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First glance at Blekko

August 3, 2010 in Search, Search Engines by Anthony | No comments

Blekko is a new search engine with a lot of cool tools. It is currently in closed beta and looks very promising. Blekko started in 2007 and was covered in a number of tech blogs such as Techcrunch very soon after. This blog post is only my first impressions based on just over a day of use.

Slash the web

What makes Blekko unique in an industry dominated by a giant and littered with the corpses of both startups and mature brands is user driven search segmentation, through something called slashtags.

Slashtags limit a search to a preselected group of sites or APIs, determine how the results are sorted, the information displayed ( /rank is the prime example ) and much more. Slashtags can be private or public, and are transparent in what they do to the search results. There are a number of broad catagories that slashtags fall into: User, Built-in and Topic. Built-in slashtags include tools such as /date (listing by date), /noporn (remove porn), and /weather (five day weather forecasts for a location) and a number of other tools, filters and third party APIs like /twitter.

User generated slashtags can be made to search within a specific group of sites and other slashtags. User created slashtags can be ether private or public. Public slashtags can be seen and used by other users.

Why things rank

If you want to know what influences the rankings of a particular query, Blekko will tell you. There is a built-in slashtag, /rank, which lists ranking criteria and weighting available in their search. Known in and outbound links are also available on any domain within the search engine.

When you consider their founding principles, this is not too extraordinary.

  1. Search shall be open
  2. Search results shall involve people
  3. Ranking data shall not be kept secret
  4. Web data shall be readily available
  5. There is no one-size-fits-all for search
  6. Advanced search shall be accessible
  7. Search engine tools shall be open to all
  8. Search & community go hand-in-hand
  9. Spam does not belong in search results
  10. Privacy of searchers shall not be violated

I suspect that the Blekko SEO and link tools will become as popular as Yahoo! Site Explorer used to be for SEO analysis. The fact that Blekko is no more likely to replicate how Google crawls the web and what content and links it finds than Yahoo! was won’t dull their enthusiasm.

Why Blekko?

Blekko is far more transparent in what influences which sites appear in the Search Engine Result Page (SERP). Google is providing a more personalised search experience, and most users are not in a position to judge why something ranks and how much their own behaviour has influenced its position.

Slashtags will probably be the killer app for Blekko. Creating specific sharable groupings of sites for searching has a lot of applications for managing information and removing content farms from a SERP when they are not wanted. Adding an element of human curation to search is very cool and deserves at least one more follow up post.

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Search queries and the Skinner box

February 4, 2010 in Online, Search, Search Engines by Anthony | No comments

How someone searches is a result of every single query you have ever done. It is a learnt behaviour shaped by an ongoing conversation between the user and the algorithm.

The results page for each query is feedback on how well the question was articulated. If the results are relevant enough to end your search, that is good. If it was not, then you try a new approach and adopt a new method. For most web literate people, this process is repeated dozens of times everyday.

What appears on the results page is determined by three factors: the query itself, how the search engine interprets the query, and what sites appear to be the most relevant to this query. The user only has control over the query that they put in. However, over time, this will be influenced by the interaction between the search engine, the sites it indexes, and what the user deems relevant enough.

In low competition namespaces where optimisation activity is low to nonexistent, it is only feedback from the search engine that shapes user behaviour. Assuming an effective algorithm, the user may not have to try as many different query structures, refinements or synonyms to find a site that would be relevant enough.

In a more competitive namespace where the optimisation activity keeps pace with or exceeds the search engine’s ability to control what is deemed relevant for a specific query, the user’s behaviour is affected by both the search engine and SEOs who consider that namespace to deliver a good return. Assuming that the optimised sites do deliver an experience that is relevant, then this will have minimal impact on user behaviour. In namespaces where there is more than one potential subject, then optimisation activity for one may force a shift in the search behaviour of the users seeking the other.

A crowded namespace can have another interesting effect on search behaviour: an increased use of a site’s branded terms to locate it by existing customers. Where there is a high level of competition on generic product terms, or the most relevant site for the namespace is outranked by less relevant results, the user can be taught to use branded instead of generic terms.

