Archives page 3 of 3 – The Digital Lookout // Rob Weatherhead

So the Google Chrome browser was announced officially this week (after being leaked) and launched yesterday for people to download. But given that Google is a search engine, what will this mean to their core business.

Google

Personalisation and behavioural targeting

Personalisation of search results had been a hot topic for a while as from the search engines point of view they want to provide the most useful and accurate information to the user. This means using historical information to predict what results a user will find most useful. By having their own browser software it is much easier for Google to follow, not only what they search for, but every single website that they visit. This will allow Google to gain a fully rounded picture of every individual that uses the software making their targeting abilities much greater.

Personalisation is a term used more for search marketing but the ability to track users website visits also has major implications for display advertising and Google’s placement network. Behavioural targeting is a big part of display advertising, targeting ads based on a users previous web activity, be that searches performed or sections of a website visited. This area is mostly the preserve of the big portals such as Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL and the ISPs. Visitors who have an email account with the ISP and visited various themed areas of the site which allows their activity to be tracked and subsequently adverts to be targeted to the interests they show. This can only be performed for the time they spend on the site however which limits its use. The fact that Google will be able to see a users activity across all websites means that they will be able to behaviourally target their placement network advertising based on a users complete web activity. This is a much more accurate way of targeting banner adverts to users and should vastly improve Google’s offering in display advertising.

Individuals

The uproar surrounding Facebook’s Beacon advertising programme was caused by two factors. Firstly, people found out it was going on, where as such programmes elsewhere on the web are less high profile. Secondly, the programme involved tracking people’s activities outside of Facebook and using the information for advertising within it.

This is no different to what I would imagine Google are going to be doing through Chrome. Targeting ads within Google and its network based on information gained from other web sessions and websites visited. If users were to become fully aware of this they might not be best please and it could have negative connotations for the browser. Google is offering a “privacy window” which does not allow for cookies and history tracking, but most people will be using the standard tabs and so be open for targeting.

Website owners

A couple of the tools available through chrome are going to affect the traffic website owners get and its sources. The first one is the ability to search within a website via Google Chrome itself. Directly vie the URL bar you are able to search within websites you have previously searched in (the easy example being Amazon) without needing to visit the homepage of the site itself. Whilst a time saving tool for the user this could see popular site such as Amazon and Ebay seeing large amount of traffic coming through supposed direct access, or bookmarked pages should the functionality take off. This blurs the lines for analytics and web traffic analysis.

The second piece of functionality is the Chrome homepage which is the default setting on download. Integrated into that is a screenshot of the users 6 most visited websites. Again for some of the more popular sites this will be an additional traffic source which could start popping up on analytics packages if Chrome takes off.

Microsoft and Firefox

I don’t think Microsoft and Mozilla should be exactly quaking in their boots, not yet anyway. Their market share is substantial enough to protect them for now. But they need to be looking over their shoulder for any progress made. Up until now Google has nearly always been the leader brand in its market, the one that everyone followed. The browser market is different; they are a follower brand, a challenger to the crown. It will be interesting to see how they deal with this differently.

Google’s latest search tool Google Suggest is to be launched to the main search on Google.com after graduating from the labs section with honours. The functionality will dynamically attempt to complete your search query by listing out the most popular searches (alongside their search volumes) beneath the search box as you type. Clever hey? But not necessarily too useful unless you are particularly lazy. But what does this mean for search marketers?

Increased accuracy of searches – This potentially opens up more search volume for the “long tail” of search. By showing people further options for what they could be searching on to narrow their results we may start to see more and more people performing more targeted searches and thus reducing the volumes on generic keywords and increasing them on specific keywords.

Transparency of the long tail – The long tail, and targetted keywords have long been the selling point for PPC specialists. The long hours of work needed to generate focussed keyword lists and monitoring the performance of thousands of hours are a strong selling point against somebody managing their own campaign. But by exposing the keywords available in such an explicit way Google is making things easy for lazy search engine marketers. Now all they need to do to find long tail keywords is start searching on something generic and note down the variations Google suggests.

More money for Google – there appears to be a trend in these posts on Google doesnt there! All roads lead to cash! Basically by allowing advertisers to see the keywords they “could” be bidding on Google is making it easy for them to do so and thus increase the competition and therefore CPC on these keywords.

Removal of mispells? – this is unlikely to happen completely but by showing people what they were trying to search for in this way less people are likely to search on a mispelling. This has already partially been eradicated through the “did you mean to search for?” message which you get when your fat fingers get the better of you. But this could mean the final straw for true mispellings. Oh and guess what, this will lead to higher overall CPC’s as there will be less cheap clicks around.

I will aim to post more when I spot the changes have taken place but thats the long and short of it in my opinion.

Google Chrome – Who does it impact?

How dare you suggest such a thing!

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