Google announced a change to its search infrastructure and is calling the change “Google Caffeine.” Implying faster web results, the objectives of the next generation of Google were revealed in a Google Webmaster Central Blog post last month.

Three words are very prominent in the post:

1. CRAWL

2. INDEX

3. RANK

Google wants to do these three things ”as quickly as possible.”

Caffeine is coming on the heels of Microsoft’s new Bing search engine which has a knack for reporting news very quickly.   Not to be outdone, Google has created Caffeine to bring more relevant results to the search rankings faster.

Not only does Google want to be quicker on the draw, Google wants to be more efficient.   A recent New York Times article on job opportunities in statistics mentioned a Googler who had worked on a new Google algorithm model that “increased the chances that the crawler would scan frequently updated web pages and make fewer trips to more static ones.”

For search engine optimization, Caffeine certainly places more emphasis on marketers to keep their content updated and fresh.

comScore, Inc. has released their monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the United States search marketplace. In August 2009, Americans conducted more than 13.9 billion core searches, with Google accounting for 64.6 percent search market share. Microsoft Sites grabbed 9.3 percent market share, a 0.4-percentage point gain versus July 2009.

Google led the U.S. core search market in August 2009 with 64.6 percent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! (19.3 percent), and Microsoft (9.3 percent). Ask Network captured 3.9 percent of the search market, followed by AOL LLC with 3.0 percent.

Aug-09 vs.
Core Search Entity           Jul-09        Aug-09          Jul-09
——————           ——        ——          ——
Total Core Search             100.0%        100.0%        N/A
—————–            —–          —–            —-
Google Sites                         64.7%            64.6%         -0.1
————                  —-           —-            —-
Yahoo! Sites                          19.3%          19.3%            0.0
————                  —-           —-             —
Microsoft Sites                      8.9%             9.3%             0.4
—————                —            —             —
Ask Network                          3.9%             3.9%            0.0
———–                    —            —             —
AOL LLC Network                3.1%           3.0%              -0.1
—————                —            —            —-

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and
cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and
user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five
search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

You can read the full release here.

Yahoo announced the launch of their new and improved search format yesterday, you can read the official release here.   These changes were no doubt sparked by the recent partnership with MSN and Bing.

The previous changes introduced by Yahoo included a new Yahoo! homepage, improved Yahoo! Mail, high-quality video calling in Yahoo! Messenger, and a suite of new Yahoo! Mobile experiences.

Here are some key features of the new Yahoo Search page design:

• Feature-Rich Experience – This is meant for having a quick access to search features such as Search Scan/SafeSearch that help the users protect you from viruses, spyware and spam. Hence, it will be easier for people to the research documents that they have created during searching.

• Search Assist Expansion – This new design of the page will help the visitors use query assistance that is available directly below the search box. It has also been given on the left-hand column for quick access lower on the page, even when the Search Assist layer is hidden. For further assistance, Yahoo has added Search Assist to the search box on every Yahoo! page in the U.S. with the launch of a new universal header.

• Intelligent Search Results – This feature allows the users to explore results from sites and narrow results using different types of SearchMonkey structured data. In the past few months, it has been seen that some more enhanced results for product, local, entertainment, reference, social, and tech sites have been displayed automatically. With this new search page design, Yahoo claims that they have made it easier for the users to experience rich results from an increasing number of sites.

The new Yahoo Search page design not only makes search easier but also has an improved Page load and Perceived load times with a better inline data URI Images.

See the video below for in-depth info on the features.

Courtesy Yahoo Search Blog

Google made historic news yesterday by declaring they do not use the meta keywords tag. Okay, I am being sarcastic.  Google hasn’t used the meta keywords tag for a long time and any “SEO” should know that.   So why did Google blog about this, on the record?  At least two reasons, (1) people continue to sue over it by claiming copyright infringement and people confuse the meta keywords with the meta description, which Google does recommend to use.

So there are official posts from Matt Cutts, the Google Blog and Search Engine Land trying to erase any confusion from people who are new to this space.

