Bing Slams “Freakonomics” Bing It On Challenge Critique

Yesterday, we reported on a study appearing on the “Freakonomics� blog that disputed the “Bing It On” claim that people prefer Bing to Google in a blind comparison of search results. Study author Ian Ayers�sought to replicate the Bing It On challenge methodology and argued that Bing’s claims were false and its messaging deceptive.

Bing pushed back hard yesterday in several ways. There was a lengthy point by point refutation of the Ayers report in comments posted to the story I wrote at Search Engine Land from Matt Wallaert, behavioral scientist at Bing. Wallaert also responded to a similar story about the Ayers study at�at Search Engine Roundtable.

Microsoft later issued a formal statement from Wallaert:

The professor�s analysis is flawed and based on an incomplete understanding of both the claims and the Challenge.�The Bing It On claim is 100% accurate and we�re glad to see we�ve nudged Google into improving their results.� Bing it On is intended to be a lightweight way to challenge peoples� assumptions about which search engine actually provides the best results. Given our share gains, it�s clear that people are recognizing our quality and unique approach to what has been a relatively static space dominated by a single service.

Later in the day there was a blog post from Microsoft about the Ayers study. It echoed the points made by Wallaert in his comments to the blog posts. Below is most of the Wallaert post:

A couple of notes are important before I talk about Ayres’ claims. There are two separate claims that have been used with the Bing It On challenge. The first is “People chose Bing web search results over Google nearly 2:1 in blind comparison tests”. We blogged about the method�here�and it was used back in 2012. In 2013, we updated the claim to “People prefer Bing over Google for the web’s top searches”, which I blogged about�here. Ayres’ frequently goes back and forth between the two claims in his post, so I wanted to make sure both were represented. Now, on to Ayers’ issues and my explanations.

First, he’s annoyed by the sample size, contending that 1,000 people is too few to obtain a representative sample on which to base a claim. Interestingly, Ayres then links to a paper he put together with his grad students, in which they also use a sample size of 1,000 people. They then subdivide the sample into thirds for different treatments condition and yet still manage to meet conventional statistical tests using their sample.

If you’re confused, you’re not alone. A sample of 1,000 people doing the same task has more statistical power than a sample of 300 people doing the same task. Which is why statistics are so important; they help us understand whether the data we see is an aberration or a representation. A 1,000 person, truly representative sample is actually fairly large. As a comparison, the�Gallup poll on presidential approval is just 1,500 people.

Next, Ayres is bothered that we don’t release the data from the Bing It On site on how many times people choose Bing over Google. The answer here is pretty simple: we don’t release it because we don’t track it. Microsoft takes a pretty strong stance on privacy and unlike in an experiment, where people give informed consent to having their results tracked and used, people who come to BingItOn.com are not agreeing to participate in research; they’re coming for a fun challenge. It isn’t conducted in a controlled environment, people are free to try and game it one way or another, and it has Bing branding all over it.

So we simply don’t track their results, because the tracking itself would be incredibly unethical. And we aren’t basing the claim on the results of a wildly uncontrolled website, because that would also be incredibly unethical (and entirely unscientific).

Ayres’ final issue is the fact that the Bing It On site suggests queries you can use to take the challenge. He contends that these queries inappropriately bias visitors towards queries that are likely to result in Bing favorability.

First, I think it is important to note: I have no idea if he is right. Because as noted in the previous answer,�we don’t track the results from the Bing It On challenge. So I have no idea if people are more likely to select Bing when they use the suggested queries or not.

Here is what I can tell you. We have the suggested queries because a blank search box, when you’re not actually trying to use it to find something, can be quite hard to fill. If you’ve ever watched anyone do the Bing It On challenge at a Seahawks game, there is a noted pause as people try to figure out what to search for. So we give them suggestions, which we source from topics that are trending now on Bing, on the assumption that trending topics are things that people are likely to have heard of and be able to evaluate results about.

Which means that if Ayres is right and those topics are in fact biasing the results, it may be because we provide better results for current news topics than Google does. This is supported somewhat by the second claim; “the web’s top queries” are pulled from Google’s 2012 Zeitgeist report, which reflects a lot of timely news that occurred throughout that year.

To make it clear, in the actual controlled studies used to determine what claims we made, we used different approaches to suggesting queries. For the first claim (2:1), participants self-generated their own queries with no suggestions from us. In the second claim (web’s top queries), we suggested five queries of which they could select one. These five queries were randomly drawn from a list of roughly 500 from the Google 2012 Zeitgeist, and they could easily get five more if they didn’t like any queries from the five they were being shown.

Google’s Matt Cutts reacted to Ayers study on Google+:

Freakonomics looked into Microsoft’s “Bing It On” challenge. From the blog post: “tests indicate that Microsoft selected suggested search words that it knew were more likely to produce Bing-preferring results. …. The upshot: Several of Microsoft�s claims are a little fishy. �Or to put the conclusion more formally, we think that Google has a colorable deceptive advertising claim.”

I have to admit that I never bothered to debunk the Bing It On challenge, because the flaws (small sample size; bias in query selection; stripping out features of Google like geolocation, personalization, and Knowledge Graph; wording of the site; selective rematches) were pretty obvious.

Regardless of whether Bing or its critics are right about whose study methodology is more flawed, the thing that was most interesting to me about the Ayers findings was the fact that Bing won 41 percent of the time. That suggests, in the context of an arguably antagonistic study, Bing did very well and is almost at parity with Google.

It would also seem to support what Microsoft has been claiming — that the Google brand and not necessarily search quality is now what sustains Google’s dominance in search.

The Newest Rules for Marketing & PR: Optimized – David Meerman Scott Interview

The convergence of digital marketing and public relations has been in motion for many years, but in 2013 and onward, there’s more momentum than ever. Changes in technology and consumer behaviors in how information is discovered, consumed and acted upon has turned brands into publishers and publishers into marketers as they seek new ways to connect with audiences and monetize.

Don’t blink during this monumental shift or you’ll be left behind. That’s why it’s important to find trusted sources to guide your point of view to stay ahead in the digital marketing game.

One of those sources is David Meerman Scott�(@dmscott) – a real pioneer in the integrated search, social media and content marketing space. A best-selling author, keynote speaker and digital marketing evangelist, David has been instrumental at communicating and educating marketers on the value of attract and inbound marketing. I’ve known David for quite a while and have interviewed and�liveblogged�him a number of times. He even took his shirt offfor this one – a real promoter.

In this interview, David talks about the major changes that have happened in the marketing and PR industry, breaking down organizational content silos and how companies can take advantage of real-time marketing with social media. Bonus: You’ll also find out what David really thinks about Facebook, Snapchat and MySpace.

Congratulations on the 4th edition of The New Rules for Marketing and PR. What are some of the major changes in this edition and what does the communications revolution that is happening right now mean for most marketers?

Thanks! If you had told me when I was writing the first edition way back in 2005 and 2006 that we would have come this far I�d have said you are nuts. But we have!

Imagine, just a few short years ago as I was writing, Facebook was only for students and MySpace had four times as many users. Now MySpace has only 32 million users to Facebook�s 1.1 billion. Twitter didn�t even exist as I was writing the first edition, nor did most social networks we use today. How amazing that in just a few years, the new rules of marketing and public relations has become mainstream! We are truly living through a communications revolution.

The new fourth edition of the book builds on the completely revised third edition with another extensive rewrite. I�ve added a brand new chapter on Newsjacking, the technique of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story to generate tons of media coverage. And in the time since I wrote the third edition of the book, marketing using images has exploded. So I�ve added a chapter on highly visual social networks like Pinterest and Instagram, as well as the use of Infographics.

Social technologies and consumer behaviors have changed in many ways over the past 4-5 years and that means changes in how companies attract, engage and persuade online. What are some of the most important changes companies can make to adapt and stay relevant on the social web?

Consumer behavior has changed in that the way people research products and services now focuses primarily on searching via Google and the other search engines and asking for advice via social networks. Companies need to have their content in front of those consumers at the precise moment they are looking. But that�s great because the Web has liberated us from the tyranny of paying for attention!

There are four main ways to generate attention:

You can BUY attention (this is called advertising)You can BEG for attention (this is called Public Relations)You can BUG people one at a time to get attention (this is called sales)You can EARN attention online by creating great information that your buyers want to consume such as YouTube videos, blogs, Twitter feeds, photographs, charts, graphs, and ebooks�and it is all free.

I ask executives �How are YOU generating attention?�

In one of your blog posts, “PR vs marketing vs social media” it’s suggested that it doesn’t matter who creates the content that consumers discover about your brand, whether it’s marketing or PR. What advice can you share for companies that still operate these functions as silos? Is integration and convergence inevitable in order to succeed?

For large brands with robust offline marketing and public relations programs, the two functions � Public Relations and Marketing � should still remain separate. A media relations program is different than an advertising program. However when large companies operated in the online world and for all smaller organizations that live primarily on the Web and in social media, I think one content creation effort is best. Break down those artificial PR and marketing barriers. A technique like Newsjacking, for example, is a perfect example of something that is in the middle of PR and marketing.

For companies that want to take advantage of real time marketing with social media, what advice can you share about getting started? What are some reasonable expectations for outcomes if companies are doing it right? Can you share an example of a company doing it right?

