Search Who do you use ?
- 28th Nov 2007
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- Search Engines
Its interesting that when you enter the term “search” into Google the top listing is for Microsoft live search, then its a recruitment agency, Dogpile, Yahoo then AOL. This is swiftly followed by MySpace.
Which search engine do you use? More importantly, which search engine do you aim your SEO skills at, or do you try to hit them all ?
DaveN has a good understanding of all search which I guess is a future proof approach. Will companies now be saying they’d like to rank in all Search Engines in the future, or perhaps your clients already request that…
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To be honest, as 94% (yes 94…) of the Dutch market uses Google, for a lot of my clients, I look only at them…
Same here, i have a 100% clent base that asks for google rankings rather then yahoo or msn.
I use Google exclusively. As for optimization, as far as I’ve seen, beside some authority sites there are very few that rank well in all 3 big players. And I’m not talking about splogs or other spam sites.
Hi Dan, I always try and attempt to hit the big 3 although TBH you always want it to do well in Google for traffic/conversion sake.
However, I recently did SEO & PPC for a shoe company (Rieker) and was most surprised that the majority of sales came from the weaker of the three here in the UK.
It left me wondering do the people who shop in this market ever change their search engine once they have purchased their pc or is it that time of the year that the silver surfers need to get a fresh batch of anti-stress shoes.
Paul
We optimise for Google but hit them all - I guess we are old school “content is king” players.
I use Google and Yahoo. They have good SEO tools. Most of the other ones are lacking in that department.
Here in Japan, Yahoo has the largest market share. But I use Google, except for checking serps in Yahoo.
I use Google, I work towards improving my rankings in Google becasue that is what brings in the most traffic. They have such a large share of search they more or less force everyone to follow them. There are very few no follows. I know Dave said at one stage you can make more money if you take Google out of the equation but I don’t think that holds true for the majority of webmasters. Google is essential at this point in internet history, it’s not going to last forever but until the next big search invention happens i’m playing by Google rules. The other engines seem to fall in line behind the Google lead anyway.
In China, Baidu has the largest search market share, which is much more difficult to understand than Google.
I have to confirm what Joost says - most of the Dutch clientèle only cares about Google. On a personal note I believe that Yahoo, and more recently MSN/Live search have been doing a lot of catching up.
I gotta be honest, I’m addicted to Google search. If I were in a serious research industry I would use dogpile more because of its overall relevancy. A metacrawler like dogpile usually offers good results, but if you compare the results of Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, then youve got a good whammy of relevant info at the top there. I dig it!
A curious observation… No “Google” for “search” on the first page! They must be really humble guys! Or didn’t they optimized for “search” query? :)
As for the question, we target mostly google as our clients are interested only in it.
The majority of my clients want to go up in the ‘Google rankings’.
They don’t talk about search engines anymore, they only talk about the big G.
I think this is probably the same for most people.
However reading this blog and its attention to Live search has made me do research in that area. not extensive I have to admit.
But I do feel that Microsoft are the only company big enough to play in the same field with Google in the future.
I agree with Razvan Antonescu, it’s rare to rank well in the top 3. Google has to be the daddy!
The only one that could in the short to mid term bite a considerable chunk out of Google’s absurdly high market share in most of the western world, would be a Yahoo & Microsoft combo. There’s been a lot of talk about it, still wondering if we will actually see it.
Almost all the crowd here in India are the users of Google. It is brilliant.
Google pretty exclusively.
Since I’m focusing largely on UK-only users I fairly much only bother about Google - although I check out rankings on Msn/Yahoo occasionally (once or so a year).
Yahoo can be better for adsense, though - guess it’s since they’re not quite so used to them.
For personal use, Google. When working I use a combination of Google and Yahoo.
I use ask.com sometimes because I have IACI stock, but it pisses me off so much I usually just end up back on Google. Can’t wait for the IACI stock to hit $30 so I can sell it. If their SERPS stay this bad I don’t care how many commercials of confused, indecisive searches they air on television - people won’t use a product that sucks.
And this is coming from a stock holder with a vested interest in giving the company a good reputation. So you know it’s bad…
Google all the way, in the UK a business can still die even being #1 in Yahoo and MSN
Google all the way too. Several clients rank well in MSN, e.g. number 1, but they get more traffic through just being on first page on Google.
Yeah; these answers are sad, aren’t they? I have to add to the chorus: pretty exclusively Google. Given the share they have in Australia, it’s hard not to…
I only use google for searching myself.
I only aim SEO at google because the others seem to come on there own.
I guess I am one of the rare programmers that focuses on Yahoo. That is where I make my money. Someday I hope that Google will pick up my site but right now I only get traffic from Yahoo and MSN. MSN is so small, they are hardly worth any effort. I wish more people like Yahoo as the competition is good for everyone.
Depends on what the search is for.
I guess this is the reason why Google once where so industrious in trying to make people stop using ‘google’ as a verb. People don’t search with Google. They google.
And here in Sweden Google amounts to 90-95 percent of all search referrals on the sites I monitor.
Are you kidding me? What about the Ms. Dewey search interface? It’s got my vote for slickest interface. What a design! msdewey.com