Although they’ve been criticised for it in the past, one of the most fascinating things about Google is that they can and do rely on the data and the facts and in this case it will be interesting to see the outcome of the experiment. There are a whole host of factors at play here and obviously their aim is to maximise the number of clicks on the ads, thereby maximising their revenue. Unfortunately us picky humans are in the way of that and suffer from all sorts of ailments like advert fatigue, varying sensitivity to colour, varying monitor settings and so on.

What do you think of the new colours? Have you noticed? Do you prefer any of them over the others? Let us know in the comments below!

Google has been using site speed as a ranking factor in its AdWords model for some time, but speed is now one of the 200 or so factors taken into account when ranking a page in organic listings, marking a fairly fundamental change and making it ever more challenging for web developers, web masters and search engine optimisers to achieve strong, high ranking positions. The knock-on effects will also be felt at hosting companies (particularly those who rely on the high-volume, low-service model) as more pressure is put on them to deliver web pages quickly, which itself can be largely dependent on the quality of code produced by programmers but also on the hardware provided, internal infrastructure, bandwidth available and connections. Suffice to say, those who invest in high-quality infrastructure and fast connections will feel the benefit as clients migrate towards them, as will developers who take the time to produce efficient, clean code that doesn’t get in the way of the user experience.

The team at Google are keen to stress that the impact is likely to be minimal, saying:

While site speed is a new signal, it doesn’t carry as much weight as the relevance of a page. Currently, fewer than 1% of search queries are affected by the site speed signal in our implementation and the signal for site speed only applies for visitors searching in English on Google.com at this point. We launched this change a few weeks back after rigorous testing. If you haven’t seen much change to your site rankings, then this site speed change possibly did not impact your site.

Speed has long been of interest to Google as they have carried out extensive testing on the impact of speed on how users interact with their search tools. In short, a speedier site means better click-through rates, higher levels of engagement and a generally higher degree of satisfaction.

The crux of the case was that anyone is allowed to bid on trademarked keywords via the AdWords system and have their ads appear alongside search results, however, only the trademark owner may use the trademarked term in their ads (this is something lots of people outside the PPC industry are unaware of). The brand owners were concerned that ads directing users to counterfeit products were being shown, thereby violating their rights.

Very few people in the business expected anything other than a ruling in Google’s favour and the court obliged by saying:

“Google has not infringed trademark law by allowing advertisers to purchase keywords corresponding to their competitors’ trademarks”

Google’s Litigation Counsel responded in an official blog post with:

Trade marks are part of our daily life and culture, helping us to identify the products and services that we may be looking for. They are key for companies to market and advertise their products and services. But trade mark rights are not absolute.

We believe that user interest is best served by maximizing the choice of keywords, ensuring relevant and informative advertising for a wide variety of different contexts. For instance, if a user is searching for information about a particular car, he or she will want more than just that car’s website. They might be looking for different dealers that sell that car, second hand cars, reviews about the car or looking for information about other cars in the same category.

Why Was Quality Score Ignored?

I haven’t seen anyone mention the AdWords Quality Score mechanism and I do wonder why as it provides a certain degree of economic control in favour of brand owners in situations like this.

Speaking simply, if I decided to start bidding against an LVMH Trademarked term, my Quality Score would probably be much lower than LVMH’s as 1) my adverts wouldn’t use the trademarked term (so the click through rate would probably be low) and 2) I wouldn’t be sending someone to a site that was heavily associated with the trademark. The resulting low QS would mean higher click costs for me compared to the price LVMH would pay, possibly making my bidding grossly uneconomical.

Thus, despite the threat of lawsuits and general opprobrium, there is also a serious and possibly terminal financial disincentive inherent in the AdWords system that actively discourages bidding against any brand term that isn’t your own. They didn’t talk about that, did they?

If you ask any PPC expert for the one thing that make their life easier they’d probably say “more accurate conversion tracking”. In an attempt to deliver this, Google have today released a new ‘View-Through Conversions’ metric for their AdWords platform, providing advertisers with an additional means to measure the success of their campaigns.

The new tool is used exclusively with display ads featuring on the Content Network and is designed to track how many conversions result after a user has seen an ad rather than clicked on an ad. If you think about it for a moment, this is a significant development and one that is actually far more important than on first impression (if you excuse the pun).

The benefit of the metric is that advertisers will begin to develop an understanding of the visibility that advertising on the content network can bring and the conversions that can be generated as a result. After all, users might not necessarily click on an ad but rather read the ad and remember your brand name for later. All well and good. but what this doesn’t account for is the users who saw your ad but know about your brand or company already. For example, I know about Apple and I know that their site is at www.apple.com. If I’m feeling flush I might go on there and order myself a brand new Macbook Pro. That purchase is entirely influenced by my past experience and knowledge of Apple and is nothing to do with advertising. But if I’ve been on a page somewhere (let’s say the Mac News Network) that features content network ads for Apple, there’s a good chance my purchase will be recorded as a View-Through Conversion, which is an entirely false assessment of the effectiveness of the ad.

Therein lies the problem – with View-Through there’s simply no way to assess whether someone converted because of the ad or despite it. If you optimise your AdWords campaigns based on these conversion statistics, you may well be lowering their effectiveness and putting your budget into campaigns, sites or activities that simply don’t work.

To effectively measure the effectiveness of these ads you would need to run a control on the campaign, looking at how many people who didn’t see the ad bought something anyway. Only then would you start to have an accurate understanding of whether the investment was worthwhile.

Despite that, there’s no doubt it’s a very useful addition to the online marketer’s armoury, albeit best taken with a dose of scepticism.

