Fresher Search Results

Until now, if you wanted to see the freshest search results, you had to apply a little URL-hack, but now, this feature has become default in the Search Options panel.

Another interesting new feature is the ability to filter results by sites you have already visited and by sites you actually haven't visited yet. This feature only works when you are signed in to your Google account and have your Web History enabled.

Books, Blogs, and News

Google already introduced the ability to just search for books a few weeks ago, so this isn't really a new feature, but the company now also allows users to filter by blogs and news. While you could obviously always use Google News or Blog Search for this, you can now easily toggle back and forth between these sources and stay within the same search interface.

Shopping

Given how hard it has become to do product research on Google, as the search results are often cluttered with shopping sites, the ability to see more or fewer shopping sites is probably the most important new feature here. As Google points out, if you are doing research and aren't ready to buy just yet, being able to tone down the number of shopping sites will be extremely helpful.

For now, this new feature is only available in the United States, though according to a blog post on the Google Book Search blog, the company plans to make this feature "available elsewhere in the future."

There has been quite some discussion about whether this actually turns out to be true, though. Judging from this new study by Summit Media, there really haven't been too many changes to the rankings in Caffeine, though the Summit Media team did notice some interesting differences.

There was no major difference between the kinds of categories of sites Caffeine prefers compared to Google's 'vanilla' search. Caffeine, for example, doesn't give any more weight to price comparison sites than Google's current search infrastructure. One slight difference that the Summit Media study noticed was that slightly more co.uk domain names now appear in searches that originate from the US. The difference there, though, was only minor.

Difference: News Sites

One area where Summit Media noticed a difference, however, was sites that fall into the 'Information,' and 'News' categories. Here, at least for generic search terms, Caffeine shows a bias towards more timely information and seems to punish sites that don't update often and mostly consist of archived material.

Does it Help to Have a Keyword in Your Domain Name?

Summit Media also tested another popular SEO theory: does it help to have your keyword in your domain or page URL? Summit didn't find a difference between the Caffeine and 'vanilla' search results and maybe more importantly, having a keyword in your domain name doesn't seem to make a real difference when it comes to search rankings. According to Summit, only about 6% of all search results on the first three search results pages actually contain the specific keyword in the URL. That's a very small number, and, as the report concludes, it is also "a demonstration that SEO needs to be based on actual research - rather than perceptions over browsing a few pages of results."

Interestingly enough, Ask, a search engine few of us think about anymore, continues to grow rapidly. Compared to last month, the number of searches on Ask grew almost 48%, though the company still holds only about 3% of the search engine market.

All eyes are obviously on how the partnership between Bing and Yahoo will work out. Chances are that Bing will continue to grow over the next few months, but, as Compete's Marko Madjarac points out, Yahoo "will need to bring high-quality advertisers whose sponsored search results generate more paid clicks." While Microsoft's data shows that users are quite happy with Bing, we will also have to wait and see what happens once Microsoft slows down its $100 million marketing campaign for Bing.

Breaking the Habit

According to Weitz, this is why Microsoft decided to brand Bing as a 'decision engine' and not just as a search engine. Microsoft wants to get consumers into the habit of demanding more from a search engine than Google can currently deliver. This explains Bing's current focus on shopping and travel, for example, where Bing generally delivers superior results.

In order to gain more traction in a marketplace that is driven by habit, however, Microsoft also partnered with a number of hardware manufacturers to make Bing the default search engine on new computers, for example. Of course, the ubiquitous marketing campaign for Bing has quickly made the new search engine a household name, though as these survey results show, that alone won't be enough to drive a substantial number of users away from Google if the search results on Bing don't live up to users' expectations.

Bing and Yahoo

So far, this campaign seems to be working well enough. According to comScore, Bing is now close to a 9% share of the search market, up from Live Search's 8% in May. Once Bing also takes over Yahoo's search, these numbers will probably top 25%. It is also important to note that most users already use more than one search engine and are now becoming more and more familiar with Bing.

Another positive sign that the Bing team has noticed is that a growing number of users have started to recommend Bing to friends and family, and when asked to name a search engine, the number of users who bring up Bing unaided has also risen dramatically. As we pointed out last week, Bing Shopping is also growing rapidly.

