There are rumblings of discontent amongst webmasters, online marketers and internet users. Has the search engine giant Google taken its eye of the ball and seen better days? By diversifying into multiple markets and trying to be so many different things to so many different people, and by changing its core product from a Search Engine to a Knowledge Engine, has Google lost its way?

With such a dominant market position and with so many pies to keep their fingers in, is it possible that Google have become complacent in their very comforable throne? This speculation is not questioning the scale of the role Google has played in making the internet an accessible, user friendly tool for the online shopper, browser and inquisitor. This is not a piece to dispute the positive influence Google has had; rather it is an attempt to interrogate the possibility that the quality of Google’s core activity has started to wane. 

Poor quality search results

Webmasterworld is a trusted and established discussion resource for search engine optimisation specialists the world over, and in recent months their forums have started to simmer with the hushed whisperings of a search engine revolt. The consensus of those in the industry is that the quality of Google’s search engine results has slipped to a place where results being served are the worst they have been for many years.         

This belief is probably best expressed by Brett Tabke, who runs Webmasterworld: “Right now I continue to receive some of the lowest Google results I have seen in years: Duplicate sites, irrelevant Google property spam, author images and squeeze page results. It just feels like Google is in the middle of a full scale panic.”

The SEO team at Liberty had a little dig around, and it didn’t take long before we came across an apt example for one of the internet’s most highly contested key phrases – ‘payday loans’.

Page one of Google’s search results last week can be seen above. Not only are none of the industry’s biggest, most trusted names included, but at least four of the results have nothing to do with payday loans whatsoever – they are hacked websites. Is this the new black-hat way to get on to the first page of Google - hack someone else’s website?

As yet there is no acknowledgement from Google of this problem, although concerns must be rife that the latest batch of algorithm updates and filters intended to improve user experience have had the opposite effect in many cases. However complacent Google may have become, it seems baffling that an organisation which has so shrewdly forged its place at the head of such an innovative industry can allow an obvious flaw in their core activity to remain unchecked for so long.

Flouting of privacy laws 

Aside from poor quality search engine results, internet users are feeling alienated by the Google brand, which is guilty of sending mixed messages to its customer base. Google’s ‘Do no evil’ mantra, which aims to portray the company as their ethical, trusted friend, has time and time again proved to be disingenuous or even dishonest at worst, as Google’s interpretation of privacy seems to differ from that of its users.

There is no shortage of events which have made it clear that privacy does not appear to be a priority for Google’s powers that be. This is in direct conflict with internet users and government officials, who see privacy as a central issue.

In March the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charged Google with unfair privacy practices, when it set the gmail contact details of users of its ‘Buzz’ social media service as public by default. The Google browsers Chrome and Android have also caused a stir by failing to offer users a ‘Do Not Track’ option, meaning that all of the movements and actions of browsers are tracked in a transparent attempt to digest all of the private information available.

There have also been much publicised investigations, particularly in the EU, into the collection of personal data via Google Street View. Following claims from Google that the collection of data (including emails, passwords and other personal information) from unprotected wireless networks was a simple mistake, fresh insight cast the complaints in a new light. The engineer responsible for the creation of the software claimed he had informed the Street View team that the software he had designed would collect this information, flouting EU laws, although during interviews with the Federal Communications Commission, the Street View team denied knowledge of the report. 

Perhaps the icing on this rather bitter-tasting cake is the recent scandal which clearly flies in the face of Google’s increasingly fragile ‘Do No Evil’ slogan. The company reached a $500 million legal settlement with the U.S. Justice Department to avoid prosecution on charges that it knowingly accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal ads from Canadian online pharmacies, which included illegal drugs and controlled substances.    

Possible alternatives

With these transgressions in mind, which competitors are best placed to gobble up the scraps from Google’s table if it continues to flagrantly contradict its ethical pledge?

Figures detailed in a recent search market share report from Compete.com show that in the last month Bing fielded 19.2 per cent of all search queries, which has led to an increase of 4.2 per cent since August 2011. With a fifth of the market, Bing is certainly no small fry and Microsoft are steadily gaining in confidence. The recent launch of Bing It On, a search engine comparison service, perfectly illustrates this point.

