SEO wars: Google versus Yahoo!
When I moved this blog from hosted Wordpress , I submitted the site to Google and Yahoo! After that, I noted the respective crawlers indexing the blog and thought no more of it.
I subsequently registered the site in Google Webmaster and Yahoo! Site Explorer and added a sitemap to help the robots index my site more efficiently. After a while, it was clear that Google was responsible for the vast majority of traffic to my humble blog. Mainly 'one-hit wonders' but welcome nevertheless.
Today, while dabbling with various reports in Google Analytics, I compared the performance of the two major search engines over the past nine months.
The statistics are quite staggering, to me at least. So much so, I have been moved to include inline images (which took me 14 hours and they're still not right) to reinforce the point.
Over a period of nine months, Google (17,562) absolutely hammers Yahoo! (413) into the ground.
So then I started to get curious. Why does Google do such a better job of indexing my blog ?
The standard test I use is to search for a set of keywords from a recent blog entry and see whether it appears on page 1.
For this test, I used "under the covers at Wimbledon' from a post made last Sunday. On Google, this appeared as the first post in the first page. I already know that Google is very timely at indexing my blog. If I post an blog article with an internal link (pingback), my RSS feed of Google inbound links notifies me instantly.
Here are the Google results. The blog article is the first entry displayed on the front page.
OK. So now for Yahoo!
Here is the Yahoo! equivalent. Nothing for the actual blog article on page 1. However, the main blog page is listed which happens to contain a snapshot reference to the article title.
Which is more relevant ? Which looks a better match for the actual search terms ? Which one would you be tempted to click on ? Which site would you advertise on ?
Next, I went to Yahoo! Site Explorer to see whether the actual blog article was indexed yet.
No it wasn't. So, an interesting experiment and I am sure SEO magicians in white hats will arrive promptly to point out the error of my ways.
A footnote : The Yahoo! chart does appear to shows worrying signs of life from mid-May. The number of daily referrals jump from almost zero to almost a whole 10 visitors in a single day !
Come to think of it, Live.com (previously known as Dead.com) has also recently sparked into life, rising from the floor to reach the dizzy heights of a spike of 3 daily visitors.
Google beware !
Google finally sees sense
On the face of it, the recent changes to the interface to Google Docs and Spreadsheets look trivial and superficial. Google's official announcement is brief and understated but Google Blogoscoped hits the nail on the head (twice):'The file listing now resembles a more traditional view in the style of, say, Windows Explorer.'...that ordinary mortals understand and are comfortable with.
'Google D&S looks more and more like an office application.'In fact, Google Docs looks and performs much better than the most popular office application. I recently upgraded three home PC's to Office 2007. I think Microsoft Office is a superb suite of professional applications (Word, Excel, OneNote) and represents great value for money as £85 buys licenses for use on three separate PC's. Inevitably though, my wife hated the new Word interface (shock of the new) because 'everything had changed' and she could not easily locate the old 'Print' button or even 'File-Print'. My wife doesn't use Google Docs and now she has mastered Word 2007, she probably never will. However, if she ever does, it will be easy to teach her how to migrate. If she wants to print a document, she clicks the 'Print' button or the pretty picture of a printer. This is completely intuitive and obvious. She won't have to call the Helpdesk and interrupt the Champions League Final just to print two copies of her CV. If my wife wants to delete a document, she either selects the document and clicks 'Delete'. Alternatively, if she has successfully completed my 3 days 'Advanced Course' (a bargain at £150) and is officially certified, she simply drags the document to the dustbin. Two choices. Both quick, easy and obvious. Another occasional task my wife needs help with is finding her CV. She keeps all 178 documents in 'My Documents'. She doesn't archive files by year. She doesn't remember that she last updated the CV in May 2003 nor does she know whether the document is named 'CV', 'Curriculum Vitae' or 'CV-Full' or 'CV-May-2003' . She can't fathom out the search interface from within Word (nor can I) and does not know that you can search for Word documents from a completely different application - Windows Explorer. She simply wants to find her CV. From within Word. Quickly. In Google Docs, she types 'CV' in the 'Search' box and is offered all the available possibilities with intelligent auto-complete. This isn't patronising. This is all about usability, interface design and mass market appeal. If Auntie Beryl writes yet another letter to her bank, she simply drags it to the 'Letters' folder. She doesn't need to know that this isn't really a folder and the document is now tagged as 'Letter'. Uncle Harry doesn't need to know the definition and intricacies of folksonomies. He doesn't care that, strictly speaking, this document could also be multiply tagged 'Bank' and 'Personal'. He just wants to type the letter, run a spell checker, quickly print the thing and make the 5 o'clock collection. I honestly believe, in the future, this seemingly trivial change will be viewed as the turning point when Google changed from a marginal, Web 2.0 application and started to offer a credible alternative to Microsoft Office (for personal but not corporate users - yet). This was the day that non Web 2.0 users can now be introduced to Docs and actually understand and use it. Ironically, the revamped Google Docs interface is very reminiscent of the Web based interface of Office 2007 which is another excellent software product and unbelievably close to the desktop equivalent.
