Google Now Taking on Facebook

“It is our intention to make this a model for how open a social site should be”

Google is previewing their new Buzz feature as I write this:

And they couldn’t be any more clear that this is a direct challenge to Facebook. With the ability to share photos, geo-tag posts, see who’s near you and more.

It’s no secret that Google would love some of the attention that Facebook is getting on the web. Christmas Day 09 actually saw Facebook pass Google as the most visited site in the world.  And while Google’s own Orkut social site has been a terrible flop (outside of Brazil at least), they have been stealthily building all the blocks of a Facebook competitor piece by piece.

In fact, it’s only the tying together of these various strands which is holding them back. Consider these Google products working in conjunction:
Google Profile
Google Chat
Picasa for photos
Youtube for videos
Reader for articles

and you have the basics of a Facebook-like service already.

And it goes without saying that there are other features which can be tied into these, sharing custom maps, reviewing product pages, the FourSquare-like features of the new Google Buzz, NearMeNow on the iPhone/Droid, etc, etc.

So will it work?

I think it will. Buzz will start rolling out to Gmail users within the hour, and judging by the buzz (sorry) on Twitter, there’s a huge amount of interest already:
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%22Google%20Buzz%22%20OR%20%23Buzz

APIs will be available, and public info will be provided as XML feeds. Anything public will indexed immediately by Google’s real time search. There is a lot of stuff here, even speculation about using Google Voice conversations as part of the Buzz. They have put a lot of thought into spam fighting (and I must say, Gmail spam fighting is great for me). Buzz seems to offer a huge amount of potential, especially if you consider the built in user-base Gmail has.

However, with @replies to tag people, the ability to ‘like’ or comment on posts, photos and updates, many may see this as too close to Facebook to be worthwhile.

So, what do you think? Can Google finally make a success of their social strategy, or is it too similar, too late?



Google Takes on Yelp

Google has never shied away from taking on other companies. Since inception, when Google supplied the search results for Yahoo, and then turned around and beat Yahoo at its own game, through the ‘email wars‘ with Yahoo and Microsoft, to taking on Apple with its own phone(s).

And I think we can now add Yelp to the list.

It was widely reported that last month Yelp wallked away from a Google buy out, an almost done deal worth $550+million. Google seems to have responsed to this snub by stepping up the quality of its own local Place Pages.

I’ve mentioned Google Local pages on here before, but as with all things Google, they never stay still for very long. Besides the existing features, such as photos, maps, coupons and hours, Google has introduced their own ranking system, with rankings based on aggregating comments on sites such as TripAdvisor, Kudzu and Igougo.

For instance, here’s the page for one of our clients in Charleston, Circa 1886 restaurant. Under the heading ‘What people are saying about’ you can read the comments, divided up into categories,  service, meal, staff, atmosphere and wine list, alongside a colored bar similar to the PageRank bar:

(click to enlarge)

and selecting one of the topics will show you more details and comments about that aspect.

More worryingly for Yelp, NextStop and others, Google has also released an iPhone/Android app (with good reviews), Near Me Now, which allows users to see what is nearby, and pulls inthe Place Pages data too.

Of course, Google has had its own notable failures too – Paypal is still a lot more popular than Google Checkout, Orkut has quiet some way to go to dethrone Facebook as King of the Internet, and Craigslist/Ebay are still casting a snooty eye over the upstart that is Google Base.

So what do you think? Has Google made a useful product? Is this it for Yelp? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Twitter to Challenge Google for Search (no, really!)

Finally, some big news about Twitter which doesn’t involve the company being bought by Google Microsoft Yahoo Apple whoever this week. Instead, at a Cnet panel last week Santosh Jayaram, Vice President, Business Operations, mentioned that Twitter will begin crawling the links in tweets, and then indexing those pages.

As Techcrunch rightly points out, this isn’t a matter of Twitter trying to beat Google at their main strength, traditional search, it is instead a brand new paradigm, with the promise of human-influenced, real-time search results.

Little is known about the details but there were comments made about weighting links based on influence (a la Google’s Page Rank system), but no word on how that would be done yet.

One thing is certain though, this finally offers Twitter the chance to prove its real worth. All those big companies sniffing around for the past few weeks weren’t doing so as a result of the buzz around Twitter (despite Oprah’s growing disinterest after an initial flurry of tweets, the number of new users continues to climb), but for the oodles of data Twitter has unprecedented access to. As with Google’s purchase of Urchin a few years ago, seeing how real people behave online is inherently valuable.