It�s all about the real-time mindset. The conventional business approach favors a campaign (note the war metaphor) that requires people to spend weeks or months planning to hit targets. Agencies must be consulted. Messaging strategies must be developed. Advertising space/time must be bought. Conference rooms and refreshments must be prepared for press conferences. Do you serve them sushi or sandwiches? The real-time mind-set recognizes the importance of speed. It is an attitude to business (and to life) that emphasizes moving quickly when the time is right. Developing a real-time mind-set is not an either/or proposition.

I’m not saying you should abandon your current business-planning process. Nor do I advocate allowing your team to run off barking at every car that drives by. Focus and collaboration are essential. People frequently say �I work for a big organization� or �I�m in a B2B company� or some other excuse. Heck, if Raytheon can do real-time content creation, so can you!

What are some of your favorite tools for social media, content or real time marketing? What about measurement tools?

My blog is my best content tool. �After nearly a decade and close to 1,000 posts, I get great results from my blog. But I personally love Twitter and Instagram. Those are my real-time tools.

Let’s play word association. I’ll mention a social network, and you reply with the first word that pops in your mind:

Facebook � billion people!
Google+ – fast growing
Vine – movement
LinkedIn – professional
Twitter – instant
Snapchat – fad
YouTube � bigger than tv
Instagram � love it
Pinterest � hmm�.
MySpace � what?

Thank you David!

What are your favorite social networks: for business? For personal use?

Photo source: Shutterstock

Facebook Now Lets You Search Your Posts & Status Updates In Graph Search

Facebook announced the launch of searching your posts and status updates within graph search.

Facebook said, “Today, Graph Search will include posts and status updates.” With this, you “will be able to search for status updates, photo captions, check-ins and comments to find things shared with you.”

I personally tried this, and it is not active for me yet:

But when it does become available, you can search for topics like [Posts about Dancing with the Stars by my friends] and you’d see this:

Other search commands that let you search Facebook posts and status updates include:

Posts by my friends from last monthPosts written at The White HousePosts I commented onMy posts from last year

For more on this feature, see the help center at Facebook.

Related Stories:Facebook�s Graph Search Expands To All US English UsersFacebook Graph Search Fully Rolled Out To All US English UsersFacebook�s Graph Search Then & Now: What�s ChangedFacebook Graph Search Arrives To Challenge Google, Yelp, Foursquare & OthersFacebook Graph Search: The Good, The Bad, The UGLY!Optimizing For Facebook Graph Search: SEO Meets SocialUp Close With Facebook Graph Search

Online Marketing News: Forbes Cashing in on Native Ads, Google Ads Starring You, Top Tech Trends for 2014

Birthday Emails #Infographic �This email client solution provider conducted research involving more than 180 B2C brands�including retailers, restaurants, manufacturers, travel and hospitality, and nonprofits�shows that there�s plenty of opportunity for brands to delight subscribers with best wishes on their special day. Check out the stats and tactics below to learn the who, what, when, why and how of birthday emails. Exact Target

Can Cameo Make Two-minute Movies as Addictive as Vines? � With Cameo, your movies can be two minutes long, but no shot can last for longer than six seconds. The principle is inspired by Vine, and the lessons it learned early on: that the attention span of the average person is pretty short. The Verge

IBM Researcher Can Build a Detailed Personality Profile of You Based on 200 Tweets � The breakdown is based on��psycholinguistics,� or analysis of word choice, and includes 41 traits. Business Insider

Top Content Marketing Tactics for 2014 � B2B marketers’ confidence in content marketing continues to grow; content marketing usage rates are up from last year; and, not surprisingly, marketers with a documented content strategy are having the greatest success, according to just-released research. Read how marketers rate Social Media, On-site Articles, Blogs, Events, Case Studies, Videos and more. MarketingProfs

Oracle Adds Leading Content Marketing Platform Compendium to Eloqua Marketing Cloud � Compendium�s data-driven approach aligns relevant content with customer data and profiles to help companies more effectively attract prospects, engage buyers, accelerate conversion of prospects to opportunities, increase adoption, and drive revenue growth. Oracle

Forbes BrandVoice Accounts for 20% of Total Ad Revenue � BrandVoice, which launched three years ago as AdVoice, is a big-ticket service that allows brands to contribute ad-labeled content that, if it works right, behaves the same way editorial content does. It appears in the same content streams and gets bumped to ‘most popular’ content modules and social trending lists if it performs well. Folio

Google’s New Ad Star: You � The search giant will soon have individual names and profile photos pitching products, across its sites as �shared endorsements.� The move encourages word-of-mouth marketing but is already raising privacy alarms. You can easily opt out, however. The Wall Street Journal

Content Marketing Director: Top Marketing Job of 2014 � And, according to HubSpot�s 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report, companies that clearly define marketing and sales roles in relation to content marketing, experience a significantly lower customer acquisition cost than those that don�t have this in place. CommPRO

Gartner: Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2014 � Mobile devices, mobile apps and the Internet of everything. Forbes

Five Examples of Brands That are Nailing Pinterest � Three year-old social site Pinterest has over 70m users, and according to a study by Shareaholic, Pinterest is driving more traffic to publishers than Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit and Google+ combined. Check out these retailers getting it right. eConsultancy

The Complete Guide to Twitter Etiquette � A comprehensive guide to Twitter etiquette (or Twetiquette), so you can look your best on social media. Mashable

BtoB to Merge with AdAge in 2014 � The move reflects the growing overlap between B2B and consumer strategies as both grow more focused on targeting and engaging specific customer groups. BtoB

Want To Find Brand Ambassadors? Start With Your Employees � The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, a trust and credibility survey that collects data from more than 30,000 people, found that regular rank-and-file company employees have more credibility than executives. This news represents a fantastic opportunity for employees with direct contact to your company�s customer base to become vocal advocates. Forbes

5 Provocative and Daring Marketing Campaigns in 2013 � More and more companies are starting to embrace multi-channel marketing, touching consumers on many levels at once. The best modern marketing campaigns make use of current events, popular culture, and emotions. Let�s look at 5 of our favorite boundary-pushing marketing campaigns from 2013. Marketo

14 Google Tools You Didn’t Know Existed � Now that the industry has written eulogies for Google Reader, it’s a good time to remember that Google has an abundance of other resources that may not be as popular but still deserve a spotlight. Mashable

Interesting Partnership Between Bing and Klout � Search is one of the most common ways that information about you is discovered by other people. �Snapshots� on Bing enables anyone who�signs up on Klout�to verify and manage how they appear in Bing search results, based on their public social network profiles. Search Engine Land

Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear In Retailers � Retailers used to think they had customers in the bag, coaxing them inside stores by enticing them with specials. Now, thanks to mobile shopping programs, competitors can match or beat a store’s prices�even as customers are standing in its aisles. Check out Lee�s post about it. The Wall Street Journal

Survey: 100 Most Beloved Brands � APCO surveyed 70,000 consumers in 15 major international markets about 600 of the world�s biggest brands to arrive at its top 100 rankings. Interestingly, the Washington, D.C., firm�s study measured eight emotional feelings people have toward brands: understanding, approachability, relevance, admiration, curiosity, identification, empowerment, and pride. Do you agree with brands that made the cut? Marketing Pilgrim

From the Online Community

On “Marketing Automation Essentials for Small Businesses,” Stefan Krafft said �I really do like this post and a fully agree that the time has come for SMB companies to take advantage of the technology behind it. The obstacle is, as you clearly pointed out producing relevant content. However I recommend everyone to get started right away even though they only have got one or two pieces of good content. Why? Because you learn will you�re taking your first baby steps in this field and that will give more knowledge about how your audiences respond to your content. From there, it�s much easier to take the next step. There is one solution out there which actually allows Marketers to get started with Marketing Automation without any cost what so ever.�

On “8 Questions About B2B Content Marketing You Really Need the Answers To,” Matthew White said, �Good point about content objects/assets vs outcomes and experience. Repeatedly, I’m surprised by how much timeliness and relevance trump quantity and sometimes even quality, as with images. Keeping existing content – including those images – up-to-date and engaging is becoming more and more important.

�If you’re not focused on outcome and experience, it’s easy to count content assets with tally marks.�

On “Content Marketing Tactics That Work: eBooks,” Barbara Mckinney said, �Great insight. Thanks for sharing these tips. If done right, eBooks can be key tool in your painless prospecting efforts.�

What’s Your Take?

Are Google Sponsored Endorsements a big deal? Are your employees your number one brand ambassadors? What do your tweets say about you?

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

3 Key Ways B2B SEO Impacts Demand Generation Efforts

Pardot recently announced the launch of their 2013 State of Demand Generation Report, surveying 400 B2B buyers and 138 B2B companies to get insight into their demand generation habits and best practices.

As the concept of demand generation takes greater hold in online marketing discussions, here are critical points B2B SEO professionals need to consider, based on select research highlights and evolving trends.

What Is Demand Generation?

