Lets start with some positive news for all of us in the search engine marketing arena before we talk about Google and massage their ego. E-consultancy have released figures that show that the UK market for search engine marketing is worth about £2.22bn in 2007, up 58% from 2006. Their statistics also show that over the past five years there has been an explosion in search advertising, with the UK spend on paid search valued at around £1.97 billion in 2007. Good times!!!!

Google has had some good news too recently; they have just been crowned the number one super brand in the UK.  Google last year was only in third place in the rankings but this year has pipped Microsoft to the number one spot. The survey was compiled by the Centre for Brand Analysis which, together with YouGov, canvassed the opinions of around 2,200 people in the UK about their favourite and most memorable brands.

Stephen Cheliotis, chief executive of the Centre for Brand Analysis and chairman of the Superbrands Council said that “The results are a further sign that Google is continuing its dominance in the UK,”

But the good news does not stop there, not for Google anyway! In the second quarter of 2008, data tracked by industry researchers showed that Google now owns 81.1% share of UK search marketing industry. The data was based on 23 billion ad impressions and 390 million clicks.

Their second quarter results also show that Google achieved revenues of $5.37 billion for the quarter ended June 30, an increase of 39% compared to the second quarter of 2007 and an increase of 3% compared to Google’s first quarter of 2008. Google have posted earnings of $1.58 billion, or $3.92 per share, compared to $1.55 billion (or $4.12 per share) for the first quarter.

However, Wall Street analysts had the company pegged for earnings of $4.72 per share, according to Thomson Reuters estimates. This fall in estimated value has caused Google shares to plummeting.

The figures released by Google also showed a dramatic slowdown in the company’s hiring process. Google only added just 448 employees to its business during the second quarter. This is a very significant sign that Google are watching their budgets carefully now because this new employee figure is their lowest since the fourth quarter of 2004 when they took on only 353 new workers.

So that should put a little semi smile on the face of Yahoo and Microsoft knowing that Google isn’t bullet proof after all. This is because EVEN Google is feeling the pince of the slow down in the economy. Google’s Chairman Eric Schmidt has been quoted as saying the current economic climate was “challenging”. However Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google has reassured investors that Google is making ongoing search improvements. Brin stated that Google had launched over 100 search quality improvements during the quarter. He also stated that the mobile search advertising marketing was showing great promise for the future.

Even with this small set back in the state of the economy, the search engine giant is still currently hugely successful and I don’t feel anything yet will remotely unsettled their plan to take over the world!!

Is it a bird, is it a plane, no its Google the Super Brand. And unless someone soon can find their Achilles’ heel, then this giant of search will continue to dominate the UK and the rest of the world. I wonder if Yahoo or Microsoft have considered using Kryptonite!!!

Just a thought guys!!!!

I have recently been playing with Google Trends, a great free tool from Google Labs that allows you to search the most popularly searched keywords. From using this tool I have discovered something very interesting relating to the wonderful world of search marketing.

This year (2008) SEO has for the first time surpassed PPC in terms of people wanting to know about these services. According to the figures presented by Google Trends, more people are now searching the keyword SEO then PPC.

The results indicate that the keyword SEO is generally increasing in popularity due to the significant growth the keyword has achieved over the last year. I may even stick my neck out here and say that this is a big indication of the growing importance of search engine optimisation (SEO). I say this because these figures are purely based on Google searches and Google represents about 85% of all the UK’s online search activity, so with this in mind, this is potentially unprecedented proof in the raise of SEO’s importance.

Maybe the potential credit crunch has aided this increase in interest into SEO. The figures provided by Google Trends could suggest that companies are tightening their advertising budgets as the economy slows in favour of longer term investments to achieve a better free natural placement in search engines.

Pay per click is a great platform for online marketing and instant visibility but it does have its downsides. The moment you run out of budget your position on the search engines is lost and so is your potential to generate further traffic to your website. However an efficient and professionally crafted search engine optimisation (SEO) campaign, which does take longer to implement and index, would yield longer term results in terms of search ranking and traffic.

In essence, natural SEO is free and web users generally prefer natural to paid search results. It’s really a trust issue; Users generally click on PPC adverts less than natural search results.

As a SEO expert I may even go so far as to say that PPC is now second to SEO in terms of cost effectiveness. Is it possible that UK businesses that have an online presence have finally woken up to the potential of SEO? As an SEO company we most certainly hope so!!!!

