How often do people click on first page search results?

Posted on April 15, 2008 by Louise Gorrie

Don’t scratch your head any more. iProspect has just released a study on all the meaty information you’ve been asking yourself. It’s no surprise to learn that people don’t go past the first page, but it is interesting to note that a whopping 68% of search engine users click on a result on the first page.

And 92% click on a result within the first three pages. If you’re not in the first three pages the only clients you’ll be getting are those 8% with lots of time on their hands – and we all know what a joy they are to work for…

The study is actually about blended search results, aka universal search and it’s obviously changed our tolerance for results. Now, 49% of users who don’t find what they are looking for on the first page change their search query. So rather than click through those extra 2 pages, they’ll just type something else in. Our desire to go deeper into the black hole (past the first three pages) has decreased from 22% in 2002 to 9% in 2008.

Do we really trust that each of the big three search engines are returning the best results on the first three pages?

I certainly don’t, this survey makes me want to dive into the black hole more often.

Make up your own mind by reading the report.

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Flight Centre busted trying to trick search engines

Posted on April 14, 2008 by Louise Gorrie

At last weeks SMX in Sydney, two SEO experts stumbled across flightcentre.com.au cloaking their pages. Those naughty people had been presenting the search engines with different content to what was actually on some of the pages. Apparently the situation is now rectified and I’m sure their SEO agency is fired, but what a PR disaster. To have all of your dirty work revealed live in front of an audience.

Find out more from one of the discoverers, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-dangers-of-cloaking-revealed-at-smx-sydney-4086#jtc55210

Update: Flight Centre has posted a response and explanation on Neerav Bhatt’s blog here

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Writing for Search Engines 101

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Louise Gorrie

Actually, I lie. It’s not writing for search engines 101, it’s laughing at those who have followed parts of that subject religiously. I happened to stumble across this site this afternoon, http://www.mywebsitedesigner.com.au/

For those of you who are too lazy to click on the link, let me show you their first two paragraphs, I’ve gone to the effort of highlighting their keywords, just in case they don’t stand out for you:

Melbourne website design & search engine optimization services are just a few of My Website Designer Australia's award winning website design services.

We have worked with Melbourne website design clients, Sydney website design clients, Brisbane website design clients & International website design clients to create beautiful, easy to use, Google friendly websites that can help your business succeed online.

They’re offering search engine optimisation, which I’m sure includes their excellent copywriting services.

OK, the way Google’s ranking at the moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were on the first page. I’m going to monitor these guys and report back…soon…

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The laziest piece of spam I've seen in a while

Posted on April 8, 2008 by Louise Gorrie

I’m putting this spammer in my hall of shame for sheer laziness. Here is the offensive email:

Microsoft Award Team
20 Craven Park, Harlesden
London NW10
United Kingdom
FILE REF: HL/5564/06/07/MICS
BATCH: MC11/834/5PDH /EU  
OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION

The prestigious Microsoft and AOL has set out and successfully organised a Sweepstakes marking the new year anniversary for 2008, we rolled out over ?450.000.00 (Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand pounds sterling) Draws. Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts which we enjoy their patronage. Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 008795727498 with serial numbers BTD/9080648302/06 and drew the lucky numbers 14-21-25-39-40-47(20) which subsequently won you ?450.000.00 (Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand pounds sterling) as one of the jackpot winners in his draw. You have therefore won the entire winning sum of ?450.000.00GBP (Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand pounds sterling)  
These are your identification numbers:MCS-26799/097 CATEGORY NO.OF WINNERS WINNING PRIZES
1st. 2 ? 450,000.00 pounds each
2nd. 8 ? 350.000.00 pounds each
3rd. 13 ? 250,000.00 pounds each
4th. 27 ? 170,000.00 pounds each CLAIMS REQUIREMENTS:
1. Full names:
2. Residential address:
3. Phone number:
4. Fax number:
5. Occupation:
6. Sex:
7. Age:
8. Nationality:
9. Present Country:
10.Next of kin name/address: Mode Of Price Remittance. (1)Cash Pick-Up (You coming Down to Uk Personally to Pick Your Price). (2)Courier Delivery Of your Certified Winning Cheque Name and other Winning Documents safely to you. FOREIGN TRANSFER MANAGER
MR:LIQIN TIAH
MICROSOFT SECURITY DEPARTMENT (UK).
E-mail:dr_liqintiah@hotmail.co.uk The Microsoft Internet E-mail lottery Awards is sponsored by our CEO/Chairman, Bill Gates and a consortium of software promotion companies. The Intel Group, Toshiba, Dell Computers and other International Companies. The Microsoft internet E-mail draw is held periodically and is organized to encourage the use of the Internet and promote computer literacy worldwide. Once again on behalf of all our staff, CONGRATULATIONS! Sincerely,
MR.GERY BROOK
M.S.PRO. ZONAL COORDINATOR. 

