New Look
The most obvious difference is the look of the search bar which has been modernised. I thought it looked a bit like a “fake” Google branding attempt, but with time I seem to be getting used to it.

I think the new look is better than the old interface and it almost makes the rest of the SERP, which has not been updated, look a little dated.

At the bottom of the SERP, the related links are now listed in two columns of four, rather than the previous four columns of two.

A prominent left hand navigation with different search options has now been introduced to the SERP. The majority of these search options in this panel have been available for some time, but were only visible once “show options” has been selected, so it is likely that they may appear new to a lot of users.

You can see here all the search options which are available in the left panel, not all are initially visible and there are links to expand the list to view all. The top half of the panel displays different mediums of results within a SERP and the bottom half of the panel filters the standard SERP.

Depending on the search query different search options are displayed without needing to expand the option list. Looking into this with a variety of search queries it is becoming apparent that for a high percentage of searches the top half of the panel reflects the types of universal results within the SERP. For example if a search for ‘hotel in London’ displays normal listings as well as news results, a map and images then the panel will automatically show the filters for those types of results and the filter for blogs, books and updates etc are only visible once the “More” expanding list is selected. The bottom part of the panel also reflects the type of results which are displayed, if there is a recently indexed result then usually something within the “Any time” list is displayed. The “Standard view” section of the left panel however has foxed me for the time being.

The ‘pages from the UK’ radio button that was once under the search query field is now in this left panel and the navigation options at the very top right hand side of the page can now also be seen in the left panel with visual icons.

I believe that the new left panel will increases users knowledge and use of other Google functionality rather than just the basic search function.

New functionality

My favourite new functionality feature includes Google ‘Updates’ which is streaming micro blogging from Twitter, FriendFeed, MySpace and Facebook. Google introduced real time search by adding Twitter to its SERPs for highly topical search queries at the end of 2009, but this is available for all search queries as far as I can tell. It will save users having to go into twitter directly for the most up to date Tweets on particular subjects, but is unlikely yet to replace apps like TweetDeck as I can’t see anywhere that you can set up feeds to automatically push the tweets to you.

Although not new, another good feature which is now more visible is within the Google image search. The image search filters are now more obvious to help find the image type you are looking for, with ability to specify for faces, photos, clip art or line drawing.

A search for ‘cruise’ returns mainly pictures of cruise ships, but if I change the search funcitonality option to faces it returns pictures of Tom Cruise!

The universal results are behaving differently too and you can now see the related searches at the top of the page as well as at the bottom, an example of this can be seen here:

Searches for destination now not only return a map but a selection of images of that location alongside the map with a list of quick links to sights and things to do at that location:

These changes should further inform of the average Google user of functionality at their disposal which they may not have inititally been aware of. It is likely that we will see an increase in the number of Google power users which might affect the search queries that people use and the terms that deliver traffic to our sites.

Post from: Connect

Google Gets a Facelift

The queen of content strategy Kristina Halvorson wrote this post in February which argued that: “Content strategy is more or less on the same trajectory as social media was three years ago”.

There does seem to be a growing interest. Google trends data show search volumes for content strategy and related terms in March 2010 running at about twice the rate as January 2007 (taking into account the growth in overall search volumes). Searches specifically for “online content strategy” have risen 70% during that time.

It’s a compelling story. And being honest, as Content Director at iCrossing, it has really helped when talking to people about what we want to do with content to help them to reach their business goals. No one wants to be missing out on “the next big thing”, do they?

But this post isn’t about the “sellability” of Content Strategy as a project or service.

It’s about the idea that this is a new discipline.

Charlie Peverett and I went to a stimulating and well-attended event last week in London’s fashionable Shoreditch. Content Strategy, Manhattan Style invited attendees to meet “three of New York’s finest content strategists… for an evening of informal discussions, socialising, and perhaps a little drinking”. Most interestingly for me, the event blurb suggested that this was “the place to be if you want to learn more about the business value, opportunities, and practical application of this emerging field of practice” [my emphasis].

