SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 22, 2012

May 22, 2012 at 5:00pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Google Provides Competitive Information In New Auction Insights Report

AdWords marketers’ days of regularly refreshing on all their keywords may be over — or at least that activity may not be quite so necessary. Google is releasing a new report — Auction Insights — that helps marketers understand how their ads stand, compared to others in the same auctions. “For a given keyword, the [...]

Just Because Someone Works At Google Doesn’t Make Them An SEO Expert

I had an interesting email hit my inbox, someone showing me how a Google employee was “100%” sure there had been no Penguin Update. There was, of course, and it’s a reminder that just because someone is a Googler, that doesn’t mean they know how Google Search works. Google has nearly 25,000 employees (according to [...]

How To Tweet What You Want, Because Content Matters

With the trends that we are seeing in the search engines as they become more and more social, I think it is fair to assume that social sharing will be a major part (or at the very least, be a piece) of consideration in any future updates. This is exactly why it’s more important than ever [...]

Former Yahoo Executive Pleads Guilty To Securities Fraud Charge Related To Microsoft Deal

The Search Alliance between Yahoo and Microsoft had some unintended beneficiaries (now casualties). Yahoo’s former senior director of business management, Robert Kwok, has pled guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, after being accused that he told a mutual fund manager in July 2009 that the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft was imminent. Among its [...]

Link Building Tool Review: Link Prospector

Our link building tool review series continues today with Link Prospector by Citation Labs. A joint venture between Garrett French and Darren Shaw, Link Prospector is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina and has been online since February 2012. Garrett and Darren continue to add features to the tool, foreign-language support and an API are scheduled to [...]

5 Tips To Manage Your Multinational Social Media

One of the biggest challenges to delivering an effective social media campaign for big, multinational brands is executing the strategy on a practical level: you’ll have multiple networks, profiles, languages, and social media managers to control across different countries. Implementing your social channels effectively is critical for search optimisation these days, so getting on top [...]

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

Business Issues

Local, Maps & Mobile

Link Building

Searching

SEM Industry

SEO & SEM

Google AdWords Auction Insights Reveals Who You’re Competing Against, Search Engine WatchGoogle Listing Name Servers Instead Of Web Address?, Search Engine RoundtableGoogle Webmaster Academy, Search Engine RoundtableSEO, Why You Are Doing it Wrong, Search Engine WatchThe Google AdWords Rotate Ads Workaround, Search Engine RoundtableIntroducing Webmaster Academy, Official Google Webmaster Central BlogPPC Basics – adCenter, an introduction, adCenter BlogWhat should I do if my competitors are using webspam techniques?, YouTube

Social Media

Video, Music & Image Search

Related Topics: SearchCap

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

Connect with the author via: Email | Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn

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Bing’s Visual Search Is Gone (Has Been For A While, Actually)

The fact that almost no one noticed might be one reason why Bing has dropped its Visual Search feature … something that apparently happened months ago.

To be clear, this isn’t traditional image search that we’re talking about; that’s still available at bing.com/images. We’re talking about the “Visual Search” tool/interface that Bing launched in 2009 with a unique interface that used Silverlight technology to let searchers view a large set of images and data.

In our article about the launch, we used this screenshot as a sample of the Visual Search interface:

The independent Microsoft/Windows blog, Liveside.net, reported today that the old URL for Visual Search (www.bing.com/visualsearch) no longer works.

A Microsoft spokesperson tells Liveside.net that the company began removing Visual Search galleries last fall — a long time for something to be shut down with virtually no one noticing.

Related Topics: Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Image Search

About The Author: Matt McGee is Search Engine Land's Executive News Editor, responsible for overseeing our daily news coverage. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. See more articles by Matt McGee

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SPONSOR MESSAGE: Webinar, Thurs., May 31: Mobile Matters: Optimizing Search for Mobile Devices

Noon EDT, 9 AM PDT. Join speakers Austin Bankhead and Mike Fogarty of Adobe Systems as they discuss the latest trends in mobile, best practices and mobile optimization strategies you can implement, plus how to optimize your webpages for mobile devices.

Register now!

