Bing make up some ground in the US, whilst Google achieve near domination of UK search volume, reaching 90%in the latest search engine market share statistics.
The new YaBing partnership appears to be bearing some fruit over in the US. Last month the two engines combined to control a sizeable 26.6% of the entire search market, taking a 2.1% chunk out of Google’s lead. Bing was the biggest gainer, leaping from 9.9% up to 12.5%. Yahoo slipped 0.3% down to 14.1%. However, according to Nielsen’s latest statistics, Google is the biggest loser; slumping to a mere 65.2% of the search market from 67.3% in December [see: Search Engine Market Share Statistics – February 2010].
On this side of the pond, things have been a little more settled. Google have reinforced their market dominance by reaching 90% of the total UK searches. This represents a gain of just 0.32% since last month. Bing has suffered a slight slip, going from 3.07% down to 2.98%. Certainly nothing to be too concerned about though.
More…
The world’s biggest social media site, Facebook, are to dump Microsoft adCenter as they prepare to launch their own advertising platform. But with the original deal not running out until 2011, full worldwide Bing integration appears to have been the real deal sweetener.
Evidently the Facebook site is a lucrative place for any advertiser to show their products and is equally effective in delivering money to the host – Microsoft. However, in something of a surprise move, Facebook have ended their agreement with the technology giant to manage their advertising system in-house.
With a year left in the contract, clearly Microsoft will seek something in return and it appears as though it may come in the form of Bing being integrated into Facebook as the default search engine, worldwide. Obviously the exact nature of the agreement is still largely under wraps, but it appears that Bing could be set for a huge promotional push, starting off with 350 million+ Facebook users.
More…
Latest figures show that Google has continued its search engine market dominance, Bing has made small gains and Yahoo are spiralling into search oblivion.
Once again we take a look at the search activity of users both sides of the pond to gauge how the search engine market is developing. Since our last report in November [see: Search Engine Market Share Statistics - November 2009], Google have continued to strengthen their vice-like grip on the industry whilst Bing have been picking up some of Yahoo’s deserters.
Google now control over two thirds of the U.S. market, extending their share from 65.4% in October up to 67.3% two months later (statistics courtesy of Nielsen). Here, the search giant is now just shy of a 90% share, being the engine of choice for 89.68% of all searches, which is in itself a 0.94% leap (figures from Hitwise). But for all these gains there have to be losses, and unfortunately for Yahoo! they have been the hardest hit.
More…
This month, I sat and passed the Microsoft adExcellence exam and am very pleased to have this additional qualification to complement my Google AdWords Professional status.
The Microsoft adExcellence exam is designed especially for individuals (and UK companies in the near future) who have been managing, or are looking to manage, a Pay per Click marketing campaign on Bing (formally MSN Live). As a company, we believe it is important to pass these exams as a minimum standard and to act as a basis to develop our experience of this platform from.
Once you have passed the exam, you become a member of the Microsoft adExcellence official accreditation program and are issued with a member logo and are included within the adExcellence Membership Directory.
adExcellence Member Logo
Microsoft also have another program which companies can become members of, but it is currently not available to the UK. Microsoft have informed us that the membership will be available to UK companies soon and when they do, Impact Media as a company will be taking the steps to obtain the Corporate status.
If you would like Impact Media to help create, manage and optimise your Bing campaigns, why not take advantage of our Bing Pay Per Click Management service.
With Google seemingly untouchable in conventional online search, how will they fare in the Mobile market? With Apple favouring Bing on their hugely popular iPhone, could Google suffer a mobile search slide?
Without question, the mobile Internet is going to become an increasingly important battlefield for the major search engines. Google have already announced their intentions with the release of their Android operating system and their first dedicated Google phone, the Nexus One. Last week Apple waded in by announcing their intention to include Bing as the iPhone’s default search browser. So where will it all end?
Google and Apple appear to be at loggerheads over just about everything currently. Microsoft and Google have always enjoyed a frosty relationship with rival products in a wide variety of sectors. But despite the strength of their competitors, Google have always remained relatively unscathed in their core market (search), whilst also gaining footholds elsewhere (Chrome OS, Chrome browser and Android); however, could a massive increase in mobile search scupper them?
More…
Semantic search, the core idea of web 3.0, is all about understanding the searcher and the terms used in order to provide answers, not just results; could Google personalisation, along with other factors, be heralding in this new era of the Internet and search?
The Google algorithm has, for a long time, been dedicated solely to refining the average user’s quality of search results. Of course, the SEO industry has for some time been able to push up websites for appropriate key phrases, using increasingly subtle techniques so as not to upset the algorithm as it becomes less susceptible to ‘gaming’.