Search engines are Skinner Boxes. Each time the user conducts a query, they get feedback on how closely it relates to their intent. In response to this feedback, their behaviour changes. The feedback they receive comes from two sources: the search engine itself, and those optimising for it. These in turn influence how the user describes the product online, and can encourage them to hone in on a more focused range of queries.

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Search Query Commonality and Clusters

January 21, 2010 in Online, Search, Search Engines by Anthony | 2 comments

Search is an interesting creature.  As well as a way to generate traffic, it is an interesting study of language and intention. Ignoring for a moment how search engines also function as a Skinner box with the effect this will have in consumer behaviour, what someone types into a search engine is an indicator of where they are in the sales funnel and what their intention is.

With long tail search queries it is hard to clearly see what is working and what is not, unless you group traffic around commonalities. With search traffic, the most relevant is the actual phrase, as this reflects user behaviour and can provide a guide for future SEO activity. Time of day, search engine used and the user’s browsing history are also useful.

Multivariant statistics are good for this, especially Cluster Analysis. I pulled a quick sample of some search query data via Google Webmaster tools for a demonstration. I am aware that there is more than one search engine, and I know that data on terms a site appears on is meaningless without information on clicks or search volume per query. This is what you might call a convenience sample.

As I do not have SAS Enterprise Miner on this machine, this analysis will be simple. Each cluster will be split on a commonality that is greater than 20%. If there is no such commonality, then it is exhausted.

Cluster Analysis

Cluster Analysis and Search Queries

As is demonstrated within the sample, there is still a significant dissimilar longtail. A few very niche groups identified were also identified in the sample. Ultimately, this data is not a true representation of user behaviour. Just because a number of different individuals found your site using the same small cluster does not automatically mean that they are after the same thing. More information is required to make those conclusions. This is just a model. It can help guide your decisions, and it can indicate points of interest worth investigating. What it is not, is gospel.

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Will Google get Social with Personalisation

December 24, 2009 in Advertising, Online, Search, Search Engines, Social by Anthony | 1 comment

Like every other year, 2009 has been a busy one for search. A merger, a new algorithm looming from the market leader and a pile of new tools and so-called ‘Google killers’.

The biggest change to come out of 2010 is probably going to come from Personalised Search and a Google Labs project called Social Search.

Personalised Search has been discussed as far as possible with the information currently available. What was only available to those signed into their Google accounts has now been implemented for those who are not via cookies. Data is collected on searches made, and this information is used to determine exactly what the searcher actually means by “australian coach” or “ctr ppc social online marketing” for the mutual benefit of end user and advertiser.

Using previous searches to place subsequent queries in context will make keyword selection much more important and far more involved. It will also mean that any company that is able to frame the conversation around its product and industry can create a real compeitive advantage, greater than what is currently possible. Where this will become more interesting is when or if Social Search becomes a part of Universal Search, and if it becomes a ranking factor for Personalised Search.

Currently the biggest limitation for Social Search is the scope of sources used to map out a social network. Drawing on Google properties alone is a real limitation, especially as there is a shift away from email and RSS as the main way to share links. I expect Social Search to incorporate other channels such as other social networks and additional tools such as goo.gl.

In short, get ready to pay more attention to either leveraging or creating social networks, and doing something worth talking about. Otherwise, you may find all the programmatic SEO in the world won’t keep you visible.

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Brisbane Online Marketing Meetup

September 9, 2009 in Online, Social by Anthony | No comments

Working client side as an online marketing specialist usually means being the internet guy in the marketing department. This can be great sometimes: you get to pitch the ideas you want, you can start and run your own trials and you will usually get more freedom in how you implement an online campaign.

What you don’t get is people in the same field as you to bounce ideas off. This is why there is a Brisbane Online Marketing Meetup. Getting people in the same field together for an informal meetup is a great way to exchange ideas, gossip and come away with some new things to try.