Related Topics: Sponsor Messages

About The Author: Search Engine Land is a news and information site covering search engine marketing, searching issues and the search engine industry. Special site announcements and occasional sponsor messages are posted by Search Engine Land. See more articles by Search Engine Land

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SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012 at 4:59pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Snapshot, Sidebar Oh My: Live Blogging the Bing Search Summit

Danny and I are here at the Bing Search Summit in San Francisco. For a comprehensive overview of the new Bing features, see Danny’s article on the “new Bing.” Microsoft’s Qi Lu has just taken the stage and is talking about the launch of the new Bing. He’s discussing the need to “reorganize the web [...]

Head-To-Head: Bing’s Social Search Vs. Google’s Search Plus Your World

Earlier this year, Google made its results more social with Search Plus Your World. Now Bing has reshaped how it handles social information as part of its “The New Bing” launch. Which does better, Google’s blended search+search model or Bing’s more segregated approach. Let’s look at some examples. Hey Google, How’s New Girl? I thought I’d start [...]

The New Bing: Relaunch Features With Social Sidebar

Bing announced a relaunch of its search engine today, with a big emphasis on bringing social into search. But wait! Didn’t Bing already have social as part of its search experience? Yes, but now the search engine hopes to do it better, especially by largely off-loading social elements into a new sidebar area. The new [...]

What Is Search Engine Ranking Authority?

Next month, I will speak at SMX Advanced as a member of the authority panel, so it makes sense to discuss authority in my column this month. Authority is a term that has been around as long as I can remember, probably longer than the term search engine optimization itself. That is because classic SEO [...]

Confirmed: Bing 411 Closing June 1st

Microsoft is closing down their toll-free voice search program named Bing 411. I have confirmed the Bing 411 service is closing by calling the service and hearing immediately the message: Bing 411: On June 1st, we are discontinuing the Bing 411 service. There were reports of this via LiveSide where they said they “received a [...]

4 PPC Tactics To Ensure You Meet & Exceed Your Plan

In this column, we routinely write about some fairly advanced topics: Next-level optimization, automated bidding algorithms, hyper-targeted search campaigns, paid vs. organic search, etc. Lost in all this is the underlying discussion around the need to hit your financial goals. The majority of large enterprises engage in annual planning, which means that as SEM managers, [...]

Don’t Just Pin Images, Optimize For Pinterest Search With Purpose

If you’re a retailer and want to boost traffic and conversions, an image SEO strategy using Pinterest can provide great results fairly quickly. Pinterest activity will not only increase your referral traffic, it can help you connect with your customers and prospects in a mutually beneficial way. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s the age [...]

Two Weeks In, Google Talks Penguin Update, Ways To Recover & Negative SEO

It’s been about two weeks since Google launched its Penguin Update. Google’s happy the new spam-fighting algorithm is improving things as intended. But some hurt by it are still wondering how to recover, and there remain concerns about “negative SEO” as a threat. I caught up with Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam [...]

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

Business Issues

Local, Maps & Mobile

Link Building

Searching

SEM Industry

SEO & SEM

How to hire an SEO company, 2012 edition, portent.com11 Technical SEO Tools you Should be Using, State of SearchDoes Quality Score Transparency Just Show More AdWords Data Problems?, Certified KnowledgeGoogle’s Maile Ohye Talks About "SEO Mistakes", But Are They SEO?, State of SearchHeads Up: Microsoft adCenter Terms and Conditions 2012 Update, adCenter BlogHow Long Does It Take To Recover?, SEO TheoryHow to make your search listings sizzle, SEO CopywritingKnown issue: Dashboard not shown for large accounts, GoogleSEO & Search: 9 Tips for Managing an Ambiguous Brand, Search Engine WatchSEO & UX – Working together to make your site better, portent.comSEO isn’t a Technical Problem, it’s a People Problem, distilledUnraveling Google’s New Three-Pronged Quality Score Reporting, Traffick

Social Media

Video, Music & Image Search

Web Analytics

Related Topics: SearchCap

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

Connect with the author via: Email | Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn

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Yahoo Search Sees 8th Monthly Share Decline — comScore

It’s that time again: April comScore qSearch data are coming out tomorrow. But the financial analysts are releasing it first to their clients and others who’ve subscribed to their missives.

According to our source, comScore will report that both Google and Bing have made small, incremental gains since last month and seen modest growth since last year. One or both are growing, it appears, at Yahoo’s expense. AOL and Ask are basically flat.