Google Reader goes offline
Not it's not unavailable but Google have added support for offline reading of up to 2,000 items using the recently announced Google Gears. Another much requested feature and a surprising omission from Reader - the ability to search feeds - is also thought to be on the horizon.the looming spectre of Google
The recent storm in the anti-blogosphere about Google acquiring Feedburner, the frightening prospect of Google placing ads in your precious feeds, capturing all your personal data, monitoring your every movement (online and offline) and logging your brainwaves into the Google data warehouse is starting to irritate me. Despite the corporate motto, please remember Google is evil and 2084 is just around the corner, folks. Be aware that Google just announced a partnership with global law enforcement agencies to upload all CCT footage to YouTube. Thankfully, some intelligent people are able to distance themselves from the hype and present a more balanced viewpoint. Another irritant is idiots bleating, ironically enough, in Google Groups about the lack of monthly reports in the revamped Analytics and deficiencies in Reader. If you don't like Analytics V2, go back to Site Meter to track your e-commerce site. Let me know how you get on. If you can't stand Reader, shut up and go back to Bloglines and moan about that instead. If you can no longer tolerate the unreliability and limitations of Docs and Spreadsheets, upgrade to Office 2007 and use Word and Excel. The choice is yours. I use a lot of Google products (Gmail, Reader, Calendar, Analytics, Notebook, Desktop, Bookmarks, IG, Docs, Groups, Webmaster, Adsense oh and, err that Search thingy). My view is that all are excellent, innovative software products and, best of all, completely free of charge. I really don't care that Google has stored every single keyword related to my searches from October 1991. I honestly don't care that Google has copies of my homework excuses and letters to the Inland Revenue. Believe me, the contents are really not that earth shattering. I truly don't care that Google has copies of every single email I have ever sent and received because, surprisingly, I have nothing to hide. I only wish Google could get behind corporate firewalls and retrieve the remainder as I have lost some magnificent blogging material over the years. If you are genuinely worried that Google is going to tell you what to 'eat for tea', maybe you should do the world a favour and start a protest on behalf of all Interweb users by going on an indefinite hunger strike. Immediately. If you are a child molester or jumped the turnstiles last night in Athens, then, by all means, please disable all cookies, use Ask.com or give your computer to charity. As for me, I am putting my money where my mouth in. The next purchase in my SIPP will be the purchase of £7,000 of GOOG stock. Tomorrow.don't Ask
Many years ago, in a parallel universe, I created a Web page that proclaimed:'The fastest, most comprehensive Web search engine - AltaVista'With the increasing domination of Google, it really is difficult to remember life back in the days when AltaVista was the only search engine in town and you were even considering sinking 500 quid of your hard-earned into the rumoured IPO. Maybe one day, another startup will come along and usurp Google's #1 position but somehow, I sincerely doubt it. And if that search engine company turns out to be Ask, I hereby pledge to eat my underpants and buy everyone a season ticket at Manchester City (with complimentary powder blue and white scarf). Duncan Riley of TechCrunch already posted an excellent summary on Ask's current, abysmal marketing campaign in the UK. Listen, if you want to get ordinary people to use your search engine, don't use some subtle, understated, pretentious campaign ('Evolve Your Search') with pictures of Neanderthal man, costing millions of dollars, dreamt up by new media luvvies, wearing black shirts and no ties. Ordinary people don't say: 'Ooh - that looks very interesting indeed. I wonder if that advert is a cryptic reference to a new, exciting search engine technology which will undoubtedly to help me find relevant stuff quickly on the Interweb. The Ask brand has now been subconsciously planted in my mind and I simply must remember to discuss this topic with the lads at work tomorrow.' Ordinary people say: 'God there's some rubbish adverts on TV these days. Fancy a cup of tea, love ?' Believe it or not, technically minded people have already heard of Live, Ask and Google and all those niche search engine players (incorporating Web 2.0 semantics). Believe it or not, those technically minded people are in a tiny minority. They don't know it but they are. You are not trying to get their attention. There's no point. They look down their nose at you. The only time they use Ask.com is the final choice to determine how many inbound links their tiresome blog has this week. No, you are trying to get the attention of millions of desperate housewives, builders and silver surfers who have never heard of Google and have to ask their 12 year old son to dig up that Web site for holiday cottages in the Dordorgne. These people don't use IE7 and type their searches directly into the address bar. A much better campaign would have been:
'Trying to find something on the Internet ? Go to ask.com.'Black text on white background. Short and to the point. Quicker and therefore considerably cheaper and it probably would have delivered better results than this report from Hitwise suggests . Well, let's face it - my campaign couldn't have been much worse; 3.69% market share and a staggering 13% down year on year). Come on Ask, only another 62% before you overtake Google. So, don't Ask, just Google. Like everyone else.