Apr
29
What Does a Possible Microsoft-Yahoo Merger Mean to You, Search Engine Marketer?
Filed Under Engine Marketing | Leave a Comment
Harald I. Anderson asked:
Last year Google generated $18.12 billion in revenue while its chief pay per click rival Yahoo added $7.12 billion in revenue to its balance sheet. The majority of these revenues came from the popular and traditional pay per click advertising model. Much has been written about the possible merger between these conglomerates. What would a merger between these companies mean to you, the Search Engine Marketer?
Originally hailed as one of the best advertising creations ever, pay per click marketing has become the heart and soul of many traffic generation programs. Advocates contend that you are not paying for visibility as in traditional advertising but instead are targeting those interested individuals who “click” on your advertisement. The early adopters claimed that this made advertising accountable and allowed marketers to target their message and measure its response. What originally started out as a novelty in traffic generation has become an estimated $40 billion a year industry.
Microsoft, which currently has a market capitalization of $240 billion, has been a distant third place in the pay per click sector which has led many to speculate that its interest in Yahoo was primarily intended to make it more competitive with Google. As I write these words the news wires are reporting that Venture Capitalist Carl Icahn is in a proxy battle to deliver Yahoo to Microsoft. Meanwhile Yahoo is in talks with Time Warner while the US Department of Justice is doing an initial exploration and investigation about the legalities of Yahoo and Google merging. These are the “days of our clicks.”
Trust me, the pay per click soap opera is just warming up.
Throughout the intense drama and wild ups and downs of hearsay negotiations, I am all for a merger. Not because I’m a huge Yahoo, Google or Bill Gates fan, but because I believe the health of Internet is defined by the clear standards and practices of a sane search engine marketing marketplace. Currently, Search Engine Marketers have had to contend with “Google Slaps” where their keyword campaigns have been shut down by the Silicon Valley giant with no explanation provided.
PPC Marketers who have suffered the infamous Google slap compare it to Microsoft’s Blue Screen of Death in the PC arena. When Google “Slaps”, a pay per click marketer has no choice but to reboot their entire pay per click marketing campaign with no assurance of a different outcome in the future. Industry pundits debate whether a merger between Google and Yahoo would result in a “kinder and gentler” pay per click search engine.
Marketers online are interested primarily in four factors:
1) Price of a Click
2) Volume of Traffic Available per keyword
3) Number of Conversions Occurring Per Offer
4) Overall Quality of Traffic
However with all of the speculation surrounding the possibility of a merger between these companies, marketers now will have to evaluate the educational learning curves associated with understanding and mastering the distinctive delivery platforms, search marketing algorithms and placement possibilities of each company. I know that sounds like a mouthful but compare for a second how Google and Yahoo define quality as far as your pay per click marketing campaigns are concerned.
Twenty Four Months ago Google launched something they refer to as their “Quality Score” for marketers to determine the effectiveness of a keyword pay per click campaign. Google claims that a high quality score will result in lesser costs for your keyword terms. Apparently a high quality score is determined by having a high click through rate on a keyword, the quality of your landing page, your accounts historical performance and “other” relevant factors. Okay, sounds pretty straightforward, no problems thus far! But I must admit that “other” word sure is a doozy in the real world. (Must’ve been drafted by paralegals!) A few months later Yahoo paraphrased the adwords playbook and released their “quality index.”
The overriding concern most search engine marketers have is one of seeing too much power in one platform. When Google implemented its quality score guidelines, pay per click costs actually increased for affiliates whose livelihoods are completely dictated by their abilities to drive traffic cost effectively. My experience has shown that keyword costs on Google average 25% higher than on Yahoo or Microsoft. A merger of Yahoo and Microsoft would certainly offer a more cost effective alternative for search engine marketers who are focused on the price they pay for each click. The combined search market share of Yahoo and Microsoft is estimated at 31.5%. Meanwhile the search market share of Google by itself is 56.3%. A merger of the Yahoo and Microsoft platforms would certainly create a better distribution of “power” and lower cost per click for search engine marketers. Pay per click costs have been in a perpetual bull market for over ten years. Anything that slows down the price that I have to pay for a click or offers a potent alternative is something I will completely support.
The second major issue search engine marketers have arises from not understanding why identical keyword campaigns running on both Google and Yahoo often receive mixed “quality score” or “quality index” signals? My experience has been that these identical campaigns will often receive the blessing from one search company while simultaneously receiving the wrath of the other. I have asked pay per click experts as well as employees of Google and Yahoo to elaborate on this dilemma and, to be honest with you, understanding their responses is harder than Chinese Differential Calculus. I have more success playing with my Rubiks Cube in the dark!
How can the two leaders in the pay per click marketing industry hold arbitrary, mysterious standards in their sacred pay per click algorithms and be expected to play well together after a merger has occurred?
This issue begs the question that if Google and Yahoo do not see eye to eye with regards to defining “quality” as far as keyword campaigns are concerned what makes anyone think that a merger between these two giants is going to bode well for search engine marketers? Search Engine marketers are focused on cost, volume and conversions. That is how they define quality. And as far as I can tell that is a thousand times better of a definition than Google, Yahoo or MSN will ever come up with.
In Part Two of this series I will explore the specific pay per click ramifications of a Google-Yahoo merger for a Search Engine Marketer who primarily uses Yahoo! Search Marketing in their pay per click campaigns. Quoting Bob Dylan, “the times they are a changing.”
