Supplemental Results at Goggle just got way fresher!

Results are now much fresher, and thanks to Rusty Brick I found a cool way to check results.

Supplemental results are stored in a separate index than main results, and different spiders are used to index them. I expect they aren't spidered as regularly and are considered less unique/valuable pages to the searchers than the main index results from the same site. If your key message content is on supplemental pages, non-supplemental pages will dominate in the search results. Basically if your page is in the supplemental index, Google has decided it's content is not unique and there is better information out there. A view Supplemental information link is displayed after all search results and I'm assuming is rarely (.0001%) ever used.

To see all site supplemental results do a search in Google for www.url.com/ *** (include space).

Example:
Search "site:industry.siemens.com/ ***, envirex" and you'll see all the pages/files in the supplemental index with the word "envirex" on it. You can even add a negative or positive variable example "+.swf".

To see the number of supplemental results rolling out in google data centers, use the main URL (The tool adds the space and ***, Note it doesn't work for sites having more than 1000 pages) automatically using this tool http://oy-oy.eu/google/supplemental/ unfortunately It doesn't work with variables.

Industry Benchmark Reveals Site Search Impacts One Third of All Online Sales for Leading Retailers

Coremetrics LIVEmark Index Indicates Site Search Users Purchase 86% More Often and Spend 11% More

"San Mateo, California - April 20, 2005 - On-site search engines are used by consumers in more than one third of all visits that result in a purchase, according to LIVEmark Index data released today by Coremetrics, the leading provider of hosted Web analytics and precision marketing solutions. Coremetrics LIVEmark Index data collected during the second week of April also showed that site search users purchase 86% more often and have an 11% higher average order size than the typical site visitor."

Note: The LIVEmark Index includes over 110 leading web leading web retailers in seven sub-categories: Apparel & Accessories, Specialty Retail, Sports and Outdoor, Home, Garden, General Merchandisers, and Books/Music/Video.

Time of Day Impacts PPC Clickthroughs

September 06, 2006

By The Marketing Experiments Journal

Marketing Experiments examines significant differences in clickthrough rates depending on the time of day.

When one sets the parameters for a particular Google AdWords campaign, it is all too easy to ignore the impact of the time of day at which your ads are shown.

Recently we decided to go through a very large amount of AdWords data to try to determine at which time of day we would get the highest clickthrough rate.

First, here is how we broke down the different times of day. We segmented the day into six segments, or "zones," of four hours each.

We then went through our data to determine, across four different research partners, whether the conversion rates achieved varied significantly according to the time of day.

As you look at this data, keep in mind that we are measuring only clickthrough rates across six different periods of time.
There are other factors to consider before making changes to your campaigns:

• While conversion rates for one particular campaign may be high early in the day, the volume of traffic may be considerably higher later in the day.
• Your clickthough rate may also impact your average cost per click, as Google adjusts your costs according to clickthrough rates at different times of day.

In other words, be sure to take all factors into consideration as you refine your campaign.

With regard to clickthrough rates at different times of day, here is what we found out:

There are significant differences in clickthrough rates depending on the time of day.

As mentioned, this is just one element to consider when fine-tuning your campaign. But when you see a change as high as 61.15 percent between different "zones," it is a strong indicator that the time of day at which you show you ads is a factor you need to take seriously.

Buying For Others Changes Key Word Search Criteria
Research Brief

"According to the Q1 Search Trend Report recently released by Performics, a division of DoubleClick, sales growth between Q1 2005 and Q1 2006 markedly outpaced campaign growth, While campaign size and cost each grew nearly 40 percent, year-over-year sales surged more that 70 percent. In fact, the return on investment realized by search advertisers in March was stronger than it had been at any time in the previous 15 months."

"The report found that consumers in Q1 2006 versus Q4 2005 tended to click on more specific keywords rather than generic category terms, which garner higher costs per click. The percentage of keywords priced above $1.00 fell from seven to five percent from the end of Q4 to the end of Q1, while the percentage of total clicks on these keywords dropped more during the same time period.

