Archives for the month of: August, 2007
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Google Change Their Top Placement Algorithm

August 22, 2007 //
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google, search engine marketing

Google announced two weeks ago that they would be changing the algorithm for determining whether the top PPC listings appeared above the natural results or to the left of them.

Previously in the top ad placement formula, your Quality Score and your actual CPC, which is determined in part by the bids of advertisers below you, where considered to determine where you should appear. Even if you have a high quality ad, if advertisers below you are not bidding very much, your actual CPC may not be high enough to qualify your ad to appear in a top position.
Your actual CPC will continue to be determined by the auction, but subject to a minimum price for top spots. You have to achieve a threshold set by Google to get promoted to the box – previously this was calculated by your (QS * Actual CPC). As the actual CPC is partly determined by the bid of the advertiser below, in some cases you were held back from promotion by a low bid from the ad below. The calculation for promotion is now (QS * Max CPC), if this exceeds the threshold then you jump to the box, and your actual CPCs would be unaffected.
This model appears to be now in use, with a lot of changes taking place in the PPC market, most notably money supermarket dropping form first position on the term “car insurance” for the first time in months.
Is this actually google trying to help us out? Yeah right. It is just another way for them to bump up the CPCs paid by the top advertisers and increase their revenues. Think about it, top position is now determined by the people who have the highest ceiling CPCs! By applying the new formula advertisers trying to achieve this position will end up paying their maximium and we are back into the old basic auction model.

Google are basically saying, “Tell us how much you want top spot!” and then ultimately making you pay it.

If you have PPC ads knocking around top position for high volume terms, Id keep an eye on my CPC if I were you!

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Categories Google, PPC

First the Earth Now the Universe!

August 22, 2007 //
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As reported on the BBC new website:

Google Earth given celestial view
By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News

The constellations of Andromeda, Hydra and Vulpecula are now just a mouse click away for amateur star-gazers, following the launch of Google Sky. The tool is an add-on to Google Earth, a program that allows users to search a 3D rendition of our planet’s surface. Sky will allow astronomers a chance to glide through images of more than one million stars and 200 million galaxies. Optional layers allow users to explore images from the Hubble Space Telescope as well as animations of lunar cycles.

“The basic idea is to take Google Earth and turn it on its head,” Ed Parsons, Geospatial technologist at Google told the BBC News website. “So rather than using it to view imagery of the Earth, use it to view imagery of space.”

Dr John Mason of the British Astronomical Association, Britain’s largest body for amateur astronomers said: “Light pollution and air pollution is now so bad in many areas that all you can see when you look up is a few dozen stars. “If this helps people to realise just what they are missing, it is a jolly good thing.”

To use the new system, users will need to have Google Earth installed on their computer.
Digital astronomers can then zoom into an area from which they want to view the night sky.

“Click a button and the world flips round and you see the sky from that particular location,” explained Mr Parsons. “[The view] would be the constellations that you would see oriented in the sky on that particular day at that particular time.”
Users can overlay the night sky with other information such as galaxies, constellations and detailed images from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Imagery for the system came from six research institutions including the Digital Sky Survey Consortium, the Palomar Observatory in California and the United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre.
Much of the imagery can be found through searches on the internet but Google hope the add-on will be simpler and more fun.
Mr Parsons said: “The sky you will be seeing will be a completely clear and you will be able to see objects which are very faint indeed – that you can only see with very large telescopes.”
Virtual tour
Sky is not the first time Google has ventured into space.
In March 2006, the company launched Google Mars which allows users to explore the surface of the Red Planet.

Another service, Google Moon, lets users view the sites of the Apollo moon landings.
Both services use data from the US Space Agency Nasa, with which Google signed an agreement in December 2006.
The Space Agreement Act was intended to put “the most useful of Nasa’s information on the internet”.
At the time, Nasa administrator Michael Griffin said the agreement would soon allow “every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars”.
The two organisations also said they would collaborate in a variety of areas including adding data collected by Nasa to Google Earth.
However, Mr Parsons said the latest tool was not a product of the partnership.
Mass market
Google Sky is not the only tool that allows astronomers to explore the night sky from their computer.

