Hey there, I’d like to ask. Can you still name the search engines you have used when you search something in the web before? Do you still search using Ask.com? Do you even care to get some results using AltaVista? Yes ofcourse you know Yahoo and Bing! Oh did you know that AOL was the King of the Internet before?
Well, back then the Internet was beleaguered with a range of search engines with the different factors of ranking a website. Before, Google was just one of these players. But now, we use Google as an action word when we want search in the Internet. We say, “Just Google it” or “Google is your friend!” Google is now the basis of many SEO practitioners when optimizing a website. We began to go after Google SERPs. Yahoo and Bing are the two which constantly pinch Google's share in the search battle, but mainly Google is still the prevailing player among the rest.
The Search Engine Rankings
Regardless of Google's domination, I believe it's still imperative to optimize your site for all other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing. You many also take into consideration an excerpt from CompetePulse,
"Google lost 16% of its market share. It dropped from 73.9 percent last year to 64%. Bing on the other hand grew substantially. In fact, Bing grew its market share a whopping 75% to 17 percent of the search engine market from 9.7 percent last May 2010.” CompetePulse.
Google Algorithm Updates
So while you have witnessed the social search transformation of Bing in cooperation with Facebook, Google was also doing some refinement on its search by updating its algorithm with the aim of giving out the most relevant and useful search results possible. It was then the Google Panda updates in the different versions.
Big Google executes these tremendous and evolving updates from time to time to maintain its mission is to deliver "the most relevant and useful search results possible." Google is also concerned about maintaining the integrity of its search results, while trying to stay one step ahead of cheaters who relentlessly attempt to manoeuvre Google's SERPs.
Google built its business on the potency of algorithms that give way swift results. The company continually refines those algorithms, and sometimes takes manual battle to punish companies that it believes use tricks to unnaturally rise in search rankings.
Google Plus and the Plus 1 Button
Google uses Plus 1 as one of the new ranking signals. Have you seen it influencing search results?
Oh yes! You can see the effect of +1 within your search results especially when you log into your account as you can visibly look at your friends giving a plus 1 to certain search result. You can have a test about it to yourself. Currently, the +1 signal is being used to manipulate a searcher’s personal search result which is the reason why we must take on a strategy to make the most of this chance. This way when Google tap the button you will get all the advantages of being +1ed and eventually will surge ahead of our opponents within the specific market niche.
Traffic Generation and the Search Success Rate Study
Recently, research studies noted that the king of traffic referrals is, of course, Google. The study done by Outbrain showed that when it comes to driving traffic to your website, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are not good at it.
It just means that Google is a clear king in driving traffic. When we google search, we usually click a result, which takes us to a website. It works as simple as that mechanism.
To my surprise, another study from Experian metric concluded that only 67.6% success rate of searches performed through Google while, Bing had a success rate of 80.0% and Yahoo was at the top of the charts with 81.4%.
"The share of unsuccessful searches highlights the opportunity for both the search engines and marketers to evaluate the search engine result pages to ensure that searchers are finding relevant information," said Experian.
What this means to us? However, both Bing and Yahoo offer the same in-results information, so in the end that factor could just be a wash, unless Google users are more likely to take advantage of the feature.
Yet, there is surely something to be said about the large difference between the success rates, but it's not likely anything will change soon. In spite of everything, Google still powers 66.1% of all online searches. The next closest competitor, Yahoo, only grabs 14.5% of the market.
So with whatsoever changes in search engines, we don't know for sure that Google will implement any of this, but would it not make for a better user experience?
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