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New Developments in Search: Bing takes over Yahoo!, Google…

September 10, 2010
by Jennifer Grappone

There have been two major developments in search over the past few weeks.

Bing Takes Over Yahoo!’s Organic Search Results.
Over the last few weeks, Bing’s merger with Yahoo! has progressed into the much-anticipated next step: Bing’s organic search results are now powering Yahoo!’s results. Our rank checks now show identical results for our client’s sites on both Yahoo! and Bing. Bing is now estimated to have approximately 30% of the organic search market share.

What this means to you: stay the course of holistic SEO, but get verified in webmaster tools
Both Google and Bing evaluate similar factors when determining organic search results. For example, text optimization, quality inbound links, and crawler-friendliness are valued by both search engines. So, should you dive in and spend many extra hours learning every detail about Bing’s algorithm? Probably not. We think it’s better to approach SEO holistically, with a many-faceted approach that includes solid on-site optimization, content and link building, tightly focused targeting, and compelling conversion paths.

One sensible way to react to this development is to get verified in Bing’s newly enhanced webmaster tools service. This will give you insights into Bing’s interpretation of your site, and can alert you to problems that might affect your site’s indexing in Bing.

Google Implements Instant Search
See it in action while searching Google, or read Google’s official explanation. Google is now delivering results that change as you type. For example, type in “W” to see weather results. Continue typing “wa,” and the top result will change to Walmart before you hit the Search button.

What this means to you: Keep an eye on Google Suggest
Google Suggest, (Google’s auto-complete feature that provides suggestions as you type in the search box), is becoming more important as a driver of search queries. As one example, you may be ranking well for the singular variation of a keyword, but Google may feature the plural version in the Suggest box, which could draw searchers away from typing your preferred keyword variation. As another example, Google may suggest your product list to searchers in a different order than you would prefer.

Google Suggest tends to be driven by a combination of keyword popularity and newsworthiness. In other words, search behavior is a very strong contributing factor to the phrases that Google suggests, and there is very little that can be done to influence Google’s suggestions directly. (As an aside, Google says it filters out certain words that it interprets as “pornography, violence and hate speech.”)

The takeaway? Make sure to review Google’s suggestions as part of your keyword research activities.

What this means to you: Understand how ad impression data is affected.

From Google Support:

When someone searches using Google Instant, ad impressions are counted in these situations:

*The user begins to type a query on Google and clicks anywhere on the page (a search result, an ad, a spell correction, a related search).
*The user chooses a particular query by clicking the Search button, pressing Enter or selecting one of the predicted queries.
*The user stops typing, and the results are displayed for a minimum of 3 seconds.

You may begin to notice additional ad impressions for shorter-head keywords than you have received historically. You may also see an apparent reduction in click-through rate to your site.

SEO pros are long accustomed to rolling with changes in search! Enjoy the new normal – it will undoubtably change again, and soon!

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You’re Not Imagining Things: SEO Is Getting Harder for…

May 24, 2010
by Jennifer Grappone

Many people come to us, discouraged and puzzled about why their site has fallen in the ranks even though their site is optimized for all the right keywords. Others reach out to us for help with keyword optimization of their site’s text, mistakenly convinced that this is the only thing their site needs to succeed. Here are five reasons that gaining ranks with standard ranking tactics is harder than it used to be for the average site owner:

Keyword Optimization Isn’t as Important

Identifying keywords and using them to optimize your text used to be two of the easiest SEO tasks for the layperson (as well as the not-so-technical SEO). If you were a halfway decent writer, and could figure out the right keywords to include in your text, you used to be able to make some headway in the ranks. However, where there used to be a relatively straight path from keyword optimization to improved ranks, there are now several complicating factors. Now your thoughtful keyword strategy is also vying with:

Personalized search in Google, which causes a searcher’s past behavior to influence their search results
Real-time results in Google, which sometimes give fresh content and tweets an edge over older pages
Better contextualization: Type “corwin” into Google and you’ll get decent results for three very different Corwins: the publisher, the Animal Planet celebrity, and the town. Type “out of league” and Bing reasonably matches your query to results for the movie “She’s Out of My League.” The search engines have gotten much smarter about contextualization and phrase matching, and their ever-improving intelligence is becoming just as much of a rankings factor as your keyword optimization. (And, on a related note: remember when people used to optimize their sites for misspellings? The search engines make that irrelevant now.)

You’re Overloaded with Tools

You used to have only a few optimization tools to work with. Meta tags – go optimize ’em! Links – go get ’em! Thankfully, as SEO has gotten more complex, search engines are now giving you more tools and information to work with. But unfortunately, these tools and information can overwhelm and confuse. Canonical tags are extremely easy to use, and also very easy to mess up. Webmaster Tools give you tons of information, and at the same time lead many of us down the wrong path. (For example, with the data now available, you may be tempted to believe that a decline in site speed caused your ranks to plunge, but you’d probably be wrong.) With all of these elements to analyze and address, it’s difficult to identify what’s most important, which skills to brush up on (or outsource) and what’s worthy of your time and energy.

Web Technology has Outpaced SEO-Friendliness

E-commerce tools, blog publishing platforms and content management systems, AJAX, mobile devices, the proliferation of video…all of these technologies and more have made the web more exciting and dynamic! But in many cases, these features require specialized technical skills to prevent or remediate significant search engine indexing handicaps.

Everybody’s Doing It

After years of marginalization, SEO is finally on every website owner’s radar. SEO awareness has evolved to the point where most people are addressing keyword optimization and site indexing concerns when they build and maintain their sites. And I haven’t met a new client in years who isn’t already thinking through a link building strategy. Having an SEO-friendly site isn’t a competitive advantage for you any more; it’s a requirement. And, if my decade-plus in SEO has taught me anything, it’s this: when everybody is doing something, that thing becomes less powerful as a ranking factor. (See above – “Keyword Optimization Isn’t as Important”)

Rapid Evolution

“Hi, I’m Google, and I’ll be your search engine today. Our algorithm change du jour is the ‘Chef’s Surprise.’ Depending on your site, it will either be delicious or leave a foul taste in your mouth. You’ll be trying it whether you want it or not.” Yep, Google changes every day. I used to eschew algorithm-chasing, and refused to participate in obsessing over SEO gossip on a daily basis. I knocked it as a pointless way of life, but these days I’m convinced that it’s important to embrace that mindset, at least a little bit. This is something that SEO specialists have built into their schedule, but it’s not as simple for the average site owner to find the time to keep up with latest developments in search.

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It’s harder than it used to be to influence your site’s ranks using keyword optimization and link building tactics. So what should you do about it? Do what we do: Think big picture! Once you’ve nailed the basics: a search-friendly site, optimized text, and a well-targeted message, try something new to achieve a well-rounded online presence. Branch out into social media. Encourage positive reviews. Maybe shoot a little video if it’s a good fit for your audience. And use the information you glean from your analytics to make real changes on your site, not just to gain better ranks, but to improve engagement for the visitors you have.