For example, Stellarium is a free open source tool that gives people a chance to access more than 210 million stars, in addition to planets and moons.
The software is the brainchild of Fabien Chereau, a Research Engineer at the Paris Astronomical Observatory, and is used in many planetariums.
Like the suite of Google applications, it allows people to explore places of interest on Earth, as well as mission sites on the Moon and Mars.
Commercial alternatives also exist, such as Imaginova’s Starry Night, that offers a range of software packages aimed at beginners to “the serious astronomer”.
Apple Mac users can download a Starry Night widget that will allow them to see the night sky from any location on Earth.
“The other astronomy packages are designed for maybe the more professional amateur market,” said Mr Parsons. “We are aiming this more at the mass market. If people get hooked and interested they may migrate to these other packages.”

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Categories Google

Google Phonebook – Get your name in lights!

August 15, 2007 //
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google phonebook, google, search engine blog
I stumbled across this result on Google today. On a search for boxer Ricky Hatton up popped a result I had never seen before, a phonebook listing for somebody in the US named Ricky Coil along with his phone number and address. I had heard they were planning a phonebook tool but this is the first time I have witnessed it for myself.

On clicking through the link you are taken to the Google Phonebook page which includes the option to view the persons address on Google Maps. On further investigation though the tool doesn’t appear to work yet, further searches for common names return no results and also a direct search for the initial result under the persons exact name also brought no results back. Looks like another case of Google doing some selective testing on a new product prior to full launch.

Obviously it will take Google a while to build a full directory, unless they do so through purchasing one, so it may be a while till this becomes common place. Not sure Id want my details plastered all over Google but I suppose if it is a purely opt in service then there should be no complaints.

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Categories Google

What does personalisation mean for advertisers?

August 15, 2007 //
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The personalisation of search results is well documented and evidence of its arrival is clear to see particularly in the Google results. I have blogged in the past about the differing search results based on search history, the listings of site visits and also the use of IP information as a targeting tool.

But what does this all mean to advertisers? What impact is this going to have on your search marketing activity?

Position Variances

If the search engines are going to begin giving prominence to previously visited sites then you can expect variance in positions with then search engine results. For a user who has visited your site before you could be ranked top where as to a new user you could be lower down the results. This effectively is the same model as is used in the PPC listings with the metric click through rate (CTR) however this would occur at the individual level rather than the keyword.

If this begins to occur it will create confusion with advertisers as you will there will be no accurate measure of what position you are actually ranking in. This will make the performance metric of position redundant.

We are seeing this already in the PPC market with one user seeing an ad in a completely different position to another based on their search history. This makes managing a campaign much more complicated and needs to be fully considered when devising strategies.

Advance Targeting

On the positive note, this could, if used intelligently, allow advertisers to target their natural search campaigns to their key demographic. Although the basics of SEO will be needed to achieve a decent position in the first place once this is in place effective use of creative and website copy could lead to a increased performance for a particular segment and so increased positions. This will be dependant on the extent personalisation takes effect and will need a very clever implementation but should be possible.

I’m sure there will be more effects which come about as a result of the continued personalisation of results with in the search engines but for now these are the key two. What this space, it’s going to get increasingly complicated!

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Categories Google, PPC, SEO

More evidence of personalisation

August 15, 2007 //
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On a Google search yesterday I spotted something I had never seen before which is further evidence of the increasing personalisation of search results. On a search result for the AdWords help centre Google told me how many times I had visited the page and when I last visited (see screenshot). At the time I was signed in to my Google homepage and so it would be linked to my session I am sure but it is a further indication we are on our way to a fully personalised SERP. It will be interesting to see if they begin to use this as a CTR metric as with the PPC model and use it to rank the results in the same way.

personalisation of search engine results page

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Categories Google
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