Demand More

Of course, the Bing team is also not just sitting at home twiddling their thumbs and resting on its laurels. Microsoft will continue to update Bing over the next few months and continue to differentiate itself from its closest competitors.

We agree with Weitz that consumers should probably expect more from search engines than just a simple list of links. We will have to see if Bing will succeed to break most users' habit of just going to Google as their default search engine, but, if anything, it will drive Bing's competitors to stay on their toes and continue to innovate as well.

At its core, this agreement means that Yahoo has given up on its search engine business. Microsoft will be able to increase its market share in the search engine and search advertising market. Yahoo will receive revenue from Bing searches generated on Yahoo's sites and become "the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' premium search advertisers." What remains to be seen, though, is what will happen to Yahoo's investments in interesting search technologies like BOSS and Search Monkey. Integrating these technologies, which are tied to Yahoo's search engine, could prove rather difficult for Microsoft. We will also have to wait and see what's going to happen to Yahoo's search APIs.

If anything, the Yahoo Search team will probably not be too happy to hear Yahoo suggest on its blog that Yahoo used to offer a "great" search experience but that Bing will offer an "awesome" one. In a call earlier this morning, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz announced that some employees from the Yahoo search team will move to Microsoft, while others will move to the display business.

Creating Competition for Google

As we pointed out before, we think Bing is a worthy competitor to Google's search engine, which both Microsoft and Yahoo try not to mention in all their press materials but whose shadow obviously looms large over this deal. Advertisers aren't likely to spend a lot of money on a search engine that only commands less than 10% of the market, but once combined with Yahoo Search, Bing could easily reach 20% or more. At this point, advertising on Bing becomes far more interesting.

In a taped video statement Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer argues that the agreement will bring choice back to consumers (a Silverlight version is embedded below, a WMV version is available for download here). We can't help but note that consumers always had lots of choices with regards to search engines - in the past, most just didn't make the choice Ballmer would have preferred.

It's important to note, though, that neither Microsoft nor Yahoo seem to have worked out all the details of this deal, and that users won't see any changes before early 2010. The companies expect the agreement to be reviewed by industry and government regulators before this.

The Details

Here are the details of the search/ad pact between the two companies, according to this morning's press release:

• The term of the agreement is 10 years;
• Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!'s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;
• Microsoft's Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.
• Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft's AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter's automated auction process.
• Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
• Yahoo! will innovate and "own" the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.
• Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!'s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.
• Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!'s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
• Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
• Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!'s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.
• At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.
• The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

In addition, Microsoft also announced that Bing Shopping saw a 300% increase in visits and Bing Travel saw its traffic grow by 90% month to month (though Bing Travel's image is a bit tarnished by a recent controversy about its design).

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Search Engine Market Share

Advertisers

Overall, the numbers Microsoft cites for Bing's traffic compare well with data we have seen from various web analytics firms, so we have little reason to believe that Microsoft doctored them (though the latest data from Compete is slightly less encouraging for Bing). Microsoft, however, also detailed some data about the results advertisers are seeing on Bing, though we will have to withhold judgment here. It is hard to find hard data about this, and while Microsoft announced that TigerDirect saw its sales and order volume triple, and its conversion rates and average order size "increase significantly," we just don't know if this was a special case or something advertisers saw across the board.

Developers

According to Microsoft, developers are also taking a liking to the Bing API. The number of registered developers doubled last month, and incoming API requests are up 50% since launch.

What's Next?

While Microsoft didn't specify any exact numbers, the fact that far more users are likely to recommend Bing than they were likely to recommend Live Search must be an encouraging sign for the company.

Microsoft didn't specify any future plans in today's post, but we know that Microsoft's biggest challenge is to overcome Google's momentum and to keep users on its service and from switching back to Google.

Maybe this is not a bad thing. Bing clearly excels in some area (travel, health, and shopping, for example) and can easily compete head-to-head with Google when it comes to standard web searches. At the same time, Google's virtual monopoly position in the search arena (even if it's a natural one) wasn't likely to go unchallenged, and wasn't likely to pan out in a positive way for consumers. Now, if we trust these results from Compete's analysis, more users are using a larger variety of search engines instead of just relying solely on Google, which can only be a good thing.

As Rich Devine from ZAAZ points out in the Compete post, some of the early curiosity around Bing was surely driven by Microsoft's marketing campaign around the service. The data, however, also shows that quite a few users are willing to look at alternatives to their favorite search engines.

