Author Archives: ghotchkiss

Relevancy Rules in Sponsored Search Ads

First published May 4, 2006 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Let me quote some rather startling numbers to you from a recent eye tracking study we did. In the study, we examined where people first looked on a search results page, where they first scanned a listing, and where they eventually clicked.

First of all, we gave participants a number of different scenarios that involved looking to a search engine to help them make a purchase. We used Google, Yahoo and MSN in the study. In all cases, on all 3 engines, the vast majority of people first glanced at the top- sponsored listings. In eye tracking parlance, we call this a fixation, or a momentary pause of the eye. On Yahoo, 84 percent of the first fixations were on the top sponsored listings when they appeared, on Google it was 81 percent, and on MSN it was 87 percent. So, almost nine out of every 10 people start looking at the search results page by at least glancing at the top sponsored listings

The next thing we measured was active scanning. This is where participants started reading a listing. On Google and Yahoo, there was strong correlation with the first fixation point, with 79 percent of the first reading activity on top sponsored for Yahoo, and 71 percent for Google. MSN was another story. While 87 percent of participants first glanced at the top sponsored ads, only 55 percent started reading there. Almost 32 percent of our participants immediately relocated past the sponsored ads.

Finally, we recorded where the eventual clicks happened. In Google’s case, 26 percent of the clicks happened in the top sponsored ads, with Yahoo it was 30 percent, and MSN came in with 17 percent click through on top sponsored.

Here’s what we took from the numbers. On Google, although over 80 percent of searchers started in the top sponsored, only 26 percent found something relevant and compelling enough to click on, and remember, these were commercial, product oriented searches. On Yahoo, 84 percent started in top sponsored, but in Yahoo’s case, about 30 percent stuck around and clicked an ad. And with MSN, something entirely different was going on. It seems that MSN users have a bad case of banner blindness when it comes to top sponsored ads.

Scanning Follows Relevancy

The reason top sponsored ads are effective is because they’re placed in the highest traffic portion of the page. We orient ourselves in the page on the upper left. Our destination is the top organic ad. Top sponsored ads are placed in the middle of the most popular real estate on the SERP. This is shown by the high percentage of fixations that happen in this section.

But our interactions with the SERP are not all about position. We can, very quickly, determine if what’s there is relevant to what we’re looking for. We quickly scan titles to see if the ads presented match our intent. And when I say quickly, I’m talking fractions of a second. We start picking up relevancy without even having to read the listings by determining scent. If the listing has “scent” and it’s a good match, we’ll not only hang around and start scanning the listing, we may even click on it. Otherwise, we do what we intended to do in the first place and skip down to the organic listings. That’s what’s happening on Google and Yahoo. MSN is another story.

The MSN Two-Step

During the study period, MSN was in experimentation mode. It was in the process of dropping Yahoo ads from the top listing and substituting its own advertising, which in most cases wasn’t keyword-driven to the same extent that the Yahoo ads were. This usually meant that the “scent” or relevancy match wasn’t as great. When this happened, we saw almost immediate relocation down to organic results. Users could determine the existence, or in this case, absence of scent in a fraction of a second and relocated down. In effect, it was an example of banner blindness, where they were determining that the top sponsored results weren’t relevant.

The lesson from this for the search engines is that you can’t take position for granted. You have to deliver with relevancy and the greater the relevancy, or at least, the perceived relevancy, the better those top sponsored ads will perform.

Yahoo’s Relevancy Capitulation

Yahoo has learned this over time. In the beginning days of GoTo/Overture/Yahoo, position was determined solely by bidding. When Google came on the scene, it offered a blended approach, where click-through rates also helped determine position. The theory was, the higher the click-through rate, the greater the relevancy.

Yahoo has recently announced integrating click through rates and relevancy into the sponsored positioning algorithm as well. This is the beginning. Soon, message and landing page relevancy will also be factored into the position equation.

