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Copyright © 2012 Covario Inc. All rights reserved.

Who Did the SOPA Blackout Really Affect?

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• Spending on paid search advertising was up by 7% in Q4 ’11 from Q3 ’11. This is after a sizeable increase in spending in Q3 ’11. This holiday season, spending in the consumer electronics sector, as well as continued investment in business analytics and information management solutions, drove modest growth. Q4 ’11 paid search spend was up 28% from Q4 ’10, which was a strong quarter a year ago.
• On a full year basis, growth in 2011 for paid search was up 21% over 2011 spending—just north of what we expected at the beginning of the year, when we predicted 15 – 20% growth.

The chart above shows how spending has increased since 2009. Ad spend for our clients has been normalized such that Q1 ’09 equals 100%.

• North America, powered by the U.S. and Canada, saw strong spending growth in the quarter, which was up 11% quarter-on-quarter and 18% year-on-year. Growth annualized was 10% for North America—the bottom-end of our 2011 forecast range from the beginning of the year.
• In EMEA, growth was down 8% quarter-on-quarter, but up 9% year-on-year. Overall, paid search spend growth for the year was 22%, which was slightly below our 2011 forecast. We attribute the deceleration in spend to the general macro-economic slowdown in the region.
• APAC continues to be where the major growth opportunities exist for the high-tech industry. Quarter-on-quarter search spend growth was up 8%, while year-on-year growth was up over 100%. With a 97% annualized growth rate, we are seeing continued investment in Japan, China, India, and the ANZ economies.
• On a global platform basis, advertiser increases in spending on Google were up 8% from Q3 ’11 and up 27% year-over-year, while spending on Yahoo-Bing was down 1% from Q3 ’11 and down 18% from a year earlier. Spending on Baidu, which commands the majority of market share in APAC given its dominance in China, grew 19% quarter-on-quarter and 185% year-on-year.

For the first time since mid-2010, the 2 – 3% quarter-on-quarter CPC inflation has subsided, at least temporarily. Changes in consumer behavior, combined with more effective advertising strategies and improved matching algorithms, are key factors in this trend.

Actionable Insight:

Paid search spending in 2011 was up 21% from 2010. For 2012 we recommend that global advertisers plan for budget increases of 18 – 22% for paid search, with a regional breakdown as follows:

• 18 – 20% growth in North America
• 15 – 18% growth in EMEA
• 40-plus % growth in APAC

All of this information and more is available in our latest report – Covario’s Q4 2011 Global Paid Search Spend Analysis, which is now available on our website.

You are reading a post from: Covario Actionable Insights
For more information on Covario please visit our corporate site.
Copyright © 2012 Covario Inc. All rights reserved.

Fourth Quarter Provides Strong Finish to 2011 Paid Search Trends

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Why is Google implementing this?  The answer is simple.  Privacy.  Searchers logged into Google through any of its products (Gmail, Google+, YouTube) receive search results that are customized to their search history—they are personalized.  Even though the data that is passed on to web analytics products is, in most cases, impossible to reconcile to an individual searcher – this is a proactive move by Google to reduce privacy concerns (both in the US as well as the EU) by saying “no search queries that have been personalized will be available to any third party.”

What is the impact of this on search marketers?  Google reported that less than 10% of search queries that are executed are done by consumers logged into Google products.  We have no reason to dispute this statistic, so we recommend that advertisers assume that 5 – 10% of search queries are from personalized results.  So any keyword level organic analysis reporting that advertisers use from their web analytics systems will start to show 5 – 10% lower referral volumes starting immediately.  We do believe that this percentage will continue to increase over time, so this statistic will require on-going adjustments as additional benchmark statistics on personalization use come available.  On a technical level, the process by which Google reports referential data is still unclear.  For example, in Organic Search Insight™, we get data that is unique to the data, search engine, entry URL and search query.  Google is saying they will continue to provide all of this data except the search query.  We are in the process of testing how this is formatted through analysis of weblogs for our own site and will report on results when they come available.

