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.

We recently saw a job vacancy being advertised on one of our clients' websites. It caught our attention because even though it was a great role and one that the company really needed filled, it was hardly noticeable on the web. The company did not want to spend money on advertising on a job board, so the only way this job opportunity could be found was via the search engines.

We have been interviewing graduates for a number of trainee positions at Liberty over the last year and many of them have expressed their difficulty in finding a job advert that didn't have a horde of other candidates interested in the role. Just looking at reed.co.uk today, a search for marketing jobs in Cardiff displays vacancies that have had 50-100 applications already.

A search query to find rare jobs

Many people use search engines when looking for jobs, particularly when trying to find those that are relevant to their career and in their desired or current location. This is when we had the idea to create a customisable search query to assist job hunters in finding those vacancies that are hidden away:

[location1 OR location2 OR location3] [type1 OR type2 OR type3] [job OR jobs OR vacancy OR vacancies OR role OR roles OR career OR careers]

Simply copy and paste the above search query into Google and replace each instance of "location" with suitable locations and each "type" with the types of jobs you are interested in. If Google thinks a web page contains relevance to at least one of the locations, one of the job types and one of the words in the third set of brackets then it will appear in the results.

Here's an example for someone looking for jobs in and around Cardiff relating to search engine optimisation and online marketing:

[cardiff OR "south wales"] ["online marketing" OR "internet marketing" OR seo OR "search engine optimisation"] [job OR jobs OR vacancy OR vacancies OR role OR roles OR career OR careers]

For the above example, for a web page to appear in the results, it has to contain relevance to at least one of the two locations, at least one of the four job types and at least one of the following words: "job", "vacancy", "role", "career" or one of their plural forms. The words do not have to appear in that order - as long as they appear somewhere on the page, they will show up in the results. So in the above example, possible web pages that could show up include:

- cardiff + seo + jobs (e.g. "Cardiff SEO Jobs"),
- cardiff + "internet marketing" + vacancy (e.g. "Vacancy: Internet Marketing, Cardiff"),
- "south wales" + "online marketing" + role (e.g. "We have an online marketing role available. Based in South Wales, the company…"), and so on.

A few points to take into account

- The square brackets aren't necessary, as Google will show the same number of results whether or not they are there, but it makes it easier to keep track and make sense of each part of the query.

- If one of the locations or job types is longer than one word (e.g. "online marketing"), put quote marks around it, otherwise the query will not function properly and the words might be searched for separately rather than together.

- The search query is likely to bring up a lot of results, some of which might not be relevant, useful or current, but don't be afraid to dig deep and scan through numerous pages of results. Page 1 of the results might contain the most relevant results according to Google, but you might find something more suitable a few pages on.

- Other ways to reduce the number of results are to take out some of the location or job type criteria, which will also narrow it down more specifically, and to select "pages from the UK" below the search bar, which will also eliminate international jobs that might match closely to your location (e.g. South Wales, UK and New South Wales, Australia).

- It may look complicated but it's really a way to simplify the search process. Referring to the above example, it would save the user implementing individual searches for "seo jobs cardiff", "seo vacancies cardiff", "seo careers cardiff" and so on, as all of these and more would be covered in just the one search query.

This is completely customisable, so don't be afraid to experiment. We have only included a few examples of synonyms of jobs and have not taken into account words and expressions that might differ depending on one's career type (e.g. internships and apprenticeships). If you lose track of what you've done, just start over with the original search query and add, delete and amend as appropriate.

We hope that it helps in your job search. At the very least, you might find a new job board or recruitment agency site to keep an eye on or to send your CV to. However you could also find a job advertised on a website that very few people have noticed and applied for, like the one we found on our client's website.

Best of luck with your job search!

It is no secret that Google is growing from strength to strength, not only improving its own search engine but also investing in video (YouTube), blogging (Blogger), browsers (Chrome), mobile phones (Android) and so much more.

In an editorial piece, The New York Times makes the argument that Google - in a position to place its fingers in many pies and look after its own invested interests - could potentially manipulate its own search results to its advantage, showing its own interests above those of the competition.

Whether Google decides to play completely fair or help itself is a contentious issue. Revealing its algorithm will force Google to do the former and play fair. This piece offers some possible solutions:

"Some early suggestions for how to accomplish [a fair editorial policy] include having Google explain with some specified level of detail the editorial policy that guides its tweaks. Another would be to give some government commission the power to look at those tweaks."

It is true that revealing elements of Google's secretive algorithm would clear this. For example, if YouTube were to rank higher than other video-sharing websites, it would be noticeable whether the ranking appears naturally or forced by Google.

However, there could be other wider implications of revealing the algorithm. Google's success so far is because its algorithm is a secret. Even so, as Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan points out in his take on the New York Times piece:

"Google constantly speaks at search marketing and other events to answer questions about how they list sites and how to improve coverage... Google is constantly giving interviews about its algorithm..."

Although the algorithm is a secret, Google helps webmasters, not by telling them outright what the algorithm is, but by telling them how they can help themselves with regards to how the algorithm operates, and why it displays the search results it does.

After all, what if everyone knew the algorithm? Google's Marissa Mayer explains (originally printed in the Financial Times but reproduced on Google's Public Policy Blog):

"If search engines were forced to disclose their algorithms and not just the signals they use, or worse, if they had to use a standardised algorithm, spammers would certainly use that knowledge to game the system, making the results suspect ."

