Monthly Archives: September 2010

Sep 15 2010
2 Comments
Debates and Discussion points, Google, Media, Search

How will Google Instant affect Paid Search?

So the web is buzzing about Google’s new ‘Instant Search’ offering which, in a nutshell means you can get to search results much faster than you could before because you don’t even have to finish typing your full search term, or even press ‘search’ – laziness refined.

However, my immediate next thought was; will this mean that because you will see results as you type it will help you define your search term, therefore self-optimising your results or, will it just be bloody confusing?

Then, with my business head on and my client’s best interests at heart (of course), how will this affect how we bid on paid search results? When you bid on search terms, impressions impact directly on your Google quality score, which is equally important to how much you pay per click.

So, I’m typing in my search box and as I hit each key on my keyboard its changing results (obviously) but that of course means the ads change too.  Sooo; whereas before one word could result in one impression, that same word could now mean several impressions…

This dramatically changes the way our consumers will look at the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) and I would imagine how they click on the results and ads.  So off to Google’s BlogSpot I went and this is what I found out:

When someone searches using Google Instant, ad impressions are counted in these situations:

The user begins to type a query on Google and clicks anywhere on the page (a search result, an ad, a spell correction, a related search).The user chooses a particular query by clicking the search button, pressing Enter, or selecting one of the predicted queries. The user stops typing, and the results are displayed for a minimum of three seconds.

Google recommend monitoring your ads’ performance the same way you usually do. Google Instant might increase or decrease your overall impression levels. However, Google Instant can improve the quality of your clicks since it helps people search using terms that more directly connect them with the answers they need. Therefore, your overall campaign performance could improve.

This goes some way to help but I think we’re going to need to keep a close eye on our quality scores and also pay particular attention to negative and long tail keywords…

If you want more information or help on Google Instant Search here are some useful links:

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=187309

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-impact-on-search-queries.html

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-more-innovative-approach.html

Tagged , , , ,
Sep 14 2010
3 Comments
Debates and Discussion points, new technology, www

Is the web dead? I didn’t know it was poorly!

I was reading Wired the other day and about two-thirds of the way through (page 125 to be exact) Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief, announced that the web is dead! Once I’d got over feeling bad about not realising the web was feeling under the weather in the first place, I had a dig around to see what everyone else thought, turns out it’s sparked quite a debate.

Anderson states that ‘Within five years… the number of users accessing the Net from mobile devices will surpass the number who access it from PCs.’ Perhaps not impossible but a bold statement I feel.

Whilst I agree that one of the most noticeable shifts in the world of pixels has been the move from the ‘open web’ to platforms that only use the internet for transport, but not the browser for display, it’s worth remembering that these trends tend to happen in phases.

Remember how ‘the browser’ took over everything, then developers demanded more options therefore moved to apps… but the browser will again overcome the apps distinguishing features and the technicalities they present and so the browser will keep coming back to provide the support. What most internet surfers don’t grasp is that it is in fact made up of several separate components of which the World Wide Web is just one application.

So is it really all moving to a post-HTML environment?

(I won’t mention the irony of how Wired actually published this on the website before I received my subscription… oops!)

Tagged , , , ,
Sep 02 2010
1 Comment
A geek moment, Fun Stuff, new technology

When robots rule the world…

Not long after inventing the wheel man has had an increasing fascination for passing on our menial laborious tasks to anyone or thing other than ourselves. Once slavery was abolished through society in the early millennia attentions were turned to develop mechanical solutions instead. Man tried to play God.

To some degree man succeeded. By creating complex mechanisms and systems capable of performing repetitive arduous tasks; from the first water pumps, the first locomotive and in today’s vast technologically glorious world just about everything.

The last year has seen robots being engineered that can help teach children who have suffered from brain damage to walk again, the KASPAR Robot W/RoboSkin teaches autistic kids interaction, we’ve seen prototypes teach children in schools (in fact this blog caught my eye; Will teachers be replaced by computers?) and at Cambridge University they have developed a machine that can analyse millions of papers in an infinitely shorter period of time than any human can ever expect to achieve.

But where will it stop? Developing technology to aid us in our daily work seems a fantastic idea, but how long before we are entirely replaced by a robotic army?

Somewhere in the US robots have been created to be self-sufficient. Powered by microbial fuel cells, they are programmed with a survival instinct which pre-programs them to prey on all sorts of creepy crawlies and small rodents which they then digest to provide themselves with power.

A group of robotics researchers across Europe are working on a project to ascertain whether humanoid bots are able to interact with groups of people in a realistic, anthropomorphic way. They’ve built algorithms that will enable the bots to mimic human actions and emotions. Think about that for a second; if that works we are talking about human looking robots that have adept social skills. Can you imagine them in a room deciphering a conversation from all the background noise and music?

And if that wasn’t enough the future science historians themselves have marked the beginning of the 21st century for the era when robots will take their place beside human scientists.

It’s all quite mind-boggling when you think about it. I remember watching ‘I Robot’ when it came out (admittedly mainly for the Mr Smith eye candy) but realistically, a human and humanoid mixed world could be just around the corner…

Tagged , ,