Category: Search

Search

Search experts create the search problem

Fifteen hundred search engine fanatics are currently gathering in London in the midst of a three-day conference, Search Engine Strategies (SES). As the digital marketing expert, Guy Levine, put it on Twitter they are all in “Geek Heaven”. They are devouring the nitty-gritty of search and how the finest changes

Search

Google Buzz will be a failure

In a blaze of headlines Google has launched Buzz, its much-hyped “status” application. Let us set aside, for the moment, that Yahoo also has a service called Buzz and consider what the Google service is all about. It is no more than an “integrator”. And it is only doing that

Search

Liverpool woes reflect your search engine problems

Rafael Benitez has apologised to the fans at Liverpool Football Club for the current poor performance of the team. They are 7th in the Premier League and apparently that’s not good enough. To make matters worse they were beaten this week by Reading – who are near the bottom of

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Search

Searchers aren’t looking to buy online

Two-thirds of  people who are searching for local businesses have no intention of buying anything from them online. That’s the startling statistic from new research conducted on why people search. The study of search intentions shows that 66% of people are merely trying to find a business location, phone number

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Search

Search engines are huge time wasters

Search engine users – that’s you and me, amongst millions of others – are being fooled. The likes of Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL and others have helped us believe that search is fantastic, that it is productive and that it really helps us in ways that were not possible without

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Search

SEO is so amazingly believable it could be bunkum

Raise your hands brothers and sisters if you believe. Say “I believe”…again, say “I believe”…one more time brothers and sisters…say “I believe – I believe in the greatness that is SEO”. For many people who are running an online business, search engine optimization (SEO) has taken on almost religious levels

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Search

Google isn’t really a search engine after all

Google is no longer a search engine. Instead, it is fast becoming a “short cut” engine to get to content we already know about. The fact that “Michael Jackson” is the current number-one search term on Google should not amaze us. But the remaining “searches” show a surprising trend. Even

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Search

Google proves swine flu panic is over the top

Victims of swine flu and their families will doubtless disagree, but the current web-based panic over this disease is something of a nonsense. True enough, flu can be a debilitating and sometimes fatal disease – but that has always been the case. The current brouhaha would make you think, however,

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Search

Search engines limit our ability to find things online

Your eyes do funny things when you look at a web page. Eye tracking technology shows us that they tend to follow an F-shaped pattern of eye movement across the screen. But new research could bring this into question. The new research shows us this may be down to the

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Search

Questions, SEO and other people

More evidence is piling up to show us that search engines are not as valuable as we think they are. Research published by Artesian Solutions suggests that British businesses have been fooled by search engines. It transpires that compared with automated intelligence systems, searching for information using search engines takes

Search is on its deathbed…bye, bye SEO

Search engines have never been as important as they would like us to think. Now, that truth is suddenly coming home to roost in more ways than one for companies like Google. They would like us to think that we are constanyly “searching” for things online – but we aren’t.

Search behaviour is changing significantly

Search engine users are changing the way they look for things; and it’s a significant jump. When the Internet was a mere baby, you could easily find things. All it took was an army of editors at Yahoo! and they presented you with a list of all the good stuff.

It looks like Google has just committed suicide

This week, Google has made a change to its search engine rankings which could yet prove to be the most stupid action it has ever taken. According to several reports of the latest Google developments, the company has quietly changed its search algorithm to place a heavy emphasis on brands.

How many search engines do you use?

People often don’t do what we think they do. Take search, for example. Just go into your local street and ask how people search for things on the Internet. There’s a fair chance you’d come back with some stats that showed most people use Google. The result is we think

Google makes a huge assumption – which could be wrong

  Eye tracking studies show a fairly constant pattern of where we look on a web page. Essentially, most of our attention is focused top left. Then we scan to the right and then zig-zag back and forth to roughly half-way down the screen before we give up. It’s almost

Google search becomes more powerful – but are you taking advantage?

Google appears to have added “blogsearch” findings to it’s main index which means if you blog, your entries can appear in the main Google search results within minutes. Here’s an example: my posting “Make the most of online opportunities” was published here a couple of entries ago. Within 12 minutes

Gatekeepers will become your search gurus

Internet users are suffering increasing problems finding what they want. Often you will find that whatever you are searching for advertisers, or “aggregation” software brings to the top of the search engine listing material that’s not directly relevant. Clearly, the search engines attempt to bring you the most relevant results.

Internet marketers certain to gain from major search engine study

German researchers have conducted a massive study that will enable Internet marketers to gain higher search engine positioning. The research was conducted by Sistrix, a search engine optimisation company, and it looked at 10,000 different random keywords. The company analysed the top 100 Google ranked pages for each of those