Interface

The new look and feel of Google bodes a more modern and powerful overall search engine. Apart from the obvious and well publicised logo update, Google have implemented a variety of new search tools and filters on the left which cater to the needs of the evolved, modern day search engine user.  This has been dubbed “Universal Search”.

Users can now more easily filter and customise their searches based on the specific media or service they are looking for. Sure this has been available in a different form in the past but Google is now cementing these advanced search filters as one of the cornerstones of their search interface. The universal search toolbar now also provides a variety of extra search tools such as timeline and context specific searches to name a few.

But universal search has yet another trick up its sleeve. This is the ability of users to sort search results based on how often a website has been updated. This means users can now access the latest fresh content without the hassle of having to trawl through a list of outdated  results. Basically, universal search has made it even easier for users to switch between filters and views of the same search query in order to retrieve search results that are more applicable to their needs.

Finally, another notable new addition to the Google tool belt is Google Squared. This fascinating tool allows users to search for a product, category, service or any other entity and compare the results in a detailed matrix of information (in real time!). It’s just another helpful innovation from the good people at Google. Try it out for yourself here: http://www.google.com/squared.

Algorithm

As most search engine optimisation specialists would be aware, Google’s new search algorithm ‘Caffeine’ has changed the way in which Google looks at your website content. Google is now able to crawl a huge range of internet content (including video, music, news and social media) – faster and more reliably than it ever has before. This has enabled Google to understand the content and deliver a rich experience to the users in an array of new types of relevant and up to date search results.

With Google’s intelligence ever increasing, it has now become more important than ever to use reliable, white hat SEO techniques in order to achieve great search engine rankings as Google is  becoming more and more adept at differentiating between real content and spam/scam SEO work. For more information on how Google Caffeine may affect your business, read Andrew Knight’s article – What is Google Caffeine?

Google’s Caffeine has actually been in effect for the past 6 months but wasn’t officially released until last month. You may have noticed minor changes to Google during this period such as videos from YouTube to regular updated news stories being included in the search results, though Caffeine was still being refined.

Before Caffeine, Google’s indexing system was based on layers. Some layers were refreshed faster than others while the main layer would be updated every couple of weeks. However, to refresh a layer of Google’s old index, Google would have to analyse the web in its entirety, which meant a significant delay between finding a page and making it appear within their index. With Caffeine, Google can now analyse the web in small portions and update their search index on a more constant basis, allowing new information and websites to be added into their index faster than ever.

Google has expressed Caffeine was built for both the near future and beyond, allowing it to scale with the addition of new information whilst delivering a whole wide range of websites, videos, tweets and much more quicker.

Google TV – Watch The Overview

There are a multitude of topics and issues that could be discussed in relation to the announcement of Google TV.  As a keen Google advertiser myself, however, I would like to concentrate on just one – the shift in thinking that may occur amongst advertisers if Google’s ambition to combine the internet with traditional television is successful.

Although many other companies have attempted to marry these two beasts in the past (Apple TV, Boxee, TiVo etc), none have yet achieved the ‘Holy Grail’ result – widespread adoption of and acceptance of tv/internet integration. Although to most advertisers, this integration has always been the obvious next step in television advertising, until now, there hasn’t really been a platform on offer that smoothly integrates the television and internet into one, seamless media experience.

Enter Google into the equation and the traditional television advertising landscape begins to look a little different. Google, who already have a wildly successful online advertising platform in Google AdWords, will no doubt be looking at integrating their AdWords system into Google TV. Even at this point in time, Google already have a Google TV interface within their AdWords console which allows advertisers to upload TV ads to be viewed by current Google TV owners.

Google TV + AdWords

But consider some other future possibilities for a moment…

If Google TV is a success, we may see a new generation of direct response advertising in traditional TV ads.

Imagine a Domino’s TV ad which allows you to click on an AdWords coupon that then takes you to a HD ordering page designed specifically for TVs.