Earl
Last year Google generated $18.12 billion in revenue while its chief pay per click rival Yahoo added $7.12 billion in revenue to its balance sheet. The majority of these revenues came from the popular and traditional pay per click advertising model. Much has been written about the possible merger between these conglomerates. What would a merger between these companies mean to you, the Search Engine Marketer?
Originally hailed as one of the best advertising creations ever, pay per click marketing has become the heart and soul of many traffic generation programs. Advocates contend that you are not paying for visibility as in traditional advertising but instead are targeting those interested individuals who “click” on your advertisement. The early adopters claimed that this made advertising accountable and allowed marketers to target their message and measure its response. What originally started out as a novelty in traffic generation has become an estimated $40 billion a year industry.
Microsoft, which currently has a market capitalization of $240 billion, has been a distant third place in the pay per click sector which has led many to speculate that its interest in Yahoo was primarily intended to make it more competitive with Google. As I write these words the news wires are reporting that Venture Capitalist Carl Icahn is in a proxy battle to deliver Yahoo to Microsoft. Meanwhile Yahoo is in talks with Time Warner while the US Department of Justice is doing an initial exploration and investigation about the legalities of Yahoo and Google merging. These are the “days of our clicks.”
Trust me, the pay per click soap opera is just warming up.
Throughout the intense drama and wild ups and downs of hearsay negotiations, I am all for a merger. Not because I’m a huge Yahoo, Google or Bill Gates fan, but because I believe the health of Internet is defined by the clear standards and practices of a sane search engine marketing marketplace. Currently, Search Engine Marketers have had to contend with “Google Slaps” where their keyword campaigns have been shut down by the Silicon Valley giant with no explanation provided.
PPC Marketers who have suffered the infamous Google slap compare it to Microsoft’s Blue Screen of Death in the PC arena. When Google “Slaps”, a pay per click marketer has no choice but to reboot their entire pay per click marketing campaign with no assurance of a different outcome in the future. Industry pundits debate whether a merger between Google and Yahoo would result in a “kinder and gentler” pay per click search engine.
Marketers online are interested primarily in four factors:
1) Price of a Click
2) Volume of Traffic Available per keyword
3) Number of Conversions Occurring Per Offer
4) Overall Quality of Traffic
However with all of the speculation surrounding the possibility of a merger between these companies, marketers now will have to evaluate the educational learning curves associated with understanding and mastering the distinctive delivery platforms, search marketing algorithms and placement possibilities of each company. I know that sounds like a mouthful but compare for a second how Google and Yahoo define quality as far as your pay per click marketing campaigns are concerned.
Twenty Four Months ago Google launched something they refer to as their “Quality Score” for marketers to determine the effectiveness of a keyword pay per click campaign. Google claims that a high quality score will result in lesser costs for your keyword terms. Apparently a high quality score is determined by having a high click through rate on a keyword, the quality of your landing page, your accounts historical performance and “other” relevant factors. Okay, sounds pretty straightforward, no problems thus far! But I must admit that “other” word sure is a doozy in the real world. (Must’ve been drafted by paralegals!) A few months later Yahoo paraphrased the adwords playbook and released their “quality index.”
The overriding concern most search engine marketers have is one of seeing too much power in one platform. When Google implemented its quality score guidelines, pay per click costs actually increased for affiliates whose livelihoods are completely dictated by their abilities to drive traffic cost effectively. My experience has shown that keyword costs on Google average 25% higher than on Yahoo or Microsoft. A merger of Yahoo and Microsoft would certainly offer a more cost effective alternative for search engine marketers who are focused on the price they pay for each click. The combined search market share of Yahoo and Microsoft is estimated at 31.5%. Meanwhile the search market share of Google by itself is 56.3%. A merger of the Yahoo and Microsoft platforms would certainly create a better distribution of “power” and lower cost per click for search engine marketers. Pay per click costs have been in a perpetual bull market for over ten years. Anything that slows down the price that I have to pay for a click or offers a potent alternative is something I will completely support.
The second major issue search engine marketers have arises from not understanding why identical keyword campaigns running on both Google and Yahoo often receive mixed “quality score” or “quality index” signals? My experience has been that these identical campaigns will often receive the blessing from one search company while simultaneously receiving the wrath of the other. I have asked pay per click experts as well as employees of Google and Yahoo to elaborate on this dilemma and, to be honest with you, understanding their responses is harder than Chinese Differential Calculus. I have more success playing with my Rubiks Cube in the dark!
How can the two leaders in the pay per click marketing industry hold arbitrary, mysterious standards in their sacred pay per click algorithms and be expected to play well together after a merger has occurred?
This issue begs the question that if Google and Yahoo do not see eye to eye with regards to defining “quality” as far as keyword campaigns are concerned what makes anyone think that a merger between these two giants is going to bode well for search engine marketers? Search Engine marketers are focused on cost, volume and conversions. That is how they define quality. And as far as I can tell that is a thousand times better of a definition than Google, Yahoo or MSN will ever come up with.
In Part Two of this series I will explore the specific pay per click ramifications of a Google-Yahoo merger for a Search Engine Marketer who primarily uses Yahoo! Search Marketing in their pay per click campaigns. Quoting Bob Dylan, “the times they are a changing.”
Earl
May
28
Daryl Campbell asked:
Google is a “one-trick pony” Those were the words of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in March of 2007 to students at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
While Ballmer did give some props to Google for hitting the 10 billion dollar revenue mark faster than Microsoft he also stated “They’re really just one business, a search and advertising business.”
