Sunday, December 5, 2010
Wikileaks World Diaries, Latest Wikileaks News & Update, Defence Release, War Documents and world news on ibnlive.com
Wikileaks World Diaries, Latest Wikileaks News & Update, Defence Release, War Documents and world news on ibnlive.com: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Global Search Market Grows Tremendously YOY
comScore has released some new numbers for the global search market. The highlight of the findings is that the market draws over 100 billion searches per month.
To be more specific, over 113 billion searches were conducted in July. This is a whopping 41% increase from a year ago. Obviously, Google sites received the bulk of these searches.
Searches on Google sites represented 76.7 billion searches, and 67.5% market share globally. Yahoo sites came in 2nd with 8.9 billion searches (7.8% share), then Baidu with 8 billion searches (7% share).
comScore July Report
"Most of the top search properties worldwide experienced significant growth in search query volume versus last year, with Russian search engine Yandex growing at the fastest rate (94 percent) among the top ten," says comScore.
To me, one of the more interesting points of the data above is that Facebook cracked the top ten. It may not be surprising to everybody, considering that Facebook is rivaling Google these days in terms of unique users, but from the search standpoint, it is definitely worth noting.
Last month, Facebook launched its version of real-time search, by letting users search posts from "everybody". Users can use this feature to find posts about what's happening "right now," just as with Twitter Search. Facebook has a lot more users than Twitter, however, which would account for why we are seeing Facebook in the top ten before Twitter, despite Twitter's punctuality in that area of search.
To be more specific, over 113 billion searches were conducted in July. This is a whopping 41% increase from a year ago. Obviously, Google sites received the bulk of these searches.
Searches on Google sites represented 76.7 billion searches, and 67.5% market share globally. Yahoo sites came in 2nd with 8.9 billion searches (7.8% share), then Baidu with 8 billion searches (7% share).
comScore July Report
"Most of the top search properties worldwide experienced significant growth in search query volume versus last year, with Russian search engine Yandex growing at the fastest rate (94 percent) among the top ten," says comScore.
To me, one of the more interesting points of the data above is that Facebook cracked the top ten. It may not be surprising to everybody, considering that Facebook is rivaling Google these days in terms of unique users, but from the search standpoint, it is definitely worth noting.
Last month, Facebook launched its version of real-time search, by letting users search posts from "everybody". Users can use this feature to find posts about what's happening "right now," just as with Twitter Search. Facebook has a lot more users than Twitter, however, which would account for why we are seeing Facebook in the top ten before Twitter, despite Twitter's punctuality in that area of search.
Google Launches New Features for Sites
Google has introduced some new features to Google Sites, the company's web site creation and publishing app. The new features were made to make it easier for users to copy their site, and use more options to search and announce updates.
Google Sites now allows users to copy entire sites. You can do this by simply going to "Manage Site," then "General," and "Copy Site."
The "recent announcement" gadget received an upgrade, which gives users control over how much text is shown in the post summary. You can show full post content, and/or a thumbnail of the first photo in the post.
Users also now have more control over the search box. If you go to "Manage Site," "Site Layout," and "Configure Search," you can configure search across multiple site, so you can unify them.
"Businesses and schools using Google Apps can configure it to search across all sites in their domains, which is useful for an intranet site," says software engineer Russ Vrolyk. "External search providers can also be used such as a Custom Search Engine or a Google Search Appliance."
With Google Sites search boxes, users can search across the sites' content as well as attachments. Users can search across multiple sites, the entire domain, using a custom search engine, and/or using a Google Search Appliance.
Google Sites now allows users to copy entire sites. You can do this by simply going to "Manage Site," then "General," and "Copy Site."
The "recent announcement" gadget received an upgrade, which gives users control over how much text is shown in the post summary. You can show full post content, and/or a thumbnail of the first photo in the post.
Users also now have more control over the search box. If you go to "Manage Site," "Site Layout," and "Configure Search," you can configure search across multiple site, so you can unify them.
"Businesses and schools using Google Apps can configure it to search across all sites in their domains, which is useful for an intranet site," says software engineer Russ Vrolyk. "External search providers can also be used such as a Custom Search Engine or a Google Search Appliance."
With Google Sites search boxes, users can search across the sites' content as well as attachments. Users can search across multiple sites, the entire domain, using a custom search engine, and/or using a Google Search Appliance.
