Posts Tagged ‘Reform’

Google Instant Suggestions Misleading Users And Businesses Alike

March 23rd, 2011

This isn’t exactly recent news, and maybe more along the lines of criticism. But so many clients and people in the industry have referred to it that we had to take a closer look.

It has been six months since Google Instant officially became part of the default search results in the US (and since then in some other countries too), and actually there is an interesting transcript of a presentation at SMX in New York that touches base on this.

But that’s more of a side note. What I want to talk about here is that when people type in a query and see keyword or brand variations suggested, they think that these are the top terms people are querying based on the main term. For example, if you look for “Reform Digital”, Google will suggest “Reform Digital Limited” or “Reform Digital SEO” or “Reform Digital London”. Fair enough. Google Instant will often suggest up to five terms as you conduct your search, and they are often some of the top variations of the query; however that is not always the case and they don’t appear in any particular order.

A recent test, based on data from different clients and companies that we work with, as well as Google data, showed that the suggested terms were actually a selection of five key terms found in what Google considered to be the top ten queries around a term. From as long ago as 2006 you could go to a URL on which Google was testing what was then known as “Google Suggest”, where they used estimates of Google impressions (perhaps query estimates?), which differ by market. Google then took the top ten variations that it sees in terms of impressions and lists them out. Have a look at the following URL which we generated using the term “mobile phone” as an example, to see what we’re talking about http://www.google.co.uk/complete/search?output=toolbar&q=mobile%20phone (or http://www.google.com/complete/search?output=toolbar&q=mobile%20phone if you want to see the US variations). This kind of query can be done with any term to see what terms Google Suggest would return (ie first four or five listed on the page) and to see what the other contenders are (based on query totals next to most terms).

So what we saw is that Google picks the five search terms that it’s going to show via various parameters, but to have a decent chance of being listed amongst those five, you need to at least be in its list of the top ten (or know how to automate queries etc). In terms of timings, we saw that Google Instant’s suggestions don’t respond immediately to changes in impression volumes, there is some delay. When checking for AT&T following the announcement that they were buying T-Mobile at the weekend, it wasn’t until late on Monday that a T-Mobile variation appeared in the list of top ten key terms, and even then there was no “impression total” next to it (it’s the only keyword suggestion with no data on that above URL).

Or, for another example, for the term “Reform” (including the space, as if you were going to add another word), Google’s top ten list includes the term “Reform Digital”, and it actually now gets the most queries of the group. But as a newer addition to the list, it’s not one of the five being suggested when you search in Google proper.

So Google Suggest is definitely sensitive to a combination of historic data and trends, and, like everything else on Google, it’s subject to manipulation. Website owners have looked at getting users to query variations to make their business look cleaner, for example “Business Name scam” is a common suggestion. Tools such as Amazon Mechanical Turk – where users are paid very small amounts to do basic tasks such as “like” or tweet something – have also been used by sites in the past to try and manipulate the results, as have several other methods of pushing query data.

This issue comes into play when looking at brand reputation. What if one of the ten terms was some other negative comment about your company? How can we get a more positive variation up there in its place? Of course, if all five of Google’s suggestions were negative, you probably have other problems!

Blog post by Niall Madden, Search Director of Reform

Update: “Scam” variations of a keyword are now blacklisted in Google Instant – so… “Business Name scam” won’t reveal a drop down. Nor does it appear in the URL that lists the 10 keyword variations. However, some brand names still have the “scams” variation, for now.

What are we excited about for 2011?

January 5th, 2011

Now that the holidays are quickly becoming a distant memory we wanted to take a look back at changes in TV, mobile and social media in 2010 and consider what exciting changes are in store for 2011.

In May Google announced that it had partnered with Sony and Logitech to bring a new product to our television screens. Called Google TV the idea is to allow “users access [to] all of their usual TV channels as well as a world of internet and cloud-based information and applications… all from the comfort of their own living room and with the same simplicity as browsing the web.”¹ Initially hailed as a major innovation in how we will interact with our TVs, Google TV has so far struggled to secure access to content from major US TV Networks and has received less than positive response to the initial software offering.  Despite these setbacks the ability for consumers to access web content via their TV will become a reality in the near future and could offer advertisers a unique opportunity to gain access to TV consumers in a new, distinctive and more trackable way in 2011.

Social media has also grown in influence amongst advertisers in 2010.  Although many major brands have had a presence on Facebook and You Tube for some time, the past year has seen a shift in how these sites are used by brands to interact with its consumers.  FMCG & retail brands in particular have begun to drive advertising toward their Facebook pages as a means of increasing the number of likes.  These pages can then be used to offer exclusive offers to customers that have already showed an active interest in the product. As we head into 2011 it is likely that advertisers will continue to embrace social media as a means of both reaching out to current customers as well as connecting with future shoppers not only via Facebook pages but also through advertising directly on Facebook via Ad Serving Units, the utilisation of in-application advertising and beyond.

