Despite what you might think, not everybody uses Google and even though only 10% of the UK choosing to search on Yahoo and Bing it’s important that we consider who those people are and what they want to do.

A recent study into the demographic and psychographic profiles of search engine users has found that people who use Bing are early adopters and innovators whereas people who use Google are more middle of the road types.

My feeling in the past has been that people who use Bing and Yahoo just can’t figure out how to change the default search engine in Internet Explorer but this study says otherwise.

Read more >>

For major sites one of the most important features is a good search facility. Customers, especially non-savvy ones, use the search feature a lot and it’s vital that it offers a good user experience.

Since a lot of users type quite strange keywords into search engines it’s not really enough to rely on simple text matching any more for a search engine, you almost need to be trying to replicate Google technology combined with your product catalogue.

One of the trends this year has been rich autocomplete which is demonstrated nicely on the Apple site. Product images are pulled in dynamically as the user types a query in the search box.

Read more >>

Peter Da Vanzo just posted “SEO, Where is it going?”. Coming from one of the spearheads of the industry, the question alone was enough to encourage me to read the piece.

One of the lines that made me really think was “As if there is ever one “right” answer.” This was pretty much in direct response to a Tech Crunch Interview by Eric Schmidt, to quote a quote:

So I don’t know how to characterize the next 10 years except to say that we’ll get to the point – the long-term goal is to be able to give you one answer, which is exactly the right answer over time.

Read more >>

Microsoft and Yahoo are joining forces in an effort to compete with Google in the search wars. Yahoo algorithmic results will be powered by the Microsoft / Bing algorithm and the paid results will be powered by AdCenter.

The announcement is good news because it’s clear that the two companies can’t compete with Google by themselves. I doubt it will make much difference in the UK because Yahoo has a very small market share as shown in the Hitwise data below.

The only drawback is that rollout is expected within 24 months following regulatory approval by which time Twitter or Facebook will probably have more search volume.

• Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;
• Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.
• Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.
• Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
• Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.
• Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.
• Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
• Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
• Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.
• At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.
• The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

Microsoft is to ship Windows 7 without a web browser to appease the EU.

Microsoft has announced that it will ship a special version of Vista’s successor in Europe, titled Windows 7 E, without Internet Explorer 8. The browser-less version, a reaction to an antitrust investigation by the EU into whether Microsoft is abusing its dominant position with Windows and Internet Explorer, will be distributed in all member nations of the European Economic Area as well as Croatia and Switzerland.

This might be good to promote healthy competition and decrease the market share of IE but the EU doesn’t seem to have thought how it will affect search. Google has a 90% market share in the UK and will be more than happy to pay retailers to install Chrome and Firefox with Google as the default search engine on every Windows PC.

Microsoft has today unveiled Bing and it’s probably the most promising search engine of the last few years. Not necessarily in terms of results but because they are actually going to invest in branding with $100m campaign (Google spends around a tenth of this and most of that is on recruitment).

It’s interesting to see a search engine with content optimised to rank for cheap flights. Google steers clear of such conflicts of interest by never trying to rank for commercial queries.

Once nice tool is xRank a kind of celebrity tracking service currently ranking Oasis at the top.

Currently Google Analytics isn’t recognising Bing as a search engine so keyword details are not showing up. As far as I can see the UK results are pretty much the same as the old MSN results so no real changes in algorithm.

Image search for non-celebrities is terrible unless you are Matt Cutts in which case the results are 100% perfect almost as if they were hand picked.

Last year Microsoft launched a new search engine which couldn’t find itself and obviously didn’t want to make the same mistake again.

It seems that the MSN Live Search results for each country have all been hand edited to include the geo-specific version of Bing.com as the top result. You can tell by the fact the URL being indexed is www.bing.com/?mkt=de-de when you search on MSN.de and www.bing.com/?mkt=en-gb when you search on MSN.co.uk

Those URL’s don’t exist and both redirect to a holding page so there is no way anybody would be linking to them. Google certainly isn’t indexing them.

Joking aside I’m looking forward to using Bing, about time somebody started eating into Googles 90+% market share in the UK. Most SEO’s with less than a few years experience probably don’t remember the days of optimising for more than one search engine.

Check out what Wolfram Alpha knows about blogstorm.co.uk.

Today marked the official launch of Wolfram Alpha, a research engine designed to offer instant information about almost anything you care to ask it.

People are calling it a Google killer but that’s like calling Wikipedia a Google killer when the two work perfectly hand in hand. Wolfram Alpha is a tool to give you all the information you want to know about a particular “thing” whether it’s a company, town, chemical element, person or date. Read more >>