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Google consolidate their lead in search

By Andrew Redfern @ 16th April 2009 3:32 pm Ask.com

comScore have published a report giving the latest figures in relation the various search engines and their share of the US search market.

They report that Google have increased their share in March to 63.7%, a rise of 0.4% from February. The gain does not come at the expense of their main rivals Yahoo and Microsoft who both fluctuate but ultimately stay within 0.1 of the February levels at 20.5% and 8.3% respectively.

It would seem that AOL and Ask are the main losers over the month with Ask losing 0.3% of it’s share leaving it at 3.8% and AOL slipping 0.2% down to 3.7%.

Overall the sector increased by 9% meaning that in the US in March there were 14.3 billion searches.

The figures come as analysts await Google’s first quarter results. They will come at the end of an unprecedentedly difficult period for the search giant with staff layoffs and several Google applications & services being mothballed or withdrawn.

Google are expected to see a drop in revenue for the first time in it’s history as a public company. according to Reuters Estimates are forecasting a first-quarter revenue of $5.53 billion which would represent a 3 percent fall from the previous quarter but a 6.6 percent gain on the same period last year.

These are extremely hard times in this sector. Yahoo Inc has projected a fall of as much as 16 percent year on year in the first quarter. And analysts expect revenue at Time Warner Inc’s AOL unit to slip 19 percent on the same period a year ago.

The market seems to be giving Google management the thumbs up. It’s stock has risen 23 percent since it’s last quarterly earnings report.

Would you like to know more about the search market? If so, contact Hit Search, SEO and Google adWords qualified PPC specialists, on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world out there, make sure you become visible.

Hit Search News – Ask.com, Google Latitude Security Fears and Facebook Poking

By Andrew Redfern @ 4th February 2009 3:42 pm Ask.com

The headlines today in search marketing from our Twitter feed are as follows

Why I’m finished with social media – Journalist makes stupid statement – Should read “Print journalist scared of online” http://ow.ly/9Fw

The Google Bus launched in Tamil Nadu will go to 15 cities in India http://ow.ly/9Js

ASK.com Search results will be vetted for malware using Norton 360 http://ow.ly/9Fm

Facebook clocks fifth birthday – Five years of poking. #social media #facebook http://ow.ly/9Fp

Yahoo! getting ready for advertisement spend improvement – #Yahoo http://ow.ly/9Fo

“Google releases spy application” – Strange response to Google Latitude; its an opt-in system #Google Latitude http://ow.ly/9JM

Google Hosts Doodle Contest – Google launches its 4th doodles contest to find special “dressed-up” logos #doodle #google http://ow.ly/9JY

Facebook poke leads to divorce – too many jokes… http://ow.ly/9Fx

Exclusive Look at Facebook’s Main Data Center – Interesting slideshow http://ow.ly/9Fz

MySpace Turns Over 90000 Names of Registered Sex Offenders http://ow.ly/9FA

MySpace lures more Brits to an Australian working holiday http://ow.ly/9FD

Osama Bin Laden Applies For Job via YouTube video #youtube http://ow.ly/9FF

Google Accidently Knocks New Zealand From The World #google maps http://ow.ly/9JA

Italian Court Delays Google Case – Google executives face Milan trial delay http://ow.ly/9K2

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Would you like to know about Internet Marketing? If so, contact Hit Search, Search Engine Optimisation and Pay Per Click & Social Space Marketing specialists, on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world out there, make sure you become visible.

Ask Sponsored Listings Announces Acquisition of Sendori

By Andrew Redfern @ 26th January 2009 8:10 pm Ask.com

Ask Sponsored Listings, a division of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), today announced the acquisition of Sendori – the next generation exchange for direct navigation search.

Sendori sends qualified visitors from undeveloped web domains directly to advertiser websites. The acquisition provides Ask Sponsored Listings with expanded access to millions of unique users who arrive at websites by typing domains into their web browser. Sendori will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of IAC. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2006, Sendori developed the patent pending technology PureLeads(TM) to enable search advertisers and domain owners to mutually benefit from typed-in domain traffic. The Sendori model dramatically improves the direct navigation user experience delivering content pages from national and local advertisers instead of generic pages populated with sponsored links.