Bing It On allows users to enter five search queries, comparing the results side-by-side with those from Google. Although the test is only available in America, Bing claim that an independent study found that users preferred the results displayed by Bing to those produced by Google by nearly 2:1. Bing have clearly thrown down the gauntlet on this one.   

A more recent entrant to the market, Duck Duck Go, believes Google’s position has weakened to such an extent that they are actively targeting the growing anti-Google crowd. An illustrated guide by the newcomers, http://dontbubble.us, shows just how Duck Duck Go aim to capture a different breed of internet user by offering less presumptuous search results, which offer a more rounded range of information by breaking users out of the bubble that search engine tracking automatically imposes. 

The Future

So how do we expect these developments to impact on the future of online search?

If the Google decline is set to stay and Bing, along with other new entrants, continue to mop up their disillusioned users, the market will segment and SEOs will have to pander to the algorithms set by other search engines to keep achieving results. Until now, SEO strategies have been devised to follow Google best practice, but if Bing continue their surge, before long SEOs will find themselves moving to the beat of a new and slightly drum. Regardless, these developments bode well for the internet user. A more tightly fought market will drive innovation and increase the search for competitive advantage, which in our experience is never a bad thing.

We were at the October Search Seminar held by Figaro Digital at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden yesterday.

Our Managing Director, Gareth Morgan, was the first presenter of the day, with the topic "What we learnt about search in 2012" - a look at the main Google algorithm updates and AdWords changes to take place over the past 9 months and what people now need to do differently.

The reaction to the presentation was very positive, with a lot of people asking for the slides, so here they are:

Other presentations included Doubleclick and Kenshoo talking about tracking and using software to improve decision making, and HomeJames talking about integrating online and offline marketing. GiffGaff was also there, showing a great little case study on how they used their community to boost SEO. It was a good event and we will definitely be attending again.

Today Google announced an update to their webmaster tools guidelines. It’s been a while since they last updated their guidelines, which had become a little dated after a turbulent year with so many significant algorithm updates.

One important addition has been rich snippets.

What are rich snippets?

Rich snippets are designed to provide searchers with additional information on a site’s content prior to clicking through to it. An example that people will be familiar with is the star review snippet.

This allows searchers to form an opinion on the quality of a site before they even click through to the site.

Other rich snippets include

• music (listing songs, track durations),
• people (name, job titles, photo, Steve Jobs),
• products (pricing, ratings, availability),
• business organisations (name, telephone, website),
• recipes (name, reviews, photos)
• events (date, type, location, tickets, photos, Foo Fighters)
• consumer software such as mobile phone apps.

What are the benefits of rich snippets?

From the examples above, it’s pretty clear what the benefits are of well implemented rich snippets. If you can stand out from your competitors when that set of search results pops up, then you’re likely to experience increased click through rates.

Rich snippets are also a great way to position your brand by creating a sense of authority in the search results. When Google puts so much more emphasis on your listing over and above the competition searchers are more comfortable in clicking through to your site. The additional exposure and space that your listing takes up is also a great platform for getting your message across to prospective customers.

Rich snippets and social media

Rich snippets can also be used to distribute your social media content. Video mark up and Facebook share are recognised by Google and can be attached to your videos to encourage interaction. Marking up your video can also help Google show videos uploaded to YouTube in the search results.

As traditional link building moves more to a content centred approach there has been considerable interest in the author tag, an element of the people rich snippet. When interconnected with a blog and Google+ profile, Google can show details of an author alongside the content they have published in the search results. This can have a profound effect on personal brands as well as increase click through rates and social following.

For more information about the new Google rich snippet guidelines visit the Webmaster Central Blog.

As a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertiser using Google AdWords, you can select whether your adverts show for broad searches relating to your keywords or very specific searches that match your terms exactly. By choosing from a range of ‘keyword match types,’ you can tactically enhance your campaigns and improve the quality of the traffic that you attract to your website.