If you want to know which meta tags Google does pay attention to, see this FAQ. Plus, Google’s JohnMu tweeted that Google also does “not adhere to the “revisit-after” meta tag,” if you wanted to know.

Finally, here is a video if you don’t want to read any of this:

With big boosts from search and mobile, combined with continuing shifts in spending away from traditional ad channels by marketers, WPP’s GroupM, the largest buyer of media in the world, is projecting that global Internet spending will increase 11 percent next year to almost $65 billion and account for nearly 15 percent of all measured media.

More specifically, interactive media will represent nearly one of every five dollars spent by marketers on media in the U.S. next year, according to the report release yesterday.   GroupM predicts that interactive media, primarily online, will represent 17% of the U.S. advertising marketplace in 2010, up from 15.4% in 2009.

That makes interactive the third largest medium in the U.S., behind television’s 44.2% share, and magazine’s 18.4% share of 2010 advertising budgets.*  According to GroupM’s estimates, interactive media will overtake newspaper’s U.S. advertising share this year.   Newspapers, which had a 14.8% share of U.S. ad spending in 2008, will fall to a 13.6% share this year, and a 12.4% share next year. Interactive media had a 13.9% share in 2008.**

We have talked about the shift in advertising dollars from newspapers to the web in previous blog posts.  Even the most widely read newspaper in the US, USA Today, wrote about this trend last March.

You can see a Google Maps listing list of newspapers that have closed here. I think for the majority of the newspapers, although their online ad revenue has grown, it is too late to fix their core business models to make it through the era of real time, mashed up, and twitter size news.

*Courtesy of AdWeek
**Courtsey of GroupM Release

Google’s Matt Cutts talks about the link issues that webmasters should be aware of now that Google is improving it’s crawling of Java Script links:

Google is warning webmasters about duplicate content and various site issues.  A few months back, Google explained the multiple pros and cons of duplicacy in the content and the related issues showing their concern over it.

The Duplicate Content and Multiple Site Issue was a hot topic at last month’s Search Engine Strategies  conference in San Jose. Google has reproduced the talk on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel.

When developing an online media plan, don’t overlook value-added ad placements, such as text-based newsletter ads and advertorials. These placements aren’t always popular ideas, but they represent an opportunity to add performance juice to a proposal full of expensive premium ad placements.

So when negotiating a media buy, check out these seven value-added placements I  advocate for clients:

• Fixed-placement text links. These can be effective.   Frequently at the bottom or side bar of every page on the site and in e-mail newsletters, they often include a quick little sentence or offer and deliver tons of impressions and clicks.

• Text-based newsletter ads. This is another under-appreciated gem. Text-based newsletter insertions often outperform banners, as they are integrated into the newsletter’s content and drive traffic very often for weeks after they are sent. In fact, I’ve seen clicks and actions trickle in for months after a good newsletter text insertion.

• Buttons. Buttons often have fixed placements and sometimes come with a little text (if they don’t, try to do more than a logo). They can deliver a huge number of impressions and enough clicks to bring down a campaign’s average CPC and CPA.

• Advertorial. This is a rarely offered tactic that can drive performance if done properly. If an advertorial is promoted the same way articles are featured and promoted on a site (and even get a little home page play or headline listing), this placement will really deliver. Just like in a print magazine, an online advertorial should be labeled as a “special promotion” article.

Sample Advertorial

• ROS banners. Of course, we gun for those high-profile premium placements or the section-specific placements. However, having more banners running all over the site should help your client reach an audience that’s similar to the one in specific sections that you’re trying to dominate. This approach can drive up your click and action numbers because the volume of inventory that can be thrown at ROS banners is often vast.

• Run of network (RON)/other properties. If your media rep is out of value adds on the site you’re buying on, ask what other sites he owns. Very often a site you buy on owns other sites that are similar enough that they are a relevant place to run your ads. Many may not be as popular as the site you are targeting and the publisher may want to populate it with high-profile ads.

• Cobranded contest. While it may cost money to come up with a contest prize, both publisher and advertiser can still benefit. They can share the list of contestants and offer participants the opportunity to opt in to receive newsletters.