When it comes to capturing a searcher’s click, you have to deliver relevancy. It’s not all about position–and this fact will become more true in the future, not less.

Ask’s New TV Ads

There’s not a great track record for search engines running TV ads to increase market share. Let’s see, some of the ones who have tried it include Snap.com (when they were NBC), Go.com (courtesy ABC and Disney), Altavista and most recently, MSN. It’s yet to be successful. In Microsoft’s case, market share actually shrunk by 3 points, while Google, sans ads, increased their market share in the same time period by over 6 points.

Ask.com is unveiling a new campaign in the U.S. Pundits (what makes a pundit a pundit anyway?) are already casting aspersions on the strategy. But I think there’s one key difference that should be noted. The purpose of the campaign is to get people to try the search engine..once. After that, it’s up to the search engine to keep them coming back. In every previous case, the advertised search engine just wasn’t very good. And nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising.

Ask is different. It’s pretty good. Some might say it’s damned good. At least, it’s good enough that it has a fair shot at getting people back.

Ask’s problem is that it isn’t a huge leap forward. I tried it right after the butler was whacked. I liked it. But it wasn’t a earth shaking experience.It didn’t register strongly enough with me to shake my Google habit. And a lot of us have a Google habit. It’s just what we do. As I write this, I can offer no better reason why I haven’t used Ask more than the fact that I just didn’t think of it.

If this campaign doesn’t work, it won’t be the fact that Ask is running TV ads that will be the downfall, it will be that Ask didn’t up the user experience ante enough. Time will tell.

You Get the SEO You Deserve

Yesterday I decided to be a good Samaritan, and almost got taken. Let me tell you the story.

Yesterday morning when I got to my desk I had a voicemail message. There was an upset person who claimed they had been taken by an SEO company. A representative from the company in question had put a link to our eye tracking research at the bottom of his email signature, so this “victim” was seeing if we were connected in some way. I returned the call and found out that this guy had paid $2000 for a doorway domain but wasn’t receiving any traffic. Like most people, I automatically assumed the SEO company was the culprit. Wanting to restore this guy’s faith in our industry, I offered to take a look at the site and maybe offer a little free advice. He sent me the link.

White Hats, Black Hats and Dunce Caps

And now, I must digress for a minute. When I first met Matt Cutts at a Webmaster World he did an impromptu site clinic and when somebody called up a particularly egregious example of spam he said, “That’s worse than spam, that’s stupid spam”. The site that this SEO firm put up definitely falls into the category of stupid spam.

In the SEO ecosystem, there is a place for black hats and white hats. I happen to be a white hat and we provide a service to our clients, who for various reasons have chosen not to employ black hat tactics. That’s cool. There are also clients in ultra competitive categories that can’t rely on white hat tactics alone. These are clients who are willing to risk domain banning in return for higher rankings, and black hat tactics are the only way they’re going to get them. These clients go in knowing what they’re looking for, and there are black hats willing to provide the service. While possibly not the same degree of cool (in that spam degrades the search user’s experience) at least everybody is going in with eyes wide open. But it’s stupid spam that really bugs me.

The site I saw had tons of crappy text, inelegantly jammed with irrelevant keywords, was embedded in a clumsy link farm, and the link through to the client’s site was an ugly and totally useless Flash banner. The best black hats are at least elegant in their spam. This was ugly, pointless and stupid. And that pisses me off.

Good Samaritan Gone Wrong

So, I thought I’d bring these guys to light (and I will, bear with me) and offer to go to bat for the guy. I fired off an email seeing if he was okay with letting his name stand. He jumped at the chance. But something was niggling at me. The text on the page was at least partially relevant to his business, and it was written in first person. Where did the text come from?

I got him on the phone and asked him the question. The text came from him. Hmmm…my innocent victim doth protest too much. He had picked the keywords, which were ultra competitive and either marginally relevant or not relevant at all. And in the conversation, he exhibited more than a passing knowledge of SEO. The minute the site went live, he knew it was spam. He only got mad when after 3 months, the spam wasn’t working for him.

Then, he started working me. If I was either going to blog or write a column about it, he wanted to make sure he got a link to his main site. He went on to tell me that he could generate some “real business” from this exposure and how guys he knew in the same biz were pulling in $800,000 to a mil from their websites. I pointed out that the reason I was doing this wasn’t to make him rich.

At this point, I’m thinking that I was really hoping I’d find an innocent victim, but instead I found an accomplice. He was looking for an angle when he retained these guys, and it wasn’t the fact that it was spam that he objected to, it was the fact that it was spam that didn’t work. He is now pursuing legal action as well as filing a complaint with the BBB.  He’s spending a lot of time and energy tracking them down. Perhaps he should have shown this diligence before hiring them in the first place.

My point? We are all quick to point the finger at the SEO’s, but let’s remember that it’s clients like this that allows these companies to flourish. A quick investigation of the link farm showed hundreds, if not thousands, of clients that seem to think this is the way to use search. That too pisses me off.

Finally, a quick shout out to Matt and the Google spam squad. A few searches showed the bogus site had been already tossed from the Google index. It was the fact that the Google spider no longer came knocking that prompted our “victim” to start complaining. However, this site is actually ranking for some of the terms on MSN. Just one more example of how the gang at Redmond really has to get their act together if they want to compete head to head in the search space.

So, who is the SEO in question?

They go by various names, but some are 1p.com, and 1stinternetadvertising.com

Want to see an example of their work? Check out http://www.my1sthomebizsite.com/ (and no, this isn’t the person who complained. This is another site in their network.)

And to 1p, or 1stinternetadvertising, or whatever your name is, please stop using a link to our research in your email signature!

Addendum

Since the first post, I’ve discovered that 1p.com is actually Traffic Power. Of course they are! Thanks to Graywolf and MC for the info.

Google and Microsoft Going to War: Is the User the Casualty?

Bill Gates said it, so it has to be true. Microsoft and Google are going to war.

When you read the NY Times article, Saul Hansell and Steve Lohr mention the difference in business models, required server farms, browser default settings and a lot of other tactical considerations. There’s one thing missing: the User Experience.

If Microsoft wants to win the search engine wars, they have to come out with a search engine that people want to use. In the usability tests we’ve conducted with MSN Search, it has failed miserably when going head to head with Google, EVEN WITH MSN USERS! Give a better user experience, and you’ll win. Screw it up, and even locking IE on MSN Search won’t help you.

There’s a fundamental issue that everyone seems to be missing here. The user is in control. We keep seeing stories of how big companies are trying to remove or at least subvert customer control by reducing choices or applying technology.

The Internet creates a fluid market. It can shift alliances almost instantly. It can follow the most desired path in the blink of an eye, and word of new paths can spread virally in an incredibly short time period. Look what happened with illegal downloading of music. The music industry kept trying to plug technological holes and new ones kept appearing. It’s like using duct tape to keep a crumbling dam together. Accept the fact that it’s gone and get your butt to higher ground! Throw around legal threats and awareness ads about piracy all you want. Ultimately the only way the music industry will win is to accept the fact that the days of obscene profits and centralized power are gone and embrace the digital distribution paradigm. Use its efficiencies to give us the music we want at a price that we want to pay. We’re inching towards that, but we’re not there yet.

I know that Microsoft is starting to pay a lot of attention to the search experience, but they should have done more out of the gate. The first versions of MSN search have suffered from fundamental design flaws, lack of relevancy in sponsored search results and some other glaring mistakes. I expected more from the Redmond gang.

Speaking of paying attention to the user experience, I had the pleasure of meeting Michael Ferguson from Ask’s usability team at SES Toronto. For those of you that have heard me speak before you know I’ve taken some pretty big swipes at Ask Jeeves in the past, mainly for the blatent bloating of sponsored ads at the top of the organic results. Like I mentioned to Michael, it’s like somebody was listening at Ask. The new version seems to have taken into account a lot of the things we’ve been saying for awhile, including the practice of Semantic Mapping (Ask’s “Narrow” and “Broaden Your Search” options) and use of the anemic right rail real estate to add some true functionality. Ask is paying attention to the user experience, and I’m guessing it’s going to pay off for them in increased market share. They don’t have it all right yet, but at least they’re listening to the right people: the users.

By the way, this blast isn’t all for MSN. I’ve reserved a little bile for Google. In their rush to create multiple fronts on which to attack Microsoft, they may be overlooking where the battle will ultimately be won. In Danny Sullivan’s own rant, 25 Things I Hate about Google, the underlying theme was, get search right first, then worry about conquering the world. Google is a pretty good search experience, but we’re still talking version 1.0 of search. There’s a lot of work to be done, and so far, I haven’t seen world beater innovation coming out of Google labs.

To me, Google Search is a little like the reliable piece of production equipment that’s been doing a good job for a long time, but it’s long overdue for an overhaul. The problem is, you can’t shut it down because you need to keep production up. I’ve said for some time that Google is a victim of its own success, a common malady for many hot start ups. Before you’re on the radar you can be bold and come out with a new product that blows everybody’s socks off. It becomes wildly successful and generates your main revenue stream. You become a public company. Suddenly, that revenue stream becomes a sacred cow. You can’t follow up on the first act, because the first act guarantees your survival as a company.

Google has a dilemma. It can’t survive in the long term unless it comes out with the next big innovation in search in a very bold way. It has to knock our socks off again. But it can’t survive in the short term, especially with the eyes of every financial analyst in the world on them, if it jeopardizes its current revenue channel by messing around with it. An unenviable position to be in, even if Sergey and Larry have enough money to buy everyone in the world a Segway.

This puts Microsoft and Ask in an interesting position. They aren’t solely dependant on their search revenues. They have relatively deep pockets. And they can afford to be bold.

So be bold, but base innovation on an incredibly deep understanding of what we want in a search experience.

Danny Sullivan: Tim Horton’s Poster Child

Us Canadians have long known the pleasures of donuts and coffee from Timmy’s (Tim Horton’s) but this week at SES Toronto Danny Sullivan became a true believer as he stocked up on his typical conference diet of donuts and Diet Coke. Danny’s verdict: better than Dunkin’ Donuts, and there are few more experienced donut afficianados than Mr. Sullivan. If you’re not familiar with the chain, run the name past any Canadian, any where in the world and I guarantee it will generate a fond grin!

New Mobile Study Out

Isobar and Yahoo released a new study looking at the mobile web and it’s impact on our lives.

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=42755&Nid=20041&p=264406

Some interesting things to note here:

I agree that mobile isn’t ready for primetime. The study mentions bandwidth and long download times. While I think that is certainly one hurdle, I think the interface challenges are probably even greater obstacles. The screen and the keyboards are just too small to lend themselves to a satisfying user experience. We have to have a better way to input our information into the device, and a more compelling way to get the information out. For example, a reliable voice interface and a heads up display built into a funky set of glasses..a wearable mobile device. Now, that would be cool, although I shudder to see what an airport would look like with everybody talking into their phones and wearing strange sunglasses. On second thought, that’s pretty much what airports do look like.

Probably the more interesting tidbits from the study had to do with the respondent’s attitudes towards mobile advertising: too boring, too irrelevant, too irritating. I think this marks a really interesting turn in attitudes towards advertising. We are expecting advertisers to be smarter, by knowing what we want, or at least serving ads relevant to the content they’re being served with. Customers have been conditioned by search and behavioral targeting to expect on target delivery of ads, and anything less just irritates the hell out of them. Hallelujah…it’s about frigging time marketers start getting that message.

On a tangential but somewhat related note, I read last week about a Phillips patent that could force TV viewers to sit through commercials without being able to zap them.

http://www.clickz.com/experts/brand/emkt_strat/article.php/3601411

Columnist Dave Evans thinks this is a good thing, as it can provide viewers with two choices, either a free model supported by advertising, or a paid model without ads. At the first read of this, I was raging, with visions of Alex in a Clockwork Orange, his eyelids clamped open to force him to watch scenes of extreme violence.

Now, I’m somewhere in the middle. Like Evans says, this technology could be used to help enforce consumer control, but I fear the temptation will be to use it for less altruistic goals. Regardless, I think this is a continuing shift towards holding advertisers accountable for delivering relevant advertising, that actually adds value to the consumer experience, rather than detracts from it.

Phillips was quick to say it has no plans to use the technology. This is simply a IP protection issue. Yeah..right!

We’re Jet Setters, But Where’s the Paparazzi?

First published April 27, 2006 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

April has been a tough month. At last count, I’ve been in nine different cities (not including my home), a ski resort, on four different airlines for a total of two dozen flights and connections, in eight different hotels, at six different shows, and have also packed in assorted client and organizational meetings. I’ve been spending more time with search marketers than my family, and that can’t be a good thing. As lovely as Anne Kennedy, Greg Jarboe, Kevin Lee and Dana Todd are, I’m pretty sure we’re not related in any way. And I actually had to nix at least two shows from the agenda. It could have been worse!

My perception of reality is getting a little skewed. When you do too many industry shows in a row, you get a distorted sense of your own importance. In SEM circles, I’m fairly well-known. People tend to come up to me in the halls after a presentation and introduce themselves. Many are readers of this column. So, in my own, insignificant way, I guess I’m somewhat famous in search circles. But a rude awakening comes when you actually step out in the real world. The average ticket agent for American Airlines doesn’t really care that I helped define Google’s Golden Triangle or have spoken to standing-room-only audiences at SES in New York. It doesn’t get me a first class-upgrade. Those accomplishments also hold little weight with my wife, just in case you were wondering. The line “Do you know who I am?” usually lands with a decidedly flat thud whenever I try it.

The division between the search world and the real world has led me to postulate on the life of the average search marketer. We seem to be always jetting to some search hotspot (it’s not as exciting as it sounds; one hotspot happens to be Chicago in December). Our lives are lived on laptops and PDAs. We have all the trappings of a high-powered celebrity lifestyle, without the celebrity or the accompanying discretionary income.

If you’re part of the “circuit,” there are no shortage of speaking opportunities. There are search sessions everywhere, including a brand-new crop springing up to join the venerable stalwarts such as Search Engine Strategies, Ad:Tech and Webmaster World’s PubCon. Increasingly, there are cross-country “road shows” as well as demand for search-savvy speakers at other vertical industry shows. One could probably make a full-time job out of speaking, if one chose to. Just in case you’re interested in this job, the busy seasons are the spring and fall.

In part, this reflects search’s current status, caught somewhere between big business and cottage industry. The proliferation of speaking opportunities reflects the growing interest in search, and the demand for speakers is indicative of the relatively small number of thought leaders in the industry who are used to speaking in front of crowds. The ones who have proven themselves tend to find themselves a hot commodity. And for the most part, we do it for free, often covering our own travel costs, in return for raising our profile and hopefully attracting new business to our respective companies. We go from city to city, bleary-eyed and jet-lagged, promoting the gospel of search for all who care to listen.

From the outside, it looks to be an enviable position. In fact, some grumble that we in SEM’s elite “inner circle” unfairly use our connections to grab all the plum promotional opportunities. I understand, because I was once on the outside, looking at how to get in. I used to stalk Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman at the shows, trying to figure out how to grab a spot on a session panel.

