Is Kantar Clueless: Online Ad Spending Going Down?
December 21, 2011
Data about ad spending is tricky for me. Those collecting the data can make decisions which may have a significant impact on how the numbers flow. I am suspicious of information from the “real” research firms and well as from outfits which are less familiar to me. Hey, we do data analysis too, and some data are slippery fish.
Against this disclaimer, check out “Kantar Media Reports Paid Search Spend Tumbled in 2011.” I found this passage interesting:
Kantar first observed the drop in spending from financial, legal and medical marketers around the end of the first quarter – and the drop continued right through Q3. Swallen said, “I don’t know if it reflects a variance in ad impressions vs. variance in keyword pricing. I can’t comment which of those two factors is more responsible for the declines, but the decline is primarily coming off those financial services.” Overall, Internet ad spending rose narrowly by 2.8 percent for the first nine months of 2011. Total advertising spending in the U.S. grew modestly from January to September, then slowed to a crawl in the third quarter. Third quarter ad spending was up just .4 percent compared to last year, capping a nine-month period that saw growth of just 1.5 percent. The total amount of ad sending for the first three quarters of 2011 was $104.7 billion.
So no big deal, right?
Wrong. If Google sucks in the easy money, the competition has to up its game. If Google plays hard ball and cuts its prices, there will be some new burger flippers practicing their wrist motion at Burger King.
Assume the numbers are off base. Google gets bigger, and it is quite plausible that it will spend its way to an even stronger market position. Worth watching. Ad spending up or down? We will know more in 2012.
Stephen E Arnold, December 23, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Why Intuitive Design is Amazing
December 5, 2011
SEO is a buzzword that everyone knows but no one really understands. We all know that good SEO can bring Web traffic to our web sites but its difficult to explain exactly how it all works. I would like to share with you a recent article that attempts to outline not only what SEO is, but why it is necessary for your business.
SitePoint reported this week on the importance of not only incorporating, but prioritizing, search engine optimization (SEO) in the article “Why SEO Comes First”
Throughout the article, writer Alex Mason pontificates on the failures of Web designers and the success of SEO practitioners when it comes to marketing a business successfully.
Mason states:
Web designers are hurting the search marketing industry at the very source. When clients whose understanding is only as good as the person who is telling them think that SEO is what web designers do, we’re at the bottom of a big uphill battle. It’s generally up to the SEO to then clean up the mess and rectify the oversights the developers and clients between themselves have left.” In all the time that Mason spends dissing web designers and ephasizing the importance of keyword research and traffic acquisition, he forgets to mention the most important factor –producing good content. Solely focusing on getting traffic and hoping that information value will just come along for the ride is silly and short sighted. This article is an indication of the sad state of intellectual effort today.
Our view is that “intuitive design” can veer from useful to lipstick on a pig. The notion of content is equally slippery. Gossip may be more valuable to some Web users than more substantive types of information. The loss of precision and recall as ways to measure search signals more than a nuisance for search vendors. The loss makes clear that substance is of less value than Revlon hot pink.
Jasmine Ashton, December 5, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Shop City Alleges Google Discriminates
November 20, 2011
Search Engine Watch has reported on yet another discrimination complaint against Google in the Nov 16, article “ShopCity Files Antitrust Complaint Against Google.” Shop City has filed a complaint with the FTC, claiming that Google pushed its Web sites down to the fifth page of results for searches, despite Shop City’s having created content within the bounds of Google’s guidelines. In addition to this, Google placed its own results, keyed to a map, at the top of the results, regardless of whether those results were legitimately more useful. Shop City CEO Colin Pape said of the investigation:
Our FTC submission has nothing to do with a lawsuit or damages of any kind. We feel that the entire marketplace would benefit from increased transparency from the world’s most powerful company, and this complaint, requesting a formal investigation, is the way to bring that about.
I think we can all agree that transparency is a good thing when multinational corporations are involved. Whether Google’s alleged discrimination was intentional or unintentional remains to be seen. One wonders if these accursers are looking for a scape goat in today’s tough economy. On the other hand, is Google taking steps to ensure that its revenues remain robust as the financial winds buffet other organizations?
Jasmine Ashton, November 20, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Good Content Wins Fans
November 19, 2011
Suddenly Webmasters are chattering about content. After years of tricks, indexing silliness, and down right misleading search engine optimization games—content is popular again.