Is PageRank Affected by Google Links?
In the latest Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel upload from Matt Cutts, he talks about whether or not Google places value on its own links with regards to Pagerank. Cutts took on the following user question:
Question: Does Google value its own links for PR/Linkjuice? Google Bookmarks, Google Profiles, etc. Reason - Google links never appear in Webmaster Tools.
Cutts says he doesn't know about whether Google links never appear in Webmaster Tools, but in general, people hold Google to a very high standard. He gives the example that if Google delivers search results that aren't blocked by robots.txt, people find out about it and draw a lot of attention to it, whether that be by blogging or forums, or whatever.
"We try to be relatively careful," says Cutts.
With search results, Google tries to make sure they're properties aren't too spammable, and if they are worried that something might be potentially abused, they will often use a nofollow attribute.
Cutts says with Google Knol, most of the external links started out as nofollow, but then over time as they learned which Knol authors were more trustworthy, they lifted the nofollow on those Knol authors.
"Sometimes we do flow pagerank, but we try to be relatively careful because we're mindful of the people who do try to abuse it," he says.
Google has a lot of properties, and this might not answer everybody's questions on the subject, but I would bet that the trust factor mentioned with regards to Google Knol, could probably be applied to other products.
Question: Does Google value its own links for PR/Linkjuice? Google Bookmarks, Google Profiles, etc. Reason - Google links never appear in Webmaster Tools.
Cutts says he doesn't know about whether Google links never appear in Webmaster Tools, but in general, people hold Google to a very high standard. He gives the example that if Google delivers search results that aren't blocked by robots.txt, people find out about it and draw a lot of attention to it, whether that be by blogging or forums, or whatever.
"We try to be relatively careful," says Cutts.
With search results, Google tries to make sure they're properties aren't too spammable, and if they are worried that something might be potentially abused, they will often use a nofollow attribute.
Cutts says with Google Knol, most of the external links started out as nofollow, but then over time as they learned which Knol authors were more trustworthy, they lifted the nofollow on those Knol authors.
"Sometimes we do flow pagerank, but we try to be relatively careful because we're mindful of the people who do try to abuse it," he says.
Google has a lot of properties, and this might not answer everybody's questions on the subject, but I would bet that the trust factor mentioned with regards to Google Knol, could probably be applied to other products.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
AOL Taps Arthur Minson As CFO
AOL has named Arthur Minson as the company's new Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
Minson replaces Nisha Kumar, who left AOL earlier this summer. Minson was previously with Time Warner Cable, where he served as Executive Vice President and Deputy CFO and had a hand in helping manage that division's separation from Time Warner. Prior to his role at Time Warner Cable, Minson led AOL's Corporate Finance and Development activities.
"We're delighted to have Artie back at AOL as we continue our transition to an independent public company," said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.
"Artie's strong financial acumen, operating experience, and deep understanding of our company and the Internet and content industries make him a perfect fit for AOL. He's also a public company veteran who helped handle Time Warner Cable's transition to a public company. Artie will hit the ground running and be a tremendous asset to AOL as we focus on driving growth, value and innovation."
In his new role, Minson will oversee the company's financial functions including accounting, financial planning and analysis, tax, treasury, human resources, mergers and acquisitions, and internal audit. Minson will be headquartered in New York City and will begin at AOL on September 8.
"AOL has an incredible collection of assets, and Tim has set the company on the right strategic course," said Minson.
"I look forward to working with Tim and the entire AOL organization to help maximize the financial and operating performance of these assets and their value for investors."
Minson replaces Nisha Kumar, who left AOL earlier this summer. Minson was previously with Time Warner Cable, where he served as Executive Vice President and Deputy CFO and had a hand in helping manage that division's separation from Time Warner. Prior to his role at Time Warner Cable, Minson led AOL's Corporate Finance and Development activities.
"We're delighted to have Artie back at AOL as we continue our transition to an independent public company," said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.
"Artie's strong financial acumen, operating experience, and deep understanding of our company and the Internet and content industries make him a perfect fit for AOL. He's also a public company veteran who helped handle Time Warner Cable's transition to a public company. Artie will hit the ground running and be a tremendous asset to AOL as we focus on driving growth, value and innovation."
