Archives for posts with tag: google universal search

Google Launches Plus Box for UK PPC Listings

November 12, 2008 //
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This was first announced at the Google Above and Beyond Summit in Dublin last month but it appears it has reached the UK, at least in Beta format. (searchengineland article)

The plus box on PPC listings is one of Google’s latest developments in Universal Search and aims to provide more useful PPC listings and (much like the search within a search results) allow a user to select the most appropriate page or product within an advertisers site before leaving the Google SERP.

The plus box example given by Search Engine Land is the inclusion of product listings on the expansion of the plus box along with images, prices and descriptions.  This is one of the main uses for the plus box Google is looking to introduce and is linked to a Google Base account for the individual product information.

The other use for this technology that Google indicated was the ability to show branch locations on brand terms (and location specific keywords) so that a user could see and possibly click through to the appropriate web page or even website for their nearest branch.  This again is linked to Google Base and driven by the same technology as Google Maps.

Google is starting to join the dots with their different channels with integrations such as this and it is becoming more and more important for advertisers to consider the whole Google suit as part of their strategy.  Even if they aren’t going to get much significant volume directly from Google Product Search or Google Maps, it will have an overall benefit on both their PPC and SEO campaigns as Google introduces more and more initiatives such as this.

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Categories PPC

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

Universal search beginning to take effect

August 12, 2007 //
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Google’s Universal Search project has been well documented and for a while now it has been integrating its other properties (i.e. maps, product search etc) into the standard SERP. But whilst searching this week I noticed that once a search is completed which produces maps results Google are now limiting the natural search results to 7 listings for page 1. This has huge implications for search engine optimisers as it makes it even more difficult to get front page exposure. It is also safe to assume that as other types of results are integrated into Universal Search that this number could easily reduce further.

We have seen this with Ask as well with their new platform. Due to their inclusion of images video and definitions into their SERP they are now only showing 8 paid search listings. Google could easily follow suit as this can be used (as it has been by Ask) to free up real estate on the right hand side of the page. they will need to be careful how they go about doing this however as the paid listings are their main revenue driver and any reduction or change in their format could reduce earnings significantly.

It will be interesting to see how universal search pans out and if it has the desired effect. Personally if I want to search for an image I am more than happy to visit the image search page directly and likewise with video, but maybe for the less educated user a one stop search shop this would be more appealing.

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Categories Google, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation