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Search Engine Watch Blog
Sun Jan 24 11:56:41 EST 2010
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Is a professional SEM worth more than a pound of Bananas? -

It being Friday and just for fun...

On CNN Money this morning, I heard the mayor of Athens, GA commenting on wages and bonuses. And he said something about breaking down your annual salary to how much you earn per minute and see how much you're worth. He said "per minute I'm worth the price of a pound of Bananas."

So if a city mayor is worth the price of a pound of Bananas, how much is a professional SEO/SEM worth, I thought.

Any takers? Break down your salary to a per minute value and see what kind of commodity you could buy with that amount.

It may be a way to approach your boss and see if you can get a raise. "I know I'm only small potatoes now. But I want to be a big juicy steak soon."

Or if you're in the higher bracket maybe you're worth the price of a bottle of Dom Perignon per minute or a high tech ironing board, or... You can see where this going.

So, SEO/SEMs - Bananas or.. er.. ironing boards?

Image by SESConferenceSeries via Flickr

More than 131 billion searches were conducted worldwide in December 2009, a 46-percent increase in the past year. This number represents more than 4 billion searches per day, 175 million per hour, and 29 million per minute.

The U.S. represented the largest search market in the world with 22.7 billion searches, or approximately 17 percent of searches conducted globally. China ranked second with 13.3 billion searches, followed by Japan with 9.2 billion and the U.K. with 6.2 billion.

Google sites ranked as the top search property worldwide with 87.8 billion searches in December, or 66.8 percent of the global search market. Google sites achieved a 58-percent increase in search query volume over the past year. comScore didn't report what percentage of worldwide searches were conducted on Google and YouTube separately, just Google sites in combination. But according to comScore qSearch, YouTube accounted for close to 28 percent of the expanded search queries conducted in the U.S. on Google sites in November 2009.

Yahoo! sites ranked second globally with 9.4 billion searches (up 13 percent), followed by Chinese search engine Baidu with 8.5 billion searches (up 7 percent). Microsoft sites saw the greatest gains among the top five properties, growing 70 percent to 4.1 billion searches, on the strength of its successful introduction of new search engine Bing.

As we learned in the last post, China says that the United States' accusations of Internet censorship are baseless. Perhaps, China just needs a little lesson in what censorship actually is. We've put together a handy little guide so that government regulators of all nations, but mostly China, know when they've crossed that dirty little line over to censorship.

1. If you block access to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube during political riots - that's censorship.
2. If you repeatedly block search engines until they comply with your ever-changing regulations - that's censorship.
3. If said regulations involve content restrictions - that's censorship.
4. If you hire "Internet police" who erase comments - that's censorship.
5. If you jail cyber-dissidents - that's censorship.
6. If you require computers sold in your country to be shipped with software that prevents youth's minds from being poisoned by the Internet - that's censorship.
7. If you require portals to be down for "maintenance" on the anniversary of pro-democracy protests in your country - that's censorship.
8. If you block sites related to the Dalai Lama - that's censorship.
9. If you punish people who post photos and talk about collapsed schools - that's censorship.
10. If you block sites hosted by the Taiwan government or sites related to the Taiwanese independence movement - that's censorship.

Got any other tips for China on the subject of censorship? Have at it in the comments below. Just don't expect them to be available for viewing by Chinese citizens.

Earlier this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out against Chinese Internet censorship at a speech she gave at The Newseum in Washington, DC. China's not too happy about it.

China said Clinton's remarks had no basis. They also said that the accusations of censorship hurt U.S.-China ties.

This week, China put the brakes on their lending practices. The U.S., of course, has relied tons on lending from the Chinese. The new lending limits have rightly been attributed to other economic factors, but for the Chinese government it's coming at a great time to wage this Internet war.

Image by SESConferenceSeries via Flickr

So, pass the popcorn. Tonight, I'm going to watch "Old fangs," one of the short films debuting at the Sundance Festival that you can watch for free in the YouTube Screening Room. Then, I'm going to check out one of the feature films. Maybe "Nowhere boy," which chronicles John Lennon's difficult teenage years in Liverpool during the 1950s, before the world changed John, and before John changed the world.

Nowhere Boy Official Movie Trailer 2009

Twitter has released a new recommendation feature in which you can find people to follow according to topic. The Tweeple listed are A-listers with tons of followers. If you're into that sort of thing, just click on "Find People" and then click on the "Browse Suggestions" tab.

Personally, I like following people in order to converse, joke around, share links, etc. I don't find that the "top tweet" lists provide good recommendations for that. A-listers don't tend to talk very much with us pee-ons. If any A-listers have anything of real value to say, it will get ReTweeted enough and I'll see it.

Hopefully in the future, Twitter will add recommendation features that offer more than just a list of "popular" people based on hype, status and follower count.

They are beginning to serve up 20 random suggestions when new users sign up. That may be an indication to do more in the future. It would be in their best interest because solid connections and multiple two-way relationships will help give Twitter staying power.