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The Yahoo! Microsoft deal

August 4, 2009 in Advertising, Online, Search, Search Engines by Anthony | No comments

This week saw a significant change in the search market place. A deal was announced that would see Yahoo! search being powered by Bing, and Yahoo! Search Maketing switch to Microsoft’s Adcenter . Soon, this will also mean that what I wrote in “Obvious Paid Search Tips” will be out of date, and the answer to “Hands up everyone who cares about what Yahoo does” is more or less no-one. In terms of something that matters, this will increase interest in ranking well in Bing and, at least outside of Australia, there will be more competition within Adcenter.

Adcenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing

The merging of two Pay Per Click market places will increase internal competition. With more participants in the market and a reduction in available inventory, the cost of traffic will increase. Account management will be more efficient with this consolidation, and the volume of available traffic will increase too.

However, we won’t see this locally, as bidding for Australian traffic through Bing and Yahoo! is done via Yahoo! Search Marketing (Formally Overture, formally Goto, etc). What we will get instead, based on information to date, is an eventual change in the platform we use.

Why People will care more about rank in Bing

With Microsoft powering Yahoo!’s search results a good rank in Bing will mean even more traffic. Most decisions on how to allocate SEO resources are influenced by reported search queries and Google’s domminance within this metric. As a result, a lot of SEO activity online is focused on building for Google. It is seen as the only engine worth building for, as it will return the most for the investment of resources. With a ranking in Bing about to appear for more queries, and the deal generating more awareness, this may drive more interest and activity.

Still more to come

There has been a lot written, and some very in-depth, on this deal over the last week. There are going to be even more blog posts and press releases to follow. The fate of Yahoo!’s other search products has not been revealed yet, and there are other areas that still need to be clarified. One thing that can be taken for granted now is that a lot of people are going to be auditing the size of their brand and industry’s query space, and the rankings of their sites in Bing.

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Hands up everyone who cares about what Yahoo does

June 29, 2009 in Online, Search, Search Engines by Anthony | 1 comment

I did not think that there would be too many of you.

But I often find myself suprised at how often people completely disregard Yahoo as a source for traffic these days. While Google does indeed dominate right now, I do not see how relying on it to provide up to 90% of all traffic is a great idea. Yahoo may not perform as many searches as Google, but it should account for more than a single digit percentage of inbound traffic. It is just good business not to trust a single source for the bulk of your revenue.

Google does have a huge pile of traffic, and getting pages into Google does not take as long as it does with Yahoo. However Yahoo does make it easy to pick content to be displayed as a part of an enhanced search listing.

http://www.ysearchblog.com/2009/03/12/embed-videos-games-and-docs-with-searchmonkey/

Yahoo Google’s Base

More recently, and interestingly Yahoo has also started to support Event, Product, Review, Job, and Personals Google Base feeds.

http://www.ysearchblog.com/2009/06/18/searchmonkey-updates-new-enhanced-results-and-support-of-google-base-formatting/

The takeaway right now

I have nothing say right now on the impact this will have on sites being listed, the size of the query space it will occupy or if this can change the volume of traffic sites will recieve through Yahoo. There are a few points to consider here though.

Google is the biggest, but it is not the only search engine around.

It is still worth keeping up with the number two and three in the market, and do not accept abysmal visibility in them just because they are not Google. There is still traffic there, and if your industry uniformly adopts a Google-centric view of the universe, there is opportunity too.

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Bing in Australia, a few weeks on

June 27, 2009 in Online, Search, Search Engines by Anthony | No comments

Bing has been live in for a few weeks now, and it is time to look back and see what has changed. In short, not much. I have noticed a small dip followed by a spike in traffic on a mature site I work with. The dip in traffic was matched by a drop in terms for which the site was visible. I can only assume that the increase in traffic is due to both the increased attention Microsoft has drawn to their new search engine, and an increase in the terms that the site has appeared for.

Interest in Bing

On another domain I have noticed that terms related to Bing and Bing.com.au have produced a little traffic. This is only to be expected due to the increased interest in the search engine.

