Google Instant Search vs. Bing Seamless Search

Bing beat Google to Instant Search functionality by introducing it way back in 2009.

Click here to see - Bing Instant Search

Okay, well Bing (or Microsoft) did not actually produce an Instant Search function, but some kid with too much time on his hands took your browser and Bing's AJAX APIs and created basically the same thing to some extent.

What is all the hype with Instant Search? Really nothing. The idea is to shave time off your search queries, but to date it has only made my ADD more advanced and actually take me longer to get to what I was actually trying to find (sidetracked by too many interesting, not relevant results that kept popping-up along the way).

So, what I do find interesting is what I am coining Bing's upcoming Seamless Search. This interface is a work of art that is functional, while Google's Instant Search is just an annoyance. Check out the video below to seem a glimpse of Bing's Seamless Search functionality in action:



I think the interface war is going to heat up and make for an interesting 2011, now Bing just needs to make sure that it's results are equal or better than Google's otherwise all this eye candy means nothing.

Google Can Now Read Your Mind!

Just another example of the hilarious Google Suggest, suggestions, because you know Google can read your mind...:-)

Image from - Black Hat SEO

2 New FREE Invaluable SEO/SEM (Search Marketing) Online Tools

Wandering around my favorite search marketing websites I stumbled on 2 great, new and free SEO/SEM tools that I thought I might share.....



1. KeywordEye

- An absolutely incredible visual representation of Google data for use in online marketing efforts. This is the tool Google should have provided, but does not currently (until they buy them).

Check it out now at - KeywordEye

2. Übersuggest

- A great tool to expand your keyword lists and remove hours and hours of tedious manual work. It uses a combination of keywords from 'Google Suggest' and it expands your keyword options by searching for your keyword + every letter of the alphabet, one by one allowing you to create an incredible and comprehensive keyword list.

Once again, this is a tool that Google should have provided, but does not currently.

Check it out now at - Übersuggest


What is your favorite tool? Please comment and list your favorites to share!

Where Do People Search When Google Fails?

So, it may not be often (or as bad as a bad tattoo), but Google sometimes does not provide the results that are needed or wanted. So, where do people turn to get their answers? A great new study by Chitika entitled, "Googlers’ Backup Plan – Ask.com?" gives us some insights. Look at the chart below:


Amazingly enough, when Google is not the answer over 30% of people go to Ask.com. While that is not as much as Yahoo with almost 50%, it does blow away Bing with around 17% (and since AOL is basically just Google repackaged in AOL even 4% is pretty incredible).

So, what does this tell us? Is there more opportunity or value in getting the initial search or is it more valuable to get secondary searches? Maybe Ask.com is more valuable then we previously thought. This research (and others from Chitika on Ask.com) open up data sets that have been ignored or missed before and we look forward to more of this type of information to better plan our search marketing campaigns.

Top Search Marketing Blog Posts (EVER) List!

Many people ask me which posts have been the most popular or which posts bring in the most traffic to the site. So, I decided to outline the top 5 for you in order of overall traffic to the site:

#1 from March of 2008
Add URL - Free Search Engine Submission Links
- Hands down the most visited web page on the blog as people love to submit to the search engines and they love to do it for FREE...:-)

#2 from July of 2009
Seeing Redz - The Story of Click Fraud and RedZee
- RedZ or RedZee, whatever they are calling themselves today are the scam that just keeps giving (and taking from customers). This and its follow-up blog post - The Continuing Scam That is RedZ (formerly known as RedZee) from November of 2009, continue to be the forum for communications about the scam and those that have fought back.

#3 from January 2009
FREE Article Rewriter and Spinning Tool Roundup
- Free SEO tools are always great and article spinning is popular within some of the SEO communities. Spin away my friends with these free resources.

#4 from December 2009
The 10 Best FREE Keyword Research Tools on the Internet!
- Come on, who does not love a top 10 list and who within the search marketing community does not use keyword research tools on a daily basis? This post was a match made in heaven, at least some people's heaven.

#5 from January 2009
To Ping or Not to Ping, That is Not the Question
- With our fun play on words how could you not love this post? Come on, really. When it comes to pinging there are those that love to ping and those that could care less, but those of you that care, made this one of the top posts on the blog and rounded out our top 5 posts ever!

Now that we have shown your our top 5 based on website traffic, we would love to hear what you liked and/or disliked over the last 2+ years. Please leave us feedback by leaving a comment even if you do so anonymously as all are appreciated. Thanks in advance and stay tuned for more fun, helpful and interesting posts to come!

New FREE Website SEO/Social Media Analysis Tool

I am always looking for a great and clean (and accurate) way to show website SEO/Social media analytics and Rank Checker just happens to do that in a very aesthetically pleasing format.

Currently, what it shows is this:
- Domain Age
- Domain Name
- Alexa Ranking
- Alexa Backlinks
- AlltheWeb Backlinks
- AltaVista Backlinks
- Google PageRank (PR)
- Google Backlinks
- Google Bot Last Visit
- Google Indexed Pages
- Yahoo Indexed Pages
- Yahoo Backlinks
- Yahoo Directory Listing(s)
- DMOZ (The Open Directory) Listing(s)
- Bing Indexed Pages
- Ask.com Indexed Pages
- Digg Links
- Delicious Links

Check it out for FREE at - Rank Checker

More FREE SEO Tools!

I love good, free SEO tools that actually work as they should. So, while surfing around I found a great new set from Easy SEO Tracking. The tools include:

- Google SEO Recommendations Tool
Description from website - This tool provides you with an information on what operations you need to perform in order to beat your SERPs competitor.

- Google SERP Checker
Description from website - SEO Tool that allows you to check your SERP in Google (SERPs).

- Niche Analysis Tool
No Description from website - Basically you type in a keyword and the tool will provide details on the top 10 search results (SERPS) including; PageRank (PR), number of backlinks, keywords in URL, keywords in title tag, estimated unique visitors per month (pulling COMPETE data). You can also analyze all the backlinks to any of the websites listed.

- Crawler Simulation
Description for website - Find out how Google 'sees' your site when it is indexed.

It is fun and its free, so check it out today at - Easy SEO Tracking

Google Pac-Man Lives!

I was sad to see it go, but now you can get your Google Pac-Man game on AGAIN - Google Pac-Man

Google's Newest Advertising Platform - Whisper Ads

This is probably the funniest Google video I have every seen - you also have to wait until the end for the jab at Yahoo. Enjoy...:-)


New Google Phone Service Whispers Targeted Ads Directly Into Users' Ears

Entireweb Launches New Large Scale Search Engine

Just in case you care - Entireweb is launching it's new (updated) search engine tomorrow (countdown timer available on their website at www.entireweb.com).

Entireweb at a glance (from the website):

Entireweb's goal is to be a leading supplier of search technology solutions. The international Web search engine www.entireweb.com is not only a highly popular general purpose search engine used by millions of people around the world - it is also a showcase of our search technology and our expertise in the field of ultra-high-performance information retrieval from huge unstructured data sources.

Entireweb currently handles over 100 million searches every month, and is a trusted partner of internationally acclaimed meta search engines such as Mamma and IxQuick, who rely on Entireweb to provide world-class search results.

The new search engine promises to be much more robust with a deeper index in order to better compete against Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com. Recent announcements from their blog highlight that the new engine will pull real-time data from OneRiot and image data from picsearch. Ads will be pulled from their SpeedyAds program and their is a new mobile interface available.

You can check it all out at the links below:
Entireweb Search Engine homepage
Entireweb Search Engine updates (via blog)
Add URL for FREE to Entireweb

Funny (older) Google Cartoon About Chrome

I just had to share this as it was really well done (a bit older, but still funny). Hope you enjoy...:-)

More FREE (and valuable) Google Tools!

Google recently introduced a new and cool web presence for their newest ad innovations (and analytics information) called none other than - 'Google Ad Innovations'.

So far it includes 4 sections broken out as such:

Search:
* Product Listing Ads
* Search Funnels
* Location Extensions with Multiple Addresses

Display:
* Remarketing
* YouTube Video Targeting Tool
* Above the Fold Advertising
* YouTube Insights for Audience

Mobile:
* Click to Call Phone Extensions

Analytics:
* Search Funnels
* Analytics Intelligence

Check it out for FREE at - Google Ad Innovations

Google vs. Facebook

I am not sure I have ever seen a single image that best sums up my feelings about the Google vs. Facebook contest until today when I stumbled on this image that basically says it all without having to say anything at all. Now that Facebook has become the most trafficked site in the US (beating Google) and a recent study showed that the engagement level with Facebook is better than Google, now all Facebook needs is a business model to actually make some money and we may have actually finally found the Google killer (for now)...:-)

The Google Conspiracy - Unveiled

Many people believe that Google has grown a little too much and is slowly becoming a monopoly within many aspects of our lives. While it does not seem harmful now as much of there services are free (superficially at least) currently, that may and probably will change at some point. Everyone and everything is always friendly while everything is moving along smoothly, what really will show Google's true colors is when they start to hit some rough patches, which up until this point they have not (or at least not big enough to create any large problems for them).

Below is a video to get you up-to-date as to what is going on within our Google World. What is interesting is that this post is currently being hosting on the Google web property - YouTube (for now).



I would love to get your feedback and/or thoughts, so please feel free to make comments and continue the conversation as this point is very slanted towards the 'conspiracy theory' side and I would love to hear all sides.

Looking forward to your feedback!

How Much Do Companies Value The Search Engines They Own?

I would like to put forth a new valuation method to better understand how much a company may value it's search engine. I feel that we can use a search engine's blog as an indicator as to how a company may value it's search engine. I had my own preconceived notions as to what the outcome would be and they were dead on, so maybe monitoring blog activity can tell you a lot. Check out the data below:

Major Search Engines:

Google Blog:
- Last post 3/8/10
- 61 posts for 2010 to date

Bing Search Blog
- Last post 3/5/10
- 35 posts for 2010 to date

Yahoo Search Blog
- Last post 3/5/10
- 18 posts for 2010 to date

Ask.com Blog
- Last post 11/9/09
- 0 posts for 2010 to date

Kind of revealing huh?

Having Fun With Google Commercials

I think most of us in the search space noticed the Google Superbowl Ad (even though it had been running for 3 months prior). I have to say I liked it and found it clever, but the parodies that came after were probably some of the funniest YouTube videos I have ever seen. Check them all out below:

ORIGINAL COMMERCIAL:


SARAH PALIN PARODY


SURPRISE PARTY PARODY


Have fun....:-)

China Ignores Human Rights Again and Google Responds

Thank GOD someone stood up against China and told the REAL story!!! Hopefully this message will have a larger affect on China and their covert operations.

In the past I have expressed my concerns about Google and their growing power base, but I have to say, today I have a whole new respect for them. The mantra, 'Do No Evil' means more to me today than ever before.

Now, I hope Microsoft (Bing) does not try to use this as an opportunity to get market share because they have recently said that China is a top priority of them as expressed in this Reuter's article, "Microsoft pegs China search market as top priority.


From the Official Google Blog:

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.

We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords online. You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations. People wanting to learn more about these kinds of attacks can read this U.S. government report (PDF), Nart Villeneuve's blog andthis presentation on the GhostNet spying incident.

We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China's economic reform programs and its citizens' entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that "we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China."

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

Link to Google Blog post - A New Approach to China

Yahoo! Sells You Out!

Everybody is doing it, but Yahoo gets caught. Just saw an article on Download Squad Blog about Yahoo selling subscriber information here - Yahoo's price list for spying on its users leaks. As they point out in the article, Yahoo! even offers discounts for the more you buy, so make sure to stock up and save money (kinda like the Costco/Sam's Club of personal data)...:-)

As all search engines probably sell this type of data to the law enforcement agencies, two things come to mind.

1. Why do they sell it and not offer it free as it is our tax dollars paying for this data, correct?

2. How much money is made by selling this type of data? Is it it's own profit center? I would be very curious to see.

Between Bing going down for 45 mins the other day and someone leaking this embarrassing Yahoo information it only makes Google look better (do I smell a conspiracy?)......

Matt Cutts Loses a Bet (and his hair)

Poor Matt...:-)

Search Engine Blind Results Test - Kinda Like the Pepsi Challenge

Want to have some search fun? Then you have to try out Blind Search. This site lets you type in a search query and see the organic results for Google, Yahoo and Bing randomly in columns. Once you have reviewed and you think you know which results below to which search engine than click the button(s) to reveal if you are correct or not.

I have to admit that I am wrong more times than I am right when I am trying to guess which results go with which each and that Bing is actually the winner a majority of the time when I try to find the best and most relevant results for my search query. Pretty interesting and fun stuff...:-)

Check it out for yourself at - Blind Test