Ever since Google launched the Search Query Report in AdWords, advertisers have been using the data to refine and evaluate their current keyword lists, identifying any potential new keywords that they could add into their accounts.

As those of us who use these reports know all too well, when looking at these reports you do see the dreaded “… Other Unique Queries” quite a bit – This is obviously not a real search query ;-)

(For those who want the actual definition it is when Google aggregates the statistics for all outlying queries – i.e. queries that don’t meet their privacy and volume requirements)

Now I know that there have been countless occasions when people have found examples of advertisers simply copying the data out of the reports and into their live campaigns without looking at what they are adding & I even used it as an example of not what to do when I was training a new employee about how to use the reports.

As I was running a SQR this morning I wondered if people had actually taken on board all the talk and mickey taking that had gone on before about simply taking the data without looking at it first. You can see from the screenshot below that the answer is obviously NO.

Now the fact that advertiser number 2 is using Unicode symbols in their Sitelink ad extensions makes me believe that they are not new to the industry and that they do read all the various PPC blogs out there as this is something that has been discussed at great length recently but this then begs the question- did they ignore all the previous stuff about taking all the data from their Search Query Reports?

The Google Search Query Performance report is a great tool to use when looking at what your keywords are doing and what they are matching against but unless you use it properly you can end up looking very silly and being laughed at by the rest of us… You have been warned!

Google started testing Adwords comparison ads last year and subsequently rolled out credit card comparison adverts in the UK during February this year. Typically the adverts have been within the usual top sponsored ad positions in the usual Adwords format at the expense of an advertiser.

But check out this test I spotted earlier today -

You can see a much bigger screenshot here.

As you can see, it allows Google to continue to have the maximum of three advertisers in the top spots for pay per click while still promoting their credit card comparison product aggressively. All at the expense of the algorithmic results, which get knocked right down the page…

Over the past couple of weeks Google have been testing new background colours for their Adwords ads again. Google changed from their usual blue background to a yellow back in 2007 which is what we see predominantly today in the SERPs.

Now it looks like testing time again, I am connecting to a DC with a pink/purple shade background -

And also a much much brighter quite striking shade of blue -

Are you seeing any other colours?

Since I complained about the geo problems in Googles UK SERPS last year, there have been improvements. Some of the generic phrases which I noted had non UK orientated sites (ie. sites that don’t even sell to the UK) in the results have improved significantly.

However, there is still a geo problem in the Google UK SERPs which is more noticable on the longer tail queries (as you might expect). Higher authority domains that don’t target the UK, still manage to overcome the geo filtering and outrank UK targeted websites with more relevant content which from a user experience perspective is simply put, poor.

As SEOs we find ourselves running search queries a lot for clients, but my experience today was as a normal user wanting to buy a product. I am after a Diesel man bag to replace the one I managed to break recently. Hence, I searched for ‘Diesel messenger bags’ -

So lets look at the results that Google.co.uk gave me (without personalisation) -

1. Ebay.co.uk – Ok, cool. But I want to buy brand new and don’t fancy browsing Ebay to look through reputable dealers.
2. About.com – Not really after a content farm.
3. Zappos.com – Doesn’t deliver to the UK!
4. Ebay.com – US Ebay site. I just decided not to buy from the UK site so…
5. Bizrate.com – Don’t really want to buy from a shopping comparison site but I’ll take a look. Oh wait there, it’s the US version anyway.
6. Nextag.com – Same as above.
7. Shopstyle.com – It has handbags in the url and is the US shop…
8. Askmen.com – A blog post, no help as I want to buy, buy, buy!
9. Shopping.Yahoo.com – Diesel handbags for the US market. Great.
10. Rushfaster.com.au – An Aussie site. Got to have an .com.au ranking in the top 10 of Google UK SERPS these days.
11. Ebay.co.uk – Oh FFS, Ebay and their bloody subdomains.
12. About.com – The content farm AGAIN….!!
13. Purseblog.com – AHHH another blog.
14. Thebaglady.tv – At least this snippet is telling me I can buy them at ASOS but its just a product review with aff link!
15. Nextag.com – Seriously, again?
16. Amazon.co.uk – WA-HEY! Finally a UK site that sells Diesel messenger bags! Oh, it’s out of stock though.

