Reading between the lines of various search engine marketing forums and clients’ analytics data, it does seem as though something might be happening within the  largest search engine in the world. There have been fluctuations in traffic and rankings -  something which we tend to only see before large updates are rolled out.

Google had, until last year, quite consistently launched algorithm update every Christmas, the most famous update being the Florida update of November 2003 which caused widespread issues with lots of businesses online.

We have already had a large update this year when Google rolled out Caffeine which, according to experts at the time, was going to cause problems to lots of sites though nothing huge ever really materialised.

Marketing implications: As with all search engine updates there is very little you can do to prepare for what may happen. All we recommend is this:

• Make sure you are ticking all the boxes within Google’s current guidelines.
• Keep generating & sharing good quality content.
• Get regular ranking & traffic updates from your agency or internal team.
• Keep a sharp eye on Google’s blog, and visit the GA blog for up to date news.

It found that while the over-55 age group was one of the fastest growing online, marketers should note the differences in how they use the web to reach them effectively.

According to Tamar, men over 50 accounted for 38% of the 1.9m new web users last year and women over 50 accounted for 15%. Older women are now the fastest growing segment on Facebook and a third of internet users in the UK are now over 50.

The report revealed that 73% of over-55s would select organic search results over paid results.

Tanya Goodin, CEO of Tamar, said, “Silver surfers are savvy, keen to engage and value the benefits of being online. Integrated social media and search should be central to any brand strategy that seeks to maximise ROI and we think that the next 5-10 years will be an exhilarating, rewarding journey for brands that understand the new online commercial environment.”

Related articles:
The Bing Facebook partnership and its impact on SEO
Older adults and social media

While Google claim that this change “will make it much easier for users to find a large number of results from a single site”, it has not gone without a certain amount of criticism.

Firstly, let’s use Sky Sports again as the example. Although Sky Sports may well be a prominent brand, with a website providing useful news to those looking for it, as a product in the UK, it is not exclusively found on the Sky TV network.  Sky Sports is also sold by Virgin and BT Vision. Therefore, by allowing Sky Sports to dominate this search engine results page (SERP) it may well be very damaging to the sales of the product on those two other platforms.

The comments on the Google Webmaster page which broke the news also highlight some usability issues…

mayank said…“I dont think its very useful. it will eat up my time by having to click on subsequent pages, for if i wanted more results from a single site, i could always do “more from site” command.”

Collin Cornwell said…“This is a horrible feature.. Major retailers that sell “branded” products will be pushed off the page, giving users fewer options. Bing is going to steal a tremendous amount of market share because of this.”

30something said…“I was 2nd on the page for my search term – now I’m 9th, underneath 8 pages from my competitor. yeah, a real nice start to my weekend.”

What I find interesting is the last statement by Google:

“We expect today’s improvement will help users find deeper results from a single site, while still providing diversity on the results page.”

However, was it not Google’s Peter Norvig who said, “for the second one [search result], you don’t want something that’s almost the same as the first. You prefer some diversity.”

Brands with reputation management issues will benefit from this change. However, aside from that, I’m not sure I see how beneficial this change will be…

The best method of illustrating how it works is through using this video, presented by Matt Cutts of Google. As well as understanding how search engines work, you’ll also learn a bit about PageRank, indexing and paid for adverts. Enjoy!

The example will come first, followed by the explanation…

*red hat with green stripes* = the exact phrase

bar covent garden -leicester square = bars in covent garden not leicester square

+sock =  only the words sock, not the plural or any tenses or synonyms

define:seo = definitions of the word ’seo’ from around the Web

red * blue = the words ‘red’ and ‘blue’ separated by one or more words

(p.s. the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button takes you directly to first web page returned for your query)

Happy searching!

Google has announced that, from September 14th, it will allow resellers, sellers of component, replacement or compatible parts, and informational sites (such as review sites) to use third-party trademarks in their ad copy, regardless of whether they own them or have approval from the trademark owner.

Any advertisers that do not fall into these categories will not be included in the changes.

In line with the US, Google has opened up the market to hundreds of thousands of third-party sites that have previously been restricted in what they can say within their copy.

Some, through being affiliates, may already have agreements in place with brands to use their trademarks within paid search campaigns, but the policy change negates any necessity for others to make such agreements – if they have relevance to the keywords they’re bidding on, of course.

Likewise, department stores and review sites will have more options open to them.

Google, which first rolled out the changes to ad texts in the US last year, expects the policy change to make ads more specific and relevant for users.

Peter Fitzgerald, Google UK’s industry director, said the change in the US has helped its users and advertisers by reducing the number of “overly generic” ads.