Demand generation as a concept is meant to cover all marketing initiatives that drive awareness of a company and it's products and solutions. Demand generation is sometimes confused with lead generation, but the latter is more focused on building the sales funnel and arguably places less relevance on initiatives that are not directly related to that effort (such as brand development).

image Credit: Online Demand Generation – Strategy and Metrics

Here are a few popular definitions of demand generation:

Demand generation covers all marketing activities that create awareness about your product, company and industry. It includes a mix of inbound and outbound marketing. via LeadFormixFocused on targeted marketing programs, demand generation drive awareness and interest in a company's products and/or services. Predominant in BtoB marketing, demand generation marries marketing programs and structures sales processes. via DemandGenReportCreate, nurture, and manage buying interest through campaign management, lead management, marketing analysis, and data management. via Eloqua

SEO plays a key role in demand generation initiatives because of the significance of organic search traffic and leads as a percentage of total inbound marketing efforts. I would also argue that a B2B SEO strategy can gain even more traction when marketers take into consideration link building and social media impact in outbound sales efforts as well (example: link placement in tradeshow sponsorships or 301 redirects when using "marketing friendly" promotional links).

In Pardot's launch of their demand generation Report, three key findings highlighted the announcement and should catch the B2B SEO professional's attention.

1. Search Engines (Google) Dominate First Phase Research

Finding: 72 percent of product research for a future business purchase begins on Google.

While this finding is a major boon for B2B SEO professionals a critical component to continued strategic buy-in for SEO is performance metric development. As illustrated in a recent MarketingSherpa article, even though organic search can be a significant contributing channel for lead volume, a fair percentage B2B marketers are skeptical of SEO in particular. Google's recent move to encrypted search by default, rendering all keyword traffic "(not provided)", certainly complicates measurement as well.

Ray "Catfish" Comstock just wrote a column on moving forward with SEO in a "(not provided)" world and I've also talked about performance measurement late last year.

At a high level, evolving benchmarks SEO professionals need to consider include:

Developing multiple levels of conversion goalsIntegration of lead scoring universally and specific to SEO leadsWeb traffic performance measurement and comparisons between channelsIntegration of Google and Bing Webmaster Tools report evaluation, especially when considering significant "(not provided)" traffic percentages.

Bottom line: inbound marketing analysis of search engine performance is an even greater component of significance for SEO professionals. "(Not provided)" is an inconvenience but doesn't really restrict our ability to demonstrate impact of SEO initiatives.

2. Content Must Be Optimized Across Buying Stages

Finding: 76 percent of buyers prefer different content at each stage of their research.

I've been a proponent of content marketing for quite some time, but content solely for the sake of SEO is short-sighted. Marketers have a better understanding of the fact that content marketing assets need to be built with multiple goals for lead development in mind.

SEO professionals can be more valuable in the research and measurement components of content marketing development, regardless of its place in the sales funnel.

For example, Google Webmaster Tools report on search queries provides SEO professionals with insight into phrases visitors used to find content marketing assets on site. This data can be used to make more informed decisions on new content assets to create and SEO performance of optimized pages as well.

IMG webmaster-tools-impressions.png

Coupling this information with conversion metrics in Google Analytics or marketing automation solution provides a more complete picture of SEO, content marketing, and ROI.

For content assets meant more for brand awareness, SEO professionals can tie in inbound link reports (such as Google Webmaster Tools) and reporting data from social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I wrote about the advancement of reporting elements in social media platforms in a recent blog post as well.

3. Technological Innovation Creates Opportunity & Challenges for B2B SEO

Finding: 76 percent of the top 17 SaaS companies are already using marketing automation.

While this finding might not have significant face value to B2B organizations outside of this industry niche, what's important for B2B SEO professionals to takeaway is that marketers are gaining greater access to information related to buyer behavior. Technological innovation puts every marketing program into the spotlight for scrutiny in effectiveness.

B2B SEO professionals need to stay aware of the vendors developing new resources for marketing performance management, gaining at least high level understanding of features and functionality. Destinations for research directly related to Search Engine Watch include ClickZ's Stats and Tools section, ClickZ Intel for white papers across marketing disciplines, and the Online Marketing Institute.

Final Thoughts

Demand generation is a concept B2B SEO professionals need to understand because of the impact (or lack of impact) we can have in the process. While tactical SEO is a given, taking ownership of performance initiatives around the success of demand generation initiatives, with an emphasis on organic search, is also important.

Are your SEO initiatives coinciding more closely with broader demand generation initiatives? I would love to read your perspective via comments below.

The SES agenda focuses on aligning paid, owned and earned media to help you drive quality traffic and increase conversions.

SES Chicago is coming up!Book your pass to SES London
3 keynotes, plus over 60 sessions Super Saver rate ends Nov 1

AOL Races Past Google to Becomes Top U.S. Video Ad Property

The latest data from the comScore Video Metrix service shows that AOL's acquisition of Adap.tv, which was completed in early September, enabled AOL to leapfrog over Google to land in the top position among video ad properties.

AOL not only topped the list of online video ad properties for September, it also served up 3.7 billion video ads – the largest number by a single property ever recorded by comScore.

"This is the first public data combining both Adap.tv and AOL as one unit, and these results reaffirm the significance of the acquisition and speak to the bright future that lies ahead in video," said Ran Harnevo, the SVP of Video at AOL as well as the co-founder and CEO of 5min Media, and Amir Ashkenazi, the CEO and founder of Adap.tv in a post on the AOL Blog.

Their blog post includes other recent news and data:

At AOL's first-ever Programmatic Upfront, five of the top six media holding companies committed to programmatic ad packages with AOL in 2014.Adap.tv was also named by IPG's MAGNA GLOBAL unit as its preferred video technology platform, accelerating the agency's client successes across digital, mobile, and linear television.AOL has recently announced partnerships with content brands like ESPN, Discovery and The Wall Street Journal.AOL has launched several popular series including "#CandidlyNicole", which features Nicole Richie, and "Hardwired", which features Justine Ezarik (a.k.a. iJustine), which have raked in a combined 23 million views to date.AOL is seeing a 32 percent increase in video views year-over-year, compared to 17 percent growth for the overall industry.

Harnevo and Ashkenazi conclude: "From investing in video advertising to syndicating short-form premium content to launching original programs with well-known talent, we have built a complete solution that brings together both content and technology, arming every edge of the ecosystem with what is needed for the next generation of video."

Other Notable Findings in the comScore Data

In September 2013, 188.7 million Americans watched 46 billion online content videos in September, while the number of video ad views totaled 22.9 billion.

87 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.The duration of the average online content video was 5.1 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.Video ads accounted for 33.3 percent of all videos viewed and 3.5 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

In September 2012, 181 million U.S. Internet users watched more than 39 billion online content videos, while video ad views totaled 9.4 billion.

85 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.The duration of the average online content video was 6.4 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.Video ads accounted for 19.3 percent of all videos viewed and 1.3 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.Top Video Content Properties by Unique Viewers

In September 2013, Google sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube, ranked as the top online video content property with 165.4 million unique viewers. Facebook ranked second with 67.2 million viewers, followed by AOL with 61.8 million, Microsoft sites with 49.2 million, and NDN with 49.1 million. Forty-six billion video content views occurred during the month, with Google generating the highest number at 16.2 billion, followed by AOL with 976 million, and Facebook with 975 million.

In September 2012, Google sites ranked as the top online video content property with 150.3 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo sites with 57.4 million, AOL with 53.8 million, VEVO with 50.3 million, and Facebook with 46.4 million. More than 39 billion video content views occurred during the month, with Google sites generating the highest number at 13.1 billion, followed by AOL with 741 million.

Top Video Ad Properties by Video Ads Viewed

In September 2013, Americans viewed more than 22.9 billion video ads. As reported above, AOL assumed the top position for the first time with 3.7 billion ad impressions following its acquisition of Adap.tv. Google sites came in second with 3.2 billion ads, followed by BrightRoll Platform with 2.8 billion and LiveRail.com with 2.6 billion.

Time spent watching video ads totaled 8.5 billion minutes, with AOL delivering the highest duration of video ads at nearly 1.7 billion minutes. Video ads reached 55.4 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 133.6 times during the month.

In September 2012, Americans viewed 9.4 billion video ads, with each of the top five video ad properties delivering more than 1 billion video ads. Google sites ranked first with 1.8 billion ads, followed by BrightRoll Video Network with more than 1.3 billion, Hulu with 1.2 billion, Liverail.com with more than 1.1 billion, and Adap.tv with 1 billion.

Time spent watching video ads totaled 3.4 billion minutes, with BrightRoll Video Network delivering the highest duration of video ads at 681 million minutes. Video ads reached 51 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 60 times during the month.

Top YouTube Partner Channels by Unique Viewers

The September 2013 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channel VEVO maintained the top position in the ranking with 47 million viewers. Maker Studios climbed into the second spot with 33 million unique viewers, followed by Fullscreen with 34.5 million, NBC Entertainment with 29.8 million, Warner Music with 25.4 million, and ZEFR (formerly MovieClips) with 22.5 million.

The September 2012 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channel VEVO (48.8 million viewers) maintained the top position in the ranking, followed by Warner Music with 24.4 million. Maker Studios climbed into third position for the first time with 23.5 million viewers, followed by Machinima with 22.7 million, and Fullscreen with 21.2 million.

The SES agenda focuses on aligning paid, owned and earned media to help you drive quality traffic and increase conversions.

SES Chicago is coming up!Book your pass to SES London
3 keynotes, plus over 60 sessions Super Saver rate ends Nov 1

3 Key Ways B2B SEO Impacts Demand Generation Efforts

Pardot recently announced the launch of their 2013 State of Demand Generation Report, surveying 400 B2B buyers and 138 B2B companies to get insight into their demand generation habits and best practices.

