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Google's Search Share Climbs To 71%

nospam@example.com (Brian Johnson) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:33:38 -0400

Google continued to increase its market share of US searches, accounting for 70.77% of them for the four weeks ended July 26 - up 1.6 percentage points from June and more than 6 points, or 10%, from a year earlier - Hitwise announced.

Yahoo Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 18.65%, 5.36% and 3.53%, respectively, of US searches in July.

The remaining 47 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.69% of US searches.

Search Traffic to Key US Industries

Search engines - and among them Google - remain the primary way that internet users navigate to key industry categories:

From July 2007 to July 2008, Entertainment, Business and Finance, Sports, Online Video and Social Networking categories recorded double-digit increases in the share of traffic coming directly from search engines.

Landing Page Load time will be incorporated into Google Adwords quality score

nospam@example.com (Brian Johnson) — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 10:40:27 -0500

As part of our continuing efforts to improve the user experience, we will soon incorporate an additional factor into Quality Score: landing page load time. Load time is the amount of time it takes for a user to see the landing page after clicking an ad.

Why are we doing this?
Two reasons: first, users have the best experience when they don't have to wait a long time for landing pages to load. Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times only keep users from getting what they want: information about your business. Second, users are more likely to abandon landing pages that load slowly, which can hurt your conversion rate.

When are we making this change?
In the next few weeks, we will add load time evaluations to the Keyword Analysis page (we'll notify you when they are available). You will then have one month to review your site and make necessary adjustments.

After the one month review period, this load time factor will be incorporated into your keywords' Quality Scores. Keywords with landing pages that load very slowly may get lower Quality Scores (and thus higher minimum bids). Conversely, keywords with landing pages that load very quickly may get higher Quality Scores and lower minimum bids.

To learn more about the upcoming change, please see this article in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

Thursday, March 06, 2008 at 4:23 PM

Yahoo's Yodel Turns Into a Whimper

nospam@example.com (Brian Johnson) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:13:51 -0500

Layoffs and a refocusing effort can only do so much. CEO Jerry Yang needs to find exciting new products or services if he hopes to make Yahoo sing again

At the Consumer Electronics Show a few weeks ago, Yahoo! (YHOO) Chief Executive Jerry Yang kicked off his keynote speech with a vow: "It is time to get Yahoo yodeling again." But on Jan. 29, after Yang issued a muted outlook for the coming year, including the layoffs of 1,000 employees, it became clear that the turnaround he wants to bring about won't happen for at least another year.

Yahoo said its fourth-quarter profit fell 23%, to $206 million, on a 14% rise in sales, to $1.4 billion, excluding commissions to marketing partners. But even though that met or outpaced expectations, the company's outlook for 2008 didn't. Yahoo expects revenue of $5.35 billion to $5.95 billion, missing the expectations of many analysts, whose average forecast is for sales of $5.88 billion. "The outlook was the real disappointment," says Rob Sanderson, an analyst at American Technology Research. "They threw in the kitchen sink in terms of reducing expectations."

The stock reeled in extended trading, dropping more than 10%, to $20.81. Even before the report was released, Yahoo's shares were trading at their lowest level in more than four years.

Even as top-line growth fails to meet some projections, spending on efforts to keep visitors glued to the portal could crimp bottom-line growth, too, at least in the near term. Yang expects to continue investing in such areas as Yahoo's home page, its personalized MyYahoo service, e-mail, and mobile features. He also plans to keep spending to improve search as well as to create better technology for marketers to buy both search and display ads on Yahoo. "This sort of transformation takes time," Yang said on an earnings call with analysts. "We are taking an aggressive investment posture. Increased investment is the only appropriate measure at this time."

A Big Ax in Europe

Investors also may be disappointed that Yang, who took over last July with the departure of longtime CEO Terry Semel, didn't make deeper cuts in Yahoo's staff. Some press reports suggested the cuts would affect as many as 2,500 people. The layoffs will mean a charge of up to $25 million in the first quarter, but they could save the company $100 million a year in expenses.

Yang said the cuts, which will come in mid-February, will be not across the board, but selective, focused on areas that aren't doing as well as others. One Yahoo executive told BusinessWeek that sizable cuts probably would come in Europe. Yahoo also has already deemphasized or closed lagging operations such as music subscriptions, photos, and a social-networking service called Yahoo 360.

