Graham Charlton

Graham Charlton is Editor of the Econsultancy blog, covering e-commerce, SEO, and more. He also contributes to our Best Practice Guides and other reports. You can contact him at graham.charlton@econsultancy.com.

Speed matters, according to Google

Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president for search products and user experience, has revealed an interesting experiment carried out by the search engine a few years ago.

The goal of the experiment was to determine the ideal number of results to display in response to a search query. Google surveyed its users, who decided 30 results on a page would be best, rather than 10 or 20.

by Graham Charlton 10 November 2006 10:56am 0 comments

Web 2.0 design and layout tips

Ben Hunt at webdesignfromscratch has posted an excellent article on current Web 2.0 design trends, giving some recommendations on features that make a website appealing and easy to use.

Ben gives some examples of good Web 2.0 sites, including LinkedIn, Mozilla.org, and Protolize, as well as some tips which we list after the jump...

by Graham Charlton 10 November 2006 09:52am 2 comments

Search Engine Keywords Research for the Finance Industry

ClickThrough Marketing has released a paid search keywords report for the finance sector, focusing on loans. It provides details on a number of searches for a range of keyphrases.

The report focuses on data from Yahoo UK searches for July 2006, and contains search engine key phrase data on 25 key types of loans including secured loans, unsecured loans, homeowner loans and personal loans.

by Graham Charlton 10 November 2006 10:40am 0 comments

Young people behind surge in online music sales

A new Nielsen//NetRatings report has revealed that young people are the biggest spenders when it comes to online content, with the 16-24 year old age group leading the way.

Overall, UK internet users currently spend an average of £3 a month on downloading content, with videos taking 43% of the market.

by Graham Charlton 09 November 2006 13:11pm 0 comments

Microsoft gives Universal a slice of Zune sales

In an attempt to gain advantages for its Zune music player over the almighty iPod, Microsoft has agreed a new deal with Universal Music.

This deal with give Universal a cut of the profits from sales of Microsoft’s iPod rival, the Zune. In return, Microsoft will receive rights to distribute content to Zune’s users for limited wireless sharing.

This could be a gamechanger for Apple, which has so far avoided cutting this sort of deal with content owners.

by Graham Charlton 09 November 2006 14:29pm 0 comments

Startup Zvents.com raises $7m

US startup Zvents, a site that allows users to search for events in their local area, has announced that it has raised $7 million in venture capital.

This has raised eyebrows in E-consultancy Towers, as it is a large sum of money for a site which currently covers only a small geographical area, and has established competitors in the market, such as Eventful.com, Meetup and Upcoming.

by Graham Charlton 09 November 2006 11:26am 0 comments

NTL to rebrand as Virgin Media

NTL Telewest has announced that it will change its name to Virgin Media early next year, after acquiring Virgin Mobile for £1 billion in April.

by Graham Charlton 08 November 2006 13:48pm 2 comments

Like.com image search engine lauched by Riya

A new kind of image search is being launched today by Riya, which will allow users to search for images using both text and images as queries.

Other image searches rely on text queries, which depend on the data attached to the image file. This is not necessarily a reliable way to search, which is where Like.com comes in.

And boy, the technology is stunning...

by Graham Charlton 08 November 2006 12:00pm 1 comment

Online shopping growth driven by men

Men who can’t be bothered to go out shopping are helping to drive rapid growth in online retailing, according to a survey by the British Council of Shopping Centres.

FT.com reports that men have a ‘hunter’ approach to shopping – they know what they want and want to get it as quickly and painlessly as possible. Online shopping is the perfect way for them to do this.

by Graham Charlton 08 November 2006 10:57am 5 comments

Google's Adam Lasnik interviewed by Lee Odden

Adam Lasnik describes himself as Google’s first ‘search evangelist’, and he works to improve relations between the search engine and webmasters.

Adam's job is to help webmasters with ranking and indexing issues either through communication or other means. In an interview by Lee Odden from MarketingBlog.com, Adam talks about search engine marketing and has some tips for webmasters.

Some excerpts coming up…

by Graham Charlton 08 November 2006 10:05am 0 comments