Now at this point you feel like shooting yourself in the face right?

Try and refrain from doing that and run the search again. This time, click on the PPC results. I found what I was looking for with the 1st click. The Adwords team must be loving the revenue right now.

I’ll keep this short and sweet.

There has been a fair amount of movement for the search query ‘search engine optimisation‘ in the Google UK SERPs recently. I’ll let you perform your own analysis and work out what’s going on if you haven’t already.

But what can we learn from the state of the results?

1) The power of exact match domains – searchengineoptimisation.org has been ranking consistently in 3rd. searchengineoptimization.co.uk the US spelling is 2nd page. The only real question here, is why Click Consult are not utilising searchengineoptimisation.co.uk which is parked.

2) Link networks, link buying, sponsoring website themes (for wordpress etc) and utilising your own clients to rank for SEO all still work.

3) Hiding links (from users) using CSS is difficult for the search engines to discover.

4) There is still far to much weight placed on anchor text and it makes the SERPS easy to manipulate.

5) SEO hasn’t moved on as far as many believe.

When I first started out in search, it was predominantly working on pay per click campaigns before I gradually started working more and more in SEO before eventually focusing nearly all my time in this area.  Hence, the name of this blog and why some of you who may remember my posts from 4+ years ago they were mainly about pay per click, now they focus a lot more on SEO (I still do PPC today though). I think that grounding in PPC has been a huge benefit in terms of perspective for SEO and its development over the years.

Mindsets

Historically, the mindset of the two separate approaches of PPC & SEO have not always been quite the same. For example, when targeting high volume (often generic) search phrases pay per click marketeers would approach with caution immediately thinking of return.

What are the average CPCs of the keywords, profit margins or KPIs of the client? Does the site have a strong or wide enough range of products or services to achieve a high enough conversion rate to achieve an acceptable level of return on the spend? How has it performed in the past? What are the average conversion rates? Etc.

From an SEO perspective there would be some caution, but some of the more immediate thoughts were always – Is achieving 1st page rankings achievable? Where are they ranking now? What’s their current link profile like? How many days work each month will it require for link building to achieve this?

So perhaps already far less focus on real KPIs. The cost is somewhat detached, so perhaps accountability aswell. But times have changed.

Accountability & Return

I still believe some in SEO have a distinct lack of understanding or at least, sense of accountability of this most basic principle of search engine marketing. Return.

What I love about PPC is it’s transparency and subsequent accountability it holds. With a high degree of accuracy you can see exactly what you are spending, where it’s been spent and the subsequent impact on conversion and ultimately return. Clients expect to see a positive return. They can see exactly what is working, what is wasting them money and how much they are getting in return.

What struck me immediately when I started in SEO years ago was the difference in expectations and accountability. Agencies didn’t provide much more than ranking reports as a measure of performance. Clients didn’t necessarily expect much more either.

This is quite an amazing thing from a PPC perspective. Imagine running a campaign without tracking or delivering a keyword report with just cost and rank. While not completely the same, is it that different? Regardless of the search marketing discipline (PPC/SEO), clients are paying money to achieve agreed business objectives, which should be based on tangible business KPIs.

Increasing visibility (rank) is the core method to achieve these objectives, but is not the end objective. So it should not be the ultimate judge of performance either.

It has taken sometime for SEO to become more accountable in the same way as PPC. Expectations, analytics and SEO have developed hugely over the last few years. The search engines have also evolved with greater personalisation of results meaning that everyone’s SERPs are not always the same. But this should not be the reason why they are no longer a good measure of SEO success, they never were alone, it’s now just another factor to consider. I have never been a fan of made up visibility scores (Web Position, Advanced Web Ranking etc) much either. The only results that matter are conversion and alongside it, analytics data.