The announcement was made in a post on the Google Webmaster blog the other day and has triggered the usual speculation and discussion that surrounds Google’s regular dissemination of information, most of which involves the usual picking apart of the statement looking for hidden meaning. Perhaps Dan Brown’s latest book is stirring up the SEO industry in its week of release?

Our View on Meta-Keywords

Our view on keywords has always been simple and straightforward: don’t bother. We have seen no difference in ranking ability of two pages that possess and lack keywords respectively, none whatsoever. Likewise, we have never seen any impact on ranking come about as a result of meta-keyword tweaking.

Meta-Descriptions Make Sense

The post also mentions that Google has not used the Meta-Description field for ranking purposes for a number of years, however, our experience is that the description field can actually aid matters as it plays a crucial role in determining the click-through rate of a listing on a search engine ranking page (SERP). Our view is that the higher the CTR on a link, the likelier the associated page is to rank more highly. Furthermore, the higher the click-through rate of a page, the more traffic you’re likely to attract, so a well optimised and written description can really make a difference.

If you don’t include a meta-description then Google will select a snippet of text from your site, which might not work as well as a bespoke one. We use the meta-description field to display the Mackerel Media phone number on the SERPs page, as you’ll be able to see here. Neat eh?

Looking to the future, we can only hope that now Google has cleared keywords up, they’ll move swiftly on to link spam blogs, dubious paid link vendors and all the other fun issues that keep us busy. Hmm…perhaps we’re a little too optimistic.

Hello Bing, Goodbye Yahoo

Perhaps the most significant recent development has been the long-mooted coming together of Microsoft and Yahoo in a partnership that sees one of the web’s oldest and most revered search engines make way for the Redmond giant’s technology. The two companies had been in a will-they-won’t-they dance for what seems like years, but at the end of July the deal was finally inked.

In exchange for an 88% share of search ad revenue, Bing will replace Yahoo’s search engine and bring much-desired exposure of Microsoft’s technology to the 570 million or so visitors Yahoo currently attracts. The immediate gain for Microsoft is the potential to increase its share of the search market to around 28%, which will bring with it vastly increased search ad revenue. Interestingly, more recent statistics have shown Bing’s search ad market share soaring by around 44%, a seemingly clear sign that advertisers and web users appreciate the service.

Microsoft is of course taking something of a multi-pronged strategy, with its earlier investment in Facebook: see below for more.

The deal also puts another nail in the coffin of Yahoo’s strategy, which through the tenures of Terry Semel and Jerry Yang has been somewhat suspect: remember, this is the company that in 2002 failed to acquire Google for $5 billion – what a bargain that would have been!

What does Microsoft-Yahoo Deal mean for Search?

Rising Traffic – The clearest implication is that Bing is now a much more important consideration for search optimisation and marketing campaigns. Hitherto, our experience of Bing traffic has been somewhat underwhelming, typically our clients see a roughly 20:1 Google to Bing ratio. That is now highly likely to change and as such we’ll be focusing much more on Bing.

Lack of Back-link Data – From an SEO perspective, one of the jewels in Yahoo’s crown is the superb Site Explorer, which provides a very thorough breakdown of the back-links a given web site enjoys. Google’s Webmaster Panel does have a backlink tool, but next to Yahoo’s, it’s rather poor. With the M:Y deal, are we in danger of losing Yahoo’s backlink data? Will it be migrated to the new platform? We can only hope it will as losing it would put a huge dent in every SEO’s toolkit.

Facebook, Friendfeed & Designs on Real-Time Search

One of the hottest topics on in the search community right now is real-time-search and whether the major players are actually capable of delivering updates to their indexes in the same way that the likes of Twitter can. With this in mind, Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed is very interesting, as it brings the social networking site closer to being a provider of real-time search results across your network of friends and contacts. Some have said this pits them squarely against Google and have even spoken of a Google vs Facebook war. Adding the rising popularity of Twitter to the mix, and the scene is set for something of a search showdown.

Thinking laterally, for many people Facebook is the de facto starting point for a web browsing session, so if the site can deliver a rich and compelling search experience it has a very strong change of diverting the searching habits of some of its 240 million users away from Google.

Google Perks Up

We do love a pun here, and Google’s latest Caffeine update provides ample opportunity for them. Silliness aside, the update does represent something of a step change for Google as it aims to tackle a number of persistent challenges: Speed, Relevance and Index Size. Whilst access to the preview system has been limited, early feedback from the search community has been generally positive, particularly on the speed of results (halved in many cases), the ranking of authoritative domains over ones that are less so and a closer alignment of search results with relevance, something that Bing has incidentally been making noises about. Social Media links seem to be rising in rank, but with the recent ‘revelation’ that 40% of Tweets are ‘pointless babble‘ is this necessarily a good thing?

Friends Reunited Perks Down

It was announced a few days ago that Brightsolid, the internet arm of D.C. Thompson Publishing, agreed to acquire Friends Reunited from ITV for £25 million, the troubled broadcaster thereby taking a hit of £150m on the £175m it paid for the site back in 2005. Whilst the popularity of the site has waned (with Facebook bearing down, it’s no surprise), it does allow BrightSolid to develop its interests in the Ancestry and Geneaology market, one into which it has made tremendous strides.

With FRU now in the hands of a smaller (and arguably nimbler) owner, we certainly hope that it’s a positive sign and wish them all the best – there aren’t enough internet-based companies in Scotland for our liking!

The search giant is showing a handy summary of today’s tennis at Wimbledon, but as the screengrab below shows, they haven’t quite spelt “Quarterfinals” correctly, rather it says “Quaterfinals.”

Oops.