Showing posts with label Industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Industry. Show all posts
The rise of mobile Internet use and changes to Google’s algorithm were the most impactful trends and technologies for in-house search engine marketers in 2012.
Forty-seven percent of company respondents to SEMPO’s recent State of Search Marketing survey indicated changes in mobile use are highly significant in the context of their search marketing efforts. An additional 41 percent pegged mobile as significant, for fully 87 percent finding it a concern overall.
Eighty-seven percent also felt Google algorithm updates were significant to their search marketing strategy, 39 percent saying highly so.
On the agency side, mobile was again most impactful. However, agencies overall are more concerned with the rise of local search than Google algorithm changes.
When considering entering new marketing channels, search marketers are most influenced by the cost to implement (58 percent), the ability to manage it in-house (51 percent), and the time it will take to implement (51 percent.) Lesser concerns include:
- Cost per lead or acquisition.
- Cost to manage.
- Ability to report.
- Ability to target.
- Learning curve.
Not surprisingly, paid search gets top marks for the ability to calculate ROI. Just 15 percent of in-house respondents report their company is “Good” at measuring social media ROI.
Said the report, “To some extent this is simply a problem of time and investment; companies would love to have a better idea of ROI, but aren’t willing to implement the technologies and processes it would require, not to mention the staff.”
Agencies practicing SEO are most often using it to generate leads and drive traffic to the client website, said respondents. SEMPO/Econsultancy note, “Although SEO has changed significantly with the Panda and Penguin updates, goals haven’t. There is a drop in the blunt objective of driving traffic, but it’s still a key goal. More interesting perhaps is the doubling of agencies citing brand/reputation as a goal, up from 5% in 2011 to over 11% in this year’s survey.”
The metrics used most often to measure success in SEO by in-house SEOs/companies are:
- Number of sales/leads (49 percent)
- Traffic volume (47 percent)
- Conversion rate (41 percent)
- Return on investment (32 percent)
- Keyword rankings (30 percent).
(Not equal to 100 percent as survey respondents were asked to select the three most important metrics.)
The most important SEO metrics looked slightly different on the agency side:
- Number of sales/leads (42 percent)
- Return on investment (41 percent)
- Traffic volume (40 percent)
- Keyword rankings (40 percent)
- Conversion rate (38 percent)
Overall, companies have increased their SEO budgets over the last three years, though 2 percent of respondents said they spent nothing on SEO at all.
The search engine marketing industry in North America will reach an estimated value of $23 billion by the end of the year, according to the State of Search Marketing Report 2012. SEM has grown 19 percent over 2011.
The report, released jointly by Econsultancy and SEMPO, also shows a projected growth rate of 13 percent for 2013.
Finding budget for SEM and social is challenging, especially among smaller organizations, they found. Hiring and retaining talent is also a concern, with 21 percent of survey respondents indicating this is a key challenge.
Marketers continue to struggle to measure ROI, especially those trying to correctly attribute revenue to search-related activities.
Eighty-six percent of participating marketers expect digital budgets to grow, up from 77 percent in 2011. Just 4 percent said they anticipate a reduction.
Overall, said the report, marketers are seeking a more holistic strategy, integrating digital with all other channels.
“Marketers want to centrally manage their channels, see results on a platform that brings in data from across their programs, and to understand how those channels interrelate in the customer journey,” according to the report.
This year’s report included 883 respondents from 36 countries, spanning a variety of sectors. Respondents from B2C and B2B focuses were almost evenly split, at 42 and 39 percent, respectively.
"Rise of Mobile & Local, Google Updates Top Concerns for Search Marketers" offers more analysis and insights from the report.
The State of Search Marketing Report 2012 is available to SEMPO members to download from their SEM Research page.
U.S. citizens who fell for a work from home scam that capitalized on the Google name are being refunded by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The FTC said that it is sending out over 90,000 refund checks worth around $2.3 million to consumers who got caught up in the scheme and were charged hidden costs.
The scam, which operated under the names Google Money Tree, Google Pro, and Google Treasure Chest, had nothing to do with the Internet search giant and promised people who wanted to work from home the possibility of earning as much as $100,000 in less than a year.
