Ask - Antezeta Web Marketing

Entries Tagged as 'Ask'

Dear Google, thanks for the instant preview, now please support the “nopreview” meta tag

November 29th, 2010 · 4 Comments · Internet, Search Engines

Search engines offer web site owners a wide range of options to specify exactly what content in a website should be indexed and how, that content may be presented in search engine results. This is only fair, as it is the site owner who creates the content in the first place. Beyond the myriad existing options, site owners focusing on Google now have an additional search result presentation issue to consider: should they allow Google to display Google Instant Previews or not. Unfortunately, Google has made the choice to forgo site previews more difficult than it should be for site owners, but before I return to this point, a brief review of current search result presentation options is in order.

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Google Autocomplete, née Google Suggest, the Precursor of Google Instant

September 10th, 2010 · No Comments · Internet

With all the brouhaha over the premiere of Google Instant, its easy to over look the fact that Google Instant isn’t really very new. In 2004 Google Labs launched a new tool called Google Suggest. Google suggest provided a list of potential search keyword phrases based on the keystrokes a user typed. Initially Google Suggest also displayed the estimated number of results for a given keyword phrase. Google Suggest was developed by Google engineer Kevin Gibbs in Google’s famous 20% time.

Google Suggest in Action. Note the result counts.

Google adds search results to the search box

Over time Google added functionality to Google suggest, providing links, weather information and even ads within the Google suggest powered search box. With Google Instant, Google has taken the next logical step of providing suggested results under the search box rather than in it. Google Instant needs to be seen as an evolution of Google suggest. Indeed, many of the limits of Google Instant, such as supplying local geographic targeted results for US metro areas only, are really Google Suggest limits.

Google Suggest with Weather and search buttons in Search Box

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Search engine Teoma is back. But will anybody notice, much less care?

May 5th, 2010 · 4 Comments · Internet

If you’ve been using the web for years, you may remember glorious search engines of the past like DEC’s AltaVista. Eclipsed by Google, AltaVista lives on today as a test bed for Yahoo! technology, although that may no longer be the case once the Bing-Yahoo! agreement is fully implemented. Seasoned search engine marketing (SEM) professions will probably also recognize other names like Fast technology’s AlltheWeb and Amazon’s A9. One of my favorites was Teoma.

Teoma way back in 2001

Figure 1: Teoma in 2001

Teoma is dead… or maybe not

Launched in 2000, it was later bought by Ask.com (Ask Jeeves in the UK) and met the fate of dead search engines in 2006. Or maybe not, as I noticed to my surprise a few days ago:

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Yahoo Search Marketing Tools: What’s at Risk & How to Avoid Surprises

March 9th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Internet

When Yahoo and Microsoft announced their Search Alliance in July 2009, only the high level agreement details were available:

Microsoft will provide the development and management of search engine results technology (bing)
Microsoft will provide the search and content network ad platform (adCenter)
Microsoft will manage the relationship with self-service advertisers
Yahoo will manage the relationship with large accounts
Yahoo will provide their own user interface on top of the Bing results which will appear on Yahoo properties

Now that US and EU regulators have approved the deal, search marketers need to assess which Yahoo tools they rely on – and need to be prepared with alternatives should these tools be discontinued.

During the SMX West 2010 session Microsoft + Yahoo: What’s It All Mean?, I looked at the agreement’s implications for three Yahoo tools search marketing professionals have come to know and love:

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Eying Search Engine Market Share in the era of Bing

July 20th, 2009 · No Comments · Internet, Search Engines, Web Marketing, Web Statistics

At the end of May Microsoft announced its new search engine, Bing. As data from Bing’s first full month becomes available, I thought it would be interesting to take a quick look at the current market share enjoyed by the major search engines in the US and a “typical” European market, Italy. The real test of Bing’s success will to be to check back in a few months to see if Bing has picked up traction with users or not. As the folks from Cuil can attest, a burst of publicity doesn’t necessary translate into loyal search users.

