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The Obligatory Year End Review

8
December
2009

Santa’s not the only one making lists.

Stefanie Berliant
Client Services Manager

It’s the end of the year and you know what that means: Top ten lists and year in reviews!  What’s more is that we have survived the first decade of Y2K!  Most of the top 10 lists include new developments in technologies, and the people that created them, including Twitter, Google, Facebook, DVR, and Wii.  Whether you love or hate these advances, they have made a significant impact in our lives in 2009. Categories got as specific as top 10 YouTube videos and best Tweets of 2009.  Our nation has clearly accepted social networking and microblogging as part of mainstream life. Additionally all the major search engines have released their top 10 searches for 2009.  The topics that had people talking (and searching) include Michael Jackson, swine flu, Twilight, Lady Gaga, and cash for clunkers.  As I scroll through these lists and reflect on this year, I find myself intrigued on what the nation has picked as significant events/people/technologies and can’t wait to see how thoughts change next year.

Check out the lists below to see what made the cut!

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Tim Tebow’s Effect On Google

7
December
2009

Florida Gators’ starting quarterback Tim Tebow writes a bible verse on his face before each game which often becomes one of the most searched terms on Google.

Ryan Moss
Senior Sales Representative

For the past four years before Tim Tebow took the football field for the University of the Florida, the quarterback would select a bible verse and write it on black patches that he placed below his eyes. Each week the verse changed and as Tebow’s popularity on and off the football field grew, so did the popularity of the verses he selected.

This past Saturday Florida played Alabama in the SEC Championship and Tebow chose "John 16:33." The game didn’t start till 4 PM EST, but by the time Saturday ended "John 16:33" was the most searched term of the day on Google according to Google Trends.

This isn’t the first time that Tebow’s bible verse has been the most searched term of the day. It also happened back on January 8th when the Florida Gators won the BCS National Championship with Tebow wearing "John 3:16". The bible verse was the top search term the day of the game and ranked as the 6th most popular search term the day after the game.

Also, it’s not just big games that lead to Tebow’s bible verse being so popular. Five other times this season his bible verses have ranked in the top 30 search terms for that day, including three times in the top 10. His selections have included "Romans 8:28", "Hebrews 12: 1-2" and "Thessalonians 5:18".

It’s amazing to think what kind of influence the writings on one football players face can have on what people are searching for. Granted that Tebow is one of the best college football players of all time and extremely popular among both supporters and haters, but his impact on the "search world" is truly incredible.

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Twitter Inside Google & Microsoft? It may happen…

8
October
2009

Twitter is in advanced talks with Google and Microsoft about licensing its data feed to the companies’ search engines.

George Assimakopoulos
Principal Manager

Reuters reported today that Twitter is having separate discussions with Google and with Microsoft on allowing each company to incorporate the 140-character messages or "tweets" into their Internet search results.  For those of us that really understand SEO – this could have a profound impact on the value of social media and search. Imagine all of the tweet content now being indexed and placed on SERPs (search engine results pages). This could change everything!

For about a year now, I have been asked by most of my clients "…why should we tweet?" In other words, they are questioning the value of being a business that leverages Twitter. First of all, by properly leveraging Twitter businesses will ensure that their blog posts, articles, and press release pages are more widely circulated and linked to onthe web. This IMPROVES the relevance of a website to search engines thus ranking them higher. What becomes equally valuable is that searchers will be able to cut through the flood of tweets to get to the posts that are most relevant to them. (hooray!)

So, I totally get why Google is talking to Twitter – and why Twitter is talking to Microsoft. One question though…where is YAHOO in all of this dialog? To read the Reuters report on this – CLICK HERE.

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Yahoo’s Definition of Innovation: Redesign

21
July
2009

Yahoo to launch a new hompage format today.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

With the launch of Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, Google continuing to dominate the world along with Facebook and Twitter, Yahoo has decided in order to keep up with the Joneses, they should give their homepage a makeover.

This redesign has been in the works for a while and was scheduled to be released in the fall of 2009.  But as luck (aka overtime) would have it, the new look will be revealed today.  Forgive me for my lack of excitement; I feel that redesigning a website is about the least innovative thing a company as powerful as Yahoo could do.

But maybe I am speaking too soon.  What Yahoo has in store with this redesign is to make it an "internet gateway," retooling the left hand navigation bar to allow for widgets and apps like Facebook.  The user can mouse over these plug-ins and access these apps without leaving Yahoo.com.  And of course, the new look would not be complete without a contextual ad unit within the expandable window.  This feature can also be synched with mobile devices.