The FTC smashed the scam back in 2009 under an operation called Operation Short Change. It said that the company behind it had been using the name and logo of Google fraudulently and asked people to hand over their financial and banking account information in return for a so-called "work-from-home kit."
There were a few problems with the proposition:
- There was no way to work from home and make money.
- It had nothing to do with Google.
- There were hidden, monthly charges being taken.
Under a settlement, those behind the scam are banned from trading in such a way again, and were forced to make repayments to the FTC.
Google is facing another lawsuit over their autocomplete search feature. This time, Germany’s former First Lady, Bettina Wulff, is taking the search giant to court. Google refuses to remove defamatory autocomplete suggestions that peg her as a prostitute, yet they have the capacity to block certain terms and remove results, as evidenced by their fight against piracy.
In response to rumors during her husband Christian Wulff’s presidency, she filed a sworn affidavit with the German courts denying any involvement in prostitution. Still, Internet users searching for information about her see her name alongside “prostitute,” “escort,” and “red light district,” when typing Bettina Wulff into the Google search bar.
Mass-circulation newspaper Bild said Wulff tackles the topic in her upcoming biography. "My pseudonym is supposedly 'Lady Victoria' and my workplace was apparently an establishment called 'Chateau Osnabrück,'" Wulff writes, according to Bild. She continues: "I have never worked as escort."
According to BBC, the rumors began in an effort to disrupt her husband’s political career. German newspaper Der Speigel reports Wulff has filed 34 successful cease and desist orders against her detractors. She has spent two years fighting the allegations.
Autocomplete results are generated based on the information people are already searching for, said Google Germany head of PR Kay Overbeck. "All terms that appear have been previously entered by Google users," he said in a statement.
Google has refused to remove the autosuggest results for Bettina Wulff on the basis that they are algorithmic and therefore an objective reflection of search volume. However, Google does remove some results.
Kent Walker, a Google lawyer, wrote in a 2010 statement on the Google Public Policy blog, “...along with this new wave of creators come some bad apples who use the Internet to infringe copyright... We will prevent terms that are closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete.”
Perhaps “bad apples” who attempt to destroy the reputations of individuals should not be rewarded for their efforts, either. In piracy cases, companies are offered protection by Google by way of making infringing content less accessible. Clearly, the technology is there to offer the same protection for private citizens victimized by manipulation of Google’s algorithms for nefarious reasons.
BBC reported that Bing also shows defamatory autosuggest results for Bettina Wulff, though when Search Engine Watch tested this, that was not the case.
Google was fined $65,000 earlier this year in France, after refusing to remove autocomplete suggestions that labeled a French insurance company a “crook.”
Google and former CEO Eric Schmidt were also found guilty of defamation in 2010 when the search engine suggested terms including “rapist” and “Satanist” for a plaintiff. In another case, an Argentina court ruled Google must censor anti-Semitic search results.
Clearly, courts feel Google must respond to complaints of defamatory autocomplete results by removing the offending content. Google has shown they are able to do so with their removal of piracy search terms. Whether they continue to fight in various countries for the right to allow false, defamatory results in Autocomplete remains to be seen.
Consider the volume of successful cease and desist orders filed by Wulff. There is a complete lack of evidence she has anything to do with prostitution, beyond the use of the term by unscrupulous individuals to play politics against her husband. This is not a case of a politician or celebrity simply not liking their press coverage.
But look beyond the individual or company being victimized by autocomplete manipulation in these various cases. When autocomplete suggestions are proven patently false, isn’t Google doing the average user a disservice by not only allowing inaccurate information to appear, but actually suggesting it to them?
Google chose their position as stewards of the world’s masses of information. What responsibility do they have to ensure their algorithms aren't manipulated to cause harm?
Do you think Google should voluntarily remove defamatory autocomplete suggestions? Weigh in with your comments.
Vitaly Borker’s online reign of terror, once used as his SEO strategy, has earned the failed entrepreneur four years in federal prison. The former owner/operator of DecorMyEyes was also ordered to pay nearly $100,000 in restitution and fines as a result of his use of threats of rape, murder, and dismemberment to boost his Google rankings.
Borker told the New York Times in 2010 that negative publicity had vaulted his site to the top of Google’s organic rankings. “I’ve exploited this opportunity because it works. No matter where they post their negative comments, it helps my return on investment,” he explained. “So I decided, why not use that negativity to my advantage?”