In his new role, Minson will oversee the company's financial functions including accounting, financial planning and analysis, tax, treasury, human resources, mergers and acquisitions, and internal audit. Minson will be headquartered in New York City and will begin at AOL on September 8.
"AOL has an incredible collection of assets, and Tim has set the company on the right strategic course," said Minson.
"I look forward to working with Tim and the entire AOL organization to help maximize the financial and operating performance of these assets and their value for investors."
Matt Cutts Talks Video Universal Search Ranking
As you may know, Google's Matt Cutts frequently answers user questions by posting videos to the Google Webmaster Central YouTube channel, and the latest one he tackled has to do with videos ranking for universal search on Google. Here is the question that Cutts received:
What factors influence a video universal result in Google? I have the same video - one on YouTube with high views, comments and ratings, yet the other one with low views and no comments is the one that ranks - why is this?
Cutts says that his first guess without knowing the specifics is that maybe the ranking video received links from a very reputable site, so it has more pagerank.
"We still do look at links. We still do look at pagerank whenever we're trying to rank things," says Cutts. "So if this is the one that happened to get written up in a very sort of reputable location, then it couple be that this one has more pagerank and that's why it outranks it."
Cutts says it's strange, because if the other video is getting the comments, and the high views and ratings, then it must be getting some good word of mouth from somewhere, but perhaps it's just not getting the links from reputable sources that the other one is.
The factors that influence a video universal result are often similar to factors that influence web search, according to Cutts. This means things like how well Google thinks a certain result will match in terms of topicality, and the reputation of a page are taken into consideration. Links can play a significant role in that.
What factors influence a video universal result in Google? I have the same video - one on YouTube with high views, comments and ratings, yet the other one with low views and no comments is the one that ranks - why is this?
Cutts says that his first guess without knowing the specifics is that maybe the ranking video received links from a very reputable site, so it has more pagerank.
"We still do look at links. We still do look at pagerank whenever we're trying to rank things," says Cutts. "So if this is the one that happened to get written up in a very sort of reputable location, then it couple be that this one has more pagerank and that's why it outranks it."
Cutts says it's strange, because if the other video is getting the comments, and the high views and ratings, then it must be getting some good word of mouth from somewhere, but perhaps it's just not getting the links from reputable sources that the other one is.
The factors that influence a video universal result are often similar to factors that influence web search, according to Cutts. This means things like how well Google thinks a certain result will match in terms of topicality, and the reputation of a page are taken into consideration. Links can play a significant role in that.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Website Related Hackers and Malware Getting Smarter
Any legitimate website owners worst nightmare is to have their website hacked or used as a platform for serving malware (spyware, trojans, keyloggers, packet sniffers, etc). Luckily not only do hacking methods evolve but so does protection and safe guys such as StopBadge and Google's website warning integration into the result set (actual message displayed under the result is "This site may harm your computer"). But every so often hackers get a little more unique in there tactics.
Today when visting the XXCOPY website (XXCOPY is a utility similar to XCOPY originally by Microsoft that extends the functionality with over 200 functions!) I ran into one of these issues. If you go directly to XXCOPY's website www.xxcopy.com there is no issue, however if you Google the phrase XXCOPY and then click on the result you may, or may not get one of the "Reported Attack Site!" message in Firefox (Firefox has the best anti Malware detection scripts).
After discovering this issue I called one of the reps at XXCOPY who proceeded to tell me that the issue was purely on my computer (talk about a slap in the face to a hardcore techie), and that he couldn't replicate the issue so it must not exist. Digging further into the issue I soon realized that I was being redirected intermittently over to kb971657 (dot )info (most likely originally setup so people Google this particular Microsoft Knowledge Base article would land on their website), but not every time. In fact it took me 10 tries at one point to replicate the issue (clicking on the XXCopy SERP result, then clicking back and clicking it again).
By adding this seeming randomness to the malware redirection, as well as detection of referring page (Google in my case) it made it harder for the company to detect as going directly to XXCopy.com worked every time. My assumption would be that this Malware is using some sort of form of detection and cloaking. Unlike blackhat cloaking it is hiding content from the search engine, and only showing it when it meets certain conditions (ie the visitors comes from Google or some other website, and then it does some sort of random number check that meets a secondary condition). Hopefully XXCopy gets this issue sorted out.
