News archive
28 December 2010 - Internet Explorer Open to Cyber Attack
According to Microsoft, a security vulnerability in Internet Explorer for Windows versions 6, 7 and 8 could allow hackers to circumvent Microsoft's traditional defenses and take control of a user's system.
Microsoft's next monthly security update is scheduled for January 2011.
Read more »»1 November 2010 - Computer and internet training in your own home - Poole, Bournemouth & Dorset area
M35 design is pleased to offer one-to-one tuition from patient, friendly and reliable tutors with more than 14 years’ experience of computers and the internet. Read more »»
20 October 2010 - Beware SEO scammer emails
Today, M35 Design received an unsolicited email regarding one of our own websites. The email was typical of the kind of 'spammy' approach that so many unethical SEO companies use to try to obtain new business.
The unsolicited message purported to be from someone called David Charlton, from a company called "The Web Clinic" (www.seo-clinic.net).
Amongst other untruths, the email said that our website was a Google PageRank 3. It's actually 4 - which is higher, although it's not a good idea to focus too much on PageRank nowadays. David Charlton also said that the site only has 29 Google backlinks (incoming links to a website, or web page) when, in fact, it has over 900. He reports that the site has 1250 pages indexed in Google, yet it actually has 1350.
Apparently there are, "issues with site content and structure" and the website is "underperforming in at least one of the major search engines such as - Google, Yahoo, and Bing." David Charlton continues, "You probably are aware that most people don't look past the first page of search results. I struggled to find you in the first couple of pages for highly relevant keyphrases, which means that you could be losing out on a significant amount of business." Well we struggled to find his site in Google at all, despite his claims of being on page 1 for two terms - Website Marketing Company and internet marketing companies. That is presumably why he spams people - because his site cannot be found!
In fact, we are number 1 or 2 on page 1 of virtually all search engines for our top search term, and on the first or second pages for many other terms. These are organic listings, not something we have paid for. Our site has been carefully 'nurtured' and has gained its ranking over a decade or more.
We tried to reply to David Charlton to set the record straight, but his email address and other common variations that usually work (webmaster@, info@, sales@, admin@ etc.) were all "refused" by their server. No surprise there!
This SEO company have recently changed their domain name from 'The SEO Doctors' to 'The SEO Clinic' - presumably due to negative publicity. Will they be changing it again in the near future? Probably, given their mode of operating and the contunuing bad press (see links at the end of this article).
At best, they and the many other SEO companies that use these tactics are just ignorant and send out a blanket email without actually researching any individual sites, hoping for the best. At worst they are scammers relying on that one person in a few hundred believing what they say about their site and paying them to 'put it right.'
Read more complaints about seo-clinic.net here and here.
5 October 2010 - Internet Explorer browser falls below 50% of worldwide market for first time
According to StatCounter usage of the Internet Explorer (IE) browser has fallen below 50% of the worldwide market for the first time.
IE fell to 49.87% in September, followed by Firefox with 31.5%. Google's Chrome continued to increase market share at an impressive rate and more than tripled from 3.69% in September 2009 to 11.54% in September 2010.
In the UK, in the time period September 2009 to September 2010, usage of IE dropped from just under 60% to 54.63%. Firefox usage also dropped from just over 27%, to 23.56%. However, Chrome usage rose from just over 4% to 12.61%.
8 September 2010 - Google Instant - launch of 'search as you type'
Today, Google announced the launch of 'Google Instant', which aims to predict what you're searching for and provide results for it.
Google Instant offers evolving search results that can potentially change with each character you type into the Google search box. Google says that by providing users with immediate feedback, they are able to refine their searches more quickly and find the results that more precisely match their needs.
Google aims to predict what you want by filling out the anticipated search term in grey as you type each character. Below that there will be a dropdown box offering other suggested queries.
The new interface applies to both search results and related ads. Therefore, Google say they expect increased user engagement with their search services, including ads.
Although Google Instant doesn't change the way ads are served, ads and search results will now be shown based on the "predicted search." For example, if someone types "flow" into Google.com, their algorithms predict that the user is searching for "flowers" (the predicted search) and therefore display both search results and ads for "flowers". However, if that user then adds the letter "c" to the query, their algorithms may predict that the user is searching for "flowchart" and show the corresponding natural and paid results for flowchart.
Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search and user experience said, "In 2000 we thought the idea of being able to search before you typed was so weird we made it our April Fools joke. Just 10 years later we're seeing that it's actually possible."
Matt Cutts, from Google, says: "The search results will remain the same for a query, but it's possible that people will learn to search differently over time. For example, I was recently researching a congressperson. With Google Instant, it was more visible to me that this congressperson had proposed an energy plan, so I refined my search to learn more, and quickly found myself reading a post on the congressperson's blog that had been on page 2 of the search results."Starting from today, users with Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE8 in the U.S. will begin seeing the new results. Google is also rolling out the service to users in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Russia so long as they are signed-in to a Google product. Users in the U.S. do not need to be signed in.
If you don't want to see results as you type, you can turn off Google Instant by clicking the link next to the search box on any search results page, or by visiting your 'Preferences' page. People who do so will then see Google's standard results.
Source: Google
24 August 2010 - Will Google update search results as you type?
A new Google experiment has been spotted which alters search results as you type your query (for a demo, see video below). It is currently only available to a small sets of users, but going on past experience Google will either turn this into a full-fledged feature or discard it.
It may well never make its way to the mainstream Google experience, but some are already expressing a great deal of concern about it, particularly with regards to queries that begin with words that could yield undesired Not Safe For Work results.
09 August 2010 - Facebook second most visited website in the UK
Last month, Facebook was revealed to have half a billion registered users around the world, and is the leading UK social network, with 26m British users.
In June 2010, Facebook accounted for 7.14% of all UK Internet visits and over half (54.48%) of all visits to a social networking websites. It was the second most visited website in the UK, only beaten by Google (9.59% market share for June). However, using the measure of total page views rather than visits, Facebook is way ahead of Google, accounting for 16.73% of UK page views during June. In other words: 1 in every 6 Internet pages viewed in the UK was a Facebook page.
Facebook also has a very high average average time spent on its site: almost half an hour.
Source: Experian Hitwise
29 June 2010 - Social networks receive more UK internet visits than search engines
During May 2010, social networks accounted for 11.88% of UK Internet visits, whilst search engines accounted for 11.33%. May was the first ever month that social networks have been more popular than search engines in the UK, in terms of visits.
Facebook was the most popular social network, receiving 55% of all UK visits - almost three times as many as the next most popular social network, YouTube. Twitter is now the third most popular social network in the UK.
However, despite its popularity, Facebook doesn't yet dominate the UK social networking market to the extent that Google dominates the search market. Together www.google.co.uk and www.google.com accounted for nine in every 10 web searches carried out in the UK during May. Consequently, Google UK was the most visited website in the UK during May, accounting for 9.29% of all visits. Facebook was in second place, accounting for 7.04% of all UK Internet visits during the same month.
Source: Experian Hitwise
10 June 2010 - Google search engine offers a personalised homepage
British and American Google users can now set their own background to their iGoogle homepages. To do so, users must be registered with Google and then login to their account to adjust their iGoogle backgrounds.
You can choose a photo from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album or a public gallery hosted by Picasa which includes a selection of beautiful photos.
The feature was rolled out in the US last week and is being rolled out across the UK over the next few days. It can be identified by the presence of a link in the lower left-hand corner of Google's homepage.
Those Google visitors who do not want to personalise their homepage will not be forced to. To learn more go to Google.co.uk.
21 April 2010 - Zeus, the internet banking virus is back
A virus named Zeus, that steals online banking details from infected computer users, is more powerful than ever, warns web security company, Trusteer. It says it has seen a completely new version of the Trojan Zeus virus in one of every 3,000 of the 5.5m computers it monitors in the US and UK.
Zeus works by stealing the login information (recording keystrokes) of a user when they are on target websites - usually banks and other financial institutions. The user's data is then sent to a remote server to be used and sold on by cyber-criminals.
Trusteer claims that Zeus 1.6 can infect people using the web browsers Firefox and Internet Explorer. Amit Klein, the firm's chief technology officer, said that his research team expects this new version of Zeus to significantly increase fraud losses, since nearly 30% of internet users bank online with Firefox.
Source: Infosecurity USA
5 April 2010 - Internet use - Top 10 European countries
Data from 30 September 2009 showed that the UK had 46.7 million internet users, second only to Germany, with 54.2 million. Following behind was Russia (45.3 million), France (43.1), Italy (30.0), Spain (29.1), Turkey (26.5), Poland (20.0), and the Netherlands (14.3). Ukraine was last with 10.4 million users.