How Will It Work?

Short answer: we’ll have to wait and see. Longer answer: I’m not sure, but I’d like to see something like this. A real-time search engine,which would compliment Google rather than replace it, where real people invisibly influence the search results.

For example, a current Twitter search for ‘obama‘ has thousands upon thousands of results with dozens more each few seconds. Great if you want to know what people are saying, not so useful if you want to discover what exactly they are reacting to, as you have to wade through page after page to see all the links.

Or ‘manny ramirez‘ – you’ll see lots of comments about his drug violation, and many of them also have links. The trouble is that with URL shortening, you can see what looks like 10 different links all going to the same article.

Wouldn’t it be great to have this page split into two columns, one with comments and another with the most popular linked-to articles/websites?

Of course, it will also become subject to the scourge of the internet – spammers – but that is where the relative influence of the writer comes in.

It’s easy to forget now, but before Google search engines were filled with spam. Yes, it still appears throughout the search results now,even on Google, but nothing like it was back in 1997/8, and that is largely because of Google’s PageRank system. For a detailed mathematical explanation see here, but basically Google used links to a webpage as a way of measuring its popularity,but with the very important caveat that not all links are equal.

If I run a golf course for example, a link from PGA.com would be far more valuable than a link from your old Geocities page – PGA.com is a popular site, and in a related field. A similar thing could be done for Twitter search, a link from ESPN columnist and professional RedSox fan Bill Simmons to a Manny Ramirez article would be worth more than one from Oprah, even though she has more followers.

And of course, Twitter search wouldn’t have to be limited to websites either. As with Google’s move towards universal search, it could easily incorporate videos, mp3s, photos, and anything else that people are discussing or linking to.

Something like this could be hugely useful, if implemented correctly. Despite Google’s success, the missing piece in their search has always been a human element. In fact they incorporate the Open Directory Project listings into their search algorithm as a way of helping to inject some personal judgment.

A search engine that shows exactly what is happening around the world right now, as discussed by real people? I can’t wait!

So what do you think? Am I missing the point? Is this another potential ‘Google-killer’ that will die on the vine? Please share your thoughts or comments.

Learn about yourself with Google

There was a meme on Facebook a while back, encouraging people to Google their name plus is, to see the funny results. For instance, Googling “Simon is” (with quotes) brings up:

Simon is an Intergalactic Hardware Visionary (cool!)
Simon is not a metal or a fuel or a food or water (true, I guess)
Simon is a cheese/hamburger worker (um…)
and so on.

So, kind of funny I suppose, but it got me thinking about what Google can *really* tell you about yourself.

Hopefully everyone reading this is aware of reputation management (if not, please contact us ASAP for a consult!). I have Google alerts set up for my name, just to make sure there’s nothing said about me I wouldn’t want my mom to read. A quick search for my name brings up my website, LinkedIn page, Facebook, plus the darned Hacker thing (it’s not real. And if it was, it’s not me, I swear!).

All well and good there.

But there’s plenty more that Google knows about you, from your searching habits.

If you have a Google account, and it’s getting hard to do much on the Internet these days without one, and providing you didn’t opt-out, then Google can show you a *lot* you may not be aware of.

Go to Google.com right now. In the top right corner, click on My Account > Web History. You’ll have to sign in – Google does like to create the illusion of privacy at least – but you’ll find a treasure trove of info.

The first thing to notice is the breakdown of all your searches, dating back years. You can view all together, or break it down into the different components – Web, Images, News, etc.

Once you get over the initial shock of just how much Google has been recording quietly in the background, it’s quite interesting to flick through. Almost like reading your old diary – Burns Night 2007 for instance I was searching Yahoo Answers for ‘how do I cook a turnip’. On May 21, 2007 I googled:

‘the name hannah is far too common’

Why? I have absolutely no idea! I am intrigued though. Lots of fun stuff to look back on.

You can also see your trends, and figure out just how much of your life you owe to Google. My searches are fairly consistent during weekdays, but I search a lot more in March (average of 2098 searches) than November (1091 searches). And considering that I would never call myself a morning person, it’s odd that my most active hours are between 8 and 10am.

These trends also show you the phrases you most often search for, the sites you usually click on (Wikipedia, Youtube, IMDB and Amazon, if you’re interested) and lots more.

