Check this out… BT Launch BT SearchSmart.

This is done with Latitude, here is the press release from them.

You’re kidding right?

There is also a theory that this is a legacy thing from the Vince update. I am not so sure. I think Google just underestimated the difficulty in matching the .coms, .nets, etc. to generic queries (and some not so generic ones too… unbelievably) based upon region. However, I think the thought process from what Vince was trying to achieve has played a part.

Looks like they are now taking this a bit more seriously though, so normal service should be resumed soon(ish). I guess all you search marketers with affected sites and actual companies this is affecting will just have to sit on your hands until then! Frustrating eh?

I think that Matt got the wrong end of this question and answered it in a different way than it was possibly posed. I think what many people have been saying is “why are we getting lots of results that include companies who are outside of my region and can’t supply the thing that I have been searching for where I am?”. There are still a few of these knocking around (some have been fixed).

I think the answer here is in what Matt said in that they worked on a changed that expanded the search results to include more (relevant) .coms. Whilst doing this they obviously got the filter somewhat wrong in the first iteration.

As we know the only truly universal top level domain is .com, this means that even though .coms should be associated with America, it is just as likely that the company concerned will be based in another region. Google’s problem is that because of the universal nature of .coms they sit outside of its desired way or delivering regionally based results.

There are many factors that Google looks at for regional based results for generic keywords. To improve their delivery in this respect they have had to add another level of analysis to the algorithm to supplement their long standing geographical determiners (hosting location, top level domain, usage, contact information on site, ownership details, webmaster preference, etc.). This is because it is still possible that the best and most relevant site for your query will not show well in your region because it is a .com and it is hosted in the US for instance.

These changes to improve regional searching for generic keywords seems to have skewed the results and I guess they have had to reappraise their initial approach.

In essence, Google makes hundreds of algorithm tweaks ever year, some go way below the radar and some are a bit more overt. This one obviously fits into the latter category.

Lastly, do you think Google sometimes gets it wrong? Yep, they do. But hey it is their search engine. Also, (could be a very long time coming, if ever) until Microhoo get their act together, when Google do get it wrong, we just have to sit and wait for them to make it all better again…

More to come on this, but my three thoughts are:

1. Bing is actually quite a decent search engine (shock!) and if they build on this solid base Microsoft will eventually have something (in some way) to rival Google. Apart from the fact that (more shock!) Bing is more than just a re-brand and Microsoft have actually got some thing right, this thought is based upon the law of diminishing returns (Google can’t make as many leaps and bounds in the search side of the business as Microsoft can at this point in time). Therefore if MS continue on this track they will eventually make enough ground to be a serious contender. Whether anyone (or enough to make it interesting) will use their engine is another matter (see item 2… they just have).

2. Today’s Yahoo and Microsoft announced that they will pair up on the natural search front gives them enough joint searchers to make this a distant but worthwhile contender to Google’s strength. UK wise they still have to make a lot of ground even jointly, but worldwide their combined power is now significant. Like item 1 they now need to build on this to make the alliance a good and seamless one, that way they can develop the offering and seriously market to entice users to switch them from Google.

3. A really little point this, but try http://pagehunt.msrlivelabs.com/PlayPageHunt.aspx. This is the first time I have found something from Microsoft on the search front that overtly tries to go the extra mile. As said it is a small thing (and the current version of this test, isn’t wonderful), but it does show a sign that they have got some people who will try to push things along. If they engender this spirit then the momentum may just mean that they get a group of people who want and believe they can upset the big guys (I know it sounds strange saying that about Microsoft, but in this instance it is very true). Mind set wise this is absolutely crucial and a really difficult one for Microsoft (bearing in mind how arrogant they can be).

So there you go. I will now start to take a bit more interest in Microsoft/Yahoo from a natural search side (PPC wise I always did). Who knows maybe this time next year we will have a slightly different story on our hands. A long way to go though but a least this time they have made a real start.

P.S. to celebrate this I have now added a ‘Bing’ category, who would have thought it!

As you will have noticed I put up a box on the top right a while ago offering a free SEO assessment (from a top UK SEO no less… self proclamation is it really needed or worthwhile?). Well, we have got to the stage now where I am getting about two or three enquiries per day for this; thank you! Every person who submits a request gets a personalised assessment back. Some are brief and some are somewhat longer (depending on my current time pressures), but all of them should add some insight and value to the SEO situation for the site concerned.

