The Battle for Search Supremacy – Google vs Microsoft
The recent news that Microsoft and Yahoo have decided not to go ahead with their planned merger has led to Microsoft announcing that they intend to take on Google by themselves. On paper it seems like an achievable task, America’s second biggest listed company taking on number 16. In fact, with almost double the market capital behind it, Microsoft should probably be considered favourites in a head-to-head tussle.
But why then is everyone so sceptical about Microsoft’s prospects? Why is the Microsoft juggernaut all of a sudden vulnerable to this relative rookie company with big dreams? The answer is simple; Google do search better and they have the market in the palm of their hand.
Microsoft’s MSN/Live search and Yahoo’s search are just not making inroads against Google’s tried and tested simple approach. Google has a no-fuss approach to search. Their homepage is simple, results are clearly displayed and most users have faith in the Google algorithm’s ability to deliver relevant search results. Live and Yahoo! have not worked this out or refuse to blatantly copy Google’s premise.
The name Microsoft once struck fear into the hearts of all other digital companies, because it seemed that no matter how well you did something, Microsoft could throw millions at it and take your market.
But Google has changed all that. Microsoft have been trying for years now to replicate Google’s success online, but according to BRW Magazine, have only managed around 5% of US search revenue market share, compared to Google’s whopping 77%. Google has humbled the once un-toppable giant.
The secret to Google’s success is that, out of all the big search engines, they have the most conspicuous ads. Live and Yahoo! both have ads cluttering their homepages whereas Google only display ads in search results and their AdWords quality score algorithm keeps their ads fairly relevant as well. For this reason, a search results page in Google does not “feel” like an advertising billboard, which can be the case in other search engines.
So that brings us to now, where Microsoft is once again claiming that they are ready to take the mantle as the net’s premier search engine. Microsoft are currently working on capturing the display ad market, with development teams working overtime on technology for video and banner ads that display more relevant ads based on a user’s browsing patterns.
Of course Google are not going to sit back and wait for Microsoft to gain ground on them, and their recent acquisitions of DoubleClick and Youtube suggest they are already going on the offensive.
So who’s going to win? Microsoft or Google? From what I’m seing the answer is Google. Google have the market cornered and are not going to give it up without a fight.
One of the reasons I believe that Google will win (this round) is that they have quite remarkably managed to dodge the ‘big bad company’ tag. It is very common for large corporations to become disliked in the court of public opinion because they are greedy or ‘out to get us.’ It seems that no matter how big Google get, they are still liked by the public. This can probably be traced back to the way Google manages its staff, who work in more of a resort than an office. In the search engine wars, Google are the good guys whilst Microsoft are the baddies.
Microsoft will undoubtedly keep trying, they always do. Search engine advertising is too big a market for Microsoft to give in, but if this new display ad platform is once again outperformed by Google, they may have to go crawling back to Yahoo. Microsoft have already hinted that they may revisit the idea by putting the merger decision to a shareholder vote, indicating that even inside their own ranks they have doubts over their own ability to beat Google.
My gut feeling says that Microsoft and Yahoo will be together sooner rather than later. If and when this happens it is critical that they do not try and copy Google, but rather come up with a new kind of search experience, that delivers the most relevant search results (including ads) and offers more for Internet users, but I won’t be holding my breath.
Round One – Google Knockout…
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Read MoreWhy You Need SEO!
When it comes to operating your business online, it isn’t as easy as simply building a website and waiting for the sales to come rolling in.
In today’s electronic marketplace, search engine placement can, and is, proving the difference between whether online campaigns thrive or come crashing back down to earth with an expensive thud.
As a result, getting to the top of Google and other key search engines is critical. The way to do this is through Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
There are many companies out there who claim to “guarantee” your business the number one position or claim that SEO is beyond the reach of everyone else but them. Both of these claims are false.
No SEO company can technically guarantee you the top of Google (or on any other search engine) as the search engine algorithms are independent and no-one actually has any influence over the way it actually works.
Also, SEO can be done by anyone with a little HTML and FTP knowledge. But there’s a catch. SEO is a extremely time consuming process and there are a number of reasons why it is difficult to conduct SEO by yourself and why SEO companies exist:
- Google’s (and other search engines’) algorithm change constantly, and SEO companies are in the business of knowing how each of these changes will affect your site’s position and ranking. Unless you’ve have plenty of spare time to read up each algorithm change, an SEO company will save you time.
- SEO is competitive. If you’re undertaking SEO, you can bet that your competitors are doing it too. For this reason, you can’t just optimise your website when you put it live and expect it to sit atop the rankings forever. Search engine rankings are updated daily and hence you need ongoing SEO programs to continue to perform well.
- You need to know what keywords work. SEO companies have a variety of tools and expertise at their disposal to determine what keywords are likely to generate results for your site. They are then able to optimise your site’s pages to improve your ranking.
The best part about SEO programs from SEO companies is that they are very competitively priced.
The majority of SEO programs on the market are 12 month programs, so you are ensured that your site is continually optimised for better performance for at least a year. Basic packages start from around $2,000 per year and can range up as far as you your budget will go.
