Latest Search Market Share Report

According to a report released Monday by Internet metrics company comScore, Google and Yahoo gained slightly in overall search market share (0.3 and 0.1% respectively), while MSN dropped by 0.2%.  As of October, Google now processes 45.4% of all searches on the Internet.  Yahoo ranks second at 28.2% and MSN a distant third at 11.7%.  Holding their own, Ask.com sits at 5.8%.

I personally can't help rooting for Ask.com to overtake MSN by the end of Q1 2007 (of course this statement brings a recent post in SEOMoz to mind).

Big Three Support For A Sitemaps Protocol

Its worth noting that the big three search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN are joining together to collaborate on a unified sitemaps program.  You can find out more of the program at sitemaps.org, which is offered under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.  This post is one the myriad of posts out there on the topic, so to find more information and commentary, here's a link to Google's official announcement on their webmaster blog and Yahoo's post as well..

 

Google Increases Market Share By Providing Better Search

The latest statistics from Hitwise are in for May, and as the title says: "Google Crushes Competition" with almost a 60% hold on the search market.  With MSN Adcenter finally unveiled, and Yahoo looking to significantly revamp it's own search advertising toolsets by the beginning of the 4th quarter, it will be interesting to see if this hold can continue through 2007. 

But the additional significance to this infers one other underlying theme: Google organic search is better.  At least better than MSN and Yahoo for the time being.  More people use it because more people find the results they want when using Google versus the rest of the industry. This is the soft-sell of the industry - organic search results establish the value of where people search.   Better organic search leads to more visitors entering queries, leading to more people ultimately clicking search advertisements.  While providing a more efficient advertising engine will help the bottom line quarter to quarter (and the stock price), it will not help the competition gain market share.  If search engines like Yahoo and MSN really want to attract more visitors, the answer lies in improving organic search.

Consider the following factors:

• Brand Loyalty: Pew Internet & American Life Project's (PIALP) 2005 study of multiple search engine use shows that 48% of users use 2 or 3 search engines, and 44% use only one engine.  But, of that 44%, a study from ICrossing in coordination with Harris Interactive shows that only 13% of total users (or one-third of the single search engine user base) use Google exclusively.  This compares to 10% favoring MSN and 7% using Yahoo.  We may see a shift as one can infer that MSN has a higher share based on being the default search application for Windows-based PC's and Dell's new partnership integrating Google Search Technology into Dell PC's, but the fact of the matter is that you would assume a higher brand loyalty to Google, given a 60% total market share for clicks.
  
• Consumer Confidence:  The same study by PIALP shows that 68% of searches believe that search engines produce "fair and unbiased sources of information" and 92% of users are confident in their ability to "search" for the information they want.  So, users not only trust search results to be effective, for the most part, but also are comfortable in using search tools to find their results.
  
• PPC as a percentage of Clicks: Over 75% of all B2B searchers use organic results over paid results, according to a 2004 study by Enquiro.  And JupiterResearch confirms approximately a 70% share of clicks for organic results versus paid results for the market as a whole.
  
• Awareness of Paid Advertisements and The Users Willingness to Put Up With Them
  Maybe Yahoo should consider this statistic as they continue the integration of search results and paid placement/paid advertisement.  54% of Google users are aware of paid ads (as they are clearly titled and organized), while 42% are aware in Yahoo, and 36% in MSN.  The startling statistic is that, according to PIALP, 45% of users would stop using a search engine, if they weren't clear about which results were paid or organic.

In Summary:

• Brand loyalty between engines is not very high - and users will use multiple search engines to get results they want
• Users are comfortable with search engine technology in general
• Organic search results drive at least 70% of all search traffic by search engines
• There is a distinct statistical argument against merging commercial, paid advertising directly into organic results.  Users want unbiased search results.

If search engines like MSN and Yahoo really want to make a dent in the search market, it's through an investment in better organic search that will lead the way through the long-term.  Optimizing paid advertising helps with the bottom line today, but focusing on this at the exclusion of organic search improvement ignores the opportunity to attract a larger percentage of clicks from an audience that is constantly demanding better organic search and not necessarily better advertisements.

MSN AdCenter Is Annoyingly Good

So now that I’ve had clients set up with MSN AdCenter for a few weeks, I have enough experience to say what was on my mind right at the start – “this is terrible!” I am finding that the user interface and customer support for AdCenter are both lacking.

I appreciate that MSN launched with some nice features right away – geographic targeting, demographic targeting, and day-parting to name a few.

But, working with destination URLs for customized conversion tracking and seeing reliable reports in a timely fashion are two of the more annoying failures at launch.

I did finally figure out the way to append conversion tracking codes to each individual keyword with the {param1} function, but no thanks to Customer Support. In fact, when I called in to get help with this function, and a few others, I found that I knew more about the AdCenter system than the customer service rep!

So what if the service is new and it takes a lot of bodies to handle the calls? MSN had been testing the system and training reps for months in beta (U.S. and Europe) for months prior to the full release in the U.S. How could MSN allow someone to take phone calls, who not only could not answer my questions, but did not know who to refer me to?

