So, what does comScore say this time?

In the graph above, you will see that Google, Bing and Yahoo had 66%, 15% and 14% of the search market share respectively in February 2012 (read the official report here).

For a little background on the comScore numbers, you can consult my previous blog post or check out their official word here, but as I’ve said before, they seem to go to incredible lengths to get valid, representative data — unlike me, who just has a spreadsheet featuring data from 69 websites.

Last time, I speculated that the inflated organic search visits from Google that I observed could have been due to traffic from Search Influence, since everyone here uses Google and we’re always viewing SERPs relevant to our clients (and likely clicking without regard). Since then, we have installed filters on every Analytics account that blocks data collection from Search Influence’s static IP address. In spite of this, the results were pretty much the same.

We no longer have access to 4 of the 73 (a random number… you get tired after 73 exports) Analytics accounts that we had access to in September of 2011. In spite of that, we still have an approximately 450,000 visit sample, and the sites that we lost were a very small percentage of the visits from last time. Out of that many visits, in a wide variety of industries, Google has an 88% share of search.

Why? DOES ANYONE KNOW WHY!? I still don’t know. I do believe that the comScore numbers are probably accurate, but I can’t think of many reasons outside of coincidence that our numbers differ from theirs so much. Maybe Google under-reports referrals from other search engines? Maybe we optimize solely based on Google results and our clients rank best in Google, therefore we don’t get a representative share of visits from Bing and Yahoo? That would ostensibly seem to hold water, but there are very few differences in SEO for Bing and Google that I know of.

The data is from Feb 1, 2012 – March 2, 2012 (to match the number of days of the September data). As you can see below, directories, health and beauty and non-profit make up a significant portion of the industries represented. Even if you remove the directories data from the mix, though, the numbers are approximately the same.

So once again, does anyone have any ideas why this information doesn’t mesh with comScore reporting? I’d truly love to hear your feedback on this issue. If anyone has any data they would like to contribute, that would be great — but even better would be a tool to extract GA data on a massive scale so that we could have more representative information.

You can go here to see the data.

1. Mapping the Mobile Future, Apple To Drop Google Maps for In-House Creation — Marketing Pilgrim

A permanent split between Apple and Google is on the horizon. In a key test of the company’s post-Jobs era leadership, Apple is planning to do away with Google Maps on their devices to make way for an in-house project. They’ve vowed to stick with the familiar “cleaner, faster, and more reliable” design strategy, but there are bound to be some surprises — check out this article for all the information that’s available right now.

2. How to Get Your Site Indexed Before it is Even Launched — Search Engine Journal

There many excellent reasons to get your site indexed before it goes live, but it takes a skillset to make sure you’ve built traffic, buzz and email marketing lists before launch. Don’t take a hit in the search engine rankings because your site is brand-new: follow the advice in this post to hit the ground running.

3. Time is on Your Side — Bitly

A social network has complex, unpredictable behavior patterns by its very nature, but the folks at Bitly are starting to uncover some interesting trends when it comes to viral events. They set out to determine the best time to publish content that is intended for viral distribution and have come to some fascinating conclusions, so read on before you start your next campaign.

4. Are You Setting Up WordPress For SEO Success? — SEOMoz

Optimizing WordPress pages can be a frustrating chore. Plugin and theme crashes can set anyone back, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth your effort. This blog post delves deep into WordPress to give you some tips on how to optimize your site effectively.

5. 8 Common Twitter Questions from Small Business Owners — Small Business SEM

Any small business can benefit from Twitter, even if you don’t think your customers are on social networks. Connecting with bloggers, journalists and other influencers can help raise your exposure and search rankings. Here are answers to eight common questions that small business owners have about Twitter.

Barry Schwartz’s article at Search Engine Land was interesting because it contains some insight from a Google spokesperson about the warnings people are receiving in Google Webmaster Tools. The spokesman says rather than it just being the effects of Google going after paid blog/link networks, it is Google choosing to report about these issues more so than in the past.

Carson Ward’s post on SEOmoz was especially insightful as it was from the point of view of a self-identified reformed link network spammer. This post gives a highly thorough run down of paid blog networks and identifying posts from them, the webmaster tools unnatural link warning and the best way to apply for reinclusion, and basic advice on how to build a more natural link profile going forward.

Norma Rickman’s post at redmenacemarketing.com has a message of staying calm and chugging along. It goes a bit further in the advice for building a natural link profile by detailing several safer sources of link building. Her ideas on using sources like social bookmarking, Youtube, and guest posting on blogs while maintaining a diverse set of anchor texts are definitely something to take a look at.

While there are many more great posts out there on this subject, I felt that many of them had too much of an alarmist tone to them. It is true that these warnings are cause for any webmaster to be alarmed but it doesn’t mean that panic and overreacting should occur. The best thing that you can do if you are currently dealing with the unnatural link warning issue is to keep a clear head. Do some research and try to get a broad understanding of the situation and how to tackle it before starting the sky-is-falling routine.

But for people who make and play with sites, an elderly browser can create massive design headaches. The people who hate IE6 the most are website programmers. The quality assurance department that has to send tasks back to the worktable because of IE6 also hate it. And really, on some transcendental level, everything that has gone extinct because of natural selection should resent it, because IE6 is proof that people are willing and capable of prolonging the lifespan of something that, left in the wild, probably would’ve died out.

But I digress.

Every website programmer who works for a company has probably had to, at one point or another, spend a stupid amount of time on an IE6-specific fix, because, in social terms, IE6 is not hip or relevant. It doesn’t understand the new terminology and slang that younger browsers bandy about with ease. It does the best it can, but it needs to be catered to and pampered. It needs its own stylesheet (those other browsers can share one), and in the world of IE6, those darn tootin’ whippersnappers can just go fly a kite; IE6 will be IE6, and it’s way too late to teach an old dog new tricks.

Because — and here’s the shocker — if you teach it new tricks… it upgrades to IE7.

So are we going to whine IE6 into submission?

The thing is about angry programmers is that they can come up with spiteful, vengeful solutions. Recently, I found a WordPress plugin that will intentionally crash a person’s browsing session if he is using IE6; while that titillates the seething jerk itching under my skin, it’s a fairly invasive and unprofessional response to someone’s personal preference. Nobody can MAKE anybody upgrade their browser, no matter how frustrating it may be to walk by and see a stodgy citizen cautiously wading through the Internet one slow click at a time.

So the real answer is this: let them do as they will. Let them use their antiquated browsers to their heart’s content.

But let the companies and powers that shape the Internet stop enabling them. We need to be more selective when deciding to put unnecessary programming time into making an site Internet Explorer 6 friendly. Unless your site caters to clientele who are apt to stick to IE6 and older browsers, you may be wasting time and money for your web designers and yourself.

Let’s take a look at a site’s analytics and see if it was worth the hour spent here and there on Internet Explorer specific fixes.

Look at the numbers to make your decision.

We’re looking at a total of 907 visits to this website. We would like to note that 22 people were using Internet Explorer 6. We don’t want to discount that ONLY 22 people took a gander at the site; all 22 could end up being paying clients, and that could (though unlikely) be better than the traffic from other browsers.

Now let’s take a look at the average amount of time those 22 people actually spent on the website.

Yes. You are seeing that the 22 people who were using Internet Explorer 6 to visit your website stayed on average 5 seconds. That’s about enough time to look at your home page and decide that it’s just not their cup of tea.

There’s admittedly the chance that this site has not been configured to be functional in IE6 and that the confusing mess turned these visitors away (though, just to be honest and more vindicative, that possibility doesn’t hold true in this case because I worked on this site and it looks fabulous in IE6). But if you end up getting billed for even just two hours on IE6-specific fixes, you’re probably not really benefiting from the work.

And look. Really look. IE6 can’t render pretty things.

Other things that will probably sway your decision to support IE6 or not is that Google and YouTube don’t want to old browsers — that is, not just IE6, but outdated versions of Mozilla as well. This means that eventually, Google Maps and Youtube videos will not load well (or at all) in outdated browsers. With no directions or videos to idle the time away, maybe they’ll give in to the inevitable and finally upgrade.

IE6 also does not support transparency for PNG images, and if you created your site images recently with Mac, you may have those all over your site. If you’re really concerned about making your site beautiful in IE6, you might have to consider spending some extra time to have all your images switched over to old-school (and lower-quality) GIFs, or spend even more time on hacks and fixes that aren’t really worth the headache.

Making your site functional in IE6 may not take a lot of time, and if your code is sensible and clean from the start, you may never really have to worry about a massive failure. However, if your site is old, or multiple people with completely different styles have worked on it, or if you want to dandy your site up with all the fancy, flashy toys of today, you may end up with a fantastic mess that’ll take a lot of time and effort to fix… in just one browser, for 22 people, who only looked at your site for 5 seconds.

Take the time to research your audience. Decide if IE6 is a priority. And if it isn’t, please — save yourself some money and effort, and let your web designers do something more impactful with their time.

With the recent updates made by Google, over-optimization of your site could come back to haunt you. Google does not want to reward sites with “webspam” any longer. This article will let you know how to navigate the changes Google has implemented.

Penguins, Pandas, and Panic at the Zoo - SEOMOZ

Last week, Google released the “Penguin” update to stop over-optimization of websites.  This update has impacted sites in wildly varying ways so far, and this is only the beginning. Here, you can read about the different aspects of the update and get some basic do’s and don’ts for your site.

Google Webmaster Tools Expands Query Data to 90 Days - Search Engine Land

Some good news has come from Google Webmaster Tools this week with the expansion of historical search queries to 90 days and the number of queries reports to 2,000 per day of the selected date range. This article helps you understand these changes and how they’ll make you more knowledgeable about your site.

Using Twitter to Promote Your Brand - Pronet Advertising

Here are a few tips on how to get as much as you can out of Twitter. This pithy social media platform is a key aspect of online marketing that needs to be utilized if you are trying to promote your brand and connect with customers, and this is an excellent starting point if you’re looking to set up an account for your business.

Understanding Google Places & Local Search – Developing Knowledge about Local Search - Blumenthals Blog

The maintenance of your Google Places pages can be hair-rendingly frustrating at times, but intuiting the cause and effect of the system is a big first step. This article explains what the next step would be if your account has been suspended. Google has made some important changes to Places policy which will hopefully make things easier for everyone.

• 6 Ways to Boost Your Rankings Using Google Authorship

Are you using Google Authorship to get your face in the SERPs and increase your authority? If not, you should look into utilizing this handy feature, which links your G+ account with blog posts you’ve authored. Check out this Search Engine Watch post on six ways to capitalize on your newfound notoriety.

• Mobile Navigation Design & Tutorial

If you’re in the process of trying to get your site mobile-friendly, you know that intuitive navigation in such a compressed space is one of the most challenging pieces of the puzzle. Courtesy of Web Designer Wall, here’s some top-notch practical advice on how make all your content available to surfers, with examples from real mobile sites.

• The Layout of Your Discount Page Will Affect Your Sales

Your site’s layout plays a big part in consumer reaction, and the power of the discount is a mighty one when wisely deployed. Learn about the interplay of the two in this useful tutorial from Practical SEO.

• Social Shares: The New Link Building

The social Web is ever-growing, and crafting widely-shared content can promote your brand and increase your authority by leaps and bounds. Ultimately, the best way is the old-fashioned one — invest energy into meeting new people, interacting with your network and making things that are just plain good — and this article offers some web-savvy ways to get the most out of your efforts.

• Why Website Owners Should Be Using Pinterest

New visually-based sharing engine Pinterest is hot, hot, hot right now. In just a handful of months it’s exploded with both an increased userbase and brand-new features, and its potential for growing your brand is sky-high. Michael Gray takes us through some potential applications, including how you can use Pinterest to walk a mile in your customers’ shoes.

1.
How to Seduce Your Readers & Woo – Bait – Links

Link bait has to accomplish a lot, and without the help of bright buttons and testimonials that help landing pages along. If you don’t nail your presentation, you aren’t going to get the results you want and all your effort will be wasted. Develop some strategies that will help you grab attention and hold your readers’ interest.

2.
6 Ways to Boost Your Rankings Using Google Authorship

Google authorship is a hotbutton topic in the SEO world currently — which makes sense, considering how Google wants to merge this with search results in the future. Here are some tips to help you use this tool to create a personal brand while building personal and professional relationships.

3.
35 Beautiful Landing Page Design Examples to Drool Over

What do you need to do to create an effective landing page? Upping your conversion rate is more difficult than ticking off a simple check list of requirements. Here’s a long list of pages that worked and some thoughts on why they worked. While copying a perfect example is no help to anyone, this list is sure to give you some new ideas.

4.
Should Potential Employers be Allowed to Ask an Interviewee for Their Facebook Password?

Have you ever been asked for your Facebook password on a job interview? According to an Associated Press report, more and more companies are requiring job seekers to hand over their account details before they can be hired. If you’re starting a job hunt, you might want to think twice about what you’re posting and what it says about you.

5.
Changes Every SEO Should Make BEFORE the Over-Optimization Penalty Hits

It was recently announced that Google will begin penalizing websites that use “over-optimization” techniques. The gang at SEOMoz is taking a trip to the whiteboard to show you what changes you should be making to avoid consequences from the looming crackdown. Learn about which practices are likely to be targeted and stay out of trouble before the law cracks down.

Brenda Johnson Knows What's Up

I’ve been actively creating and managing Google AdWords campaigns for over five years. In that time, I’ve made a lot of mistakes with everything from keyword selection to match type to ad content. It happens — if no one ever made a mistake on AdWords, we would all be PPC success stories, and that’s certainly not the case. So when I typically see mistakes with sponsored ads, I take a screenshot, write a short heads-up email to the advertiser explaining their mistake, and keep it rollin’. However, over the weekend I came across what could possibly be the worst targeting and most confusing landing page I’ve ever seen on AdWords.

While I was searching for “delaware county oh plastic surgery” (before you start reading too much into this, no, I was not looking for a plastic surgeon. I am quite comfortable with my stout lil’ man-child body), I came across this gem of an ad…

Find the Bad Ad

Pause.

Is that seriously an ad for a Korean plastic surgery clinic showing ads in Middle of Nowhere, Ohio?

You're Doing It Wrong.

Of course, I am not a guy who just assumes people are doing it wrong <cough> bull$#1+</cough>. There could be a large Korean population in the area, with the advertiser attempting to generate business for those who may be travelling overseas. But according to Wikipedia (THE MOST ACCURATE REFERENCE SOURCE ON THE WEB!), Delaware County, OH only has a 0.03% Asian population in the WHOLE FRICKIN’ COUNTY.

So why is BK DongYang Clinic in Korea advertising there? Are they offering ridiculously low surgical and procedure costs? Even if they are (and I doubt it if they really are “Korea’s largest plastic surgery clinic”), what person is willing to pay $3,000 for a 21-hour trip to Korea from Ohio? Add hotel/food and you are looking at around $9,000 for upper and lower abdomen lipo in a foreign country, when you could have similar results for ~$3,000 in practically any city in U.S. Medical tourism is definitely a thing, but hordes of Ohioans sweeping the Korean hospital scene seems too far-off to justify such obscurely-targeted advertisements.

Source: http://ppcmemes.tumblr.com/

Oh, and you know I clicked on the ad. I’ll say this: they deserved whatever the cost per click was for running this thing. Not only was I hit with the most insanely designed page EVER, but they are advertising LITERALLY EVERYTHING on it. I’ve heard of “stack on stacks” but when did “ads on ads” become a part of the search marketing game? Answer: never.

If you are going to spend money on PPC, at least do yo’ research, playa. You need landing pages with clear calls-to-action, not blog tickers, sliding images, blinking icons, pop-ups, and just about every other attention-grabbing web feature under the sun. Seriously, where they do that at?

So why am I upset about this? 

Well, other than terrible ads being terrible, this type of advertising negatively impacts us all. When you have an advertiser who doesn’t understand how match types and geo-targeting work, they can possibly inflate cost-per-clicks in the search auction (yes, I know my click to their ad possibly helped their QS).

Even if CPC doesn’t increase in the auction, fake sponsored ads sow seeds of distrust in searchers. Think about it: if you saw a bunch of terrible ads appear with your search results, you would be less likely to click any ads at all, right? This is ESPECIALLY true for ads that appear on the side. These ads have to compete with highlighted top ads, scrolling map listings, and the unfortunate circumstance of not having an adrank better than their competitors.

So BK DongYang (and anyone else): if you are really “branching out around the world,” hire someone who is AdWords certified! It may cost a little more, but at least you’ll know your campaign is in skilled hands and you should be able to quantifiably see a ROI on your adspend — rather than a blog post by professionals making fun of your campaign.

Whether you are planning to start a paid search campaign for your business or if you’re just trying to understand what your PPC manager is always talking about, Adwords certification is an extremely beneficial feather in your cap. However, don’t think you can just roll out of bed, think “I’ll get certified today!” and pass the test with ease.

To officially become Google Adwords Certified, you must pass both the Advertising Fundamentals exam and one advanced-level exam. Everyone on the account management team here at Search Influence has decided to take on the challenge to get individually certified.  Luckily we have two Google Adwords gurus, Anthony Coleman and Doug Thomas, to answer our never-ending questions while studying.

To make studying easier, Google has set up a Google AdWords Certification Program Learning Center, where you can find “lesson plans” for each Google Adword exam. Reading all the chapters (from start to finish) for each exam may be a bit time-consuming, but very worth it. I highly recommend the interactive e-learning lessons that are scattered throughout the chapters. Most e-learning lessons have quizzes to test your knowledge before taking the actual exam.

The first test is 113 questions with 1 hour and 30 minutes to complete the exam. You must get an 85% on the first test, which cost $50, and you must pass the first exam before moving on to the advanced.  After passing the exams, you are certified for two years.  Don’t worry if you don’t pass the exam the first time: you can always retake it. However, you must pay the $50 fee each time.

VS

You can become a qualified individual or a qualified company within the Google Professional Certification program. To qualify for an Individual Certification, you must pass both the Fundamentals exam and one of the three advanced exams.  Also, you must accept the program Terms and Conditions (which happens automatically by enrolling in the program).  Also, there is no minimum spend requirement to be Individually Qualified.

Doug and Anthony have already qualified Search Influence for a Company Certification. To qualify for a Company Certification, a company must have managed at least a $10,000 spend over 90 days, starting the day the AdWords account is linked to the My Client Center. The company must have at least one individually qualified employee and accept the program Terms and Conditions.

The Google Partner Search tool helps potential advertisers find a Certified AdWords Professional. People enter their estimated budget, along with the type of help they need, then Google compiles a list of certified professionals. Certified Partners receive a badge showing their qualification, while those who are Individually Qualified receive a certificate when they pass the necessary exams.

Tips for Taking the Exam
• Study. This is easy to put off, but during the exam you’ll be asked a question that you would only know if you read the exam learning materials. Luckily, the study materials are broken out according to which exams they’re covered on.

• Take the exam in a quiet area with no distractions. Get out of the house with no family, pets or TV shows to divert your focus from the exam.

• You cannot access any other part of your computer until you have completed the exam. Make sure you save and close everything you have open on your computer because once you start the test, it blocks you out of everything and you can’t pause the timer on the exam.

• One beneficial feature about the exam is that you can mark questions for review and come back to them later. I loved this because if I didn’t know the answer to a question, I marked it for review and moved on to the next.

Google is a tricky minx. I noticed when taking the first exam that some questions have multiple right answers, but Google wants you to choose the best right answer. Watch out for those questions and always go with your gut feeling.
You can sign up here to take the exam. Good luck!

- friend me (f’rend mē): “to give someone access to your profile, wall posts,  information, and photos… including  those pictures taken of you drunk last weekend.”

But how many friends should we have? How many people should we allow to view our profile? Recently, businesses across America are requiring more and more job candidates to provide their Facebook username and password during interviews for employment.  These corporate executives  want to do more than a little digging into these candidate’s personal lives before saying “you’re hired.” You know — just to make sure they don’t belong to a cult, or certain fraternity, or social group, or political party, or gang.  Totally legal right?  But why stop here?  In addition to providing Facebook logins, should these candidates just hand over the keys to their home and give these companies copies of their bank statements and complete medical histories?

Whatever happened to references from previous jobs?  When a job candidate gives a potential employer a list of references, does it give them the liberty to call and ask all the personal and professional questions needed?  Yes, of course. But who needs potentially inaccurate or hard-to-get-a-hold-of references when we have the vast slew of information available in Facebook… right?

According to an August 2011 study by The Atlantic , 45% of employers use social networking sites to screen potential employees, with 29% using Facebook specifically and 26% using Linkedin.  Funny how the statistics are higher for a social site rather than a professional site.

Many employers argue that people interact more on social networks rather than in real life, and viewing their profile will give them a better idea of what kind of person the applicant is outside the interview.  Although this statement may be true, Facebook officials are encouraging job candidates to hold their ground and withhold all private information from potential employers. Even The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has spoken out saying “People are entitled to their private lives.”

In an economy where getting a job is challenging enough, should we just allow businesses to have access to all aspects of our lives, even the ones that aren’t business related?  Or should employers be happy reviewing our resumes, our talents, attributes, and our contributions to their company, and leaving this privacy violation out of it?