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Search Engine Roundtable

• 

  Wolfram|Alpha Adds Pro Services For A Fee

  Fetched: February 8th, 2012, 2:51pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Other Search Engines  

  Most people have no clue what Wolfram|Alpha is but it is one of the speciality search engines I use on a daily basis. I use it to look up data, facts and do some more advanced calculations.

  The thing is - most people have no use for it. It is more for academics or power searchers.

  Apple added it to Siri and it has accounted for 25% of Wolfram|Alpha's searches - so they are now getting on the map, thanks to Apple.

  Wolfram|Alpha has announced they will be unveiling a "Pro" version of their search service for a $4.99/month fee. Yea, pay to use a search engine - but Wolfram|Alpha is no regular search engine.

  What can you do in the paid Pro version of Wolfram|Alpha? Gary Price has those details:

  (1) Analyze Your Own Datasets:

  (2) 60 file formats can be uploaded from XLS, CSV all the way to images, audio files and more:

  (3) Virtual extended keyboards.

  (4) Visualized and interactive results using the CDF (computational data format).

  "What's happening is you are giving freeform input, and Wolfram Alpha is creating a program on the fly to create the interactivity that you use," Chief executive Stephen Wolfram said.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Facebook IPO: Zuckerberg's $499,999 Salary Cut

  Fetched: February 3rd, 2012, 1:55am CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  As expected, Facebook filed their IPO registration with the SEC.

  The numbers are fascinating, and I was tweeting some of it. We posted some nice charts on the numbers and Danny did the S-1 review at Marketing Land.

  • 2011 $3.7 Billion In Revenue
  • 2011 $1 Billion In Net Income
  • 12% Of That Revenue Came From Zynga
  • Mark Zuckerberg salary for 2012 is $500,000 and for 2013 is $1.00

  I am not going to go through all the numbers, there are tons of headlines on Techmeme that cover all of that. But Facebook did some up their user numbers in this nice graphic:

  So will you be buying into the IPO?

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Focus On The User: Facebook Don't Be Evil Google Tool

  Fetched: January 24th, 2012, 11:44pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  The big news from yesterday was from Facebook who built a bookmarklet tool that aims at changing how Google shows Google+ results in the new Google Plus Your World launch.

  It is fairly simple, you install the bookmarklet, click it when on the Google results, and the Google+ results will change to either Twitter, Facebook or another social network.

  The campaign is named Focus on the User and they write:

  How much better would social search be if Google surfaced results from all across the web? The results speak for themselves. We created a tool that uses Googleâs own relevance measure-the ranking of their organic search results-to determine what social content should appear in the areas where Google+ results are currently hardcoded.

  All of the information in this demo comes from Google itself, and all of the ranking decisions are made by Google's own algorithms. No other services or APIs are accessed.

  Here is what it does:

  Pretty clear? It does more but those are to examples, many more examples over here.

  Danny Sullivan has a great write up over here and here is a video demo:

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Pinterest Sending Webmasters Lots Of Traffic

  Fetched: January 19th, 2012, 7:09pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Other Search Engines  

  I've been hearing chatter throughout the industry on a new social sharing site, specifically for photos named Pinterest.

  A Cre8asite Forum thread has webmasters and SEOs claiming it send a nice number of traffic, when you are featured well on the site. I've personally have not seen much traffic from it, but some sites claim as high as 900 unique visits in a single day - and the site is still in an invite only beta.

  One person said:

  Yep, had some. Busiest day saw around 900 visits. Been playing with it for a week or two now, interesting to see what sort of images work best.

  The SEOs have their sites on this service, it better be careful now.

  To see which images of yours were posted to the service, you can do something like this: pinterest.com/source/seroundtable.com/ and replace seroundtable.com with your domain.

  For more on this service, see pinterest.com/about.

  Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

  
  

• 

  The New Twitter

  Fetched: December 10th, 2011, 10:13am CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  The big news yesterday was that Twitter announced the launch of their new Twitter design. The new design is aimed at making it easier to use and easier to find and discover things within the ecosystem.

  My favorite parts of the announcement is a new TweetDeck for Chrome and Mac OS App Store plus the new app and finally the embeddable tweets.

  On the search side, Greg Sterling reported that the search was improve but said, "although no one could tell me specifically what they were."

