Google still dominates the market with 65.9 percent market share, and Yahoo dropped to the number three spot at 14.5 percent.

The reported search engine rankings for December 2011, according to comScore, are stated below:

• Google – 65.9% (up from 65.4% in November 2011)
• Bing – 15.1% (+.1 change from November)
• Yahoo – 14.5% (down from 15.1%)
• Ask – remaining at 2.9%
• AOL – remaining at 1.6%

More than 18.2 billion explicit core searches were conducted in December, which is a two percent increase from November. 12 billion searches were placed on Google sites, 2.7 billion were through Bing (up 2 percent), and 2.6 billion on Yahoo! Sites. We are anxious to see if Bing will remain in the number two spot in following months, and maybe even further the gap with Yahoo searches.

Now, fast-forward one year to August 2011. According to Experian Hitwise, the Yahoo-Bing relationship has gained just over 4% of the U.S. market share. This pushes their total U.S. market share from 24.56% to 28.99% in just over one year’s time. In this same period of time, Google has seen their total U.S. market share decrease by over 6%. They went from having a U.S. market share of 71.59% in August 2010 to 65.09% in August 2011.

So what is causing this increase in market share by Yahoo-Bing? Although there’s no clear-cut answer, there seems to be a few contributing factors. The Yahoo-Bing return-on-investment for advertisers has increased by over 10% in the last year while the Google Adwords ROI fell by roughly 12% in the same time. Also, according to Experian Hitwise, “Yahoo! Search and Bing achieved the highest success rates in…2011.  This means that for both search engines, more than 81 percent of searches executed resulted in a visit to a Website.  Google achieved a success rate of 66 percent.”

For now, the Yahoo-Bing market share gains seem rather minimal, but they are at least heading in the right direction. Do you see this shift in market share continuing?

Back in December of 2010 Google’s Matt Cutts stated, “I filmed a video back in May 2010 where I said that we didn’t use ‘social’ as a signal, and at the time, we did not use that as a signal, but now, we’re taping this in December 2010, and we are using that as a signal.” Social media has fit its way into SEO and has started to alter traditional organic search results. If you are logged into your Google + while searching for something on Google, your search results will be different than if you were not logged into a Google account. If one of your friends has a web content that is related to the topic you are searching for, then Google gives that web page higher placement on SERPs. Google and Bing have both admitted that they look at their users’ social authority when making search engine ranking decisions.

Social media can influence search results depending on the number of times an author’s content is shared on a social networking site. If you are not connected with any social media sites, do not fret because there are steps that you can take to change this. To get more traffic through social media, you first want to build a presence on a social media site and stay up to date with your followers. Optimize your website for social media sharing, for example if you are based in WordPress you can install the Sharebar plugin to enable sharing. Lastly, you are going to want to constantly encourage your followers/views to share your content through other social media tools. Just because social media is booming doesn’t mean that traditional SEO is irrelevant. There will always be that group of people that don’t prefer social media sites, so traffic for non-social media site users will not completely diminish, but realize that traditional SEO is beginning dwindle, so changing with the times is not a bad idea.

For more information on this topic visit:  Quicksprout.com

Google’s use of Apple’s Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome combined consists of approximately 48% of all web browser usage, while IE takes the remaining 52%. According to an updated report by Chitika, a company that provides data analysis, 75% of Bing’s traffic is a result from IE users, while only 40% of visitors to Google Search use IE.  Although Microsoft could use Internet Explorer as a weapon against Google, it would not prove beneficial considering they would lose that fraction of web surfers who visit and utilize Google Search. But if Microsoft did ever decided to lockout Google, it would definitely hurt Google a lot more than Microsoft.