As the concept of demand generation takes greater hold in online marketing discussions, here are critical points B2B SEO professionals need to consider, based on select research highlights and evolving trends.

What Is Demand Generation?

Demand generation as a concept is meant to cover all marketing initiatives that drive awareness of a company and it's products and solutions. Demand generation is sometimes confused with lead generation, but the latter is more focused on building the sales funnel and arguably places less relevance on initiatives that are not directly related to that effort (such as brand development).

image Credit: Online Demand Generation – Strategy and Metrics

Here are a few popular definitions of demand generation:

Demand generation covers all marketing activities that create awareness about your product, company and industry. It includes a mix of inbound and outbound marketing. via LeadFormixFocused on targeted marketing programs, demand generation drive awareness and interest in a company's products and/or services. Predominant in BtoB marketing, demand generation marries marketing programs and structures sales processes. via DemandGenReportCreate, nurture, and manage buying interest through campaign management, lead management, marketing analysis, and data management. via Eloqua

SEO plays a key role in demand generation initiatives because of the significance of organic search traffic and leads as a percentage of total inbound marketing efforts. I would also argue that a B2B SEO strategy can gain even more traction when marketers take into consideration link building and social media impact in outbound sales efforts as well (example: link placement in tradeshow sponsorships or 301 redirects when using "marketing friendly" promotional links).

In Pardot's launch of their demand generation Report, three key findings highlighted the announcement and should catch the B2B SEO professional's attention.

1. Search Engines (Google) Dominate First Phase Research

Finding: 72 percent of product research for a future business purchase begins on Google.

While this finding is a major boon for B2B SEO professionals a critical component to continued strategic buy-in for SEO is performance metric development. As illustrated in a recent MarketingSherpa article, even though organic search can be a significant contributing channel for lead volume, a fair percentage B2B marketers are skeptical of SEO in particular. Google's recent move to encrypted search by default, rendering all keyword traffic "(not provided)", certainly complicates measurement as well.

Ray "Catfish" Comstock just wrote a column on moving forward with SEO in a "(not provided)" world and I've also talked about performance measurement late last year.

At a high level, evolving benchmarks SEO professionals need to consider include:

Developing multiple levels of conversion goalsIntegration of lead scoring universally and specific to SEO leadsWeb traffic performance measurement and comparisons between channelsIntegration of Google and Bing Webmaster Tools report evaluation, especially when considering significant "(not provided)" traffic percentages.

Bottom line: inbound marketing analysis of search engine performance is an even greater component of significance for SEO professionals. "(Not provided)" is an inconvenience but doesn't really restrict our ability to demonstrate impact of SEO initiatives.

2. Content Must Be Optimized Across Buying Stages

Finding: 76 percent of buyers prefer different content at each stage of their research.

I've been a proponent of content marketing for quite some time, but content solely for the sake of SEO is short-sighted. Marketers have a better understanding of the fact that content marketing assets need to be built with multiple goals for lead development in mind.

SEO professionals can be more valuable in the research and measurement components of content marketing development, regardless of its place in the sales funnel.

For example, Google Webmaster Tools report on search queries provides SEO professionals with insight into phrases visitors used to find content marketing assets on site. This data can be used to make more informed decisions on new content assets to create and SEO performance of optimized pages as well.

IMG webmaster-tools-impressions.png

Coupling this information with conversion metrics in Google Analytics or marketing automation solution provides a more complete picture of SEO, content marketing, and ROI.

For content assets meant more for brand awareness, SEO professionals can tie in inbound link reports (such as Google Webmaster Tools) and reporting data from social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I wrote about the advancement of reporting elements in social media platforms in a recent blog post as well.

3. Technological Innovation Creates Opportunity & Challenges for B2B SEO

Finding: 76 percent of the top 17 SaaS companies are already using marketing automation.

While this finding might not have significant face value to B2B organizations outside of this industry niche, what's important for B2B SEO professionals to takeaway is that marketers are gaining greater access to information related to buyer behavior. Technological innovation puts every marketing program into the spotlight for scrutiny in effectiveness.

B2B SEO professionals need to stay aware of the vendors developing new resources for marketing performance management, gaining at least high level understanding of features and functionality. Destinations for research directly related to Search Engine Watch include ClickZ's Stats and Tools section, ClickZ Intel for white papers across marketing disciplines, and the Online Marketing Institute.

Final Thoughts

Demand generation is a concept B2B SEO professionals need to understand because of the impact (or lack of impact) we can have in the process. While tactical SEO is a given, taking ownership of performance initiatives around the success of demand generation initiatives, with an emphasis on organic search, is also important.

Are your SEO initiatives coinciding more closely with broader demand generation initiatives? I would love to read your perspective via comments below.

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AOL Races Past Google to Becomes Top U.S. Video Ad Property

The latest data from the comScore Video Metrix service shows that AOL's acquisition of Adap.tv, which was completed in early September, enabled AOL to leapfrog over Google to land in the top position among video ad properties.

AOL not only topped the list of online video ad properties for September, it also served up 3.7 billion video ads – the largest number by a single property ever recorded by comScore.

"This is the first public data combining both Adap.tv and AOL as one unit, and these results reaffirm the significance of the acquisition and speak to the bright future that lies ahead in video," said Ran Harnevo, the SVP of Video at AOL as well as the co-founder and CEO of 5min Media, and Amir Ashkenazi, the CEO and founder of Adap.tv in a post on the AOL Blog.

Their blog post includes other recent news and data:

At AOL's first-ever Programmatic Upfront, five of the top six media holding companies committed to programmatic ad packages with AOL in 2014.Adap.tv was also named by IPG's MAGNA GLOBAL unit as its preferred video technology platform, accelerating the agency's client successes across digital, mobile, and linear television.AOL has recently announced partnerships with content brands like ESPN, Discovery and The Wall Street Journal.AOL has launched several popular series including "#CandidlyNicole", which features Nicole Richie, and "Hardwired", which features Justine Ezarik (a.k.a. iJustine), which have raked in a combined 23 million views to date.AOL is seeing a 32 percent increase in video views year-over-year, compared to 17 percent growth for the overall industry.

Harnevo and Ashkenazi conclude: "From investing in video advertising to syndicating short-form premium content to launching original programs with well-known talent, we have built a complete solution that brings together both content and technology, arming every edge of the ecosystem with what is needed for the next generation of video."

Other Notable Findings in the comScore Data

In September 2013, 188.7 million Americans watched 46 billion online content videos in September, while the number of video ad views totaled 22.9 billion.

87 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.The duration of the average online content video was 5.1 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.Video ads accounted for 33.3 percent of all videos viewed and 3.5 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

In September 2012, 181 million U.S. Internet users watched more than 39 billion online content videos, while video ad views totaled 9.4 billion.

85 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.The duration of the average online content video was 6.4 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.Video ads accounted for 19.3 percent of all videos viewed and 1.3 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.Top Video Content Properties by Unique Viewers

In September 2013, Google sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube, ranked as the top online video content property with 165.4 million unique viewers. Facebook ranked second with 67.2 million viewers, followed by AOL with 61.8 million, Microsoft sites with 49.2 million, and NDN with 49.1 million. Forty-six billion video content views occurred during the month, with Google generating the highest number at 16.2 billion, followed by AOL with 976 million, and Facebook with 975 million.

In September 2012, Google sites ranked as the top online video content property with 150.3 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo sites with 57.4 million, AOL with 53.8 million, VEVO with 50.3 million, and Facebook with 46.4 million. More than 39 billion video content views occurred during the month, with Google sites generating the highest number at 13.1 billion, followed by AOL with 741 million.

Top Video Ad Properties by Video Ads Viewed

In September 2013, Americans viewed more than 22.9 billion video ads. As reported above, AOL assumed the top position for the first time with 3.7 billion ad impressions following its acquisition of Adap.tv. Google sites came in second with 3.2 billion ads, followed by BrightRoll Platform with 2.8 billion and LiveRail.com with 2.6 billion.

Time spent watching video ads totaled 8.5 billion minutes, with AOL delivering the highest duration of video ads at nearly 1.7 billion minutes. Video ads reached 55.4 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 133.6 times during the month.

In September 2012, Americans viewed 9.4 billion video ads, with each of the top five video ad properties delivering more than 1 billion video ads. Google sites ranked first with 1.8 billion ads, followed by BrightRoll Video Network with more than 1.3 billion, Hulu with 1.2 billion, Liverail.com with more than 1.1 billion, and Adap.tv with 1 billion.

Time spent watching video ads totaled 3.4 billion minutes, with BrightRoll Video Network delivering the highest duration of video ads at 681 million minutes. Video ads reached 51 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 60 times during the month.

Top YouTube Partner Channels by Unique Viewers

The September 2013 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channel VEVO maintained the top position in the ranking with 47 million viewers. Maker Studios climbed into the second spot with 33 million unique viewers, followed by Fullscreen with 34.5 million, NBC Entertainment with 29.8 million, Warner Music with 25.4 million, and ZEFR (formerly MovieClips) with 22.5 million.

The September 2012 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channel VEVO (48.8 million viewers) maintained the top position in the ranking, followed by Warner Music with 24.4 million. Maker Studios climbed into third position for the first time with 23.5 million viewers, followed by Machinima with 22.7 million, and Fullscreen with 21.2 million.

