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IN THE DECEMBER ISSUE...

• Search Popularity Stats, Sliced & Diced
• Search Marketing 2006: Facts & Figures
• Google algorithm changes upset advertisers
• Google, Yahoo & Microsoft Launch Sitemaps.org

SEARCH POPULARITY STATS, SLICED & DICED

Search Engine Watch, Danny Sullivan , 11/22/06

Catch up time on search engine popularity stats. comScore and NetRatings put out October 2006 figures this week, plus Hitwise released those earlier this month. Google's still tops, Yahoo still strong, Microsoft is still dropping and Ask surpasses AOL's search share, according to comScore. Below, the trend from all of them over the past year, plus my long-promised compare-and-contrast charts.

First, let's do a compare-and-contrast table with the basic figures from each service. These show the estimated share of the number of searches that happened in the United States in October 2006.

Across the board, all the services put Google in the lead, Yahoo second and Microsoft's Windows Live third (sorry, I still say MSN on the chart). Two of the services put Ask over AOL in the fourth place spot. More analysis on all this in the service trend charts, below.

Here's comScore figures over the past year:

Remember that Google drop back in July, when lots of people started freaking out about the demise of the Big G. I warned not to focus on month-to-month changes. Since then, Google's recovered according to comScore and keeps going.

Yahoo's seen declines since July, but not enough to send up the alarm bells. They are well within the usual ranges that I've discussed are the things to watch. That range is the 25 to 30 percent slice of the chart.

In contrast, Microsoft continues on its long, steady drop in popularity. It will especially be interesting to see the figures in the next few months, as IE7 rolls out and potentially gives Microsoft Live Search a bump. Or not. My Searching Via Internet Explorer 7 & The Battle To Be The Default Search Engine article talks more about the changes in IE7 that might help drive traffic.

Unnoticed, as far as I can tell, is the fact that in September, Ask overtook AOL for the fourth slot in the search engine share battle. That's a big deal. In fact, according to comScore, AOL is on track to plunge out of the 5 to 10 percent band it has occupied over the past year. Ask is hanging in there.

Of course, the traffic for Ask isn't just for Ask.com. It's for the combination of sites that Ask owns or controls, including places like Excite, iWon, MyWay.com and My Web Search. Still, as a network, Ask remains controlling a significant chunk of the search space.

That's what comScore says. Now let's see how it looks at NetRatings:

Basically, NetRatings shows status quo. Google and Yahoo keep ticking along at the same levels. So does Ask. AOL hangs in roughly the same general range. It's Microsoft Windows Live (MSN on the chart) that catches my eye most with consistent decline.

Also note that with NetRatings, AOL is well above Ask. That's because NetRatings is only reporting the share for Ask.com. If other Ask-owned properties were combined, then the Ask figure would be higher. Much of that traffic instead flows into the "Other" line.

Next to Hitwise:

Hitwise doesn't go back as far as NetRatings and comScore, so it's harder to feel confident about trends. But the trends are similar to comScore, a slight Google rise, Yahoo holding steady, Ask above AOL and that decline of MSN.

Now back to what I promised ages ago, the old-style comparison charts I used to do. Here are all three services together, showing share score for October 2006:

Now let me explain what I think is unique in charting the figures this way. Usually, you'd see a comparison using a bar chart. Shares for Google from all three services would be shown as three bars next to each other, then the same for Yahoo and so on.

I like doing these as line charts, because it makes the gaps more noticeable and gives you a trend as well.

For example, you can see how all the services rate Google tops, though the amount Google is above the others may vary. Conclusion? While Google's exact popularity is uncertain, it's clearly more popular than anyone else, the services agree.

Notice that with Yahoo, they all agree it is in second place and the general range of popularity is closer (roughly between 25 to 30 percent). For MSN (Windows Live), the all come together. When you hit AOL, Hitwise is the big player that's way off the mark from the other two. I've covered this before, that I don't think Hitwise is getting accurate information about AOL that causes this. But seeing the two big skews -- that Hitwise puts Google so high above the others and AOL so low -- makes me think that if AOL was counted correctly, then Hitwise would be reflecting the same general trend as the others.

Now let's trend each of the major search engines using figures from all three services. Here's Google:

Fair to say, Google's pretty much continuing to grow, despite the hiccups you might see from time-to-time on various services.

Here's Yahoo:

Generally, I think it's fair to say that Yahoo had a spike in popularity earlier this year but has settled down more to its usual levels. That's not bad. It has healthy, long-term traffic. What remains to be seen is if it can grow that traffic more in the long term.