“We believe the user experience is improved if, for example, they conduct a search for a particular brand of TV and see ads which give them more detail about where they can buy that brand, where they might be able to fix it, buy component parts or read reviews.”

Now, six months later, almost half (47%) of 18-24-year-olds use real-time search results. However, just 8% of these users find them useful (according to research by Tamar).

But what about other types of search results?

Interestingly, by looking into the search habits of 2,210 people, Tamar’s report also showed that just 4% of people would choose paid search results over natural search results, down by 1% on 2009 and down 6% on 2007.

The research found that people over 55 were the least likely to trust paid search as a trusted source with just 3% choosing it over natural search results.

Younger people are increasing their use of mobile to search as 14% of both 18-24-year olds and 25-34-year-olds use mobile search every day.

Neil Jackson, search strategy director at Tamar, said, “Consumers have decided that natural search is the route they trust more and this defines the strategic starting point for all brands, which need to focus on being highly visible ‘naturally’ through campaigns that reach effectively across a wide range of media and devices, especially mobile – a huge growth area for the search engines.”

Although this news is nothing new, the topic of brand name bidding re-emerged when, earlier this week, an article published in NMA stated that, according to a report sent to them by Marks & Clerk: “[out] of 266 UK marketers and business executives, 71% were “uncomfortable” with Google allowing brands to bid on rivals’ keywords, with 63% saying it’s unacceptable when a brand is protected by a trademark.” (NMA, Trademark bidding may be controversial, but is it common place? May 28^th 2010).

However, the overall gist of NMA’s article was that although some brands are bidding on their competitors’ terms, it might not be happening as much as one might expect, and that additionally, it might not be as detrimental an effect on brands as was once expected. This was the conclusion arrived at after researchers at NMA looked at all the main department stores and supermarkets on the UK high street. They found that the only brand bidding on a rival term was House of Fraser on Debenhams.

So, never one to be out done, I conducted a little research of my own, but this time looking at smaller, more high end brands…

One of the first brand names I researched was ‘links of london’. The results were surprising. In the sponsored links, were a host of counterfeit websites with ‘links of london’ in the URL but with no use of the phrase in the ad text (Google will investigate ads which are using the brand keyword in the ad text). Some websites listed in these paid for links were so similar to the real thing, that it was quite hard to tell the official from the fake. Damaging? I think so – especially to luxury or high end brands. The same went for other luxury brands which returned sponsored links that the official brand might not be too happy about.

However, I would agree with NMA in that it is probably not happening as much as we all expected when Google first broke the news. In fact, during my search, I found few reputable, well known brands which had bid on other, similar sized, rival brands. In fact it tended to be poor quality, counterfeit or little known websites which had bid on bigger brand names (when the brand was not available to buy on the site in question – instead offering an alternative or fake product). That, or the listings were genuine stockists of the brand.

Therefore, in conclusion, although rival companies do not seem to be bidding on their competitors as much as expected, it is still damaging to a brand who does not want to see their product flogged on a discount or counterfeit site. Additionally, according to studies conducted back in 2009, the sectors most affected by the change was the travel and insurance sectors (ones which I did not research this time round).

So, what should a brand do?

Firstly, as demonstrated by Google vs. LVMH, there is little to be gained in taking legal action out against an online giant such as Google. Therefore, I would persist in arguing that brands need to remain focused on their organic search listings, and not focus solely other types of online brand building activities. Any brands’ strategy – large or small, should include organic SEO so that they appear at the top of Google’s organic search results.

Do not rely on paid listings to avoid good, old-fashioned search engine optimization – consumers still prefer organic listings over paid for links. Regardless of what’s going on in the paid section, ensure your site and brand shows up at the top of the natural, algorithmic section of the search. This alone will reinforce the relevance of your brand to the search term entered.

After being downloaded 107,000 times since it’s launch last July, its use has equated to £15m of revenue per year and, unsurprisingly, Ocado are looking to develop onto further digital platforms in the future.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, news has been received that What Car? has launched a mobile site, optimized for smartphones.

According to New Media Age, this news comes as media agency MPG Media Contacts published research indicating that internet use in the home was shifting from PC to mobile. This was supported by a survey of 100 UK households which indicated that 21% of respondents aged between 18 and 65 said they prefer to browse the internet on their phones. These findings are also supported by Facebook who say that more than 100m of it’s users regularly access the site via their mobile phones.

So, the question really still does remain… mobile app or mobile website? Nevertheless I’m still standing firm, sticking to the idea that, in the long run (or if you can only afford one) a mobile site is the way to go…