A web editor by any other name would spell as well

We had a long chat on the way to the event discussing this. I put my theory to him that content strategists are, in fact, the same thing as a “web editor in chief”. Here’s my little story that explains why I think this (and I admit it is based very heavily on my personal experiences of working within the discipline of online content creation):

Once upon a time, the internet was invented, and soon there were loads of websites and random bits and bobs and fun stuff to do and it was all really exciting. Companies who wanted to make money out of the internet got really excited too, and started building websites to join in.

Quite quickly they realised that they needed someone to run the website for them and make sure stuff looked right and there weren’t spelling mistakes and broken links everywhere. So they hired Web Editors. These people were a bit unusual – they knew about html and stuff and could also use Photoshop and write properly and fiddle about with content management systems. There weren’t many of them about. So they paid them LOADS of money.

Then, one day, a bubble burst somewhere and the companies decided that maybe the internet was rubbish and you couldn’t make money out of it. So loads of the websites got closed down and the Web Editors got made redundant or went and joined agencies and got jobs as producers or writers or Information Architects or UX guys, or they took massive pay cuts to hold on to their jobs and then got pretty much ignored to death by everyone else in the organisation.

Time passed.

Then, suddenly, the internet was back in fashion again, and quite a few companies had found that they COULD make money just by selling stuff on it directly. Then along came social media and everyone wanted their websites to be really cool and shiny again, and they wanted loads of content that did clever stuff and was really engaging and useful. So they hired Content Strategists to work out how to do it. Little did they know that these Content Strategists were in fact the self same Web Editors of yore. But that didn’t matter because the work got done and everyone got paid. And everyone lived happily ever after.

Charlie and I decided to put this theory to the panel at the event. Unfortunately, our question didn’t get chosen, and I got distracted by a different conversation about whether adding a blog to a client’s site can fix a rubbish content strategy [another blog post for another day].

So I was really pleased to see this post by fellow Brightonian Lauren Pope asking the exact question we had wanted to: what’s the difference between a content strategist and a web editor? Like Charlie and I, she has picked up on the fact that the overlap between the responsibility of a web editor and a content strategist seems to get ignored by the Content Strategy Superstars of Manhattan.

I’d add to this that there is a very strong focus on onsite content strategy with these guys that seems not to acknowledge the fact that content strategy in the social age has to cover offsite spaces where you have little or no control at all. [Again, another blog post for another day.]

The final part of the puzzle?

My belief is that content strategy isn’t an “emerging field of practice” at all. Actually it’s the remembering of what anyone who works day to day with content from the pre-dotcom days to right now this second knows: if content is queen [and, since the internet is content, how can it not be?] then you’d better get your content strategy sorted or you’re doomed to failure. And the best person to do that is the person who is creating, managing, curating and moderating it – and conversing in fine detail with users – day in day out.

However, the sad truth is that in most organisations, that person – the post-dotcom web editor – is rarely in an influential position, if they exist at all. That’s annoying, but there it is. So enter the Content Strategist: the next big thing and therefore, presumably, someone that gets listened to.

If you’re a web editor, don’t feel threatened or over-shadowed by a content strategist – see them as your ally. They are the person who is going to take a long hard look at content provision, user needs, technical barriers, business goals, and support you to deliver content that really hits the spot. It’s been a long time coming – but perhaps it is just part of a natural progression. It feels to me that over the last 15 years there has been an ongoing process where we’ve all been working to create websites that look nice, that are sensibly organised, that are really easy to use, that are easy to find, and now we’re finally considering building websites that have stuff on them that people want and like.

Content professionals – take heart. If Kristina’s stats are right, we’re the next big thing! For individuals, organisations and brands who seek to engage and trade digitally it’s even better news – because your websites and your social media activity is only going to get better.

Image by Flickr user Sirkullay, reproduced under Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 CC License.

Header Image by Flickr user 10ch

Post from: Connect

Content strategy: the new social media or the old web editing?