Source: Internet World Stats
30 March 2010 - Top 50 UK e-retailers
The sixteenth quarterly edition of the IMRG-HITWISE HOT SHOPS LIST provides a unique insight into the top 50 UK e-retailers, based on February 2010 rankings.
The leading four brands retained their dominance of the UK online shopping scene: Amazon.co.uk (1), Argos (2), Play (3) & Apple Computer (4). Amazon.com (5), Tesco (6) & John Lewis (8) all moved up one place with Easyjet (10) entering the top 10 by moving up 2 places. Marks & Spencer (7) fell two places and Next (9) dropped a single place.
The biggest movers this quarter were: Thomas Cook (15) moving up thirty one positions, British Airways (31) moved up eleven places, The Trainline (24) and Thomson Holidays (11) both climbed ten.
Source: Experian Hitwise
02 March 2010 - Google browser translates websites
Google's new version of its web browser, Chrome, offers automatic translation of websites, as well as enhanced privacy controls.
Users will be able to specify that they want every web page they visit to appear in a certain language, also to set privacy controls that are specific to individual websites.
Visit the Google 'Chrome' page to find out more.
01 February 2010 - Britons become biggest internet spenders
According to a new report by the Centre for Retail Research on behalf of price comparison service Kelkoo, in 2009 shoppers in the UK spent more online than any other consumers in Europe.
The study showed Britons spent £38 billion on purchases made via the web and this figure is expected to grow by 12.4 per cent to £42.7 billion in 2010.
Moreover, the BBC reports that the number of people who spent over £1,000 on a single internet purchase rose from 12% in 2008 to 25% in 2009.
In total, online purchases accounted for 9.5% of all British retail sales in 2009.
01 February 2010 - Bing grabs 10% of US search market
In has been reported that the search engine, Bing, now has a 10% share of the US search engine market, eating into Google's dominance.
31 January 2010 - Local authority & government websites "most difficult to use"
According to a survey by user experience consultancy, Webcredible, local authority and government websites are some of the most difficult to navigate and find information on. Following closely behind are financial services, retail and ecommerce websites.
More than 1,000 web users were polled between September and December 2009 on which industry sector has the most difficult to use websites.
2009 internet... in numbers
- 90 trillion - The number of emails sent on the internet in 2009.
- 247 billion - Average number of email messages per day.
- 1.4 billion - The number of email users worldwide.
- 100 million - New email users since the year before.
- 81% - The percentage of emails that were spam.
- 92% - Peak spam levels late in the year.
- 24% - Increase in spam since last year.
- 200 billion - The number of spam emails per day (assuming 81% are spam).
Websites
- 234 million - The number of websites as of December 2009.
- 47 million - Added websites in 2009.
Domain names
- 81.8 million - .COM domain names at the end of 2009.
- 12.3 million - .NET domain names at the end of 2009.
- 7.8 million - .ORG domain names at the end of 2009.
- 76.3 million - The number of country code top-level domains (e.g. .CN, .UK, .DE, etc.).
- 187 million - The number of domain names across all top-level domains (October 2009).
- 8% - The increase in domain names since the year before.
Internet users
- 1.73 billion - internet users worldwide (September 2009).
- 18% - Increase in internet users since the previous year.
- 738,257,230 - internet users in Asia.
- 418,029,796 - internet users in Europe.
- 252,908,000 - internet users in North America.
- 179,031,479 - internet users in Latin America / Caribbean.
- 67,371,700 - internet users in Africa.
- 57,425,046 - internet users in the Middle East.
- 20,970,490 - internet users in Oceania / Australia.
Web browsers
- 62.7% - Internet Explorer
- 24.6% - Firefox
- 4.6% - Chrome
- 4.5% - Safari
- 2.4% - Opera
- 1.2% - Other
Source: Website stats from Netcraft. Domain name stats from Verisign and Webhosting.info. Internet user stats from Internet World Stats. Web browser stats from Net Applications. Email stats from Radicati Group. Spam stats from McAfee.
