By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch,  Nov 19, 2010

The search industry never stops. From AltaVista to Google, and GoToast to Search Ignite, the fortunes of companies and technologies evolve over time.

I was reminded of this recently when training new hires. They’d never head of names like AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, etc. — companies that defined the search space less than 10 years ago.

So, how do you keep up to date?

Ignore the Noise

It’s important to recognize that there are many, many blogs and articles published about search every day — and many more “experts” on forums and Twitter and in Facebook and LinkedIn groups.

You can ignore most of them. The ability of the search industry to report on, discuss, analyze, argue about, and regurgitate a fact until it has been distorted out of all proportion and attained myth-like status is legendary. There’s a lot of noise — so you need to spend your limited time on sites that are credible and, most importantly, correct.

It’s also important to note that the search engines are no longer search companies — they offer much broader product lines; so you will need to keep up to date on developments in all their products, too, as search is often integrated into them (and paid search revenues pay for them).

Select an RSS Reader

I can’t think of an industry news site that doesn’t have an RSS feed — so choosing a good reader is crucial. There are many available. I use Google Reader to collate and organize feeds by topic in folders as it’s tied to my Google login and easy to use on any computer, iPad, or mobile.

I often use Feedly linked to Google Reader as it offers a slicker interface that feels closer to a magazine. Another bonus of Google Reader is that you can add any URL to it — not just RSS feeds — and Reader will monitor the page for changes and present them as if a feed has updated.

Many sites offer several feeds — follow those most relevant to your area of work and interests; it’s easy to overload yourself with feeds and find you have more than 100 articles to wade through every morning. Pretty soon you’ll find you’re too busy to bother, and end up reading nothing.

Keep an Eye on the Mainstream Press

Sometimes announcements by the search engines receive mainstream coverage — or a story breaks about a negative issue, like the recent Google Street View privacy coverage. Add the technology sections of mainstream sites like the New York Times, USA Today, BBC News, etc., to your reader to ensure you know the stories your clients (and their bosses) are reading over their breakfast.

Digital Overall

To keep any eye on the wider industry I follow a few key sites — Mashable, The Next Web, Robert Scoble, John Battelle’s Search Blog, and Econsultancy, to name a few.

The Search Stalwarts

There are a few search-focused sites that are must-reads. Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land are the two heavyweights; I receive their newsletters every morning as well as follow their feeds; they provide a summary of the most important search news and topics. Search Engine Roundtable is also important and often have details of new Google tests or rumors with some basis to them as reported on other sites or forums.

There are of course many other digital industry and search sites — the above sites link to good sources as they cover stories, helping you find other sources.

Don’t Forget To Cull

One last piece of advice: don’t forget to delete feeds. Over time, sites change editor, or their focus shifts or their writing declines in quality. So when a site seems to publish nothing of interest, delete it — your time is precious.

We are very excited to announce that Steak won the sought after DADi award for ‘Best Digital Media Strategy’ for our work with Swiftcover.com and the ‘Summers’s Hottest Playlist’. Steak, also received a commendation for ‘Best Use of Organic Search’ for  Virgin Holidays.

The ‘Summer’s Hottest Playlist’ campaign harnessed the passion of Swiftcover’s music-loving audience and sought to engage with its fans through a fun online campaign.

Car insurance isn’t something that usually sparks much excitement but with Swiftcover we tapped into the music festival spirit with a Facebook app and interactive challenge to social media fans to devise the “Summer’s Hottest Playlist”. The campaign worked in collaboration with top Absolute Radio DJs and Spotify.  Facebook fans increased by 280% in a two-week period, and 22,000 people voted for the playlist.

We were also very pleased to receive recognition of our work with Virgin Holidays’ January Sale in SEO, where we beat our sales target by 168%!
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So it’s smiles all round.

John Barton, Head of Social Media and Lynsey Galashan, Senior Accout Executive, receiving the award for ‘Best Digital Strategy’ on Friday night.