The Now

Ranking reports are not dead, just using them as the only measure of SEO performance should finally now be.

The average rankings on the base set of results are still extremely useful (alongside the other key metrics of analytics and conversion data) to guide the campaign. In a similar way to a keyword reports in PPC.

In the past I have seen high rankings and subsequent high visitor volume but very low conversion achieved by SEO judged as a success and that the low conversion was a failure of the site/business rather than the campaign. Something that would just never wash in the world of pay per click. Obviously sites are partly accountable and search marketeers cannot all be conversion rate experts, but the original strategy and implementation for targeting is entirely down to the provider. There is less control in SEO, but the responsibility for targeting and attaining ROI should be the same.

While the disciplines are separate in their approach, the ultimate objectives are the same. The cost might be more detached from the keyword in SEO, but it still costs, either in hiring an agency or time creating content or link building. Some good SEOs have understood this for a long-time, while some are still struggling to evolve from times past and should take heed from some of the grounding PPC can provide.

I’ve been away a while again, so to quickly answer a few of the usual questions – No I am not dead, no the site is not for sale and yes I am still trying to write here, although only when I have time which is not a lot at the moment unfortunately.

Anyway, I don’t normally call out sites for link buying, but I thought this might be a fun one as it’s a search engine. Yahoo seem to be text link advertising on http://www.iagora.com/. From the sites advertising page -

Advertisers on iAgora range from travel sites (i.e. Yahoo Travel) to recruiters who are looking for candidates with international profiles (ie Cisco, P&G), international universities (ie EBS, RBS, ESC Reims) or telecommunications companies (ie Phonevalley).

Now obviously we all know, that when advertising, particularly when you use a keyword rich anchor text like ‘flights’ a link condom should be used.

Surely Yahoo are not paying for a toolbar PR7 link for SEO purposes? :-)  (Yes these links will pass PR and anchor text even with the onClick event).

I particularly like the bingo advert above it which makes it look even more spammy.

This is another subject I have been meaning to discuss that I haven’t seen debated a huge amount openly even though everyone in the industry is aware of it.

Simply checking the UK agencies ranking for ‘SEO’ (as an example) it’s very easy to spot that some of them are using their own clients as a link network to rank for that very term. I am not going to call anyone out or make examples of anyone, they know who they are.

Presumably by doing it they think its fine, so perhaps I can give examples.

Historically web design and development agencies have always left a signature in the form of a hyperlink on client’s sites often in the footer to show who produced the site. This for me is not a problem at all, but is it right for search marketing agencies often acting merely as consultants to do the same?

Do any other types of consultant do this? No. What benefit is this to the client? None. Does it do them any harm? Mmm.

Is It Ethical?

While I am sure most clients are aware of the ‘SEO’ hyperlinks, I know for a fact that some clients are either not aware, or do not fully understand the implications of having the link.

I have also seen cases where the links are hidden extremely well, or hidden completely in a few cases which obviously makes this a little darker as it goes against the search engines guidelines.

Perhaps these clients have been given code to insert on their site as part of their SEO service (a scrolling text box…) with the keyword rich anchor & hyperlink included, perhaps it’s a requirement of the contract or even incentivised as an option for reduced fees, or they have been told that linking out to reputable sources will ‘help them rank’.

I also know some of these agencies hard sell their SEO services off the back of their ranking for the said term to justify to potential clients why they should work with them over the competition. Obviously ranking for ‘SEO’ by using their clients as a link network does not say anything about their actual skills as an SEO agency, but they often pass it off that it does.

There are definitely varying levels of ethicality in this, I believe some agencies are very open about it while some are less so and I am not pointing fingers at anyone in particular. But it does make you think, if some are willing to use their own clients as a link network for no benefit to the client, what does it say about them?

In an industry that is so often criticised for lacking credibility & transparency, does this not simply support these assumptions?