It is our understanding that this encryption process is being rolled out globally.  To understand the impact, we recommend that our customers do a benchmark for their top 25 organic search queries by analyzing daily variations over a 2 – 3 week period within each geography, as personalization percentages will be different by country.  The purpose should be to see if there is a substantial fall off in daily keyword level referential volume—on Google only—for a particular geography.  If the results for the post effective data (October 18, 2011) query volume are lower, this should be determined using 25 days prior and post the change date and this can be used as the best proxy for how to adjust query level volumes upward.

This will impact the ability of systems to look at paid and organic synergy as these types of analytics require query level granularity to see how individual searches interact between the paid and organic listing.  Search advertisers may get more traffic from organic search than is reported.  They may erroneously conclude that they need to purchase additional PPC volume for particular keywords when in fact their shortfalls on organic are the results of this encryption process.  No changes should be made to process until the benchmarking process above is completed – again, by geography.

We will continue to provide updates as they come available.

You are reading a post from: Covario Actionable Insights
For more information on Covario please visit our corporate site.
Copyright © 2012 Covario Inc. All rights reserved.

Google Introduces New Encryption Process for Organic Search Queries: Results May Vary

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Covario recently did exactly this type of study — measuring the top 100 advertisers (using the latest Advertising Age ranking of total ad spend) on a series of factors related to their Facebook presence. In the process we established the Facebook Presence Score (FPS) and ranking.

Top Facebook Advertisers
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So who received the top FPS score? It was Coca-Cola that ranked No. 1 based on the weighted model at the core of the study. The model looked at the advertisers’ reach (number/ growth of followers), engagement (monthly posts, likes, comments and applications), technical construction (brand name usage, linkage to a brand’s website, use of the word “official,” etc.), and reputation (particularly negative user sites found in Facebook searches for a brand).

FPS scores range from 0 (worst) to 100 (best). Coca-Cola won out with an overall Facebook health score of 100 — two points higher than second-place finisher Hyundai. Rounding out the top five brands overall were MTV (Viacom), Disney and Bayer.

It is not surprising that Coca-Cola outscored all of its fellow advertisers. Coke has a huge fan following of more than 34 million consumers. This is combined with a solid engagement strategy, which includes offering enthusiasts more than 25 different apps to enjoy and bi-weekly posts that are each garnering an average of 236 comments and 1,749 likes. Plus, the Coca-Cola Facebook page is technically optimal, while there are no negative pages showing up in search results.

Within the overall FPS, reach is the most highly weighted factor at 40 percent. Engagement is next at 30 percent. Technical considerations follow at 20 percent. Reputational factors, especially negative ones, weigh in at 10 percent.

The best engagement score was earned by Wal-Mart. Although the giant retailer has only 25 percent of the reach of Coke, it is really engaged with its fans. Wal-Mart receives an average of 7,390 comments and 726 likes for each post. This is much higher than the amount all other advertisers in the study receive.

Actionable Insights
Since anyone can create a Facebook page representing a brand – including both enthusiasts and detractors alike – the key to a brand’s social media success is how well it interacts with its fans, We found that several advertisers have done a great job of building their fan base, but have done little to engage them afterwards. This is a squandered branding opportunity. There is another situation with advertisers who have an excellent level of engagement, but lower than expected reach statistics. This is also a squandered opportunity.

Facebook is a bit like the Wild West, where anyone can ride into town and try to rustle a brand away. That said, there is still a great deal of brand equity you can control on the world’s most popular social media platform.

To start, here’s what we suggest:

• Post and comment frequently — Let your fans know you are genuinely listening.
• Engage your enthusiasts – Develop relevant content for them to enjoy, such as apps, videos, contests and promotions.
• Let them know that it’s really you — Clearly designate your page as your brand’s official Facebook page to avoid any confusion with non-official pages.
• Post your rules of engagement – Use your page description to let fans know that you want them to treat other fans (and your brand!) with respect.
• Optimize – To ensure that your page shows up in Facebook’s onsite search results, include your “brand” name in the URL, Title and Description of your page.

