Archive for April 2009

As reported on the BBC, Google is making a major effort to get into voice search. They see voice search – actually saying out loud what you’re looking for – is a big opportunity to grab market share of the mobile web.

Vic Gundotra, Google VP of Engineering said “We believe voice search is a new form of search and that it is core to our business”, during a recent discussion at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

He added however that what was currently limiting the roll out was the ability of voice recognition technology to accurately capture user search requests. There was also a suggestion that the technology could not understand any but American accents.

However, Mr Gundotra was confident the obstacles could be overcome. “Look how far we have come. I get the advantage of looking at daily voice queries coming in and it’s amazing. It’s working. It’s reached a tipping point. It’s growing and growing very, very fast and we are thrilled about it,” he added Mr Gundotra.

The technology apparently learns on the job, and improves itself with increased use and more user feedback. Initially launched on the iPhone, Google claim that they have seen a 15% jump in accuracy as they collected more data.

It’s not the first time Google have tried to get into voice search. Back in 2002 Google Labs trialed a service allowing users to search with just a phone call. However the job was only half complete, since results were sent to your computer screen, and not read back to you.

It’s not just available on the iPhone, but also the G1 and BlackBerry too.

Since I actually an iPhone I thought I would give it a go.

First off, I have to download the application. That’s an easy process. First I go to the App Store and search for ‘Google’. The first one that comes up is Google Mobile App, which includes the voice search function

Now to test it out: To work out how accurate it really is, I thought I would try a couple of search queries that I know what the answer SHOULD be. First of all: a brand search for WebEden.

I speak ‘webeden’ into the phone, and what do I get? Top of the list is a website called webkinz.com “the stuffed animal that comes alive online”! Not brilliant. But to be fair, the problem with ‘webeden’ is that it is a made up word, and there are a couple of ways to pronounce it (we say Web Eden as in garden of, but plenty of customers just punch through that second ‘e’ with an eh sound).

So now I try it pronounced ‘web-eh-den’. This time top of the search results is ‘weatherton family’ on Ancetry.com. Oh dear!

Now I try another search query that I should in theory know the answer to. ‘Website Builder’ is a search term that the website ‘webeden.co.uk usually ranks number 1 for, so again its a good test.

And what do I get this time? It’s Yahoo Website Builder, the website building tool that Yahoo sell. They’re technically a competitor, but that’s fair enough and pretty close, especially now I’ve also realized that the results are defaulting to the US.

So is voice search the future? Whether or not Google crack the technology, it feels so weird searching by speaking, that it’s going to take a whole mind shift to get used to using my voice rather than my keyboard – especially when every phone has a keyboard anyway. But what do you think – would you be prepared to search by speaking?

If you’ve recently bought a domain from WebEden and are wondering how you can simply and easily set up your email service, then here’s the guide for you.

Once your domain order is complete, you can associate your domain with your website. You can also create up to five individual mailboxes with your domain. Within each mailbox you will also be able to create as many unique aliases as you wish. Alternatively you can also forward your addresses to external email accounts like GoogleMail, Yahoo and Hotmail, which you already own or have access to.

For a quick introduction on how to set up your email just read the instructions below.

Creating your first email address

First things first!

You can either forward to an external email address eg, Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail, or you can set up your own mailboxes, but you cannot do both.

If you use forwarding you can set up aliases that will forward all mail to your chosen external account. However, if you set up mailboxes (maximum of five), then you can assign each mailbox its own password access plus give each one an unlimited number of aliases. Additionally, you can also choose how to access your mailboxes: through webmail online, or through an email client like Outlook, Thunderbird or Mac Mail etc.

To begin with:

1. Log in to the portal eg, webeden.co.uk or log in to your site

2. Go to the ‘Domains’ section on either the portal toolbar or your website toolbar

3. Go to ’Manage’

4. Locate your domain – If you haven’t already you can assign your domain name to a website in your account

5. Click on the ‘Email & Settings’ link

6. Decide whether you wish to forward your emails to an external email address or you wish to create one or more mailboxes.

Forwarding your emails to another address

If you are going to forward your emails to an existing address you need to decide the aliases you want use and then enter the external email address you want all your mail to forward to. We provide a number of preset aliases ie, admin, support, info, but you can replace, remove or simply add to this list of addresses.