Not a Typical Week for Search

We have to note, though, that the last week of June was not a typical week for search engines, as the death's of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett drove more users to search engines, and this brought Bing's audience to over 27 million, up from 21 million in the week right after its launch.

As of now, Google's users aren't running away from the service and making Bing their exclusive search engine, and neither are Bing's users completely loyal to their service. In terms of its overall audience, Bing is also still small compared to Google, but this data shows that users might be more willing to explore alternatives than we used to think.

In addition, comScore found that Bing's share of search results pages in the U.S., which it sees as a proxy for overall search intensity, climbed to 12.1%, up from 9.1% from where Live Search was just before Bing launched.

When Bing moved up quickly in the rankings just after launch, we wondered if this was due to a lot of interest in the launch, but it looks like Bing can stand on its own and that Microsoft is doing a good job at retaining new users. Of course, Microsoft's multi-million dollar advertising campaign is surely helping here as well, but the general quality of the search results on Bing is quite impressive. In most cases, it rivals what users can find on Google.

While Google has not confirmed this new search engine just yet, the company's search products chief Marissa Mayer hints that there may have been something like this in the works at Google for some time now: "...we are interested in being able to offer, for example, micro-blogging and micro-messaging in our search. Particularly in Blog Search and possibly in Web Search, but we don't have any particular plans to announce". The Google Operating System blog points to this description used in Google's localization service as further evidence that there is something going on. It is allegedly a phrase that Google wants translated to be multilingual:

"Recent updates about QUERY. This is the MicroBlogsearch Universal result group header text. A Microblog is a blog with very short entries. Twitter is the popular service associated with this format."

This is not proof-positive that Google is developing a microblogging search engine, but it makes sense that they would. Twitter and other microblogging platforms are rich with information could be used to rank messages. Reportedly the search results will appear based on frequently used keywords or current events, but a whole bunch of other factors could play a role in providing relevant results. The number of followers a person has, the author's authority in Twitter's social graph, replies, re-tweets, posting frequency and other stats could be used. We hope Google is paying attention to current microblogging trends and will include those results in any microblogging search engine it may or may not be working on.

Some of this new interest in Microsoft's search engine was definitely driven by curiosity, but unlike other (failed) entries into the search engine market like Cuil, Bing actually delivers as a search engine, which should help Microsoft to retain a good chunk of these users. Of course, Microsoft's $80 million advertising blitz is definitely helping Bing as well, and based on our own experience, it is clear that Bing's marketing and PR campaign is reaching a lot of non-geeks and late adopters who would not typically go out of their way to try a new search engine.

We have to say, though, that our own stats don't corroborate StatCounter's findings. In our own analytics, Bing is barely visible, with Yahoo bringing us at least three times as many visitors. We are, however, not surprised to hear that a lot of users are checking Bing out right now.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Search Engine Market Share

Does Microsoft Still Need Yahoo Search?

If these stats hold up over the next few weeks, it will be interesting to see if we will still hear any chatter about Microsoft acquiring Yahoo's search assets in order to become a bigger player in the search engine market. Today, a combined Yahoo and Microsoft search engine could control almost 25% of the market. In an interview with PC Magazine this morning, Yahoo's CEO, Carol Bartz, argued that Yahoo was not under any pressure to make a deal with Microsoft, and that she thinks that any lift that Microsoft is seeing in the search market right now would only be temporary.

Generally, this works surprisingly well, and the ability to set your location often gives you good local results. At the same time, however, some searches that worked perfectly well on the main Bing site only gave horrificly bad results on the mobile site. A search for "Portland to Newark," for example, will give you results from Farecast on the main Bing site. The mobile version brought up a list of local businesses with the word 'Portland' in their name around Newark, NJ. Of course, Bing only launched a few days ago, so we expect Microsoft to fine-tune these results over time.

For the last few days, I've had Bing as my default search engine in Firefox. After using it for a while, and after adding a few Greasemonkey scripts to enhance its functionality, Bing has really shown that it is a very useful search engine. It is very hard to break the Google habit, however, and if I hadn't set Bing as the default search, I would have probably been heading over to Google instead.