  Here is an embedded tweet:

  I like the new TweetDeck for Mac OS

  — Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) December9, 2011

  You can see the embed tweet link when you view the tweet detail page:

  Then a pop up box comes up with the embed options:

  To see more details on the new features, designs and ability to discover new content, see fly.twitter.com. To get it yourself, just update your mobile app and Twitter should give you the new features on Twitter.com soon after.

  If you are a brand, you probably want to read this.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Facebook Launches Timeline

  Fetched: September 24th, 2011, 10:06am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  Facebook yesterday announced a new feature named Timeline.

  As Facebook describes it:

  With timeline, now you have a home for all the great stories you've already shared. They don't just vanish as you add new stuff.

  Timeline is wider than your old profile, and it's a lot more visual. The first thing you'll notice is the giant photo right at the top. This is your cover, and it's completely up to you which of your photos you put here. As you scroll down past your cover, you'll see your posts, photos and life events as they happened in time. You choose what's featured on your timeline. You can star your favorites to double their size or hide things altogether.

  Here is a video demo of how it works:

  Greg Finn does a good job summarizing many of the features at Search Engine Land.

  A WebmasterWorld thread has people saying this is all a bit "creepy", other's saying "too much change too soon," but others are finding it pretty cool.

  I am not sure, I rarely put personal stuff on Facebook, so I am not sure how this would apply to me yet.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  YouTube Search Keywords Being Crossed Out

  Fetched: June 25th, 2011, 7:02pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Other Search Engines  

  In some cases, when you conduct a search at the world's second largest search engine, YouTube, the results may be crossed out.

  Here are some pictures, notice how the search query you entered may have crossed out keywords.

  At first I thought the words that were crossed out might be stop words or words that do not relate to the query. But "people" or "marathon" or "organizations" would be equivalent to "and" or "or" and so on?

  I am now thinking that the words that are crossed off are the words not matched in the search query. Meaning, the word "marathon" was not found in the search results for this long search query. Maybe?

  Forum discussion at Google Blogoscoped Forums.

  
  

• 

  Facebook Losing Users?

  Fetched: June 15th, 2011, 1:42pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  Inside Facebook reports on recent data from their gold reporting service that Facebook has lost 6 million users from their U.S. base.

  Inside Facebook said Facebook in the "United States lost nearly 6 million users, falling from 155.2 million at the start of May to 149.4 million at the end of it. This is the first time the country has lost users in the past year."

  US wasn't the only place losing users, "Canada also fell significantly, by 1.52 million down to 16.6 million, although it has been fluctuating around that number for the past year. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, Norway and Russia all posted losses of more than 100,000."

  They posted the top gaining countries:

  Webmasters and SEOs are discussing what is going on here. Supposedly, the data Inside Facebook uses to get this data is from Facebook's advertising tool. The tool may have reporting bugs leading to issues with these marketshare reports - so it is hard to be 100% positive that Facebook lost 6 million users in the US market.

  That being said, a WebmasterWorld thread has some people saying they are not surprised. They feel Facebook is becoming too commercial and at the same time people are leaving because it is overwhelming and too time consuming for users. Meaning, people want to focus more on work and less on social things.

  I am not too sure.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  44% Say Social Search Signals Don't Improve Search Results

  Fetched: June 9th, 2011, 4:56pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  Last week we ran a poll asking Are Search Results Better With Social Ranking Signals?

  We now have over a 100 responses and I wanted to share those results:

  • 44% said social search signals do not improve search results
  • 29% said they are not sure if the social signals improve search results or not
  • 27% said social search signals do indeed improve search results

  I am pretty confident that Google and Bing have tested the quality of those search results with social ranking factors on and off and have shown that they do improve search quality. But this is the perception of webmasters and SEOs.

  Forum discussion continued at Sphinn.

  Note: This story was written earlier this week and scheduled to be published today.

  
  

• 

  73% Say Personalized Search Results Is Censorship

  Fetched: June 8th, 2011, 8:04pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  About a month ago, I showed you all a presentation given by Eli Pariser at TED named Beware online "filter bubbles".

  The argument is very convincing, and I strongly recommend you watch it, if you have not done so already.

  It makes the argument that personalization on the web, which is growing and growing - is a form of censorship and we shouldn't have it in many cases.

  So I ran a poll asking SEOs, who should fundamentally understand the reason and technical pieces of personalized search results, if they felt it was a form of censorship and 73% said yes, it is a form of censorship.

  I asked: "Is Personalization A Form Of Censorship?"