The malware details tool is nice, and should probably be a standard item in the toolkit, but I think the more interesting development is the ‘Fetch as Googlebot’ tool. At the moment it is very basic, and only returns the header response of a page and the details of any redirects or problems with a page, but if this is the shape of things to come, this could prove useful. What I am imagining is a site header/redirect checker that highlights any 302’s, and allows you to submit a list of redirects that should be in place, and alerts you if they are broken. That would be nice, and I believe that these are the type of things that Microsoft’s IIS SEO Toolkit provides, but that is limited to people using Microsoft servers, as well as being comfortable changing their server configuration.

These new tools are obviously a first iteration of some potential new features, but it is good to see that the Webmaster Tools are still being looked at by Google, and there are new things on the way.

Post from: Connect

Fetch! Google. Fetch!

The new campaign will see Multimap launch a series of tailored creative executions that highlight specific use cases for target audience groups identified by research. Specialised ad-creative focused on promoting Multimap’s user functionality will be targeted at mums, business users, students and outdoor activity enthusiasts.

The campaign has been based around the insights gained through a social media audit. For example we found one common use of the service was to explore where an individuals could find routes for outdoor activites such as mountain biking. The creative has been targeted towards such groups.

…The story has been covered throughout the industry press, and although we don’t like to blow our own trumpets on this platform too much we thought we wouldn’t be doing the campaign justice without some examples of the great creative concepts in action.

So here it is…

Students

Outdoors

Mums

Business

Post from: Connect

Multimap display creative

Homepage size = 15k (code + 8.5k logo image)

15k x 38 million page views x 365 days = 209,020,900,000k

209,020,900,000k = 24.3 terabytes of bandwidth

This is just to display the homepage of google.com and does not include the 165 local domains or the 400 million or so searches Google receives every day.

Of course, the bandwidth figure above assumes (and they are big assumptions!) that there is no browser or ISP caching and that the number of visits remains constant. However, it does highlight how for Google displaying even a low sized webpage requires a huge amount of bandwidth. It’s no surprise then that The Google’s biggest expense comes from running and maintaining their servers and why they are looking at new technologies to reduce costs such as creating their own renewable energy (wind, solar & geothermal), super efficient server farms and even server farms based at sea. 

And if displaying Google’s simple homepage takes up so much bandwidth it’s not surprising that running YouTube has been estimated to cost nearly 1 million dollars a day and that the site uses as much bandwidth now as the whole internet did in 2000!

Post from: Connect

How much bandwidth does Google.com use?

I agree it’s a lot better than not indexing it, but, this has definitely sent the wrong message to Flash happy web-developers. If you think this opens the door for Flash in search, then think again.

Google has indexed, PDF files along with several other non-HTML file formats for many years, but you only see them in search results, when there’s a shed load of external anchor text pointing to the file or for a long tail query with little competition. Our e-Book on Social Media has ranked consistently in the top 3 for several  years, but it’s little to do with Google’s ability to index PDF, and everything to do with the 600+ links pointing to it with the words ‘’Social media’.

So why should this be?

1. Flash files won’t have the same HTML mark-up which in regular pages, Google use to judge relevance.
2. A lot of Flash navigation use non-text buttons, so no value from important internal anchor text
3. Deep links contribute heavily to Google rankings in regular sites. But most Flash sites are contained in a single file, and people generally link to the file and not to deeper pages

Add to these, clicking on a Flash listing in Google is unlikely to take you to the place returned in the search results, unless the file is broken into lots of unique URL sections – providing a very poor user experience. And let’s not get started about mobile.

Don’t get me wrong, it is great that search engines are trying to keep up with web technologies, but until they can provide the same opportunity for Flash files to rank as regular sites and provide a similar user experience, they must send the right message to the web development and creative community.

I’ll still continue to advice clients to use Flash only where necessary. But, for those stuck with their Flash site, at least we can make it a bit more search friendly.

But my concern is that a lot of traditional creative agencies will use this development as a blank Chequebook to continue building expensive Flash sites which may be search friendlier but has no real chance of competing with a regular website.

Post from: Connect

Google indexing Flash content – big deal?