The much feted Google Caffeine update is a little behind schedule, with extensive testing still ongoing. Currently live on just one datacentre, a global release is still a little way off. But could Europe be next to get it?
Whilst discussing the latest news and issues surrounding Google with WebProNews, Matt Cutts suggested (although was at pains to affirm that it wasn’t official) that the next ‘data centre to be hit’ might be Europe. This could well mean that we could finally see what all the fuss is about on these shores.
Caffeine represents a new and improved Google. It relies on exceptionally quick data centres providing results almost instantaneously. But it isn’t just about faster results. Indexing and crawling are also getting turbo-charged. There’s no visible change for those visiting Google, just a more comprehensive list of results in double-quick time.
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With Google facing an antitrust investigation in Europe, the question of search neutrality has once again raised its ugly head. But can search engines really be regulated?
Google’s alleged fiddling of search engine rankings for Microsoft associates Foundem and Ciao! have landed them in some pretty hot water. With a European antitrust case pending, the issue of search neutrality and monopolising of the search/advertising market is in the spotlight.
On their European Public Policy blog, Google have been quick to defend its actions. Yesterday, under the title of ‘This stuff is tough‘ Amit Singhal (a Google Fellow) explained just how complex it is to regulate and maintain a search engine. This was in response not only to the pending court action, but also an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times by Adam Raff, co-founder of Foundem.
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Some call Google a monopoly, others one of the most innovative companies in the online technologies sector pushing forward the progress of the Internet. The one thing that can’t be argued though is that it is the most popular website in the world, and with it, the most used search engine. So is their dominance having a negative effect on the Internet?
Google as a company and an entity has grown so rapidly in such a (relatively) short period of time. Today, as it has been for some years in truth, the company name is the byword for online search. We don’t simply look for information, products and services any more, we ‘Google them’.
Their encroachment into the day-to-day language has helped the brand grow and the search engine develop. With an 80% share of the lucrative search market, as well as developing their own operating system, Internet browser and mobile phone amongst many other things, Google have gradually expanded their influence and gone far beyond the parameters of their original business. So the big question is, has this growth had a positive or negative effect on the Internet?
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As Social Media continues to expand and lure in vast volumes of Internet traffic, where does its fustier, slower (methodical if you will) and more derided website marketing compadre, SEO, now fit in?
Search Engine Optimisation has been saddled with a reputation for being something of a shadowy practice; online alchemy, created to appease the search engine gods. The thing is though, it works. Better still, it continues to work to this day.
Social Media has emerged from the Friends Reunited Petri dish and exploded into a full-grown living organism, consuming everything in its path; or, at least, nearly everything. Facebook has experienced the most meteoric of rises, propelled by the slipstream of fading stars like MySpace, it has slipped seamlessly into the top 3 sites in the world (2nd by some metrics, 3rd in others) and gained itself over 350 million users.
Thanks to Facebook, along with Twitter, YouTube and a whole multitude of bookmarking cohorts, Social Media has got the world communicating in real-time. This free network of conversations has engulfed the Internet and opened the door of opportunity to marketers. Inevitably, when something huge comes to dominate an entity as the Internet, something has to make way; but is that thing SEO?
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In terms of the Internet environment, the noughties were dominated by one company, Google. But will this decade be any different?
Google have laid their cards on the table pretty early in this new decade (okay, officially it’s not actually the new decade yet, but for all intents and purposes…) unveiling their brand new smartphone, the Google Nexus. Chrome, their Internet browser is now the third most popular (just ahead of rival, Apple) and Google Goggles looks set to revolutionise mobile search. Not bad after just over a week.
However, it’s not all plain sailing. The French Government have announced that they intend to tax online advertising in the country, worth an estimated £720 million, taking vital revenue from Google as well as their rivals. Of course that is only a proposal, but it does perhaps highlight a potential fallibility in the search giant; along with the somewhat lukewarm reception for their Nexus phone from industry professionals, maybe Google are aiming too high and 2010 might be the year that their rivals close in.
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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%.
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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%.
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Ask.com, remember them? Well, believe it or not, they’re still the 4th most popular search engine in the UK (behind Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Bing) and are the 47th most visited website*, ranking it higher than Apple and LinkedIn.