New Ads

In addition to the mobile version of Bing, Microsoft also launched its new advertising campaign for the new search engine, which prominently features Microsoft's core message about Bing: it's not about finding lots of links, but about getting you the right information quickly. The ad is definitely a cut above Microsoft's Seinfeld ads from last year, though it will probably not unleash the kind of visceral reaction that a lot of people had to the Laptop Hunters ads. There, of course, Microsoft had a relatively easy target (Apple) - but it would really be hard to construct an ad that attacks Google's search prowess.

When testing a search engine, a lot of people try to think up queries to run in order to see how good the search results are. But in reality, the best way to really put a search engine through its paces is to switch your default search provider in your browser...well, at least temporarily! That way, you can test the new engine in real world scenarios without having to remind yourself to head over to a new URL.

Internet Explorer

In Internet Explorer 8, there aren't any complicated steps to follow to make the switch to a new search engine. Thanks to the browser's support of add-ons, you can just head over to the IE Add-ons Gallery and grab the new Bing add-on.

To install it, simply click the "Add to Internet Explorer" button. On the pop-up that appears, check the box that reads "Make this my default search provider" and click "Add." That's it!

If you accidentally added Bing without making it the default, you can click the drop-down arrow in IE's search box and click "Manage search providers." Find Bing in the list, right-click on it, and choose "Set as Default."

Mozilla Firefox

Like IE8, Mozilla Firefox also offers a Bing add-on which adds both search and suggestions to Firefox's search box. To install this add-on, head over to the Firefox Add-ons Gallery and click the "Add to Firefox" button on this page. On the pop-up box that appears, check the box "Start using it right away" before clicking "Add" in order to set Bing as the default.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a bit more tricky. Because this new web browser doesn't (yet) support extensions, you have to add new search engines manually using a specific URL.

To get started, right-click on the search bar and choose "Edit Search Engines." (Alternately, you can click the Wrench icon, then "Options," then the "Manage" button on the "Basics" tab next to "Default Search.")

In the Search Engines window where all of Chrome's available engines are listed, click the "Add" button. Another window appears where you'll be asked to fill in Name, Keyword, and URL. Use the following info to fill out this form:

Name: Bing

Keyword: bing

URL: http://www.bing.com/search?q=%s

Click "OK" then click the "Make Default" button before closing the window.

Safari

Apple's Safari browser on the Mac OS is tied to Google, so changing search providers needs to be done by way of a plugin (unless you're handy with the vi editor). One of the easiest ways to change your search engines in Safari is by using the Glims plugin. This software adds a number of features to Safari, including tabs, thumbnails, full screen, suggestions, and more.

Once installed, open the Safari Preferences and under the Glims tab, click on "Search Engines." Then, click the "Add" button to add a new search engine.

In the pop-up box provided, you'll need to fill in the following info:

Name: Bing

Type: Search Engine

URL: http://www.bing.com/search?q=#query#

Click "Set" when you're done and close the window. Finally, select "Bing" in the browser window search box in order to make it your default engine.

Thanks @gingod for the Safari tip!

Their latest release, Google@Omgili, features a sweet mashup with Google search, giving users a well-rounded look at the fair-and-balanced web alongside social buzz from and about sources such as blogs, newsgroups, video-sharing sites, forums, discussion boards, Q&A sites, and review sites.

The translation function isn't amazing, but for trending or hot-button topics, the results can be quite interesting.

The basic Google@Omgili search yields traditional web results with discussions that link to each result:

Once a user clicks on the "discussion bubble" next to the link, he can preview some of the social chatter linking back to that particular result:

Users can also choose to refine the search to show results from, say, forums and discussions only:

This product also incorporates the True Knowledge API and integrates Snap.com's service to give users a snapshot and video/RSS/Wikipedia previews. And of course, users can choose any number of social sites to share Google@Omgili with their networks (but not to share specific search results, which is disappointing) and can choose to add Google@Omgili to their search bar.

[UPDATE: The day after this post was published, Geva emailed us to report his team had added sharing of the results page on social networks. "We love feedback!" he wrote.]

Although the original Omgili search offering calls to mind many, many social/forum search engines - most of which have financially struggled or failed, see Twing and Delver - the Google mash gives this engine a much more interesting and useful product.

Overall, it's a nice way to see which links are generating (or supporting) subjective online conversations and might be a good tool for tracking down topic experts or sources. On the other hand, it might also be a way to get mired down in the chatter from forum crazies. Six of one, a half dozen of the other - after all, whether you're brilliantly insane or insanely brilliant, you've got to post your theories and rants somewhere, right?

