Posts About ‘Europe’

What Google’s EU Settlement Means For Search

Last week news leaked that Google is about to reach a settlement with the European Commission in the EU’s antitrust investigation against the search engine.

As Search Engine Land reported, terms of the settlement include clear labelling of Google’s own services in its European search results, prominent links to at least three rival alternative services, and more liberal AdSense policies to give publishers more freedom to sell advertising.

Supporters of the FairSearch.org lobby group, such as Microsoft and Foundem, immediately criticised the settlement offer, which seems very likely to be accepted by EU regulators. (more…)

The EU Threatens Google, But Have They Got a Case..?

Google once again has to answer to the EU. Yesterday Commissioner Joaquin Almunia wrote a letter to Eric Schmidt containing four major ‘concerns’ that the EU has when it comes to their investigation of several antitrust complaints which were issued last year.

Almunia also posted the concerns online and in that same article seemed to be hinting at a deal with Google. This might mean the EU is not to certain about the complaints and looking at the complaints at first sight there is no need for Google to be scared of the consequences, even though some points really touch in the core of Google’s business efforts. (more…)

Shortlist European SearchAwards Announced: State of Search Up For Best Blog

This morning the nominees for the European Searchawards have been announced. The nominees are divided in 13 different categories, two more categories have no nominees, but these winners will be announced on the awards night which will be held in Amsterdam on July 5th.

State of Search has been nominated in the category “best blog”, which off course we are very proud of. Other known nominees are Linkdex and Majestic SEO for best tool, Branded3, Verve Search, Carat, Latitude, Performics, Koozai and LBi/bigmouthmedia in different categories. You can find the entire list below. (more…)

Requesting Bing to Board the European market

Last week Bing announced another major update to their search engine. They announced the New Bing, with integration of more social aspects and more relevant core information. Within the announcement they stated that “In 2009, we launched Bing with a simple proposition: people should expect more from a search engine.” My response to the latest announcement was the following tweet:

That’s Bing: US-only. RT @bing …we’ve got a few invites for early access! The first 50 to tweet us w/ #NewBing get a sneak peek. US-only.

— Jeroen van Eck (@jvaneck) May 10, 2012

I want to use this post to make a request. I want to reach out to Microsoft and ask them to start living up to their ‘simple proposition’ outside the US and take the European Bing more seriously.

Every time I read one of the announcements of new features to Bing my first response is: “hey, that looks pretty cool!”. But my second response sadly almost always is: “Oh, it’s still US-only”. I would be fine with that if within the next few months Bing would roll out these features worldwide. But they just don’t, leaving the rest of the world wondering if this feature was really as cool as it looked.

For example, in May 2011 Bing launched the integration of information from Facebook friends into their search results, similar to how Google+ powered Google’s search results. It looked like a much more relevant way to socialize search, because more information is shared on Facebook than on Google+. But this feature was launched US-only, never to be rolled out in Europe till this very moment.

The difference between Google and Bing here is very clear. When Google announces a new feature you know it will launch in the US most of the time as well, but you also know it will be rolled out in Europe within a few months. With Bing you know you could have to wait even a few years if you see it ever at all. Just compare the Bing services currently offered in The Netherlands, the UK and the US.

I really want to try and use Bing as a user, I really do. And as an SEO I definitely think the search engine market in Europe needs a competitor for Google. 95% market share cannot be healthy for the market. But if Bing wants to take on Google they really need to take things more seriously. And since more people are complaining about Google now than ever before, wouldn’t it be the perfect time for Bing to enter the European market directly with the New Bing and go full power ahead? What are they waiting for?

European Search Awards 2012 Announced

UPDATE: YOU CAN FIND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE WINNERS OF THE EUROPEAN SEARCHAWARDS HERE. STATE OF SEARCH WON BEST BLOG 2012!

Last Friday at the UK Search Conference the winners of the UK Search Awards presented their winning cases. It was a very insightful day with lots of cases. On the same day, the organizers, Don’t Panic in association with Manual Link Building and SEMPO announced the very first European Search Awards.

On Thursday July 5th in Amsterdam the European Search crowd will gather to celebrate the winners of the best cases in no less than 17 categories for campaigns, use of search, software and the industry’s talent. (more…)

Europeans Looking at Google’s Privacy Policy

It is March 1st today, which means that Google’s new privacy policy officially is “on”. Just a month ago the new policy was announced.

