This map shows the popularity of different mobile browsing platforms country by country, with some interesting results.

Apple’s dominance can clearly be seen, with the iPhone and iTouch accounting for over half the market in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany and Japan.

The Android platform has its largest share in the US and the UK, but has a much weaker share in other countries. This could change in the near future as new phones emerge that run Android, such as the Nexus One.

Docomo and KDDI are the largest mobile phone operators in Japan, and account for 12% of the mobile browser share platforms.

Canada seems to like the iPhone and iTouch, with 86% of mobile internet users using this platform to access the internet.

As we all know, SEOMoz has recently launched its latest toy, an Open Site Explorer. I am going to assume that you have been playing around with it for a bit now. I will also recommend you to read SEOGadget’s post with some tips and ideas.

But I am here to tell you how Open Site Explorer and Microsoft Excel combined can help you when researching links against your competitors.

Let’s use the term “shoes”. First of all, let’s see how the top 10 compare in terms of external links. To do this, I will run all the URLs in Open Site Explorer.

And then filter all links to show only Followed links from external pages to this page.

And then export it to CSV. You will get a nice excel file with all the links (up to 10000, but not many pages will exceed that number) that linkscape think are relevant. Cool. Let’s do that 10 times, with all the URLs in the top 10.
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Sam Fenton Elstone wrote an interesting post on site links a couple a months ago.

To recap; Google’s been offering the choice for advertisers to have 4 additional site links to their Paid Search ads. One of the major positive aspects of site links is to shorten the users navigation to conversion as well promoting seasonal services or products.

However, another great benefit of the site links is… gaining visibility on highly competitive keywords.

I’ve been running site links for one of our clients. One of the site links is based on the keyword ”Theatre tickets”. As you can imagine this terms is one of the most competitive and expensive keywords found in its particular sector.

Nothing exciting?

For the period between 23rd December 09 and 21st January 2010, the “theatre tickets” generic campaign had fairly decent results in terms of conversation rate. But the ‘theatre tickets’ site link performed even better, with a conversation rate 216% higher for 92.5% cheaper!

This really shows how beneficial site links can be to a paid search campaign, particularly when concerned with highly competitive generic terms.

It also seems that generic keywords placed in site links have a positive effect on brand CTRs too.

Advertisers on your Site links blocks. Ready? Get set? Go!

I don’t claim to be an avid Apple fan, although I have owned numerous iPods and currently use an iPhone which i’ve been very impressed by. However, like many people, my curiosity and liking of gadgetry tech drew me towards the events that were to be announced yesterday night by Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs.

In case you haven’t already heard (most have!), Apple have announced the release of a new product, the ‘iPad’. It’s expected that it will be released in the UK June or July time. There’s still lots of people wondering what exactly it is/does, hence me writing this post.

What is it?

Apple say…

“Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price”

On first impressions you could mistake the iPad for an oversized iPhone.  Apple are aiming to gain market share from the likes of netbooks (those underpowered mini laptops) and Ebook readers already on the market such as Amazon’s Kindle.

What does it do? Read more…

Today Bing announced a new development with their auto suggest feature. The auto suggest feature is not a new development, both Google and Yahoo! have had this functionality for a while now.

The auto suggest feature aids the user by analysing the characters that are being typed into the search box and suggesting possible search terms that the user may be looking for to speed up the search process – and also highlight possible search refinements to return more targeted results.

The recent development brought out by Bing is that these suggested search terms are being informed not only by user search behaviour but also by breaking news and trending search queries:

“In fact, we recently incorporated breaking news and hot trending queries within autosuggest. Updated every 15 minutes, trending queries balance timeliness and relevance to connect you with the most prominent or topical events happening now.”

The following examples from Bing’s announcement post highlights this new feature action:

If you didn’t get a chance to watch the Golden Globe Awards, autosuggest helps you get to the latest news and recent winners:

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Like most people, I’ve spent the last week watching the depth of the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti reveal itself with an increasing sense of horror and disbelief. And probably like most people, I’ve donated as much as I could afford to the relief effort via the Disasters and Emergency Committee (DEC) website, because, as one colleague put it: “There’s pretty much nothing else that I can practically do to help the people of Haiti.”

The story that has been playing out on our TV screens and newspapers is truly shocking, and there seems to be a battle going on over which story the media wants to tell. What’s going to sell more papers or get more views or viewers? The story of “hope” (the one word headline on the Sun’s front page on Monday) - that people are still being pulled out of the rubble alive nearly a week on from the earthquake? Or the story of “human evil” - that “thugs” (as the Metro’s front page so eloquently described the Haitian earthquake survivors) are “looting, shooting and lynching” (the Telegraph) as a response to humanitarian efforts to provide them with food and water. (The fact that we’ve all donated £25million so far tends to suggest the Sun got it right again!)