Update 4/30: We just posted our screenshots here.

Alpha, which will go live within the next few weeks, is quite different from Google and really doesn't directly compete with it at all. Instead of searching the web for info, Alpha is built around a vast repository of curated data from public and licensed sources. Alpha then organizes and computes this knowledge with the help of sophisticated Natural Language Processing algorithms. Users can ask Alpha any kind of question, which can be constructed just like a Google search (think: "hurricane bob" or "carbon steel strength").

In today's demo, for example, Stephen Wolfram searched for "internet users in europe," or "weather oakland" - two queries that most users would also use in Google or any other search engine.

Where Alpha exceeds, is in the presentation of its "search" results. When asked for how many internet users there are in Europe, for example, Alpha returned not just the total number, but also various plots and data for every country (apparently Vatican City only has 93 Internet users).

Another query with a very sophisticated result was "uncle's uncle's brother's son." Now if you type that into Google, the result will be a useless list of sites that don't even answer this specific question, but Alpha actually returns an interactive genealogic tree with additional information, including data about the 'blood relationship fraction,' for example (3.125% in this case).

Alpha, of course, doesn't hide its relationship with Mathematica. Indeed, according to Stephen Wolfram, Alpha is built on top of 5 million lines of Mathematica code which currently run on top of about 10,000 CPUs (though Wolfram is actively expanding its server farm in preparation for the public launch).

Alpha can handle a lot of the mathematical questions that Mathematica can compute today (think: "integrate x^3 sin^2 x dx"), but every query will only run for a few seconds, so really complex queries will inevitable time out. Mathematica, however, will also be one of the first programs to make use of the Alpha API, so that Mathematica users will be able to access Alpha's repository of data.

Alpha also has a sophisticated knowledge of physics and chemistry data, and during today's demo, we also saw examples for nutritional information, weather, and census data. Most of the data in the system is curated, but real-time financial data or weather information will go through a system that checks the data for validity, so that outliers can be identified as potentially faulty information.

Pro Version

Alpha will come in a free version, but there will also be a paid version, which will allow users to download and upload data to Alpha. Stephen Wolfram did not go into too much detail, including pricing, but pro users will, for example, be able to not just see a graph, but also download the data behind this graph for use on their own machines or in Mathematica.

Embedding and Alerts

Wolfram is clearly taking a page from the modern Internet playbook and will allow users to embed not just a Wolfram|Alpha search box on their own pages, but they will also be able to embed results and a custom Alpha portal on their own sites. Users will also be able to receive email alerts when a result changes.

A Few More Random Notes

• every search results page on Alpha will feature a link to the sources it used to compute the results
• when a fact is disputed, Alpha will note this in a footnote
• Alpha will only be in English for now - Wolfram notes that this was already a very hard task and that the company does not currently have the resources to replicate its natural language processing techniques for other languages
• money: alpha will feature ads in a sidebar, but Wolfram will also partner with other corporate entities. He didn't go into any details, but it sounded like these corporate partnerships might include other search engines.
• Wolfram will release toolbars for FF and IE, as well as an IE8 accelerator
• Alpha will also display results from traditional search engines (Google, Live, Yahoo) and will feature links to relevant Wikipedia articles

Will it Kill Google?

No. Wolfram|Alpha will be an amazing product, but it's quite different from Google and other search engines. Indeed, maybe it is actually wrong to call it a search engine at all (and Wolfram prefers to call it a "computational knowledge engine"). If you wanted to know what sights to see on your next trip to New York City, for example, Alpha, from what we've seen so for, will not be able to help you.

Alpha, however, will probably be a worthy challenger for Wikipedia and many textbooks and reference works. Instead of looking up basic encyclopedic information there, users can just go to Alpha instead, where they will get a direct answer to their question, as well as a nicely presented set of graphs and other info.

Today's demo mostly focused on math and engineering data, so we'll still have to wait and see how Alpha copes with questions about historical events, for example.

Every product, of course, looks good in a controlled demo (though Stephen Wolfram also happily entertained questions from the audience for almost an hour), and we will have to wait and see how well Alpha performs when faces with real questions from real users. Based on what we've seen today though, it seems rather unlikely that Alpha will be the next Cuil.