Internet Psychologist
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 …
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, …
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 …
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 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 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. …
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. …
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 …
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 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 …
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. …
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 …
Every meeting I go to I find people with tales of woe about their attempts to get to the top of Google. Some people have paid thousands to get there; they have been promised high level rankings by SEO companies. Often such companies can achieve success, at other times they …
New evidence that search engines are losing their importance has been published today in New Media Age. It now seems that retailers get more of their traffic from social networking sites, rather than some search engines. Even though Google dominates in terms of traffic for some retailers, other search engines …
Many businesses want to get to the top of Google. They spend hours, days, weeks attempting it. They are competing against millions of other pages and will try any of the latest “tricks” to get an advantage on the other web sites listed by Google. Then Google changes the rules, …