May 22, 2008

Google Sees Search Share Growth in April, Others Decline

Google was the only one of the "big" search engines to experience month-over-month growth in April 2008, according to U.S. search engine rankings released by comScore. Overall, searches by Americans declined by 2%. Core search engines received 10.6 billion of the total searches, with Google seeing over 6.5 billion, Yahoo 2.2 billion and Microsoft 961 million. Here's the stats:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Microsoft to Bring Advertising to Live Search Mobile

Microsoft has announced the upcoming availability of advertising for Live Search Mobile. The service is currently in private beta, but Microsoft hopes to expand it in the second half of 2008.

The software giant also announced the availability of display advertising on its Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail products.

"In today's connected world, the mobile device is emerging as a prime opportunity for advertisers to reach their audience," said Brian Arbogast, corporate vice president of Mobile Services at Microsoft. "This announcement is evidence of our commitment to providing advertisers with further opportunities to connect and engage consumers throughout their 'digital day' -- at home, at work and on the go across multiple platforms, devices and geographic regions."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Who to see at Search Engine Strategies Hamburg

Check out these headlines from Google News Deutschland the other day:

Steuereinnahmen übertreffen Schätzungen
Financial Times Deutschland
(English translation): Tax revenues exceed estimates
Financial Times Germany

Google klebt News auf die Weltkarte
Spiegel Online
(English translation): Google sticks news on the map of the world
Spiegel online

"Harrison Ford ist in großartiger Kondition"
WELT ONLINE
(English translation): “Harrison Ford is in great condition”
WORLD ON-LINE ONE

That right. Except for tax revenues exceeding estimates, the top stories in Germany are similar to the top stories in other parts of the world.

That’s why search engine marketers from outside as well as inside Germany should consider attending Search Engine Strategies Hamburg June 23-24. The German market is too big to ignore and it is worth understanding the similarities as well as the differences of this spot on the globe.

Of course, it will help if you speak German. Only one of the 21 sessions (Search Around the World) will be in English. But, most of the German SEOs and SEMs that I’ve met are bilingual. So, don’t worry that you won’t be able to network if your German is as limited as mine. (My favorite expression is “Nicht verstehen.”)

If you go to the SES Hamburg website, you’ll see that there’s an English as well as German version. Look over the Conference at a Glance and see that there are two tracks: Fundamentals and Advanced. So, you should benefit from attending, whether this is your first Search Engine Strategies conference or you are an alumnus of other SES events.

The keynote presentation will be given by Martin Sinner, the Founder and Managing Director at Idealo Internet GmbH, a Berlin based company which runs product and flight price comparison websites within Germany, France and the UK. Idealo.de is one of the top 50 German websites. Axel Springer AG, Germany’s leading publishing company, acquired Idealo in 2006. So, Martin is now responsible for several SEO and SEM activities of Axel Springer companies.

Now, I confess that I’m not familiar with about 80% of the speakers on the agenda. I haven’t been back to Germany since I helped to launch PC Professionell, PC Direkt, ZDNet.de and Yahoo! Deutschland for Ziff-Davis Verlag, GmbH back in the 1990s.

But, there are some colleagues that I’ve seen speak at SES events in Canada, the UK and the US that I encourage you to go hear. This includes Andy Atkins-Krüger, Managing Director, WebCertain Europe Ltd, who I interviewed at Search Engine Strategies London back in February.

Andy Atkins-Krueger, WebCertain, at SES London on YouTube

Another colleague that I can vouch for is Thomas Bindl, Founder and CEO of Refined Labs GmbH, who I interviewed at Search Engine Strategies New York back in March.

The German SEM World from Thomas Bindl at SES NY 2008

A third colleague that I can vouch for is Richard Zwicky, Founder and CEO of Enquisite, who was one of the first to volunteer for our “Escalator Pitch” at Search Engine Strategies New York.