SERP reshuffle

One thing that I noticed that is worth watching are changes in the order of sites on the Search Engine Results Pages. For a few of the terms that I have been watching, the top three or four results have remained fairly fixed since lauch. However there has been a bit of movement amoungst the mid-page results. This was even evident on terms where the level of SEO activity can be assumed to be low, and with static sites.

Bing and the Search takeaway

It is simple; there is a lot to be learned right now in how the Search Engine Results Pages have been changing for low competition terms. For now, the changes on these kinds of SERPs are more likely the result of spider and algorithmic activity rather than general updates or targeted optimisation.

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Search, SERPs & Bing.com.au

June 6, 2009 in Advertising, Online, Search, Search Engines by Anthony | No comments

There have been a number of changes hitting the Internet since May in search. Google has released a number of new tools, and there are now approximately one and a half new search engines. This post is about the new half a search engine.

Bing.com
The search engine kind-of-formally-known-as-but-not-the-same-as Live.com has finally arrived, and it is now called Bing.com. There has already been a lot written so far, and some very good articles covering everything from usability through to SEO. I am not going to try to replicate what has been said else where, just add my own observations.

Bing.com vs Bing.com.au
For a number of searches there seems to be a few differences between the main and the geographically localised indexes. When I did a few brand searches, I found that Bing.com.au was returning a different SERP than Bing.com. The most dramatic difference was where a new site was not listed at all in the localised version, while it was visible in the main, for both a search on the site’s name and using the ‘site:’operator . Site descriptive text appeared to vary across the two versions of Bing.com too. With our own sites, this indicated a difference in the age of the information that Bing.com was displaying. There were also a few interesting things observed regarding the treatment of hash tags in site links.

Bing.com ads & additions
Bing.com’s launch is being supported by a monstrous media budget, and will shake things up a little in the search landscape. I personally do not think this will change things too fundamentally. This is no real reason not to keep an eye on it though, as things can always change, and to completely ignore Microsoft’s search engine means that you are ignoring a significant slice of the market. In terms of search, I think it is going to be interesting to watch the localised indexes once they integrate newer information and watch the effect that this has on the SERPS.

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Queries as questions

May 8, 2009 in Online, Search by Anthony | No comments

If you have a website, it is worth having a look through your single click search terms. Some of them can be interesting, funny or bizarre.

twitter scam ponzi

Well, technically Twitter is not a Ponzi scam, though most of the multilevel marketing on it is.  The first problem with this statement is that Twitter does not actually cost any money.  ‘Make money on Twitter’ products are different though…

twitter and multilevel marketers

They are everywhere.  Just mention ‘social media’, ‘marketing’ or any other keyword in that space and you will be followed by dozens of bots spewing “I made $xxxxx with one tweet, slap yourself in the face if you believe me and give me all your money!!!”  It seems that most of these ‘products’ involve paying to be able to spam even more people to sell the the ability to spam even more people….

statistics of gym goers

There are more of them on Monday and Tuesday night at the gym I train at.  Anything else I would be making up.  Sorry.

lang park

These days it is actually called Suncorp Stadium. The Brisbane Broncos and the Brisbane (formerly Queensland) Roar both play there.  It used to be called Lang Park until the naming rights were sold, but no matter which bank has its name on it, it will always be Lang Park to a large portion of Brisbane’s population.

diehards football club brisbane+contact

Good luck contacting them.  Unfortunately ‘diehards football club brisbane’ is not organised around a single point of contact.  There are a number of football clubs out there, but I am not sure if ‘diehards’ describes them all that well.  If you are looking from some kind of group of Italian-style Ultras, I am afraid that they just don’t exist in Brisbane.

democratised internet web 2.0 information

I do not really have anything like this on the site anywhere, but I do admire the ability to cram this many buzzwords into one search query. You forgot to add ‘social media’.

Online Marketing in Brisbane?

Claire and I are setting up an informal dinner group for other professionals in the industry. The idea is to meet up every month or so to eat and chat about the industry in general and other random topics. The first one is planned for June. Please contact me if you are interested.

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