Q&A: Tom Harrow on childcare search site Findababysitter.com
Findababysitter.com has been going for around two years now, and recently relaunched the site after receiving a second round of funding.
The site works allows parents to search for nannies and childminders in their local area, and to advertise on the site when they require childminding services. I've been talking to owner Tom Harrow, who runs the website with his wife Vanessa...
RIP Yahoo search: 1994-2009
When Google tried to boost Yahoo's search business last year with a revenue sharing deal, regulators and advertisers cried foul. But that deal had the potential to do something that this one will not: help Yahoo prop up its flailing search business.
Today Yahoo and Microsoft announced a search merger that will cede Yahoo's marketshare to Microsoft, making the software giant the defacto runner up to Google in the search category. But what will it mean for Yahoo? The Sunnyvale-based company will get a large chunk of their combined search revenues for the next few years, but for many it looks like this deal is the death knell for Yahoo search.
Microhoo: WWUD? (what will users do?)
So they finally did it. The months of will-they-or-won't-they dissolved into years before Microsoft and Yahoo finally forged a marriage, of sorts. Reams are being written about what the deal means for advertisers, for investors and for the companies themselves. Really, though, it all boils down to one question: what will users do?
Let's say they do create a search engine that's better than Google - way better than Google. Will it matter? Will users use it?
Search experts react to the Yahoo / Microsoft deal
So after one of the worst wrong turns in corporate history, Yahoo has finally acceded to Microsoft by crawling into bed with the Bingmaker. In a nut, Microsoft will power Yahoo’s search engine and Yahoo will sell the ads globally.
Microsoft’s search market share will rise to around 21.5%, according to figures released by Hitwise last month, or roughly one quarter of Google’s share.
The deal lasts for 10 years, proving a little about my previous assertion that Microsoft is only five or so years into a 25-year search strategy. It is playing the long game, and this deal has solidified its position.
From where I’m sitting this signals three things:
- Yahoo has totally given up on proprietary search. It might become a media company after all.
- Microsoft has strengthened its hand and the deal should help prise further market share from Google.
- Advertisers may benefit in the long run.
But what do the search marketing professionals make of the deal? I’ve been asking a few questions, so let’s hear what they have to say…
10 reasons why Google and SEO should NOT be regulated
Techcrunch has just published an article called: “The Time Has Come To Regulate Search Engine Marketing And SEO.” The author requested anonymity for fear of a Google blackout (OR WORSE) and “doesn’t want his company associated with the post”. Fair enough – you wouldn’t want those men in green, red, yellow and blue suits to come a-knockin’.
The upshot of the article is basically that the government should step in and smite these bastards until they are sore. Too much power! We’ll show you! “The industry can’t be left to its own devices…”
Now that Google is properly grown up and employs a vast number of staff, it has undoubtedly moved into the world of ‘being a corporate’. Corporate practices do not sit easily with Google’s founders, nor many of its staff, but a company of that size needs to be run a certain way. And with scale comes responsibility, as well as the ‘corporate’ tag. And corporates are clearly a major threat to the world as we know it.
So the downside of achieving scale extends far beyond the realms of the business itself. Now that Google is king of search, almighty and powerful, questions are being asked about whether it is good, as per the company motto, or evil. Some people think it is too much of a force to be left alone...
Real-time, red herring: why real-time on the consumer internet isn't the real deal
The buzz in the consumer internet right now is real-time. Twitter and Facebook have put the
spotlight on real-time but now tech giants like Google and Microsoft
are giving real-time the time of day.
Where is this all leading? Is real-time the most important thing taking place on the internet today as some believe or is it the next overhyped web fad?
16 bitchin' commands and shortcuts for Twitter
Back in the day, whenever I was unsure about the meaning of a word, I would leaf through a battered old Oxford English Dictionary. Will Self, although he doesn't know it, probably caused the most indirect wear and tear of all my favourite writers.
My trusty tome was subsequently usurped by online dictionaries, but they too – at least for me - were soon been replaced by Google’s rather lovely ‘define:’ command.
The ‘define:keyword’ command is surely the quickest way of finding out the meaning or spelling of a word, since Google typically returns a result in less than half a second. Try it. It’s highly useful.
I love a shortcut, and regularly make use of a range of keyboard shortcuts on Twitter. There are more of them than you might imagine. As such I have aggregated a bunch of commands to provide you with one handy cut-out-and-keep / ‘bookmark on Delicious’ guide.
150+ killer SEO tips
Here at Econsultancy we like to figure out what makes Google tick, not least because we know what it’s like to be on the end of a Google blackout (which ain’t pretty, and causes headaches).
We recently published an update to our hugely comprehensive SEO Best Practice Guide, which contains 300+ pages of in-depth tips to help you climb the search engine rankings*. If you need the detail then I recommend you download and print it out for future reference.
In addition we have also published many SEO ‘tips’ posts over the years, and I thought I’d collate a bunch of the more popular ones for your viewing pleasure. Get some...
Search arrogance can easily backfire
In these days of digital goodness, I'm sure I'm not alone in noticing more and more brands using the phrase: 'search for us online...' in their ad campaigns. But this strategy has failed many, many times, so why do brands take the risk?
A quick scout around the digital media press, and obviously the obligatory question posted on Twitter, revealed many examples of brands using search in ads:
Ten alternative search engines
Did anyone notice Google crashed for a few minutes yesterday? More to the point, if you experienced it, did you just throw up your hands in despair and wander off to make a cup of tea, or did you use another search engine to find what you were looking for?
This highlights the issue that’s being hotly debated within search teams across the UK, if not the world: Can anyone challenge Google? Although that in itself is a different blog-post, I’ve quickly thrown together a list of some nifty alternatives to the search engine giant.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
