Search Engine News - PPC & SEO Blog

Nathania Johnson posted some very interesting stats on SEW yesterday to show how Wikipedia’s traffic has grown 8,000% in 5 years due to search referrals. This is an unbelievable statistic but as mentioned in the article that’s what happens when Google ranks all of your pages as #1!

Are Wikipedia’s ranking fair?
There’s a mixture of opinions but many SEO’s would agree that Wikipedia shouldn’t appear in Google’s top 10 for searches on nearly every piece of content they have. I think it depends on the specific search term, but in my opinion Wikipedia provides little value when ranking #1 for searches such as SEO and restaurant. Most people performing these queries would be looking for somewhere to eat, or looking for SEO advice, blogs or tools. If they wanted to find a definition a “what is …” or “define:…” query would have worked fine.

Lets take a look at the results for a Google search on holidays:

Surely people know what a holiday is!

And how do you think Wikipedia would perform if they used Google AdWords?

I would imagine an ad like this would be lucky to get a CTR of 0.1% with a low quality score, but it’s not a problem in the organic listings.

Google has become by far the leading search engine because it gives searchers what they are looking for, and there is an argument that Wikipedia mixes up the results to provide a different type of listing, I agree with this to a certain extent but in all reality it’s nowhere near being the most relevant webpage for any of the above searches. Although not all of it’s rankings are unfair, if you search for a footballer, for example, you get quality content and stats from Wikipedia which deserves it’s ranking at the top as it’s useful to the searcher.

How can Google’s algortihm change to prevent Wikipedia’s SERPs domination?
In my opinion the Google algorithm should pay less attention to the strength of wikipedia.org as a whole domain, calculating rankings based upon the inbound links to a specific page instead. If your content is of a higher quality and more relevant to the actual search term this should be out ranking Wikipedia, but how do you compete with 5 million links?

These rankings would be completely different if the algorithm considered that only 2,000 inbound links are relevant, probably less when you consider no-one should really be linking to this!

What do you think, does Wikipedia rightfully deserve most of it’s rankings and provide searchers with the information they are looking for? Or is Wikipedia irrelevant for many search terms and ranking far too highly?

Search engine optimisers are often treated like the plumbers of the web. In many cases they have to clean up the mess architects and construction workers left. Also they get treated as if they do some kind of dirty work. The ensuing reputation problem comes along with a low self esteem of many in the SEO industry. Now the newly revived concept of findability can make this problem a woe of the past.

What is is findability? To be honest the current concept of findability proposed by the author of the book “Building Findable Websites” resembles simply on-page or on-site SEO best practices. There are some added novelties like Microformats which haven’t been widely adopted by the SEO industry yet. All in all findability is about website optimisation for searchers and users alike, or in other words making a website work both in search as well as from the user standpoint who already is a visitor. While there are also references to off-page factors the focus is clearly the “building” of “findable websites” like the title of the book already suggests.

There are a few great introductions into the findability concept so I won’t add another one. I want to make you aware what findability means for the SEO industry and/or community:

1. Findability, usability and accessibility are interconnected along with other facets of information architecture
2. Findability is marketed as the last missing ingredient in website design and development, it’s not as seemingly detached discipline like SEO might appear
3. There is no black hat findability
4. There is no findability reputation problem
5. The concept of findability allows others, non-SEO people, to do the groundwork

So basically the people who often for years ignored or frowned upon SEO finally will realise that they were wrong: The information architects, web designers and developers as well as the copy writers or other content creators. Findability is all about making these people do their jobs properly. Now will this make SEO specialists unemployed? It won’t. It just means the we can finally let others do the dirty work or simply groundwork as I do not really assume that SEO is dirty work. People out there do though.

SEO is a dirty word. Findability isn’t. It’s nice and clean. So offer findability along with usability and accessibility, formerly known as SEO services. This way you also don’t have to explain the acronym S.E.O over and over again as findability is a simple English term everybody has some basic understanding of just based on the well known verb to find.

So how will SEO experts survive this? SEO long ago ceased to be about making websites findable. It’s much more than that by now. SEO by now is the work of translating websites into profits, whatever it takes, be it findability, SMO or viral marketing. The SEO industry is the fastest evolving online industry. I don’t want to deal with h1 tags and image based menus. The basics must be implemented by those who are originally responsible for them, I want to do the really cool work, the link baiting, the viral videos, the blogging. Reclaim true SEO!

An article from the US caught my eye this week as it suggested that Google is struggling - not something the world normally hears about the rapidly rising search behemoth.

Adam Lashinsky, writing for CNN, comments that the company still has only one way of making money - search. Although this is a “gusher” in his words (is everything in the US about oil?), it is just one source of income - the multitude of other projects it operates are not money makers.

Furthermore, the commentator asserts that Google is haemorrhaging the bright young talent which it needs to succeed. Staff have a time allowance which lets them work on their own ideas (for which I am grateful. How else could we have been offered the Elmer Fudd Google page?).

However, while this encourages innovation, Lashinsky suggests employees do not want someone else to own their ideas and leave to try and replicate Google’s success themselves.

