Posts on State of Search about ‘News’

Google buys BeatThatQuote and is buying its way into the comparison market (Update)

Comparison, it has one of the hottest subjects on the web for years. Try to compare a holiday and you’ll find tons of comparison websites. Try to compare one loan to another one and you will experience the same.

With Bing becoming a ‘decision’ engine it was only a matter of time before Google would be entering the market of comparison sites. After all, isn’t a search engine already a kind of comparison website?

With the acquisition of UK price comparison site BeatThatQuote (for £37.7m) Google has made a next step into the comparison market. And the game is on now. Sites like Go Compare and Compare the Market, who are now the major players, gained a huge competitor overnight. And if things go as planned for Google, within months they will be a major player on the comparison area for both financial and travel products, not surprisingly enough two areas which has a lot of money going around. But Google is moving on thin ice here.

<See update halfway through the post>

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Bing html 5 is nearby: Bing Instant part of update

Winrumors reports that Microsoft is getting ready to launch a special HTML5 version of Bing. This new version is part of the new release of Internet Explorer 9.

In the new Bing there will be lots of room for animation, including an animation which is much like Google Instant. Page elements will be automatically transitioned when typing a search query. (more…)

Did Google’s algorithm change misfire? Mahalo fires 10% of staff

There have been written many stories about Google’s most recent algorithm update. The update, which was named “Farmer update” by Searchengineland was supposedly aimed at content farms, websites which deliver low quality content based on ‘copied’ pages.

Many sites in the US were ‘hit’ by this update. It was supposedly cleaning up the SERPS, but it seems as if Google has been cleaning up a little bit too much in some cases. An article in Wired shows that there are many sites which feel that they deliver quality content did get hit by Google big time, maybe even unfairly. (more…)

Bing takes first steps on the continent: launches in France: Bonjour!

We have been complaining about it, we have been asking Bing’s director Stefan Weitz: when will Bing finally make the step and go onto the European mainland. Now finally we found a small announcement on the official Microsoft Blog: Bing is now live in France.

“It’s a small step for search but a big step for Bing” One would almost be tempted to use these words when it comes to the steps Microsoft is taking with Bing in Europe. We’ve said many times before: Bing in Europe, except for the UK, is nothing more than Live Search with a Bing logo on it. Now with the move to France the first steps are finally taken. (more…)

Facebook is going to relaunch giving away phone and addresses

It is what seems to be a typical Facebook move. Halfway through January Facebook announced it would be “making a user’s address and mobile phone number accessible as part of the User Graph object”. Which meant no less than “we are giving away your phone numbers and addresses”.

The enormous amount of criticism around the world Facebook pulled back the option just one day later. They didn’t say they would not be doing it all, they just postponed it. And Facebook will do shortly what it has always done in situations like this. It will bring back a slightly adjusted feature. A letter to Congressmen Markey and Barton suggests that. (more…)

Google again making (small) changes to SERPS?

It is not a surprise that Google keeps working on the look of the SERPS. In a year you will be able to see over 400 changes, which means that more than daily there will be something different on a Google SERP page. You just might not notice it. But lucky for us, a lot of SEOs do notice.

Today I’d like to highlight two changes which were spotted in the UK by two UK SEOs, Andrew Girdwood and Matt Sawyer. They spotted some sort of ‘how to’s’ and related searches in different categories. Both yet more elements which are put in Universal search. (more…)

SES tributes Jaamit Durrani

Several months ago we were devistated when we heard that a good friend an well respected SEO in the UK had passed away after a tragic accident. Since the moment that the news about Jaamit Durrani’s death broke something happened which I have never seen before. The community started to move and delivered a tribute on Social Media which know no equal.

At the upcoming SES London this week the community will again be tributing this very special person who even after his death knows to touch people and get them moving. (more…)

Bloggergate: a true story about link buying and surreptitious advertising

Today I would like to share a little news story with you. I know we are not a newsblog ( we just got a news section though!) but I think this news is good food for an interesting discussion. I’m talking about a “scandal” in Germany, also known as “Bloggergate”.

So what happened? On the 21st of january Sascha Pallenberg, author of the blog netbooknews.de, published a tweet saying he got some interesting secret documents which will cause a “Tsunami” in the German blogosphere. In perfect Wikileaks-style he said that he will “review the material” and publish it later.
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More Social Elements in Google Search: Twitter not Facebook is the direction

Google is taking it step by step, a very different way than we are used to in this digital era, but slowly but surely Google’s social face is becoming more visible. The latest additions to the Google search results are yet again another signal of Google’s social efforts.

Googles Social Search has been around for a while now (since 2009) but is only showing a small amount of social elements. Social results coming from tools like Twitter for example, were until now not a very big part of the search result. Google now has started to mix social results, from for example Twitter or blogs, with other results. (more…)

Social outranks search in FastCompany’s 50 Most Innovative Companies

Yandex and Google are the two only ‘search’ related companies in the 2011 version of Fast Company’s list of 50 Most Innovative Companies. Search related companies are being outrun by their social rivals. Both Twitter and Facebook are above Google, but even these have to let Apple lead the way. On the list other social tools like Foursquare and Linkedin also take a prominent place.

The list, which is a yearly returning event, is an indication of how the different companies are being looked at when it comes to being innovative. It shows the trend of looking at Social but it also looks at more than just the web, making it an interesting list with names like Nissan (number 4) and Epocrates (number 10) as remarkable high scoring companies. (more…)

Google takes on Apple with Google One Pass

Where Apple is testing the patience and willingness of publishers by asking, no demanding, a big cut of the subscription fees for iPad apps, Google is taking the opposite direction. The service which Google today announced, Google One Pass, is in fact trying to give publishers everything they want.

At the Humboldt University in Berlin Eric Schmidt today announced the launch of this service. The way the new service is promoted by Google is a clear signal towards Apple: “Our goal is to provide an open and flexible platform that furthers our commitment to support publishers, journalism and access to quality content.” (more…)

Dave Naylor about how search (not) sucks, Google and Bing

This weekend TechCrunch posted an article about how Search still sucks based on a story which came out through the New York Times last week in which a company was ‘caught’ buying links in Google. Arrington responded to this and Google’s attack on Bing last week by saying that search still sucks. It looked like linkbait from Arrington to me to be honest.

But there is a lot you can say about this, and a lot which will be said. We decided we would go to one of the experts on the matter to see how he feels about it. In the State of Search expert opinion we asked Dave Naylor about his views on the matter. He addressed Arrington’s article, but also the ‘battle’ between Bing and Google.