You are reading a post from: Covario Actionable Insights
For more information on Covario please visit our corporate site.
Copyright © 2012 Covario Inc. All rights reserved.

A Model for Evaluating Advertisers Facebook Presence

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This is exactly what happened to one of Covario’s retailer clients.

The following post summarizes how the swift performance of the canonical tag helped control significant amounts of website duplication while simultaneously enhancing long-tail search performance.

It all started with a successful eCommerce platform migration and website redesign.  Immediately following the re-launch there was virtually no disruption to natural search performance.  The website’s SEO fundamentals were as strong as ever.  But traffic was falling slightly short of expectations.  Something was irritating the search engines.

Enter the canonical solution.  Product level duplication was running rampant.  So after successfully testing smaller portions of the website, canonical tags were injected on all product pages.

Shortly after the sitewide canonical solution went live the website experienced ranking improvements and reclaimed missing search traffic.  The retailer’s website experienced a surge in crawler activity as search engines made sense of the canonical tags and adjusted their databases accordingly (crawler activity has since returned to pre-canonical solution levels).  As anticipated, indexation bloat has been dramatically reduced.

Here’s a glimpse into the data.  It suggests that product duplication was significant enough to damper a search engine’s ability to select a preferred product page, resulting in underperforming long-tail SEO performance.  The solution restored page-selection confidence for the search engines and helped consolidate link equity on canonical product pages.

The following results are derived from data recorded 3 months prior to canonical implementation (for data normalization) and 1 month following the implementation.  The retailer was not in a seasonal sales cycle, and overall SEO trends are not a reflection of Google’s Panda update.

Product Canonicalization Results

• 193% increase in total traffic on canonical pages
• 14% increase in new canonical pages driving incremental traffic
• 49% increase in average visits per canonical page
• 85% canonical success rate:  meaning 85% of the non-preferred pages are no longer driving traffic (we expect this number to climb steadily as search engines finish exploring product pages)

Sitewide Results

• 196% decrease in sitewide indexation
• 8% improvement in aggregate (Google and Bing) rankings
• 13% increase in sitewide SEO traffic

The power of the canonical tag to control duplicate content on large and feature-rich websites is evident.  Search engines embrace the tag by swiftly replacing non-preferred pages with their canonical counterpart.  Crawl budget is better spent because search engines invest in crawling unique or deep content rather than tirelessly trying to differentiate duplicate pages.  And link equity is consolidated on canonical URLs which may help improve rankings and net traffic.

Actionable Insights for Large Canonicalization Projects

• TEST: Test a portion of the website before widespread adoption of a canonical solution.  Small tests allow for detailed performance monitoring including page-level indexation and ranking analysis.   For an example, a canonical test could be run on products that fall into two similar categories.  Simply inject the tags on one category, and use the second category as a control group.
• DOCUMENT: Document all canonical (preferred) URLs.  This will help with monitoring and reporting on the canonicalization performance.  Moreover, other departments can easily choose canonical URLs for various online marketing initiatives.
• UPDATE: Update product feeds and sitemap files to reflect the canonical implementation.  This may include the removal of non-preferred pages or the addition of canonical pages.  Be aware of other promotional channels where non-canonical URLs may be used including paid search and affiliate marketing.

This project confirms the effectiveness of the canonical tag in managing duplicate content on large websites.  Furthermore, the positive trends of sitewide search metrics (like traffic and rankings) reinforce the importance of maintaining a clean and concise website.  We will be evaluating further canonicalization opportunities and any further insights will be posted.

You are reading a post from: Covario Actionable Insights
For more information on Covario please visit our corporate site.
Copyright © 2012 Covario Inc. All rights reserved.

Retailer Tackles Duplication & Improves SEO

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What are sitelinks?
Sitelinks are intended to assist the user’s ability to arrive directly at their ultimate destination page without having to navigate through the core site itself (refer to image one). As it stands, Google sitelinks are automatically populated and are displayed in the search results. Only websites that have an optimized internal linking structure can benefit from this feature.