Yes, Yahoo’s current homepage is not the prettiest to look at; I would agree that a makeover is much needed.  But will it give Yahoo the boost they are looking for?  Doubt it.

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The End of the Road for the Old AdWords’ Interface

25
June
2009

Google is rumored to permanently implement its new AdWords Interface by month’s end.

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

If I were to say what program I spend the most time with here at EyeTraffic Media, it would definitely be AdWords.  Well, maybe an even tie with Google Analytics.  As people, we are creatures of familiarity and when change occurs, we can be naturally opposed.  This is what occurred when I realized I would need to become completely reacquainted with the new AdWords interface.  Each time I signed into our account, I would switch to the previous interface, avoiding getting used to the new one.  Finally though, I decided it was time to figure out what all the hype was about.  Before we know it, the old interface will be gone and maybe, just maybe, the new one will actually help us be more efficient than the existing tool we curse daily.  Are you ready for the switch?

What I found very useful were the videos listed at the Google AdWords Help Center.  I would recommend watching each of these to learn about the new features they are offering.  The new interface is said to help advertisers be more efficient when making bid/keyword changes, navigating the account, visualizing performance across multiple metrics and with optimization.  I believe the following system improvements will make our lives a lot easier:

- Not having to wait for a page to reload everytime a change is made

- The “account tree” performance view, that allows you to view the entire account segmented by campaigns, adgroups OR keywords, rather than having to click-through results at the campaign level only.

- Search query reports easily pulled within AdWords to identify irrelevant keywords that are draining budget or not converting.  This tool will help immensely when spends are tight and the need is high for finding ways to cut back in order to increase bids elsewhere.

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Google News Gets Paid Advertisements

26
February
2009

Array

Keith Vera

Account Manager

Google made good on their promise in November to bring paid advertisements to some of their vertical search engines. Yesterday, Google launched paid advertisements on the Google News search-results pages in the United States.

Google News

This launch comes on the heels of similar testing and launches across other Google properties including Image Search, Finance, and sponsored videos on YouTube.

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Cuil: Better Than Google?

30
July
2008

Former Google employees create their own search engine which could reduce Google’s market share.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

According to ComScore, an online measurement company, in May 2008 Google held a 62% share of the U.S. search market followed by Yahoo at 21% and Microsoft at 8.5%. This month, another search engine, Cuil, joined the list of Google competitors which also includes Teoma (whose technology is used by Ask.com), Vivisimo, Snap, Mahalo and, most recently, Powerset, which was acquired by Microsoft this month. What gives Cuil an edge over all the other competition is that it was created by Anna Patterson, Russell Power and Louis Monier, all former Google engineers.  

Patterson built and sold a search index that probed old websites for the internet archive to Google in 2004. Patterson and Power worked together on the same team at Google. Monier was the former chief technology officer of AltaVista, the best search engine before Google launched in 1998. Monier also helped build the search engine on eBay’s online auction site. This group is also teaming up with Tom Costello, who built a once-promising search engine called Xift in the late 1990s. Costello later joined IBM where he worked on an "analytic engine" called WebFountain.  It is clear that this team has extensive knowledge in this space and also of, Google, the industry leader. Because of this, the possibility of creating a more comprehensive and efficient search engine seems more realistic.

Patterson emphasizes that there will be many differences between Cuil and Google.  For example Cuil’s search index is 120 billion web pages. Google has an index of 8.2 billion web pages as of three years ago (when Google stopped publicly announcing its index count).  Cuil’s results are gathered by the actual content of a page, not by ranking the quality and quantity of links as Google does.  The results on Cuil are displayed with photos, and the layout resembles that of articles in a magazine. The results page on Cuil also includes additional categories related to your initial search, conveniently displayed in a drop down menu.  Additionally Cuil will not track the users search histories, as Google does. 

Cuil faces several challenges such as building a better search engine and winning over the public who are loyal to the Google brand.  However, the bigger question is, if Cuil raises the bar for search engines, how will this change the world of online marketing?

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Knol: Google’s New Unit of Knowledge

25
July
2008

Google unveils its’ decision to rival Wikipedia with its’ new highly credible, author-collaborated information site.