Today when visting the XXCOPY website (XXCOPY is a utility similar to XCOPY originally by Microsoft that extends the functionality with over 200 functions!) I ran into one of these issues. If you go directly to XXCOPY's website www.xxcopy.com there is no issue, however if you Google the phrase XXCOPY and then click on the result you may, or may not get one of the "Reported Attack Site!" message in Firefox (Firefox has the best anti Malware detection scripts).
After discovering this issue I called one of the reps at XXCOPY who proceeded to tell me that the issue was purely on my computer (talk about a slap in the face to a hardcore techie), and that he couldn't replicate the issue so it must not exist. Digging further into the issue I soon realized that I was being redirected intermittently over to kb971657 (dot )info (most likely originally setup so people Google this particular Microsoft Knowledge Base article would land on their website), but not every time. In fact it took me 10 tries at one point to replicate the issue (clicking on the XXCopy SERP result, then clicking back and clicking it again).
By adding this seeming randomness to the malware redirection, as well as detection of referring page (Google in my case) it made it harder for the company to detect as going directly to XXCopy.com worked every time. My assumption would be that this Malware is using some sort of form of detection and cloaking. Unlike blackhat cloaking it is hiding content from the search engine, and only showing it when it meets certain conditions (ie the visitors comes from Google or some other website, and then it does some sort of random number check that meets a secondary condition). Hopefully XXCopy gets this issue sorted out.
Poor Customer Service Holding Back E-Commerce Sales
Decisions Affected by Lack of Human Assistance
Earlier this month comScore released its Q2 retail e-commerce sales estimates, which indicated that US online retail spending dropped from the same period from last year. This is only the second time that has happened.
Sure, you have to take the economy into consideration, but there are other factors that can keep people from making purchases online. A new poll from Harris Interactive found that a lack of human assistance is one of those factors, and a big one at that.
Here are some interesting findings from that poll:
The following graph shows some of the types of items people really want human assistance with before making purchasing decisions.
While it is a good idea to make the online purchase as easy on your customers as possible, from simply the design and usability standpoint, you may consider whether or not you are offering enough human assistance, and how easy that is for the customer to obtain.
Earlier this month comScore released its Q2 retail e-commerce sales estimates, which indicated that US online retail spending dropped from the same period from last year. This is only the second time that has happened.
Sure, you have to take the economy into consideration, but there are other factors that can keep people from making purchases online. A new poll from Harris Interactive found that a lack of human assistance is one of those factors, and a big one at that.
Here are some interesting findings from that poll:
- 4 in 5 online adults who have purchased items online in the last six months (77%) say they would be interested in getting help from a real person before making certain online purchases.Just look at the following graphs:
- However, over 4 in 5 (82%) say there have been times when they have not been able to get help from a real person.
- Over half (52%) of those who haven't been able to get the help they needed from a real person say it's affected their decision to not purchase the product.
The following graph shows some of the types of items people really want human assistance with before making purchasing decisions.
While it is a good idea to make the online purchase as easy on your customers as possible, from simply the design and usability standpoint, you may consider whether or not you are offering enough human assistance, and how easy that is for the customer to obtain.
Blog Comments Going Real Time?
Comments on blogs posts and articles have in the past generally been a good measurement of how people have engaged with content, but as the web becomes more social and "real-time," the conversation is going all over the place, and there are other ways that people are engaging in conversation about content (this is why shareability is so important by the way).
You see it on Twitter and on Facebook. You see it On Digg, on FriendFeed, etc. People are still commenting on blogs, but they're not always choosing the blog comments section as their venue for furthering the discussion. This is why you see other buttons on content sites like the Digg button displaying the number of Diggs a story has, or the Tweetmeme button displaying the number of retweets.
These types of things offer just a bit more of an idea of how much a story is being discussed, but they're not perfect. Nothing is. It’s hard to bring all of the engagement that stems from a piece of content back to the home base of that content itself.
Now we're starting to see things like real-time commenting. Robert Scoble talks about this and how it could piss off blogggers...at first. Disqus has such a feature, and it essentially lets users comment and "chat" without having to reload the page, as Scoble points out. This means less page views, which could translate into less advertisers for publishers/bloggers.
There is potential for increased engagement though, which means more time spent on the site. "Overall we’ve seen the time spent on page increase about 3x," Scoble says of his Building 43 site.
"Which shows we need a new way to get paid for advertising," he continues. "No longer is refreshing the page important. That’s the old way of paying for advertising. The new way? How much engagement you have on the page."