It worked, for a while. DecorMyEyes.com did enjoy the coveted top organic position on Google for many terms, allowing Borker to repeatedly swindle and con consumers who believed the listing was a reflection of site quality and trust. What they received on ordering through the site were counterfeits.
When customers complained, as Clarabelle Rodriguez did after receiving knock-offs and having her credit card overcharged, they often faced the wrath of Borker using one of his various aliases. In Rodriguez’s case, it meant harassing phone calls and threats of sexual assault. Borker had her address from the online order and even went so far as to tell her in an email (as an alias, Mr. Russo), “I AM WATCHING YOU.”
Borker was sued in 2006 by two luxury manufacturers for selling counterfeits. In one case, he and two other defendants were ordered to pay $300,000 to Chloe and Montblanc.
Unrepentant, he continued his scams at DecorMyEyes, hiring an SEO consultant before realizing the negative buzz generated by his shady business practices was actually helping him rank higher on his own. In a 2010 interview, he showed a NYTimes reporter his top ranking for the term, “Christian Audigier,” laughing that he outranked the designer’s own website. “Why am I there?” he wondered.
Indeed. As his harassment of Ms. Rodriguez escalated, Borker began phoning her in the middle of the night and continued emailing threats. Exasperated, she took her complaint to his banks, police, her credit card company, IC3, and even the New York state attorney general’s office. “This might sound like exaggeration, but I feared for my life,” she says. “I was actually looking over my shoulder when I left my apartment. Because I had no idea what he was capable of. Psychologically, he had gotten to me.”
Shortly after the NYTimes first drew the nation’s attention to Borker’s bizarre and frightening behavior, Google released a statement condemning him on their blog.
“We were horrified to read about Ms. Rodriguez’s dreadful experience,” wrote Google fellow Amit Singhal. They quickly worked to resolve the problem, he explained: “... in the last few days we developed an algorithmic solution which detects the merchant from the Times article along with hundreds of other merchants that, in our opinion, provide an extremely poor user experience. The algorithm we incorporated into our search rankings represents an initial solution to this issue, and Google users are now getting a better experience as a result.”
By May 2011, Borker’s gig was up and he pled guilty to charges of fraud and sending threatening communications. Still, the case raged on for eighteen months, as Borker denied aspects of the allegations and his lawyer tried (and failed) to prove he was mentally ill.
At his sentencing last week, Borker sobbed openly in court, saying “I had a big mouth and I couldn’t control it.”
Defense lawyer Dominic F. Amarosa pleaded for leniency on the basis that “He threatened, horribly, 25 people,” as if the fact it was a tiny fraction of DecorMyEyes customers somehow excused the behavior. In one instance, Borker threatened to cut off a customer’s legs.
“The fact is, these were vile threats,” the judge told Mr. Borker. “You were terrorizing people.”
In addition to his four year federal sentence and fines/restitution, Borker was sentenced to three years probation, during which time he will not be allowed to use a computer.
A recent study conducted by Microsoft showed people prefer Bing search results nearly 2-to-1 over Google's results. According to the survey, even those who thought they preferred Google, chose Bing. Based on these results, Microsoft is on a quest to tell the world and change perception.
In their latest campaign, Microsoft is launching a blind "taste test" of sorts pitting Bing against Google in a modern take on the classic Pepsi Challenge.
Bing It On is a side-by-side search engine comparison. You pick a term to search on – or enter your own. After, two sets of results are delivered. You then select a winner, the left side or the right. You may also declare the results a "draw." At the end of the five "rounds", you see which search engine you chose for each of the five queries.
A video posted to the Bing It On site depicts random people on the street identifying Google as their preferred search engine, then choosing Bing's search results as better and more relevant.
The search engine survey was conducted by San Diego-based Answers Research using a sampling of nearly 1,000 people, ages 18 and older from across the United States who used a major search engine in the past 30 days. The respondents were not told any company was involved.
In the survey, each respondent was asked for 10 search queries of their own choosing and displayed side-by-side results with all branding, snapshot, social and Knowledge Graph info removed.
Out of the 1,000 participants, 57.4 percent chose Bing, 30.2 percent chose Google and 12.4 percent saw no preference in the results. The survey had a margin of error of only 2 percent.