Perhaps some view this as simply a form of advertising similar to web design agency signatures, a clever technique to outrank the competition that is no more than any other type of ‘partner’ (if reciprocal) or supplier link or the incentivised links at least could be seen as no more than a form of paid links you see everyday.

Perhaps some would argue that despite all the criticisms above and questionable ethical nature, if it helps them rank for their desired term it’s clearly worth it in the long-term regardless.

My personal opinion is that everyone involved owe it to their own industry to keep standards as high as possible and in particular for their own clients.

Using your own clients as a link network for your own benefit no matter how you pass it off, to me, is taking advantage of your position. It is of no benefit to the client and it sends out the wrong message about our industry. I certainly wouldn’t recommend anyone work with an agency that uses this technique regardless of how good they might actually be in reality.

It was back at the start of June that a number of SEOs spotted a change in the Google UK search results where by US sites seemed to be ranking unusually high for queries in Google UK. Geo filters have always been fairly strong in Google UK for generic phrases for obvious reasons and many, myself included expected this to change back quite quickly as these fluctuations do happen from time to time.

I have heard some chatter that the results have reverted back, however almost two weeks later I am surprised to say that the geo problems in the UK SERPS still exist. The UK search results are as bad as I have seen them, they are quite simply shocking in terms relevancy for a UK audience. The Google.com results from the UK (IP) have always been more of a half way house between UK/US results and now these results seem to be even more US focused aswell.

I recently asked Matt to comment, but he choose not to respond which is fair enough. It’s difficult to know the cause of this change, a tweak in the geo algo or some have suggested problems with Googles link graph due to a massive UK ISP hack. Lets take a look at some of the results where we can highlight the problem that still exists.

A search for ‘web hosting’ on Google UK brings back a number of US sites in the top 10. Webhostinggeeks.com which compares a load of US web hosting companies with all prices in dollars is 7th. Justhost.com is 8th which may look like a UK site with a quick glance (if you look from the UK as it’s delivering price/phone number by IP) but you can see from Googles cache its very much a US site in their eyes. Webhostingstuff.com again another US site takes up the 10th spot on the 1st page.

The 2nd page of results is much worse and really shows the scale of the issue.

Webhostingsearch.com, Webhosting.info, Findmyhosting.com, Webhostingrally.com, Hostseeq.com, Envisionwebhosting.com and Webhostingratings.com are all US sites now ranking in the UK results.

So out of the top 20 results for ‘web hosting’, 10 of them are US based sites with US prices. That’s 50% of the results with a US bias. Even more scary is that every single one of the sites on the 2nd page is basically an affiliate comparison site.

Sure some visitors from the UK will be willing to pay on their credit card in dollars for a (sometimes) cheaper web host as often people don’t care where it’s hosted.  You could argue (badly) that Google has decided that for this query, UK searchers habits have shown that US sites derserve their positioning as it’s still relevant? Ok, so lets look at another example for ‘flowers‘ -

The first page results are actually not to bad with a lot of UK results. But the 2nd page again is where the problems are obvious. In 15th position there is 800florals.com and just below 1800flowers.com. These are both US sites, with US prices which only deliver within The States and Canada. What exactly are they doing in the UK results? At the same time well known relevant online UK florists such as Arenaflowers, Flyingflowers, Debenhams and Bunches sit below them.

A search for ‘SEO’ on Google.co.uk now pulls back SEO.com a US based SEO agency in 8th position. On the 2nd page we now have Aaron Walls Seobook.com and SEOmoz.org. Both great sites in their own right with good content, but they have appeared from nowhere knocking UK based content further down the listings. It’s not just US sites either, there are some examples of Australian sites ranking higher (not as high as US sites) for generic phrases or for longer tail, less competitive queries.

So the questions are, is this a test? Were these changes made on purpose and are Google working on the issue?  The answers would be no, no and hopefully yes.

While Webmasters and Google UK users are scratching their heads at the poor SERPS, Bings results are looking comparatively much better.

So Microsofts new search engine brand Bing is live in the UK.

I think some negative matching might be required for Bingo PPC advertisers. :-)