  • 73% said Yes
  23% said No
  • 4% said other

  I believe I was part of the 23% this time.

  Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

  Note: This story was written earlier this week and scheduled to be published today.

  
  

• 

  Twitter Search Gets Smarter

  Fetched: June 4th, 2011, 11:19pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  Twitter announced they have improved Twitter Search by adding relevancy and personalization to the search results.

  Twitter said, "Not only will it deliver more relevant Tweets when you search for something or click on a trending topic, but it will also show you related photos and videos, right there on the results page."

  If you look at the Twitter Engineering Blog you can learn a bit more about what this means.

  In our new search experience, we show search results that are most relevant to a particular user. So search results are personalized, and we filter out the Tweets that do not resonate with other users.

  To support relevance filtering and personalization, we needed three types of signals:

  (1) Static signals, added at indexing time
  (2) Resonance signals, dynamically updated over time
  (3) Information about the searcher, provided at search time

  There is a lot more detail on how this works at the engineering blog. But let me show you the differences in the results:

  Here is the default search view, which sorts Twitter search results by "top" results. Take notice that there are huge gabs in the timeline as to minutes between tweets. Clearly, Twitter is filtering out results here:

  If you look deeper, you will see that you can click "top" and change it to "all." It will then show a timeline of all tweets that have query word in them. See the difference?

  How about personalization? Well, check out me logged in versus not logged in:

  Logged In:

  Logged Out:

  See, my tweet didn't seem relevant if I am not logged in.

  Here is a video demo from Twitter on this new release:

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Are Social Ranking Signals Making A Better Search Result?

  Fetched: June 4th, 2011, 11:19pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  There is an excellent verbal poll running at Sphinn now asking SEOs if they feel that social ranking signals are making for a better set of search results. It is a good question - do you feel the search results are now better since Google and Bing began integrating social factors such as Facebook Likes, Google +1, Tweets and other social sharing features into the algorithm?

  Take our poll:

  Are Search Results Better With Social Ranking Signals?

  Here are two comments from the Sphinn thread:

  Jill Whalen said:

  I don't see how we'd be able to know what difference social signals is making.

  That said, I do like when I'm logged in, to see the things people in my social networks are saying or recommending based on my searches (as long as I'm not looking for clean results for business purposes).

  Matt McGee added:

  For the most part, I feel the same way. I think there's some value in seeing a note that a certain friend/peer has shared/liked some URL in the search results -- or some local business in Google Places (which also mixes social elements into the UX). But I'm not a fan of the Blekko implementation where Facebook status updates and/or comment threads are shown next to search results. Too much clutter and not enough value in that, in my opinion.

  We did have some SEOs complain that the results are doomed due to social ranking signals.

  Please do take our poll and be as biased as you like. And also join the conversation at the thread.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

• 

  Twitter Launches Follow Button: Do You "Like" It?

  Fetched: June 1st, 2011, 10:40pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  Twitter has announced their new Follow Button. The follow button will allow users logged into Twitter to follow you directly on third-party sites by clicking the button, for users not logged in, you will be taken to the Twitter profile.

  Here is my follow button (feel free to follow, if you don't):

  Follow @rustybrick

  Here is the Search Engine Roundtable follow button:

  Follow @seroundtable

  As you can see, you can customize the follow button.

  You can create your own over at Twitter's resources and for even more customization methods see the developer documentation.

  This announcement came the day before Google is expected to launch the Google +1 button for publishers.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Is Social Signaling The End Of Expert Content?

  Fetched: May 25th, 2011, 9:14am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  There is an outstanding thread developing at WebmasterWorld on the topic of social search ranking factors versus content ranking factors. The discussion is fairly thought provoking, which is why forums still rock.

  One webmaster is on the verge of complaining that Google and Bing are trumping their social search ranking features and downplaying the importance of quality and authoritative content. He said out of frustration:

  As social factors increase in importance, the point of creating original, thought leading, anything OTHER than simple mass content is removed.

  I'm seriously stunned here. I hope I've got this wrong, but not only has Google crushed businesses like mine that trade in ideas and content, it has the potential to significantly damage the society at large by LIMITING (unintentionally) the spread of the very information that runs the economic engines of this planet.

  Some pretty strong words but is this really Google or Bing's goal? Are social factors going to take over the ranking game or just add some weight here and there?

  There is no doubt in my mind that Google and Bing want the most authoritative content to rank the highest but when there are two pages that are close on the same level of expert content, which should they rank higher?