That one business by the end of 2007 was doing what it did best; dominating the search market. According to statistics compiled by comScore, Google’s market share was over 58% in the U.S. Internationally it’s 69%. The nearest competitor Yahoo sits at 23%. With those numbers it doesn’t look like much room for anybody else.
Enter Jimmy Wales. With the emergence of Web 2.0 changing the way we communicate, Wales is betting that the time is right for a search engine that like Wikipedia allows volunteers to collaborate online. Wales also hopes that the new WikiSearch “reduces the sort of bottleneck of two or three firms controlling the flow of search traffic.”
That’s going to be a tall order. As Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence told the Financial Post, “He’s aligning himself with the people of Wikipedia versus the Death Star that Google is”.
Wales has no illusion that he will overtake Google any time soon. Instead he believes that getting about 5% of the market will be enough to sustain Wiki Search.
While that number seems like a modest goal there are more than a few observers who think Wales could be out of his league this time. “I think he doesn’t really understand the scale of what Google has to handle”, says Danny Sullivan editor and chief of Search Engine Land. When you consider that Wiki Search will have somewhere between 50 to 100 million web pages indexed upon launch compared to the billions indexed by Google, Yahoo and MSN, you can see Sullivan’s point.
But Wales has a couple of things going for him.
1. Not Google
Shrewd business decisions combined with phenomenal growth in a relatively short period of time has made Google arguably the central player on the internet. This status has also created a sizable audience which has no interest in seeing Google become the only game in town. From Greg Sterling, “Any time a company becomes as successful or as dominant as Google has become, there’s a resistance or backlash and that creates hunger for alternative.”
You can bet with the start of Google Aps (similar to Microsoft Office and another way Google plans to shed the one trick pony label), concerns about their privacy policy and other issues, that the “anybody but Google” crowd will continue to grow. Wiki Search may benefit greatly from these developments.
2. The Social Scene
Wales is also riding a wave that is in the process of changing the internet landscape. Social networking, media and bookmarking represent a fundamental shift in how information is communicated. The emergence of Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook, video and blogging, among other things, guarantees there is no going backwards. New technology will only improve the interactivity between users which may give Wales more than his hoped for 5% market share.
No can predict the future. Many would be competitors have made a run at Google. Many are no longer in business. However the incredible success of Wikipedia, combined with anti Google backlash and the online social revolution may be putting Wales in a better position than any of his predecessors.
Viola
Google is a “one-trick pony” Those were the words of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in March of 2007 to students at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
While Ballmer did give some props to Google for hitting the 10 billion dollar revenue mark faster than Microsoft he also stated “They’re really just one business, a search and advertising business.”
That one business by the end of 2007 was doing what it did best; dominating the search market. According to statistics compiled by comScore, Google’s market share was over 58% in the U.S. Internationally it’s 69%. The nearest competitor Yahoo sits at 23%. With those numbers it doesn’t look like much room for anybody else.
Enter Jimmy Wales. With the emergence of Web 2.0 changing the way we communicate, Wales is betting that the time is right for a search engine that like Wikipedia allows volunteers to collaborate online. Wales also hopes that the new WikiSearch “reduces the sort of bottleneck of two or three firms controlling the flow of search traffic.”
That’s going to be a tall order. As Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence told the Financial Post, “He’s aligning himself with the people of Wikipedia versus the Death Star that Google is”.
Wales has no illusion that he will overtake Google any time soon. Instead he believes that getting about 5% of the market will be enough to sustain Wiki Search.
While that number seems like a modest goal there are more than a few observers who think Wales could be out of his league this time. “I think he doesn’t really understand the scale of what Google has to handle”, says Danny Sullivan editor and chief of Search Engine Land. When you consider that Wiki Search will have somewhere between 50 to 100 million web pages indexed upon launch compared to the billions indexed by Google, Yahoo and MSN, you can see Sullivan’s point.
But Wales has a couple of things going for him.
1. Not Google
Shrewd business decisions combined with phenomenal growth in a relatively short period of time has made Google arguably the central player on the internet. This status has also created a sizable audience which has no interest in seeing Google become the only game in town. From Greg Sterling, “Any time a company becomes as successful or as dominant as Google has become, there’s a resistance or backlash and that creates hunger for alternative.”
You can bet with the start of Google Aps (similar to Microsoft Office and another way Google plans to shed the one trick pony label), concerns about their privacy policy and other issues, that the “anybody but Google” crowd will continue to grow. Wiki Search may benefit greatly from these developments.
2. The Social Scene
Wales is also riding a wave that is in the process of changing the internet landscape. Social networking, media and bookmarking represent a fundamental shift in how information is communicated. The emergence of Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook, video and blogging, among other things, guarantees there is no going backwards. New technology will only improve the interactivity between users which may give Wales more than his hoped for 5% market share.
No can predict the future. Many would be competitors have made a run at Google. Many are no longer in business. However the incredible success of Wikipedia, combined with anti Google backlash and the online social revolution may be putting Wales in a better position than any of his predecessors.
Viola
Mar
28
Search Engine Marketshare – MSN Search Must Be Re-engineered to Serve Searchers Better
Filed Under Engine Marketing | Leave a Comment
Gord Collins asked:
Web Search Engine Marketshare – Give Searchers What they Want
MSN search is one of the oldest Web search engines. Back in the mid 90′s when I started working as an SEO consultant, Google didn’t exist. Search engines were a new phenomenon and just as newcomers to the web today discover, they were the window to the Internet.