But, as much as I am finding the system difficult to use, I have no choice but to stick with it. The B2C clients that we have using MSN AdCenter are getting some very nice conversions. That says something about the quality of the audience using MSN Search.

Unfortunately.

After all, the natural search results on MSN.com are generally terrible. I myself cannot see why anyone would use MSN for search. But, obviously consumers with money to spend are using it, so I will continue to put clients where they will make money.

I just hope that the pain ends soon, and that MSN AdCenter continues to take its lead from Google AdWords (MSN obviously admires Google’s system because things like the ad unit size, bidding system, and ad ranking methodology were taken right from Google’s playbook). So, as MSN works to crush Google (good luck), they’ll be making advertisers’ lives that much easier as they play catch up.

Yahoo Partners with eBay - The Competitive Landscape May Shift

In the news today, Yahoo and eBay, joining forces to provide collaborative services amongst two of the largest, most trafficked sites on the World Wide Web (first and fifth respectively - according to Alexa traffic data).  The search landscape is changing, as market leaders look to partner with other major content providers, integrating search technology, cross-linking ad networks, and offering collaborative services. 

More Conversation on MSN acquiring Yahoo

What started out as a light post to see if I could gather some real commentary has turned into a full-blown media story.  CNN/Money issued an article this morning hinting at a possible acquisition of Yahoo! stock by Microsoft in order to increase market share in the search industry. 

Is it possible?  Perhaps.  But MSN s spending a lot of resources building their own PPC and search platform, so this would appear to be a complete market share play.  The chatter hit Webmaster World this morning as well.  Here's a thread with some thoughts on the subject.

Pubcon 2006 - Thoughts and Review

Some thoughts on Pubcon 2006 here in Boston this April.

First - I definitely want to travel out of state for the next SEO conference I go to.  Too much temptation to handle pressing work related material versus actually learning from the industry.

Things I didn't do and wish I did do:

1. I missed Malcolm Gladwell's speech - heard that he is an excellent presenter and gave a nice opening presentation
2. Should have hit some of the Affiliate sessions, heard that there was a nice buzz going on there.
3. Everyone who went to "Forensic and Competitive Intelligence" thought it was a great session.  I'll be looking forward to the PPT's and information, but wish I had made it as well
4. While I did get to meet some really fantastic individuals, I still could have met more - won't make the same mistake next year or next conference

Thoughts and Opinions:

• I attended both link building presentations (Tuesdays and Wednesday's).  The first was alright - it's hard to break down a person/company's website in 10 minutes or so.  Peter Davis gave a nice breakdown on some of the material on his Web Marketing Blog.  I can empathize with the one SEO who was having problems getting material/cooperation from the Pharma client - I don't think the situation is an unusual one.  Wednesday's was better as it related to actual do's and don't about linking in general.  I felt all 4 speakers did a great job in their presentations
• Great blog session to open up Wednesday morning.  It was enjoyable to hear three popular and influential bloggers talk about their motivation, opinions on blogging and miscellaneous thoughts on the blogosphere.  I can't say that I had read Robert Scoble's blog before, but really enjoyed his candor and am now a regular reader because of it. 
• I was impressed with the Public Relations session, especially given the fact that two of the presenters, Robin Liss and Lawrence Coburn really gave some personal examples of what has made their businesses successful.  Both were great presenters as well and I am glad I decided to head to that session.
• Finally, it is always exciting to meet intelligent people in search and Internet marketing/development.  Best of luck in the future and I'm sure we'll be in touch.

Microsoft to Buy Yahoo

A recent article in Forbes over the overvaluation of Google speculates that Yahoo, the long-time and distant second fiddle in the search industry, and much lower valued in terms of stock price, could be a possible acquisition target for Microsoft, the third tier engine in the industry (but far behind at around 10% market share).  This comes from the comments of UBS Analyst Benjamin Schachter, but is also based on the relatively low stock price of Yahoo at the moment, and assumes the price does not appreciate considerably in the near future.

Would it make sense? 

It seems unlikely given the fact that Microsoft has invested so much in their own search technology, infrastructure and in new developments.  MSN is also slated to unveil it's own investment in PPC later this summer.  The merger would also force two companies to consolidate Interent product lines (potentially) such as email, personal pages, groups and other services.

But we know that both companies have been reasonably successful at merging acquisitions before.  Also, it was not too long ago that MSN Search was driven by the Inktomi search technology that Yahoo acquired, and we know who currently runs the MSN PPC ad network. 

An interesting article and theory for those of us in the SEO world, as it relates to managing the success of our clients across the three major engines.

Search Engine Ranking Factors

Adding to the previous post, SEOmoz has a great SEO article which lists over 50 various factors, disbuted and undisbuted, that will or may affect search engine rankings.  They are broken down by importance, deviation, and consensus, as well as adding commentary and description.  Best of all, the contributors to the article include industry leaders such as Danny Sullivan, Dan Theis and Jill Whalen. 

The article makes two good points in that first, "...it is impossible to say for certain which of these items affects which search engine or how important the factors are individually..." and second "These represent the opinions of myself ...and those who have checked the work of this document".  That being said, it's a great resource for SEO both long and short-term.