If you ever had any doubt about why Google is the number one search engine, this should put those to rest. Just thinking about how much they know about me, and multiplying that by the billions of searches they handle every month, well, I’m more surprised they can’t just send me what I need each day in an email, without my having to bother with all the searching at all.

Anyway, check it out. Let me know if you learn anything interesting or unexpected.

Are You Making the Most of Google Local?

It has been almost 4 years since Google launched the Google Local Business Center, but it still amazes me that many businesses, small business in particular, and not taking any steps to boost their profile here.

Considering that for many searches now, there are 10 Google Local results listed before the rest of the results, see here for example,  it seems that far too many people are ignoring this huge potential source of traffic. Free traffic, no less!

So, if you’re one and you don’t know where to begin, here’s a few tips to get you started:

Find or Add Your Site.
Head over to http://www.google.com/local/add and sign in with your Google Account info. Click Add New Business, and start completing the info – name, address, etc.
Once you click Next, you may well find that your business is already listed. Just click Claim Listing. If it’s not there, select Add New Listing instead.

Take Control.
Obviously you don’t want just anyone to be able to change your listing information, so Google has a couple of ways to verify that you have the right to edit this account. By far the easiest is the phone method. If you are sitting by the work phone, Google will give you a PIN on the screen, and then call you at the phone number they have. Enter the PIN and you’re all set.
If that’s not possible the alternative is to have them mail you a postcard with the PIN. This can take a couple of weeks.
It is worth telling everyone in the office to keep an eye out for this card. It’s easily mistaken for junk mail and tossed, which will require you to start again.

Build Out Your Listing.
This isn’t the Yellow Pages. It doesn’t cost you any extra to make your listing an all-singing, all dancing ad that shows off how great your company is. You can add up to 10 photos, so do so – not just a logo, but anything else that you think may help. Put in your office hours, types of payments accepted, even add in up to 5 Youtube videos. Really take some time and add in all the bells and whistles that you can.

Monitor the Results.
As well as seeing the traffic on your website analytics reports, Google also provides rolling stats of the last 30 days, with the number of impressions and clicks that your listing generated. You might very well be amazed at just how much traffic is now coming your way. As an added bonus they even offer the ability to show coupons. These are branded with the Google logo and a bar code so when your customer requests their free cup of coffee with any sandwich/car wax with any full service wash/website evaluation/whatever, you’ll know just where they came from.

Have you had any success with Google Local? Please let us know.

Make Google’s Results Your Own

This looks to be pretty major -Starting today, Google is adding a wiki function to the search results,

“Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results? Maybe you’re an avid hiker and the trail map site you always go to is in the 4th or 5th position and you want to move it to the top. Or perhaps it’s not there at all and you’d like to add it. Or maybe you’d like to add some notes about what you found on that site and why you thought it was useful. Starting today you can do all this and tailor Google search results to best meet your needs.”

As with all things Google related, people are pretty quick to jump in with their opinions. Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch is not a fan,

“Google search wasn’t broken. It’s one of the few things on the Internet that isn’t. I love it, as does 62% of everyone on the Internet. This new stuff is a mess of arrows and troll comments and stuff moving around the page.”

While someone (sorry, I couldn’t find a name on the blog) over at I’ve Said Too Much, has responded to that with a post simply titled ‘Arrington is Wrong’,

“Google seeks to build a massive distributed curated search into which we are all adding intelligence without ever being aware of it. It is, I would contend, the Big Thing At Google For 2009.”

Meanwhile, over at eWeek, they’re a lot more enthusiastic, seeing it as a boon for users, advertisers and, of course, Google,

“That’s Google’s genius stroke; we believe SearchWiki is letting us control our search destiny, but Google gets to keep putting up more search ads in front of us. Google wants us to find what we’re looking for, and now it has provided a way to keep us in Google.com to do so.”

I’m personally not sure right now.

I think it will be clearly used for Google to start collecting yet more information about what people think of the search results – with the positives and negatives that suggests. People will try and game the system, promoting themselves and so on. If, however, enough people use it, then hopefully the ‘wisdom of crowds’ will help to improve things by adding that human element which is often missing from Google.

That said, I can’t help but agree with Arrington that it looks a mess. Remember how clean Google used to be?

When they first launched it was one of the major things that set them apart. All that lovely white space. The sponsored links were completely separate from the natural SERPs. No nasty banner ads. Just good search results.

But now, between the maps, local search, images, addresses and so on – these additional buttons just seem like yet more clutter.

