Google earlier this week announced they were ending their participation in what has become known as the “size war”. They removed the document-counter on their front page and acknowledged the size of a search engine’s index does not necessarily reflect the most important measure of a good search tool, relevance.
Search advertisers are offered two basic marketing models, paid-ads and free organic ads. While there are advantages and disadvantages to both models, one clearly stands out as a better advertising option than the other. Why is it then that advertisers from small business to mega-corporation tend to show higher interest in the more expensive and least effective of the two?
For budding Internet entrepreneurs Andrew Holt and Rishi Khaitan, building a better mousetrap was the key component in their vision of the upstart comparison search engine dontbuyjunk.com. Behind the sparse front page is a wealth of products, information and consumer recommendations on a wide array of consumer and business electronic goods. Searchers are offered a number of comparative tools to change and narrow results, ranging from general price and product-specifications, to much more specific details relevant to each product type.
Google is working on its most ambitious project to date, the creation of a global data transfer network that could effectively serve as a private Internet.
Do you have great numbers of well qualified traffic coming to your website but disproportionately low numbers of sales? How about paid registrations? Why do we see websites with ridiculously low sales conversion rates at often less than 0.5%?
Do you have great numbers of well qualified traffic coming to your website but disproportionately low numbers of sales? How about paid registrations? Why do we see websites with ridiculously low sales conversion rates at often less than 0.5%?
Two years ago, when Microsoft saw that Google was threatening to dominate the Internet in much the same way Microsoft dominated the desktop, Microsoft began to move mountains to get into the search field. Since MSN released its own search tool earlier this year, the two firms have viewed the other as its chief rival and the competition between them has been tremendous. This summer, Google and Microsoft have been waging multiple battles across several fields from the courting of business in China to the courtrooms of King County. This week, a new battleground may be opening, this time in the Manhattan offices of Time Warner, the owner of AOL.
Some marketers will optimize their website for Google and forget the rest. Then we have those whose idea of an SEM campaign is paying their way to the top. Sure, Google is important; and yes, paid search is popular. But when it comes to planning a successful SEM campaign, you must go deep and wide to generate the largest number of leads and conversions.
It’s critical to keep in mind that the search engines often judge how important any given page within a website is by how it is linked to within the site itself, as well as by external sites. Other sites often link to home pages as a recommended resource.
Last week Google hired a net-god, Vinton Cerf, as its “chief Internet evangelist. Google’s hiring of Cerf has set off a wide range of speculation among Internet watchers. Vint Cerf is not what many would consider a “normal” person and is no where near a “normal” employee. Cerf has been called the Father of the Internet and the most important person alive.