Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft...All boats rise

Take a look at the Comscore share data released today and one might say that Yahoo et al are losing ground to Google. As in the past Google has grown share, slightly, to 58.5% while Yahoo! has declined to 22.9% from 23.7%. But this surface veiw is not terribly telling.

comScore Core Search Report* October 2007 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch 2.0
Core Search Entity	Share of Searches (%)
	Sep - 07	Oct -07	Point Change Oct-07 vs. Sep-07
Total Core Search	100.0%	100.0%	0.0
Google Sites	57.0%	58.5%	1.5
Yahoo! Sites	23.7%	22.9%	-0.8
Microsoft Sites	10.3%	9.7%	-0.6
Ask Network	4.7%	4.7%	0.0
Time Warner Network	4.3%	4.2%	-0.1

The fact is, search is rising, and all players are growing with it (Fox is an exception).

comScore Expanded Search Query Report October 2007 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch 2.0
Expanded Search Entity	Search Queries (MM)
	Sep-07	Oct-07	Percent Change Oct-07 vs. Sep-07
Total Expanded Search	13,018	14,457	11.1%
Google Sites	6,593	7,468	13.3%
Google	5,388	6,184	14.8%
YouTube/All Other	1,205	1,284	6.5%
Yahoo! Sites	2,381	2,577	8.2%
Yahoo!	2,346	2,538	8.2%
All Other	35	39	11.4%
Microsoft Sites	999	1,044	4.5%
MSN-Windows Live	966	1,007	4.2%
Microsoft/All Other	33	37	12.1%
Time Warner Network	843	905	7.4%
AOL	397	433	9.1%
Mapquest/All Other	446	472	5.8%
Ask Network	445	493	10.8%
Ask.com	226	277	22.6%
MyWebSearch.com/ All Other	219	216	-1.4%
Fox Interactive Media	492	483	-1.8%
MySpace	483	475	-1.7%
All Other	9	8	-11.1%
eBay	445	472	6.1%
Craigslist.org	197	214	8.6%
Facebook.com	N/A	152	N/A
Amazon Sites	138	146	5.8%

Just thought I'd throw that out there...
 

Don't listen to what they say...see what they do.

Gord Hotchkiss wrote an interesting entry today on the decision making process and the short comings of market research. It reminded me of my time in CPG advertising where we delved into market research and tried to reconcile the information with what we saw in the SRI scanner data. Essentially, people were telling us that they were exercising more and eating healthy foods while cutting back on things like soft drinks and potato chips. Yet, according to the scanner data, these unhealthy foods were being consume in growing numbers. In other words, people were saying they were doing the smart thing, but actually doing something else. Gord's piece gets into the why of this and how it applies to search.

But, I think we all have it in our power to address this tendency of consumers to think they do one thing, while actually doing another. With search, we have the ability to track and test ad nauseam. According to the piece, people said they read the listings, but actually only scan the listings. So, what is better, a long sentence (okay, 70 chars isn't long, but can be well formed), or short phrases or individual words that are very targeted? We can test until the cow come home to find out WHAT people do, rather than what they say they do, or we think they do, or our bosses guess they do, or the client supposes they do... ad nauseam. 

People say they carefully read all or most of the listings. But, most of the activity (attention and clicks) go to the top. So, does this mean the 6 and lower listings are not valuable? No. Measured on a cost per, you may want a lot of 6 and over position ads rather than one or two 1-3rd position ads. If the bulk of the volume is up top, so is the competition. So, see if the 6+ performs. It may be better. Test.

The point is, while we should continue to read and absorb as much research and information as we can, our ultimate decisions must be based on real world actions, not academic inquiry. Fortunately, for us, search allows us to do this with our own experience, control and data. Take advantage of this. Let articles like Gord's provide the catalyse for new questions, direction and exploration for improvement rather than as quick answers.

Just do good things

Okay, so this is not really about search. But it is about relationships, business relationships. Seth Godin had a post about concealing things in marketing. It is more consumer focused, but widely applicable. It got me thinking about a problem I have seen repeatedly in nearly 20 years of marketing. Agencies try to spin results, shading numbers and show the good, while hiding the bad. I recall my first experience with a client service director at Leo Burnett in the early 90's who actually did NOT do this.

It was and still is rare to see. But, he said, outright and with expletives (to get his point across) that the brand manager was wrong and the numbers clearly showed the path to be foolish. We could have added several million dollars to the budget simply by agreeing with the brand manager and showing only those numbers that supported the wrong decision. But, the director refused. It was a proud day for our agency, and for me as a member of it. One of the many reasons I like working with Leapfrog is that we always move the metric to sales or revenue. There is no shading here. Client pays X and always gets Y. If it doesn't work, it is clear. Even as our clients ask us to take on more business outside our core programs, we work with them to develop a sales based metric in order to maintain the direct link between our effort and their revenue. There is no tap dancing the results. It works or it doesn't. Both in my professional work and my personal experience, I frequently find myself thinking: "Stop wasting time trying to make me feel good about the things you do. Just do good things." 

I wonder how much more productive companies would be if they spend as much time focused on doing good work rather than spinning bad results.

IAC Splits...Ask.com to benefit?

This week, IAC announced the renewal of their Google paid search relationship for 5 years, worth over $3.5B, as well as the planned split of the company’s 60+ brands over 5 independent public companies(press release): HSN Ticketmaster Interval Lending Tree IAC One of the objectives is to allow each business to focus on its core, grow and achieve a more realistic valuation. Our company advertises with IAC properties across the board. In my group, we work with Ask.com.

Recently,  I did a review of search result comparisons for the same searches on Ask, Google, Yahoo and Live. Bottom line, Ask's organic quality was very poor. I hope they focus on improving this aspect of the property. Unfortunately, though Ask is one of the premier IAC properties, there are still many properties competing for resources. I just hope the Google relationship is not a crutch and that they push for improved organic quality the same way they have pushed for developing user interface (3D) and off-line marketing.

Gord Hotchkiss put it much better than I can. But the bottom line is, they results have to be a higher quality.