"Shoppers in the fourth quarter were buying for others... (but) weren't necessarily sure what," said Frankel. "However, in the first quarter, when shoppers were buying for themselves, they had likely already narrowed down the options, and therefore were searching with more specific terms."

Bill - This has a lot of implications for 4th quarter consumer search terms like "present for dad" etc and be a great cheap buy.

Shoppers Check It Out Online, Then Go To The Store

"According to BIGresearch's June Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, when asked how often they research products online before buying them in person or in a store, 87% of nearly 7,500 respondents said they did so occasionally to regularly.

Of those who said they researched products online before buying them in the store:

* 58% made less than $50K per year
* 51% were female
* 59% were between the ages of 25 and 54

In both income groups, the top search engine used for product research was Google.com by a large margin, but WalMart.com made a surprising appearance in the top 5 websites used first among those who did their comparative shopping online before buying in the store."

How Podcasts Impact B2B Purchase Decisions
Nice set of stats on b2b podcasting..

"Podcasts are a great way to share your thought leading content which is why I found this report by KnowledgeStorm and Universal McCann very compelling. They just announced the results of a joint research study on the emerging role of new media, particularly podcasts, on B2B technology purchase decisions. "

IP Addresses of Search Engine Spiders
Are you tracking the IP addresses of search engine spiders? You can see a nice list of search engine IP addresses and hostnames here.

Google AdWords Landing Page Quality Scores : SEO Book.com

SEO Book thinks that redirects may affect your CPC!

"The brutal part with this Google update is beyond providing these general guidelines they failed to define what qualities they are looking for when they test landing page quality. Some of the things Google might be looking for

* if your AdWords ads redirect
* your account history (are you a large reliable spender that has been spending for years? are you new to a saturated market? do you have a spotty past checkered with 20,000 unrelated keyword uploads? do your ads get a strong CTR?)
* history of competitors with similar keyword selections
* if your landing page links to known affiliate hubs
* if your landing page has redirect on outbound links
* if your landing page has many links to other sites or pages that are also advertising on the same or similar keywords
* if your page has duplicate or limited content (or conversely if it has a huge number of links to external sites on it)
* time on site
* rate which people click the back button after landing on your site
* outbound ad CTR on your landing page (especially easy if you are arbitraging AdWords to AdSense)
* conversion rate if you use Google Checkout, Google Analytics, or the AdWords conversion tracker"

From Online Spin

"While Digg is far from a mega-mainstream Web destination, it has disproportionate influence on search-engine results and blog memes, primarily in the tech and social-media world. Moreover, Digg's tendency to periodically extend beyond its core audience by uncovering and virally launching niche content into mainstream is certainly compelling."

"For example, when Vincent Ferrari submitted to Digg an MP3 recording of his excruciating experience trying to cancel his AOL service with a retention specialist, thousands of people "Dugg" him. This exposed his story and helped catapult it across the Internet, landing on NBC's "Today" show, and getting covered in the New York Times and many other places."

Red Door's director of search marketing reports on how much companies allocate to search, and how much you should, too.

Retailers reveal how they budget overall marketing spend
The latest Internet Retailer Survey shows the following summary for percentage of sales allocated to marketing budgets. While the data refers only to retailers, we think it generalizes across industries as a fairly good overall benchmark guide.

• 4.1 percent of all companies earmark more than 25 percent
• 7.7 percent spend less than 1 percent
• 18 percent spend between 2 percent and 3 percent
• 19.9 percent between 4 percent and 5 percent
• 28.1 percent from 6 percent to 10 percent
• 21.9 percent from 11 percent to 25 percent
• 46 percent of catalogers allocated 6 to 10 percent of sales to marketing and advertising

Based on retails in the following catagories:

• 31.8 percent of manufacturers
• 27.8 percent of virtual merchants
• 20 percent of chain retailers