Analysts had hoped that Yahoo's results might offer clues as to whether the economic slowdown will hit online advertising. The concern is that companies such as Yahoo and Google (GOOG) will suffer from pared marketing budgets. Some analysts also fret that cash-strapped consumers will reduce spending, in the process clicking on search and other ads less often, which also would mean less revenue for the likes of Yahoo and Google. Indeed, this possibility, coupled with small declines in Web search activity in December, prompted investment bank Stanford Group in Houston to cut its Google stock rating to "hold" from "buy" on Jan. 24. "Advertising-driven media typically slows down in a recession, so online advertising should decline in a recession, ultimately," says Stanford analyst Clayton Moran.

Online Resilience?

Others, however, believe online ads are at least somewhat insulated from a slowing economy. The idea is that an influx of marketing dollars, redirected from television and print, would more than compensate for any economy-related slump. For instance, chipmaker Intel (INTC) expects to spend at least half of its marketing budget online this year, compared with just 15% two years ago, because the Web helps it better reach people who buy computers with Intel chips in them. "We really want to get close to that sale" with search and online display ads, says Corey Carrillo, Intel's worldwide search-engine marketing manager. Historically, the company has emphasized its brand.

Yahoo executives said there were some areas of weakness in display advertising, such as finance, travel, and retail. President Sue Decker implied that was probably due to the slowing economy. But she said the weakness was largely offset by strength in other areas. Yang said display-ad revenues strengthened in the second half of last year, growing 20%.

Yahoo said its search advertising grew 30% from a year ago. What's more, Decker said revenues per search query grew 20%, about the same gain as in the third quarter. She attributed the bulk of the growth to improvements in the rate at which users click on search ads, thanks to Project Panama, the company's search-ad effort launched about a year ago. But none of that has kept Yahoo from falling further behind Google.

With Yahoo failing to attract a larger base of searchers, advertisers hesitate to spend significantly more on its search ads. "We give them every dollar we can," says Kevin Lee, executive chairman of digital marketing firm Didit. "But if they don't have the traffic, there's nothing for us to spend the money on." Indeed, Yahoo keeps losing ground in search to Google. According to Nielsen Online's numbers, usually the most conservative measure of the market, Google's share of searches in December was 56.3% to Yahoo's 17.7%, and Google got 70% more searches per searcher than Yahoo.

Marketers know it, and that's why they're still not spending big on Yahoo search. A new analysis by search marketing firm Efficient Frontier says overall search ad spending on Yahoo fell 3.8% in the fourth quarter from a year ago. As a result, Google's share of search ad spending rose to 76.6% from 70.5% a year ago, essentially capturing 97¢ of every additional dollar spent on search advertising in the past year. "Google continues to be the big engine that could," says Efficient Frontier CEO Ellen Siminoff.

Cuts Alone Aren't Enough

Yahoo also faces challenges in other areas of its business. A deal with AT&T (T) had given Yahoo a monthly fee for each broadband subscriber it attracted. Now, Yahoo will get only a share of revenue for ads it sells on AT&T sites. Although it gets a one-time payment of $300 million to $400 million from AT&T this year, the new deal will cut Yahoo's guaranteed revenues, which analysts had estimated at about $250 million a year.

As Yang's vow to keep spending on some initiatives indicates, Yahoo's hope remains coming up with new services that catch people's imagination as Google, MySpace (NWS), Facebook, and other sites have. "You can't cut your way to prosperity," notes Siminoff. But when Yang took over as CEO last July, he promised he'd spend the next 100 days crafting a new plan for the company. At nearly 200 days and counting, investors clearly believe he needs to pick up the pace.

Hof is BusinessWeek's Silicon Valley bureau chief .

Weakness at Yahoo Doesn't Bode Well for Google

nospam@example.com (Brian Johnson) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:09:59 -0500

Until a couple days ago, Google's stock looked recession proof. Despite mounting talk of an advertising slowdown, shares hit an all-time high in November. Now, it finally seems that recession concerns are catching up with the web giant.

Although Google and Yahoo are in different competitive positions (Google could eat Yahoo for a mid-afternoon snack), they are both dependent on advertising for the majority of their income, and as a result, both are poised to take a thunderous hit in the event of a recession.

The key difference between Yahoo and Google is that nobody has high expectations of Yahoo. Its problems have been widely chronicled: Former CEO Terry Semel was sacked last spring; its search business is troubled; and now Yahoo is reportedly planning layoffs to keep its finances in check.