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Bing Gives IE11 Users A Quick Look At The Top Search Result With New “Pre-Rendering” Feature

Bing released a new search feature today that “almost instantly” renders the associated page of the top search result when clicked. With the goal of providing a “faster end-to-end search experience,” the new “pre-rendering” feature is currently available only to IE11 users.

According to the announcement, this update follows a series of recent updates by Bing to minimize the search completion time, staring with Snapshot released in June of last year. The company rolled out its�auto-suggest “Ghosting” feature in February, claiming it speeds up search time by 16 percent, reducing both clicks and typing time.

Bing also referenced the auto-suggest updates it released in May, along with the expanded list of categories the search engine added to its auto-suggest feature.

Bing says that a majority of search tasks are devoted to:

The kind of research that requires multiple queries and visiting multiple pages – either to find exactly the right one, or because the task itself requires additional digging in multiple locations.

Bing’s pre-rendering feature was designed to reduce the number of tasks needed to complete a “typical search” by using an IE11 pre-render tag that, “Automatically downloads and renders the top result page in the background” without wasting a user’s bandwidth and battery life.

Bing recommends website owners leverage the pre-render tag for their web pages, “To boost your own visitors’ experience with your site.”

Is Bing's Siri Partnership and Page Zero Feature an SEO Game Changer?

Bing is making more strides. Last week they redesigned the Bing search experience. They continued on that enhanced search experience continues with the release of iOS 7 last week. One of the little-reported new features of iOS 7 is Bing has now become the back-end for web searches using Siri.

Bringing the "outside the search box" experience to the latest version of Apple's operating system is exactly what Bing is about. Results appear right within the Siri screen. There's no need for an external browser.

There's also a new Bing app for iPhone. With homepage tiles, the Bing for iOS experience becomes more natural and user-centric. Buttons enable quick sharing to Facebook or Twitter. You can even take a quick screen-shot of a search result, image result or the Bing homepage image. A new menu allows you to quickly tap for other Microsoft products like Office Mobile, SkyDrive and OneNote for iOS.

The Siri integration and new iPhone app are part of Bing's larger initiative to provide useful doing, instead of just searching.

One of the new features released in the redesigned Bing is a feature called Page Zero. Page Zero truly sums up the Bing mantra of "Bing is for doing." Combining autosuggest with Snapshot information and action buttons, Page Zero allows you to find what you want and take next-level actions right from the search box.

Powered by its Satori back-end, Bing suggests auto-completions as you type, returning suggestions in 400 milliseconds. Some of those autosuggestions contain a right-facing caret. Hovering over that caret icon displays snapshot information and – in many cases – action items.

For example, a search for sports teams turns up a brief description, logo and links to news, videos, tickets and recent scores. Searches for celebrities yield similar results, replacing actions with images, videos and biography information. Some actors even have a link for their filmography. All of these results happen without even clicking. In some cases, the first suggestion contains the Page Zero experience when you haven't even completed the query.

As webmasters, this becomes a powerful tool and makes that ranking for that "first page" all the more challenging. Bing's Page Zero takes SEO to a whole new level. Search Engine Watch reached out to Bing asking if anything webmasters can do to see their brands and products get included for the Page Zero experience.

"Bing selects content which consumers have proved to find trusted and engaging, and the best way for brands to be found by Bing and connect with consumers is to provide good, relevant content," said a Microsoft spokesperson.

But what about Schema.org and other microformat data? The Microsoft answer was straightforward.

"While schema.org helps us understand entities, it does not play a role in rankings," Microsoft's spokesperson said.

Webmasters should take note. Various schema/microformat markup has been sometimes called a "magic bullet" for SEO. In the Bing world, this clearly isn't the case.

What is certain is that Bing's Page Zero experience will change the way users search. Bing market share is increasing and is now the back-end for web searches on Siri, Facebook, Xbox 360, and soon Xbox One. The impact on SEO might not be as instant as a Page Zero result. But Bing's reach is spreading slowly and steadily. Are you ready for it?

<a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&vid=7745c773-8c0a-4363-8567-0ab64f0ef8ba&from=shareembed-syndication&src=v5:embed:syndication:" target="_new" title="Page Zero" data-mce-href="http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&vid=7745c773-8c0a-4363-8567-0ab64f0ef8ba&from=shareembed-syndication&src=v5:embed:syndication:">Video: Page Zero</a>

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Twitter Analytics: A Beginner's Guide

Have you looked at Twitter Analytics? Assuming you don't use any other analytics tools for Twitter, you'll find some very useful information.

Everyone can access this by going to Twitter Analytics and signing in with your usual Twitter credentials. Here's what you can learn from the official Twitter Analytics.

Timeline Activity

In the Timeline Activity section of your analytics, the first thing you'll see is an overview graph of your last 30 days on Twitter.

Next, you will see some basic stats for your tweets including clicks, favorites, retweets, and replies. You can use this section to see which topics resonate the best with your audience and the most popular times you tweet.

If you use Buffer, you can get similar stats in the analytics section of your dashboard with the added bonus of seeing who retweeted your posts.

The two added bonuses for Twitter analytics over Buffer's data is that you can filter your tweets to see just the best ones, and you can export the data to CSV.

Follower Demographics

In the followers section of your Twitter analytics, you'll get some good insights about those who follow you. First, you will see your change in followers over the last year.

Next, you'll see a list of topics your followers are interested in.

This can be helpful in determining whether the audience you are building is relevant to your business. If not, then you need to re-evaluate your Twitter audience building strategies.

Next, you can get see where your Twitter followers are located.

This is especially useful if you have a local business as you want to make sure you're growing an audience in the right region. It can also help if you're trying to determine when to post status updates.

Last, but not least, you can see the gender distribution of your followers and discover who your followers are also following.

If you have less than 10,000 followers, you can learn more about them by running the free Twitter Follower Report on Simply Measured. A few things on the free report include the top keywords in your followers' Twitter bios.

You can also see the top time zones your followers are located within.

And your followers with the most followers.

If you want to see your Twitter growth over a longer period of time, try TwitterCounter. If you subscribe to a premium account, you can see your follower growth for up to five years.

You can even add a competitor's Twitter account to see how your follower growth stacks up to theirs.

Website Analytics

Last, but not least, Twitter analytics allows you to add your website to see analytics in relation to tweets of links from our website in the websites section. To set up your Twitter website analytics, just click on the Add Website button, add a piece of code to your website's header tag, and verify. Then you will be able to see the following.

This graph shows you the number of tweets including your URL for the past 30 days. The chart below shows the individual tweets plus popularity data (favorites, retweets, and replies). You can use this section to see your top engagers on Twitter.

In addition to seeing those who tweet links from your website, you can see the tweets that get clicks under the Link Clicks section.

If you want to learn more about tweets for content on your domain, you can also try a search on Topsy for your domain.

If you want to know what tweets drive the most traffic and conversions on your website, sign up for a premium account to the Campalyst Tweet Lookup Plugin. This Google Chrome extension will allow you to see individual tweets within your Google Analytics account by looking at the referral paths under the t.co referrer. It basically turns the ugly t.co URLs into real tweets.

The only unfortunate part about using this plugin / extension is that it doesn't pull historical data, so you will have to wait for new tweets to start generating traffic to your website before you will see extended information about them.

Do you find Twitter's official analytics useful? Please share your thoughts and alternative Twitter analytics tools in the comments!

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Google AdWords Third-Party “Review Extensions” Start Rolling Out To All Accounts

In June, Google announced the beta release of Review Extensions which allow advertisers to append a quote of endorsement from a reputable publication in their AdWords ads. Today, these Review Extensions will begin to roll out to all AdWords accounts.

You should see the Review Extensions option under the�Ad extensions�tab in your account within the next few days. The blurb you include in your ads can be a paraphrased review or an exact quote from the publication. Review Extensions can take a few days to be approved.

Google recommends setting one Review Extension at the campaign level for greater flexibility and exposure. You can submit more than one review, but only the first one to be approved will run. Also, campaign level extensions are given higher priority than ad group level extensions, so they are reviewed more quickly.

The review should focus on your business as a whole instead of a specific product or service — in the same way the starred reviews for ecommerce merchants are seller reviews rather than individual product endorsements.

Note: Review extensions can display along with all other extensions except offer extensions.

To learn more about how Review Extensions work, read our earlier post:�New Review Extensions In Google AdWords: What You Need To Know

Mobile Trumps Desktop in Paid Search Click Share [Study]

The Search Agency released its State of Paid Search Report today to show the climate of online search advertising in Q3 2013 and year-over-year (YoY). Overall, data showed advertiser investment in paid search is up about 21 percent YoY, and mobile trumps desktop when it comes to paid clicks in both Google and Bing.

(Note: The data in this graph is represented in index form, not absolute value.)

Advertisers are spending more. Cost-per-click (CPC) is up overall on both the Google and Bing networks YoY (references to Bing include the combined search marketplace of the Yahoo-Bing search alliance).

While CPC on Google and Bing was up across all devices, the Bing marketplace saw the largest lift YoY in CPC for smartphones (25.2 percent), tablets (14.9 percent), and desktop (20.9 percent).

Driving the marketplace is click share by device, showing desktop waning YoY on both Google and Bing networks. For the first time in the State of Paid Search Report's history, data showed smartphones and tablets made up more than one-third of total clicks on Google.

Bing also showed tablet and smartphone clicks growing at the expense of desktop YoY.

Product Listing Ad spend specifically increased 27.9 percent YoY.

(Note: The data in this graph is represented in index form, not absolute value.)

And according to the report, PLA click-through rates are up 48 percent YoY, while the CPC decreased about 25 percent.

In addition, clicks on PLAs from smartphones increased dramatically YoY to a 21.4 percent share from a negligible amount in Q3 2012.

For more data, including information on paid search performance by category such as business to business, consumer services, financial services, real estate and construction, health care, retail and ecommerce, and travel and leisure, download the report here.

 Search by the NumbersSearch Revenues Hit $8.7 Billion in First Half of 2013U.S. Paid Search Spend Continues Rising in Q3 2013Product Listing Ads Click-Through Rate 21% Higher Than Text Ads [Study]

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Google Images: Search By Image Not Working For Many

Google’s Search By Image feature is currently not functioning for many searchers.

The search by image feature allows a searcher to take an image from their computer or plug in an image source URL into Google Images and Google will return related images, with web pages that may have more information about the image. The feature launched in June 2011 and has been a pretty big hit since.

Now, it appears, that many searchers who are trying to use it are being sent away. When you upload an image, Google returns the message “The image must be in one of the following formats: .jpg, .gif, .png, .bmp, .tif, or .webp.” Google returns this message even if you do upload an image in those formats.

Here is a picture of me trying this myself today:

A Google spokesperson in the Google forums responded to the complaints this past Friday, saying “The team is aware of the issue and is currently working on a fix. Things should be back to normal soon.” As of this morning, the issue is still around for many.

Related Stories:Up Close With Google�s Search By Image: Hits, Misses & MoreBing: Here�s 7 Ways Our Image Search Is Better Than GoogleGoogle Launches Streamlined Image SearchNew: Find Animated GIFs In Google Image Search, Images With Transparent BackgroundsGoogle Updates SafeSearch Filter In Image Search

Microsoft Takes Its ‘Bing It On’ Campaign To The UK, Where Google Has Royal Grip On Search

Hey search engine users in the UK, Microsoft wants a few minutes of your time.

The company this week launched its “Bing It On” campaign in the UK, inviting searchers to compare its search results directly against Google’s. Microsoft is challenging Google’s seemingly unassailable status as the king of search there. Google, which has an estimated 65 percent of the US search market share, has an even tighter grip in the UK, with an estimated market share between 85 and 90 percent.

But Microsoft seems to be undaunted by that.

In launching Bing It On this week, the company pointed to a recent study of 1,000 British adults which skewed in Bing’s favor:

Despite having used Google�s own top queries, after carrying out 10 searches, 53% of people surveyed picked Bing search results more often, 34% of people picked Google results more often, and 13% of people chose Bing and Google results an equal number of times.

For the stats geeks, the margin of error is +/- 3% at a 95% confidence level.

Even when you compare it by query, Bing was preferred more often. Out of 10,000 searches carried out, Bing search results were chosen 39% of the time, whilst Google results were chosen 32% of the time and 29% of searches were draws.Google’s UK Search Share Slipping?

In addition to that study, there are reports dating back to late 2012 that Google’s UK dominance is slipping.

Experian Hitwise UK shared data showing that Google’s UK search share had dropped below 90 percent for the first time in five years.

StatCounter currently reports Google with 88.8 percent of the UK search engine market in September — down from 91.4 percent a year ago. It shows Bing rising from 4.3 percent to 6.7 percent in the same period.

Bing & Google Spar Over Bing It On

Bing vigorously defended the Bing It On campaign last week after a professor questioned Bing’s methods and results.

Google’s Matt Cutts shared the study with his Twitter followers, and in extended comments on Google+, said that Bing It On’s “flaws … were pretty obvious.”

Bing behavioral scientist Matt Wallaert responded via blog comments and eventually wrote an article for the Bing search blog defending the Bing It On challenge.

Ultimately, searchers get to decide every day which search engine they prefer and whether Bing’s results are comparable to Google’s. But it seems to me that Google, by spreading the word about that study, is giving the Bing It On challenge even more publicity and legitimacy.

Google Launches Hashtag Search, Shows Google+ Posts On Search Results Page

The integration of Google+ across Google properties continues in a big way today with the launch of hashtag search.

Simply put, if you search Google for a hashtag, you might see Google+ posts using that hashtag to the right of the regular search results.

Google’s Zaheed Sabur announced the new feature this morning on Google+, saying that it’s available initially for English language searches on both Google.com and Google.ca.

The only posts that will show up on Google searches are those that were shared publicly, or shared with you (if you’re a Google+ user). Clicking on one of the Google+ posts leads you to Google+ where the search is reproduced.

By pure coincidence, a Google.com search just now for the #googleglass hashtag showed a Google+ post last night from our founding editor, Danny Sullivan, in the right column. (You can click for a larger version.)

The Google+ posts will scroll automatically, or you can control them manually via the up/down arrows at the top.

Note, too, that Google is trying to pre-empt anti-competitive claims by including links at the bottom to do the same search on other social networks. In this case, my options were to do the same search on Twitter and Facebook. It’s not clear at this point if other social networks (Instagram, Vine, etc.) will be added, or are already able to appear depending on the hashtag being used.

Google Expands AdWords Conversion Window Settings

In a small but significant change, Google is doing away with the 30-day conversion window in AdWords. Now advertisers can customize the conversion window from 7 to 90 days.

Extending the window up to 90 days is good news for marketers whose sales cycles typically take longer than 30 days after an ad click or for those advertisers focused on luring repeat buyers back to the site and want to track performance on that metric.

Advertisers with shorter sales cycles that don’t want lagging conversions to cloud their attribution data, can opt to shorten the window. Some may wish for an even shorter window (Facebook, for example, allows for as short as a one day window), but it’s a step in the right direction.

You can make edits by going to the Conversions tab under Tools and Analysis. As a guide to setting your conversion, AdWords provides a link to the Search Funnels conversion time lag report which shows the time it takes your customers to complete a conversion after clicking on your ads.

 

Targeting Weird Niche Audiences for Links

Want to know an extremely successful strategy to get links and gain rankings? This one is actually a sub-strategy of the "limited edition" link building strategy.

Instead of making huge adaptations to your product or service, make small changes to make the product suitable for a weird niche audience.

The choice of your target audience should be illogical, but you should be able to defend it in the media. The fact that you created a special product specifically for that particular group of people makes you linkable.

Here are a couple of examples:

"New dating site for LARP-ers" (Live Action Role Playing)"Hyundai SUVs for midgets""Unique solar energy service for the Amish""Lingerie line suited for transsexuals""Restaurant leftover timeslot for poor people""Special car insurance for natural blonds""Trendy 'high school' bulletproof vests""Fast food discounts for recently divorced men""Strict celibacy group travel"

Once you've figured out what new audience you're going to address, you can start attracting media attention.

Select various angles from which your story is interesting to different media.

Prepare enough background information for each angle on your website so you're linkable to everybody.

Always try to involve any existing industry specific news sites. These will probably be interested in your explanation on why you see your new audience as an untouched market potential.

If your product has a technical aspect, make sure you're able to explain the inner working and how that appeals to your unique audience. If your storyline can be interpreted as a stance for or against a certain viewpoint (or group), make sure you attract attention from both sides. If possible, try to get a discussion about the ethics of your approach going.

Try to roll out the story within a week or two. This way no one interprets it as yesterday's news and they'll all want their share of the story's momentum.

If you need more time to contact all your preferred media partners, give them scoops under the embargo that they may only launch when the rest of your campaign does. This allows them to prepare the story and allows you to help and them in creating perfect link bait for your website.

Timing is key, but links and ranking are sure to follow.

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Foursquare Gives iPhone Users Real-Time Recommendations & Rolls Out 2 New Search Features

Foursquare announced three new upgrades today. The location sharing app has extended its ‘Real-Time Recommendations‘ to iPhone users, and added two new search features: a ‘Nearby’ button and the ‘Friends at a Glance’ feature that displays most recent check-ins by friends.

According to the announcement, the app’s look and feel has also been updated with, “A simple feed that shows you what’s most relevant nearby, right now.”

While the ‘Real-time Recommendations’ has been available to Android users since August, Foursquare says the feature that makes automatic recommendations is now available to a limited number of iPhone users, with access to it, “Expanding more every day.” The new ‘Nearby’ button, defined by Foursquare as a ‘Right Now’ feature, allows users to see which friends may be closest to their current location.

For the ‘Friends at a Glance’ upgrade, Foursquare says users can go beyond each friend’s most recent check-ins by tapping on their profile to find more details.

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads: 4 Smart Strategies

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) have been available to all AdWords advertisers for several months now. RLSAs are really flexible. As a feature it opens up a lot of potential strategies.

This article will look at some smart strategies evolving for different types of advertisers to give you an idea of what could work for each one. These aren't the only potential strategies for that client type, but hopefully it'll give you a start for how to apply these to your business.

What I want to avoid is telling you what will work. That's akin to telling you what keywords to choose: it'll be different for everybody.

1. High-End Retailer

High-end retailers rely on finding their demographics. If you're willing to spend $5,000 on a sofa, chances are you're also the right person to spend $800 on a lamp.

For these advertisers, repeat customers are key. The fact that they have purchased once is the best possible indicator that they will purchase again.