Observation #1:
Prior to the latest version of the sitelink section, Google limited sitelinks results to a maximum of eight (four links per column). Alternatively, with the latest release, Google now displays up to 12 sitelinks (six links per column), all augmented by the fact that the sitelinks section now incorporates links with a fraction of the URL and a snippet of text. This is all done with an eye towards making it easier to locate the section of the site the users are ultimately trying to find.

Image one: Prior and Post Google sitelinks update

Insight #1:
This has created an opportunity for website owners to obtain the most valuable search results space for their branded term (e.g., Dell, Blackberry, etc.). For example, the ‘prior’ image above illustrates the Dell website and sitelinks occupying an equivalent of two top listings – alternatively, the ‘post’ image reflects the website and sitelinks occupying approximately five positions. The goal now becomes obtaining all 12 sitelinks, thus taking up the maximum amount of real estate (above the fold).

• In order to achieve and sustain the maximum number of sitelinks, it is crucial to first optimize the website’s internal link structure. Employ descriptive yet compact anchor text and alt text, as this will aid Google’s ability to identify 12 qualified sitelinks.  Also, make sure to avoid linking to different pages with the same anchor text so it remains apparent to the Googlebots what each page actually pertains to.
• Secondly, manage your sitelinks via Google Webmaster Tools. It is important to note that automated sitelinks can be partially influenced via the Webmaster Tools account. For example, if Google is returning a sitelink in the search results that is considered to be a ‘bad fit’ from a business perspective, the website administrator can request up to 100 sitelinks to be demoted via the Webmaster Tools account. That said, Google does not guarantee that the demoted URL will never appear again on the sitelinks section. Google actually reinstates these sitelinks every 90 days therefore it is advisable to manage your portfolio on a regular basis.

Insight #2:
Writing compelling meta descriptions is now more important than ever. Including a call to action at the very beginning of each sentence can potentially aid in achieving a substantial higher clickthrough rate (CTR). All pages that are displayed on the sitelinks section should be reviewed thoughtfully with an eye towards ensuring conversion, especially given the fact that users may be arriving directly on that given page.

Image two: Example of a call to action at the very beginning of the sentence

Observation #2:
Previously, when searching for a particular brand, Google displayed a site’s homepage and maybe two other internal pages from the same website in the search results. As a natural outcome of the latest update, the various internal pages that were previously scattered throughout the first search results page are now rolled-up under the first listing in the sitelinks section. This was done in effort to reduce link duplication and improve the organization of the search results page.

Image three: Example of an internal page ranking as a regular result

Insight #1:
This new layout has created an environment where the branded websites can potentially benefit from an increase in CTR, due to the fact that the website now occupies more space in the search results and the sitelinks benefit from a distinguished visual display that may draw the user’s eyes to this area.

Insight #2:
Brand reputation management should be thoughtfully reviewed due to the fact that rolling up regular rankings within sitelinks provides additional opportunity for negative results to creep onto the first page results. These new results could prove to be sub-optimal tenets and therefore this could create some turbulence from a brand management perspective.

Sponsored listings
Sponsored links may have subsequently become considerably more valuable as an outcome of the latest update. This can be attributed to the fact that PPC ads could potentially benefit from an increase in clicks due to user behavior bias towards not scrolling down below the fold. Operating under this assumption,

• The branded website should consider targeting the broad branded keyword on their PPC campaigns. Additionally, sitelinks are also available for PPC sponsor listings, so enabling sitelinks for the benefit of the PPC ads will occupy more space. Therefore, when targeting a branded term you can dominate the entire premium area with a combination of PPC and organic listings (refer to image four).
• Users that are looking for a website beyond the scope of the branded site might be encouraged to click on the PPC ads as opposed to scrolling down below the fold to find what they are looking for.

Image four: Example of a brand dominating the entire above the fold with the organic and PPC sitelinks

What does the future hold?
When searching for “cell phones” (example of a non-branded term), sitelinks continue to be shown in the familiar one line format (see image five below). The question now is – how long will it be before this latest update of the sitelinks is applied to non-branded search results? In my estimation, it remains unlikely that this utility will be applied to non-branded keywords; however with so many changes within the last year in the search results page, the possibility certainly exists. In the mean time, the prudent thing to do is to remain proactive and ensure your brand remains well equipped to outperform in this environment should Google choose to apply this utility to non-branded keywords on a large scale.

