The scale of China internet advertisement market exceeds ten billion Yuan

A report from iResearch reveals that the total revenue of China internet advertisement is 10.6 billion Yuan (0.7 billion GBP). The concept of China internet advertisement market includes both brand marketing and search engine marketing. According to the increasing rate, the revenue would reach 37 billion Yuan (2.5 billion GBP).

Brand marketing would reach 23.7 billion Yuan and search engine marketing 13.3 billion separately in year 2011.  It was predicted that search engine, social media and other new types of advertisement would push the increasing trend in revenue.

It was also reported the advertisements in portal websites were declining and search engine marketing would exceed it in 2008. We do hope the search engine marketing will be successful in the following years!

 

First Google Zeitgeist in China

At the beginning of 2008, Google issued the very first year-end zeitgeist in China, which showed the most popular searching phrases during the last year.  The local instant communication tool brand QQ, which is quite similar with MSN, ranked first on the Zeitgeist.  While MSN ranked 10th.  Among the top 10, four of them related to finance, including China Merchant Bank, Industry and Commercial Bank of China, shares and China Construction Bank.

The Zeitgeist shows as below：

1. QQ (a local brand instant communication tool)
2. China Merchant Bank
3. Industry and Commercial Bank of China
4. Shares
5. Game
6. China Construction Bank
7. Google Earth
8. Xunlei (a local brand download software)
9. kaspersky
10.MSN

Does Ask.com bring traffic?

Finding accurate traffic statistics about search engines is not an easy task. It all depends on who is publishing the figures. While is pretty obvious that Google has the biggest share of the search market, I was intrigued by the recent rumours about ASK.com’s "penetration" in the SE market of around 17%, which was more than Msn.

Ask Jeeves has been around since 1996. A couple of years ago they axed Jeeves and re-branded the company as Ask.com.

Recent figures from Hitwise and ComScore give Ask.com a 4-5% share of the US and UK market.

I checked some of my Google analytics figures where key terms are ranking on the first page of each main search engine. I know it is not a very scientific study – however in only one week of traffic I had:

502 visitors from Ask
418 visitors from Live
232 visitors from MSN

Which means:
Google = 90.4%
Yahoo = 4%
Live = 1.10%
Msn = 0.63%
and
Ask = 2.47%

The site I used to compare the stats was ranking #2 on Ask and #4 on Msn for its main keyword. This makes me think that there may be certain niche terms where Ask gives some relevant traffic – or at least gives clients the opportunity to target another engine.

The great gadget monopoly

The advent of the gadget can be traced back almost to the creation of mankind itself, when ancient man used various devices to help carry out daily tasks more effectively.  However gadgets aren’t strictly devices, they are simply a means to complete a task more efficiently and precisely than was previously possible.  Google for example is not a gadget, its scope and purpose in many ways goes beyond the function of a gadget, it is in fact more an operating system.  So why then has the simple ancillary gizmo got behemoths such as Google, Microsoft and other media giants so worried?  The answer many analysts believe is straightforward: empowerment and content, two factors that in their own right dictate a large proportion of todays human behaviour.

Perhaps the greatest example of this influence can be attributed to the new I-Phone, in many ways the epitome of gadget influence and domination.  If you would like to download music you have to go through the I Tunes interface, phone calls are made through a set provider and even your ISP is predetermined.  It’s no wonder the people who are responsible for producing entertainment and even information providers themselves are so concerned about what the next gadget is going to be.

We have reached a point in time, where in many ways, technology is raging a war with technology.  Each new gizmo produced is desperately trying to create a platform for itself where other media companies, television networks, ISP’s and cable providers will want to be part of.  I feel there will always be two winners in this battle; the creators, people like Steve Jobs and those who have the ability not only to predict the ‘next big thing’, but also know how to exploit it.

The ten o'clock shuffle

Watch the SERPs change, set your watch!

Over the last few weeks we have noticed that the Google ranking change at around 10am each morning. While we are seeing several variants of the results depending on which datacenter information is served from at 10 am each morning, or within a few minutes, the results flip from the 'evening' set to the 'daytime' set.

Of course now I have written a blog this will probably stop, but check the results as soon as you can and again at about 10 ish.