Will it work? I don’t know. If I search for something, I’m used to Google telling me what I need to know. Using their example from above, I would not use Google to revisit a trail map site time after time, I would bookmark it instead, either on my PC or with Delicious.

I can see times when it would be useful to remove particularly bad results, but how often am I going to suggest a site be added?

And the notes I suspect, will be more trolling than useful unfortunately. I’ve tried a few so far, and there’s nothing that enhances my searching at all. A search for Liverpool FC, for instance, just has 3 right now:

Comment by: Searcher, 9:05am – searching: lfc
“great”

Comment by: Mike, 6:41am – searching: liverpool
“Liverpool FC”

Comment by: 360spin, 8:39am – searching: liverpool
“Wow!”

How do they help me at all?

Perhaps Google is threatened by the growth of social networks and feels that is one area search can be improved. I’m not so sure.

What do you think?

Some (Limited) Praise for the Google AdWords Changes

In the latest round of updates at the end of last week, Google announced that they would (finally!) be adding more detail about where your clicks are coming from:

“Previously, these pages divided statistics into two categories: search, which included Google and search partners, and the content network.
Now, we show one set of statistics for Google and another set aggregating search partner performance. Search partners include AOL, Ask.com, and many other search sites around the web. ”

This is a major change, comparable to when Google started showing where exactly your ads where coming from in the Content network.

That was a huge step forward, and one that made sense for Google. Previously advertisers were skeptical about throwing money down a black hole which included some very, um, shady Made For AdSense sites alongside the high quality sites they may have wanted to target.

However, these latest changes don’t go far enough. Yet.

We can now see how Google stacks up against the other search partners, but not how the individual partners (Ask, AOL, etc) are performing individually. Rich, over at Destilled is asking the question, “Have Google Shot Themselves in the Foot?”, and it’s a valid point.

Here’s the data for one of the accounts we manage:

(I removed the campaign names for anonymity for my client)

As you can see, in each case the cost per click for the search partners is higher, up to 25% higher, than it is on Google, but even more importantly, the number of conversions (final column) are way down. So I’m paying more, and getting less. That is why all the Search partner ads are now set to ‘Off’. I’d rather spend where it is working.

So, what happens now?

Well I suspect that that many others will follow suit and shut off the complete search network, for example, see this thread at Webmaster World:

“At first glance it looks like 90% of my conversions are from google search only not the network.”

“Wow, just split stats on an account. Bye bye Search Network!”

“We totally disabled Partners in a few campaigns after seeing 100 to 200% higher conversion costs.
No wonder they didn’t show this data for so long.”

And if that happens, I’d have to assume that Google will be forced to show the search network in greater details, if only due to pressure from their partners. If AOL is performing well, for instance, they’re unlikely to be happy about being cut out due to the deficiencies of other sites.

However, for now we have to deal with what we have, and I’m at least glad that I’ve been able to learn this much.

How about you? How do your stats measure up across the different sites?

Google Adwords – Tweaking All the Way to the Bank

Google announced on Monday that the Quality Score Improvements would be going live this week, with what they claim are tweaks which will benefit both advertisers and search users.

Well, they would, wouldn’t they!?

The changes, removing the ‘Inactive for Search Status’, real time ‘Quality Score’ and new ‘First Page Bid Estimates’ seem to me to be more about generating extra revenue than improving quality.

Even among those SEMs who work with AdWords for a living there is a lot of confusion about what is going on. A lot of the targeting improvements seem, well, arbitrary at best. For instance, here’s one of the search terms from an account I manage (click the image to enlarge):

It’s not ‘Great’, but a fairly solid 7/10 ‘OK’. Even some nice words of encouragement,

“What should I do?
Keep it up! Your keyword, ad text, and landing page quality are high.”

So, how is the ad performing? Let’s see:

Hmm, the ad is not showing. Must be the bid then, right?

Well, no:

Estimated bid to show on the first page:	$1.25	Based on the quality score below
Your bid:	$1.75	Max CPC

I have an keyword that is rated at 7/10, and I’m bidding 40% more than Google estimates I need to to be on the first page, and yet, “No Ad is Showing”.

No wonder people are confused.

If Google is not showing the ads, then they’ll lose money then. Well, I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

I’ve been watching my keywords pretty closely this week to see what would happen, and Google’s main suggestion seems to be that I raise my bids. Funny that.