  Also, think about social factors and what Google and Bing use to determine what is authoritative. Links, at least originally, were a form of social liking. If someone linked to your content, it meant they liked it and thus it ranked higher. Social liking or +1ing is a form of that.

  Do you not think that if you have awesome content that it wouldn't be shared through social channels? Even if it wasn't - people would reference it, link to it, and hopefully it will trace back to that source at the end.

  Personally, I am not worried. There are many cases of the original source not ranking higher than a site covering it later - but is that the goal of Google or Bing? The answer to that is the answer to if you should be worried or not.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  1/4th Of Twitter Users Don't Use Twitter

  Fetched: December 11th, 2010, 12:49pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Social Search Engines Optimization  

  Pew Internet announced a report they released on Twitter usage. You can download the PDF report over here.

  Everyone is talking about the 8% figure. 8% of Americans are on Twitter. Wow! Most people think that is a small number, to me, that is huge. I bet it doesn't compare with Facebook, but 8% of American's have used Twitter! That is big.

  But they also say 21% of those Twitter users don't read content on Twitter. They may post content, but they do not read content. In a sense, it might be automated or just random tweets or they might not tweet at all. Either way, about a quarter of Twitter users don't really use Twitter. Almost half barely use Twitter - they check in every week or so, which is not the way to use Twitter - ask any Twitter user.

  So I'd say probably 50% of the 8% really use Twitter. So maybe that number is closer to 4% of American's use Twitter. Maybe that number is more realistic.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Baidu's Domain Name Snatched by Hackers For Four Hours

  Posted: January 12th, 2010, 2:09pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Other Search Engines  

  Imagine going to Google.com and seeing that it has been hacked and taken over by hackers? That is what happened to Chinese searchers, with their favorite search engine, Baidu. @mranti snapped a picture of the Baidu home page, when it was hacked:

  The news can be found on Techmeme, but in short, it seems like they took over Baidu's domain name for about four hours. Now, when I go to Baidu.com it redirects me to http://202.108.22.5/, which is a server operated by Baidu.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  What Time Is It In Bangladesh? Google & Yahoo Disagree With Bing & Ask

  Posted: January 8th, 2010, 2:04pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Other Search Engines  

  When you ask someone what time is it, you normally don't have to second guess them. But when it comes to asking Google, Yahoo, Bing or Ask.com what time is it, you have to second guess them.

  If you search [bangladesh time] at the four search engines, you will have Google and Yahoo telling you one time, while Bing.com and Ask.com telling you a different time. Who do you believe?

  Google & Yahoo:

  Bing & Ask.com:

  So who is right?

  Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

  
  

• 

  Do You Compete in PPC Bid Wars?

  Posted: December 21st, 2009, 2:40pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Pay Per Click Engines  

  A WebmasterWorld thread has new discussion around the topic of pay-per-click (PPC) bidding wars. A PPC bidding war is when two or more advertisers want to out bid each other in the search ads in order to either deplete the funds of the competition or to secure a certain position in the search results.

  With the PPC ranking models these days, it is often hard to just compete on price for the top search ad - although it is possible. But bidding wars are somewhat more frequent amongst new advertisers and large brands with large budgets.

  The question I have for you is, do you do this? Do you ever compete in PPC bid wars? I doubt I got all the possible options below, but try to not use the "other" option if possible.

  
  Do You Compete in PPC Bidding Wars?(trends)
  

  Tell your friends and colleagues to take this quick poll.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Naver Launches Closed Beta For Japan Search

  Posted: June 22nd, 2009, 4:24pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Other Search Engines  

  A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion on a closed beta launch of a new Japanese search engine by the very popular South Korean portal, Naver. The search portal can be found at [www.naver.jp] and it is currently a closed beta.

  The early feedback on the new search engine seems positive from what I can tell in the thread. In fact, one member said, "quite positive, and the patented combo SERPS, clean design and cool integrated flash elements seem quite nice." Another said, "Some of beta testers report Naver Japan. It seems to have its original features extisting search engines such as Google and Yahoo! don't have."

  I cannot read the language so, hard for me to translate this review properly. But maybe someone will and post the details in the forum.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Wolfram Alpha : The Real Thing

  Posted: May 4th, 2009, 4:01pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Other Search Engines  

  I cannot tell you how many emails I get from PR companies telling me that the next Google is here. Wolfram Alpha, a "fact engine" might be the closest search engine to meet that criteria and in my opinion, Wolfram Alpha does not compete with Google, but it will be a must use search engine.

