Paid Advertising on Google and Bing

Some of you may have seen Bing's ads accusing Google of having only paid results on Google's Shopping Page.  I think Bing has a point, but on many of Bing's pages it is not always clear what is paid advertising and what is a search result.

The take away from this is that ad Google and Bing desire more revenue paid results over time will push aside natural search results.

Bing's partnership with Yelp is a failure.

In June of 2012 Bing partnered with Yelp to deliver "better" local results in the Bing Map.  To date those results have been terrible.  Take a search "Lawyer Fall River MA" as an example.  Today, the second and third businesses listed don't have websites and are not verified listings.  Why Bing drives its searchers to businesses that don't have websites seems more likely an error than a game plan.

Google Updates the Search Algorithm

Google confirmed that there is another Panda update to their algorithm.  The update will impact just over 1% of all search queries.  Keep an eye on your website traffic to be sure the update does not hurt your site.

Here is a graphic on how Google's searches have changed.  What this article does not say is that Google is constantly doing A/B testing.  This is showing the same search query two different results and determining which results people liked more.

Because of this testing often the display in MA can be different than in RI, and the display of the results change all the time.  By all the time, I mean it changes far too often to keep track of.

Screen shots on how Google has changed.

Here is a New York Times article on Google and its dominance of the Internet.  The reality is that everyone who wants to get business from their website has to pay attention to Google.  Because Google changes their algorithm frequently a "build it and let the website sit there" approach no longer works.

This is because of the changes Google makes and the need to adjust, but also because there is so much money being made through websites that if you are not keeping up and your competition is, your site will fall in the rankings.

NY Times Google Article

Reviews

On line reviews are valuable because they can increase the number of phone calls you get.  It used to be easy to get reviews posted on Google.  Just set up an account write a review and it appeared.

That has changed.  Now the reviews need to be linked to a name that is published. Reviews from an account that appear to be fake to the Google computers are never made public.

Other review sites like Yelp have set up a sting to catch people posting fake reviews.

The reality of reviews is that very few consumers post reviews of a business.  When a consumer has a great experience at a business they are not as motivated to post a review than a consumer that has had a bad experience.  A business that serves 1,000 customers a year may end up with three bad reviews and one good review.  The reality is that 950+ consumers had a good experience.  But you would not know that from reading the reviews.

Google's and Yelps attempts to make sure the review is written by a real consumer is a good step in the right direction.  But I don't think the reviews are a good indicator of how a business treats its customers.

Good Starter Article

Here is a good article from the New York Times for all businesses but especially if you sell a product on the web.  NY Times Article on Small Business Websites

Portrait Photo in SERPs

Several months ago Google introduced authorship photographs appearing next to the title tag in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).  A recent survey showed less than 10% of tech blogs taking advantage of this enhancement.  It is an enhancement because it can increase click throughs up to 15%.  Why the slow adoption?  I have two reasons:  The main reason is that there is so much information coming out constantly from Google, SEO news sites, blogs and twitter that it is overwhelming.  How to separate the wheat from the chaff?  How to stay ontop of what is happening and still get work done for clients?  This is a challenge for me and I think for most SEO's.  The second reason is that Google's instructions are difficult to follow and I think have an error in the code example.

Bing Local

Two months ago Bing did  a deal with Yelp in which Bing would pull its local results that show in the map from Yelp.  As of right now the search results are terrible and the user experience is poor.  Most frustrating is that many of the results in the map don't have a website.

In a search for Auto Repair Wakefield, RI, the first result is for a business in Newport, RI 15 miles away.  The second result is Benny's that is a department store that installs tires, the third result is Pierce Imports, a good auto repair shop that is in Wakefield but they don't have a website.  The fourth result is an Auto Body shop and the fifth result is Northup's which is an appropriate result, and they do have a website but the website does not show.  It could be worse, but not much worse.  Results like these will drive people back to the yellow pages.

Why then do surveys show most people are happy with Bing results.  My explanation is that most searchers are not looking for local, and are happy with their results.  I have to think that local results as poor as the ones I am seeing in Bing will affect how many people use their search engine.

Bing Update

Microsoft's search engine Bing is getting harder to ignore.  Last month 15% of searchers on the internet used Bing.  Mircosoft is using the same strategy to develop Bing that they used to develop many of their other products.  This strategy is to come to market with a product that is inferior to the market leader and to just keep pounding away improving their product and taking market share little by little.  Think here of Microsoft Word vs Word Perfect, Microsoft Excel vs Lotus, X Box vs Play Station.  Although I personally find Google's results better than Bing's results testing now shows that 82% of searchers are happy with Google's results and 81% of searchers are happy with Bing's results.

Google Places Changes

With Google's migration from Places Pages to Google+ Pages there are some big changes.  Here are some of them.  

• No more anonymous reviews. Result: harder to spam the reviews which is a good thing

• In setting up a listing the number of categories is still five, but the numbers that show has been reduced to two.  Result: Harder to know what the competition is doing.  The first two categories are really important. 

• Google Offers is now more prominent.  Result: Allows for a competitive advantage as many businesses do not use it.  

• The business description has grown exponentially in importance because there is less information on the page, and the placement of the description is much more prominent.                                                                          Result: Spend time making sure the business description is perfect.  

Google Protects Its Algorithm

About a month ago an internet marketing company, iAcquire.com, was caught by a blogger selling and buying links.  This is a violation of Google's guidelines.  Google's response was to de-index iAcquire's website.  This means that one is able to find iAcquire's site on Google.  It is possible to find the site on Bing, but in Google's world the site no longer exists.  In the SEO world iAcquire.com has/had about fifty employees which is a good size company.  

I have several thoughts about this event. 

1) Lots of companies buy links.  I have experience of being approach to put links on some of my sites.  The companies that approached me are reputable and their websites have a page rank of six and seven.  (It is possible the company has hired a SEO company and does not know what the SEO firm they hired is doing.)   But I think buying links is a common practice.  

2) I do not think Google would have de-indexed the site if the link buying had not been made public.  If Google had found this out on their own I believe they would have penalized the site, lowered the website's page rank and moved the site to page five of the SERPs.

3) Whether you buy links is related to your business plan and your risk profile.  If you can live with the potential of being de-indexed and the rewards of moving up the Search Engine Results Page is high then buying links might be a good idea.  Personally, I would never do it and I have never consulted with a business in which I have recommend it - too much risk. 

4) I don't think buying and selling links is a moral issue.  Buying and selling links does not work with Google's business model and search algorithm so they discourage it.  Some SEO's act like selling links/buying links is a moral issue.  I don't think so.