So while SEO can be done by anyone, for the vast majority of businesses, it is FAR more cost and time efficient to employ someone to do it for them.
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Read MoreDoes Pay-Per-Click Advertising Work?
There’s a lot of strong opposition out there to the notion of search engine marketing (SEM) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising.
Many SEO’s claim that Google AdWords and other PPC programs are simply for people who aren’t smart enough to undertake organic SEO. This, however, is far from the truth.
Organic SEO and PPC programs have two very separate and distinct uses. Organic SEO has the benefit of being able to generate unlimited clicks for free, but the catch is that you need to be in the top few results for a given keyword in order to pull it off. It is also limited in that you cannot optimise for every single search query you want as your site would be in danger of being blacklisted for keyword spamming.
Pay-Per-Click, on the other hand, forces you to pay for every click you receive, but it has the benefit of being able to be targeted to a wider variety of keywords. As a result, conversion rates from PPC ads are usually much higher than those from organic search engine results.
So when should you use PPC programs instead of SEO?
Pay-Per-Click programs should be used on keywords that are not performing organically but you would like to target. The key to a succssful PPC campaign is to ensure that your ad text, landing pages and targeted keywords are all congruent to ensure optimum placement in search results. This is because your ad’s ranking is not just dependent on how much you bid, but also on the quality score of your ad, which takes into account the relevance of your ad to your keywords, location, landing page, etc.
And just like SEO, managing your own PPC campaign is possible, but determining exactly how the quality score comes together, which keywords to set what budget, and what ad text works well is something that is generally best left to the experts, unless you have plenty of spare time.
Companies such as Reload Media are web strategy and online marketing experts in managing Google AdWords Pay-Per-Click campaigns and by employing a SEM company to look after your campaign, you are ensuring your ads are given the best possible chance of generating sales.
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Read MoreDoes age matter? – Domain age and Google
If there’s one issue that splits the Search Engine Optmisation (SEO) community, it’s whether or not the age of a website’s domain impacts greatly on a site’s performance in Google.
A few years ago, the link was well established. Google seemed to be attempting to stop its search results being flooded by spammy newcomer websites by valuing a website’s domain age heavily in determing search results. This did work, but the problem was that it also kept new sites that were of high quality out of the top of the results. In essence, it was a temporary fix to a permanent problem.
Then, in late 2006 and early 2007, SEO consultants all over the place watched as some of their respected clients suddenly dropped off the top 10 list. This led to many SEO “experts” claiming that Google had dropped domain age from its ranking algorithm.
Over the last 12 months, many SEO experts have come out and stated that Google has reinstated domain age into their algorithm, as many older sites are now performing much better. It is this humble SEO consultant’s opinion, that domain age is in the algorithm, but only in a limited form.
The practice of domain selling, where companies buy a domain name now, hold onto it for five years or so, and then sell it, has meant that it is not effective to weight domain age too heavily.
The feeling out there now is that Google is using other factors, such as traffic, content and backlinks, to determine a website’s authority. This explains why some SEO’s seem to think domain age is still critical, because for the most part, it is safe to assume that a site that has good traffic, content and backlinks has been around for a while. But it appears that some SEO consultant’s are mixing up correlation and causation.
By weighting traffic, network monitoring, content and backlinks (amongst other things) more heavily, Google are effectively removing those spammy sites from their results but also allowing young sites that have plenty to offer rank well.
It seems that Google may have finally found the balance.
In short, it is difficult for new sites to zoom up the Google rankings, but the age of the domain is not the reason for this. New sites struggle because they don’t have traffic or backlinks to help their ranking. By the same token, older sites will not rank well just because they have been around for ten years.
So while there does exist a correlation between the age of website’s domain and its search engine performance in general, the actual causation for this is most likely a string of other factors that more comprehensively determine a site’s authority, and hence its relevance to search results.
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Read MoreUnravelling the Google Algorithm – Introduction
Google is now the world’s leading search engine and the yardstick that most SEO companies use when undertaking SEO programs.
For this reason, understanding how Google’s patented algorithm works is critical to improving search engine performance.
From the outside however, I’d like to point out that the exact makeup of Google’s algorithm is a tightly guarded trade secret. Google have patented what’s included in their algorithm, but not how it all comes together. As a result of this, no-one (except those high in the Google hierarchy) knows for sure how search results are ranked.
This makes it nearly impossible for individual webmasters to be able to undertake SEO with any degree of certainty whatsoever. SEO companies basically learn what works through educated guesses and past experiences. As a result of this, a well-established SEO company, such as Reload Media, get as close as anyone outside of Google is going to get to determining how the algorithm works.
Many people are familiar with the notion of PageRank, Google’s way of ranking websites but this is just one part of the way Google organises its search results. Google’s overall ranking equation takes into account over 200 factors, way too many to dealt with in depth in this article but the main ones will be dealt with over time in our ‘SEO Tip of the Week’ section.
The important point to take away from this is that no SEO company can truthfully claim to knowing the inner workings of Google’s algorithm. It changes constantly and this makes it almost impossible to nail down. An SEO company’s usefullness then comes from their experience and proven track record in being able to predict how a certain change will affect one’s search engine performance.
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