Below is a graph that I got from Google Trends relating to this topic where you can see exactly what I have been talking about in terms of SEO becoming more popular then PPC. In the graph the red line represent PPC and the blue line represents SEO.

If you want to know more about SEO services then call us on 01273 704 771

Google has recently completed its first two day developers’ conference in San Francisco. The Google I/O conference – which I feel will now become an annual event in the search engines event diary – was a showcase of new tools and new services. During the two days, over 2500 developers from around the world passed through the I/O conferences doors. Some people have dubbed the Google I/O show as a conference by and for hackers, I personally have dubbed the show - Google Wonderland!! This is because Google has created a kind of Disneyland for developers to have fun and spend their hours indulging in what they love best ….building and learning about code.

At the I/O conference Google shed some light on their new technologies such as Google App Engine - for building and hosting Web applications, and OpenSocial - the Google backed interface for social networking. OpenSocial is a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) for web-based social networking applications. Applications implementing the Google OpenSocial APIs will be interoperable with any social networking system that supports them. At the conference the search engine giant discuss version 0.8 of the OpenSocial API specification.

Featured in version 0.8 of OpenSocial is the addition of the RESTful API. This new feature allows more software types to interact with the servers running social networking applications. This opens up the market to the likes of programs running on Windows or mobile phone access. The purpose of this new feature in OpenSocial is to allow developers to build applications that can access a social networking website and help update feeds.

Googles OpenSocial has been backed by MySpace and Yahoo, however to-date Facebook, one of the largest players in the social networking market, has not supported OpenSocial. Maybe the one reason for this is the fact that the social networking company itself has its own application development program. But I’m sure Facebook will watch the evolution of OpenSocial and evaluate whether to implement OpenSocial in the future. Also in the social networking realm, MySpace announced at the I/O conference that they where going to start to use Google’s Gears to help make their social networking website easier to use.

Gears is a beta software which enables offline access to services that normally are only available online. It installs a database engine, based on SQLite, on the client system to cache the data locally. This then allows pages enabled with Google Gears to use data from the local cache rather than from the online service. Once Myspace users install Gears they will be able to quickly search their mailboxes for specific terms or sort messages. Google created Gears to help everyone to get involved with upgrading the web platform.

The most interesting information that came out of the I/O conference for me working in the search engine marketing arena was Google’s vice president of search products and user experience Marissa Mayers’ speech relating to Googles A/B testing. This form of testing is based on various tests Google performs to increase searcher activity and responsiveness. From her presentation I found out that the more search results per page in Google, the less people actually search? The reason for this, apparently, comes down to speed! Google’s research showed that the more results that where shown on a screen resulted in longer download times to view the results, therefore put the user off. In their test Google showed that if one search page displayed 30 results than this would result in a 20% decline in searches when compared to 10 results per page.

Google also changed the pale blue background of adverts shown in Google Adwords to yellow and found that this increased clicks and surprisingly, increased searches. How bizarre! I wonder if this works with calls to action on webpage’s…I may have to test that one!

In my experience when a searcher doesn’t find what they require on the first page of a search engine than they are more likely to change their search keyword as opposed to looking on the second or third results pages. This is one of the main reasons why search engine optimisation is so important and why companies need to get themselves on the first pages of the search engines. So if this is the case - that searchers look for alternative keywords - than surely if Google put the search results that are placed on page two and three, on the first page, than maybe searchers would find what they where looking for faster rather than having to change their search query? But hey that’s only my two cents worth! Maybe the reason Google only shows ten results per page on its search engine is because it increases search volume?

On a lighter note I bet the song “Google Wonderland” is now running through your head and driving you mad!!!

To start with here is a quick update on the Microsoft/Yahoo takeover front - It never happened in the end! Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed Microsoft’s position on the acquisition of Yahoo in one simple and direct phrase– we are no longer interested. Instead Microsoft is seeking some form of partnership with the search engine company, but no further news on that front yet. What I want to know is what happened to Microsoft’s treats of a hostile takeover bid? Looks like they have lost their bite, as their threats were empty ones. Someone surely will have to take the full brunt of that embarrassing show of force. I guess after wiping the egg off his face, Steve Ballmer is wondering whether he will be the sacrificial pawn.

Right now to some new news!! This month the search engine optimisation (SEO) industry has been provided with some direct information regarding Google’s search quality. This was provided by Google’s Udi Manber, who is the VP of Engineering at Google in charge of Search Quality, in an official Google blog posting.