• NB. If you set up your email to forward to an external account, you will not be able to set up access to that address through a client eg, Outlook or Mac Mail. You need a mailbox to do this, so when you forward your emails a mailbox just simply doesn’t exist! Forwarding emails just passes the email onto another address.

Setting up a Mailbox

If on the other hand you want your address to be a mailbox where you can send and receive mail, then you can set up one to five mailboxes e.g admin@mysite.com, support@mysite.com, info@mysite.com.

The mailbox names should all be simple, understandable and as short as possible. You do not need mysite.com@mysite.com. You are better creating something that is easy for users to remember or type.

Each mailbox has its own password so that you can, if you wish, set up each mailbox independently, to make it secure eg, one for the sales team, one for support, one for admin, one for management. Each mailbox password is separate from your website login, so please ensure you remember, store or save the details.

Once you set up a mailbox you can set up aliases eg, The sales@mysite.com mailbox could have john@mysite.com, suzi@mysite.com, imran@mysite.com – the Sales team – as aliases. Each team member could use the password to access the sales mailbox.

• NB. A word of warning though. All aliases MUST be unique, that is they must not be duplicated under another mailbox or in fact match another mailbox. Any duplication will cause incoming mail to those addresses to fail as the system will not know which mailbox to deliver the mail to.

Each mailbox is pre-populated with four aliases which can be used or removed. These are: mail, info, support, admin.

Now What?

Use the ‘Open my webmail’ button to access your email account online. And make note of the URL in the browser address bar for direct access to your mail online. Follow this link for more details on how to set up your Webmail.

Alternatively, follow this one for more details on how to set up your email with an email client such as Outlook, Mac Mail etc.

Use the ‘Change my settings’ link to change your password.

And that, as they say, is that. Good luck and enjoy using your email.

Hitwise UK produced some research at the back of last year that broke down Internet use in the UK by city, county and region.

I’m not sure if you’ll be surprised by this – I certainly was – but the data indicates that people living in the country spend more time online than their urban counterparts. The activities that they out-participate city dwellers in are online shopping and social networking.

I had always made the assumption that people living in cities would spend more time online. First of all, I thought that ‘new’ things came to cities first, and whilst the Internet isn’t new then at least urban people would have had a head start in all things ‘online’. Also people living in cities are exposed to a lot more advertising (free newspapers, public transport, outdoor). And since advertising is often packed with technology – the UK’s biggest advertisers are often technology companies such as telecoms giants – that this would drive greater use. Then last of all is the physical reality of getting a broadband connection. If you live in the city you’ve got the option of adsl, fibre, free wi-fi or 3G, Not many rural places can boast all of those.

Hitwise analysed user behaviour for a four week period and found that city populations were least likely to visit an online retailer, whilst those in Wales and the South West showed the greatest propensity. And when it came to social networking, London was the most under-represented. The keenest social networkers were residents of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

On reflection, this sort-of fits. People living in cities live right by shops, so why bother shopping online? And in living in proximity to so many people, maybe they’re less keen to socialise online too? There’s no doubt that city people keep longer work hours, so maybe it just comes down to a plain old lack of time.

What does this research mean if you’re building a website? Well I’m not sure I can find anything for you. I would love to be able to deliver an easy conclusion; for example, make your shopping site appeal to the sensibilities of a villager. But what are those sensibilities? I’m sure I could only come up with a few stereotypes.

Of course, whilst the urban population might be under represented as website visitors, they still outnumber rural dwellers by a huge margin. So like it or not: your website visitors will still most likely be living in a town or city.

Are you just targeting one or other group? How has that influenced your web design? Leave us a comment below.

Here in the UK we’ve long since got used to the dominance of Google in all things search engine related. With Google powering around 85% of UK search queries, there’s no doubt about the love we Brits have for the big ‘G’.

In the US its been a bit of a different story. Yahoo has long been the homepage of choice for web users, and has therefore also been in control of much more of the searches that people carry out.

Yet Google continues to erode that market, and research out this week by Hitwise, as reported over on Search Engine Land, underlines the increasing dominance of Google in the US search market.