The early search engines were lazy and without inspiration about the business opportunities that web search represented. The success that Google has created and enjoyed was not evident to anyone back then. They were completely unaware of the money tree they had at their disposal. Search engines such as Yahoo, Altavista, Magellan, Webcrawler, Go.com, Lycos, Excite, Goto.com, and MSN were the top search engines of the day. Most of them have vanished.
Is there anything to be learned from the demise of these search businesses? Of course. Their demise has resulted from not being customer-focused and not delivering quality results. A further element is branding. Even if you produce good results, there is a popularity and political factor that needs to be mastered. Sometimes a sexy brand can beat out better product offerings. The old search engines lacked them all and had little insight into how to make their search engines “attractive.”
Yahoo enjoyed the best brand. At the time, they offered the best search results while the others had their search results tainted by a paid influence. The end result for searchers is that they didn’t get the results they were looking for and were wasting their time. SEO’s and webmasters had difficulty getting their sites included because Yahoo wanted payment for a directory listing. That limited the volume of results they served up. Search engines didn’t have the work of professional SEOs to help organize web sites and for the most web sites were a mess in code and in visible copy. No search engine was that powerful that it could determine the meaning or core topic of those non optimized sites. Search engines never give SEOs credit for helping to organize the web’s content.
Altavista provided good results and became noted for it, but their business sense was poor and they eventually disappeared from the scene. Branding was a huge issue for these search engines. They simply couldn’t figure out who their target consumer was and how to position their offerings. They didn’t create the volume of high quality search results but to their defense, the web was young and there weren’t all that many quality web sites back then.
The other search engines listed above eventually lost their marketshare and ceased to be relevant business entities. They were bought out for ridiculously low prices. If the businesses had contacted searchers and asked them what they wanted, instead of asking advertising what they wanted, they might have enjoyed billion dollar successes.
MSN Search Engine – Needs some distance from Microsoft
On the topic of MSN, it seems that while this search engine benefits from the association with the Microsoft brand and the infusion of cash from Microsoft Corporation, it is never popular with searchers. If you take a look at MSN.com, you’ll see the site’s branding is still all about Microsoft, not about quality search. A few years ago, Microsoft created a new search engine called Live. It is a stripped down search engine that mimicks Google’s singular focus on search. However, the MSN association is still there.
Marketshare for search engines as of the End of August 2008
1. Google 71% search marketshare
2. Yahoo 18% search marketshare
3. MSN 4% search marketshare
4. Ask 3.5% search marketshare
Over the last year, MSN search properties have lost another 1.5% of search marketshare.
MSN Still Doesn’t Get It
There are varying opinions about why Microsoft can’t do search. One of the key reasons is that the corporate policy and its brand scream loudly “pay us first” and “pay to play.” Advertisers and users are voting loudly too, that they find MSN even less useful than they did ten years ago. Ten years is a long time. Clearly, the Microsoft brand contaminates anything the search engine might be able to achieve on its own. If Microsoft were to acquire an up and coming search property such as a social media site, that business would be doomed too.
The software giant sees themselves as the center of the universe and yet the rest of the web is telling consumers that web users are the center of the universe. Web users feel pampered and important and resent Microsoft’s rigid, self-centered attitude. If Microsoft can’t change its brand image and serve customers the way they want to be served, the company itself will be in rough shape. Open source products and even Google services are beginning to really eat into their bottom line. The current recession will see another wave of adoption of open source and other free programs. Google’s innovation and growth is relentless. Google seeks to provide web users with cheap, useful services. They’re even into smartphones that search cellular transmission sources for the cheapest cell service. Microsoft could easily have done the same thing, but that’s the sort of thing that is not within their corporate sphere of thinking.
Microsoft is fresh off big upsets against the Mac brand which makes PC’s look like a second rate solution to consumers. The company’s perpetual gouging of consumers on overpriced Microsoft office products and the operating system is forcing business to seek cheaper solutions. Open source is improving more everyday particularly outside the US, and even Mac is being seen as a solution even though its cost may be worse.
I received a $200 free advertising coupon the other day from Microsoft and could only think how worthless it is. Leads from MSN are usually poor quality and the low volume means the effort actually costs you time for almost. Clients are always stopping their MSN advertising after trying it out. And opening MSN advertising accounts is no easy matter. It is difficult and time consuming testing your stamina and patience.
No one chooses to go to MSN to search. They are most often sent there through some misfortune or because some new web service or windows update/installation tries to set the users homepage to MSN. Serious web searchers do not consider MSN results to be credible.
For searchers, the msn.com homepage offers links to popular searches, pictures on top stories, which only a select few are interested in, football scores although it’s baseball post season right now, pictures of models, and expensive automobile advertisements although few can afford to buy a car right now. The page misses the boat altogether. MSN has so much money, it doesn’t need the pathetic revenue from its homepage advertising, so why is it there?
The MSN search results pages in contrast appears very much like Google’s search results and the listings are similar to Google’s. Since most people only click on the first page of results, you’d think that it’s good enough to be considered as good as Google. The problem then must be the Microsoft brand.
There is nothing warm and fuzzy about Microsoft. Its cold, take it leave it offerings, and its alienation of web users makes everyone look for alternatives. When a viable alternative to Microsoft evolves as Open Source or Google products may, everyone will dump its overpriced products. The failure of Vista and its elimination of products people still wanted to use infuriates users. This brand failure leaches into the search sphere which is branded Microsoft.