How about this one for instance:

That’s an exact match keyword, which fits the site perfectly, has a historically high click-thru rate and used to average less the $1/click. Google now says “Bid is below first page bid estimate of $25.00″. $25! And yet yesterday, it was in the 1.5 average position.

That’s an extreme one, but we’ve seen maybe 30-40% of our keywords being told they should raise the bid according to the first page bid estimate. If that is happening across other peoples’ accounts, and it appears that it is, then we are going to see the average cost of bids being pushed up. Nobody wants to be on the 2nd or, gasp, 3rd page of results.

I’ve been working with Pay Per Click ads for a good number of years now (hence the GoTo swag shown above), and I think we’ve been down this road before. This is why many people switched to Google AdWords from Goto/Overture in the first place, because the constant battle to be in the top spots drove the cost up and up. Google was a breath of fresh air. They really did reward quality instead of who has the deepest pockets. After all, if Ad1 was paying $1, and Ad2 only $0.50 but had 3 times as many clicks, then Google still made more money. Everyone was happy. That is why I’m worried about the potential bidding wars this may lead to.

Particularly if the Yahoo-Google deal is finalized and approved.

Maybe I’m wrong. It’s still very early days and these may just be some kinks which will have to be worked out. But given Google’s near monopoly and unwillingness to listen recently, I can’t say I’m overly optimistic.

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Are you an AdWords Advertisers? Let me know what you’re seeing or what you think.

From Bad to Worse at Cuil

Cuil, who have seen their traffic tumble into free fall since their much-hyped (but severely botched) launch, have suffered another blow today, as TechCrunch reports that VP Product, Louis Monier, has quit the company:

“Louis Monier, Cuil’s VP Product, quietly resigned from the newly launched search engine last week, we’ve heard from a reliable source. “

Monier was one of the big draws for the simply stunning amount of PR that Cuil generated – he was hired  away from Google last year in a major coup for the young start up, but is even more well known as the Father of AltaVista, everyone’s favorite search engine before Google came along. His departure is thought to be related to the path Cuil should take.

With a resume which also includes stints at Xerox PARC,  Ebay and Google, Monier is regarded as one of the big names in tech and search, so the blow will be a huge one for Cuil. After all, he left Alta Vista, then the #1 search engine, after a similar disagreement over the move from straight search to becoming a portal (how 1999!)..and look what happened to AV after that.

Don’t Panic!

This has been a strange week. On Tuesday I was very worried about two things – Hurricane Hanna looked to be heading for a direct hit, and one of our clients took a major dive in Google for their key search terms.

It’s now Sunday, Hannah has passed by with little more than some extra rain, and the client has moved back up, better than before. So, a wasted week? No!

Here’s what I’ve learned from this:

Examine the Situation

Hurricane: We weren’t as ready as we should have been. What needed to be done? Where would we stay? When would we leave? What would we bring?

Website: Had any major changes been made? Were other companies affected the same way? What was being said at Webmaster World and other boards?

Taking Action

Hurricane: We made hotel reservations which could be canceled right up to the last minute with no penalty. We sorted through documents, cleaned out the old and organized the relevant ones. Bought extra candles, water and supplies.

Website: Looked through the code for anything that had gotten ‘messed up’. Checked out some competitors to see how they were looking. Analyzed the traffic that was still being sent from Google.

Waiting. And waiting.

In both instances there was a lot of waiting.

Hurricane: Once we had established that we were ready as we could be, there was little to do but check the NHC tracking maps and listen for local advisories regarding a possible evacuation.

Website: There was still plenty of traffic coming from Google, it was just some of the most searched phrases that had taken a hit. We weren’t banned at least! We still had good back links. Nothing was obviously wrong on the site. So…we wait.

Happy Endings

Hurricane: By Thursday it was pretty clear we should dodge the worst of it. Schools were closed as a precautionary measure on Friday, but other than some stronger than usual wind, and a little extra rain, we were fine. Yay!

Website: We tried to limit checking to once (okay, maybe twice) a day. On Saturday things were still not looking great – we had second page positions, but they were bouncing around between #19 and #20. Then, on Sunday, the storm blew past and the sun came out – back up to top 5 for both the affected search terms. Yay!

Conclusions

Somethings are just simply beyond your control. Yes, you should prepare for hurricanes and you can optimize for Google, but that doesn’t stop bad things happening.

What is important is that when it looks like trouble, then you know what to do.

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