Or an ad for a new song or movie that takes the user directly to a website where they can buy and download that media onto their television.

What is most exciting about this fundamental shift in the way television advertising may soon be provided is that it will now allow a once passive medium to become an extremely active, engaging and (even more) powerful advertising tool.

Only time will tell if Google’s new television platform will gain widespread acceptance but, for now, as a Google Advertiser, I can only sit and think giddily about the future possibilities for online advertising through television.

What do you think about Google TV and the future of TV advertising? Feel free to comment and discuss!

It would appear that this is quite a simple mission statement for a company that already dominates over 85% of the planet’s search market share and has 620 million daily visitors to Google.com.

But Google are taking the ‘usefulness’ and functionality of online information so much further.

Google owns mobile phone software that works like a computer, communication platforms that allow you to contact everyone you do (or don’t yet) know and apps that can answer every question or situation you may face.

Here’s a sugarcoated overview of Google’s most impressive acquisitions and projects:

Google Chrome – OS

Google Chrome is an open source Operating System that has been designed to work exclusively with web applications. Google Chrome integrates application and standard web pages into a single tab and “is aimed at users that spend most of their computer time on the internet.” Google’s Chrome OS has an expected release for the second half of 2010 and is free to the public.

Google Chrome – Web Browser

Google Chrome has been designed to work with Web Applications and aims to improve ‘security, speed and stability’ when surfing the net, through its Application performance and JavaScript processing speed. Google Chrome currently holds 5.61% of the web browser market share, a big feat since its release in September 2009.

Google Wave – Personal Communication Software

Google Wave will be the new Facebook. Big call, I know but this web-based service creates a unified personal communication platform via voice, text, photos, videos, maps, and other digital tools. The aim is for multiple users to set up a collaborative environment known as a “wave” and then edit the content and add replies, just like a wiki.

Android – Mobile Software

Bought by Google in 2005 and announced in November 2007, Android is a open-source mobile phone operating system that will have enough apps to run your life, nearly. There are over 20,000 android phone applications available and over 60,000 new android phones are shipped daily.

Google Goggles – Android App

Google Goggles is an android application that allows phone users to search Google via pictures they take on their mobile phones. Google use various image recognition back ends such as object recognition then returns relevant search results. See the following video:

YouTube – Video Sharing

Google bought YouTube in October 2006 for $1.65 billion; not a bad deal for a garage project! If you didn’t already know how massive YouTube is, this video sharing platform dominates nearly 40% of the online video market share in the USA. With 20 hours of video uploaded every minute, YouTube will have no problems broadcasting the Indian Premier League this month.

So how did Lord Google gain its Googlopoly? They simplified accessing the web, built trust with users’ and managed to release technologies at the right pace for the market and society. Not to mention that most Google products are free; a surefire way to increase popularity.

With 45% of Google’s products still in Beta, I’m pretty sure that Google’s world domination is just getting started. Just Google it.

Although many of us have a little bag of tricks for finding the data we need (a bag filled with custom reports, metrics comparisons and other analytics best practices), Google is preparing to make all of our lives just a little bit easier.

As reported in Adweek on October 20, Google is looking to add a bit of A.I into their next analytics update; Analytics Intelligence that is.

The new Google Analytics ‘Intelligence Engine’ will automatically work to find insights within your web traffic data that may have been overlooked. The new tool will have a couple of nifty built-in features but the real beauty in this beast is the fact that you can create customised alerts for each of the analytics accounts that you manage. The primary purpose of Google’s Intelligence Engine is to automatically unearth insights for web markers and designers. Sounds pretty exciting huh?

As you can see from the screenshot below (courtesy of flickr.com), Google have once again excelled in their penchant for creating slick, effective and efficient user interfaces. The design is in harmony with the current analytics interface and allows search engine marketers a quick snapshot of any pertinent analytical insights or pre-determined custom alerts.

But what does all of this mean?