What does this mean? No idea really, probably someone in the Googleplex flipping a switch for fun to mess with our heads. But we do know there are at least two sets of results doing the rounds so expect changes on some results on a daily basis.

To see what datacenter you are getting results from 'mouse over' the 'cached' listing in a set of Google ranking results and check out the bottom left of your browser. You will probably see something like this: http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:ZajrSRH-1GkJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googleplex+Googleplex&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk

So in this case I was being served information from http://66.102.9.104 - facinating, well it is for us!

No Index Tag, don't forget about it!

Where's my site gone?

In a brave effort to distract myself from the football this evening (my team is losing) I thought I would tax the grey cells and remind everyone about the No Index tag. This is a tag that excludes the search engines from crawling and indexing your pages and is often used on parked domains or when web sites are in develop/test mode.

But what happens, more regularly than you would imagine, is that when the sites are moved into a 'live' environment the tags are forgotten about and the site dissappears from the indices - ouch!

So if you have added tags for whatever reason and are about to put your site live, think no Index - and remove them.

As with a lot of things internet this is actually a bit of a grey area as not all search engines treat No Index tags the same way. There is an interesting discussion going on with Matt Cutts of Google asking how you would like to No Index tags to be treated. You can see the ongoing voting here or cast your vote here.

So far most people have voted for the 'Don't show a page at all' option, which makes sense.

But whatever you do, do not forget to remove your own tags if you have them on your site and you want the search engines to find it and index it!

If you do forget and the site is not indexed for a few days relax, its not a huge deal and your rankings are unlikley to suffer, but your traffic may in the short term. You have been warned!

Google is top of the UK business super brands

Just how popular is Google? And Microsoft!

Google has replaced the BBC as the number 1 business superbrand according to the latest annual Business Superbrands survey.

Microsoft took second spot followed by BP with the BBC slipping from first to fourth place.

The chairman of the Superbrands council which oversees the survey, Stephen Cheliotis, said the list was intended to reflect brands which have 'established the finest reputations'.

Here is the top ten:

1: Google

2: Microsoft

3: BP

4: BBC

5: GlaxoSmithKline

6: Rolls-Royce group

7: Financial Times

8: BA

9: Fedex

10: Hertz

Where is your listing?

YouTube's Black Sunday

Many of you may have noticed the 2 hour YouTube blackout yesterday. It was apparently caused by Pakistan ISPs who where ordered by Pakistan's telecommunications authority to ban YouTube in the country.

The ban was prompted by a Danish cartoon being uploaded that was deemed offensive to Islam.

Now I’m no techie so don’t understand how the ban in Pakistan affected YouTube almost globally.

Search and win!

MSN launch a search and win site

We all like to search, well, it's pretty much all we do online! In an attempt to lure people to use their search Microsoft have launched a new site called 'bigsnapsearch'.

When you conduct a search two playing cards at the top of the results flip over and if they match you win, and there are some pretty good prizes including a week on Neker Island.

Why Neker, isn't that where Richard Branson hangs out of an evening? Well, Microsoft have partnered with Virgin on this deal and they are providing the prizes.

Go on, give it a spin here: http://try.bigsnapsearch.com/

SES Update #3 - News Search & SEO

 Update #3

News Search & SEO

This session looked at how to make use of news content and press releases to utilise the full potential of news searches.

Here are some of the key points to come out of the session:

• Analyse Google news aggregation, because there were 3 billion news searches in December
• Top PR guys to feed news aggregators (3 main ones)
  
  •     BBC news
  •     Times online
  •     Reuters
• The press association as of October has a deal with Google news
• Up to 30 percent of traffic being driven to news pages is from search
• 41 percent of journalists prefer stories with images
• Blogs have killed trade press in the us
• Radiance 6 to identify influential bloggers
• 64 % of journalists use Google or Yahoo! news
• Use keywords in interviews
• When posting to press releases, you should post on company site first and link back from newswire using language like original or cited Adam Lasnik
• Send images with PR
• Action - evaluate  news aggregators
• Clever headlines don't work for search. Clear headlines do.
• Use blog software to run on site newsrooms. This enables conversations through comment and trackbacks... always moderated.