Image five: Example of sitelinks for a non-branded search

Conclusion
Given what we currently know, it is advisable to examine your website’s internal link structure in effort to ensure the sitelinks render the maximum of 12 listings.  In addition, it is important to individually review the meta descriptions associated with each sitelink. This will potentially help to promote a higher clickthrough rate.

You are reading a post from: Covario Actionable Insights
For more information on Covario please visit our corporate site.
Copyright © 2012 Covario Inc. All rights reserved.

Google, a Brand’s Best Friend: How Sitelinks dominate first search results page

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Why the change?

On July 4th Google declared its independence from Twitter.  This is to say that Google shut down Realtime Search, and its real-time adjunct Wonder Wheel, on July 2 as a result of Google’s agreement with Twitter going up in smoke.

While Google insists that all the contract expiration means is that Twitter will no longer have “privileged status” in its Realtime Search results, we should note that there are other sources that Google can tap into for harvesting real-time social consciousness. Namely, Google+ and Google +1.

The reasons behind the non-renewal of the contract between Google and Twitter remains unclear, but the effects have been immediate. Google Realtime Search has vanished behind a 404 error message for now.

We find this odd, because Google Realtime Search results are still being populated in web search results when there is enough real-time content gathered about the query from Google News and Blog Search links, as well as Facebook fan page updates, FriendFeed updates and beyond.

Source: eMarketer news

It does appear that Twitter, Facebook and Google are indeed building “Chinese walls” around their social content empires. While Google certainly leads the pack in generating online advertising revenues (shown above) from organizing other people’s content, social media advertising revenues had remained out of reach for Google in lieu of securing agreements (or acquiring) social content from other venues.

The war over making money off from other people’s content is dot-com age-old. What with Bing now serving up English search results in China for Baidu and locking up a deal with Apple to be the default search service on iPad, there is more pressure on Google for global search market share that ever before.

We contend that Google’s loss of access to the Twittersphere is just one skirmish in a larger war for procuring advertising dollars around social, user-generated content. The real battles are yet to be fought over who owns the content aggregated on today’s social media venues.

Actionable Insight:  For now, it’s important that search engine marketers represent their company’s goods and services on all fronts, which just means its online business as usual for us all.

Other Resources :

• As Deal With Twitter Expires, Google Realtime Search Goes Offline
• Official: The Google Wonder Wheel Is Gone
• Ad revenues they are each chasing are estimated here at SearchEngineLand.com

You are reading a post from: Covario Actionable Insights
For more information on Covario please visit our corporate site.
Copyright © 2012 Covario Inc. All rights reserved.

What Google’s Loss of Twitter Stream Means to Realtime Search?

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The first question we asked was “who manages paid social media programs?” There is an ongoing competition amongst advertisers over who should do this.  Should paid social media – buying ads on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – be done in-house or by an external agency?  And if it’s an external agency, is it the PR agency, the display agency, the paid search agency, etc.  The results of the poll question were these:

• 57% of respondents say this is done in-house.  This is a high percentage and is likely due to two factors.  SMN audience can skew toward smaller companies who do not have the budgets to justify agencies expenditures.  And, social media is still relatively new and budgets are relatively small – so they may be managed by the social media team in-house.
• Of those outsourcing to their agency, 24% are using their search agency.  This supports our hypothesis that Search Agencies will ultimately control the execution of the social media budgets – because media on social media platforms is very much like bid management on search.  It can all be done through the bid management system, it has similar dynamics from a metrics standpoint, and can be directly compared to the search programs from a performance standpoint.

Source:  Covario, Inc.  July 2011.  (n = 86)

Second, we asked “from where does the budget for paid social media programs come?”.  Our goal was to see whether the budgets are independent, coming from search, coming from display, coming from PR, or other. The results here surprised us.  Our hypothesis was that social media budgets were independent, and/or coming from the display budget.  That is not what we saw.

