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SearchWrite SearchNews
Caching Better Results in Search Marketing
Vol I, Issue 026 07.28.05
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CACHING THE LATEST RESULTS IN SEARCH MARKETING....

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Search Market Share by the Numbers
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Internet search powerhouse Google garnered 37.6 percent of all U.S. search queries on the Internet in this year's second quarter, according to comScore Networks, a Net metrics service firm. That's the largest market share that Google has had in a quarter since comScore began compiling its search reports in December 2003.

Google's 5.65 billion U.S. queries placed it at the top of the Web ferret pack for the quarter, followed by Yahoo, with 4.65 billion queries and a 30.4 percent market share; MSN, with 2.39 billion queries and a 15.6 percent share; AOL/Time Warner, with 1.41 billion queries and a 9.2 percent share; and Ask Jeeves, with 934 million queries and a 6.1 percent share.

While Google's market share increased from the first quarter, when it was 35.9 percent -- as did Ask Jeeves' share, which climbed from 5.3 percent, and AOL's, which jumped from 9.1 percent -- Yahoo's share dropped from 31.2 percent and MSN's from 16.3 percent.

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Ask Jeeves Asks for Green - Launches PPC
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Ask Jeeves will launch a pay-per-click search platform that resembles Google's system. The program will be based on keyword bidding, but will factor in relevance, and the minimum bid is expected to start at 5 cents per click. Rumors that Ask Jeeves intended to start its own paid search platform have been swirling since at least the beginning of July, when the Associated Press reported that InterActiveCorp's Barry Diller was considering developing his own paid search system. IAC completed its $1.9 billion purchase of Ask Jeeves last week.

The lucrative sponsored search market remains dominated by Google and Yahoo, but other players are attempting to enter. For example, in March, MSN--which receives sponsored search listings from Yahoo!--announced it would create its own paid search platform, adCenter. 

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AOL Search Goes Mobile
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America Online is testing a beta program to automatically provide local search results by keying on users' mobile devices, and then displaying the results on their screens. The release is part of a suite of new mobile services for handsets, smartphones and PDAs.  According to Himesh Bhise, vice president and general manager, AOL Mobile,  AOL has "Right-Sized the Internet" for small mobile screens, giving users the power to search or shop for anything they need.

Users can search the Web using words or phrases, much like on the desktop. With Mobile AOL Yellow Pages and Pinpoint Shopping, search results are automatically formatted to the users' mobile screen size and links are clickable, said Bhise. 


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Creatives Need to Understand Search 
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Advertising Age executive editor Jonah Bloom writes that search marketing is "a skill [creatives] can't afford not to learn." While keyword optimization and search term selection may sound intimidating, the data yielded by understanding response to search advertising reveals more about consumer behavior than any focus group.  

. The reality is that such a system doesn’t preclude creative thinking; in fact it can trigger big ideas by getting to the heart of what consumers really do, rather than what they say they do in an artificial research environment.

It’s powerful information that can turn creatives into heroes whose campaign idea or copywriting can show a real return for the client overnight -- rather than a boardroom hit or miss. And rather than curtailing creativity, it can help persuade clients to overcome their conservatism and take a risk. “Often edgier ideas that the client wasn’t so sure about prove themselves in search tests,” says Churchill. Fathom that.

Mainstream marketers and creatives don’t have to understand the programming, but they do need to get with the program.


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MSN Launches Screensaver With Search, RSS
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MSN has announced they will be launching a screensaver that allows the user to integrate RSS feeds, while giving the user the ability to search directly from the utility's interface. The RSS portion of the new screensaver works in the same manner as an RSS reader does. The user selects which feeds they want to appear on the tool while it returns a display of the current headlines from the feeds that have been integrated. The user then has the option to expand the headline and read more, if they so choose. MSN's multi-function screensaver is available at http://screensaver.msn.com/ 

There is one stipulation however: in order to use the screensaver, you must have the MSN Toolbar installed as well.


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As Local Search Rises, SuperPages Tries Agency Role
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Experts have been predicting the rise of local search engine marketing, and pay-per-click network operators have been working to create the means to support small-to-midsize companies that wish to enter the market - and now Verizon's SuperPages.com is indicating that local search may have already arrived - ClickZ reports (via MarketingVox).

SuperPages.com's local PPC advertisers have apparently increased their budgets so much that they can't all be spent on the SuperPages network; and, instead of turning that local business away, the company is placing the campaigns on rival PPC networks - Yahoo and Google.

"We've secured $65 million in budgets, but we're not able to spend that in our own network. There's a lot more money in that existing pool of advertisers. If we could spend all of what they gave us, they would increase their budgets even more," VP of E-Commerce Marketing, Eric Chandler, is quoted as saying.

By functioning as a search agency, SuperPages will likely grow its own network, becoming the access point for many small businesses to try search marketing for the first time.

The campaigns will initially be sold on a flat-fee basis.


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SEO Tip of the Week: Database, Data-base Or Data Base?
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There are quite a few compound words that are often found combined into one word, sometimes separated into multiple words and sometimes connected together with a hyphen. If you are searching for one of these words, is it important which format you use to search?

You bet it is, if you don't want to miss anything.

A word phrase can be spelled as a solid compound, a hyphenated compound or spaced words. Do you spell it database, data base or data-base, website, web site or web-site, fundraiser, fund raiser or fund-raiser?

If you were to perform the search as spaced words, such as [left handed], you'll get pages with ‘left handed' and ‘left-handed', but no ‘lefthanded'. If you search for [lefthanded] you'll only get ‘lefthanded'.

But, if you search for [left-handed] you get it all!n Always search for compound words with the hyphen and you'll pull up pages that may use all three variations. 

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