In March, Google’s market share rose to 72.39%, up from 72.11% in February. Both Yahoo and  Microsoft Live Search saw declines. Comparing the numbers annually, Google is up 8% over March 2008 whilst while Yahoo and Live Search are down 19% and 17%, respectively.

And as for Ask.com, they increased 8% between February and March, but with such a small market share any change looks significant for them.

Here’s a table that splits it all out:

Which search engine do you favour as a website builder, and why? Do I really need to ask?!

Frequently when you read an article on a website such as the BBC you’ll see a series of icons or buttons along the bottom of the article. Beside these icons it will usually say something like ‘add this’ or ‘bookmark this’ or ‘share this. In fact, you will see a version of a ‘share this’ button below every post in this blog.

If you press any of these they automatically add a ‘public bookmark’ for this article into a bookmarking service. A ‘public boomark’ is a page on the Internet where you can show people all the websites and articles that you think are good, and worth visiting. Its like saying, ‘I bookmarked this because I think its its good, why don’t you have a look.

Popular bookmarking services include Delicious, Digg, Reddit, and Stumbleupon. Because you’re effectively recommending a website using these bookmarks, they have the potential to push visitors to the website, because people may well follow those links. So when you’re building a website its a good idea to add these bookmarking services, as it is an easy way people can bookmark – and therefore recommend - your site.

Have a go at the tutorial below.

How did you get on? Leave us a comment below.

Here’s a good news economic story to cheer up Alistair Darling.

And good news for website builders in the midst of this recession. Whilst the national news rakes over the budget and  talks of doom and gloom, of industries and sectors in decline with thousands being made redundant, online advertising still growing. Whilst advertising is just one way that online businesses make money, its continued growth can provide cheer to any in the sector.

The figures this time, as reported on Search Engine Land, are from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). They say that in 2008, online advertising grew 10.6% to reach $23.4 billion. Within online advertising, the niche showing highest growth is search engine advertising, which now makes up 46% of the sector.

These graphs tell the story visually. First off, the annual growth of online advertising from 2007 to 2008.

And here’s the same info going back a bit further, check out that growth!

Of course online advertising can mean lots of different things: it could be search engine, banners advertising, or any other commercial messages which you see on a website. So where is the money spent?

So one thing is clear: If you’re building a website, and business model involves selling advertising, then there are plenty of reasons to feel positive!

How has the downturn affected your business, revenue, or even website traffic? Leave us a comment below.

There’s a big plan waiting in the wings that is set to totally transform the market for domain names.

At the moment, there are a fixed number of domain extensions. (By domain extensions, we mean the bit after the ‘dot’ in the domain name). The most popular domain extension is .com, but other big global domain extensions include .net, .org, .info and .biz. Every country of course has its own domain extension. In the UK its .uk, for France its .fr and in Germany its .de

New plans drawn up by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body that overseas the domain name system, will allow the creation of domain names with any number of possible suffixes.

Here in the UK, popular suggestions for new domain extensions include .london or .shopping.

However, any company wanting to set up a domain extension is certainly not going to find it cheap. Icann plan to charge anywhere up to $500,000 per new domain extension, and there will also be a $60,000 annual fee. Any company investing in the set up of a new domain extension would of course need to recoup the cost by selling as many domain names with that extension as possible.

Icann thinks that the new domain extensions are a huge marketing opportunity for  brands. “Whatever is open to the imagination can be applied for. It could translate into one of the largest marketing and branding opportunities in history.” suggested VP of corporate affairs for Icann, Paul Lewis.

One thing that’s clear, however, is that this a potential Cybersquatting nightmare for many companies. We wrote a recent post about cybersquatting, which includes the registering of domain names that derive their value from someone else’s brand. If companies have to register their domain name in lots of new domain extensions, its going to be both costly and complex.

Lets say you’re organising the domain names for a a company called ‘Dave’s Tiling Ltd’. To stop anyone else cybersquatting on your name, you might already have felt the need to register the following domains:

davetiling.com
davetiling.co.uk
davestiling.com
davestiling.co.uk
dave-tiling.com
dave-tiling.co.uk
davetilinguk.com

and so on.