People might think that Bing is doing so well because it’s the default search engine for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, but that’s actually not the case. Computer manufacturers typically set up most default browsers themselves, based on who invests the most in buying default browser positioning. Google has been aggressive in this area up until around 2008 when Microsoft took over and led most of the remaining deals. But browser positioning is only one of Internet Explorers attributes. Internet Explorer’s popularity is not only credited to its easy use and brand name reputation, but its ability to remain the way users like it. If updating from Internet Explorer 8 to Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft not only provides the user with an improved browser, but also transfers over old settings from your previous browser. As Internet Explorer’s dominance continues, Microsoft will continue to hold bragging rights over Google in the web browser field.

Baidu has been working on this for a year now, but its first attempt at finding someone to run the English portion of the site did not go as planned. Baidu had originally teamed up with Google to run the English-language portion of their search engine, but Google objected to following Baidu’s censorship guidelines. While Google ultimately backed out of the deal with Baidu, it still owned up to 19% of the search market share in China.

Since the Google-Baidu matchup did not work out, Microsoft took the opportunity to fill Google’s spot. Baidu has publicly announced its partnership with Microsoft and reported that any English searches run through Baidu will show up marked with the Bing logo. Although Google runs the show as the number one search site, Baidu’s new affiliate company Microsoft has upped Google this time around. Google’s failure to comply with Baidu’s censorship guidelines might have been a decision they will soon regret. Baidu’s hope is that with its Microsoft partnership there’ll be no need for anyone to use Google’s search engine in China since Baidu is already the leading search engine company within the country.

For more information about this topic, visit:

• Search Engine Land
• Computer World
• Forbes
• Slashgear

This is perhaps a result of Google offering users more than just search results – Google has become a one-stop shop, affording users the ability to check their mail, get directions, watch the latest viral video, find up to date news sourced more than a thousand times, and even translate the website for that hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland, which doesn’t seem to have an English button.

6 Slick Tricks

Nonetheless, most Internet surfers are unaware of the many tools Google provides that does not warrant an insular tab at the top the page.  By entering specific codes into the search field, you can manipulate Google to do whatever it is you want it to.  Here are six of my favorite unknown tricks of the trade:

1. Spell Check:

Google is perhaps the fastest way to check your spelling.  By typing your word into the search field, Google will confirm a million times over the correct spelling or suggest an alternate.  Likewise, you can enter the “define” operator to instruct Google to show you only dictionary entries.

2. Calculator:

Yes, your computer does have a calculator.  So does your phone.  But sometimes those places are just farther away than a Google search bar.  Try searching an arithmetic nightmare like “538/14 * (17+284)/ 2”. Then go ahead and check it on your calculator and ask yourself which method was easier.

3. World Clock:

Trying to figure out if you can call that hotel in Reykjavik to book a room?  Search “time Reykjavik” to see whether or not it’s business hours.  Naturally, this is an invaluable tool in a world were you need to call London, San Diego, and New Delhi all in one working day.

4. Currency Converter:

Need to find out how many kroner you’re getting for your dollar? Type “100 dollars in kroner” to find out.  You can, of course, use Google to find out that Iceland is on the kroner before you begin converting.

5. Exclusion Operator:

This one is an oldie but worth repeating.  Search ‘ “masters” –woods ’ to see the untold stories of this weekend’s golf tournament.  That little minus sign may be all that stands between you and a torrent of unwanted search results.

6. File Type Operator:

You can limit your search results to specific file types.  Ever want to know what power points people have published on Reykjavik?  Search “reykjavik filetype:ppt” to be amazed.  Likewise you can search everything from avi to zip for your file-finding needs.

If you are not from the search marketing industry, you already know that rankings fluctuate. They change over time and this is were SEO companies use ranking reports checking how rankings change over time, looking at the trend and seeing the benefits of these ranking improvements in terms of traffic, conversions and ROI. Knowing that ranking change all the time due to different factors such as personalization, geographic location, all sorts of Google One-Box algorithms, Google Subscribed Links, Image Search, Video Search, Real Time Search, the search engine results page (SERP) may always look different from two different people. So I decided to check last Google commercial that was aired during the Super Bowl. This is actually not a new commercial, it was uploaded by Google online on YouTube last November 19, 2009 and many people in the search industry already knew about this commercial. A full set of all their other video commercials can be found on YouTube’s Search Stories.