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

After six months in beta, Google announced earlier this week that Knol, a user-generated encyclopedia, would be open to the public for use.  Many are anticipating that Knol will rival Wikipedia in the near future, although the two sites are quite different. Entries made on this site, called knols, are posted by a variety of approved subject-expert authors about specific topics.  With their name and reputation connected to the material posted, authors have a power that Google calls, “moderation collaboration.”  Using this authority, these authors have the right to accept, reject or modify suggested edits by the readers before they become publically visible.  Comments, ratings or reviews submitted of the knolls, however, cannot be modified by Google.

Knol is sponsored through Google’s internal ad program, AdSense, at the discretion of the authors, who receive a cut of these profits.  On the other-hand, Wikipedia is funded purely on private donors and some grants and is therefore visibly at risk of being unseated by Google’s revenue-generating system. 

The value available for students, professors, researchers and other intellectuals trying to build a reputation exists on Knol, as their selectivity of content shows the sites credibility. Wikipedia, who struggles to assure themselves as reliable source, may now loose readers as well as authors who now have a monetary and career-driven incentive on Knol.

With Google securing 61.5% of searches in June, according to MarketingVox, conflict of interest issues are evident, as these highly updated and information-abundant sites typically rank high in the search engines.  For years, Wikipedia has dominated for this reason with high organic positions.  Now, however, they will begin competing with Google, the powerhouse controlling the algorithms behind those calculated rankings. 

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Google Launches New Ad Planner Tool

26
June
2008

New Google Ad Planner tool to assist advertisers and media buyers with where to place ads.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

This week Google announced a new feature: Google Ad Planner. This tool is designed to help online advertisers and media buyers determine where to place ads by identifying websites that target audiences are likely to visit. Ad Planner will provide a list of relevant websites by defining age, gender, income, geography, language, education level, and other websites.  Additionally, it provides site demographics for each of those websites.  With the introduction of Ad Planner, Google has entered the web measurement services industry, the territory of industry leaders such as Hitwise, comScore and Neilsen Online.

These industry leaders mainly collect their data by tracking large panels of people. Ad Planner’s data is generated from a variety of sources, including tracking large panels and third party market research, but it will be based mostly on data from web servers which should provide a more extensive view of internet use.  Not all websites are included in the list of relevant websites due to low traffic volume, exclusion files placed on websites, or websites not adhering to quality guidelines. One major advantage of Ad Planner is that it is free and this will inevitably affect the web measurement industry.

In its infancy, there are several obstacles that do not make Ad Planner a one stop shop. You cannot buy ad placements on sites through Google Ad Planner, nor can you contact publishers directly through the tool. It is not yet synched with AdWords or Analytics to complete the relationship between the tools, however, the export feature will suffice for now.

Overall, this tool is useful, I would use it to supplement my research and add it to my arsenal of tools.  I appreciate the innovation of Google trying to make my job more efficient and effective. But only time will tell whether Google Ad Planner will become the new web measurement industry leader.

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Google Exposes Students to the World of Paid Search

10
June
2008

University students across 47 countries around the world had the opportunity to experience first-hand SEM tactics that help increase visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs) in the Google Online Marketing Challenge.

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

According to Compete.com, over 135 million people frequent Google’s website each month. Despite the widespread familiarity of the search giant’s site, many visitors are unaware of the strategy behind the paid search system that business-owners rely on for exposure. This year, university students across 47 countries around the world had the opportunity to experience first-hand SEM tactics that help increase visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs) in the Google Online Marketing Challenge.

To compete, student teams worked with a local business not already advertising with Google AdWords to develop strategic online marketing campaigns. Using only $200 of free advertising provided by Google, the teams launched a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign for three consecutive weeks. Judging was based on a post-campaign summary of each team’s results and experience during the competition. In mid July winners will be announced, with the global winners receiving a trip to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, CA, and regional winners a trip to their local Google office. Individual and university recognition will be awarded to other top finalists.

As a participator in this competition, and as someone working in the interactive marketing industry, it is easy to see the value of the Google Online Marketing Challenge. The process of identifying the most effective keywords to produce high click-through and conversion rates, understanding the role of bidding and which ad content users are more receptive to, are all important elements of paid search that students learn first hand throughout the competition. Come October, 2008 when registration for the 2009 Challenge opens, EyeTraffic Media will be assisting both The University of Maryland and Georgetown University in developing their AdWords campaigns.

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