I can certainly share what worked for me. Come up with something different to talk about. For us, it was search user research, and we’ve invested thousands of dollars and man hours in different studies to give us the content we speak about at the shows. Be original, because it’s tough to be a thought leader when you’re just echoing other people’s thoughts.

But a word of warning: be careful what you wish for. Sure, the life of a search marketer may appear to be fast-paced and glamorous, but underneath it all, we’re really just the same as you, very humble and ordinary, and really, really sleep-deprived.

Of course, I’m probably just tired and grumpy. Did I mention that it’s been a tough month?

Why Search May Not Fragment

First published April 20, 2006 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

On April 5, fellow Search Insider Max Kalehoff wrote about the likelihood of search continuing to be dominated by three players. Max, very convincingly, argued that our search activity could fragment over a number of properties, some of them vertical engines that offer more functionality, some of them alternative online properties, like social networking sites.

As search becomes an increasing important online staple, I believe the question of where all that activity will take place also takes on increased importance. For that reason, I’d like to play devil’s advocate (in this case, the devil being the established search players, Google, Yahoo and MSN) and offer some reasons why we might continue to consolidate our search activity on these familiar partners.

Creatures of Habit

Generally speaking, our paths are well worn online. We tend to frequent the sites we know, only seeking out new sites when our familiar ones don’t offer what we’re looking for. This is true of most humans.

I’ve written before that online is going through a social evolution, as the early adopters who pioneered the virtual landscape are increasingly being joined by the pragmatic main market. This makes the fact that we tend to frequent sites we know and trust even truer. While viral growth still happens at an amazing pace online, it’s the early adopters, or, in this case, the online mavens, who tend to fuel the viral growth.

And rapid growth is a relative term that we tend to regard disproportionately. If you’re reading this column, my guess is you’re an early adopter. In our social circles, almost everyone we interact with is an early adopter. It’s why we’re in the industry we’re in. So we tend to blow up the importance of the viral growth of new emerging sites. Chances are, everybody you know is aware of Youtube.com, Myspace.com or Technorati.com. But everybody you or I know is an uber-savvy online geek, at least, compared to my mother. Ma’s never heard of Youtube.com. To her, Googling something is still a task to be approached with caution.

For search properties to gain the critical mass needed to safely cross the chasm, they have to attract mainstream users. Otherwise, they’ll become stranded on the leading edge, there to wither and die.

Deep Pockets

Here’s another advantage of the mainstream players. While promising new technologies can gain some significant venture capital cash, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the billions available to MSN, Google or Yahoo. So, the big three can wait to see which search or online technologies shows the promise of cracking the mainstream market, offering some compelling reasons to use them, and they can swoop in and snap them up.

All things considered, if a Google, Yahoo or MSN can offer equivalent functionality to some hot-as-a-pistol start-up, it’s just easier to stick to one place, rather than hop around the cyber neighborhood. There were image search engines, news search engines and shopping search engines around before the big three started integrating that functionality, but now that they have it, we’re starting to keep our searching under one banner. There is one important thing to note here though; the big three have to at least offer comparable functionality. It doesn’t have to be better, but it has to be just as good. We are not very tolerant of bad user experiences.

Integration

Finally, and I’ve said this over and over again, search is heading for a ubiquitous, transparent future. We will soon see search functionality integrated seamlessly into our applications and operating systems, toiling away on our behalf in the background. In order to make this integration happen, you have to have your foot in either the OS or app world. Microsoft has this in spades, Google is quickly assembling a portfolio of apps and signing up partnerships with potential platform providers, and Yahoo is working the social networking and entertainment integration angle. All of these publishers know what it’s going to take to win the big search war, and they’re already staking their territory. My guess? It would almost be impossible for an emerging player to gain enough ground to challenge their positions.

For the reasons above, I believe that our search activity will continue to consolidate with the big three. The one dark horse I include is Ask.com, which has the potential to gain some significant market share with its new interface. I love underdogs as much as the next guy, but in this case, I think they’re a little late to the dance.