If you include the popular domain extensions (.com, .co.uk, .org, .biz, .info) it might already be costing you a couple of hundred pounds each year to keep all your domain names. If there are going to be a whole slew of new domain extension, how much more is that going to be? And when the new registries are getting charged $500,000 just to set up the new domain extensions, they’re not going to be selling them cheaply are they?

And this comes at a time of the increased incidence of cybersquatting. As reported on BrandRepublic, a record number of cybersquatting complaints were filed last year (2,300 in all), according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Big companies such as the BBC, eBay, Coca-Cola and BMW all complained about their brands being registered as domain names by cybersquatters.

In most cases of course , the complaints procedure favour the complainant, but even so there is a considerable time and financial cost for companies to recover these domains.

Wipo for its part has said that the new domain extensions should be “a genuine concern for trademark holders”.

“The creation of an unknowable and potentially vast number of new [domains] raises significant issues for rights holders, as well as internet users generally”, said Francis Curry, Wipo director-general.

Have you had an issue finding or keeping a domain name that’s relevant to your brand? Would you invest in one of the new domain extensions? Would you prefer the domain name system to stick to the domain extensions currently available? Leave us a comment below.

Well, its finally happened. As reported on the BBC, the unlikely scenario whereby ISPs are forced to store private information about their customers’ surfing habits has finally become law.

We first trailed the story about email data being stored by ISPs in January.

Under an EU directive that came into force last week, ISPs are collecting and keeping information about your emails, internet phone calls, and which websites you visit. The information must be stored for a year. The actual content of the emails aren’t kept, but more basic information such as who the sender and recipient are.

It’s not commonly known, but legislation already exists that require telecoms firms to store information about each phone call.

This directive is all part of plans drawn up in the wake of the 2005 London bombings.

Many ISPs have resisted the directive, whilst some individual EU members are contesting it outright. Sweden for example are ignoring it entirely, whilst it is being contested in the German courts.

And there’s the cost too. Here in the UK the Government has promised to reimburse individual ISPs for the expense they incur in collecting and storing the data.

Regular readers of this blog will know that when it comes to behavioural targeting, and giving up a bit of online privacy to get a personalised version of the web, that we’re generally fans. Any technology which means that you find it easier to locate information relevant to you, even if that means receiving targeted advertising, is a good thing.

But for many, the snooping on user behavioiur by Government is a step too far. Policy Director at Liberty, Isabella Sankey said that in reality much of this information gathering had been going on under voluntary arrangement for years. “The problem is that this regime allows not just police to access this information but hundreds of other public bodies”, she said.

The Home Office, for its part, said that it was implementing the directive because the Government had prioritised “protect[ing] public safety and national security”.

It added: “Communications data is the where and when of the communication and plays a vital part in a wide range of criminal investigations and prevention of terrorist attacks, as well as contributing to public safety more generally.

And it also said that when it came to fears about how and when this information would be used, it was bound by a legal framework that protected the rights of the individual: “Access to communications data is governed by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa) which ensures that effective safeguards are in place and that the data can only be accessed when it is necessary and proportionate to do so.”

But what happens if criminals realise that their online details can be snooped? Won’t they just use other means to communicate – ones that can’t be traced and tracked?

And what happens the next time this personal data is left on a laptop on a train by a forgetful civil servant?

What do you think? Is it a big deal to have this personal data accessed by all arms of the Government? Or is it worth giving up the privacy in order to be better ‘protected’? How many questions can I ask in a row?! Leave us a comment below

Anyone who has been following our Search Engine Optimisation guide (SEO) will know that one of the most important things to decide before you start building a website is which keywords you’re going to focus on. Choosing keywords that are both relevant to your website, and that are also being used frequently on search engines, will decide how much potential traffic those search engines are going to send to your website.

So if choosing certain keywords plays a roll in how much traffic your website gets, do some website builders and publishers only choose those keywords that can in fact bring lots of traffic? Undoubtedly so, and there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as the keywords are highly relevant to what the web page is all about. But what if you’re a news organisation? Do you choose stories – and keywords – to write about simply because they will get visitors onto your site, rather than them being genuinely in the news?

This was the charge levied at thetelegraph.co.uk in a recent article in satirical news magazine Private eye. It was claimed that stories on the telegraph website were being chosen simply for keyword popularity, in order to drive more traffic onto the website. Moreover, the article suggested that reporters were required to stuff as many keywords as possible into the opening paragraph, to improve the chances of that article ranking more highly, and therefore getting more traffic. The text from Private Eye reads: “Telegraph news hacks are sent a memo three or four times a day listing the top subjects being searched in the last few hours on Google. They are then expected to write stories accordingly and/or get as many of those keywords as possible into the first part of their story”.

We recently discussed how theguardian.co.uk tried keyword stuffing – with a particularly ‘fruity’ theme – to whether it is possible to trick Google into boosting some football pages onto the first page for less seemly search terms. And it worked. But surely a large and respected news organisation such as the telegraph must report the actual news, as objectively as possible, rather than allow user searches to define what makes it into the news, mustn’t they?

Shane Richmond, the communities editor attempted to dismiss the story by responding: “Normally I’d chuckle and move on, but the Private Eye item seems to have caused a little confusion, which I want to dispel”.

The Telegraph, apparently, does push their reporters towards using certain keywords, but this is to help readers to find stories, rather than the other way around, whereby stories are written so that they fall into the path of the searching public.

“So yes, of course, that’s what we do and our staff are regularly updated on the performance of our stories in search engines and told when a vital key word is missing”, continued Richmond.

But he also strongly contested that specific keywords were compulsory, and nor were keywords playing a role in what made it into the news.

It all sounds like quite a fine line, and illustrates how ‘the news’ is a two way dialogue between broadcasters and consumers. Anyone relaying the news must always shape their stories to their audience. That, for example, is why a huge event in a distant land appears as the fourth item on the news whilst a UK celebrity choosing to adopt a baby can make it into top spot. There is most clearly describes the symbiotic relationship between reader and writer, between news giver and news receiver.

Of course bloggers have always known that if they have any hope of attracting new readers from the search engines then they have to lay down stories that have a chance of appearing highly on some high traffic keywords.

So, news receiver, lets swap roles. What do you think? Your feedback is always appreciated – show me how symbiotic we are by leaving a comment below!

Search queries – the words that we type into the search box on Google (or Yahoo, or MSN) – are getting longer, according to research from Hitwise.

Whilst this data is US specific, the same factors apply here in the UK.

In previous years the vast majority of searches were single, two or sometimes three word combinations. These days searches of four words and up are on the rise. In fact, more than 50% of searches are now at least three words long. And a third are four words or longer.

Here’s the table:

From this, you can see that 1 and 2 word queries are actually becoming less common.

Hitwise say the trend for longer search queries is ever increasing. These longer search queries are often referred to as the ‘long tail’ of search terms.

What does this mean if you’re building a website? At the most basic level, people using search engines are getting a lot more specific about what they’re looking for. This is possibly because Google is getting better at delivering results that are more relevant to them.

This has a significant impact in terms of both your Search Engine Optimisation efforts and also your Pay Per Click activities. (We’ll be producing a Pay Per Click guide soon – so keep reading).

The main action you need to take is to make sure your website is optimised for keywords that are very specific to your business. People who are using very specific (and therefore longer) search queries are more likely to carry out an action when they arrive on your site. They have a clearer idea of what they want, have moved along from the ‘research’ phase of their searching, and are ready to take the next step. If they find what they want on your website then they will buy / leave their details / make an enquiry.

For example, a few years ago if you ran a bed and breakfast in Somerset you might have wanted to focus your efforts on keywords such as ‘b&b’, bed and breakfast’, ‘West country.’. When your website popped up in the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) you would have had to rely on those people who were looking for a B&B in the West Country to pick out your website.  These days it might make more sense to look at longer tail keywords such as ‘b&b exmoor’, ‘cheap b&b somerset’, or even (and of course only if its relevant), ‘award winning bed and breakfast near horse riding’.

Whilst the number of visitors won’t be huge, those that do arrive your website will be highly relevant to your site, and therefore more likely to carry out an action when they get there.

Have you had any direct experience of changing your keywords that you can feedback to other readers? Leave us a comment below.