Speaking to Search Engine Watch, Bing Director Stephan Weitz referenced the survey results and suggests this campaign is to get the conversation started.
"Google is such a habit, people don't think of the choice of engine they're making," he said. "People have told us they prefer Bing's results at a 2 to 1 margin. We encourage everyone to take the test for themselves to see if they agree."
But Can You win an Xbox?
In the Bing It On video, people are challenged to wager various silly antics that Bing is better than Google. If the people on the street chose Google, they'd win an Xbox.
While you probably won't find random Microsoft employees offering this in your neighborhood, today Microsoft is launching the Bing It On sweepstakes. The sweepstakes offers many prizes, including a Microsoft Surface tablet, Xbox 360 with Kinect, Windows Phones and more, just by tweeting. There will also be in-store activations in various Microsoft stores, right up through the upcoming Windows 8 launch.
Microsoft now has a statistically significant survey showing people prefer Bing results to Google. Armed with that information, expect a major ad campaign online and off. Look for some really creative concepts on screen at the upcoming VMA Awards. Bing has already started a tweet campaign.
It’s a proposed piece of legislation that seems absurd on its face and only becomes more self-defeating and strange as you look further into it. German publishers have been lobbying government for at least a few years to bring into law a licensing system for search engines that link to news content.
In essence, what they’re demanding is that Google and other search engines actually pay for the right to use news headlines and a summary in results listings. The engines can still link to their content, say the German publishers. They just can’t reproduce their headlines or summaries without paying.
Never mind that Google drives traffic to their websites. Never mind that it would be a pretty poor user experience if they had no idea what the search listing was because the title and summary were unavailable.
No, this is what German publishers want and the proposed law is now in its second draft.
“Nobody sees a real reason why this should be implemented,” Google’s North Europe Communications Chief Kay Oberbeck (pictured at right) told GigaOm. “It’s really harmful, not just for users who wouldn’t find as much information as they find now, but such a law is also not justified for economic reasons or judicial reasons.”
Oberbeck also pointed out that publishers can simply block Googlebot with their robots.txt file if they don’t wish to appear in search results. It seems, though, that they want to be there... they just want Google to pay for the privilege of driving traffic to them.
“Publishers should be innovate in order to be successful,” Oberbeck said. “A compulsory levy for commercial internet users means cross-subsidizing publishers through other industries. This is not a sustainable solution.” No kidding.
This isn’t the first time news publishers have demonstrated their inability to grasp that Google is not hosting their content, but linking to it. In 2009, U.S. publishers decided they wanted search engines to pay to list their sites. At that time, Google released a statement on their Public Policy Blog advising them of the step-by-step process required to block search engine access to their sites.
Sometimes you have to wonder if those in large corporations and government really understand what it is they’re asking for, when trying to police technology.
Google has been given clarification and a deadline of Friday to comply with a U.S. judge's order to disclose any paid relationships with the media.
U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup said Google "failed to comply" with his order of August 7 in the firm's patent litigation with enterprise database and applications vendor Oracle.
In Alsup's original ruling, he ordered Google and Oracle to hand over the names of journalists and bloggers they paid during the Java copyrights and patents lawsuit by August 17.
"The Court is concerned that the parties and/or counsel herein may have retained or paid print or internet authors, journalists, commentators or bloggers who have and/or may publish comments on the issues in this case," Alsup's order read.
In a statement on Friday, Google said it has not paid any author, journalist, commentator or blogger to report or comment on any issues in this case. It did, however, reveal a list of paid academic researchers in the fields of artificial intelligence, networking, privacy and security from top institutions such as Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford. The firm also listed groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and Creative Commons.
While Google failed to comply with the order regarding the media and requested clarification instead, Oracle published its list of individuals and organizations that it had paid, naming blogger Florian Mueller and Stanford professor Paul Goldstein, who said he merely advised a law firm and didn't write about the lawsuit.
The court order followed a trial between to two companies that ended in a Google victory in May, which Oracle is set to appeal.
Judge Alsup ruled that the 37 application programming interfaces (APIs) that Oracle had claimed Google infringed were not copyrightable. The lawsuit resulted in Oracle getting a bill for some of Google's legal expenses, to the tune of $4 million, over which the parties are still fighting.