Enquisite Escalator Pitch, SES NY 2008

I can also vouch for 80% of the panel of speakers in the Search Around the World session. This includes:
• Massimo Burgio, Founder and Chief Strategist, Global Search Interactive
• Anne Kennedy, Manager, Managing Partner, Beyond Ink
• Erica Schmidt, Global Director of Search, Isobar
• Mona Elesseily, Director of Marketing Strategy, Page Zero Media

The only speaker on this panel that I don’t know is Anders Hjorth, Research & Production Director, Relevant Traffic Europe. But, he should do just fine – as long as he remembers to compliment Mona on her “nice shoes.” (Anders, trust me on this.)

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spending on Mobile Search Ads to Reach $2bn by 2013

Juniper Research has released data about search ad spending in the mobile market. Here's what you need to know.

2008 mobile search adspend will reach $445 million, which is 34% of total mobile adspend.
Mobile search revenues (including data charges) will reach $4.8bn by 2013.
Both mobile search adspend and total mobile adspend will be highest in the Far East/China region, followed by Western Europe and North America.

According to Juniper Research's Principal Analyst, Dr Windsor Holden, "While mobile advertising was historically dominated by campaigns conducted almost exclusively via SMS, the mass adoption of 2.5G and 3G handsets -- combined with the development of applications enabling targeted, instant measurement and frequency capping -- mean that we now have a situation where consumers can receive personalised advertising across a variety of rich media delivery channels."

What do you think of this data? Are you exploring the mobile search ad space? Leave a comment!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Get in on the Conversation about the Future of SEO

There has been much discussion about the future of SEO lately. A-list bloggers galore are writing SEO's obituary, much to the dismay of site owners and search engine marketers. Earlier this week, Mike Grehan delivered his thoughts on the matter over at ClickZ. He also started a thread in the Search Engine Watch forums to discuss his post.

Here are some main takeaway points from Mike's post:

SEO will give way to a new form of digital asset management and optimization. This new SEO will place a much larger emphasis on optimizing a range of file types, from PDFs to images to audio/visual.
More effort will be placed on feeds to search engines. Not just XML feeds into paid inclusion and shopping comparison, but also feeds with other types of information, such as local, financial, news, and other verticals.
Mobile will become much more popular, search will gradually become more of a personalized experience.
Personalization and digital asset optimization will end 1999-style ranking reports, as search engine results will be based on blended results from end-user specifics, such as geographic location, time of day, previous searching history, and peer group preference.
Online, monitoring the customer voice will become more important than pushing a brand message. Reputation management will become more important as marketing continues its reversal from a broadcast medium to a listening medium.
Marketing into networks will see huge growth, and social search will grow with it.

Over at the forums, Grehan is looking for feedback on the following:

Should search engine ranking algorithms continue to be based only on the data they have about people who happen to have web sites and therefore have text pages and can link to others. Or is the voice and opinion of the end user now being heard much more clearly?
Do I really think that a number one result at Google for the term – blue widgets – is a fair result if only people who have web sites can vote for its top ranking position? Or should the millions of people who use blue widgets and don’t have a web site also be able to have some influence on that ranking?

Get in on the conversation about the future of SEO. Head over to the forums and share your thoughts.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Do We Need Educational Standards For Learning SEO?

Search Engine Watch Expert - Ron Jones The real meat and potatoes of the discussion right now isn't necessarily what standards to employ, but whether we need -- or should even consider -- SEO standards. In today's SEM.EDU column, "Do We Need Educational Standards For Learning SEO?," Ron Jones wonders how we can effectively train people if we don't have basic guidelines for the industry.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Link Building for Dumb Asses

Search Engine Watch Expert - Sage Lewis We searched deep within our lexicon of vocabulary prowess to not offend your eyes with such a crass descriptor. We assure you, dear reader, there's no better way of describing what we're about to lay before you. In today's Link Building column, "Link Building for Dumb Asses," Sage Lewis takes a look at some people in various media who have mixed up a dose of dumb with a cup of ass to create some very linkable content.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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