I would suggest that we might see trends catering to a mixture of both page views and engagement levels. Engagement is very much a significant part of the equation these days, and a growing part at that. I wouldn't shoot down the relevancy of a page view, however. Some people still like to read without talking.
You see it on Twitter and on Facebook. You see it On Digg, on FriendFeed, etc. People are still commenting on blogs, but they're not always choosing the blog comments section as their venue for furthering the discussion. This is why you see other buttons on content sites like the Digg button displaying the number of Diggs a story has, or the Tweetmeme button displaying the number of retweets.
These types of things offer just a bit more of an idea of how much a story is being discussed, but they're not perfect. Nothing is. It’s hard to bring all of the engagement that stems from a piece of content back to the home base of that content itself.
Now we're starting to see things like real-time commenting. Robert Scoble talks about this and how it could piss off blogggers...at first. Disqus has such a feature, and it essentially lets users comment and "chat" without having to reload the page, as Scoble points out. This means less page views, which could translate into less advertisers for publishers/bloggers.
There is potential for increased engagement though, which means more time spent on the site. "Overall we’ve seen the time spent on page increase about 3x," Scoble says of his Building 43 site.
"Which shows we need a new way to get paid for advertising," he continues. "No longer is refreshing the page important. That’s the old way of paying for advertising. The new way? How much engagement you have on the page."
I would suggest that we might see trends catering to a mixture of both page views and engagement levels. Engagement is very much a significant part of the equation these days, and a growing part at that. I wouldn't shoot down the relevancy of a page view, however. Some people still like to read without talking.
Executives See Value And Danger In Social Media
Social media has become a common communication tool in the U.S., driven by the fact that Americans' time on social networking sites has increased by 73 percent in the past year, according to a new survey from Minneapolis-based Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law.
When it comes to using social media in a corporate setting, fifty-one percent of executives surveyed said they fear social media could reduce employee productivity, while 49 percent said that using social media could damage a company's reputation.
While executives are concerned about social media, they also see value in it, with 81 percent saying social media can improve customer relations and build their brands. Nearly 70 percent feel social networking can be valuable in recruitment (69%), as a customer service tool (64%) and used to improve employee morale (46%).
The majority (74%) of executives said they visit social media sites at least weekly to read what customers are saying company, while 47 percent routinely monitor competitor's use of social networking. Over a third (36%) search social media sites to see what their employees are sharing and 25 percent use social networking to check the background of a potential employee.
"Social media is a far different animal than traditional technology, so a company's current policies on IT matters are usually not sufficient," said David Baer, President, Ethos.
"And remember, all companies are different, thus the rules for defining and implementing a social media policy are not universal. They must take into consideration the form, substance, philosophy and culture of the organization."
When it comes to using social media in a corporate setting, fifty-one percent of executives surveyed said they fear social media could reduce employee productivity, while 49 percent said that using social media could damage a company's reputation.
While executives are concerned about social media, they also see value in it, with 81 percent saying social media can improve customer relations and build their brands. Nearly 70 percent feel social networking can be valuable in recruitment (69%), as a customer service tool (64%) and used to improve employee morale (46%).
The majority (74%) of executives said they visit social media sites at least weekly to read what customers are saying company, while 47 percent routinely monitor competitor's use of social networking. Over a third (36%) search social media sites to see what their employees are sharing and 25 percent use social networking to check the background of a potential employee.
"Social media is a far different animal than traditional technology, so a company's current policies on IT matters are usually not sufficient," said David Baer, President, Ethos.
"And remember, all companies are different, thus the rules for defining and implementing a social media policy are not universal. They must take into consideration the form, substance, philosophy and culture of the organization."
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Social Networks Leaking Users Data To Tracking Sites
Many popular social networking sites typically make personal information available to companies that track users' browsing habits and allow them to link anonymous browsing habits to specific people, according to a new study by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).
"When you sign up with a social networking site, you are assigned a unique identifier," says Craig Wills, professor of computer science at WPI.
"This is a string of numbers or characters that points to your profile. We found that when social networking sites pass information to tracking sites about your activities, they often include this unique identifier. So now a tracking site not only has a profile of your Web browsing activities, it can link that profile to the personal information you post on the social networking site. Now your browsing profile is not just of somebody, it is of you."