It now seems as if Google might run into a wall when it comes to European regulations. France’s regulator this week said the new policies might violate the European Union’s data protection rules.

The regulator has sent Google a letter in which they told Google that there will be a European-wide investigation of the policy. Google can expect some questions soon. (more…)

Search in Europe: it’s a one company show, focus on the verticals

I’ve always been optimistic about the intentions of search companies and the possibilities for more competition in the European search market. At the beginning of this year I wrote a post on State of Search named What Bing needs to bring to the table in 2011 Sadly at the end of this year I have to conclude search in Europe has even more become a one company show. Nor Bing, nor any of the other competitors like Yandex, Yahoo!, Blekko or Wolfram Alpha has taken even the smallest slice from Google of the search pie. (more…)

Google About to Get Slapped by the EU

The year is almost over and the new year is approaching rapidly. That new year, 2012, might not start off as well for Google as hoped. Google can expect a more than 400 pages counting document from the European Commission (EC) with objections and allegations of abuse of dominance.

Based on a complaint which goes a few years back from search engines Foundem, eJustice and Ciao!, the EU started investigating Google about a month ago. Their complaints now apparently have lead to a document of accusations against Google.

Google knows the accusations are serious because Eric Schmidt has been sent out to travel to Europe to pay a “courtesy visit” to the European Commissioner Almunia this week. (more…)

Microsoft files complaint against Google in Europe over YouTube

Microsoft has filed an official complaint against Google with the European watchdogs. Microsoft accuses Google of not allowing competitors, like Bing, to get data from YouTube to rank them in their specific search engines. It also says that Google deliberately is making YouTube videos un-playable on Window Mobile phones and believes Google is discriminating would-be competitors.

Brad Smith, Senior Vice President & General Counsel at Microsoft, explains in a long blogpost why Microsoft is filing. He claims that Google is using a pattern to remain the dominant force in Europe. (more…)

5 Google alternatives in Europe

This article was originally written and published for Searchengineland and has been slightly re-written to post here.

Google is the dominant force in Europe—there is no other search engine which even comes close to Google’s market share. I think everybody will agree when I say that Europe could use some competition for Google. Bing should be the designated search engine to become that big competitor, but for now that is not the case. Even the recent launch of the “new” Bing in France and the years of Bing in the UK haven’t made most people switch away from Google.

But despite its dominance, there are alternative search engines in Europe, and they can be worth looking at. With Europe’s more than 800 million people, of whom about 60% spends time online, even a small percentage using alternatives to Google offer attractively large numbers, and targeting users of those search engines could be very profitable. Lets take a look at some of the alternatives. (more…)

Hello world! There is no Europe! – guestpost by Mikkel deMib (@demib)

Pre-note by Bas van den Beld: At SES London in the panel “Marketing to the European Union” four different people from four different countries took the stage, including State of Search’ Bas van den Beld and Mikkel deMib Svendsen. This was one of the view sessions we didn’t cover. Mikkel talked about the differences between several European countries. His talk was based on an article which he wrote for me back when I was editor at Searchcowboys. Mikkel and I decided to re-publish his post here now, because it is still relevant and still a very good post which deserves the place here. So enjoy this guestpost!

When I speak at conferences in the US local business owners often ask me how they can market themselves best in Europe. Europe? I ask. There is no Europe and there are no Europeans!

There is a politically united Europe. There is a geographical Europe. There is a dream among some that we will one day get a United States of Europe. But from a marketing point of view the fact remains that there is no Europe and there are no Europeans!

We (in Europe) don’t speak the same language, we don’t hear the same music, we don’t have the same laws, we don’t follow the same norms, we don’t laugh at the same jokes and we don’t share the same religions. (more…)

Google admits to whitelisting sites: endangering their European legal issues?

In a panel at SMX West, which has been going on in San Jose last week, both Google and Bing admitted that they have lists on which websites appear that should not be hit by algorithms. They themselves call it “exception lists” but in more general terms they could also be called Whitelists. This remark, which without a doubt was not intended to be harmful, might just harm the legal battle which Google is fighting in Europe.

The term whitelist is used by amongst others Foundem, who filed a complaint with the European corporate counsel about Google in 2006. The complaint was about how some vertical search engines got hit and others didn’t. That complaint is now being handled by the commission. And Google European corporate counsel Julia Holtz said in Brussels that the company doesn’t “whitelist or blacklist anyone”. Were they lying then or are they lying now? (more…)

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