Of course, the need of the media to create simplified, exaggerated, panic-driven narratives in order to grab attention from their competitors is nothing new. But as my sister (who works in the digital communications team at the Department for International Development  - DfID) explained to me as she worked a Sunday shift whilst visiting me this weekend - the way that the media tells these kinds of story has had a direct impact on the amount of money raised by DEC in the past.

I was fascinated, then, to see that her emergency shift supporting the DfID press office with their communications relating to relief efforts in Haiti wasn’t so she could help with press enquiries. Rather she was working to publish updates on DfID’s own website, and pictures and relief plan details directly to social media places such as Flickr and Twitter and on their blog pages. I watched her upload this Creative Commons map (which she sourced from Wikimedia) showing the exact location of the Leogain to Flickr, a region of Haiti that no one had yet managed to get to, and where DfID co-ordinated rescue teams were planning to travel to next. In a situation like this, providing pictures, updates and information directly to people like you and me - rather than relying on the press to tell the story - means that we are able to make up our own minds whether we think that this is a cause that’s worth our money without the filter of headlines, editors and ad sales targets.

Personally, I find this a very easy decision to make! But for those who might be worried that their money might somehow end up being “looted” by “thugs”, these images and updates tell a pretty clear story.

I’d really recommend adding DfID and other relief co-ordinating agencies to your social media feeds and streams if you are interested in getting a clearer understanding of what is happening in Haiti. With news breaking today that a second earthquake  measuring 6.1 shook the island this morning, the success of social media to help raise awareness about the need for donations could make a big difference to Haitian survivors.

IMAGE CREDIT: Michael Haig / Department for International Development via Creative Commons licence

HEADER IMAGE CREDIT: The U.S. Army

I am currently doing a bit of personal development by spending regular time with the PPC team to learn what they do, and to find areas where our two departments can help and learn from each other. “Synergy” if you speak business-talk.

We recently had a session looking at the Comparison Shopping Engine (CSE) feeds that we run, and an interesting point came out of it. This point was about the amount of coverage a brand could have on a single SERP where there are Natural Search results, Paid Search results, and Product results from Google Product Search.

What are CSE’s?

Comparison Shopping Engines are sites like Shopping.com, Nextag, and Ciao, where retailers can submit a product feed of all their current stock, and these sites can then provide their users with huge lists of products in a selection of categories. Retailers can gain incremental sales from users who may not have used search in their purchase process. The CSEs make their money from charging a CPC on all the referrals to the retailer sites.

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In October 2009, Guardian News and Media launched its online Fashion Store, allowing users to browse from over 300 retailers and once again proving its ability and willingness to evolve. With this have they hit upon a business model which works for advertisers, publishers and users alike?

Cutting out the middle-man

With publishers increasingly looking to advertising and sponsorship deals to replace lost revenue from dwindling newspaper sales, the Guardian has effectively cut out the middle-man to provide a useful service for its readers. Given the choice I, personally, would much rather a dedicated area within which I can browse a number of brands and ’shop the look’ championed in this week’s style section, than sidebars full of promotion boxes for brands I may have no interest in.

Indeed, online retail analysis has suggested that people shop for fashion online in a different way to how they might shop for other products. Most clothes shoppers know what stores and labels stock what they’re looking for. So, rather than searching for a particular item, they would look for their favourite clothing brands and then search for the item within the brand’s site. As the Guardian Fashion Store offers the choice to search by brand, it fits with this shopping model much more snugly than side-bar advertising could.

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At 7am Beijing time Google released a statement yesterday stating that they had a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on their (our) corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.”

Google included in their statement that other US companies had been under attack too. It’s no surprise to Google being under attack from hackers. However Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond wrote that the attacks were aimed at identifying advocates for human rights in China.

Google entered the Chinese market and took the decision to censor itself back in 2006. However Google have now decided to change its policy of censoring itself as a result of these attacks and fully open its doors to China.

“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.”

Back of Google Logo at Beijing - Will Google be forced to turn it's back on China?

There are some fantastic articles on this subject from Search Engine Land and the BBC but we’d love your views on this subject. Do you think Google are doing the right thing? Will Google be forced to turn it’s back on China?

Image Credit: Creative Commons Attribution:  by andreweland