Social networks use third-party tracking sites to learn about the browsing habits of their users. Cookies are managed by a browser and contain information that allows tracking sites to build profiles of the websites visited by a user. Each time a user visits a new website, the tracking site can review those cookies to offer ads that might be relevant to the user.
Wills says social networks go to far by allowing the transmission of unique identifiers. "Users put a lot of information about themselves on social networking sites," said Wills.
"A lot of that information can be seen by other users, by default. There are mechanisms users can use to limit access to their information, but we found through previous research that most users don't take advantage of them."
With a unique identifier tracking sites could gain access to a users personal information. Wills says this could lead to having one's identity linked to inaccurate browsing profiles, depending on how many people use the same computer.
"Tracking sites don't have the ability to know if, for example, a site about cancer was visited out of curiosity, or because the user actually has cancer," said Wills. "Profiling is worrisome on its own, but inaccurate profiling could potentially lead to issues with employment, health care coverage, or other areas of our personal lives."
"Once someone is in possession of your unique identifier, there is so much they can learn about you. And even if tracking sites do not use the information themselves, can they guarantee that it will never find its way into other hands? For these reasons, we feel this issue is something that we should to be concerned about."
"When you sign up with a social networking site, you are assigned a unique identifier," says Craig Wills, professor of computer science at WPI.
"This is a string of numbers or characters that points to your profile. We found that when social networking sites pass information to tracking sites about your activities, they often include this unique identifier. So now a tracking site not only has a profile of your Web browsing activities, it can link that profile to the personal information you post on the social networking site. Now your browsing profile is not just of somebody, it is of you."
Social networks use third-party tracking sites to learn about the browsing habits of their users. Cookies are managed by a browser and contain information that allows tracking sites to build profiles of the websites visited by a user. Each time a user visits a new website, the tracking site can review those cookies to offer ads that might be relevant to the user.
Wills says social networks go to far by allowing the transmission of unique identifiers. "Users put a lot of information about themselves on social networking sites," said Wills.
"A lot of that information can be seen by other users, by default. There are mechanisms users can use to limit access to their information, but we found through previous research that most users don't take advantage of them."
With a unique identifier tracking sites could gain access to a users personal information. Wills says this could lead to having one's identity linked to inaccurate browsing profiles, depending on how many people use the same computer.
"Tracking sites don't have the ability to know if, for example, a site about cancer was visited out of curiosity, or because the user actually has cancer," said Wills. "Profiling is worrisome on its own, but inaccurate profiling could potentially lead to issues with employment, health care coverage, or other areas of our personal lives."
"Once someone is in possession of your unique identifier, there is so much they can learn about you. And even if tracking sites do not use the information themselves, can they guarantee that it will never find its way into other hands? For these reasons, we feel this issue is something that we should to be concerned about."
Google Caffeine: A Detailed Test of the New Google
Did you hear? Google’s launching a new, upgraded version of its search engine soon. And just as important, the search giant released the developer’s preview of it today. Google promises that the new search tool (codename “Caffeine”) will improve the speed, accuracy, size, and comprehensiveness of Google search.
While the developer version is a pre-beta release, it’s completely usable. Thus, we’ve decided to put the new Google search through the wringer. We took the developer version for a spin and compared it to not only the current version of Google Search , but to Bing as well.
The categories we tested the new search engine on are as follows: speed, accuracy, temporal relevancy, and index size. Here’s how we define those:
Speed: How fast can the new search engine load results?
Accuracy: Which set of results is more accurate to the search term?
Temporal Relevancy: Is one version of search better at capturing breaking news?
Index Size: Is it really more comprehensive than the last version of Google?
So without further ado, here’s the test:
1. Speed
The first category is incredibly important. How fast do these Google search results come at you anyway? Even a tenth of a second can mean millions for the search company as the longer it takes the load, the more likely someone will go look for results somewhere else.
So how fast is the new search? Lightning fast. As you probably know, Google tells you how long it takes to load results. We tried a few search terms, starting with “Dog.” Here’s the speed result:
Compare that to the original Google search:
0.12 vs. 0.25 seconds? They doubled the speed! That’s tremendous. We tried it with a variety of search terms (”The end of the universe is not here,” “There is no way that you cannot find ben parr. He is hiding back behind the tv,” “FriendFeed ,” etc.), and in every instance, the new Google won.