• 40% of the respondents said that budgets are independent.  We thought the percentage would be higher.  We have heard from our advertiser customers that in 2011, they were establishing specific social media budgets on masse – as opposed to last year where they were adjuncts to the search and display budgets or testing budgets.  40% is healthy, just a little lower than we expected.
• 42% said that the social media budgets are coming from their search budgets, and only 10% said the budgets are integrated into their display budget.  That was a big surprise.
• PR budgets are often tapped to support paid social media buying, which is slightly less than display budgets – 8%.  Mobile is only 1% of the budget supply.

Source:  Covario, Inc.  July 2011. (n = 87)

This is a key issue. It means that search marketers are driving the execution of the programs and that the budgets for social media are either being integrated into the search budgets or are independent.  If they are part of the search budget, then this puts search and social media performance in direct competition with each other and search marketers in the position of arbitrating where the spend will go.  It also shows that our hypothesis that search marketers are winning the majority of the assignments in advertisers to run social media execution largely is coming to pass.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT #1: Paid social media programs are managed in-house for 60% of the advertisers surveyed, however, if the programs are outsourced, they are outsourced to the search agency.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT #2: The budgets to pay for paid social media programs increasingly are integrated into search budgets (putting them directly in competition with search performance) or are stand-alone independent budgets. They are NOT coming from display budgets, at least not in this survey.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT #3: Search marketers need to focus on creating the integrated metrics and campaign tactics for managing paid search and paid social since the responsibility for allocating the integrated budgets is falling on them.

You are reading a post from: Covario Actionable Insights
For more information on Covario please visit our corporate site.
Copyright © 2012 Covario Inc. All rights reserved.

Who Pays for Social Media Advertising? The Answer Will Surprise You.

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Background

The Google +1 button premiered back in March 2011 within Google search results with limited fanfare.  Just a couple of weeks ago on June 1st,  Google extended the +1 capability for publishers. who can now embed this voting mechanism within their content.  However, +1 now requires searches to log into their own Google account, go to Google Experimental and opt-in for the “+1 Button”.

In the broadest sense, and assuming wide adoption of this now hidden opt-in button, Google has essentially appropriated the entire web as its own social bookmarking site from which to express sentiment about the validity and relevancy of content it serves to users across its search platform.  It seems likely that this extension of Google +1 to webmasters comes from low usage of the plus one feature in the search results.    It is doubtful that searchers who use the search engine to find their way to good content would then find their way back to a search results page to then upvote that content; and Google’s +1 Button program offers no mechanism for expressing negative sentiment.

We are doubtful that we will see wide spread adoption in the short term, based partly on the new opt-in requirement to a hidden Experimental Project. But in addition to the opt-in challenge, we believe that - 

1. Publishers and website owners (beyond Google’s esteemed launch partners like Mashable, TechCrunch, Huffington Post and others) will need time to implement the feature in their already busy development schedules,
2. Users will need time to adopt  it within their search and web surfing behavior, and
3. Google will need time to assess the signals +1 generates and decide how to apply those signals within their Search algorithms.

Since the days of Google’s massive “Florida” update, the search engine behemoth has been slow to make major updates to its algorithm, testing any updates on sample sets of data servers and subjecting the updates to rigorous quality assurance processes.

How Important Will +1 Be For Search?

If Google can gain widespread adoption with its +1 Button feature, then it seems likely that it is poised to be a significant factor in search engine ranking algorithms, with no other apparent significant usage proposed by Google.  In fact, it’s no secret that Google has been steadily incorporating social signals into ranking algorithms and focusing more and more on those signals as a means to understand relevancy of content.  The sources of those social signals are currently both disparate and out of Google’s control.   So rather than continue to rely on other networks for critical information that can play a huge role in increasing the quality of Google’s core business  - Search Engine Results, by taking control of the mechanisms of expressing those signals would not only help Google with their principle source of revenue, but potentially lower their costs and increase their control.