Here's Microsoft:

Slice it how you want, no one is reporting a pretty picture for Microsoft. Unlike Yahoo, they haven't held share. It's drop, drop, drop.

Here's AOL, which similar to Microsoft, shows drops:

I'm sorry I don't have the similar chart for Ask. I'll try to add it later, but I shut my spreadsheet (argh) before saving my comparison numbers, so I have some more copy and pasting to do to get that chart back.

SEARCH MARKTING 2006: FACTS & FIGURES

Search Engine Watch, Greg Sterling, 11/29/06

If you're looking for hard data about the world of search engine marketing, arguably the best single source of metrics is MarketingSherpa's annual "Benchmark Guide."

The 2007 edition of the Benchmark Guide, which costs $247, came out recently and we've wanted to cover it for some time. The document is 250 pages, including 185 charts and capsule analyses that track almost every imaginable topic in both natural and paid search. The voluminous data in the report are drawn from all the usual suspects, including Pew, OneStat, Compete, Inc., comScore, Nielsen, Hitwise and dozens of other major sources, as well as MarketingSherpa's own proprietary surveys.

The report doesn't merely summarize high-level statistics put out in press releases but collects empirical information directly from the various included sources to offer detailed and, often, actionable information to marketers (its target audience). But the document is also a valuable reference for publishers, researchers, journalists/bloggers and those who want to get up to speed on the state of search generally.

Enough with the preamble—what does the report actually contain? There's such a diverse and dizzying array of statistics and data in the report I decided to summarize each of the six chapters and point out some highlights.

Chapter 1, "The Business of Search," contains 22 charts and tables on the business and structure of the SEM industry. It has a number of graphs on how much of marketers' budget allocation goes to search (both B2B and B2C). There are also data on relative spending levels regarding SEO and SEM. MarketingSherpa's own research reflects, interestingly, that the larger the marketing budget (B2C companies) the smaller the percentage spent online. They also found that high-volume keyword buyers were targeting significant spending increases in the "2nd tier engines" in the coming year.

Chapter 2, "Search Marketing - Special Reports," covers a range of issues surrounding click fraud and marketers' perceptions of how serious it is. Local search and pay-per-phone-call (PPCall) are covered in this chapter, including case studies. Vertical search, blogs, SEO and PR and shopping engines are all tackled here too. And the performance of marketing campaigns conducted on the "2nd tier" engines is also addressed.

Among the more interesting data in the report are full-color heatmaps that compare how users literally view results on search engines and shopping search engines. Several are found in this chapter as well as the Appendix (more on that below).

Chapter 3, "Top Search Properties," features 35 charts and tables on search market share data in the U.S., Europe and Asia among the top engines. There are also data on marketers' and SEMs' satisfaction levels with the different engines (hint: they correspond pretty directly to market share).

One of the more interesting graphs tracks Ask's spending on consumer marketing and its impact on Ask's traffic. As Ask sharply increased ad spending, it saw gains in traffic; but when that spending declined so did traffic. It shows that advertising works to gain awareness and usage, but has limitations in terms of long-term consumer acquisition. This chapter also offers fairly detailed user demographics for each of the major search engines.

Chapter 4, "Search Tactics and Measurement," tackles ROI issues, campaign tracking and search-marketing tactics. This section arguably has the most "actionable" information for search marketers. It discusses the relative performance of different online marketing strategies at a high level, as well as at a granular level (e.g., landing page elements, copy points).

Comparing different tactical approaches, the data reflect the performance of demographic, behavioral and contextual targeting, as well as local search and pay-per-call. In that context, broad match and demographic targeting had the highest ROI ratings according to marketers.

The chapter includes discussion of keyword price inflation and how marketers are responding at a practical level to increasing search costs. Another interesting discussion involves charts showing marketers' ratings for emerging search features and capabilities (e.g., local, mobile, vertical, social). Local and social search are among those generating the most interest among marketers.

Chapter 5, "Search Benchmarking Data," offers more in-depth information on keyword prices and volumes, click-throughs and conversion rates. This chapter compares keyword prices (B2B and B2C) among the top engines as well as the "2nd tier." There are also data comparing conversion rates (SEO vs. SEM) by campaign goal (i.e., registration, e-commerce transaction, offline conversion, etc.). One of the interesting findings here is that paid listings convert higher on average (4.19%) than SEO (3.92%). That discrepancy is even more pronounced where "offline conversion" is the campaign goal, which is somewhat counterintuitive.

