Search engine news and articles of the week
December 2011 U.S. Search Engine Rankings
“Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in December with 65.9 percent market share (up 0.5 percentage points), followed by Microsoft Sites with 15.1 percent (up 0.1 percentage points) and Yahoo! Sites with 14.5 percent. Ask Network accounted for 2.9 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.6 percent.”
Google announces ‘Search, plus your world’
“We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships. We began this transformation with Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step in this direction by introducing three new features:
Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page; Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and, People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.”
Google just made Bing the best search engine
“If you care about working efficiently, or getting the right results when you search, then maybe you should too. Don’t laugh! [...]
In short, it’s a lot like Google. Not the Google of today, but the Google you fell in love with, the one that put your search results above its financial ones. The Google that delivered.”
Could Bing seriously challenge Google?
“Now I’m pretty sure that Google thinks their magic, whatever that might be, will keep people using Google no matter how much crap they shovel onto the search page. Maybe that was true up to a point, but Google is now over the line.”
Search advertising is growing in efficiency
“Search spend increases 14% YoY in the United States and 19% YoY in the UK as retailers spent aggressively in Q4. US spend in retail grew by 18% YoY and 40% QoQ and UK retail spend grew by 10% YoY. This indicates a consistent seasonal ramp up in Q4 and resulted in a strong fourth quarter overall. Retail ROI YoY remained steady.”
Search engine newslets
- Google admits profiting from illegal Olympic ticket ads.
- The Google gospel of speed.
- A brief history of Google Places.
- Real-life examples of how Google’s ‘Search Plus’ pushes Google+ over relevancy.
- Bing testing a new media bar on the homepage.
- FTC said to expand antitrust probe to add Google+ service.
- DuckDuckGo.com has a new design.