Therefore, at this point, for an SEO campaign to be complete and to maximize results, it must contain a comprehensive Social component and “opt-in” to implement the +1 Button feature.

To underscore this point…

First, consider Google has gone on record stating definitively that publicly available Facebook data does factor in ranking, as does Twitter “author authority” and re-tweet activity.  And regardless of what the official record indicates, online tests by marketers abound regarding the effectiveness of likes and tweets and a number of other social sentiment indicators are highly correlated with ranking well in Google Results.

Secondly, Danny Sullivan’s recent Search Engine Land article showcases many examples of hard data indicating a very strong correlation between Facebook’s “Likes” (specifically after integrating the like button on a site) and increases in organic traffic. Please keep in mind that this article focused on referral traffic only, but the magnitude of the increases in referral traffic and revenue, if accurate or directionally accurate, builds a very compelling case for integrating Facebook’s “Like” button on your site.

Lastly, and cases in point:

• Tea Collection saw daily revenues increase by a factor of 10 with Facebook’s “Like” button  (per Danny Sullivan’s article), and
• Levi’s has experience an increase of 40% in overall traffic due to Facebook’s “Like” button, while before the button less than 1 % of overall traffic came from FB. (per Danny Sullivan’s article)

This study excludes any discussion of the added benefit of a boost in organic search rankings as a result of increases in Facebook’s “Likes”, but that only underscores the dual natured opportunity that Social represents. Ignoring either piece - (i) the referral (word of mouth) traffic or (ii) the SEO component  - companies not incorporating these sentiment-type buttons (ie.: Google +1, Facebook’s Like, etc.) into theier search efforts are leaving traffic, branding awareness, increased rankings, and money on the table.

Enter +1
Obviously, as the newest, possibly most formidable competitor to the Facebook’s “Like” button, Google’s +1 button may wield every bit as much power,  if not more so, in the not so distant future.    Google +1 is arguably destined to represent, assuming wide adoption, the largest set of social data available on the World Wide Web, and it is under Google’s complete control.  Every demographic of every Google account user who decides to push that +1 button is now at Google’s disposal.  Given the emphasis Google has placed on the credibility of recommendations by known contacts, and their overarching mission to serve the most relevant results to users, what could be a more accurate signal to Google for serving those results than actual, personal demographic data for a given user? Not to mention the importance Google obviously places on the behavior of users on social platforms it ‘doesn’t’ own and control (Twitter, Facebook) it’s fairly obvious that +1 behavior data does or will ultimately factor into Google’s algorithms.

Would it impact ad sales for the better?  Is it strickty organic?  Would advertisers pay more for this data, so they can buy better PPC placements and keywords?  We discussed many of these questions in our previous blog post when Google +1 launched back in March 2011, and we are still determining the impact.

Then, there is the question of +1 data being available to non-logged in users. Right now, it’s speculative, but it seems logical and plausible that once +1 moves out of Google Experimental project, and the recent and peculiar “opt-in” requirement, and into the permanent landscape of Google and its algorithms, this could in fact be the next step. If so, the implications of its significance are exponentially greater.

Conclusions
Regardless of the hidden Google Experimental project and the “opt-in” requirement for Google’s +1 Button, there are arguments both in support of being an early adopter, as well as choosing a “wait and see” position.

On the Plus side of early adoption, assuming Google’s algorithms begin to integrate +1 shares as a ranking factor, integrating it in the near term could give your company an edge over the competition.  That is if your site’s content is media rich, edgy, and generally lends itself to social sharing in the first place. Adding the +1 button would most likely make sense.

On the other hand, this isn’t the first Social experiment Google has launched, and so far none of them have been a hit out of the park (case in point – Google Buzz.) Plus, there’s the issue of abuse, similar to “Paid Likes” on Facebook, which could undermine +1 legitimacy as a search signal and ranking factor. If there is any uncertainty in your organization about making the investment of time and resources it will take to implement this +1 feature site wide while ROI remains largely an unknown (for now), then you may want to wait it out.

At the end of the day, Google or not, +1 is still an experiment.