When a publisher underperforms, you should also push for value-added placements. Many properties would rather salvage the buy than lose the contract altogether.

A great discussion thread on Webmaster World regarding their poll that ran last week asking Would You Allow Google to Manage Your AdWords Account? To a seasoned PPC manager, the results were not surprising.  An overwhelming majority of the responses were basically, “no way!”  In short, readers feel that the Google AdWords representatives who manage accounts for big and small advertisers cannot do as good a job as an SEM company or someone who manages it themselves.   There are many stories in the thread, mostly negative about their experience with having Google manage their account.

Just take a look at the pie chart, 87% said no, they would not allow Google to manage their AdWords campaigns. That is out of 150 Webmaster World reader responses.

The other responses said that they would allow Google do the set up of the initial campaign but then take it over from that point going forward.  That really means, no, they won’t allow Google to manage their campaign.

To take a step back, Google has a large stable of staffers just down the street from our office ready to help you set up and continue to maintain your Google AdWords account.   And they do it for free. The issue is, at least according to the stories in the thread, they don’t manage the accounts as effectively or as smart as you would yourself or as a professional PPC management company. At least, those are the overwhelming opinions in the thread.

Google can’t take the time to truly learn and understand an individual marketers business.  That is why there are so many advantages to working with a local SEM resource.

Just remember, “Free” is not always a good investment.

AdAge’s latest power 150 is out.  Created by Todd Andrlik, the rankings are determined by an overall weighted score compiled from Yahoo InLinks, Technorati Authority Rank, Bloglines Subscribers and other metrics.  Google Page Rank was recently removed though as a metric due to incosistent data.

Note that 5 of the top 15 blogs are specific to Online Marketing and/or SEO and Search Engine Marketing.

Here is  a link to the list.  You can also subscribe to the Power 150 blog.

Bing has created a new feature called Ad Preview in order to help advertisers see if their ad is appearing in Bing.  Now, instead of searching on Bing.com for an ad, the advertisers will be able to access Ad Preview directly in adCenter to manage their advertising campaigns.  Ad Preview will also help people avoid the unnecessary impressions and accidental clicks that they might come across during a search for their ad.

If advertisers find their ads showing in Ad Preview, but not in the regular search then it means that they might have set demographic or geographic targets that they themselves do fulfill.   However, Ad Preview does not offer a geographic or demographic preview right now.  Bing says this is being addressed and should be available soon.

Microsoft says that Bing continues to see  strong growth since it introduced Bing on the market and killed off Live Search completely.  According to Microsoft the number of unique users that ran queries in the decision search engine has increased by over 8% from July to August.   It is important to note that, in parallel with the launch of Bing, Microsoft has also been running an advertising campaign with an estimated cost of up to $100 million.

Here are the steps to use to use AdPreview:

1. Sign in to Microsoft adCenter.

2. Select your account.

3. Click the Campaigns tab.

4. On the Campaigns page, at the upper right, click Ad Preview Tool.

5. In the Keyword box, type a keyword that’s associated with your ad.

6. Click the Preview Ads button. Please note that you might get one of these security messages:

• If you get the message Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely, click No to proceed.
• If you get the message This page contains both secure and nonsecure items, click Yes to proceed.

7. View your ad results.

Microsoft announced last month a new collaboration with consumer measurement firm comScore to design a digital media-planning service dubbed the “reach and frequency planner (RF planner)”.    The RF Planner uses a hybrid audience measurement method that combines Microsoft’s ad serving data with demographic information from comScore’s panel.

The goal of the RF planner will be to help brand advertisers better measure and track their online-ad campaigns.   Advertisers would be able to more easily determine and predict how consumers will respond to their digital ads.

Current online reach and frequency metrics are typically computed at the site level.  Measuring reach and frequency at the ad placement level is more precise because it shows the reach of the ad campaign that can actually be achieved, the true potential frequency and the specific demos of that audience.  Campaigns planned at a total site level can overstate reach and understate frequency, and may not deliver the desired demographic mix.

The new RF Planner service will offer the detailed campaign-level analysis and streamlined planning capabilities that have long been a benefit in the traditional media space.