  Wolfram Alpha is a "fact engine" as Danny describes at Search Engine Land. Actually, before reading on here, you should first read Danny's review and then come back here.

  I watched the full demo, live, last week and I was honestly blown away. It doesn't replace Google but it does fill a much desired need in the search business. Wolfram can answer your questions with hard cold facts. It is more than a Butler answering questions, it is a whole group of Harvard professors answering your questions with incredible detail and clarity.

  Here is a quick demo of the screen shots of Wolfram Alpha:

  Wolfram comes in and gives searchers something they have been missing. You can search for very specific things in the realm of science, math, geography, demographics, and so on and get not just the answer, but detailed information from real sources. There is really nothing like this out there at this scale.

  A WebmasterWorld thread has some interesting comments from SEOs and webmasters on what Wolfram may have to offer:

  Tedster: "I look forward to what this approach may offer. Wolfram brings fundamental genius on the level of Einstein and Hawking, rather than intelligence at the level of Page and Brin."

  JS Harris: "Wolfram seems to be a different beast, not only is all the knowledge there but it's being analyzed and compared in some ingenious ways."

  But most people in the thread are skeptical for good reason. But we need to think that a search engine does not have to compete with Google to be the next Google. It can fill a new need that has been unfilled in the past. I think Wolfram Alpha will fill that need.

  I personally cannot wait to be able to test the new engine out sometime this month. It is currently not live, but they promised to make it live sometime in May.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Click Fraud Rate Reaches 17.1 Percent

  Posted: January 29th, 2009, 9:02am CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Pay Per Click Engines  

  Click Forensics released their quarterly click fraud report. The click fraud rate increased 1.1 points from 16.0% in Q3 to 17.1% in Q4. Let me explain that not everyone agrees with these numbers and they are someone controversial in nature.

  I normally do not cover these reports here, instead I post them at Search Engine Land, but this one is getting a lot of attention at WebmasterWorld. First, here are the key points:

  - The overall industry average click fraud rate grew to 17.1% for Q4 2008. That’s up from 16.0% in Q3 2008 and from the 16.6% rate reported for Q4 2007.
  - The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 28.2%. That’s up from the 27.1% rate reported for Q3 2008 and down slightly from the 28.3% rate reported for Q4 2007.
  - Traffic from botnets was responsible for 31.4% of all click fraud traffic in Q4 2008. That’s up from the 27.6% rate reported for Q3 2008 and the 22.0% rate reported for Q4 2007.
  - In Q4 2008, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside the U.S. came from Canada (7.4 percent), Germany (3.0 percent) and China (2.3 percent).

  Folks in the WebmasterWorld are taking both sides. Some are of the opinion that this is just going to get worse and others are of the opinion that these reports are false. The discussion may get somewhat heated, but the moderators at WebmasterWorld know how to keep things level headed.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

• 

  Popular Chinese Search Engine, Baidu, To Better Label Search Ads

  Posted: January 12th, 2009, 1:41pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Other Search Engines  

  The Wall Street Journal reported that the very popular chinese search engine, Baidu, will be testing a better labeling and differentiating the paid results from the organic results. The article said, "The company has begun testing a new model for advertising that will place paid advertisements on the right-hand side of its page."

  Over at WebmasterWorld we have some conversation on the news.

  One member feels like Baidu has nothing to lose. He said, "The revenue hit is what has/will prompt changes, not public pressure. Often times public pressure is good, it draws attention and generates income on its own, but when the dollars start to fade it's time to change. I wonder how much of a black eye will linger in a year, if any."

  It is about time, like many of the members think. We will see if it lasts and if it will make a difference in Baidu's ad income.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

• 

  Will PPC Ever Reach a Tipping Point?

  Posted: April 8th, 2008, 4:46pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

  Tags:  Pay Per Click Engines  

  At Search Engine Watch Forums, Discovery talks about how numerous competitors and clients are clicking way too much on PPC ads. The costs are running up and it seems that there's no end in sight. Discovery wonders if there will be an end to PPC as we know it since there are no huge safeguards to prevent costs from going into the negatives.

  It's a question to which forum members don't really know the answer. If nothing at all, it's something you need to look at when you analyze your campaigns. You should check if the ad spend is too substantial and are not receiving conversions. You should consider contacting those who are click-happy or by excluding those who do.

  Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.