In AdWords, there are five different keyword match types to choose from:

Broad Match

Broad match - as you might ascertain from the name - returns a broad range of results originating from your keyword or phrase. Your adverts will automatically run for keyword variations including synonyms, singular and plural forms, common misspellings and even other phrases that contain the selected keywords. Although assigning broad match to a campaign can help to increase traffic, it may also result in wasted spend, attracting clicks from people looking for products or services your business does not supply.

"Phrase Match"

By placing quotation marks around particular keywords, Google will only display adverts when the search term entered contains the keywords in the same order as they are listed in the ad. For example, when bidding on a keyword which is written in quotation marks - e.g. "car insurance" - you will show for those keywords in that order. However, you will also bid on search terms such as 'cheap car insurance', 'car insurance quotes', 'car insurance policies', etc.

[Exact Match]

Exact match is the most specific keyword match type. By placing your keyword or phrase in square brackets - e.g. [car insurance] - Google will only show the advert for that exact term, without including any variations.

-Negative -Match

Negative matches are an excellent method of reducing the amount of wasted spend your ad campaign generates. The addition of a negative sign shows Google that your ad is not to be returned for any search including that keyword. Using the car insurance example, by adding the negative keyword '-sports', your advert will not be returned for "sports car insurance" searches.

+Modified +Broad +Match

The most recent addition to AdWords, modified broad match allows you to apply a more specific version of broad match. By putting a plus sign in front of a keyword or key phrase, you can tell Google exactly which keywords you would like to bid for, ensuring you show for a range of terms without appearing for those which aren’t related to the products or services you sell. For further information on modified broad match, check out this blog post, when we wrote about its initial launch in the UK.

Done well, pay per click advertising can really help to drive more traffic to a website at a minimal expense. However, unfortunately, we’ve seen many people give it a go themselves, only to set up their campaigns with the wrong keyword match types in place. Our PPC Team have years of experience in setting up and managing campaigns in a plethora of industries and therefore know the do’s and don’ts with Google AdWords.

For more information, please visit our dedicated pay per click advertising page or call 029 2076 6467 today.

As a website owner, if you are only using natural search or Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to generate traffic to your website then you could be missing out on a significant number of visitors. The majority of search engine marketers are of the opinion that a search engine marketing campaign budget should be split between PPC advertising and a more prolonged SEO (search engine optimisation) strategy. The importance of both can be illustrated by the fact that - even with a #1 search engine ranking - up to 25% of the traffic that lands on the results page for your key terms will click on the PPC listings. On the other hand, there are plenty of online consumers who completely disregard the PPC listings, so without a natural placing on the rankings, a website only involved in PPC advertising will miss out on a vast proportion of the total market.

Of course, as always, there are exceptions to the rule. In market sectors that experience particularly high levels of competition, it may be that the CPC (cost per click) is so high that smaller operators simply cannot compete. In this case, it may be more worthwhile to spread the cost over a far longer time span by opting for an SEO strategy, which will help your site to show in the organic results over time.

In many cases, website owners will invest in a PPC advertising campaign to create a revenue stream whilst they wait for their SEO campaign to drive the site up through the rankings. The amount of time an SEO campaign will take depends on a wide number of factors, although obviously the available budget and competition already in the market will heavily influence the time span.

Before spending too much money on a PPC advertising campaign, it is important to ensure that you understand the process intimately, or hire a team of professionals who can do this for you. Without very carefully tracking PPC advertising campaigns, if you are operating in a high CPC market or competing for a high volume search phrase then you could have spent thousands before you know it - so take care!

In a clean-up of its services, Yahoo! is about to remove a number of “underperforming” websites, including a few very well known brands.

Those of us who have been involved in search engine marketing for years will remember when Altavista was the Google of its day. Anyone involved in social media marketing will undoubtedly have spent time on the bookmarking website, Delicious.

In addition to these two sites, AlltheWeb (another search site), Babelfish (a translation service), Buzz (a news aggregation site) and MyBlogLog (a social media network, similar to Facebook) are all also likely to be taken off the web.

For the sake of posterity, here’s a screenshot of Delicious:

 

A Yahoo! spokeswoman said “Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond...We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months...We will communicate specific plans when appropriate."