Unfortunately, ever since the butler-inspired service was introduced, it has been slowly slipping in popularity. There was, as I’m sure you remember, a huge surge in initial popularity. The Ask Jeeves concept of doing searches in the form of an entire question rather than the usual keywords resonated with Internet users looking for something different.
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The Background
Bing is the newly refurbished Microsoft search engine, formerly known as MSN Live and MSN Search. Microsoft launched Bing on 1st June 2009, with a clean and uncluttered layout and a daily image that is rotated daily to provide searchers with a fresh and attractive search experience.
Pay Per Click Advertising
It’s not surprising that since the launch of Bing, more and more advertisers are looking to promote their business on this new and emerging branded search engine. Bing Pay Per Click advertising is run in much the same way as it was previously on MSN Live and Search, via the Microsoft adCenter programme.
The Microsoft adCenter platform has currently remained exactly the same; the only major difference in fact is the search engine that your ads will appear on. You will still see your ads appearing at the top or right hand side of the results page in the same format as before.
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Microsoft’s (relatively) new search engine Bing has continued to eek away the lead of its more established counterparts, most notably Google. The latest figures from the US show that Bing now commands 8.9% of the search market there, up half a percent from 8.4%. Conversely, Google has since slumped by 0.3 of a percent down to 64.7% for the month of July.
This trend has continued in the search figures, with Bing attracting 29million additional searches; representing a 2.4% increase from June’s figure of 1.21billion. Once again, Google was impacted with a 4% loss of 352million; although with over seven times the total search volume of Bing, they won’t be overly worried.
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Don’t take my word for it though. The Sun today published a feature by their Head of Search and Page 3 girl Ruth, the result of which was an overwhelming victory for Bing.
Whilst the article clearly omitted mentioning anything regarding the merger between Microsoft and Yahoo, one of their categories was an ‘Ego-Search’ from a Page 3 girl – Ruth – and their term for the Search test was David Beckham; this is as conclusive as it gets.
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The day has finally come where the oft-mooted deal between Yahoo and Microsoft may actually come to fruition. After more than a year of legal wrangling and buyout proposals, the two search giants appear to have come to an amicable agreement. Not before time too.
Yahoo currently holds a very strong second position in the global search volume charts with Microsoft’s Bing trailing some distance behind in third. Unfortunately for both, Google are leagues ahead and have been for some time. A collaboration between the nearest competition has always been the only realistic way for anyone to usurp Google’s stranglehold, and finally that looks like it could happen.
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With the first concrete announcement regarding the release of Google Wave issued today, the future of search engines has never looked so unclear. Wave will be distributed to a lucky 100,000 initially on September 30th according to a number of sources, including The Telegraph. With the new feature offering full integration of email, instant messenger services and elements of social media, it looks set to become the online communication choice of the future. Or will it?
Microsoft have already jumped the gun, being the first search engine to provide an official tie-in with Twitter. Bing has incorporated some elements, including tweets from the leading Twitterati within their search (covered in Bing Unleash Real-Time Search); something that neither Yahoo nor Google have been able to match thus far. They’ve gone a stage further too with full real-time and conventional search on BingTweets.
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The headline story of Yahoo’s quarterly review is undoubtedly the 15 per cent drop in search revenue. A general trend away from paid search has hit the major engines hard, but seemingly Yahoo are suffering more than most.
The loss of revenue in paid search was attributed to “fewer click-throughs and fewer buyer intents” by Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz in a report by the Financial Times. She was quick too to brush off claims that search volume may also be suffering, although clearly the dramatic drop will have raised some questions by those within the company and others with a vested interest.
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With the amount of coverage the various search engines have been getting over their rankings and popularity recently, I decided to do a little experiment. Using Alexa rankings, the authority site when it comes to gaining statistical data about websites, I compared four of the major search players: Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.
A quick glance at their top 500 list will tell you that Google and Yahoo command the top two positions when it comes to global traffic rank. Therefore it is of little surprise to see both dominate the chart when it comes to reach. Google remain fluctuates on a figure between around 30 and 35%, with Yahoo on a far smoother horizontal bar at around 26% of all internet users who visit the site each day.
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