Google, you need trust. Authority. This reality has nothing to do with keyword density or SEO copywriting. It’s about writing for humans and providing compelling content.  As anyone who has written on the web knows, this is much more difficult to pull off than it sounds.

The most used function on a web browser? The back button. And in today’s over-proliferation of content and uber-fractionalized audiences, it’s crucial to provide tangible, kickass (there’s that word again) content.

There’s an over-used word in SEO/social media circles called Linkbait. I’m not a big fan of the term, because again, Linkbait is nothing but stellar content. To me, that needs to be something we aspire to, not have it be the exception, as is too often is the case.

But I digress.

My original thought in starting this little post was pondering this amazing fact:

No matter the client or vertical market, the above snippet astounds me on multiple levels. There are going to be so many opportunities to help clients move the needle just simply based on this truism.

So when I say the future of search is bright, it’s not hyperbole. It’s uncharted territory.

Everyone should have such a fun job.