YouTube has given a makeover to the individual video pages that reside on their site. The new look is available to those who opt-in to the new design, which you can do here. (If you wish to go back to the old look, just look for the option along the top of the page.)

Here are before and after shots of an individual video page (click an image to view larger graphic):

Before:

After:

The biggest change is along the right sidebar, where the related videos section is more fluid and less boxy.

When you do a search in the new design, the video shrinks down but keeps playing, while the results are loaded on the same page:

In other YouTube news, the popular video site is now supporting HTML5. The support is experimental for now. Videos with ads, captions, or annotations are not supported.

You can access HTML5 YouTube by joining the experiment on this page.

It is Superbowl time again soon (go Jets) and in what seems to be the viral marketing method of GoDaddy, their ads are under attack again, this time before being screened.

Morality in Media, an interfaith organization "battles pornography and other forms of what it considers obscenity in the media," according to Wikipedia.

MiM President Robert Peters was quoted from the Christian Newswire:

"It is no secret that GoDaddy.com loves to 'push the envelope' when it comes to the content of its ads; and it would appear that this year's Super Bowl ads may push as close to the indecency line as CBS Network 'censors' will allow, which could be as close as CBS thinks it can get away with.

"For an advanced look at what GoDaddy.com may have in store for football fans of all ages during this year's Super Bowl game, parents in particular should check out the sexually oriented content that appears on that company's website under the subhead, 'Super Bowl 2010 - Sneak Preview.'

"Sure looks like lesbian strip performances to me.

"But the content of its Super Bowl ads is not the only problem. GoDaddy.com also provides services to businesses that distribute over the Internet, free of charge and without proof of age, hardcore adult pornography that depicts among other things: urination, fisting (sticking a fist into the vagina), double penetration (sticking two penises into a female's anus), bondage, incest, teen sex, rape and bestiality.

"I say, 'services,' because as advertised on its website, GoDaddy.com doesn't just provide domain name registration. It also provides many other services, including: 'Web Hosting,' 'Email Marketing,' 'Web Design Services,' 'Logo Design Services,' 'Brand Identity Design Services,' 'Search Engine Visibility,' 'Site Analytics,' 'Social Visibility,' and '5 Step Business Solution.'

"Now, it may be that GoDaddy.com is often not aware that a website it is providing one or more services to is offering for sale hardcore adult pornography on the Internet. It may also be, depending on the nature of the service, that GoDaddy.com would have a defense under the law.

"But if GoDaddy.com, knowing the hardcore nature of a website's content, provides some of its services to the site, which is later charged with violating Internet obscenity laws, I think GoDaddy.com could be charged with aiding and abetting (or facilitating) violations of these criminal laws.

"Not that any of the above would concern CBS, but it should concern NFL owners and everyone else concerned about the well being of children and the proliferation of smut on TV and the Internet."

The videos which can be seen at GoDaddy are suggestive but not pornographic. Peters has a broad interpretation of lesbian acts and just does not know what double penetration is generally defined as. Now it will be up to CBS and the NFL to decide what happens.

Google has released its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2009 and the news is positive. Revenue for the Mountain View, CA -based company was up 17% compared to the fourth quarter of 2009, coming in at $6.67 billion.

"Given that the global economy is still in the early days of recovery, this was an extraordinary end to the year," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. "Our performance in 2009 underscored the strength of our management team, the resilience of our business model and the pace of innovation within our product and engineering teams, which continued unabated throughout the downturn."

Here's what contributed to Google's success in Q4 2009:

• Aggregate paid clicks were up 13% year-over-year and up 9% from the third quarter of 2009.
• Average Cost-Per-Click was up 5% year-over-year and 2% quarter-over-quarter.
• Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC) increased to $1.72 billion in Q4 2009 compared with $1.48 billion last year. TAC as a percentage of revenues held steady at 27%.
• The majority of TAC is paid to AdSense partners. In the fourth quarter, $1.47 billion of the $1.48 billion of TAC was paid to AdSense partners.

Google's net income profit was $1.97 billion compared to $382 million last year. Adjusted net income was $2.19 billion compared to $1.62 billion last year.

"As we enter 2010, we remain hugely optimistic about the internet and are continuing to invest heavily in technological innovation for the benefit not only of our users and customers, but also the wider web," said Schmidt.

Let's hope Google's numbers reflect a larger trend towards a healthy economic recovery.

Chinese search engine Baidu was down for a bit last week, and they're blaming it on blocked access due to hackers. Users were instead sent to a site where the group "Iranian Cyber Army" was claiming responsibility. Despite the name, there's no evidence the group has actual ties based in Iran.

Now, Baidu is suing U.S.-based domain name registry, Register.com in the matter. Register.com, of course, says the suit has no merit.

The timing is curious. The suit comes a week after Google threatened to pull out of China if it could not serve up uncensored search results. They also said the GMail accounts of human rights activists were being hacked, and implied that the hacks were conducted by the Chinese government.