The Sendori exchange has grown quickly as domain parking companies diversify their monetization strategies to better serve their clients and performance advertising networks seek additional quality distribution. The exchange provides more than 130,000 advertisers with access to 33 million unique visitors each month. Sendori’s PureLeads(TM) technology is instrumental in every brokered transaction, ensuring the highest degree of integrity for visitors delivered to an advertiser’s website.

“This acquisition comes as interest in targeted performance advertising vehicles has increased,” said James Speer, President of Advertising Networks. “Our goal is to deliver the strongest ROI to advertisers by controlling the sourcing and qualification of their leads, and Sendori’s PureLeads(TM) technology strengthens the overall value we provide to advertisers.”

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Ask.com Adds Swish New Semantic Search Technology

By Andrew Redfern @ 9th January 2009 5:12 pm Ask.com

ASK has today outlined its lastest new technology on its search engine – Tomasz Imielinski, EVP of Global Search and Answers outlined on the official blog what Semantic Search is and how it will work.

“For millions of everyday queries, there is one, simple, direct answer the user is seeking, but the current generation of search relegates consumers to sifting through links and then searching through the Websites themselves to find the answer. Many times users have to repetitively rephrase the query before they finally get the answer they want. That’s because today’s search engines are still very sensitive to the way queries are constructed, returning different answers for variations of the same query.

In October last year we introduced our proprietary DADS(SM) (Direct Answers from Databases), DAFS(SM) (Direct Answers from Search), and AnswerFarm(SM) technologies, which are breaking new ground in the areas of semantic, web text, and answer farm search technologies. Specifically, the increasing availability of structured data in the form of databases and XML feeds has fueled advances in our proprietary DADS technology. With DADS, we no longer rely on text-matching simple keywords, but rather we parse users’ queries and then we form database queries which return answers from the structured data in real time. Front and center. Our aspiration is to instantly deliver the correct answer no matter how you phrased your query.

Many of the categories consumers care about most are rich with structured data – meaning almost anything you’d want to know about that category exists in a database or XML feed somewhere. Extracting it for practical use is another matter.

TV Listings, which we blogged about in August, is a good example of how Ask.com is making exciting advances in semantic search – we’re giving consumers direct answers from structured data which was previously unavailable through any form of online search. Try searching Ask.com for “Football on TV this weekend” or “Movies on TV now.” No other search engine has been able to capture time-based data in this way, and we think it’s quite useful – much easier and more pleasing than scanning your TV’s onscreen guide.

But America’s favorite pastime is sports, which are rich with real-time statistics, scores, records and trivia stored in the form of database tables. Users’ passion for access to athlete, team and performance data is still largely unmet by search engines due to the challenges of converting human queries to database queries against structured data.

We’re currently trialing our DADS, DAFS, and AnswerFarm technologies with NASCAR-related information, which we chose because the sport generates massive amounts of structured data. And queries about NASCAR continue to grow rapidly – it was one of the most-searched sports on Ask.com in 2008. Our goal is to give consumers answers instantly on the first results page to queries such as “who is the driver of car #60 in NASCAR?”

More importantly, we’re setting out to answer these types of queries regardless of how they’re phrased… something no search engine today can do. Stay tuned for more semantic search technology advances from Ask.com.”

Ask.com Adds One-Click Election Poll Information

By Andrew Redfern @ 3rd November 2008 8:10 pm Ask.com

Ask.com, an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), today announced new Election Poll Smart Answers that give consumers local polling information in just one click — faster and easier than any other major search engine. Smart Answers are special search results placed at the top of the results page that provide quick facts and links to authoritative content from highly respected sources.

Consumers simply go to Ask.com and type in a query such as “when do polls open?” and then choose their state from an easy drop-down bar. Ask.com instantly shows the local poll hours and provides quick links to district poll locations and other voting information right on the first search results page.

The new feature is part of Ask.com’s mission to provide consumers with the best answer, the first time, every time.

“Millions of consumers come to Ask.com every day seeking the right answer, and that’s especially true on Election Day when voters need fast answers about when and where to vote,” said Jim Safka, Chief Executive Officer of Ask.com.

“Our commitment is to provide consumers with these essential shortcuts whenever possible, and to be the best place for answers on the Web.”

Would you like to know more about this subject? If so, contact Hit Search, SEO and Google adWords qualified PPC specialists, on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world out there, make sure you become visible.

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