On the other hand, investors and customers alike expect great things of Google. The tight-lipped, overachieving company is notoriously uncommunicative with the financial community, but its silence is usually interpreted to mean that business is growing at mind-blowing rates. Over the last two years, Google's earnings handily exceeded analysts' expectations in six of the eight quarters. Now, with a looming recession and nervousness surrounding the online advertising market, at least a couple analysts think that Yahoo's woes are not unique to the company and could drag on Google, too.

"Advertising is linked to the economic cycle, and the market has come to the conclusion that Google will not be immune to a recession," says Laura Martin, an analyst with Soleil - Media Metrics. "I think what's going to happen is [on the earnings conference call,] somebody will ask about the outlook, and I would expect [Google management] to be conservative. And the market is not going to like that."

The market may already be anticipating the bad news: Over the last two days, Google shares have dropped more than $58, closing at $548.62 on Tuesday. How long before the stock drops below $500? At this rate, it'll be a day or two.

As Downturn Looms, Google Looks Recession-Proof

nospam@example.com (Brian Johnson) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:02:38 -0500

By Betsy Schiffman

As the U.S. economy edges toward a possible recession, one company looks particularly well-positioned to weather the downturn. According to some experts, Google's focus on highly targeted, measurable advertising makes it more recession-proof than many other businesses in tech.

"We're not predicting that Google's growth will accelerate -- that's highly unlikely," says Jim Friedland, an analyst with Cowen and Company. "But they may fare fairly well."

That flies in the face of much common wisdom about the advertising business and its dependence on consumer confidence. Take away the consumer spending, and advertising will quickly follow, according to this argument. "No ad-related business will be recession-proof," says Laura Martin, an analyst with Soleil-Media Metrics. "The founders of Google are visionary entrepreneurs who have never managed a public company through an economic slowdown."

Martin has turned negative on Google, and she's not alone. The stock has fallen 18 percent over the last three months as fears mount that the notoriously secretive web company could fall hard in the event of an economic recession (defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth). It's a reasonable conclusion given that Google generates 99 percent of its revenue from advertising, and ad budgets are one of the first things businesses cut when the economy slows down.

Google will report its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings on January 31.

History has also shown us that web advertising is particularly vulnerable during a recession. Yahoo enjoyed triple-digit sales growth through the late 1990s, but in 2001, its sales dropped 35 percent.

There's another side to the story, though. While Google is indisputably an ad-dependent beast, its advertising inventory is more akin to direct mail than pure-brand promotional ads, and that could make all the difference, according to other analysts. Various studies show that in historical recessions, overall advertising spending falls, but direct-mail spending increases. The thinking is that direct mail is a more cost-effective way for struggling businesses to boost sales than traditional advertising, and its results are more accurately measured.

"We looked at all the past recessions from 1950 on and we found that direct mail -- Google's most direct predecessor -- actually grew during six recessions," Cowen and Company's Friedland says. "Given the current environment, there's no reason to think Google will outperform. But there's no reason to think it will underperform."

Google boasts "hundreds of thousands" of advertisers on its AdWords network, many of whom are small, independent businesses. Christina Lee, director and owner of The Stutors, a Palo Alto, California-based tutoring center, is one of them. Lee has used AdWords for about two years, and spends about $200 per month on Google advertising. She says a large portion of her business comes from the internet or from referrals. If her company were to experience a serious business drought, she wouldn't stop spending on Google altogether.

"I see it as pretty necessary, actually," she says. "If there was an economic downturn, I might try to optimize our clicks more and work off word of mouth. And I might cut down on spending, but I see it as a listing fee -- like listing yourself in a phone book."

Google's search juggernaut continues

nospam@example.com (Brian Johnson) — Tue, 8 Jan 2008 14:52:25 -0500

Posted by Elinor Mills

Google just keeps getting more popular for search.

The latest figures from Hitwise, which monitors search market share, show Google with a record 66 percent share of Web searches in the United States for the month of December 2007.

Google had just over 63 percent for the same period a year ago, according to figures released Tuesday. Meanwhile, Yahoo's share dropped from 21.6 percent to 20.9 percent, Microsoft's dropped from 9.8 percent to just over 7 percent and Ask rose from 3.7 percent to just over 4 percent.

Hitwise also found that people are increasingly using the major search engines to locate sites and information for key industry categories. For instance, travel, entertainment, business and finance, and sports categories showed double-digit increases in the share of traffic coming from search engines.