With the increased popularity of e-books, and the easily accessible tools of creation, distribution and promotion of web content, there has been speculation regarding how this will affect the quality of content being released.
In the TechDirt article “Good Content Doesn’t Get Buried By Bad Content” we learned:
We have no doubt that much new content being produced is, in fact, pretty bad. I’ve never quite understood the argument, though, that bad content harms good content. You just have to ignore the bad content and follow the good content. What that means is that the world just needs good filters, and we keep seeing more and more of those showing up every day.
The write up asserts that, with sites like Amazon, fans are able to show their support for the good books that they love by writing reviews. This helps separate the good content from the bad.
There will always be skeptics out there challenging technological innovations. I would argue that while it may be easier to make your content available for public consumption than in years past, bad content won’t win over the fan base needed to make an impact.
Jasmine Ashton, November 19, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Funnelback 11 Released With New and Improved Features
November 12, 2011
Funnelback , a website and enterprise search provider, launched version 11 of its product on October 1st of this year. Funnelback 11 is available on Windows and Linux and also as a cloud service and has an automated tuning engine and search-driven SEO assistant capabilities.
Funnelback 11 also has new features like updatable indexes, efficient crawling, 64-bit indexing and a new high performance search interface.
According to the Funnelback news release “Funnelback 11 Launched with Automated Tuning and SEO Assistant”; Managing Director Brett Matson said of the product:
“Funnelback 11 has the ability to continually and automatically optimise its ranking using a correct answer set determined by the customer. This enables customers to intuitively adjust the search engine ranking algorithm to ensure it continuously adapts and is optimised to the ever-changing characteristics of their own information environment. A related benefit is that it exposes how effectively the search engine is ranking,”
Regardless of the high praise that Funnelback is giving itself, our take on Funnelback 11, and this release in particular, is that its an annoying display content and that maybe they are trying a bit too hard to impress.
Jasmine Ashton, November 12, 2011
Keyword Research – An Interesting Approach
October 15, 2011
Search Engine Watch offers a non-traditional examination of search engine ranking in, “Keyword Research: Dealing With Uncertainty.” The author lays out a plan for researching which keywords will return the highest ROI for search engine ranking.
The method is explained:
When selecting the keywords you would like to rank for, you must take several factors into account. Preferably you’re able to calculate its potential ROI by finding out what effort is required for a return in profit. There are, however, various uncertainties that you can choose to minimize.
Quite frankly the article is quite lengthy and the illustrations are somewhat incomprehensible. Perhaps we are not smart enough to understand the point here. But for those who live and die by SEO, the innovative approach might be worth a second look.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 15, 2011
Beating the Panda Once More
October 14, 2011
I wrote a blog post in 2009 that offered up some of my own suggested guidelines for Google in handling reconsideration requests. I’m still convinced this could work:The penalized Webmaster fully and truthfully completes a reconsideration request Wizard, which walks you through the Google webmaster guidelines & identifies compliance issues.
- Google immediately acknowledges receipt of the request and has 10 business days to respond.
- The response, at minimum, informs the webmaster what areas of his site do not conform to the guidelines and what penalty has been assessed.
- Google informs the webmaster that his penalty will be removed within X days/weeks/months after coming into compliance.
Is that really too much to ask? I don’t think so.
Is Google the Mozart of Online Advertising?
October 3, 2011
The Google recipe for its Web site placement order for searches is closely guarded despite the company’s open-source policy. Google Discusses Their Algorithm Change Process at Search Engine Journal explains the lengthy and arduous process Googlers must go through in the quest for search engine effectiveness.
Mozart was gifted, somewhat like the Energizer Bunny until his batteries gave up, and able to suck up the best ideas from whatever sequence of notes he happened to absorb. Not surprisingly, Mozart did his best to control his musical output, leaving gaps in his manuscripts, which, I presume, reminded him to make something up as he went along. The gap also added difficulty to those who would game his musical system. Is Google the Mozart of online advertising?
Google allegedly explains that Google must guard the algorithms to keep the manipulation of its numerical recipes to an acceptable minimum. In fact, an entire industry has grown up around trying to crack Google’s search algorithms in an effort to bolster one’s ranking. Google isn’t just sitting around; rather, they are constantly updating and tweaking their algorithms. The leitmotif runs through objectivity and results shaping is evident to me. Am I alone? The article asserts:
Each idea is based on improving the user experience, but not every idea actually shows a positive user impact; while over 500 changes were made last year, over 20,000 experiments were conducted in that same time period. The key takeaway is that, while it’s a good idea to pay attention to experiments, only a small cut will ever become a part of the standard – and, with 500 changes a year, even those alterations are subject to reversal.
