Search Advisory

I predict 2011 will be declared the year that mobile became a game changer in holiday shopping.

PayPal saw an increase of over 500 percent in global mobile payment volume on Black Friday 2011 compared to 2010, according to Mobile Commerce Daily. IBM reported that sales on mobile devices surged to 9.8 percent from 3.2 percent year over year. Early numbers for Cyber Monday are in and PayPal reports a six-fold increase in mobile payment volume compared to Cyber Monday 2010.

This dramatic spike in mobile buying proves that consumers are increasingly comfortable using their mobile devices to make transactions. In a word, mobile has finally become the e-commerce game changer we’ve anticipated for years.

I can attest to this on a personal level. I usually make a point of boycotting the Black Friday buying frenzy. I’ve never understood the logic of shivering in a pitched tent outside Target or fending off “competitive shoppers” at Walmart to get a Black Friday deal. Read more…

Google recently announced a significant change in how it handles search privacy. It has begun encrypting search queries for anyone who is signed in to a Google account, such as Gmail.

This means that when you are signed in and run a search on www.google.com, you will be automatically redirected to https://www.google.com. So the terms you search on and the search results page will be encrypted.

Google explains the reason for this change:

As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver. As a result, we’re enhancing our default search experience for signed-in users.

Read more…

Reflecting its relentless drive to speed up the web, and possibly in response to grumblings about drag from the +1 button, Google has announced changes that will allow the +1 button to load up to three times faster.

The speed boost is a result of updates from Google that will make both the +1 button, and the page loading it, faster.

Google is currently rolling out changes that will increase the speed. If you have already added the +1 button to your site, Google says you do not have to make any changes. It will automatically load more quickly.

Google is also introducing an asynchronous snippet, which will further increase speed.

According to Google: “The async snippet allows your web page to continue loading while your browser downloads the +1 JavaScript. By loading these elements in parallel, we’re ensuring the HTTP request to get the +1 button JavaScript doesn’t lead to an increase in your page load time. For those of you who have already implemented the button, you’ll need to update the code to the new async snippet, and then you should see an overall improvement in your page load time.”

To generate the new async snippet, use Google’s +1 Configuration Tool.

The Google +1 button was launched June 1 and has been swiftly adopted across the web.

If you haven’t done it already, here’s how to add the +1 button to your site.

Here’s the info for webmasters and programmers who want to customize the +1 button for your site.

Confused? Here are answers to a slew of questions about the +1 button.

The needle was on empty in the minivan this morning, so I pulled into the closest gas station. I swiped my card as usual and then the message on the screen read: Enter your zip code. I was immediately irked that Citgo had decided to insert this extra self-serving step in the checkout process while I’m standing in the heat inhaling other people’s gas fumes. I was annoyed enough that the last thing I would do is give them my zip, so to get past the screen, I typed 00000. It did not accept my attempt to bypass their request and insisted again that I enter my zip. This time I typed 12345. I was met with this message: See attendant.

Are you kidding me, Citgo? If I don’t give you my personal information, I am denied your product and summoned into the gas station? There, I presume I would be asked to give up the information again or make the personal request for the attendant to override the system, thus wasting more of my time. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Instead I took the gas nozzle back out of my van, hung it up, pushed cancel three times on the pump until I got the confirmation that the transaction was cancelled, got back in my van, summarily slamming the door, and drove away. Even though I barely had enough gas to get to the next station, Citgo wasn’t getting my money today. Read more…

Whoa! I have started to see random charges to client accounts on Google Places for items such as offers (coupons) and photos. These are clients who are set up for the $25 flat fee for tags each month, so Google is hitting the card on file for these additional charges. They aren’t big charges, but the problem is this seems to have come with no notice whatsoever and there is no information on when and how often these charges will hit.

I realize Google recently rolled out tags and any feature–especially a new one–is subject to change, but this one violates the spirit of Google Places, in my opinion.

Everywhere you look on Places, we’re urged to “Add flair to your listing” and “Enhance your listing” by adding more content, including coupons, photos and videos. That’s fair, but nowhere does it say you will be charged for creating a better listing.

I went back to the source to make sure I’d not overlooked anything in the fine print of terms and conditions. Since I couldn’t find anything anywhere inside the Places listing about charges for coupons or photos, I wondered if this was mentioned under billing details for tags.

But even under Google’s info on Advertising options: How much do tags cost, and how am I billed? it said exactly what it said previously, which was nothing about charges for coupons or photos. It does say if any fees change, you will be given at least 30 days notice.

Now here’s the kicker! I went back in to edit the listing to consider removing photos and I see this message from Google:

Warning: If you remove all your photos, your tag will be deactivated.

So, the client paid for tags, but they were charged for photos without notice, and if the photos are removed, their tag will be deactivated.

Upon further investigation, I click to change the tag and discover the source of this linkage between coupons, photos and tags. Another message from Google:

Note: In an effort to continue to improve our tags quality, we have decided to phase out the website tag type. You may continue to use your current website tag as is, or change your tag type at this time. If you decide to change your tag type, you will not be able to use the website tag type again.

Seems tags can no longer simply promote your website, but they are now for promoting “flair” on your listing.

There are two things that bother me about these changes in Google Places. One, the fact that the tag to promote your website has been removed means you’re paying for a tag that links to Google Places, not your own site. I suspect that the percentage of visitors that go to a Places page, but never click through to the owner’s site will be quite high. This reflects the growing trend of engines providing information essentially within the search results and visitors never click through to websites.

Secondly, this development continues to further blur the line between organic and paid search. Since Places are served up for organic searches, this comes down to paying for enhancements in the hopes of increasing organic visibility. (Of course, if you look at it that way, you could say tags–randomly charged or not–are a bargain.) Not that I’m an idealist, but I need to believe there’s still some editorial integrity in the algorithm.

So, back to the issue at hand–what to do in response to these changes?

I’m considering deactivating tags since I have no idea what charges to anticipate. Additionally, statistics provided by Google Places appear unreliable to me, so they’re no help in determining effectiveness of tags.

Have you been surprised by random charges in your Google Places account? If so, what did you do about it?

I’ve been wrestling with Google Adwords Display Ad Builder lately. (I say wrestling because the idiot-proof Ad Builder sometimes creates more problems than it solves due to the limitations of the templates.) But that’s reality with these things; still at least somewhat faster than building from scratch.

That said, I finally arrived at a suitable ad for a client and was excited to see what kind of response this bright, shiny new display ad would generate. Alas, I waited. And waited. And waited. My discussions with Google confirmed that the ads were in the right queue, and they did admit editorial review for image ads typically takes longer than for text ads. It was about three business days that the ads remained in pending review status, then finally they were approved.

Have you ever encountered a ridiculously long review time for image ads in Adwords?

I recently attended Internet Summit 2010 in Raleigh, a conference designed to promote forward thinking on topics related to the internet economy and web technologies.

Here are my chief takeaways from the sold-out summit:

1. Social Media is hot
2. Leveraging Social Media for Search is hotter
3. Generating ROI from Social Media is … is anyone really doing that?

Oh, and I learned a new acronym: ROE (return on engagement).

I hit up all the sessions relevant to the above and other aspects of our work here at Prominent Placement including paid search, organic search, usability and analytics. Below are takeaways from some of the presentations. But first up, an overview of the present and future of search: Read more…