The email comes from Microsoft Window XP Award, which is ligintiah_101@yahoo.co.uk – really – they let Microsoft employees have yahoo email accounts? I know there are talks of impending merge, but the least he could have done is have a hotmail address, like he does at the bottom of the email.

The grammar, well, let’s not get started, but can I just point out (You coming Down to Uk Personally to Pick Your Price).

Does that mean I get to pick the price? I’ll have 450,000,000.00 pounds please .

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Step by step SEO instructions – Why didn't I think of that?

Posted on March 27, 2008 by Louise Gorrie

I’ve just read some of Jill Whalen’s articles she’s started writing for TalentZoo and they are great. I wish I had the time and patience to write such in-depth articles. I hate re-inventing the wheel and she’s already done it so I can just share the link with you and pass on some of the love (and guidance).

From these first two articles, it looks like you will be able to SEO like a pro once you’ve read all her articles.

So far there’s:

Part One – Hunting for Keyword Phrases

Part Two – Creating a Keyword Phrase Map

And if you want to listen to Jill, you can download her podcasts on the emarketing talkshow

Actually you should, she sounds nothing like you’d expect from her photos. It’s like listening to your 8 year old niece talk about SEO…

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Demographic bidding for AdWords and death of affiliate PPC

Posted on March 24, 2008 by Louise Gorrie

I was just reading that demographic bidding is now available for AdWords, so I’ve logged into my account and there’s a red message. URL displays must match their destination. How the hell is that going to work for a url like one of my clients:

http://www.butcherman.com.au/index.php?cPath=6&osCsid=e27f6903696dc48966cbe0ce7b83829e

Does this also mean the death of affiliates using PPC? It reads like you can still have slightly differentiating display, destination and landing page URL’s, however with mention of affecting your quality score and the closeness of the match it sounds like it’s going to be a factor in getting a decent score. Read it straight from the horse’s mouth https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=91451&hl=en_US

Anyway, back to the demographic bidding, I’ve logged on to see if I can not show my ads to a non-buying audience under 20 only to discover I can only use the feature if I turn on crappy content network ads. Right, as users have avoided and turned off the content network, Google now implements a really useful tool to bring people back to using it. Clever, very clever…

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Google and Optus in bed together

Posted on March 18, 2008 by Louise Gorrie

In a press conference this morning at the Opera House, Eric Schmidt announced an alliance between Google and Optus which will bring Google search to Optus Zoo. This will mean Google is building their footing in the mobile market here…just waiting for them to jump in bed with Telstra then that would be about 80% of the market…

Google Press Release

In other Google news, it was also announced this morning that Google would be moving out of their Darling Harbour premises next year and across the bay to purpose built offices called “Workplace6” in Pyrmont. Sounds like big expansion time here in Oz…not to mention their plans for Google Transit in Perth.

I have to ask – why Perth??? Is that because it’s the only city with straight roads where the RTA isn’t constantly performing roadworks or changing the one way system?

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Google algorithm change

Posted on February 7, 2008 by Louise Gorrie

It seems Google have changed their algorithms as changes are occurring across  SERPs. Webmaster World is currently discussing the changes and from  what I can gather it seems like a whole heap of  Yahoo links have been dropped – or there’s  some sort of error in Google not being about to read them past the first page.

Follow the outcomes here http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3563627-2-30.htm#msg3569053

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Google increases search market share

Posted on January 8, 2008 by Louise Gorrie

Hitwise’s latest market share report of the US search market announces that Google’s market share has reached 65.10%. I am amazed at this, I would have thought 60% would be the limit, but looks like they are set to gain more. They are up 3.26% from the same time the previous year.

I’m sure you want to know about the other two, and who lost out the most? Well, no suprises, the loser was Microsoft dropping 2.73% to 7.09%, with Yahoo only losing around 1% at 21.21%. Interestingly, Ask.com increased their market share by .4%  to 4.63%.

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How Google Works – Search Engine Optimisation for the Eyes

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Louise Gorrie

Someone over at Conde Nast has created an excellent presentation to visually walk users through how Google works. This presentation is suitable for novices and experts. Go to Conde Nast here

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