In his blog, Mr Manber aimed to provide a better picture regarding Google’s method of website ranking. He explained that Google is secretive about their algorithms for competitive reasons and the reason why they keep their ranking formulas so close to their chests is to also avoid abuse of their Search Engine.

He explained that more than one thousand programmer/scientist years have gone directly into the development of their ranking algorithms so these details of the ranking algorithms are what Google class as their own “crown jewels”.

But it looks like Google is trying to become less secretive. It appears Willy Wonka plans to open up the chocolate factory! Mr Manber stated that this blog would be one of many new blog posts which will be Googles attempt at educating the online community about new things, explain old things, give advice, spread news, and engage more interaction with the search engine company.

One interesting point that comes out of this blog posting was the fact that Google’s famous Page Rank is not used as much as it once was in the Google search algorithm and is only one cog in a much larger system which has many other models within it. This is an interesting fact for a search engine optimisation company like us because we do get a lot of clients who have read about Google Page Rank and wonder why, even though they have a higher Page Rank than their competitors they are still not above them in the listing for their specific keywords.

The blog also gives us an insight into the different teams that have been set up within Google. Mr Manber speaks of one team that’s has been set up to purely improve the user experience of the search engine. This is their only goal! The team runs automated evaluations every minute, periodic evaluations of our overall quality, and, most importantly, evaluations of specific algorithmic improvements. Apparently in 2007, Google launched more than 450 new improvements to their algorithm, which works out to be about 9 per week on average. And while we are still on the subject of Google Page Rank, Mr Manber said they had made significant changes to the Page Rank algorithm in January of this year. This just shows us the mammoth task we have as a search engine optimisation company to try to keep up with the likes of Google when optimisation websites. To keep websites relevant to Google and get our clients website on the first page of the search engines results isn’t a simple process and is a constant up hill challenge. Google is constantly looking for improvements in relevancy and so its our job to try to raise our game as well.

Another team at Google is dedicated to new features and new user interfaces. This team has made some visual advancement over the past year. The main one of which being Googles Universal Search, other changes include Google Notebook, Custom Search Engines, and of course, many improvements to iGoogle.

Then we come to Matt Cutts’ domain – Mr Manber explained that Google also has a whole team that concentrates on fighting webspam and other types of abuse. The teams aim is to spot new spam trends and work to counter those trends in scalable ways. This means those people out there that use Black Hat techniques to optimised their websites – be aware that Google is onto you! So don’t try hiding text on a page or set up off-topic pages with random keywords because Matt Cutts and his heavy mob will be onto you faster than you can say the word “Blacklisted”. This team also works closely with the Google Webmaster Central team, so they can share insights with everyone and also get feedback from website owners.

So there you have it, the first chapter in Google’s attempt at keeping us more informed and I for one am looking forward to more updates on search quality and search marketing in the up-and-coming months. The fact that Google has become more open and transparent can only be a good thing for search engine optimisation and the internet community as a whole. Let’s stay tuned in for the next chapter and I will try to keep you updated as best I can.

When Google brought DoubleClick, the online advertising company, last month for $3.1 billion it was a tactical move on their part which gave them a voluminous control over the $40.9 billion online ad market, which hasn’t gone down too well with their competitors like Yahoo and Microsoft. This was an usual move for Google as this takeover was the largest move the company had made in its nine-year history.

Their has been no effect so far of this acquisition but I do fear it could in the future raise the cost of ad serving for rival intermediaries. I say there has been no effect, but this is not entirely true because last month, Eric Schmidt, the Chairman and CEO of Google announced that there could be a possibility that some jobs may be lost. And true to his word there has been! I read in the New York Times the other day that Google will be reducing the headcount of the American division of DoubleClick by about 25% leaving around 300 employees without jobs or placed into what Google has termed “transitional” roles.

As a search engine optimisation (SEO) company we can see some so very basic conflict of interests going on with this acquisition of DoubleClick. Bundled in with the DoubleClick package, came a company called Performics. Now this is where we can see a problem, because Performics, like us here at White Hat Media, provided search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimisation (SEO) services. As you will already know search engine optimisation (SEO) is a way of raising a websites rankings in search engines like Google for specific keywords.

As Google’s core business is its search engine it seems that Performics - with Google backing - would have inherited an unfair advantage over search engine optimisation (SEO) companies like us. Here at White Hat Media and at most other search engine optimisation agencies, we are in a constant battle with the Google algorithms to help get our clients websites a higher ranking, on their selected keywords, in the Google search engine.