Google are now all about quality. They have made it abundantly clear that they want their SERPs to be full of only the most relevant sites that visitors will use, enjoy and revisit; Google are no longer interested in people who invest more time in their SEO than they do in the site or business. As if to prove that along came Vince, followed up by announcements about Caffeine and now personalised search.
More…
Google introduce Twitter updates in a real-time feed for the first time in their SERPs.
The much mooted and oft lauded social media integration has finally hit the pages of Google.com today. Whilst this is part of a progressive roll-out, it signals a significant change to their SERPs; both in terms of aesthetics and functionality.
Soon, along with news, adverts, blog posts, images, local businesses (where appropriate) and the actual search results themselves, you’ll find a rolling feed of Twitter tweets. This looks to be only the start too, as no sooner were Twitter updates launched, but they also announced that Facebook and MySpace messages were in the pipeline.
More…
Each month the statistics for search engine usage are published for the world to digest and reflect upon. Whilst the numbers may only marginally fluctuate from month to month, the outright leader always remains the same – Google.
Internationally Google dominates search. According to the latest figures, supplied by ComScore, they have secured almost two thirds of the US market, weighing in with 65.4% of the combined 13.8 billion unique searches. Yahoo achieved only a quarter of that, with a diminished share of 18% whilst a resurgent Bing fell just short of double figures with 9.9%. The rest, which includes AOL and Ask, account for the remaining 6.70%.
More…
Changes are afoot over at Bing. The world’s third favourite search engine, which is soon to be adopted by Yahoo (the second most popular), have announced a raft of changes designed to improve user satisfaction and develop their burgeoning social media interaction.
The integration of Twitter has been on the cards for some time, even though it was only finally confirmed last month [see: Google and Microsoft Complete Twitter Deal to Herald Real-time Search Era], so this is certainly a major part of the ‘Decision Engine’s’ revamp. Their Facebook tie-in was something of a surprise, arguably even more so the latest announcement also points towards a Wolfram Alpha collaboration.
More…
It appears that real-time search could finally become a reality. Following our post earlier in the month, Twitter negotiating real-time search deal with Microsoft and Google, it looks like the ink is now drying on an agreement that will see the aforementioned search engines gain complete access to the social media site’s network.
This is a brave new world for search engines and could well change the way we view and use SERPs in the future. Bing and Google are now free to start developing ways to incorporate Twitter feeds into their searches, opening up unique opportunities for the respective engines and their users.
More…
When I posed the question, ‘How will Twitter monetise…?’, at the tail end of last week, I didn’t expect the answer to be quite so immediate. Today it has been announced that Twitter are holding talks with both Google and Microsoft to seal a deal that will see feeds being shown alongside standard search results.
This is a move that has been some time in the making. Bing stole a march on Google at the beginning of July by integrating the tweets of a select band of Twitterati royalty (as covered in our blog post, ‘Bing Unleash Real-Time Search’). Whilst Twitter has struggled to find a way to make money from its hugely popular service, the search engines have been seeking ways to tap into its real-time capabilities. A match made in heaven, surely.
More…
As always, the beginning of the month heralds the latest round of search engine statistics and this time it’s bad news for Bing. Despite making some significant gains since its (re)release back in June, it appears some of the steam may well have gone out of their marketing bandwagon.
Of course the numbers vary from one analytics service to another; however, most agree that Bing lost around 0.2 – 0.25% leaving it with 3.39% of the overall global search market share. The major discrepancy is in the numbers associated with Google; because whilst NetApplications suggest that they dipped ever so slightly, StatCounter had the Mountain View based giants actually gained just under 1% to a staggering 90.54%.
More…
Whenever you create a new PPC advertisement there’s a temptation to see how it appears on the search engines. This temptation can grow further if it fails to deliver the expected traffic rates or has an unusually high bounce, thus indicating a potential issue.
The only issue with looking for your advert through the search engine itself is that it can create unnecessary impressions and lower the Click through Rate (CTR), which may in turn adversely affect the campaign. So how can you preview your ads without upsetting the statistics and potentially costing yourself more money? Well, Microsoft Bing have come up with a simple solution.
More…
One of the advantages of Pay Per Click advertising on Bing is the age and gender demographic targeting.
The Microsoft adCenter has collected data overtime from various sources to create this targeting feature estimating the visitor’s gender and age:
- MSN Messenger
- Previous Search Queries
- Market Research
- Customer Service
- Registration Data from Hotmail
The results are obviously not 100% accurate but various studies in China show that the data collection and algorithms guessed the gender correct 80% of the time and the age of the visitor at least 60% of the time.
More…
Now that you have created and activated your Microsoft adCenter Account, I thought I would follow on my previous blog post ‘Pay Per Click on Bing – Account Setup‘, with step-by-step guide on creating a new campaign.
More…
