Website design newsletter
Every month we publish interesting news articles relating to website design, search engine trends and other exciting changes happening online.
February 2008
Contents
Microsoft puts in bid to buy Yahoo!
Average number of keywords per search increased to 4
Microsoft puts in bid to buy Yahoo!
2 February 2008
Unable to topple Google Inc. on its own, Microsoft Corp. is trying to force rival Yahoo Inc. into a shotgun marriage, betting nearly $42 billion that the two companies together will have a better chance of tackling the Internet search leader Google. Microsoft's attempt to buy Yahoo, spelled out in an unsolicited offer announced Friday 1st February, shows just how much Google threatens the world's largest software maker's grip on how people interact with computers.
Although Microsoft remains the world's most valuable technology company, its position will become more precarious unless it can cultivate a more loyal Internet audience and generate more online ad revenue to subsidize the free services taken for granted on the Internet.
"Microsoft has to do this deal. It's a battle that Microsoft needs to win," said AMR Research analysts But there's no guarantee that Yahoo will be willing to sell to Microsoft -- or that the deal will win the necessary approvals from antitrust regulators in the United States and Europe if Yahoo capitulates.
Yahoo will likely face intense pressure to accept, given its steadily sliding profits and a murky 2008 outlook that caused its stock price to drop to a four-year low earlier this week.
Search engines are crucial tools because they have become a central hub in hugely profitable ad networks. Advertisers around the world are expected to double their spending on the Internet during the next three years as more people get their news and entertainment on the Web instead of television, radio, newspapers and magazines. The trend is expected to create an $80 billion online ad market in 2010, up from an estimated $40 billion last year.
After realizing how much money Google was making from search, Yahoo introduced its own technology in 2004, but by then it was too little, too late.
Microsoft believes its technological expertise will be a good fit with Yahoo's knack for providing content and services that keep people coming back to its site. Combined, the two companies would reach a U.S. online audience of 142 million compared with 124 million for Google, according to Nielsen Online.
But Yahoo and Microsoft are so far behind Google in the lucrative search market that they still will have a lot of ground to make up even if they joined forces.
Google already controls 62% of the worldwide search market, and has been widening its lead, according to the latest data from comScore Media Metrix. By combining, Microsoft and Yahoo would have a 16% share of the worldwide search market.
Source: biz.yahoo.com/ap/080201/microsoft_yahoo.html
Average number of keywords per search increased to 4
2 February 2008
Google's Analytics Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik was in Atlanta this week and mentioned a few interesting updates related to Google's user stats and the trends they are seeing.
Avinash said, the average number of keywords per query has gone from 3 to 4 words per query on average for the first time ever!
He also said that only 14% of clicks come from paid search (up slightly) and the remaining 86% of clicks are organic. 25% of user queries are unique meaning no other user has used the same query previously (this figure is unchanged from last year).
Source: www.searchenginewatch.com