The only potential weak spot was when we added search commands like quotes, subtraction signs, and more. In this case, it was a 50/50 shot as to which Google search was faster.
As for comparing it to Bing: Well, they don’t display how fast it generates results. It’ll have to sit out this speed test for now.
Winner: The New Google
2. Accuracy
While more subjective, accuracy is probably the issue that users care about most. Does the search engine find what you want on the first try? Well, we did our subjective test. New version:
You’ll notice that many of the blended search options, like image search and news, don’t appear in the new version. It’s more likely that the features haven’t all been implemented, but it does decrease its relevancy. FriendFeed ranks much higher in the new search than Twitter or Facebook. Our bet is that the new Google has seen a burst of activity on FriendFeed and thus pushes up that result.
Both sets are very accurate, but subjectively, the set displayed by the new Google search more accurately reflect what a user would be looking for. If you’re wondering about Bing, it didn’t even bring up my personal website.
Winner: The New Google (tentatively)
3. Temporal Relevancy
How good is each at breaking news? The answer: about the same. FriendFeed results were identical, including the top news items. Searches for “Hall of Fame Game” got better news results on the new search. A search for “China Landslide” also got the same Yahoo and BBC news articles – although we did notice that the new search seems to change faster with new articles. It put an MSNBC article up high for updating the death toll:
We also give credit to Bing – on each search, it brought up great results.
Winner: Draw
4. Index Size:
Perhaps the easiest to test, we can tell the index size based on how many results come up for specific search. Here are searches once again for “dog:”
New:
Old:
Bing:
Searches for “Ben Parr” proved that the new Google is better than the old Google in terms of result size. Bing claims 2,210,000 for my name compared to 183,000 for my name, which is strange. Searches for “Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland Trailer” also show Bing > New Google > Old Google
Winner: Bing, it seems
Conclusion
While this test was nowhere near scientific, we do have some solid takeaways:
New Google is FAST: It often doubled the speed of Google classic.
New Google relies more on keywords: SEO professionals, your job just got a lot harder. The algorithm’s definitely different. It has more reliance on keyword strings to produce better results.
It’s partially a response to Bing: At least, that’s how we feel. This new search has a focus on increasing speed, relevancy, accuracy, and the index volume, things that Microsoft really hit on when it released Bing. It feels as if Google “Caffeine” is meant to shore up any deficiencies it may have when compared to Microsoft’s offering, though it’s been in the works long before Bing launched.
The new Google will only get better as features are implemented and developed. The end result is a better search experience for the user. Competition really does breed innovation.
Rank in Image Searches and Get Valuable, Untapped Traffic
Why and How to Rank in Image Searches
One aspect of search that doesn't get discussed often enough is image search. It's such a huge part of search and the daily habits of web surfers all over the world, it's amazing how little attention is actually paid to it when it comes to marketing and optimization. Have tips for optimizing for image search? Share them here.
Google Director of Product Management R.J. Pittman dropped some facts at SES. 300 million digital photos are taken every day. 100 billion images are taken per year. There were half a trillion images in circulation by 2009. That's the past up to the present. Do you think it's going to slow down? Pittman says there were 800 million camera phones sold last year, and there may be more images online than web pages.
Eric EngeOn Google there are hundreds of millions of image searches every day. Eric Enge, President of Stone Temple Consulting says that image search makes up about 5.7% of all Google searches. "We estimate that up to 15% of all search is image related," he says.
Why Image Search is So Important
If the above information wasn't enough to convince you of the importance of image search, consider this. When images appear in blended search results (such as Google's universal search), the images affect what is clicked on the results page. Enge says an eye tracking study proved this, but it makes perfect sense if you think about it. The image is obviously going to catch your eye, regardless if it's the top result or the 5th.
Todd Schwartz Todd Schwartz, Group Product Manager for Bing says that engagement is quite high when it comes to image search. Consumers looking for images also end up visiting a lot of web pages. In many cases, images can simply speed up the decision process on the consumer's part. You can see why this would be effective in eCommerce. "When users are expecting images in a search session it actually increases the speed of a searchers task," says Schwartz. "Images simply speed decision making." He would know. Bing is the "decision engine."
Tips for ranking in Image Search
In a post about ranking in "five other Google engines," I cited some tips from Search Engine Journal's Dev Basu, who recommended the following for image SEO:
- Add images to your Google Local Business profile
- Enable Google Image Labeler in your Google Webmaster Tools account.