Chapter, 6 "How We Search & Shop," captures a broad range of consumer search behavior, demographic information, privacy issues and related consumer perceptions of search and shopping sites. Findings in this chapter include the fact that search strings are not getting substantially longer, with the majority of search queries (68%) at three words or fewer.

Another interesting piece of data is that all of the top 10 general search and shopping-oriented search queries are navigational rather than category or "generic" searches. Also in this chapter are data on how deeply users delve into search results - 63% look at one page or less of search results. Charts in this chapter also track where search falls in the consideration cycle and shopping process. A significant included finding is: despite the Internet's centrality in the product research process, the bulk of consumer purchases are offline (68%).

The Appendix, "Search Marketing Eyetracking Study," shows visual, heatmaps for the top four search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL) and top three shopping sites (BizRate/Shoppzilla, NexTag and Shopping.com). While many people are familiar now with eyetracking and heatmaps, this material is among the most interesting in the report and has direct UI implications for publishers and marketers.

I've really only been able to casually touch on the mountain of data in the guide in summarizing what the chapters contain. For those who have a professional need for this kind of information or who are just simply interested it's an excellent resource.

GOOGLE ALGORITHM CHANGES UPSET ADVERTISERS

DirectTraffic.org, 11/24/06

Google is making changes to the way in which its AdWords service evaluates landing page quality, to the frustration of some online advertisers.

AdWords, which offers pay per click and site-specific advertising, is Google's main source of revenue and is used by countless advertising partners.

The algorithm used by Google to determine ad position is gradually evolving – something that the search engine says is necessary to improve conversion rates.

However, changes made recently have cause advertisers to speculate that Google may simply be trying to raise the value of minimum bids.

"We'll begin incorporating landing page quality into the Quality Score for your contextually-targeted ads, using the same evaluation process as we do for ads showing on Google.com and the search network," Google's partners were told.

"Advertisers who may be providing a poor experience on their site will notice that their traffic across the content network decreases as a result of this change … We're improving our algorithm for evaluating landing page quality and incorporating landing page content retrieved by the AdWords system."

Operators of poor quality sites will have to pay more for a minimum bid, in other words. However, this has caused consternation because Google has provided no specific information on how it grades quality. Webmasters may not know what to do if they feel their site has been unfairly labelled 'poor quality'.

Google stresses that it is focusing on landing page quality in order "to improve the experience of our users by providing high quality results not only in the ad text, but also once the user has clicked through to the site".

GOOGLE, YAHOO & MICROSOFT LAUNCH SITEMAPS.ORG

WebProNews, Joe Lewis, 11/16/06

Sitemaps consists of an XML file designed to crawling by allowing webmasters to list all their pages, notify search engines of changes or new pages, and identify unchanged pages to prevent unnecessary crawling and conserve bandwidth.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have announced their common support for Sitemaps 0.90 as a universal method for webmasters to make their sites more search engine friendly. This initiative builds upon the Sitemaps 0.84, which was originally developed as a joint venture between Google and Yahoo.

"At industry conferences, webmasters have asked for open standards just like this," said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Watch. "This is a great development for the whole community and addresses a real need of webmasters in a very convenient fashion. I believe it will lead to greater collaboration in the industry for common standards, including those based around robots.txt, a file that gives Web crawlers direction when they visit a website."

Representatives from Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft each weigh in with their take on the announcement.

"Announcing industry supported Sitemaps is an important milestone for all of us because it will help webmasters and search engines get the most relevant information to users faster. Sitemaps address the challenges of a growing and dynamic Web by letting webmasters and search engines talk to each other, enabling a better web crawl and better results," said Narayanan Shivakumar, Distinguished Entrepreneur with Google. "Our initial efforts have provided webmasters with useful information about their sites, and the information we've received in turn has improved the quality of Google's search."

"The launch of Sitemaps is significant because it allows for a single, easy way for websites to provide content and metadata to search engines," said Tim Mayer, senior director of product management, Yahoo Search. "Sitemaps helps webmasters surface content that is typically difficult for crawlers to discover, leading to a more comprehensive search experience for users."

"The quality of your index is predicated by the quality of your sources and Windows Live Search is happy to be working with Google and Yahoo! on Sitemaps to not only help webmasters, but also help consumers by delivering more relevant search results so they can find what they're looking for faster," said Ken Moss, General Manager of Windows Live Search at Microsoft.

The protocol will be available at sitemaps.org, while will be hosted by Yahoo Small Business. Any site owner will be able to create and upload an XML Sitemap and submit the URL of the file to the participating search engines.