We are reminded of an incident last year when a Google search for "ugg boots" displayed seven spam/fraud websites within the first page (top ten) results. In this instance, the websites used suspect, black hat SEO techniques to get to the top of Google for that keyword. Surely revealing the algorithm would only encourage such practices - both good and bad; white hat, black hat and everything in between - affecting the quality of the search engine results shown, and in turn damaging Google's reputation as (mostly) showing the most natural, "neutral" results. Otherwise, Google would have to invest much more heavily in moderating the results and weeding out those websites manipulating the algorithm, which is likely to be a larger number if the way Google operates is disclosed.

All of this is without even considering governmental intervention, as mentioned in the second half of the above quote from the New York Times piece. Some of the bigger sceptics on the WebmasterWorld forum have expressed their fears that, amongst other things, the government may suggest changes to the algorithm from which they themselves could benefit.

Whatever the outcome, although Danny Sullivan believes the First Amendment and the fact that Yahoo survived a similar incident will save Google from such a fate, it will be interesting to see what - if anything - transpires, whether such action would be seen as a necessity as Google continues to grow and dominate the search engine world as well as other industries.

Over the past few weeks, Google has been softly launching a test program which allows businesses in two US cities to purchase 'enhanced listings' in the local results (the map that appears at the top of the search results).

By taking an enhanced listing, a business owner agrees to give Google just $25 a month and in return, their business appears in the search results with a “View Website” link next to their name. At present, with there only being a handful of businesses that are testing the system, these listings stand out so will likely get a good click through rate.

The internet marketing community is debating whether this is a good thing or not. Whilst many people feel that Google is selling far too much of its real estate and is devaluing the natural search results, others feel that this is a good opportunity for smaller, local businesses to advertise on the search engine.

By offering this service at such a low monthly cost, Google should be able to convert a lot of one-man-bands that either could not afford Pay Per Click advertising or did not understand how the system works. There are hundreds or thousands of these businesses in each city, so the amount of extra revenue for Google could be considerable.

How the general public will react to this is uncertain. Up until now, adverts have been clearly defined above and to the right of the search results, separated from the natural listings. People tend to trust the natural listings as non-commercial and websites appearing due to merit. Even though the enhanced local listings will display the word ‘sponsored’ next to them, mixing them up with normal results is likely to confuse and even anger users.

There is no news yet when this will be rolled out across the rest of the US and then the UK, though with recent amount of changes that Google has introduced to its search results, it probably won’t be far off.

A court of appeal in Paris has ruled against the search engine giant Google, in a case brought to it by the Centre National Prive de Formation a Distance (CNFDI). The long-distance learning institution filed the defamation suit last year when the Google “suggestion” feature linked the institution with the word “scam”.

The “suggestion” feature was implemented to make searching easier for users of Google, by offering the most common search queries based upon popular past searches. When a user typed “CNFDI” into Google.fr, the first result that showed in the “suggestion” drop-down was “CNFDI arnaque”, which translates as “CNFDI scam”.

The French court originally agreed with Google’s claim that these search terms are generated automatically, by an algorithm that is based on user search behaviour. However, after months of decreased interest in CNFDI and a drop in revenue, the court sided with the institution and told Google to remove the word.

Google hasn’t been having a great time in Europe lately. Last year a Dutch website was sued by a BMW dealer that is was showing as “bankrupt”, due to the Google algorithm linking the two together. Last month the French government suggested that Google be taxed every time a user clicks on one of their ads and last week a German minister accused Google of being too powerful and a “giant monopoly” that should either become more transparent or face legal action.

A new article on Business Week, here, details how Twitter has managed to get both Google and Microsoft to pay them for the right to include tweets in their search results.

The article states that "In exchange for making short blogs, known as tweets, searchable on Google, Twitter will receive about $15 million…adding that the Microsoft partnership is worth about $10 million. "The deals were huge…With two scoops of the pen, a lot of revenue came in."

This is pretty big news as it's the first time that either of these major search engines has paid to index a website and is especially surprising given recent activity in the web world. Last week, Google was successfully sued in French courts for copyright violations, thanks to the books it has scanned and lets people search through the Google Books engine. The company is also currently in a war with Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp for indexing their news articles which get placed within Google News.

Writers and journalists around the globe must be scratching their heads, wondering why search engines are willing to pay millions for random tweets, yet their own content gets included regardless.

Twitter must be over the moon as this marks the end to a very successful year. Since starting up in 2006, Twitter has become one of the most popular and respected websites on the internet, growing at a phenomenal pace during 2009. Even so, the site still wasn't making any money. Whilst this deal doesn't make the micro-blog that profitable (it barely covers the estimated annual running costs), it does show that the vast amount of information held on the website is valuable and if the site keeps growing, selling content could become a very lucrative revenue stream.

Microsoft has launched www.bing.com, a new type of search engine that they prefer to call a “decision engine”. The software giant hopes that the replacement for Live Search (which was the third most popular search engine in the UK, behind Google and Yahoo!) will change the way people use search engines. By offering users greater options in the search results and helping them find what they are looking for quicker, Microsoft believes it now offers what internet users have been looking for.

Bing certainly looks different to the other search engines. The large homepage image shows their intention to stand out from Google by avoiding the use of big white spaces. Once you perform a search however, the look and feel is instantly familiar to anyone who has used a search engine before.

When it comes to features, changes include a list of related searches along the top left hand side (Google places them at the bottom of the results) and a nifty little box next to each search result that you can choose to pop-up, with further information from that web page and a list of other pages from that site.

At a first glance, the algorithm seems to be centred much more around local results. Microsoft has shown an interest in local search for some time, and it looks like this could be their bid for that market. Some of the results are a little questionable at the moment, but you can bet that a lot of work will be put into making this Beta release a very strong search engine in the near future.

Will Bing successfully change the way we search? Will it start taking market share from Google and Yahoo!? Time will tell, but with the Bing marketing budget rumoured to be $100 million, you can bet that Microsoft think so.