Yahoo is at its lowest point to date and has recorded its eighth straight monthly decline in terms of market share. Our source believes that Yahoo’s share could sink quite a bit lower over time.

Here’s the comScore share breakdown for the past two months compared with a year ago:

Data source: comScore (5/12)

These data do not include mobile search query volumes. We know that many publishers are seeing a range of between 15 percent and 25 percent of their queries now coming from mobile devices. In some categories the percentages are much higher: restaurants for example where 40 percent or even 50 percent of traffic is now from mobile.

Google is far and away the dominant provider of browser-based mobile search query volume in the US.

Related Topics: Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Stats: comScore | Top News | Yahoo: Search

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling

Connect with the author via: Email | Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn

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Paid Placement in Search Engines

In the below poll we didn't make any distinction between AdWords & organic SEO investments. If we did I am not sure how it would have impacted the voting.

Nearly 2 in 3 people dislike money manipulating search results.

Women tend to dislike it slightly more than men.

Older people tend to think money influencing search is manipulative, as do younger people who have not had their idealism beaten out of them by the harshness of the world. However the people in the 25 to 34 range who grew up with the web tend to like paid search far more than other groups do.

response18-24 year-olds (350)  25-34 year-olds (266)  35-44 year-olds (164)  45-54 year-olds (194)  55-64 year-olds (148)  65+ year-olds (80) 

People in the south tend to dislike money influencing search than any other region & people out west are more accepting of it. Perhaps the audience from California is more likely to understand how search impacts the local economy?

answerThe US Midwest (267)  The US Northeast (333)  The US South (355)  The US West (246) 

Rural people dislike money influencing search more than urban people do.

responseUrban areas (620)  Rural areas (109)  Suburban areas (460) 

Income has essentially no impact on the perception of the influence of money in search (though there was insufficient data at the upper end of the income range).

responsePeople earning $0-24K (135)  People earning $25-49K (675)  People earning $50-74K (307)  People earning $75-99K (71)  People earning $100-149K  People earning $150K+ 

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How Many Search Engines?

Most people only use 1 or 2 search engines in any given month.

There isn't much difference between men & women on this front.

Surprisingly, older people are more likely to use a variety of search services while younger people are more likely to stick with their one favorite. I would have guessed that to be the other way around.

Vote 18-24 year-olds (295)  25-34 year-olds (300)  35-44 year-olds (165)  45-54 year-olds (204)  55-64 year-olds (182)  65+ year-olds (77) 

Here is the geographic breakdown.

Vote The US Midwest (260)  The US Northeast (320)  The US South (374)  The US West (269) 

Here are stats by population density.

Vote Urban areas (608)  Rural areas (107)  Suburban areas (499) 

Here is data by income groups. No obvious pattern here either.

Vote People earning $0-24K (132)  People earning $25-49K (673)  People earning $50-74K (326)  People earning $75-99K (70)  People earning $100-149K (27) 

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How Did You Choose Your Primary Search Engine?

Most people use the search engine which they believe has the best relevancy, whatever their computer came with, or what a friend recommended.

the computer had a default selected

Men are more inclined to believe in superior relevancy, whereas women are more likely to use the default or what a friend recommends

the computer had a default selected

The youngest age group is easiest to influence with advertising or buying the default placement. 25 to 34 is more concerned about relevancy & older people are more likely to have it bundled with software than younger people are.

Vote 18-24 year-olds (289)  25-34 year-olds (309)  35-44 year-olds (151)  45-54 year-olds (186)  55-64 year-olds (167)  65+ year-olds (88)  the computer had a default selected

People out west tend to be more concerned with / driven by perceived relevancy. People in the midwest rely more on word of mouth. People in the south and north east are more likely to use the default.

Vote The US Midwest (236)  The US Northeast (317)  The US South (369)  The US West (268)  the computer had a default selected

Here is data by population density.

Vote Urban areas (612)  Rural areas (107)  Suburban areas (445)  the computer had a default selected

There doesn't appear to be any obvious correlations with age.

Vote People earning $0-24K (133)  People earning $25-49K (658)  People earning $50-74K (315)  People earning $75-99K (68)  People earning $100-149K (18)  the computer had a default selected

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Search In Pics: Yahoo! MAD Logo, Google Glass View & Office Jousting At Google

In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Google HVAC Logo:

Source: Flickr

Yahoo MAD logo:

Source: startupgrind.com

View From Google Glasses:

Source: Google+

Google Office Jousting:

Source: Google+

Related Topics: Search In Pictures

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Search Again or Click On the Second Page of Search Results?