It means that, in the not too distant future, when you open your analytics account you may be greeted with some juicy, perceptive and extremely relevant data to get your head into an analytical frame of mind. This is just another gift from Google. All you need to do in return is use the information provided in order to optimise your Google advertising campaigns.  It’s a win-win for you and for Google.

But don’t be fooled by all the new bells and whistles coming soon to an Analytics account near you, automation can only ever get you so far. When it comes to data mining and online marketing, the real value of this upgrade will come from the statistical marketer behind the mouse. It is his/her job it is to decipher which insights are relevant to the client’s cause and which are just irrelevant, albeit interesting tidbits of information.

It works just like eBay, where users can check the credibility of the buyer or seller. But, at the same time it also makes it really easy for people to leave malicious and/or untrue comments about your site or business, and there’s not a lot you can do about it.

However, the tool is fantastic for obtaining general information about a site, finding out if a company is credible or reading a comment that corrects errors from an article.

The main challenge for Google will be to ensure appropriate comments are posted and ranked accordingly. Sidewiki uses an algorithm to verify the quality of comments and ranks them accordingly, just like regular Google listings.

The algorithm takes into account feedback from users, previous entries made by the same author and many other signals, according to the Google Blog.

It’s an easy way to share your knowledge and insights about any page on the web. However, it also presents a challenge for website owners as they have to deal with reputation management on a routine basis. This added functionality has the potential to change web users’ surfing and online shopping patterns, and Google is way ahead of its competitors in terms of providing these kinds of innovative new services to its users.

It represents exciting times for online businesses who believe in providing quality services and products to their clients.

The last few months has subsequently seen Yahoo and Microsoft enter into a new deal that will see Yahoo’s Search Marketing ads appear on Microsoft sites and Microsoft’s organic results (powered by Bing) appear in Yahoo searches. Once again, this deal will need to jump through the anti-trust hoops but if it does, it shapes as a real threat to Google’s seemingly invincible search monopoly. Having said that, for Australian users this doesn’t change all that much, as Yahoo! Search Marketing has been controlling paid ad placements on Microsoft sites for some time anyway.

After only a few short years, it appears that Microsoft’s Live search engine experiment has been put to rest and in it’s place has emerged Bing, which has launched a massive $100 million (plus) worldwide advertising campaign designed to capture some of Google’s 80-85% market share. The name Bing was supposedly chosen because it resembles the sound made when you discover what you’re looking for (the lightbulb moment), but more cynical users might more logically associate it with a Windows error message dialog.

I have a slightly different theory, as Microsoft no doubt realised they needed to come up with a name that could make its way into users’ vocabulary in much the same way that “Google it” has entered mainstream vernacular. The old name, Live, didn’t lend itself to being used as an verb, but with Bing, they do have that (faint) hope.

So what does this mean for the ‘Google v Microsoft’ battle? The early signs are that Bing is making some ground into the search engine market share, with figures reporting that Bing has captured between 5-8% of the total search audience since June 2009. This may not seem like much, but in a industry worth billions of dollars every year, this translates to a significant jump in advertising revenues. Being in the industry, I’ve also been asked quite a number of times about Bing, and in the 3 years that Live was in existence prior, I don’t remember it ever being mentioned by a client once.

There’s no doubt that Google still reigns supreme over both Microsoft’s various search incarnations and Yahoo but for the first time in quite a few years, it seems that both Yahoo and Microsoft have abandoned their “if you can’t beat them, join them” mentality when it came to Google and are now actually serious about taking on (or at the very least, making some inroads into) Google’s mantle as the undisputed king of search.

Bring on the next round…

For quite some time, the online payment world has been dominated by PayPal, as its raft of features and ease of use for almost anyone has made it a logical choice for most online businesses. That was, however, until Google Checkout came along.

Google has taken their typical approach of making the use of its system totally free and easy to use. For a start, Google takes a flat 2% of any sale through Google Checkout (plus a 20c transaction fee) making Google Checkout competitive, if not cheaper than PayPal for most users.