I expect MSN search to go out of business. There is no way to save it, or any search product sponsored by Microsoft. Its core values are not about consumers needs, and its search engine is only about helping visitors reach tired, old Microsoft ideas and products. Just seeing and using Microsoft brand products puts you at odds with the world. Its not about you and the wealth of the web. It’s just about them. There’s nothing new to discover at Microsoft so there’s no point in using MSN search.
What searchers want:
> information on topics such as recent reviews (search engines have trouble with delivering recent news)
> links to in-depth information (links from the top ranking web pages)
> pages written by credible authorities
> pages that are about specific topics, not a collection of unrelated topics
> unfiltered results – all potential web pages are included in the results including sites that aren’t “authorities” on a topic
> good quality results from page one to page ten – no cut off by filters that keep certain pages off the rankings and down at number 250 to 500. Any page might have the info they’re looking for
If people don’t drill down in the pages at MSN or Google, they want to find results. On some keyword topics, relevant information doesn’t show up. That’s because the results are too heavily filtered. Today everything is focused on the first page of ten results and these pages are highly over-optimized in some manner. Those other pages that don’t have enough links pointing to them may not even show. Some of these pages have relevant, interesting information and should not be filtered out. One reason the search engines don’t show quality results past the top ten, is because people ignore the text ads when they go past the first page of results. They would rather searchers just started a new search. So, the goal of the search engine isn’t necessarily to give the best results, it is to get more exposure for the ads.
MSN would be well advised to forego ad revenue and built its reputation for quality results in pages one through ten. Their search quality has always been poor and its time to re-engineer for the future.
Clinton
Web Search Engine Marketshare – Give Searchers What they Want
MSN search is one of the oldest Web search engines. Back in the mid 90′s when I started working as an SEO consultant, Google didn’t exist. Search engines were a new phenomenon and just as newcomers to the web today discover, they were the window to the Internet.
The early search engines were lazy and without inspiration about the business opportunities that web search represented. The success that Google has created and enjoyed was not evident to anyone back then. They were completely unaware of the money tree they had at their disposal. Search engines such as Yahoo, Altavista, Magellan, Webcrawler, Go.com, Lycos, Excite, Goto.com, and MSN were the top search engines of the day. Most of them have vanished.
Is there anything to be learned from the demise of these search businesses? Of course. Their demise has resulted from not being customer-focused and not delivering quality results. A further element is branding. Even if you produce good results, there is a popularity and political factor that needs to be mastered. Sometimes a sexy brand can beat out better product offerings. The old search engines lacked them all and had little insight into how to make their search engines “attractive.”
Yahoo enjoyed the best brand. At the time, they offered the best search results while the others had their search results tainted by a paid influence. The end result for searchers is that they didn’t get the results they were looking for and were wasting their time. SEO’s and webmasters had difficulty getting their sites included because Yahoo wanted payment for a directory listing. That limited the volume of results they served up. Search engines didn’t have the work of professional SEOs to help organize web sites and for the most web sites were a mess in code and in visible copy. No search engine was that powerful that it could determine the meaning or core topic of those non optimized sites. Search engines never give SEOs credit for helping to organize the web’s content.
Altavista provided good results and became noted for it, but their business sense was poor and they eventually disappeared from the scene. Branding was a huge issue for these search engines. They simply couldn’t figure out who their target consumer was and how to position their offerings. They didn’t create the volume of high quality search results but to their defense, the web was young and there weren’t all that many quality web sites back then.
The other search engines listed above eventually lost their marketshare and ceased to be relevant business entities. They were bought out for ridiculously low prices. If the businesses had contacted searchers and asked them what they wanted, instead of asking advertising what they wanted, they might have enjoyed billion dollar successes.
MSN Search Engine – Needs some distance from Microsoft
On the topic of MSN, it seems that while this search engine benefits from the association with the Microsoft brand and the infusion of cash from Microsoft Corporation, it is never popular with searchers. If you take a look at MSN.com, you’ll see the site’s branding is still all about Microsoft, not about quality search. A few years ago, Microsoft created a new search engine called Live. It is a stripped down search engine that mimicks Google’s singular focus on search. However, the MSN association is still there.
Marketshare for search engines as of the End of August 2008
1. Google 71% search marketshare
2. Yahoo 18% search marketshare
3. MSN 4% search marketshare
4. Ask 3.5% search marketshare
Over the last year, MSN search properties have lost another 1.5% of search marketshare.
MSN Still Doesn’t Get It
There are varying opinions about why Microsoft can’t do search. One of the key reasons is that the corporate policy and its brand scream loudly “pay us first” and “pay to play.” Advertisers and users are voting loudly too, that they find MSN even less useful than they did ten years ago. Ten years is a long time. Clearly, the Microsoft brand contaminates anything the search engine might be able to achieve on its own. If Microsoft were to acquire an up and coming search property such as a social media site, that business would be doomed too.
The software giant sees themselves as the center of the universe and yet the rest of the web is telling consumers that web users are the center of the universe. Web users feel pampered and important and resent Microsoft’s rigid, self-centered attitude. If Microsoft can’t change its brand image and serve customers the way they want to be served, the company itself will be in rough shape. Open source products and even Google services are beginning to really eat into their bottom line. The current recession will see another wave of adoption of open source and other free programs. Google’s innovation and growth is relentless. Google seeks to provide web users with cheap, useful services. They’re even into smartphones that search cellular transmission sources for the cheapest cell service. Microsoft could easily have done the same thing, but that’s the sort of thing that is not within their corporate sphere of thinking.