Targeting is one of the corner stones of the success of paid search. The ability to place a message in front of consumers actively seeking out the advertiser’s product is gold dust – if you had told an Ad Man in 1950s Madison Avenue you could do that and provide them statistics related to copy and location, they’d have offered you their daughter’s hand in marriage. And a large bourbon.

One area of targeting in paid search that seems to be missed repeatedly is the use of negatives. Each week I see ads in search results that clearly shouldn’t be there and are diluting CTRs and Quality Score; the examples are numerous but a recent example:

Google results for "Stolen Cars for Sale"

I am confident that Ask and VivaStreet do not want to be aiding car crime, but without “stolen” as a negative in their account (ideally at campaign level) they’ll continue to be the car thieves best friend. Negatives are not hard to come by. Good sources include:

• Google Keyword Tool
• Search Query Reports
• Analytics / Server Log Search Strings
• Related Keyword Tools
• Typo and Misspelling Generators
• Brainstorming around a topic (with a good old pen and paper!)
• Common Sense!

There’s really no excuse – Google introduced Search Query Reports to help with this based on advertiser and agency feedback, my own small voice included. When I started out in search in 1999 we had no keyword research tools that were UK specific (even at search engine Lycos where I worked) so we’re spoilt these days – and there’s no excuse!

Yesterday I posted a FAQ on Google Instant and discussed if consumers will hate it.

Today I’m going to look at what this might mean for campaigns; the reality is nobody will know for sure until they have gathered data over a decent period of time, roll-out has finished to eligible computers – and consumers have got used to the feature.

US and UK Rollout – A Big Difference

Below are my thoughts from a UK point of view – Steak NYC will be posting their thoughts shortly, too. There is already an important US to UK difference – in the UK, you have to be logged in to a Google Account for Instant to work; in the US, all consumers will see it if their browser etc supports it.

Here are my (UK centric) thoughts:

Impressions on Generic Terms to Rise?

The idea is simple; as consumers start typing, they may be driven by Google’s suggestions to use generics more (either by clicking through, or by reading search results for more than the 3 seconds Google requires to count an impression). I’m not so sure this will happen – see my comments on the long tail below – and I think this would provide consumers less relevant results; a real threat to Google’s loyal user base who love it’s relevancy.

Impressions on Brand Terms to Rise?

I’ve seen a lot of brands appear in results when I start typing – for example “e” brings up eBay results, potentially increasing impressions for this brand term. The same is true of many other letters in the UK and US, and no doubt this spreads to other brands 2 or 3 letters into typing.

If a consumer is starting to type in a non-brand search, and happens to be shown a relevant brand by Instant, then there is the possibility they will go to that site straight away – robbing competitors of the opportunity to compete for them in “normal” non-brand search results.

Brand CPCs to Rise?

This may well happen because of the knock-on affect of more impressions without a click as a result of the above, affecting brands whom are shown for searches where they receive no click – but do have an impression counted against them. However, if the market as a whole experiences this, the competitive affects may be limited – everybody will have the same experience.

Long Tail to Suffer?

I’ve seen a lot of commentary stating that the long tail will suffer, and even that businesses that receive most of their traffic and sales via it will die.

If Google can show search results within a few letters that are relevant compared to the long(er) tail query the consumer was going to type in, then some long tail queries will be diverted onto generic terms of one or two words. However – so far – I’ve rarely had this experience when searching with Instant. No doubt Google will improve the algorithm – it is only day 2, after all.

The more I consider this and talk to colleagues, the less likely this seems, so…

Long Tail To Grow around Suggested Search Strings?

Consumers who are typing in a long tail search know they need to use several words to find what they are looking for – they are taking deliberate action based on past experience. Will they suddenly abandon that behaviour because Google is showing them search results as they type the first few letters? I don’t think many will – if anything, they will “type past” Google’s suggestions to the results they want (i.e. that are relevant) – and maybe add to/edit the long tail search as they see the results it generates. Something they probably would have done anyway, over several distinct searches on the “old” Google.