Search Engine statistics, USA vs. Italy

Most web intelligence services are currently US centric with very little worldwide reach. Unless stated otherwise, the data which follows is for the US market. Where available, I’ve also provided data for the Italian market, which for search engine usage is rather typical of most west European markets.

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Google Squared – expanded search engine results in a table

June 9th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Internet

Google Squared Logo One of the more exciting recent search engine advances I’ve seen in a while is Google Squared. Search for something which has multiple attributes and Google will try to build a structured table of results, adding columns for each major attribute it knows about. As an example, try “Hitchcock films”.

Google Squared Result for Hitchcock Films

Figure 1: Google Squared search results for “hitchcock film”

Did Google miss a film? Just add a row and Google will try to fill in the missing attributes. Is a film attribute missing? Just choose from a column suggestion Google offers or specify it yourself and Google will try to find the data. Does a data element seem amiss? Hover over it and Google will display the data source along with alternative values. In the Hitchcock example, one film was reported with the re-release date rather than the original date; a click or two later and the correct date appeared.

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7 sources of link intelligence data and key link analysis considerations

April 28th, 2009 · 8 Comments · Search Engines, SEO, Web Marketing, Web Statistics

It may seem like a cliché but on the web no website is an island. Any site worth its salt will have accumulated inbound links and will most certainly contain outbound links to other resources on the web. Indeed, one can easily say that without links to interconnect websites, there wouldn’t be a worldwide web.

For search engines, such as Google, incoming links provide a strong signal as to the authority of a website. If multiple websites link to a specific website for a given topic, there is a good chance the website cited by others is deemed to be highly relevant for a good reason. Google and other search engines identify the theme of a website page by analyzing a page’s content and the text of the incoming links – the underlined text you click on to arrive at a page. Links, especially inbound links, are thus one of the most significant in the over 200 factors Google considers in its ranking algorithms. Inbound links from related sites in a business’ sector are also an excellent source of highly qualified direct traffic.

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Simon Says… or is it Google Says?

March 11th, 2009 · No Comments · Uncategorized

The rel=”canonical” link duplicate content panacea

As many readers probably know, Google and other search engines recently announced support for a rel=”canonical” link attribute value. The new attribute value canonical (not a tag mind you, link is the html tag) can be used by website developers to specify which of essentially similar web pages is the definitive version.

A SEO problem known as duplicate content arises when websites use different URLs, generally through parameters, to provide slightly different versions of a page, such as a printer friendly version, or to support web analytics campaign tracking. In order to give search users unique choices, search engines tend to choose the “best” URL for a page, filtering out similar versions.

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The human dimension of Search Marketing

February 15th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Special, Web Marketing

I love the web. Despite being somewhere in Italy, I’m able to follow many professional conferences like SMX West through session write-ups posted online. After all, it isn’t always possible to attend conferences in person. Yet even when the post quality is high, there’s something missing, something that can’t be replicated virtually. Above all, its the human dimension, the networking experience. If you haven’t had the opportunity to attend professional conferences (or you’re a bit shy!), you might think, “what’s he on about?“.

As I reflect on the various breakfast, lunch and cocktail chats I had at SMX West, I think about the breadth of interesting people I met.

There’s excitement in being around so many bright and curious people– digital novices to seasoned veterans, those who practice search marketing to those who know that understanding search is a key to their company’s (and their own) future.

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My website has disappeared from Google. What do I do now?

February 3rd, 2009 · 3 Comments · Search Engines, SEO

One day you note a fall off in the traffic Google sends your website. As Google is the main source of your traffic, as is the case for many websites, alarm bells naturally start ringing. Investigating, you realize that the site does not appear at all in Google or has poor visibility at best in search results. What is a poor site owner to do? Did someone say panic?

Understand why the site disappeared from Google

There are several reasons why a site no longer appears in typical Google search results.

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