Google Consumer Barometer – The latest research tool – 22nd November Google’s new research tool provides a wealth of global data across several verticals in an easy to use format. The Consumer Barometer provides qualitative research, collected and processed with immense quantitative rigor that allows the analysis of how search influences consumer behaviour and allows us to draw interesting, and sometimes unexpected, conclusions about the role of search in the journey to online and offline purchases. By allowing the user to select by region, product, audience and topic, finding relevant information has become less time consuming and a more fluid process. In less than a minute, you can discover than men in the UK are statistically more likely to purchase online than their French counterparts. Similarly British people under-40 are more likely to research a purchase using their mobile phone than the equivalent group of Americans. Most importantly this research tool can be used for more than e-commerce with the options to compare the data for offline purchases including the method of research before purchasing. For example, when purchasing cosmetics or beauty products offline 11% of British people used a combination of online and offline research whereas 16% used solely online research. This information could be used to persuade an offline retailer to invest in a more comprehensive SEO and PPC campaign to drive increases in sales. This is definitely a tool for search-minded people to get to know and explore the wealth of information available. –
Ashley Lindley
Find out more: http://www.consumerbarometer.com/
Google Breaks its Own US Search Market Share Record – 22nd November 2012 Last month was a great month for Google Search. During October, Google closed in on 70% market share, recording 69.9% in the US. This beats Google’s own record of 69.8% set in June and July of this year. Bing also grew in October to 16%, a quite significant share for the brand, which continues to claw some growth in a tough market place. Year on year, Google’s market share has increased by 6% from 65.4%.
ComScore also reported that Google’s organic searches grew from 69.4% to 69.5% in October, whilst Bing searches fell to 25% in October, down from 25.1% in September. The data from ComScore takes into account desktop searches and not mobile searches. It is interesting that Bing’s paid search share is increasing at the same time as Google’s. I’m sure as a company they will take any growth, however, the real win will come when it is Google’s search share that diminishes rather than one of the smaller competitors. – Andy Negus
New Feature in Google Adwords – 21st November 2012 Google AdWords are rolling out 2 new features to help advertisers manage their accounts more efficiently. 1. Keyword column in search terms report In the past, the search term report was only available at the ad group level. But now advertisers will be able to see exactly which keyword has matched a search query and triggered an ad. Based on the fit between the matched keyword and the search term, you might choose to make adjustments to your keyword lists, add negatives to campaigns or ad groups, adjust your ads or bids, or adjust your landing pages. 2. Campaign diagnostics This feature will be rolling out over the next couple weeks. AdWords will look for potential errors or conflicts in your account, and give you an alert when potential problems are detected. For example, you’ll get a negative keywords blocking alert if you are uploading some negative keywords that could block existing keywords in your account. – Blair Liu More details: http://adwords.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/helping-you-be-more-productivewith.html
Yahoo Facebook Search Alliance Coming Soon? – 19th November 2012 Recent reports from the Telegraph state that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg are working on united project. What this means for search at this stage, nobody quite knows… Whether this means that we will soon be hearing announcements regarding a Yahoo-Facebook search proposition as rumoured seems to be a little bit premature at this stage, but you can be assured Facebook are planning something to attempt to topple the might of Google! – Kevin Ting More details: http://searchengineland.com/a-yahoo-facebook-search-partnershipreality-check-time-139954
39% of Search Queries on Google Are Withheld From The Advertiser – 19th November 2012 One of the best practices that Google continuously emphasises is relevance. This is to ensure good quality score, low CPCs and good user journey. It then comes as a surprise that a study conducted by Optify shows that on average 39% of search queries are withheld by Google and not shared with advertisers. There have been instances where considerably higher volumes of search traffic are encrypted. According to the study, 64% of the companies see 30%-50% of their traffic withheld and 13% of companies saw up to 60% of their search traffic encrypted. So why has Google decided to encrypt search terms in the first place? Back in October last year, it was announced by Google that they withhold displaying all search terms in the name of protection. Many concluded that was to ensure that data passed on from Google to advertisers was not in conflict with data protection violations with the Search Plus Your World announcement. This was the most bespoke manner in which a user can integrate their private information along with the search results that they get from Google. Though this reasoning is plausible, the magnitude of encrypted search results from Optify’s study is too high for this reason to hold. To withhold information and yet expect advertisers to be as granular as possible with their keyword optimisation seems like a massive contradiction from Google. Time will show if Google will try to lower the number of encrypted search terms, or if it will in fact increase. – Remi Omojola
Display and Destination URLs Not Matching – 16th November 2012 I found something interesting this week when searching for the term “cocktails”. If you look at the below Smirnoff ad:
The display URL is www.youtube.com/Recipes but when you click on the Headline of the ad it goes through to the Smirnoff landing page www.smirnoff.com/en-gb/main/drinks/cocktails
Which was interesting as Google AdWords requires the domain of display and destination URL’s to match in order for your ad to be approved. (See Google page on Google Display URL Approvals Here.) But here is where it gets even stranger, if you click on any of the sitelinks on the Smirnoff ad - Discover More Drink Recipes - YouTube Drink Recipe Videos Smirnoff Cocktails They all go through too… http://www.youtube.com/playlist?annotation_id=annotation_751869&featur e=iv&list=PL683E1B5C1586BBFF&src_vid=rVWqabxZGrA
All the sitelinks are going through to YouTube (to the same landing page, the Smirnoff YouTube channel) which Google says you shouldn’t be doing as sitelinks will be disapproved, but also they are going to a different domain to the headline of the ad. Google AdWords does allow advertisers to link to their Facebook, You Tube, Google+, etc, pages from sitelinks, if you can prove that you are the rightful owner of that page and it is enhancing the user experience. But this is the first time I have seen the headline of the ad not matching the display URL and all the sitelinks going off to the same domain as the display URL. – Chris Richardson
Visit Us http://emergingspaces.co.uk http://www.smvgroup.co.uk Follow Us @EmergingSpaces @SMGSearchUK @SearchLately Publisher Kevin Ting
Contributors Ashley Lindley Blair Liu Andy Negus Remi Omojola Chris Richardson