It is often said that it is the first and last thing you interact with during your day but the mobile has come a long way since the days of simple calls and texts. Over the past year advertisers have begun to embrace the mobile by increasing their focus on building applications and mobile friendly websites for their customers.  Although this is a good start, the consumer is likely to demand that their smart phone enable them to do most, if not all, of the things their PC does in the near future.  With an estimated  $1.5 billion in sales worldwide made via the mobile on eBay alone in 2010 it is clear that businesses will not only need to have the capability to handle mobile e-commerce but also to ensure that their mobile advertising, including mobile search & display are a priority in 2011. ²

With so much innovation in the industry and so many new channels for advertisers to test and explore, 2011 is sure to be another busy year. Keeping up with changes in TV, mobile, & social media will be crutial to ensure continued customer retention & business growth.

1)    http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20100520_googletv.html
2)    http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/ebay-shows-where-mobile-shopping-is-hot/

Blog post by Mike Jennings, Director at Reform

Who searches for who?

July 9th, 2010

In a world dominated by social media and the Facebook generation, brands are – naturally enough – focused on making sure they are in front of people.  Search techniques are sophisticated and complex.  Billions in revenue has flowed into Google.

Behind all this activity, however, lies a huge shift in how we use media.  Profound in its consequences, the shift from the broadcast age of ‘the big shout’ to the digitally enabled, always-on narrowcast ‘big conversation’ is with us.  Even a cursory consideration of what is going down points to huge changes in the way any brand needs to reach out to customers and encourage their purchasing behaviour.

Much search activity is driven by ‘big shout’ thinking: testosterone-fuelled, high energy masculine ‘make them buy this’ thinking.  But if we accept that we live in a world of a ‘big conversation’ where power is flowing to the savvy, demanding consumer then we must be ready to earn respect through how we behave as much as how we succeed in getting in front of people.  We must tell the story of our brand with passion and honesty.  We must allow our customers to participate, and listen to them with skill, attention and deep understanding.

As any author will tell you, good stories demand an innate, even intimate understanding of the audience.  Then the story can be told with passion and intrigue.  The audience can participate, question and feel that they are receiving special attention – that they are party to a little magic.  Brands have to learn this skill.  Rather than so much emphasis on the ‘shout’ perhaps we will see more time, energy and resource devoted to the ‘listen’ part of the conversation.  Who is saying what, to whom, and are they being listened to?  Who is influential, and who is merely shouting into a bucket?  Search can be used to answer these questions, too.

Might we see the telescope of traditional search being turned around?  Isn’t it about time the skills of effective search are harnessed by brands to listen to and interpret what is being said about them?  And wouldn’t that put a premium on intelligent search practitioners?

Blog post by Mary Keane-Dawson, non-Executive Director of Reform

Analytics & Content Strategy Among Key Topics

January 25th, 2010

As the UK search marketing industry awaits the sound of the Search Engine Strategies 2010 conference wagon wheels rolling into town in February, we took a look at the event’s schedule, to see what some of the key themes and topics will be this year.

Many will be excited to hear the keynote speeches from Avinash Kaushik, Google’s leading Analytics guru and Author, and from Jim Sterne, Author and Chairman of the Web Analytics Association. And indeed the theme of analytics and conversion modeling, conversion attribution and optimisation features frequently throughout the three-day event schedule. Clearly search marketers are no strangers to accountability, but being able to lift search out of its silo and beyond the last click, and to model its success in line with the performance of a brand’s website and of its entire cross-media activity is front of mind for the industry in 2010.   

There are the usual suspects for those new to search marketing such as Introductions to Paid Search and SEO and link building strategies. And it is important that such industry events accommodate the needs of new market entrants as well as stalwarts.

Another theme which has more prominence on the SES conference schedule this year than it has in previous years is the importance of ensuring that search informs and shapes content strategy. On Wednesday 17th February (Day 2) there is a panel called “Developing Great Content” which will explore a range of web content development strategies that are born of the search marketing set (as opposed to the more ‘traditional set’ of journalists, copy writers and designers).

Reform’s Amanda Davie will be speaking in this session, and will be joined by search content and publishing specialists from Site Logic Marketing, SearchEngineWatch, SuccessWorks and SEO-PR.

For more detail about the “Developing Great Content” session or indeed the SES London conference schedule in it entirety, please visit http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/london