Microsoft is fresh off big upsets against the Mac brand which makes PC’s look like a second rate solution to consumers. The company’s perpetual gouging of consumers on overpriced Microsoft office products and the operating system is forcing business to seek cheaper solutions. Open source is improving more everyday particularly outside the US, and even Mac is being seen as a solution even though its cost may be worse.
I received a $200 free advertising coupon the other day from Microsoft and could only think how worthless it is. Leads from MSN are usually poor quality and the low volume means the effort actually costs you time for almost. Clients are always stopping their MSN advertising after trying it out. And opening MSN advertising accounts is no easy matter. It is difficult and time consuming testing your stamina and patience.
No one chooses to go to MSN to search. They are most often sent there through some misfortune or because some new web service or windows update/installation tries to set the users homepage to MSN. Serious web searchers do not consider MSN results to be credible.
For searchers, the msn.com homepage offers links to popular searches, pictures on top stories, which only a select few are interested in, football scores although it’s baseball post season right now, pictures of models, and expensive automobile advertisements although few can afford to buy a car right now. The page misses the boat altogether. MSN has so much money, it doesn’t need the pathetic revenue from its homepage advertising, so why is it there?
The MSN search results pages in contrast appears very much like Google’s search results and the listings are similar to Google’s. Since most people only click on the first page of results, you’d think that it’s good enough to be considered as good as Google. The problem then must be the Microsoft brand.
There is nothing warm and fuzzy about Microsoft. Its cold, take it leave it offerings, and its alienation of web users makes everyone look for alternatives. When a viable alternative to Microsoft evolves as Open Source or Google products may, everyone will dump its overpriced products. The failure of Vista and its elimination of products people still wanted to use infuriates users. This brand failure leaches into the search sphere which is branded Microsoft.
I expect MSN search to go out of business. There is no way to save it, or any search product sponsored by Microsoft. Its core values are not about consumers needs, and its search engine is only about helping visitors reach tired, old Microsoft ideas and products. Just seeing and using Microsoft brand products puts you at odds with the world. Its not about you and the wealth of the web. It’s just about them. There’s nothing new to discover at Microsoft so there’s no point in using MSN search.
What searchers want:
> information on topics such as recent reviews (search engines have trouble with delivering recent news)
> links to in-depth information (links from the top ranking web pages)
> pages written by credible authorities
> pages that are about specific topics, not a collection of unrelated topics
> unfiltered results – all potential web pages are included in the results including sites that aren’t “authorities” on a topic
> good quality results from page one to page ten – no cut off by filters that keep certain pages off the rankings and down at number 250 to 500. Any page might have the info they’re looking for
If people don’t drill down in the pages at MSN or Google, they want to find results. On some keyword topics, relevant information doesn’t show up. That’s because the results are too heavily filtered. Today everything is focused on the first page of ten results and these pages are highly over-optimized in some manner. Those other pages that don’t have enough links pointing to them may not even show. Some of these pages have relevant, interesting information and should not be filtered out. One reason the search engines don’t show quality results past the top ten, is because people ignore the text ads when they go past the first page of results. They would rather searchers just started a new search. So, the goal of the search engine isn’t necessarily to give the best results, it is to get more exposure for the ads.
MSN would be well advised to forego ad revenue and built its reputation for quality results in pages one through ten. Their search quality has always been poor and its time to re-engineer for the future.
Clinton
Feb
13
Search Engine Forecast 2008
Filed Under Engine Marketing | Leave a Comment
Steve Devries asked:
2007 has been a very interesting year in the SEO/SEM industry. We’ve seen Google gain even more of the search engine market share and the rise and fall of some of the major SEO players. SEO itself has become more of an institution and it seems every company wants in on it whether or not they are qualified. SEO/SEM has become increasingly more visible as hosting and design companies are pushing ‘search engine exposure’ as an add-on. There have been feature articles in many popular marketing and business magazines as well. The question has shifted from ‘what is SEO?’ to ‘how much benefit can I get from SEO?’.
With the transition of the industry into the mainstream marketing arena, more and more companies are springing up and more ideas are being tested. 2008 will be a great year for SEO with the influx of new talent and ideas. Search engines themselves have grown into some of the biggest companies in the country and there will of course be big announcements from them. The following are TreeHouse’s major predictions for 2008.
1.) Death of DMOZ
DMOZ may not be so well-known outside Web and tech savvy circles, but DMOZ still has a lot of influence on Google, Netscape, and AOL search. DMOZ is a non-profit open directory that is maintained by editors. Web masters submit their site to the directory and editors approve or deny the listing. This is of course in opposition to Google’s automated indexing. Google and the other engines do spider and use the DMOZ index as a ranking factor for their own results. DMOZ has always worked fairl closely with Google due to Google’s ties with the Mozilla foundation (creators of Netscape and FireFox). In the past 5 years or so, the accusations of corruption and willful manipulation of directory listings by editors has grown more and more apparent.