My thoughts on this are that people have been speculating about the collapse of Google for a while and so far, it seems to be doing okay. Even if the firm’s other projects are minor compared to its main operation, that “gusher” is hardly going to slow - the ability to find relevant information fast is just too vital.

It’s not a secret that many people find popup ads annoying and they certainly aren’t anyway near as popular as they used to be two or three years ago, mainly because of this and the ability to be able to block them easily. But do popup window ads have a negative impact towards search engine rankings in Google?

The facts suggest that Google are clearly against popups and are likely to favour a clean website with no popups as opposed to a similar website which automatically forces popup ads. The reasons being:

• The Google Toolbar has it’s own popup blocker built-in.
• Google AdWords landing pages which contain popup pages are disapproved.
• Google loves quality content. If a webpage contains great content surrounded by lots of ads then some of the focus is going to be taken away from the actual copy. If a webpage forces a popup window ad to open then Google will be aware of this and are likely to consider the impact this has to users visiting the page.
• The relevancy of the ad is also likely to have a strong influence over whether this is a negative factor.
• Landing page load speed is important as both an SEO factor and now in Google AdWords too, so having large ads or popups which may slow down the loading time of a page could certainly be a factor to consider.

But despite this we can only assume that they take a similar stance towards organic rankings, how large a factor this is towards having a negative SEO effect is unclear. The information available about it’s influence towards rankings is limited mostly to forum post opinions who seem to agree it’s a safe bet to avoid popup windows wherever possible, but there are many questions which are still unanswered. For example, are all types of popups treated equally? I would expect a hyperlink popup to be fine as it’s triggered by a user action rather than being forced, but are exit traffic popups any different from an SEO perspective to an on-page load opening popup? Are popups considered more acceptable in certain niches and less of an SEO problem? Do Yahoo! or Windows Live view popups any differently? Is it possible to get around this by using search engine friendly code?

I’d be interested in hearing of any evidence of where rankings have changed as a result of removing or adding popups.

A gentle satire on search engine interaction

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a software firm in possession of a large fortune must be in want of an acquisition…

There is something tremendously satisfying about watching the search engine firms flirt, fall out, argue and compete. It is so very human, for all that they are enormous and powerful corporations. The recent Microsoft attempts at acquiring Yahoo! made me think of a regency romance, far trashier than Jane Austen:

Miss Yahoo! shrank back against the piano, pale but determined. “Sir,” she gasped, “your offer insults me. You think my love can be bought with trinkets!”
The Marquis de Microsoft stroked his moustache and raised a haughty eyebrow. “Madam, I have made you a respectable offer. I am a wealthy man with a large and reliable fortune. ‘Twould be madness to refuse me.” He stalked to the fireplace and stared deep into the flames, gritting his teeth. “Furthermore, my dear, I have told half of London that I shall marry you and marry you I shall!”

She glared at his figure, hunched powerfully over the fireplace, and strengthened her resolve. “I do not wish to marry… you.”

Just then, the door burst open and Sir Guy of Google charged into the room. “Unhand her, sir!” he demanded, slightly unnecessarily, for the two were standing some distance from one another, each disdainful in their mutual dislike. “Miss Yahoo!, don’t throw yourself away on the Marquis de Microsoft. Do not trust his solicitations! I have reason to believe his intentions are not honourable.”

The Marquis eyed the knight of Google with a steely contempt and laid his hand meaningfully upon his sword. Without taking his eyes from the younger man, he snapped curtly at Miss Yahoo! “I give you until Saturday to change your mind. After that, I shall wait upon your family who will accept my offer on your behalf!” and he stormed out of the room.

Shortly after these stirring scenes it was remarked that - far from chasing her further - the Marquis de Microsoft shunned the presence of Miss Yahoo!. Some thought he had grown tired of being rebuffed, others suggested that those who might have forced her into such a union did not choose to. However, some could not help noticing that the Marquis was spending considerable time with the nouveau riche, like the dashing Lady Facebook and Mademoiselle Myspace…

Europeans made 24.6 billion searches in March alone, a new report has revealed.

Research published by comScore has shown that in that one month, 221.2 million people in Europe made an average of 111 searches each.

Here in the UK, 32.4 million unique people made an average 124 searches each, with only Germany’s 36 million individual users beating our figure.

Interestingly enough, the information showed that - while Google was by far and away the most used search portal if them all - in Eastern European countries a number of local engines are being more commonly used.

However, despite the increased popularity of websites like Russia’s Yandex, Google was still the engine of choice for eight in ten queries, the report showed.

While it is interesting to watch the battle of the search engines, there is one consistent fact illustrated by reports like this. Search engines are a vital way for consumers to navigate the web and their importance is unlikely to diminish any time soon.

It sometimes surprises me how little people consider how search engines choose which websites should rank highly.

Britain is a well-informed country – people select a newspaper which suits their opinions and watch different news programmes depending on whether they want to hear about Madonna or Mandela – yet very few seem to consider the power search portals hold over the information they receive.