(Credit: Hitwise)

Topics:

Google, Search, Yahoo

Business owners search to be found online

nospam@example.com (Brian Johnson) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:07:32 -0500

BY JEFFERSON GRAHAM
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

YAFFA BALSAM WAS mystified.

Why did so many other family therapy Web sites pop to the top of Google search results listings, while her site was nowhere to be found?

It's a question posed by thousands of small-business owners every day as they seek new customers online rather than through traditional Yellow Pages directories. These days, if a company Web site can't be found on Google, it basically doesn't exist.

"I've had my Web site up for a year, and as far as I know, I haven't found one new client from the Internet," says Balsam, 50, of Los Alamitos, Calif. "I want that to change."

USA Today asked Chris Winfield, president of Web site consultant 10e20, to look at Balsam's site, yourheartfeltsolutions.com, identify its weaknesses and offer tips on how to improve her rankings. His recommendations are instrumental for anyone with a Web site, as they are universal.

Winfield has three top tips for Balsam: Her site needs to be linked from other quality Web sites. She should have a clear Web site title. And she needs descriptive copy that includes the search terms (called keywords) that articulate how she wants to be discovered by search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, he says.

"Keywords direct the search engines to how to find you," Winfield says. "And links are the holy grail. If a lot of sites link to you, that means you have authority and should be placed higher than others."

Balsam's front page was virtually devoid of text, beyond tabs for inside pages and contact information. Winfield says this is a huge no-no. Google's spider crawls the Internet compiling Web site information, looking to keywords on the page for how to reference the site.

In his analysis, Winfield wrote: "Add some good, descriptive text about you and your services that gently incorporates the one- or two-keyword phrases that you are concentrating on. For example: "Family therapy specialist in Orange & Los Angeles County — Yaffa Balsam MFT."

Winfield is what's known in the industry as a search-engine optimizer, or SEO. He helps small to midsize firms with their search-engine visibility. The tricks and tools to get sites to the top on Google and competitors Yahoo and MSN change daily. SEOs promise to do the work, while you run your business.

Winfield says most SEOs charge anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 monthly, doing everything from designing and redesigning sites to writing daily blog posts for clients.

The first step for many businesses is realizing exactly what their keywords should be. A house painter, for example, shouldn't use "house painting" as a keyword, because it's so broad. Instead, the painter might drill down to the more specific "interior house painting" or "exterior house painting."

Winfield directed Balsam to a free tool Google offers for keyword tips — https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. There, USA Today typed in Balsam's "Family Therapy" keyword, and found many variations, including "family therapist," "family marriage therapy" and "family therapy counseling."

These online keyword tools help Google's advertising clients, who buy sponsored pay-per-click links to guarantee good placement in the search results. But they are available, free, to everyone.

Many businesses also look to pay-per-click advertising to augment their Web exposure. Paying Google or other search engines helps assure that your business will be near the top of the sponsored listings. Advertising is also a great way to figure out which keywords potential clients are using to find you, Winfield says. Both Google and rival Yahoo offer tools to show which ads were clicked.

In designing a Web site, Winfield says, the most important keyword for a business should be on the site's title page (visible along the top of Internet Explorer or other web browsers). This is the first thing Google looks for when crawling the Web.

Google Now Supports the NOODP Tag

nospam@example.com (Brian Johnson) — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 09:41:00 -0400

By Curtis Friedl

As mentioned in a previous MarketPosition article, MSN announced their support for two new tags that can be entered into the header of your html documents. Using these tags will indicate to MSN that you prefer your own site's title and description information rather then the use of the Open Directory header information that it may currently be using.

Below is an example of what you may use:

If you want to just exclude a specific engine, use:

Google has responded by adding support for these new Meta elements as well. This is good news for webmasters caught in the dilemma of having poor or outdated descriptions, pulled from the Open Directory listings. These older listings can have a negative effect on your organic traffic because a search engines user's impression of your site's description often determines whether they will select your link or a competitor's. Ultimately these changes will impact the effect that site improvements have on bottom line sales and revenue.

It is important to understand that changes to this information in a search engines database will take time to update. Updating your tags today may take several weeks to have an impact on the engines listings. In one test that we have preformed Google has visited the site numerous times over the past 3 weeks; the cached copy indicated a cache date of July 13th. The updates to the site were made prior to the 13th, and had not yet appeared in the cached portion of the search results. It appears that there may be a delay between the caching of the site, and the publishing in Google's search results.