People are more likely to search again with a new keyword than they are to click onto the second page of search results.

search again with a different wordgo to the second page of the results

The split is fairly consistent among men and women.

search again with a different wordgo to the second page of the results

There isn't an obvious pattern among age either.

Vote 18-24 year-olds (284)  25-34 year-olds (309)  35-44 year-olds (144)  45-54 year-olds (195)  55-64 year-olds (150)  65+ year-olds (107)  search again with a different wordgo to the second page of the results

People in the west & midwest are more likely to change keywords, whereas people in the north east & south are roughly equally likely to change keywords or go to page 2 of the search results.

Vote The US Midwest (244)  The US Northeast (320)  The US South (363)  The US West (262)  search again with a different wordgo to the second page of the results

Suburban people are more likely to change keywords than to click on to page 2.

Vote Urban areas (590)  Rural areas (109)  Suburban areas (468)  search again with a different wordgo to the second page of the results

There isn't much of an income correlation either.

Vote People earning $0-24K (123)  People earning $25-49K (638)  People earning $50-74K (319)  People earning $75-99K (88)  People earning $100-149K (22)  search again with a different wordgo to the second page of the results

It would also be interesting to run this question again & include the option of trying another search engine as an answer.

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Snapshot, Sidebar Oh My: Live Blogging the Bing Search Summit

Danny and I are here at the Bing Search Summit in San Francisco. For a comprehensive overview of the new Bing features, see Danny’s article on the “new Bing.”

Microsoft’s Qi Lu has just taken the stage and is talking about the launch of the new Bing. He’s discussing the need to “reorganize the web for task completion.” The web is no longer a collection of documents; it’s a web of documents, places and people. “It’s dramatically richer today,” than it was just a few years ago he says.

Lu is now talking about the importance of incorporating the social graph and related content into search if it is to remain central to the online experience and remain “the gateway to the web.”

Relationships and conversations among people are now a critical part of the web. Search needs to be “re-invented” to account for the new web of entities/places and social content and sharing. Accordingly, here are the features elements of the new Bing at a high level:

Complete redesign of the Bing UI and architecture (we’ve seen some of this already)Snapshot: designed to enable users to complete tasks “easier and better over time” (this is an index or corpus of things and places with related information)Sidebar: designed to make social “front and center” as a part of the new search experience

The new structure of Bing is aligned with the “prevailing information architecture” of the web today. Lu is now taking us on a tour of the Bing SERP. It’s cleaner, faster and search quality has been improved.

Lu is discussing Snapshot and Sidebar. Snapshot is intended to help people access information and features for task completion: watching movie trailers, making restaurant and hotel reservations, for example. It primarily is about entities and places — rather than people or documents.

Sidebar is populated with people from your network and “experts” (now mainly from Twitter) who might have useful information. You can interact with people (in your network) right on the search results page within Sidebar. Lu says this “makes people an integral part of the search experience.”

Bing will thus be seeking to combine the power of search and social networks together in a single UI. He says that Sidebar will include numerous social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Foursquare, Google+ and others over time.

Lu ends with a statement about the challenges of ranking and presenting all the new data that Bing is incorporating in a useful and coherent way.

Now Microsoft’s Harry Shum is up to talk about relevance and ranking of people, documents and entities. Shum says that Bing search quality is equal to or greater than Google according to third party review. He says that in blind tests users prefer Bing to Google.

Shum is demonstrating the Snapshot panel. He also talks about how Bing is now leveraging and blending social signals into its broader algorithm to help rank results and entities. There are separate but overlapping ranking indexes feeding into the new Bing SERP.

Shum also discusses the fact that people are being ranked (for Sidebar) to help users accomplish their tasks. He uses the example of finding a hotel in San Francisco. Bing may show, for example, people in your network who reside in San Francisco. It will also show travel experts from Twitter who may know about SF hotels. Shum explains there are a number of factors involved in ranking people in Sidebar. (Sidebar optimization anyone?)

He says that Bing will ultimately build an “index of people” that will parallel the main web index. What Bing is trying to do is very daunting from a computer science perspective, he says.

