LBi Search: LBi Search Newsletter: May 2009

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LBi Search Newsletter: May 2009

Google "early "Toolbar PageRank Update, FTC investigating ties between Google and Apple, Google and Trademark keywords, Bing launch, Google Searchology '09, reports of a downturn in paid search, Changes to Google Suggest, UK Top 10 Brands dominate web time, UK Mobile advertising up in 2008, and the Wolfram|Alpha launch.

Search News and Research

Google Toolbar PageRank update

Google has updated its Toolbar PageRank on the 27^th of May. This is slightly unusual as it comes around a month earlier than expected. The last update to Toolbar PageRank was on the 1^st April.

Please note that, although PageRank is calculated on a regular basis within Google itself, the PageRank values which are seen in the Google Toolbar are usually only updated about every 3-4 months. For a further explanation of this please see "How old are Toolbar PageRank values?" With this update, new PageRank values should be visible.

FTC investigating ties between Google and Apple

According to the New York Times the FTC is investigating ties between the boards of Google and Apple. This is because there are two directors who sit on both the boards of Apple and Google.

The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 prohibits someone from serving on the boards of two competing companies at the same time where this would reduce competition. Google and Apple compete in several areas - most notably the iPhone vs. the Android platform, but also the Safari web browser against Google Chrome, and similarities have been suggested between iTunes and YouTube.

Google allows trademarks to trigger AdWords in 190 countries, allows limited trademark bidding in the U.S.

Google had previously allowed bidding on trademarks to trigger AdWords in the US & Canada (since 2004) and the UK and Ireland (since 2008). In June, Google is to extend this to 190 countries.

Google is also to allow limited bidding on trademarks in the U.S. within the AdWords copy itself.

Report - UK consumers fear online shopping [Office of Fair Trading]

A report from the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has found that almost one third of UK Internet users do not shop online. Of these Internet users, 30% cited "lack of trust" as the main reason holding them back, whilst 20% were concerned about personal security and 15% said that they did not trust companies that sell online. The study looked at UK Internet users aged 16 and over.

New Product Launches

Google Search Options

Google has added advanced search options to its search results. Currently hidden behind a discreet "Show options" link at the top of the search results, the new search options allow presentation of the search results in a number of new ways. Results can be ordered by type, for example videos, forums or reviews, can be filtered by age, and can also be presented in a number of different ways.

Google Rich Snippets

Google has started to introduce richer snippets in its search results pages. These enhanced snippets will include more information to help the searcher find what they are looking for.

Like Yahoo! SearchMonkey these enhanced snippets use microformats, although for now Google's offering is limited to information reviews and people. However, it will expand in the future to cover other types of semantic information. Rich snippets are currently limited to a small number of websites, however Google is now allowing website owners who would like to take part to indicate their interest.

Bing: Microsoft's new search engine.

The name Bing has been chosen over the other possible names, Kumo and Kiev, with the idea that it represents the act of finding results when searching. Microsoft is reportedly set to be spending between $80 to $100 million in an advertising campaign to promote its new search engine.

Microsoft has launched a website, decisionengine.com, to explain the technology and design behind Bing.

Google making changes to Google Suggest

Google has announced a few new features for Google Suggest. The main changes are integration with Google's personalised search offerings and the inclusion of sponsored results directly within the suggested drop-down itself.

Wolfram|Alpha launch

The computational knowledge engine, debuted at a webinar earlier in the month, became available for public use on the 15^th of May, by which time it was obvious that it was not a search engine in the traditional sense and not the Google killer that some expected. Searches for [credit card] for example won't return a list of credit card comparison sites, but do return a page containing an application for calculating credit card repayments.

An interesting aspect of its Terms of Service (ToS) has also been discovered. Compared to most search engines like Google, which are fairly loose and in general simply ask users to remain within the law, Wolfram|Alpha takes a different approach. Claiming that it not a search engine but a computational service, its ToS says it claims copyright on all results and requires attribution.

Search Industry Market Share Updates

U.S. paid search traffic share down 26% [Hitwise]

A report from Hitwise says that its data indicates that the share of paid search out of overall search traffic is decreasing, with a corresponding relative increase in organic traffic.

The percentage of paid traffic in the four weeks leading to May 9^th this year was 7.25%, compared to 9.84% for the same period last year. Hitwise saw a drop in referrals in 16 out of its 17 categories, with Education as the only category bucking the trend. Breaking down by categories, Insurance websites saw a 22% drop, Retail 500 down 20% and Travel Agencies down 25%. The data shows a consistent trend downwards over the one-year period, suggesting that this is not an isolated or seasonal variance.

U.S. organic referrals increase

Following on from the report above, Hitwise released further data showing an increase in natural referrals. What is also interesting about the article is that it shows rises in natural traffic in areas that have previously not received a great deal of natural traffic. For example the automotive industry category shows a 10% year-over-year increase in natural traffic.

UK top 10 brands account for 45% of web time

According to a report from Nielsen Online (PDF), the top 10 web brands which people in the UK spent the most time on account for 45% of all web time. Top of the list is Facebook, which accounts of 12.7% of time spent on the web by UK users.

Study - U.S. mobile Internet has grown by 74% in 2 years [Nielsen]

A study from Nielsen found that the U.S. mobile Internet market grew by 74% between Feb 2007 and Feb 2009. The number of U.S. mobile Internet users rose from 28.6 million in Feb 2007 to 49.7 million in Feb 2009.

The study also found that iPhone users are unique in their use, which the report suggests may hint at possible mobile behaviours of users of next-gen phones to come. For example, it found that iPhone users were four times more likely to use mobile Internet than a typical subscriber, six times as likely to use mobile applications and six times more likely to watch mobile video.

UK mobile advertising spending doubles in 2008 [IAB & PwC]

Spending on mobile advertising in the UK has doubled in size year on year, according to research by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Expenditure rose to £28.6 million, an increase of 99.2%. Mobile display advertising accounted for 49.8% of spending, with £14.2 million spent in 2008. Paid-for mobile search advertising was estimated to at $14.4 million, accounting for 50.2% of all mobile spending

Google nearing 73% of U.S. searches [Hitwise]

In a recent study from Hitwise Google is shown to be creeping nearer to 73% of U.S. searches. Its 72.39% in March has risen to 72.74% in April up 7% from the April 2008 figure of 67.93%.

Yahoo! received 16.27% of visitors (down from 16.36% in March and -20% year-over-year).

In third place Microsoft received 5.68%, a growth of 0.18% from March, although down -9% year-over-year. Fourth place is Ask.com, which dropped from 4.07% to 3.95% and is down -5% year-over-year.

Average query lengths are also continuing to increase. Queries of 3 words or more are up year-over year, with queries of eight or more words up 18% and queries of one or two words down -3% and -5% respectively. The most common query lengths are still all fairly low, with the most common being queries of two words (22.95%), three words (21.84%), one-word queries (20.37%) and four words (15.04%).

US online classifieds usage doubles over last four years [Pew]

The Pew Research Center released a recent report on U.S. usage of online classified ads. It found that 49% of adults surveyed said that they use online classifieds, more than double the 22% who did in 2005. On any given day, 9% of internet users use online classifieds, up from 4% in 2005.

The move to online classifieds is particularly harming traditional newspapers, as this was a key source of revenue for them.