I took a deeper look into the search results and replicated each search query to see how these results were different from the actual results below:

Google Results for: Study Abroad in Paris France

Google Super Bowl Ad Search Query: Study Abroad in Paris France

Results here not not much different, the top 3 sites were still the same, the differences were in indented results. Since StudyAbroad.com had 2 more indented listings, it occupied the top 3 spots. See results below:

My Google Results for: Study Abroad in Paris France

Google Results for: Cafes near the Louve

Now the next query is interesting, only 1 site is similar:

Google Super Bowl Ad Results: Cafes near the Louve

My Google Results for: Cafes near the Louve

And with the wrong spelling, after clicking on the Did you mean link, local one-box results also differ. And this is an interesting one, not a single one is the same.

Search Query: Cafes near the Louvre Paris France - Google Super Bowl Ad

Search Query: Cafes near the Louvre Paris France - Actual Google Search Results

Does this mean a lot are involved in doing Local SEO these days? Or even International SEO?

Google Results for: Impress a French girl

Google Super Bowl Ad: Impress a French girl - Search Query

Google Actual Results: Impress a French girl - Search Query

Amazing how Google answers still ranks well after the site has been closed already for 2 or 3 years I think.

Google Results for: Chocolate Shops Paris France

SuperBowl Ad - Google Results for: Chocolate Shops Paris France

My Google Results for: Chocolate Shops Paris France

You don’t need a website to rank well in Local search results in Google one-box. The number 1 in one-box is still hanging in there strong.

Google Results for: What Are Truffles?

Google Superbowl Commercial Ad: What Are Truffles?

Google Actual SERPs: What Are Truffles?

Interesting Yahoo answers results. It does not look like site links, and it does not look like the free flowing real time search. But it sure does consume a lot of screen real estate. Even more interesting is Google suggest today can show definitions in the drop down.

Google Super Bowl Ad Showing no Google Suggest Results

Actual Google Suggest Drop Down also Showing Definitions

I omitted other results from the Google Super Bowl ad since they did not show any large difference in search results. And here is the last one I will show, again local search differences. But not in one box, but in Google Maps.

Google Results for: Churches in Paris

Churches in Paris - Google Maps, Local Search Results in Google Super Bowl Video Commercial

Churches in Paris - Google Maps, Local Search Results in Google

Ok, no big deal, search results are always changing anyway. So many factors involved also that can change the SERPs. And for reference purposes, I am in San Diego California and the actual results above are what appears when you are in my location.

But, let’s now take a look at Bing’s TV Commercial…

Like what I did above, I took screenshots of the Bing video ad and did the actual search queries also. Here are the results:

Bing Results for: restaurants

Bing TV Commercial - Dim Lighting Option

After searching for restaurants, you will really see no “Atmosphere” drill down category until you click on: “Local Listings for Restaurants” on the side bar, which I clicked on and came up with this:

Bing Results Showing No Atmosphere Option: Dim Lighting

Ok, the paramerters are not exactly the same. Clearly, Bing had some Geo-IP detection and automatically modified the query to: restaurants San Diego, California. So let’s change it to make the parameters the same.

Bing Results for: restaurants in Portland, Oregon

Bing Video Ad: Search Query of Restaurants in Portland, Oregon

Bing Actual Results for Query: restaurants in Portland, Oregon

And I went to the atmosphere sidebar, and didn’t find the Dim Lighting option. Even after clicking on the more link.

Bing Actual Results: Restaurants in Portland, Oregon - Atmosphere has no Dim Lighting option

So is the Bing video advertisement shown on TV really fabricated for the television commercial purpose only? I’ll let you decide on that and you can check out the decision engine yourself. What do you think?