But that’s not where its big benefit is. Google also offers free transactions on the dollar value of up to ten times your Google AdWords spend. That means if you’re a business advertising on AdWords spending $1000 per month, the first $10,000 you make in the month is all yours (with no commission for Google).

Since most businesses that have a checkout system probably use AdWords anyway, this is a massive advantage to using Google Checkout over PayPal.

But that’s not where the benefits stop. AdWords advertisers are also able to use the ‘Google Checkout Badge’ underneath their ads in the search engines and Google claims this badge improves both click-through and conversion rates (the percentage of people who buy) quite substantially.

However, Google Checkout is not just a threat to PayPal, but also to a legion of web designers who charge thousands of dollars to build custom shopping cart or e-commerce modules for their clients.

Users who sign up to Google Checkout are able to design their own shopping cart module using the built-in tools, and then simply cut and paste the HTML code straight into their site. Web development agencies who specialise in building website shopping carts are going to have to adapt and come up with new and exciting ways to build shopping carts or cut their prices drastically.

The big question that remains however, is when will Google Checkout come to Australia? Google Checkout currently supports buyers from around the world, but only supports sellers in the US and UK. Google’s information pages states that they are working to “make Google Checkout available in more locations” but can’t give specific dates.

Personally, I believe that Google Checkout will dramatically change the way online businesses are established in Australia as many website owners are crying out for a viable alternative to PayPal.

The ability to control all their purchases from one login is also a massive benefit for buyers.

Google is on the move again…

Since that article, the much-hyped Microsoft-Yahoo! deal has fallen through (most probably for good now) and Yahoo! have signed an $800 million non-exclusive search advertising deal with Google that will see Google ads appearing in Yahoo!’s search results.

This deal basically means that Microsoft is really the only player left who can seriously have a tilt at Google. All the other players are either too small to be a genuine threat or have some vested interest in Google.

Yahoo! is now one of the latter. The problem that Yahoo! has is that by signing this deal, they have effectively conceded the search advertising war to Google, who maintain a massive market share of around 80%.

However, it’s important to note that this is not the first time that Yahoo! have outsourced to Google. Google supplied Yahoo!’s search results from 2000 to 2004 before Yahoo! engineered their own search engine. Microsoft’s MSN search was likewise outsourced for a number of years to LookSmart, Inktomi and AltaVista before they too decided to create their own engine in late 2004.

So while most consumers believe that Yahoo and MSN have been in the search game for years, and are regarded as the two ‘other players’ in the ‘Big 3,’ both have really only been producing their own search results for about four years. And now that Yahoo have gone back to Google for search engine advertising, it raises questions about whether or not even Yahoo! think they can match it with Google’s AdWords program.

Which brings us back to Microsoft as the only player who has not got some interest in Google’s success. There are a couple of signs that suggest Microsoft may be planning an assault on the Google fortress. The first is the breakaway of the MSN search engine to the Live search engine which operates on a cleaner search-oriented feel (much like Google’s) as opposed to the web portal style of MSN and Yahoo!. This move has allowed Microsoft to frame its Live search as a separate entity that is focused on search, something that Google used very early on to gain credibility.

The announcement of Microsoft’s plans to take on the realm of display advertising is another indication that Microsoft is mobilising its forces. Microsoft AdCenter, while currently no match for the AdWords juggernaut, is in a prime position to receive a makeover and move rapidly into the display advertising field.

However, if Microsoft plan to seriously take on Google they need to move quickly as Google’s acquisitions of DoubleClick, and to a lesser extent YouTube, suggest that Google is keen to move in on this new market as well.

So, whilst there is no doubt that Google is by far and away the leader in terms of market share for both search queries and advertising dollars, there are signs emerging that suggest the Microsoft giant is not ready to lose the search war just yet, although they have to be ready for a long battle if they want to pinch the crown.

Round Two – Google Knockout… but is there movement on the canvas?