Shum hands off to Derrick Connell, VP of Search Program Management. He repeats the message: search result pages need to evolve to accommodate the various types of content, graphs and information being indexed and presented in the new Bing. Bing did 3,500 UI experiments in developing the new SERP. Microsoft took a lot of time to “ensure that the architecture of the page was right.” Snapshot and Sidebar are not yet live but coming very soon.

Bing eliminated the left rail in the new simplified SERP but not the content and features previously presented there. We’re now hearing the genesis of the new SERP. “Overall we’ve cleaned up the page” for basic search results.

Here come Snapshot and Sidebar. We’re getting a deeper dive on Snapshot, which is not going show up for every result. “It’s more of a selective experience.” However the social Sidebar will always be present for the user.

Sidebar will present your network in one area and “influentials” (experts) in another area on the right column panel. You’ll see posts or tweets from those experts that are relevant to your query. But you won’t be able to talk to or question them directly. However you can with people in your network.

For basic queries we’ll get basic results: 10 blue links without Snapshot or Sidebar. This is the new “cleaner” Bing SERP.

We’re now being shown a somewhat more complex search (e.g. a local restaurant or hotel query), which triggers Snapshot. An arrow will indicate that if you hover you’ll get the Snapshot panel with more information including reviews and the ability to make a reservation without leaving the page.

Now Sidebar is being shown. As mentioned, it presents relevant people from your network and influentials, allowing users to ask their networks for advice from within the SERP. This is a pretty cool and impressive integration.

To get the benefit of Sidebar you’ll need to be signed in to Facebook or sign in to Bing with Facebook Connect.

Facebook is here — I missed the name of the individual speaking — talking about the importance of human connections and advice from friends as part of consumer decision making. He’s saying that Sidebar and its social capabilities mirror how decisions are made in the real world. Bing is “keeping the core integrity of search results and giving you the ability to reach out to people” from within the search results page.

When you ask for help or advice from people on Facebook that question or request will show up on your wall. You can ask everyone or direct the question to specific people (whom Bing thinks are relevant to the query). You can’t yet choose people not presented but that will likely come. The person or people you’ve selected will get a private notification and your question won’t show up on their wall, newsfeed or timeline.

Mobile offers a different UI than the PC experience of the new Bing. In mobile there will be a more “stacked” experience rather than a three panel presentation, as on the PC. It’s visually different but still keeps social contacts separate from the core search results.

Microsoft says the experience will be more swipe-based for smartphones. It’s still being developed and finalized. The emphasis is on HTML5 but I was told the new features will also be incorporated into Bing’s apps.

Microsoft is still testing and refining the product but you can sign up to opt-in to the new experience at Bing.com/new. It will roll out gradually over the coming weeks.

How will the design affect ads? Conventional search ads will remain in their current positions. Microsoft said, however, it would experiment with new ad opportunities and formats in Snapshot and Sidebar.

Facebook and privacy: I asked who on Facebook would see questions that were asked through Sidebar. The person asking the question via Bing will see the question on his/her wall. The intended recipient of the question will get a notification. However none of the person’s contacts or friends will see the question in the Facebook newsfeed.

Metrics to measure success: Microsoft said that it would look at user engagement with Sidebar to evaluate success, in addition to the conventional search metrics.

Is Bing getting special access to social content? Microsoft said that Bing was just using the Twitter and Facebook APIs that other developers and publishers also had access to.

How will Bing determine what friends to show on Sidebar? Harry Shum said that Bing was just in the beginning of “ranking people.” But it considers public profile information, geography, interests and comments and other information on Facebook.

The integration of social Q&A via Sidebar is pretty compelling. I haven’t tried it yet and so can’t speak to the user experience. While Google has some of this functionality (mostly buried) Bing has created something in principle that is more “coherent” and potentially useful than what Google is doing with social integration into search. (We’ll see how Google responds.)

Sidebar is pretty differentiated from Google Search Plus Your World (which is playing peekaboo today). And it may finally give Bing a more distinct identity in the market.

If people actually start engaging with Sidebar and get useful answers from their networks, it could generate new momentum for Bing and create a “next-generation” social-search experience. We’ll see.

As these new features roll out we’ll have more in-depth coverage.

Related Topics: Microsoft: Bing

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling

Connect with the author via: Email | Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn

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