There were two reasons I started this service. The first was to keep myself fresh (you know what I mean) and ‘with it’ with new sites and situations to look at and analyse. The second was to, maybe, get some paid assignments out of it too. This is when the initial assessment is greeted with a ‘let’s talk further’. I am pleased to say that I have hit the mark with both of these goals so far.

So what has changed? Well, I would like to open these out a bit and maybe once a month use a particularly good (or bad) situation and write about it publicly. The good news here is that the public ones will be quite in depth (the ones that usually have a fee attached if the person/company wants me to go a lot further) and this (public) assessment will now be free. This will only be by agreement (if you ask for an assessment you won’t now suddenly find me dissecting your site in a live post) and also I will make sure the version that appears here is a little bit more truncated that the one you will get. Hey, we might even do some live video or screen cam ones.

Now, here comes my get out. If this takes off too much I may have to rein back on the amount that I can do and be more selective. But let’s see how it goes.

If you would like me to give you an SEO assessment overview of your site, just send your detail via the contact form. You never know you might be the first one to get an extended assessment for free and make it on to the site too.

P.S. as the name of the site suggests this site is (meant to) concentrate on the UK SEO scene. So, please don’t be offended, but I do ask for the sites submitted to be UK based (doesn’t need to be  hosted in the UK, but needs to be administered in the UK). However, if you have a site outside of this region and you think (or know) I couldn’t resist to delve further on the SEO side you are welcome to submit it and give it a try!

Personalised (or customised) search is not new and Google have been doing this for a while now. This development mixed in with their use of Universal Search in their results means that the rules of (results tracking at least) in SEO have been changing pretty dramatically.

In essence, this post confirms a few things and also gives the searcher a chance to opt out of what Google thinks the searcher wants. However, the amount of searchers who will use this ‘escape’ button, I guess, won’t be more than 10%.

The main ways that Google have been personalising search and will be more and more are:

By Location – Basically, where your IP address is based. However, Google will also use your location information from your Google account if you are logged in.

Recent Searches – If you just typed in ‘france’ and then the next search is ‘holiday’ Google will slant the ‘holiday’ search towards ‘france’.

Web History – If you are signed in with you Google account and you have enabled Web History, then Google has a pretty good idea of the sites you like, etc. Google will also slant your search results towards this.

All of the above applied to natural search and (and particularly so) paid search.

Now, for many, many searches (and more searches from this region rather than the states), this won’t make a great deal of difference. In any case, different subsets of results, different cashes of results and different data centres have always served a slight variation of results from one person’s to another’s. However, (unless, Google changes strategy in a massive way) the trend has been set.

So, for a while now I have been using the term ‘traffic’ optimisation rather than ‘search engine’ optimisation (I am not suggesting we change the common term of reference any time soon though; life is confusing enough, right?) and this is certainly the way I have been communicating with clients.

Traffic optimisation is the whole deal. Everything that you do should try to bring targeted traffic to the site you are working on. From the comments on blogs, to relevant directory and resources entries, to content that is loved, read and linked to. If you know what you are doing then this will lead to better exposure on the search engine landscape. Ultimately, your web analytic will tell you which way the curve is going and your clients cash till (or similar metric; but remember you need to make them do this bit) will decide success. Just remember to set SMART objectives, or you are destined to fail either way.

So the next time your clients says “we are not number one anymore” or “fantastic, work we are now number one”, you probably need to do a bit more on your monthly reports to highlight what the ‘real deal’ is.

The SEM industry is not unique in that what the companies are trying to provide for other people, is what you need to do for themselves too. The unique part is the intrinsically linked league table that come with the most popular search terms. Now, I am not saying that this should form the basis of the way you choose your SEM partner, but it does give you something to consider that you won’t have in many other choices you make.

So, for fun, I thought I would look at the term ‘SEO’ (although typed in lowercase) on Google (pages from the web and not in personal search). Everyone gets slightly different results, so these may not completely be what you get when you do the search, but they will be pretty close. Here are the results (and some other arbitrary pieces of information)… drum roll…

Source wise the information came from Google search results, Yahoo Explorer (not completely accurate, but a fantastic information source), The Wayback Machine and Nominet.

The reason I picked incoming links and the age of the data on the domain is that I am pretty sure these are the main factors that Google looks for to determine trust. The other main ones are the quality of links you have (the biggest factor) and whether you have been bad in the past (and present).

Some really interesting result here and not just in the companies that are showing highly.

I will delve into this in more detail next week.