So the question then becomes, can anyone topple Google? In the late 90’s Yahoo! was the number one, but Google looked at Yahoo’s weaknesses and created a cleaner search engine that supposedly delivered better search results. But can anyone do it again?

Google continue to go from strength to strength, and their reach is unrivalled. Their advertising network includes AOL, Ask.com and now Yahoo and their recent acquisitions of DoubleClick and Youtube have only broadened their market.

With the much-hyped Yahoo! and Microsoft deal falling through, and Yahoo’s subsequent search marketing deal with Google, who is left to take on the giant of search? Let’s go through the main competitors:

Yahoo!

Currently sitting in a distant second in terms of both advertising and search query share, many claim that Yahoo’s search algorithm is actually superior to Google’s. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant, as the vast majority of users have spoken with their clicks and head to Google for its clean feel. The big thing that Google has over Yahoo is the way Google is able to separate out each of its products to keep that clean feel. Yahoo pack everything they offer into one homepage, which can make it hard to identify what their primary focus is. As a result, many users wonder whether Yahoo’s search is being given the focus it deserves. Yahoo will certainly remain profitable, as they have a loyal fan base that swear by it, but I just can’t see them storming the Google fortress, particularly now they are relying on their ad network.

MSN/Live

If Yahoo is a distant second, then Microsoft’s Live Search is back an eternity in third place. Again, however, there are those out there who believe Microsoft’s search to be better, but I am a definite sceptic on this one. For Microsoft to really succeed in search they need a massive overhaul, and massive overhauls are not really Microsoft’s style. More than likely Microsoft will just let Live run its course, as it doesn’t really seem to have the desire to be number one in search, or else it probably would have put more emphasis on it’s deal with Yahoo rather than letting it slip by the wayside.

AOL, Ask, etc

The old players in the market. Most of these engines still get a decent run of traffic, but most are also relying on Google advertising deals to keep them profitable. These guys are not real challengers for the crown.

Mahalo

Mahalo is an interesting one. Mahalo is Hawaiian for thank you, and the premise behind this start-up is that it is the web’s only human-powered search engine. That is, its search results are not driven by algorithm’s but by human generated results pages. To me it seems like Wikipedia and Dogpile rolled into one, as the user is able to search all the various other engines if Mahalo does not have a page created. I don’t think the concept of a human-powered search engine can work, particularly when it comes to updating it constantly at the speed of web. Wikipedia works but I don’t see Mahalo taking off. It is useful however, if you want to search all the major search engines (and Wikipedia, Youtube, Flickr) all in one go. Other than that I don’t see it ever matching Google. Google’s algorithm’s refresh daily, which is almost impossible for a human-powered search engine to match.

Clusty

Another meta approach to search. Just like Dogpile, Clusty attempts to rank results by aggregating results from other search engines. Once generated however, Clusty clusters results together into categories of results. This is a useful tool but won’t have Google shaking.

Other Small Start-ups

Quintura, Blinkx, Powerset, Kosmix, the list goes on. All these players however, are only targeting tiny market niches, market niches that Google could quite easily swat away with one extra feature to their own search results. The other problem most of these smaller players have is they lack the resources to operate their own search algorithm’s and many of the newcomers rely on refining a Google search.

The Verdict

Here’s the problem as I see it for the other players attempting to usurp Google; all of them either rely on Google’s search is some way or are targeting niche markets that Google could themselves cover by throwing a few million at a new Google product.

Google have already done this with email. Google took a search-based approach to internet-based email and eroded Microsoft’s Hotmail monopoly in a flash, so these small niche players had better watch their back. If Microsoft can be beaten so easily, where does that leave the little guy?

But all the big players (including Yahoo thanks to this new deal) are relying on Google in some way either for search results or search advertising. All, that is, except Microsoft. Microsoft’s Live is the one major search engine out there not dependent on Google’s algorithms or advertising dollars.

Over the last few years Google has continually stripped away Microsoft’s stranglehold on all things digital, and maybe the time is right for the old dog to get angry and strike back.

Alas, however, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen…