Google are constantly changing their search algorithm ensuring that sites providing the best user experience appear at the top of the organic listings. Good content is key, backed up by relevant and authoritative inbound links. Obviously this is an over simplification and in fact there are at least two hundred boxes that need ticking to give your site every chance of appearing at the top of Google, but up until now site speed has not been one of them.

Google made us aware about a year ago that this metric would be added into their algorithm which was further backed up by them adding site performance into webmaster tools which shows how fast your site is compared to other sites. But they have recently made an official announcement on the Google Webmaster Central Blog that they are now including it in their search ranking algorithm.

There is a link within the site performance section of the webmaster tools to a Mozilla Firefox Plugin called Page Speed. Of course this isn’t the only tool available to measure site speed but it is the one that google are recommending and if you click on the help button it takes you to Googles help page so it would be fair to assume that this has been developed by them and as they are the ones that control the algorithm that this is a good tool for the job.

The loading speed of a site has always been important. In the days of dial up connections it was particularly relevant but with the advent of broadband it has been overlooked to a certain extent. But it should be remembered the speed of connections vary enormously especially between cities and the countryside and as more people are using mobile devices to access the web it is once again of the utmost relevance as anyone will know who has tried to access a slow site in an area without a 3G connection. If you combine this with the fact that the speed of your site may well cause you to drop down the search engine rankings then now is the time to optimise the speed of your website.

So don’t wait until your rankings drop because it will take you months to regain them if at all! If you would like any help with increasing the speed of your site then just contact us and we will be happy to help.

Not likely – or at least not yet anyway!

Today Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that they have (finally) completed a 10-year search deal which will help them be more competitive against the giant that is Google. However, they haven’t combined their advertising businesses.

Microsoft Yahoo Partnership

Yahoo! currently has about 20 percent of the global search market, with Microsoft hanging behind with just under 10 percent which leaves Google with the lion’s share of the remaining 70 percent. Many have estimated that Google will begin to lose market share to Microsoft’s Bing as it gains popularity through its visual superiority over Google, however other have argued that if this becomes the case then Google will just match Bing’s template ideas. They have still yet to prove if they do what they do better than Google, all they have shown us so far is that they do it prettier.

The question that now needs answering is what will happen to the search as a result of this partnership? Well, according to Reuters, under the deal announced on Wednesday, Microsoft’s Bing search engine will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search technology for Yahoo’s sites, while Yahoo will be responsible for selling premium search ads for both companies.”

So how long has this engagement taken to come to its happy ending?

• 01/02/2008 – Microsoft makes an offer out of the blue to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion or $31 a share, after two years of rumours of a merger
• 03/02/2008 – Google lawyers announce the buyout will hurt Web innovation
• 04/02/2008 – Yahoo’s Jerry Yang lets the employees know that selling to Microsoft is a possibility
• 11/02/2008 – Yahoo! tells Microsoft ‘where to go’ saying their offer “substantially undervalues” Yahoo!
• 19/02/2008 – Bill Gates announces that they’re not interested in raising the offer for the buyout. Yahoo! releases severance plan details that would take effect after the deal and make it more expensive for Microsoft
• 05/03/2008 – Yahoo! announce and extend deadline for nominating candidates to its board, effectively buying time to come up with an alternative proposal. Rumours emerge that Yahoo are in talks with Google, MySpace and AOL
• 18/03/2008 – Yahoo! release a very healthy revenue forecast for the following two years – basically telling Microsoft “you see, that’s why you’ve undervalued us!”
• 05/04/2008 – Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer gets aggressive and gives Yahoo! a deadline of three weeks to accept the deal on the table or expect Microsoft to start hostile tactics and lower the offer price
• 09/04/2008 – Yahoo! announces it’ll have a trial run of using Google’s ad platform in place of its own for a bit – Microsoft raise antitrust concerns
• 26/04/2008 – Microsoft’s three week deadline expires
• 01/05/2008 – Ballmer announces to its employees that he “won’t go a dime above” what he thinks Yahoo! is worth and is willing to walk away from the deal
• 03/05/2008 – Microsoft increases its offer to $33 a share, Yang retorts by saying they want $37, Microsoft walks away
• 15/05/2008 – Billionaire investor Carl Icahn says he’ll try to oust Yahoo’s board at its annual shareholder meeting if it doesn’t reopen talks with Microsoft and ditch plans to team up with Google.
• 18/05/2008 – The pair get together to have a chat about a more limited deal, however after a month Yahoo announce the talks have stopped
• 12/06/2008 – Google and Yahoo! officially announce a deal to run Google’s ads alongside Yahoo’s search results and some of its partner sites
• 21/07/2008 – Icahn takes back his threat in exchange for three seats on Yahoo! board
• 09/09/2009 – The U.S. Justice Department hires an antitrust litigator to review the pending Yahoo-Google search-advertising partnership.
• 05/11/2008 – Google gets worried and cancels the partnership to avoid a Justice Department lawsuit. Yang can still see a Microsoft acquisition in the future
• 17/11/2008 – Yang steps down as CEO for Yahoo!
• 19/11/2008 – Ballmer washes his hands of the talks and says Microsoft is “done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo!”
• 05/12/2008 – Microsoft hires ex Yahoo! search executive Qi Li to lead its own online division
• 13/01/2009 – Yahoo! hires Carol Bartz to replace Yang
• 10/04/2009 – New reports emerge that Bartz and Ballmer have met about possible deals, including one in which Microsoft would sell advertising on Yahoo’s search pages and Yahoo would manage Microsoft’s display ads.
• 03/06/2009 – Microsoft dumps Live Search and replaces it with Bing
• 29/07/2009 – Microsoft, Yahoo! partnership announced

Now we wonder, is this going to be a marriage made in heaven – or can we expect to see the divorce papers come through shortly?

So Microsoft are trying to change the world again with their new search platform Bing. Apparently it isn’t a search engine anymore it is a ‘decision engine’ so is this offering anything new or are they just trying to reinvent the wheel.

Over the years search is not something that Microsoft have done well and I wonder who is more worried – Microsoft on hearing the news that Google will soon be releasing an operating system Chrome OS or Google when they saw Bing.

At first sight bing has a nice clean interface and I’m sure the use of images will have people setting it to their homepage to see what image they are displaying today, but what is under the hood. Ultimately the success of a search engine is down to the search algorithm and the results it produces which is why Google has such a huge market share (81.22%). Where others put monetisation above results, Google put results above monetisation and stole the market. More recently google have become more and more of a corporate machine and I would suggest that the quality of the search results have suffered leaving the way for other companies to reclaim some of the market share.

I have only just started to use bling and only when I remember to use it, but most of the time I will still type my search into the google toolbar I have installed. Google will be a hard habit to break but the proof is in the eating as they say so why not use this comparison site for a bit, which brings up the results side by side and decide for yourself.

One thing you can be sure of is that anything that keeps Google ‘on their toes’ can only be good for the end user and Microsoft with their huge advertising budget will do that. Microsoft have extensive knowledge in usability and Google have extensive knowledge in search algorithms but the difference between these two is that the first is transparent and the second a closely guarded secret, so whilst microsoft continue to try and make Bing peoples default search engine by its interface and good usability Google will continue to improve their algorithm and then as Microsoft launch new functionality Google will just pick the bits they want and apply them to their search engine.

We also have to ask the question – why Bing? A quick look at the dictionary reveals:

Bing – a heap or pile
Bling – flashy; ostentatious; glitzy

So you decide is Bing just a bing of s***e or just a bit of bling or is it something that can truely challenge Google.

One more dictionary definition for you comes from the urban dictionary.

Enough said I think.