I think that as an SEO professional, I sometimes forget that not everyone understands or has even considered the control the big search providers could exert over the internet if they chose to.

Now and again, a newspaper will illustrate that the majority of people do not understand the way search engines work by publishing a lengthy explanation of website optimisation, like this recent one in the Sunday Times (which described SEO as “part crystal-ball watching, part trial and error”).

It is unlikely that any search engine would ever threaten its commercial position - in the UK at least - by exercising an unhealthy level of editorial control or imposing a political slant on the information its users could easily access.

However, the general lack of awareness about the search portals we use everyday makes me glad there are so many companies and SEO professionals whose job it is to watch and analyse changes to the algorithms they use. There are thousands of sector workers who rapidly discover and discuss changes in the generation of search results through their blogs and various marketing forums. It can only be healthy.

An excellent post from Rand Fishkin today about the reliance on domain authority for spam in Google highlighted a great tip to find the most important domains within a TLD.

To find a list of what is possibly the top 100 authoritative .co.uk domains in Google just perform the following query:
www site:.co.uk

This obviously isn’t entirely accurate, for example amywinehouse.co.uk and thequeenmovie.co.uk have reasonably low link reputations and are listed above sites like barclays.co.uk and ebay.co.uk, but it does give a nice indication of the strength of domains in Google and their ability to rank.

It happens all the time - an employee spends considerable time researching the benefits of search engine optimisation (SEO) and other online marketing endeavours only to discover their boss fails to share or even understand their enthusiasm.

There are so many businesses out there which are not exploiting the potential of the web - sometimes because the boss’s son built a homepage for his IT GCSE and that is considered sufficient.

Often an employee can have just a few minute of their busy employer’s time to persuade them that they need to invest in online marketing and, as there is often a lack of understanding, there can be a lack of interest.

Fortunately for you frazzled folk, here for your convenience is a list of reasons and research to persuade even the most miserly boss to cough up cash for online marketing.

Reason Number One: The consumers are online

According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2007 15.23 million British homes had web access, which is more than six in ten. Furthermore, above 50 per cent of those used broadband to access the internet at speed. It just makes sense to promote a business through a platform consumers regularly see and - since the vast majority of firms cannot afford the television - the internet is a cost-effective and targeted alternative.

Reason Number Two: Your competitors are online

Employees should explain to their bosses that everyone else is doing it! The world is using the web to shop, bank and socialise and a company is potentially losing a large amount of potential business to their competitors if they are not online. Recent research published by the Internet Advertising Bureau revealed that last year £2.8 billion was spent advertising online. That is a hell of an advantage everyone else has over an offline firm.

Reason Number Three: Consumers are spending online

A boss might now point out that the take-up in broadband does not necessarily mean that people are actually shopping online - they could just be emailing and accessing Freecycle. Now is a good time to show them statistics published by the Interactive Media in Retail Group which revealed that during February - despite the doom, gloom and predictions that negative equity was going to kill us all - online spending reached a record high. An astonishing £4.2 billion was spent through the web - equivalent to £69 for every UK resident.

Reason Number Four: Search engines drive the traffic

Information published by watchdog Ofcom has shown that the “vast majority” of online experiences begin with the user accessing a search engine. Furthermore, Hitwise recently published research which revealed that more than one third of British web traffic is directed through just one search engine - Google. Businesses cannot afford to miss out on such vast levels of traffic - they should fail or succeed depending on the strength of their product, not because no one knows who they are.

Reason Number Five: Move now or miss mobile search

Search marketing is not the next big thing - it is not something new and a little quirky. It is a staple part of many marketers’ day to day activities. The next big thing is ensuring a website is optimised for mobile search as, according to Juniper Research, more than 30 per cent of mobile users will be accessing local search by 2013. By failing to optimise a website, a company is seriously hamstringing itself for future marketing endeavours. No one wants to be playing catch-up.

I know that Kevin has touched on the marketing implications of the change in Google’s trademark protection laws but I just wanted to flag up some interesting figures I came across today.

From May 5th, Google is to allow all companies and marketers to bid in order to place their paid search advertising alongside search results for any term. Specifically, firm X can now place its adverts alongside the organic results for its main competitor Y.

Importantly, research and analysis firm Hitwise has published a report which shows that currently in the UK, 91.8 per cent of people who search for a particular brand end up on the website of the appropriate company.

However, in the US - where Google has never exercised such trademark control - that figure is just 84.2 per cent. That is a potentially massive drop in traffic for brands and, even worse than failing to gain visitors in the first place, means businesses regularly shed clients to their competitors.

The report from Hitwise concluded that brand owners are going to market themselves more aggressively in response to the move.

Interestingly enough, though, Tesco has now waded into the fray. Word on the web is that the supermarket giant has stated it will not bid on competitors’ trademarks and hopes that others will follow suit in order to keep the price down.

Google is staffed with clever people, it must have questioned whether British industry could behave in such a friendly way in order to mutually benefit. Furthermore, it must have concluded that businesses could not, or that only a few sectors would do so. It will be extremely interesting to see how this develops – particularly within the search marketing sector!