Search Engine News

Hot off the press… Hitwise just published updated statistics on long tail queries and search engine market share. Have a look!

*** Based on the percentage changes above, we can see that long tail searches are dominating on the search engines.  People are starting to realize that they can get better results on more descriptive phrases.  If there was ever a case to create more descriptive content, this is it!!!

*** This table shows Google’s continuing dominance.  The most surprising stat here is the 15% decline in Yahoo’s market share!  That is a huge drop in just a year.  The search engine wars are officially over and a clear winner has emerged.

What does this mean for you and your business??  Well if you read this blog regularly, it doesn’t mean much.  You are prepared, because I’ve always been a major proponent of quality conent and lots of it.  Keep writing those descriptive articles, keep creating valuable content, and pay close attention to this blog…  there are some changes afoot with the Google algorithm, and you’ll want to be paying close attention…  STAY TUNED!!

More reasons to rely on organic SEO…

• When Internet users look for information, services or products to buy, more than 8 out of 10 rely on search engines, not simple surfing.
• 85% of these searchers don’t click on paid links.
• 63% of links that are naturally displayed at the top of search engines get clicks.
• Over the last year, Pay-per-click (PPC) costs have grown 37%, and they go on rising.

Here are some fun search engine and blogging statistics I pulled up.  I like doing this about once a year to see what is going on in the search space to see if there are any trends I’m missing.  Plus, it’s just really interesting data to look at.  Most comes from comscore, hitwise, and technorati.

enjoy…

Blogging Statistics

• 28% of all visits to blogs in 2007 resulted in some kind of action (email signup, contact form, etc.)
• There are currently about 15.5 million active blogs (blogs updated within 90 days)
• Total blogs tracked by technorati: 74 million
• There are 120,000 new blogs being created every day
• 3,000-7,000 new spam blogs (splogs) created per day
  
• Total blog posts created per day: 1.5 million
• 36% of those blog posts were written in English
  
• The Japanese language now boasts more blogs than another language (37%)

Search Engine Statistics

• 75% of Americans use search engines on a regular basis
• 56% of Americans use Search Engines every day
• 40% of all search engine searches are for local businesses and services
• 54% of Americans regularly use the internet instead of the phone book to find local services
• 92% of all local searches will eventually convert into a sale
• Roughly 10 billion search queries made per day
• Google’s share of search queries: 59.2%
• Yahoo’s share of search queries: 22.2%

If you read this blog every once in a while, you have probably heard of Hittail.com, a free service that allows you to discover “long tail” keywords, thus allowing you to optimize for those words, and drive more traffic to your site. I wrote about hittail back in November of last year when it was launched.

I wanted to post a brief update on the services of HitTail since I’m such a die hard fan.

I got an email about a week ago from Mike Levin (the creator), talking about the new “plus” service they are now offering:

HitTail’s premium service has been released, and as you are one of our beta testers we want to thank you and invite you to take advantage of the limited time low price for the premium service. The full price for the service is $9.95 per month, but before April 30th, you can sign up for only $4.95 per month or $49.95 per year and lock in the price* on the same low level for as long as you remain a HitTail customer!

A look at their website points out some of the new features:

Most of these updates seem to be good. The email and RSS updates will be a helpful new feature… I tend to forget about hittail for weeks at a time, and am then overwhelmed with all the keyword suggestions.

Well done Mark. I hope to see more great innovations from you guys soon.

Yet another post about search engine marketing… if you get tired of it please let me know!
Google releases huge updates so fast and so often, that they deserve proper attention. They are so funny about new releases… there is never any fanfare or press releases. They just keep on quietly making internet shaking improvements without so much as a peep.

Well, recently, it happened again, although this time it was much easier to notice… Ever heard the term Google Slap? On Feb. 16, Google released an Adwords update that most commentators are calling Google Slap 3.0, since it is the 3rd time something similar to it has happened.

Basically, Google has taken a few factors including: quality of advertisement, % of clicks on your advertisement, and keyword relevancy on your landing page.

Based on those factors, they rate each of your keywords with a “Great”, “Ok”, or “poor” score. And… here is the kicker, based on the keyword and your score, your minimum bid amount will change. If you have a very poor score on a popular keyword, your minimum bid amount could raise significantly. In some cases over $10!!!

To find out your score:

1. Login in to your adwords account
2. Click on a campaign
3. Click the Keywords Tab
4. Click on Customize Columns
5. Click “Show Quality Score”
6. View the score for each keyword

If you have been slapped with a “poor” rating, and your minimum bid has gone through the roof, try the following remedies:

• Improve the language of the advertisement to better reflect that keyword
• Create a custom landing page that includes the keywords you are targeting

This should clear things up for the most part.

I’m still unclear on how successful this will be… from an advertisers perspective, if you don’t have your ads in order, you may get a serious slapping. But if the content on your pages matches the keywords, you should be fine. There is no question that Google will make more money from this, but it should also help advertisers to target their ads in a more direct way.

What are some of the most popular cities on Craigslist??

The percentage represents percentage of traffic over the entire site, and the 2nd number is the amount of listings they had at the time of this post.

•    sfbay.craigslist.org - 14% - 305800
•    newyork.craigslist.org - 10% - 345715
•    losangeles.craigslist.org - 8% - 192174
•    seattle.craigslist.org - 4% - 135719
•    sandiego.craigslist.org - 3% - 103321
•    boston.craigslist.org - 3% - 138512
•    vancouver.craigslist.org - 3% - 150304
•    chicago.craigslist.org - 3% - 107877
•    orangecounty.craigslist.org - 3% - 161288
•    portland.craigslist.org - 2%
•    atlanta.craigslist.org - 2%
•    washingtondc.craigslist.org - 2%
•    phoenix.craigslist.org - 2%
•    denver.craigslist.org - 2%
•    lasvegas.craigslist.org - 2%
•    toronto.craigslist.org - 2%
•    sacramento.craigslist.org - 2%
•    dallas.craigslist.org - 2%
•    minneapolis.craigslist.org - 1%
•    austin.craigslist.org - 1%
•    miami.craigslist.org - 1%
•    houston.craigslist.org - 1%