The incredible difficulty of getting listed in the directory mixed with rampant corruption charges has pushed most Webmasters and SEOs to give up on DMOZ all together. I believe that sometime this coming year, Google will distance itself from DMOZ and signal the death of the directory. DMOZ is indexing pages far too slow to be a real effective tool for Google. It was more helpful when Google had a smaller index and had to determine the relative longevity of sites. Now, with a massive index and years of data, Google no longer needs the DMOZ directory for anything other than bad publicity. Google ending its official relationship will cause DMOZ to slowly die.
2.) Purchase/consolidation of major SEO companies
It would be very suprising if the major SEO companies didn’t start receiving more offers for purchase from larger traditional marketing companies. Because SEO/SEM is so alien to most marketing companies, the risks and costs are far higher to start an SEO division than to buy an existing successful SEO company. It is also becoming harder and harder for larger SEO companies built around old methodologies to deal with the influx of new talent in the industry. The SEO indsutry has not yet adapted to freelancers and skilled contract SEOs. It also has had problems dealing with the protection of their intellectual property and research.
My list of most likely to sell all or part of the company to a larger marketing/Web company:
ICrossing - Big lay offs when they hired new CFO Michael Jackson. They still claim to be trying to set up an IPO, but it seems likely that they could be purchased by another publicly traded company if the IPO bid does not pan out. SEO, Inc. – One of the older SEO companies and still privately owned. It seems likely they may take the IProspect route and sell to a much larger marketing firm. SEO, Inc. has reached the level where it has to grow to a larger corporate entity, sell to a larger corporate marketing company, or stagnate as a small business. Submit Express – They are one of the few original SEO companies to maintain rankings for ‘search engine optimization’ after the Google flush of last year. They should take notes from SEO, Inc. and ensure they can market and sell outside of #1 rankings. They are growing rapidly and are in a prime position to sell. Marketing companies would buy the company simply for the rankings it already has in Google.
3.) Record growth in the SEO/SEM industry
SEO is here to stay. The industry has grown year after year and the core methodologies are far more refined. The major search engines are no longer doing massive changes to their ranking algorithms and ethical SEOs have learned to work together with the engines against of against them. Google has gotten very good at weeding out spam and unethical tactics forcing many of the ‘less-than-ethical’ SEOs out of business by simply making them ineffective. More and more companies are realizing how powerful organic search really is. I predict the best year so far for SEO.
The main thing to keep an eye out for is the blending of SEO with more traditional Web marketing. SEO is finding its place in the marketing realm and beginning to coexist quite well. Instead of being a stand alone service, it will be far more commonplace to see SEO offered as a facet of an overall online marketing program.
4.) Google will continue to dominate the SE market
Despite what many market analysts and bloggers like to fantasize about, Google will not fall from grace this year. It’s predicted every year now, but the stock is stronger than ever and continuing to climb. Google is expanding into radio and television now and bringing a whole new model for advertising to the forefront. I don’t see anything but good things for them again this year.
5.) Google will start being very apparent in the television advertising market
Google has a history of expanding before waiting to see results. They expanded into radio and allowed PPC clients to run ads on the radio with the same ease as running them on the Web. I do not think Google will sit around crunching numbers to see if the PPC model applied to radio is the next evolution or not. I think they will expand into television as soon as possible. Most likely, this will happen this year and initially be announced quietly. It’ll be a new feature in Google Adwords accounts sometime in 2008.
6.) Yahoo! will unveil a reworked PPC advertising model
Yahoo! has always had trouble in the PPC market and sought to attack Google directly with a new search advertising model called Panama that was launched in February of 2007. It was a dismal launch that only saw Google take even more market share. Later in 2007, the CEO was let go. Considering that 80%+ of Yahoo!’s revenue comes from advertising, they will need to do something huge this year. Whether it be a totally reworked PPC program or intense advertising of their system, they have to do something to increase the number of PPC customers. Of course, advertisers go where the users are. If Yahoo! manages to pick up a better share of the search market, advertisers will naturally migrate there.
7.) YouTube will cause Google more headaches
The RIAA, MPAA, and television networks have grown more and more militant about their content ending up on the Web. The RIAA, especially, has escalated this into a full blown war that has them in court on a daily basis suing pirates and content providers. YouTube has been in hot water for hosting copyrighted content for over two years. It’s purchase by Google has seemingly provided it with more slack and negotiation powers, but the facts are that a huge portion of the content on YouTube is copyrighted (and not by YouTube). I seriously doubt the major media companies will allow it to continue as it does now. Expect more negotiations between Google/YouTube and the major networks, studios, and record companies. Considering Google could buy up many of the people suing them, it adds a strange new twist to the issue.
Thank you for reading TreeHouse SEM articles. If you would like to know more about any of these topics, feel free to contact us. If you would like to reprint any of the above text, please contact us first.
Emma
2007 has been a very interesting year in the SEO/SEM industry. We’ve seen Google gain even more of the search engine market share and the rise and fall of some of the major SEO players. SEO itself has become more of an institution and it seems every company wants in on it whether or not they are qualified. SEO/SEM has become increasingly more visible as hosting and design companies are pushing ‘search engine exposure’ as an add-on. There have been feature articles in many popular marketing and business magazines as well. The question has shifted from ‘what is SEO?’ to ‘how much benefit can I get from SEO?’.
With the transition of the industry into the mainstream marketing arena, more and more companies are springing up and more ideas are being tested. 2008 will be a great year for SEO with the influx of new talent and ideas. Search engines themselves have grown into some of the biggest companies in the country and there will of course be big announcements from them. The following are TreeHouse’s major predictions for 2008.