Now, we have a Chinese search engine accusing a U.S. company of negligence that lead to hacking. Additionally, Baidu has lost two key executives in past weeks - their CTO and their COO.

Maybe something fishy is going on. Maybe it's completely coincidental. The China v U.S. wars are heating up and I'm not sure anyone comes out a winner.

via SF Gate

I was moderating a keynote discussion session at SES Berlin in November of last year. I talked to Lars Lehne, Country Director for Google, Germany and Stefan Weitz, Director of Search at Microsoft. The conversation centered around user intent and how both companies were trying to understand more about user queries. Obviously, understanding the difference between navigational, informational and transactional queries means that more relevant and specific results can be returned.

So, I asked the question: "Do you see a time when, understanding that the user has a shopping type query, you would show only commercial results" (as in paid-for advertising). And both pondered for a second or two and then agreed on, most likely.

Google is forever testing and every now and again we get to see something that makes you go - wow- never seen that before. Certainly that's what happened to me last night. I'm in the (slow and arduous) process of furnishing a new apartment. So, I did a search for "night stands" (that would be bedside table in the UK).

The page was littered with paid results, a small amount of organic results and some shopping results mixed in (even the paid ads to the right had images in them, you'll note).

Look again even more closely and you'll see that, the top three paid results all have a +plus box in them. Clicking on the first one sends the few visible organic results plummeting with a series of product images. But, of course, when you hit the second plus box, it's goodbye completely to any visibility of organic listings. For the first time in my experience, I was looking at a page full of paid ads and not a single organic listing to be seen.

And then, I had to hit the third +plus box, at which point the organic listings do a type of Jules Verne and start heading towards the center of the earth!

But here's the thing... I wasn't disappointed at all to see only paid listings. I was sitting with a credit card ready to buy (I have no time to actually visit stores so I do everything online) and the selection/choices were just what I was looking for.

Is it such a bad thing to serve up only paid results for a transactional type query or only organic listings for an informational query do you think?

If search ads for mobile search on full internet browsers is part of your overall search campaign, you'll be glad to know that Google AdWords is providing additional targeting for those ads.

Now, you can target via device and carrier. Just want to target iPhone users? There's a target for that. Right now, it looks like you can only target Android, iPhone/iPod Touch, and Palm Web/OS devices.

For carriers, you can target various telcos in the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S., you can target Verizon, Spring, Nextel, T-mobile, AT&T, Metro PCS and Cricket. In Canada, you can target Rogers, Telus, and Bell Canada.

If you're advertising a mobile application, your ad will only appear on devices that can download those apps. Additionally, the link in the ad will allow users to download directly. Just add your app name to the end of either itunes.apple.com or market.android.com and it will automatically feature anchor text directing users to download the app.

The Google Boulder office has been working hard on developing models of venues for the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver this February. Now, you get to see the fruits of their labor.

Previously, only 8 out of the 9 venues were released. Now, those 8 have been updated with high resolution imagery, plus the ninth venue, bobsledding, has been added to the mix.

You can view them via the "3D Buildings" layer in Google Earth or by visiting the collection in the online 3D Warehouse.

Google's Webmaster Central blog announced a test for webmasters to see how good their knowledge of how Google interacts with their websites.

The quiz will be available until January 27.

This is a great quiz, not only for seeing how good your knowledge is, but as a way to see what happens over at Google when things happen on your website. What to do when moving a site or changing servers, what to do with multiple domains and many other essential areas of much needed information.

Take it and see how you do, but also make sure you get the full list of correct answers when they publish it because it will be the "how to" or reference guide for many things people need to know about maintaining a website for best SEO results.

The questions are multiple choose and I will be putting them up over at the forum so we can work them all out before the answers are given.

Image by SESConferenceSeries via Flickr

Now, I did happen to mention in a blog post about the event that Kaushik would be giving out six free copies of his newest book, "Web Analytics 2.0," to the participants who ask the most compelling questions during the webcast. So, maybe I'm partially to blame for what happened next.

His webcast was a big success. And in terms of Key Performance Indicators (KPI), his questions-per-attendee was off the chart!

But there were more questions than he had time to answer in the one-hour webcast.

Fortunately, he has taken the time and effort to tackle a small selection of the 80 questions the he could not answer in the wide ranging webinar. You'll find them on his blog, Occam's Razor, in a post entitled, "Dear Avinash: Search / SEO Metrics & Analytics Questions + Answers."

And his detailed answers are accompanied by illustrations, charts, and screen shots. So, dig in -- and dig deep.

Oh, and that's just a small sample of what you'll hear during his morning keynote at SES London 2010 as well as one of the keynotes at SES New York 2010.

This is also why I've advised industry veterans: Don't sleep in. Yes, yes, it's traditional to drink all night and sleep through the morning keynotes. But you won't want to miss Kaushik's morning keynote, "Be Awesome: Ideas for Approaching Search Analytics Differently."

If you want the KPI for hearing his keynote, then I suggest "actionable-insights-per-words-spoken." Based on his track record, Kaushik's keynotes will be off the chart.