15 January 2010 - snow problems cause traffic to Weather and Transport websites to reach all time high
During the week ending January 9th 2010, British people flocked online to keep up to date with the latest snow news. As a result, UK Internet visits to both transport and Weather websites reached an all time high. Weather websites accounted for 1.5% of all UK Internet visits - three times more than the same week last year, and 26.9% more than the previous peak during the snow in February 2009.
The 12th most visited website in the UK last week was BBC Weather, and the Met Office homepage ranked 22nd. National Rail Enquiries became the 56th most visited website in the UK (up from 80th the previous week), whilst traffic to transport websites in general was up 28.9% on the same week in 2009.
Source: Experian Hitwise
January 2010 - online retail traffic experiences last minute surge prior to VAT increase
On 1 January 2010 the UK VAT rate returned to 17.5%. As a result, UK Internet searches relating to the increase also grew. Nearly 47% of people searching for information on the VAT increase visited Government-run websites. News and Media websites received 13.3% of clicks, whilst Business and Finance sites came in third (12.9%). The latter category paid for 26.8% of the traffic it received (i.e. sponsored links), with Business Information sites (e.g. Business Link) bidding aggressively on a number of terms.
Only 4.2% of searchers actually ended up at a retail website, which implies that retailers may have missed an opportunity. However, looking at traffic to the Shopping and Classifieds category, it’s clear that the VAT increase led to a last minute surge in visits. Between the week ending 26/12/09 and 02/01/10, UK Internet visits to retail websites increased by 13%. During the previous year the increase over the same period was just 2%.
The week ending 02/01/10 saw the House and Garden sector having the largest increase in traffic - 67%. Other sectors selling high price items also experienced above average increases, with the Sport & Fitness, Computers and Appliances & Electronics categories all doing well.
Source: Experian Hitwise
22 December 2009 - spam "mastermind" fined £116,000
A 26-year old man has been fined $A210,000 (£116,000) by an Australian court after admitting his involvement in the international network that could send 10 billion e-mails a day.
Lance Atkinson, a New Zealander living on the Gold Coast, Australia, was accused of being the mastermind of the world's largest known "spam gang", along with his brother, Shane.
14 December 2009 - Google language translation
According to Marissa Meyer, Google's vice president for search products and user experience, Google has plans to bring out a language translation service.
"Imagine what it would be like if there was a tool built into the search engine which translated my search query into every language and then searched the entire world’s websites," she says. "And then invoked the translation software a second and third time – to not only then present the results in your native language, but then translated those sites in full when you clicked through."
14 December 2009 - An omniscient, omnivorous Google is coming; it knows what you want, even if you don't
Marissa Meyer, Google's vice president for search products and user experience, sees the real future of Google as the personalisation of intuitive search. She wants Google to be able to present information to users before they even know what they're looking for. She sees this capability as not far off, and it's what she calls the 'omnivorous' search engine.
December 7 2009- 'Cyber Monday'
According to the webiste Hitwise, 'Cyber Monday' (December 7th 2009) and Sunday December 6th were the joint busiest days for online retailers in 2009. Compared to 2008, when the busiest day for online retailers was Sunday November 30t, it means that pre-Christmas peak in visits to online retailers has moved one week closer to Christmas.
Consumers spend time browsing and comparing products and prices on the Sunday, before making their actual purchases on 'Cyber Monday' itself.
December 2009 - Google & Personalised Search
Google has extended its personalised search functionality to users who are not even signed in to a Google product (Gmail, Google Analytics etc). What this means is that when you carry out a search on Google, it will provide results that are aimed at higher relevancy to you, the individual user, as opposed to relevancy for the average person.
See what Google have to say about personalised search...
1 December 2009 - Google's 'Chrome' browser overtakes Safari
Google's Chrome browser is now the third most popular browser in terms of usage share. Chrome recently overtook Safari and now has a 4.6% market share.
Source: Net Applications
November 2009 - M35 Photography website launches
M35 Photography is the personal website of Lindsey Harris, owner of M35 Design. It features photographs primarily taken in and around Poole, Bournemouth and the Dorset area. The current emphasis is on Poole Harbour, as well as photographs of people.
Visit site » »October 2009 - How do people search for travel in the UK?
In the UK, travel websites rely on search engines for two fifths of their traffic. In order to understand a bit more about what the British are actually searching for, the website 'Hitwise' recently carried out some analysis of search behaviour within the UK travel industry.