But now we would have to also compete against Google’s own a search engine optimisation (SEO) agency. The reality is how can any SEO company compete against Google as a rival in a race to get a company to the top of GOOGLE? You cant! We might as well pack up our offices now.

But wait……put that photo of your kids back on your desk and switch you monitor back on…….I haven’t finished yet! I have some good news! Google understands this complete conflict of interest and has now decided to split Performics into two separately run business units, which will be Affiliate Marketing and Search Marketing. They have also officially announced they plan to sell off the Search Marketing element…phew I can slept better at night again now! To date Google has already received preliminary interest in their newly established Search Marketing business unit but no sale as of yet. Fingers crossed they sell it soon, in fact I think we here at White Hat Media should buy it – can anyone lend me a few million pounds.

This is a good move for Google because not only does it keep us search engine optimisation (SEO) companies in business but it reinforces Google’s objectivity as a trusted search engine.

By Jason Smith, Business Development Manager, White Hat Media

Dailymotion, a video hosting service website, has announced the appointment of Kate Burns as their new Managing Director – a new role within the company structure which previously did not exist. Kate Burns previously worked for Google as their Managing Director.

Her new role with Dailymotion will involve improving the brand awareness of the Dailymotion website and increase the level of traffic it receives. Kate Burns was with Google (who bought YouTube in 2006) for six years after joining in 2001 from Altavista where she was the pan-European Sales Director.

Dailymotion, a competitor to YouTube, was launched in 2005 and allows users to view videos online by searching tags, channels or user-created groups. The Dailymotion website in my opinion provides superior video quality in comparison with other flash-enabled video hosting websites. The advantage it has over YouTube is that the maximum size of a video per file is 150MB (compared to 100MB for YouTube) and the video limit is 20 minutes (compared with 10 minutes on YouTube’s).

Video hosting website such as Dailymotion and YouTube are now a very effective online marketing tool. Many companies and Search Engine Marketing agencies alike are discovering that marketing on sites such as YouTube and Dailymotion can bring lots of traffic and therefore lots of sales. Video media is now a very valuable form of promotion and from a Search Engine marketing prospective it is a great way of creating in-bound links to your website. Online videos are a truly fantastic way to promote your business and get more traffic to your website without spending a great deal of money.

If you are looking to increase the level of traffic to your website or you would like us to submit your promotional videos to websites such as Dailymotion and YouTube then contact me at White Hat Media on 01273 704 771. White Hat Media are Search Engine Marketing Specialists.

By Jason Smith, Business Development Manager, White Hat Media

It used to be the case that if a web user was to type the words miserable failure into Google they would get the biography of US President George W. Bush on the White House website as the top result. The reason for this is that Google searches more than just the contents of web pages - it also place high importance on how many in-bound links a website has pointing to it and what words that actual link say. Using specific terms (or anchor text) as hyperlinks to another website is a very power search engine marketing tool. Because of the way that Google’s algorithm works, a page will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page use consistent anchor text.

However this search engine marketing technique has been misused by the members of the online community who Google Bomb sites to get the pages ranked highly for humorous or political intentions. A Google bomb (also referred to as a ‘link bomb’) is an internet slang term for a certain kind of attempt to influence the ranking of a given page in results returned by the Google search engine. A Google bomb is created if a large number of sites link to the page in this manner. The man behind the “miserable failure” Google bomb was George Johnston, a political activist and software programmer in Bellevue, Washington, USA. 

Google has finally won its war on the miserable failure result and defused that specific Google Bomb. But the wasn’t to help Bush keep face amongst the online community, it was instead part of an overall algorithm change designed to stop such mass in-bound link pranks from working. Google said in its official blog that “by improving our analysis of the link structure of the Web” such mischief would instead “typically return commentary, discussions, and articles” about the tactic itself. Writing on the blog, Matt Cutts, who specialising in search engine marketing for Google said that Google bombs had not “been a very high priority for us.” But he added: “Over time, we’ve seen more people assume that they are Google’s opinion or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Google-bombed queries. That’s not true, and it seemed like it was worth trying to correct that misperception.”

Despite these changes by Google against using this search engine marketing tool as a means of playing pranks, some other Google bombs still exist. If you type in the words “French military victories”, the first result at the top of Google says, “Your search — French military victories — did not match any documents.” If you click on this site you will find a mock up of a Google search page asking the question “Did you mean: French military defeats.”