So long tail might grow – as more consumers notice that the search results change as they type and they think more explicitly about what they are typing, they may be driven to enter more words to refine their search or use the suggested search terms that seem relevant. This would raise long term volumes and, for suggested searches, effectively push consumers onto “predefined” search strings with all the impact increased competition on a term brings for advertisers.

More Keywords To Add?

Google Instant may mean that some consumers start to click through on “half-formed” search terms – e.g. somebody who was going to type in “home insurance” clicking through on a site shown for “home ins”. This may in affect create new keywords to add to campaigns, researched by brainstorming or reviewing analytics/tracking alongside the normal keyword tools. Match type settings will play a part in this coverage, too, for paid search campaigns, and I imagine that Google will ensure broad match covers some of these searches off.

Ranking Even More Important?

As consumers quickly scan results as they type, sites below the fold won’t get any opportunity to catch their eye and draw their click – somebody typing isn’t scrolling. So ranking above the fold will be important in this situation.

Dust-Off Abandoned Generics

A very interesting point Mark in our New York office has made is that brands may need to look at increasing exposure on generic (aka head) terms to ensure they are ranked well for the first term consumers will see results for as they type; so there could well be increased competition for generic, one-word terms. It may be worth re-considering generics previously removed from keyword lists because of high CPCs/competition across paid/ natural search…

Conclusion

I don’t think a fundamental shift to generic terms will occur; I’m increasingly thinking that consumers will start to click through from longer search strings, either by clicking on a search suggestion or typing more words in; if anything Instant will prompt them to improve the way they search.

However, the jury is still out and I know colleagues here at Steak and elsewhere in the industry have different opinions…

So I could be wrong – for all the technology, commentary and gut instinct we all collectively have, consumers can be notoriously unpredictable and the ultimate test will only be time – and data. I can see a long Excel session coming on…

UPDATE:

Our sister agency Minute Steak have also been blogging about Google Instant during it’s beta testing and also their thoughts on the launch and its implications.

This blog post is more of a FAQ on Google’s new feature Instant Search; I’ll be following up with my take on what this might mean for Google, search marketers, clients – and the group everybody seems to be forgetting in the industry press – consumers.

Q: What is Google Instant?

This is a new feature on Google’s interface, only available on the most recent version of web browsers (see below). The Google Adwords FAQ is here.

When a consumer searches, GI will change search results as you type, as well as changing the suggested searches (which already happen). These are based on past consumer search queries, your location and past searches (i.e. personalization).

During the process, Google uses an algorithm to predict what a user means and shows results accordingly – e.g. typing “holid” may mean results for “holidays” appear – see image 1 attached.

An example:

An example of Google UK Instant Search results for "Florida holid"

Q: Why have Google launched this?

Google’s stated reasons:

- faster searches
- helps guide users to searches
- users see results without clicking a button / hitting return and can refine their query as they type based on the results

I also believe this is part of their ongoing efforts to step-up to competing with Bing, whom are focused on interface developments to aid consumers and gain marketshare.

Q: Which Browsers?

This will only work on the latest browser versions in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia: Chrome v5/6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8.

If you used Google over the last few days and saw different “swirling” logos, then your browser is compatible.

You can enable it here if not seeing it: http://www.google.com/webhp?sclient=psy

Q: When doesn’t it work?

It won’t work on:

• older browsers
• toolbars
• the address bar
• browser search boxes
• iGoogle
• if you disabled Google autocomplete
• if you disable it via the drop down to the right of the search box marked “Instant”
• if use the SSL version of Google search

Many consumers use the first three without thinking; this will limit impact for the initial search in a session – but not once on Google itself. Google may add this to toolbars etc in future, of course.

Q: What are UK Browser Market Shares?

To give context to whom will see this:

• IE8 – 32%
• FireFox 3.x – 21%
• Chrome 5/6 – 2%
• Safari 5 – 0.19%

= 55.19% of the UK will potentially see this. Source: Statcounter.com

It’s worth noting many corporates use older browsers that don’t support this – including most of the UK Government, many utilities firms and finance companies….so consumers will be getting one experience, and another at work in some cases.

I’ll explain how I think this will affect search and consumers in a follow up post shortly.