Use RLSA to bid much more aggressively for existing customers. If they're searching again for a different item you carry, you absolutely want to be present and you can expect a better conversion rate than from everybody else.

This strategy is a good starting point for almost any advertiser where repeat customers make up a large proportion of their sales.

2. Subscription Service

Subscription services are unlikely to sell a subscription twice. It can happen, but in reality conversion rates for those users will be much lower, even if they're searching again.

I have Lovefilm and Netflix subscriptions. After I found Lovefilm, I kept searching in the same market for the second, but I wasn't going to get a second Lovefilm subscription.

RLSA here takes the opposite form: reduce bids for people who have already subscribed. They (probably) don't need it again.

Some subscriptions are more complex. There may be multiple stages (e.g., 1. register for free; 2. pay to subscribe). In this case, as soon as somebody completes the first stage you have their information.

There's no need to spend money on search again. You can save that budget and use much more targeted emails instead.

3. Low-Margin Retailer

A low-margin retailer probably can't afford to spend much per click or bid on expensive head terms. These guys are likely to be competing against Amazon, eBay, major supermarkets, etc.

Once a user has visited the site however, a whole new world opens up. That's a user who recognizes your brand now. Somebody saw something compelling enough in your messaging before to click your ad or otherwise visit your site. Take advantage!

Create a new campaign with all the keywords you can't normally afford. There is traffic there. Lots!

It's super exciting if you can get it, and now you can limit yourself to just the subset of users who have engaged with you before. More affordable, better conversion rates. Great!

4. Comparison Shopping

Finance (and many other markets) involve a lot of comparison shopping. These users will visit your site as part of a longer journey including several of your big brand competitors.

Create a new campaign with competitor names as keywords, and bid on it only for users who have visited your site recently. Make sure you don't drop off their shortlist while they're comparison shopping!

4 Things You Can't do With RLSA

Due to certain limitations, there are a few things you can't do with RLSA that you might like to:

You can't tell the user you know them: There are some very real privacy and policy issues at play. If you know that user A just bought a sofa, you can't use your ads to say "Buy this side table, it goes great with your new sofa!" You can (and sometimes should) adjust your ad texts to be more compelling based on what you know about the user, but expect your ads to get disapproved if you start verging close to the line. Don't tell them what you know.You can't remarket to people from a year previously: There is a limit of 180 days on these lists. That's a shame. A compelling case for remarketing on display is for services that renew once per year, like insurance. That's out of play for search, you simply can't hold people in your lists that long. Sorry.You can't use them with Product Listing Ads: This is annoying. Several good use cases for RLSAs involve ecommerce websites. But the best ecommerce ad format is incompatible. I have no idea if we can expect this to change soon, but it seems an obvious connection to make. Keep your eyes peeled.You can't see the stats separately: You can't segment search queries (or quite a lot of other helpful data, frankly) by audience. This is a problem because a negative keyword for one might not be appropriate for the other. This is an argument to keep your RLSA targeted ads in a separate campaign, so that you'll get entirely separate search query reports for each.

The SES agenda focuses on aligning paid, owned and earned media to help you drive quality traffic and increase conversions.

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Google Keyword '(Not Provided)': How to Move Forward

Without a doubt, Google's recent changes make performance reporting less accurate. SEO professionals and marketers no longer have the raw data that we once used to measure SEO results. We will need to use different KPIs and trending metrics to approximate the data that is now lost.

However these changes aren't a surprise. It has been widely assumed by the SEO community for some time that this change was going to happen (although few expected it to be so soon).

Google isn't the only company making "secure search" a priority. Browsers such as IE10, Firefox 14+, and Mobile Safari have put measures in place to mask keyword referral data.

Fortunately, many SEO professionals and organizations have been preparing for this eventuality. It starts with having a solid plan in place to report on data that we know historically has a high correlation to the success that we were once able to directly measure.

The good news is, unlike Google's Panda and Penguin updates, this change doesn't affect our approach to optimization for the most part other than performance reporting (with the exception of being able to use analytics data for keyword research).

As Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts has said: "Succeeding in SEO will be the same as it's always been if you're doing it right – give the users a great experience."

By developing user-centered content that is valuable and informative, and publishing to the web using best practices, you will see positive business results – assuming that you're coupling that with other SEO best practices.

Let's dive into a new approach to SEO performance reporting using the metrics we still have in conjunction with a couple new KPIs. This extrapolation should provide quite accurate organic search performance results and allow you to understand if you're successfully driving more visits based on your optimization activities.

Understanding the Background

To SEO and digital marketing professionals alike, the "(not provided)" or "keyword unavailable" issue has been going on since late 2011. Since that time, Google has been redirecting a growing number of users to a secure page for their search activity (https://www.google.com). The end result is that all search referring data that traditional analytics tools have used to understand which keywords drove visitors from Google is now blocked.

When Google initially launched their secure search, many marketers began seeing that a percentile portion of their keyword data in Google Analytics fell into a "(not provided)" category. In fact, Google estimated at that time that keyword unavailable searches wouldn't exceed 10 percent.

Get Powerful Analytics Insights at SES Chicago 2013:Tracking the Untrackable with Google AnalyticsBig Data Uncovered: How to Gather, Analyze and React to New Customer BehaviorSEO in the Boardroom: Leveraging Relevant MetricsSee the full agenda.

Initially, a searcher had to be logged into one of their respective Google accounts in order to produce any sort of keyword "(not provided)" data. This meant that referring keyword data was no longer being fully displayed in analytics as Google aimed to provide their users an amount of privacy when searching.

However, the percentage of organic search keyword traffic coming from keywords that were "(not provided)" grew steadily in past years, to the point that many sites were accumulating more than 50 percent of keyword "(not provided)" data (and in some cases upwards of 80 percent or more).

Things changed again in late September when Google rolled out major changes toward encrypting search activity altogether. Now, when any user goes to Google to search they are automatically redirected to the https:// version of Google or, an SSL encrypted search.

This update only affects organic search data. Paid search data from Google continues to report on keyword referrals.

There is no doubt that secure search will be the trend going forward and we should assume for the sake of planning and scalability that keyword referral data is a thing of the past from an analytics perspective.

What the Loss of Keyword Data Really Means

Quick summary:

Changes only affect how we measure and report SEO performance.Organic traffic from Google can no longer be tracked at a keyword level via analytics.There will be a limited amount of keyword referral data available in Google Webmaster Tools.No longer have visibility into traffic numbers:Brand / Non-Brand.Long-Tail Performance.By Keyword Group.Decrease in visibility for new keyword opportunities based on analytics data.We need to use a different metric set to understand SEO performance.We should expand the number of keywords we check rankings for in Google that correlate to high performance URLs.

Again, SEO still works the same way. But, not having keyword performance data affects SEO practitioners and digital marketers in two distinct ways.

1. How to Measure Success and Performance

SEO professionals have historically used a combination of ranking, traffic, and conversion metrics as the primary KPIs to measure SEO performance.

Now, based on the new Google change, the following metrics are still available:

Overall Organic Search Traffic By EngineTotal conversions from Organic Traffic / By URLSearch Rankings for Critical TermsSearch Rankings by Page Tags / TypesSearch Rankings by Keyword Tag

These are no longer available:

Year-Over-Year Brand / Non Brand Total SEO TrafficYear-Over-Year SEO Traffic by Keyword TagConversions by Keyword / Keyword TagKeyword Traffic Patterns by URLLong-Tail Keyword Traffic Patterns2. How to Research Keyword Opportunities in the Era of "Keyword Unavailable" Performance Data

This is a much smaller issue but still deserves attention. Historically, analytics data has been an excellent source of uncovering additional keyword opportunities and long-tail permutations that had a propensity to drive traffic. However this data was used largely in conjunction other keyword data sources like:

Google Keyword PlannerPPC / Paid Search DataCompetitive AnalysisIntuitive Understanding of the Market / User PersonasThird Party Tools (SEMRush, Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker, etc.)

Going forward, greater emphasis will be placed on these data sets as the foundation of keyword research, especially PPC impression data, which will be the most accurate source of information to identify opportunity.

How to Report on SEO Performance if Keyword Data is '(Not Provided)'

What KPI set should be used as the primary gauge of SEO success going forward? Earlier we identified the historical KPIs we've used to measure SEO success as well as which of those KPIs are still available.

Let's take a more detailed look at how to use data that's still available, and which other KPIs you should incorporate into your reporting methodology. Below are four primary metrics to measure search performance going forward.

1. Total Organic Search Visitors

This will still be your primary metric. "Did traffic go up or down in comparison to a previous time period and is that change substantial relative to our goal?"

Unfortunately, because brand and non-brand segmentation of this traffic is no longer feasible, it's less clear if SEO efforts were primarily responsible for a shift in performance or if it was mainly due to a shift in demand across keywords that have remain consistent in ranking. This is especially true for brand related searches where typically a company will rank number one for their brand.

Therefore any change to brand traffic levels aren't usually considered a result of SEO activities when the ranking doesn't change for the brand terms. This isn't as true for large companies that have multiple brands or sub-brands where they are less likely to own the number one spot for all brand related terms.

2. URL Level Traffic

Although we can no longer see the keywords that drive traffic to a website from Google, we can see what pages that traffic lands on. By identifying the pages that drive the most organic search traffic to the site and correlating which keywords those pages are ranking for, we can correlate changes to both traffic and rankings to see if we can identify positive or negative changes.