You are reading a post from: Covario Actionable Insights
For more information on Covario please visit our corporate site.
Copyright © 2012 Covario Inc. All rights reserved.

Do You Like Google Plus?

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The complaint is that Google uses its market position to create an unfair marketplace.  Search is such an important source of revenue and traffic for retailers, publishers, travel companies, and nearly all advertisers with a Web presence and Google is the provider of nearly 75-80% of this traffic in the U.S., and 95% in Europe (according to studies done by Covario), that this concentration of power is considered a major risk to the advertisers.  The complaint does not detail the specific competitive issues for paid search versus natural search – however both areas are of concern to for this investigation.

For Paid Search:
There is no doubt that Google commands the lion’s share of the market – in Europe particularly.  Anti-trust suits are brought when market power leads to monopolistic pricing.  The interesting issue with Google is that its ability to enforce monopolistic pricing is very limited given the way its system works – the auction allows the advertisers to set pricing – and Google, for the most part, stays out of it.  They are quite transparent when it comes to how they determine Quality Score –and advertisers who do not benefit from this understanding either have not put in the work, or are simply unhappy with the result.  They are bidding on irrelevant keywords, which hurts quality score, which raises price – those are the publicized rules of the auction – play or don’t play.

This issue was under hot debate in 2007 and 2008 by the U.S. Justice Department, and Covario was asked to comment at the time.  Google does have some subtle ways to impact their ability to monetize inventory – but nearly all of these processes include feasible consumer benefits as well.  Take Google Instant.  Our belief is that it has two goals.  One, it provides useful suggestions to consumers, from which they find value.  Two, it also helps create more clicks for paid search which increases revenue for Google (see Actionable Insights blog).  Is that monopolistic.  It is impossible to make that claim, as the auction makes the ramifications of this process completely transparent and the impact is one that the advertiser can control.

Our position then, as it is now, is that there is no anti-trust case in paid search due to the way pricing is set in the market for paid search keywords.  Google acts as market facilitator, not market enforcer.

For Natural/Organic Search:
The argument here is slightly different, and this is where we believe the anti-trust case in Europe and the U.S. will focus.  Google has one objective for natural search – to return relevant answers to the consumer.  It will be this concept of what relevancy means that will determine how this investigation goes.  Relevancy is a debatable standard and the relevancy goals of the consumers (represented by Google) and the advertisers (represented by themselves and the U.S. Congress in this case) are going to always be at odds.

Google makes all sorts of changes to the underlying natural search algorithm.  Panda was the most recent significant example – which was designed to address reductions in the quality (read relevancy) of search results due to programmatic processes being run by large advertisers that Google considered against its standard of what constitutes relevancy.

Two things can happen – the process can play out and the governments in the U.S. and Europe can find that Google is or is not creating an unlevel playing field.  If found to be unlevel field, then the remedy might be that the government(s) will regulate what relevancy means, and take that out of the hands of Google.  Or the government(s) might force Google to disclose its algorithms and algorithmic changes more fully so  that advertisers’ can see what is going on more effectively than they can today and enforcement of abuses by Google may be reduced.

Again, our point of view on this is that Google is going to be a more effective arbiter of their algorithm and relevancy than the government, and that any action that would allow information to be disclosed that allows advertisers to game the system against those with truly relevant content is bad for advertisers, bad for consumers, and bad for the search industry.  Google is incented to be good at this, and to put the needs of the consumer above the needs of the advertiser.  Google provides a service to the market – it organizes information more efficiently than anyone else out there right now, and makes it available to consumers and to advertisers.   And they should be allowed to do so unfettered.

Advertiser should expect that the ability of Google to continue to innovate through acquisition of other technologies and companies will slow.  The EU and the U.S. Congress are putting in place the same types of scrutiny that IBM and Microsoft before them have faced.  The Yahoo search alliance from two years ago was the first casualty.  The furor over their acquisition of ITA is the latest example.  Advertisers should expect more of the same – which will create a more fragmented market over time.

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Google’s Anti-Trust Issues: What Does This Mean to Advertisers

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