Last Week in Search – Part 2
Last week in search we saw a flood of stories on Bing’s gains in the search space. ComScore kicked it off early in the week with their August Search Engine Rankings report, which showed Google’s market share dropping 0.3% while the Yahoo/Microsoft search partnership increased its market share by 0.5%. That kind of movement in just a month is impressive, but what does it mean for Google and for SEO?
Kiss Metrics thinks Bing may be the future of paid search in this infographic from a few weeks back that got a fresh round of sharing with the comScore report. Showing Bing to have a 20.9% market share, lower CPC and a higher ROI compared to Google, the stats have fuelled discussion of Bing as a legitimate paid search target.
Hubspot also weighed in on the topic early with two articles from ymarketing’s Donald Nosek exploring why Bing should be included in any organic SEO or paid search campaign. Touting overall improvements to the search engine from a webmasters perspective, each article takes a look at why we should be including Bing in both paid and organic search campaigns.
With a growing market share and improved webmaster tools, could we be seeing the start of impressive growth in SEO for Bing? While everyone loves an underdog story (even when it’s a Microsoft underdog), we’re not so convinced. While the market share stats are impressive, remember that Bing’s use down-under is a lot lower than it is in the United States and that Bing’s paid search is expected to be cheaper due to a lower number of searches and lower competition for keywords. It’s something to keep an eye on, but still not worth it from an SEO standpoint to focus exclusively on Bing.
All Things D added to the Bing saturated news week with their reporting on a partnership between Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo to sell display advertising on each others networks. Look for the display ad networks of all three companies to start sharing in Q4 this year as they attempt to take back the top place Google wrestled from Yahoo earlier this year.
In a slow news week for Google, Search Engine Journal took a look at how to implement an SEO strategy for Chinese search giant Baidu. For international businesses looking to break in to China, the extra search engine reach is extremely profitable, with every $1 spent on Chinese website localisation reportedly returning $25. If you’re looking to tap the Chinese market or build your brand awareness internationally, Baidu is a great place to start.
It’s not all quiet on the Google front however. Following up our Google Maps ‘Place Closed’ story we linked to last week, Google announced fixes on Wednesday to combat the closure spam seen in recent weeks. Interim notifications of a business “Reported to Be Closed†will no longer show; with Google now opting to individually review each closure report to confirm the business is closed.
Last but not least, Twitter took to their blog Tuesday to announce Twitter Web Analytics, a new analytics tool for everyone’s favorite social network. Available in a few weeks time, Twitter Web Analytics will provide greater insight into account performance, tweet effectiveness and website integration performance. The well overdue tool will also be released with an API, ensuring the development of a whole host of analytical tools to help you analyse your Twitter account to your hearts content.
That’s it for Last Week in Search. Got an article you think we’ll love? Drop us a comment here or tweet it to us @StewArtMedia and we’ll check it out!
Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.