In many cases this will be difficult since we no longer have visibility into the keywords driving traffic (with the exception of Google Webmaster Tools data). However, we can get greater context around these traffic and ranking numbers by analyzing them in conjunction with the Google Webmaster Tools keyword data.

A sample SEO URL performance reporting structure might look like:

URL: http://www.example.comTotal Traffic:Last Period: xxxxCurrent Period: xxxxChange: +/- xxxxKeyword 1:RankingsLast Period: #4Current Period: #1Change: +3TrafficLast Period: xxxCurrent Period: xxxChange: xxx(traffic numbers only if they exist in GWT)Keyword 2:   RankingsLast Period: #10Current Period: #6Change: +4TrafficLast Period: xxxCurrent Period: xxxChange: xxx(traffic numbers only if they exist in GWT)ETC3. Use Webmaster Tools

You can still get keyword referral data in Google Webmaster Tools. It also gives you impression versus click data so you have visibility into the keywords people are using and where your site got an impression in the search results. Note that this data isn't 100 percent accurate and is typically only available for a relatively small overall percentage of search queries for most larger companies.

Comparing keyword traffic volumes over time will give you a trending direction for your SEO program, especially for competitive non-brand keywords.

Therefore, using this data in conjunction with the other data points as part of a trending performance report will show the effects of the SEO program. This will be especially telling when coupled with the URL level traffic and rankings for those keywords that have data in Google Webmaster tools.

Since the number of keywords reported on is not comprehensive and the data is not 100 percent accurate, the analysis of the data derived from GWT will be considered trending data and is a KPI that will need to be considered in conjunction with total traffic, URL traffic, and search rankings in order to form a comprehensive view of the overall effectiveness of the SEO program during any particular time period.

4. Search Rankings

Search rankings will actually gain in importance (contrary to what Google has historically said they want) because of this update since marketers can no longer see which keywords have driven traffic to their site. Therefore, it will be important to check rankings for keywords that have historically driven traffic to your site since you won't be able to directly measure changes in traffic levels for those keywords anymore. Analyzing ranking changes across keywords that have historically driven traffic will now be a critical tool in identifying and reacting to negative traffic changes.

It will also be important to carefully track which URLs are ranking for which keywords in order to correlate ranking changes to traffic changes. This insight will allow us to better understand what is happening to traffic at the URL level.

Using these four primary data sets in conjunction with one another can help you develop a comprehensive overview of your SEO performance and begin to answer questions about what happened and why.

Here are four additional data sets that will add context to the four primary metrics:

5. Use Google Adwords

AdWords impression data can be used in conjunction with Google Keyword Planner data to identify new keyword opportunities.

6. Look at Non-Google Keyword Data

While Bing and Yahoo don't provide nearly the amount of traffic that Google does, insights can still be made about the keywords that are driving traffic to your site, in particular at the URL level. This is especially true for those sites that have a significant amount of traffic.

7. Look at Historical Data and Trends

You still have all your historical keyword data in your analytics platform prior to this secure search update. This data will be extremely valuable for identifying campaigns and keywords that have consistently been performing well. This is important information for keyword opportunity identification standpoint as well as understanding URL level traffic trends.

We're now using page-level data in conjunction with ranking data to understand performance changes (since we don't know exactly what's happening anymore in terms of which keywords are driving traffic and which keywords have declined in traffic).

By researching historical trends for the URLs that are being reported on, you can get a better idea of the keywords that have historically driven traffic and whether those keywords were primarily brand or non-brand keywords. This allows you to better understand the cause and effect of traffic changes to those URLs.

Historical data also gives insights into the seasonality of your market. This allows you to better understand the potential causes of performance changes.

8. Google Trends

Google Trends can give you insights into what is trending and thus what is bringing you traffic (especially as it relates to understanding how your brand traffic might be performing).

Summary

Using data analysis to understand and identify performance changes is critical for SEO professionals so that they can quickly and effectively respond to negative changes, prioritize resources and accurately report performance to executives and other team members.

In the past, keyword level analytics data has been the focus of this type of analysis and therefore has been critical in accomplishing these goals. In the absence of this data, based on the new Google changes, new metrics will need to be prioritized for these purposes.

While these new metrics aren't as accurate as keyword level data, they do provide a solid alternative to understanding SEO performance.

 Learn More: "(not provided)"Securing the Future of SEO: Global Brands & 5 '(Not Provided)' SolutionsGoogle '(Not Provided)' Keywords: 10 Ways to Get Organic Search DataWhat '(Not Provided)' & Google Hummingbird Mean for Small Business SEOAfter '(Not Provided)' & Hummingbird, Where is Google Taking Us Next?Keywords, and #Hashtags, and Hummingbird! Oh My!

The SES agenda focuses on aligning paid, owned and earned media to help you drive quality traffic and increase conversions.

SES Chicago is coming up!Book your pass to SES London
3 keynotes, plus over 60 sessions Super Saver rate ends Nov 1

Google AdWords Third-Party “Review Extensions” Start Rolling Out To All Accounts

In June, Google announced the beta release of Review Extensions which allow advertisers to append a quote of endorsement from a reputable publication in their AdWords ads. Today, these Review Extensions will begin to roll out to all AdWords accounts.

You should see the Review Extensions option under the�Ad extensions�tab in your account within the next few days. The blurb you include in your ads can be a paraphrased review or an exact quote from the publication. Review Extensions can take a few days to be approved.

Google recommends setting one Review Extension at the campaign level for greater flexibility and exposure. You can submit more than one review, but only the first one to be approved will run. Also, campaign level extensions are given higher priority than ad group level extensions, so they are reviewed more quickly.

The review should focus on your business as a whole instead of a specific product or service — in the same way the starred reviews for ecommerce merchants are seller reviews rather than individual product endorsements.

Note: Review extensions can display along with all other extensions except offer extensions.

To learn more about how Review Extensions work, read our earlier post:�New Review Extensions In Google AdWords: What You Need To Know

Bing Gives IE11 Users A Quick Look At The Top Search Result With New “Pre-Rendering” Feature

Bing released a new search feature today that “almost instantly” renders the associated page of the top search result when clicked. With the goal of providing a “faster end-to-end search experience,” the new “pre-rendering” feature is currently available only to IE11 users.

According to the announcement, this update follows a series of recent updates by Bing to minimize the search completion time, staring with Snapshot released in June of last year. The company rolled out its�auto-suggest “Ghosting” feature in February, claiming it speeds up search time by 16 percent, reducing both clicks and typing time.

Bing also referenced the auto-suggest updates it released in May, along with the expanded list of categories the search engine added to its auto-suggest feature.

Bing says that a majority of search tasks are devoted to:

The kind of research that requires multiple queries and visiting multiple pages – either to find exactly the right one, or because the task itself requires additional digging in multiple locations.

Bing’s pre-rendering feature was designed to reduce the number of tasks needed to complete a “typical search” by using an IE11 pre-render tag that, “Automatically downloads and renders the top result page in the background” without wasting a user’s bandwidth and battery life.

Bing recommends website owners leverage the pre-render tag for their web pages, “To boost your own visitors’ experience with your site.”

Google Images: Search By Image Not Working For Many

Google’s Search By Image feature is currently not functioning for many searchers.

The search by image feature allows a searcher to take an image from their computer or plug in an image source URL into Google Images and Google will return related images, with web pages that may have more information about the image. The feature launched in June 2011 and has been a pretty big hit since.

Now, it appears, that many searchers who are trying to use it are being sent away. When you upload an image, Google returns the message “The image must be in one of the following formats: .jpg, .gif, .png, .bmp, .tif, or .webp.” Google returns this message even if you do upload an image in those formats.

Here is a picture of me trying this myself today:

A Google spokesperson in the Google forums responded to the complaints this past Friday, saying “The team is aware of the issue and is currently working on a fix. Things should be back to normal soon.” As of this morning, the issue is still around for many.

Related Stories:Up Close With Google�s Search By Image: Hits, Misses & MoreBing: Here�s 7 Ways Our Image Search Is Better Than GoogleGoogle Launches Streamlined Image SearchNew: Find Animated GIFs In Google Image Search, Images With Transparent BackgroundsGoogle Updates SafeSearch Filter In Image Search

Google Images: Search By Image Not Working For Many

Google’s Search By Image feature is currently not functioning for many searchers.

The search by image feature allows a searcher to take an image from their computer or plug in an image source URL into Google Images and Google will return related images, with web pages that may have more information about the image. The feature launched in June 2011 and has been a pretty big hit since.

Now, it appears, that many searchers who are trying to use it are being sent away. When you upload an image, Google returns the message “The image must be in one of the following formats: .jpg, .gif, .png, .bmp, .tif, or .webp.” Google returns this message even if you do upload an image in those formats.

Here is a picture of me trying this myself today:

A Google spokesperson in the Google forums responded to the complaints this past Friday, saying “The team is aware of the issue and is currently working on a fix. Things should be back to normal soon.” As of this morning, the issue is still around for many.

Related Stories:Up Close With Google�s Search By Image: Hits, Misses & MoreBing: Here�s 7 Ways Our Image Search Is Better Than GoogleGoogle Launches Streamlined Image SearchNew: Find Animated GIFs In Google Image Search, Images With Transparent BackgroundsGoogle Updates SafeSearch Filter In Image Search