- Add images to local business citation sources.
- Add images to blog posts or news articles for syndication in Google news.
More video about this Click here
One aspect of search that doesn't get discussed often enough is image search. It's such a huge part of search and the daily habits of web surfers all over the world, it's amazing how little attention is actually paid to it when it comes to marketing and optimization. Have tips for optimizing for image search? Share them here.
Google Director of Product Management R.J. Pittman dropped some facts at SES. 300 million digital photos are taken every day. 100 billion images are taken per year. There were half a trillion images in circulation by 2009. That's the past up to the present. Do you think it's going to slow down? Pittman says there were 800 million camera phones sold last year, and there may be more images online than web pages.
Eric EngeOn Google there are hundreds of millions of image searches every day. Eric Enge, President of Stone Temple Consulting says that image search makes up about 5.7% of all Google searches. "We estimate that up to 15% of all search is image related," he says.
Why Image Search is So Important
If the above information wasn't enough to convince you of the importance of image search, consider this. When images appear in blended search results (such as Google's universal search), the images affect what is clicked on the results page. Enge says an eye tracking study proved this, but it makes perfect sense if you think about it. The image is obviously going to catch your eye, regardless if it's the top result or the 5th.
Todd Schwartz Todd Schwartz, Group Product Manager for Bing says that engagement is quite high when it comes to image search. Consumers looking for images also end up visiting a lot of web pages. In many cases, images can simply speed up the decision process on the consumer's part. You can see why this would be effective in eCommerce. "When users are expecting images in a search session it actually increases the speed of a searchers task," says Schwartz. "Images simply speed decision making." He would know. Bing is the "decision engine."
Tips for ranking in Image Search
In a post about ranking in "five other Google engines," I cited some tips from Search Engine Journal's Dev Basu, who recommended the following for image SEO:
- Add images to your Google Local Business profile
- Enable Google Image Labeler in your Google Webmaster Tools account.
- Add images to local business citation sources.
- Add images to blog posts or news articles for syndication in Google news.
More video about this Click here
Google Testing Breadcrumb Display in SERPs
Breadcrumbs Spotted in Random Search Results
Google appears to be testing breadcrumbs in some search results, at least in some areas. If you are unfamiliar with the term breadcrumbs, it refers to the hierarchical display commonly used in site navigation.
Several bloggers have noticed Google displaying these types of breadcrumbs in various places in seemingly random results to some queries. For example, Rob Hammond
Google's use of breadcrumbs appears to only be a test, and a limited one at that. Google has talked repeatedly about sites having good site architecture in the past. This allows Google to more easily and quickly crawl sites.
Bing acknowledges this too. Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center recently said, "You can have great content and a plethora of high quality inbound links from authority sites, but if your site’s structure is flawed or broken, then it will still not achieve the optimal page rank you desire from search engines."
Here are some tips from both Google and Bing regarding site architecture issues. In addition, Google recently provided this related information on getting your site crawled faster.
If Google begins incorporating the breadcrumbs display as in the above tests, on a mainstream level, that will be all the more reason to clean your site architecture up, at least in the navigation area. Site architecture certainly goes beyond this, but it is a key part of usability anyway.
Google appears to be testing breadcrumbs in some search results, at least in some areas. If you are unfamiliar with the term breadcrumbs, it refers to the hierarchical display commonly used in site navigation.
Several bloggers have noticed Google displaying these types of breadcrumbs in various places in seemingly random results to some queries. For example, Rob Hammond
Google's use of breadcrumbs appears to only be a test, and a limited one at that. Google has talked repeatedly about sites having good site architecture in the past. This allows Google to more easily and quickly crawl sites.
Bing acknowledges this too. Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center recently said, "You can have great content and a plethora of high quality inbound links from authority sites, but if your site’s structure is flawed or broken, then it will still not achieve the optimal page rank you desire from search engines."
Here are some tips from both Google and Bing regarding site architecture issues. In addition, Google recently provided this related information on getting your site crawled faster.
If Google begins incorporating the breadcrumbs display as in the above tests, on a mainstream level, that will be all the more reason to clean your site architecture up, at least in the navigation area. Site architecture certainly goes beyond this, but it is a key part of usability anyway.
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