1.) Death of DMOZ
DMOZ may not be so well-known outside Web and tech savvy circles, but DMOZ still has a lot of influence on Google, Netscape, and AOL search. DMOZ is a non-profit open directory that is maintained by editors. Web masters submit their site to the directory and editors approve or deny the listing. This is of course in opposition to Google’s automated indexing. Google and the other engines do spider and use the DMOZ index as a ranking factor for their own results. DMOZ has always worked fairl closely with Google due to Google’s ties with the Mozilla foundation (creators of Netscape and FireFox). In the past 5 years or so, the accusations of corruption and willful manipulation of directory listings by editors has grown more and more apparent.
The incredible difficulty of getting listed in the directory mixed with rampant corruption charges has pushed most Webmasters and SEOs to give up on DMOZ all together. I believe that sometime this coming year, Google will distance itself from DMOZ and signal the death of the directory. DMOZ is indexing pages far too slow to be a real effective tool for Google. It was more helpful when Google had a smaller index and had to determine the relative longevity of sites. Now, with a massive index and years of data, Google no longer needs the DMOZ directory for anything other than bad publicity. Google ending its official relationship will cause DMOZ to slowly die.
2.) Purchase/consolidation of major SEO companies
It would be very suprising if the major SEO companies didn’t start receiving more offers for purchase from larger traditional marketing companies. Because SEO/SEM is so alien to most marketing companies, the risks and costs are far higher to start an SEO division than to buy an existing successful SEO company. It is also becoming harder and harder for larger SEO companies built around old methodologies to deal with the influx of new talent in the industry. The SEO indsutry has not yet adapted to freelancers and skilled contract SEOs. It also has had problems dealing with the protection of their intellectual property and research.
My list of most likely to sell all or part of the company to a larger marketing/Web company:
ICrossing - Big lay offs when they hired new CFO Michael Jackson. They still claim to be trying to set up an IPO, but it seems likely that they could be purchased by another publicly traded company if the IPO bid does not pan out. SEO, Inc. – One of the older SEO companies and still privately owned. It seems likely they may take the IProspect route and sell to a much larger marketing firm. SEO, Inc. has reached the level where it has to grow to a larger corporate entity, sell to a larger corporate marketing company, or stagnate as a small business. Submit Express – They are one of the few original SEO companies to maintain rankings for ‘search engine optimization’ after the Google flush of last year. They should take notes from SEO, Inc. and ensure they can market and sell outside of #1 rankings. They are growing rapidly and are in a prime position to sell. Marketing companies would buy the company simply for the rankings it already has in Google.
3.) Record growth in the SEO/SEM industry
SEO is here to stay. The industry has grown year after year and the core methodologies are far more refined. The major search engines are no longer doing massive changes to their ranking algorithms and ethical SEOs have learned to work together with the engines against of against them. Google has gotten very good at weeding out spam and unethical tactics forcing many of the ‘less-than-ethical’ SEOs out of business by simply making them ineffective. More and more companies are realizing how powerful organic search really is. I predict the best year so far for SEO.
The main thing to keep an eye out for is the blending of SEO with more traditional Web marketing. SEO is finding its place in the marketing realm and beginning to coexist quite well. Instead of being a stand alone service, it will be far more commonplace to see SEO offered as a facet of an overall online marketing program.
4.) Google will continue to dominate the SE market
Despite what many market analysts and bloggers like to fantasize about, Google will not fall from grace this year. It’s predicted every year now, but the stock is stronger than ever and continuing to climb. Google is expanding into radio and television now and bringing a whole new model for advertising to the forefront. I don’t see anything but good things for them again this year.
5.) Google will start being very apparent in the television advertising market
Google has a history of expanding before waiting to see results. They expanded into radio and allowed PPC clients to run ads on the radio with the same ease as running them on the Web. I do not think Google will sit around crunching numbers to see if the PPC model applied to radio is the next evolution or not. I think they will expand into television as soon as possible. Most likely, this will happen this year and initially be announced quietly. It’ll be a new feature in Google Adwords accounts sometime in 2008.
6.) Yahoo! will unveil a reworked PPC advertising model
Yahoo! has always had trouble in the PPC market and sought to attack Google directly with a new search advertising model called Panama that was launched in February of 2007. It was a dismal launch that only saw Google take even more market share. Later in 2007, the CEO was let go. Considering that 80%+ of Yahoo!’s revenue comes from advertising, they will need to do something huge this year. Whether it be a totally reworked PPC program or intense advertising of their system, they have to do something to increase the number of PPC customers. Of course, advertisers go where the users are. If Yahoo! manages to pick up a better share of the search market, advertisers will naturally migrate there.
7.) YouTube will cause Google more headaches
The RIAA, MPAA, and television networks have grown more and more militant about their content ending up on the Web. The RIAA, especially, has escalated this into a full blown war that has them in court on a daily basis suing pirates and content providers. YouTube has been in hot water for hosting copyrighted content for over two years. It’s purchase by Google has seemingly provided it with more slack and negotiation powers, but the facts are that a huge portion of the content on YouTube is copyrighted (and not by YouTube). I seriously doubt the major media companies will allow it to continue as it does now. Expect more negotiations between Google/YouTube and the major networks, studios, and record companies. Considering Google could buy up many of the people suing them, it adds a strange new twist to the issue.
Thank you for reading TreeHouse SEM articles. If you would like to know more about any of these topics, feel free to contact us. If you would like to reprint any of the above text, please contact us first.
Emma