The company is also planning on cutting its workforce by 4%, which equates to about 600 jobs.

If your website receives traffic or has links pointing to it from any of the Yahoo! properties that are going to disappear then put measures in place to limit the impact. Start taking advantage of other social media, bookmarking and blog sites ASAP, to strengthen your link profile and the number of referring sites.

Whether you are a fan of Google's new Instant search or not, if you are running a PPC campaign then this post will be of interest to you.

There appears to be a glitch in Instant search that could be costing top spot advertisers dearly. Whilst Instant search is turned on, if a search returns Adwords ads above the organic SERPs and you hit enter twice in the search field you will automatically open the number 1 Adwords result. This costs whoever is in the top spot, but the user won't have made the choice to click the ad, so what will they do? Click back, because they were expecting a Google search results screen.

This will have a detrimental effect on top position bounce rates and could be wasting a great deal of advertiser's budgets.

Google has now launched “Instant Previews”, which provides a preview of the organic search results without a searcher having to click through to the site itself. These previews appear on the right hand side of the Google search results screen when you click the little magnifying glass icon next to the search results.

This new addition comes hot on the heels of Google's launch of Google Instant. Unlike Google Instant search, Google Instant Preview is by default turned off, the magnifying glass must be clicked to activate this new feature. The preview istself is a graphic overview of a search result that highlights those sections which are most applicable to the search term used making it easier to see whether a site is worth visiting or not.

Google Preview will start showing up from today, 9th November 2010 and should be available in 40 languages and to all users within a couple of days. Google claims that during the testing of Google Instant Preview, those using Instant Preview stated that they were about 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results they clicked. This new visual comparison seems set to change the way visitors evaluate websites and choose whether or not to visit them.

At this point Google Preview doesn't extend to Google Ads, even though every Google Ad ends up at a web page. Google has thought about the option, but isn’t including it in the initial launch. Although incredibly fast and powerful, Google Preview still finds including sites created in Flash difficult with the majority of flash sites not yet being turned into a preview. Unlike Google Instant, which shuts off when your web connection slows, Google Instant Previews is available even on poor internet connections.

Overnight, Google started rolling out a new layout for Places, the map listings that appear at the top of the search results for queries that include a city/town name.

The new layout looks like this:

Visually, the page is quite different. The map has been taken from its central position to the right hand column and now floats as a user scrolls up and down the page. The seven results that used to accompany the map have now been separated and are mixed in with the 'natural' search results.

This proves Google's commitment to local search. The new results show a lot less directories and aggregator sites and a lot more websites that belong to the cities being searched. SEO for a city that your business does not belong in just got a lot tougher and businesses that were relying on Places for traffic that did not own a website (i.e. a lot of trades people) appear to be out in the cold as the left hand side results are pulling data from a websites title and meta description. 

This week Yahoo! announced that their transition from Yahoo! Search powered results to Bing search results is complete. The organic results are now powered by Bing in the US and Canada, whilst the search ads are still from Yahoo!

As a result of the deal signed over a year ago, Microsoft now owns 28.1% of the US search market (as of July’s 2010 comScore numbers), though this figure still represents less than half of the 65.8% share held by Google. In the UK, Google’s market share is thought to be closer to the 90% mark.

The change may not be immediately apparent to Yahoo! users, as the search interface will remain the same. However, the eagle-eyed will notice on the status bar in their browser that the search data is actually loaded from Bing.

Another crucial factor in the deal is the migration of Yahoo! search advertisers to Microsoft’s adCenter platform. This stage is currently still under development, with Microsoft “optimistic about completing this phase later this year.”

So what does this mean for businesses? The main thing is that there is one less search engine to optimise a site for. If your sites were high up on Yahoo! but not Bing then this is bad news, if however, you were ranking well on Bing, then those high rankings you are enjoying will now expose your business to a lot more searchers.

The other main impact is the migration of Pay Per Click advertisers from Yahoo! Search Marketing to Microsoft adCenter. The programmes work slightly differently and anyone who was using YSM will now have to familiarise themselves with the Bing system.