With so many changes constantly occurring behind the curtain, how are websites to keep up? Although 500 changes may be made in a year, not all of them (hardly any at all) have an impact of the majority of site rankings, according to Google. The few changes that do shake things up, make life interesting for certain Web sites. Most companies relying on Google traffic for sustenance are in constant competition with Google’s algorithm. A misstep—either intentional or unintentional—can deliver a surprise with algorithm updates. In fact, as I write this, a new Panda is apparently underway. The publisher of this blog is indifferent to traffic, using this Web log as a diary of information and ideas which are recycled for for fee columns, monographs, client reports, and the occasional industry talk. Most Web sites do not enjoy this luxury.
Search engine optimization experts find new ways of diluting search results precision and recall. As long as there is billions of dollars in advertising being thrown around the Google rankings, there will be those trying to manipulate it. And when traffic building is really needed, a frazzled marketer can just buy Adwords.
I don’t think the analogy of Google and Mozart has sufficient elasticity to cover the balancing of organic search (that is, gaming the system) and buying Adwords. I do think Google and to some extent Bing are gifted composer conductors. Musicians have to follow the score or lose out.
Catherine Lamsfuss, October 3, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Relevance: Once Ignored, Now a Core Issue
September 23, 2011
The Google recipe for its Web site placement order for searches is closely guarded despite the company’s open-source policy. The article, Google Discusses Their Algorithm Change Process, on Search Engine Journal, explains the lengthy and arduous process Googlers must go through in the quest for search engine impact.
Google explains that they must guard the algorithms to keep the manipulation of its numerical recipes which contain mathematical formulas and secret sauce, within Google defined boundaries. In fact, an entire industry has grown up around trying to crack Google’s search algorithms in an effort to bolster one’s relevance in Google’s recipe. Google isn’t just sitting around; rather, the company is constantly updating and tweaking their algorithms. We learned:
Each idea is based on improving the user experience, but not every idea actually shows a positive user impact; while over 500 changes were made last year, over 20,000 experiments were conducted in that same time period. The key takeaway is that, while it’s a good idea to pay attention to experiments, only a small cut will ever become a part of the standard – and, with 500 changes a year, even those alterations are subject to reversal.
With many changes occurring behind the curtain, how are Web masters who want users to find their content to achieve findability? Although 500 changes may be made in a year, not all of them (hardly any at all) have an impact of the majority of site rankings. The sites which may be affected are, we have heard, on their own. Google does not offer support, but it does provide a useful list of guidelines.
The few changes that do impact some sites can pack a wallop. The search engine optimization industry typically responds with suggestions, ideas, and work arounds. Google then changes its algorithm and the process begins again.
What’s the fix? Our conclusion is that one may have to “go Google”. Embrace all things Google, and buy Adwords. Trying to outwit Google may be a time consuming and unrewarding activity.
Catherine Lamsfuss, September 23, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
More Search Ranking Advice
September 7, 2011
As you may know, the publisher of Beyond Search takes a dim view of search engine optimization and the “satraps” who sell their alleged expertise to hapless Webmasters. ZDNet rides the trailing edge with yet another SEO checklist in “10 tips to boost search rankings.” Writer Jamie Yap does acknowledge the presence of the Panda, but asserts that most companies need not be concerned about it.
“Adam Bunn, director of SEO at London-based search marketing agency Greenlight, said Google’s Panda update does impact the SEO landscape but is ‘not something that most business need to worry about specifically. Panda only targets and affects a small minority of poor quality sites, and the things businesses need to do to avoid being hit by Panda are the things that any good business should be doing anyway,” Bunn told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail interview.
That’s the way to look at it, alright. But the recommendations compiled here from Bunn and John Ng of Mezmedia keep a foot in the past. Alongside such truly useful gems as “create useful content” and “be unique,” we find “keyword everything” and “get help from an [SEO] expert.” Humph.
We think key word search is over. If you want traffic, buy it. The SEO sector is fighting mad Pandas and we think the Pandas will win. If you want to be findable, check out the system and method available from Augmentext, an ArnoldIT company.
Cynthia Murrell, September 7, 2011
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