What happened to Yahoo? Do you remember when it used to be THE search engine. THE Internet company to be afraid of, to be in awe of? Years later, that same company ended up in a search deal with Microsoft, which has definitely helped Bing, but it doesn’t look like it’s helped Yahoo.
So that begs the question, what delusions of grandeur does Yahoo have within them? And also, what’s their realistic play to maintain their role as a player in the industry? Because, Yahoo’s talent pool is running dry. Their reach is much much smaller than its ever been. The perfect size to focus on their core strengths, if they can decide what those might be.
Perhaps they need a new and visionary leader that can breathe life into their business model? Although, I think Steve Jobs is busy.
Bing Social Search is now officially influencing Bing search results. So, what does that mean for search engine optimization? It means that getting connectors to “like” your page is now one of the most effective uses of your time.
Because Bing has implied that if one of your friends has “liked” a page relative to your search text, it’s going to show up on page 1, with a note displaying which friend “liked” this. More than that, you are going to start seeing what the larger Internet community thinks of the search results you see as well. 1,248 people liked this page? Hmm, that says a lot. (click)
This changes everything. So, the more connected your social media community is with your site, the better your chances of new, organic (at least non-paid) traffic. But, to be “liked”, your page has to be awesome. Which means user-centric with great depth of content. So everything’s changed. But, the rules are still the same.
Microsoft adCenter is looking to help Bing advertisers reach local users, with new features including radius targeting, local search attributes and something entitled “Bing Vision”. Many of these features are simply playing catch-up to Google AdWords.
For instance, the ability to target specific radiuses, 5-100 miles away from a city, listing the merchant’s address and phone number. “Bing Vision”, however, is the new one. Bing Vision helps customers already in store, further investigate product information, reviews and prices.
As Bing continues to chip away at Google’s market share, and more and more advertisers start to take notice, kudos to Microsoft AdCenter for not only catching up, but looking to innovate.
I’m writing this post using Google’s Chrome Internet browser. I marvel at Google’s self-driving cars that are currently being tested on real California highways. And for a minute, I start to question who Google is anymore.
Because they used to be a search engine. The very best data aggregate and refiner in the world. And they still are. But, as their competition catches up (Bing), they seem to be moving focus to other things. Now, Google’s official mission still is, “Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
At the very least, it seems like self-driving cars are a stretch, doesn’t it? Perhaps Google thought they had won the search war, and were simply moving on the next one. But if they’re not careful, they could slowly lose search before the next real war comes to be.
Google, the untouchable, is starting to look slightly fallible. The Bing-Yahoo allegiance has taken six straight shots at Google, and there has been some bleeding. For six straight months, Google’s search market share has been dropping – from 72.15% in September down to 64.42% as of today.
That’s not insignificant. That’s a turn from market dominator into mere market leader.
At the same time, Bing-Yahoo now exceeds 30%. More than that, 80% of these web searches ended up being directed to a Website, as opposed to merely 66% of Google searches. If Bing-Yahoo are growing, not just because of the advertising blitzes, but because they’re getting better, Google needs to be paying attention, and possibly worrying.
Google +1 is here. And it’s simply Facebook’s Like button. I wish it wasn’t that simple. But, that’s what it is. And it’s a huge testament to Facebook discovering the golden egg. Because Google has had time to think about this and re-think about this. But they came up with +1. Which is essentially the exact same product.
The only difference? Well, Google +1 lives outside of Facebook of course. It’s primarily designed to make your search results better. If your friend has +1′d a page that comes up in your search results, you’ll probably try there first.
Of course, Bing already offers this with your friend’s “like’d” pages.
This Google +1 feature will slowly roll out over the next few months on ads and sites as well.
Yahoo’s leadership team is getting flack for falling in the search market rankings. But, this is unfair. When Microsoft bought Yahoo! Search, it was a sign to the market that Yahoo had given up. So, if Bing is now where this dual power is going to be, that’s where I’m going to go. Plus, Bing’s advertising campaign has been blaring for two years now, without a single Yahoo search ad.
Yet, Yahoo shareholders are pouting that Yahoo’s search ad share will fall to 8.1 percent this year, and is predicted to plummet to a new low of 6.5 percent next year. News flash: That’s what happens when you sell off your search market. The really bad news is on Microsoft’s end. Because Google AdWords is still growing – predicted at 75.2% this year, and up to 76.6% in 2012. And Microsoft is climbing at a tortoise’ pace, up from 10.2% last year to 10.8% this year, and 11.1% in 2012.
The online video rankings have been shaken. While Google sites are still strongly affixed among the top of the charts, Microsoft has jumped 5 spots, into the #2 position, gaining 10.7 million visitors between January and February, according to ComScore.
Microsoft has had quite a year or so with Bing and Windows 7 Mobile, and I’m becoming very glad they’re playing this strong underdog role to Google. Because it keeps Google on their toes. Makes them better.
And who knows? Perhaps Microsoft will come out with a game-changer that makes us rethink the #1 spot. After all, there’s plenty of undiscovered digital territory for the next-generation Magellan to discover. Google’s plans to move to professional-level HD video on YouTube are going to switch things up. We’ll see how Microsoft counters.
Groupon. Living Social. Those are the only names we’ve really talked about in the daily deals, group-couponing, groupvertising battle. Even though there are thousands of others.
So what makes me want to bring up a possible competitor? Because these guys could change everything. And their name is Bing.
That’s right. Bing Deals is here for the mobile device and coming to the desktop. Why do I think this is a game changer? We now have an aggregate for location-based deals. You don’t have to rely on your daily e-mails from each provider anymore. Now you can see the top daily deals in your area. The very best offers. By category. Or keyword.
Who cares who its from anymore? And that’s what could be the Groupon killer, or at least, the group-couponing democratizer.
Experian Hitwise released a study that Bing users click search engine results 81.54% of the time, well over Google’s 65.58%. Their theory? Bing results are more accurate and relevant than Google’s, thus commanding the greater click-through rate.
Although, if Bing is really copying Google’s search results, how would that even be possible? Yeah, I went there.
Some Google defenders point out that since Google has a 3:1 market share lead over Bing, then the margin of error makes those numbers apples to oranges. But from a market research standpoint, the huge sample size should make the numbers statistically relevant.
So, what’s another possibility? Perhaps Bing users are users who never switched their PC’s default search engine browser, and simply click the first result they see, relevant or not. Whereas, Google users are more selective in clicking, because they know what they’re looking for. But even if that’s the case, that shows that Google users aren’t finding what they’re looking for quickly enough, and Google search results do indeed need to be improved.