During August 2009, searches for agencies \ holidays was the most searched for category, whilst 'travel material', 'ferries', 'car hire' and 'cruises' was the least.
June 2009 - Microsoft launches their new search engine, 'Bing'
Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, officially launched on June 3 2009.
Excluding Google UK and US, but compared to Yahoo!, Ask and Microsoft's other main property, Live Search, Bing's daily market share of the search engine market in the UK grew significantly following its launch.
On June 3rd traffic to Bing peaked and it became the eighth most visited website in the UK and the third ranked search engine, accounting for 10.8% of the UK market.
However, since then traffic to the site has declined, although the average time spent at Bing has increased to eight and a half minutes. This might suggest that consumers are spending more time on the site and exploring its benefits, rather than visiting it out of curiosity.
May 2009 - HTC Magic - The new Google Android mobile phone
Sleek, stylish and exclusive to Vodafone, the Magic is powered by cutting edge technology. So web essentials like Google Maps™ and Google Search™ work brilliantly. You can create shortcuts to your favourite sites and download fun games, news feeds and widgets. Then decide where everything goes - so you can get to it all easily.
The HTC Magic's 3.2 megapixel camera shoots photos in sharp focus and you can admire the results on its extra large high-resolution screen. Or upload your photos for your friends to see, and with superfast internet access they'll upload in a flash.
Features: HSDPA, WiFi, touch screen, camera/video, built-in GPS navigation, triband, Vodafone Mobile internet, alarm clock, touch screen. 3G, bluetooth, email, calendar, 3.2 megapixels, GPRS, MP3 player, handsfree headset, quadband, White.
February 2009 - Searches for 'valentine breaks uk' increase by more than 50%
The number of UK internet searches for Valentine breaks to UK destinations has increased by 50% compared to last year. Popular locations include Scotland, London, Yorkshire, Cornwall, and Northern Ireland. At the same time, searches for Valentine breaks abroad have decreased. For example, last year 'valentine breaks to paris' was the 20th most popular search term containing the phrase 'valentine breaks', but this year it has fallen to 29th.
Source: Hitwise
20 January 2009 - Google tries out yet another new favicon
Google has just revealed the design of its latest favicon. A favicon is a tiny logo that shows any web user, on any modern browser, anywhere in the world, whose website they are viewing. There is one on this site, which you can see at the top of this page, next to http://www.m35design.co.uk/...
The new favicon is Google's third attempt in less than a year to get the design right!
17 December 2008 - Microsoft Internet Explorer - Security Warning
Microsoft is due to issue a patch to fix a security flaw they believe has affected as many as 10,000 websites. The patch should be available to download from Microsoft from 6pm today, 17 December.
October 2008 - UK search engine usage
Source: Hitwise. Based on volume of searches for 4 weeks ending October 25, 2008.
www.google.co.uk - 75.11%
www.google.com - 14.33%
uk.search.yahoo.com - 2.86%
www.uk.ask.com- 2.16%
July 2008 - Free appraisal of your existing website
M35 Design are happy to offer you a free, no obligation appraisal of your existing company website.
April 2008 - 10 most popular search engines in the UK
www.google.co.uk - 73.74%
www.google.com - 13.77%
uk.search.yahoo.com - 2.94%
www.uk.ask.com - 2.80%
www.live.com - 2.20%
search.msn.co.uk - 1.21%
search.yahoo.com - 1.13%
search.orange.co.uk - 1.05%
search.msn.com - 0.31%
www.ask.com - 0.16%
Most popular search engines ordered by volume of searches for 4 weeks ending 22/3/08.
April 2008 - How popular is the Google "pages from the UK" search option?
Hitwise conversions ran a report over 4 weeks during March 2008 to find the answer. The results were:-
Pages from UK Search, 13.6%
Pages from Web Search, 86.4%
This is equivalent to about 1 in 7 searchers using the "Pages from the UK" option.
January 2008 - Cyber thieves target social networking sites
Security professionals are predicting what internet criminals will try in 2008 to catch people out. They say that sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace will become attack targets for the hi-tech gangs who are now behind the vast majority of cyber crime.
Some attackers have also tried to capitalise on the popularity of video clips on sites such as YouTube, putting booby-trapped links on pages that show the short films.
December 2007 - 'In Case of Emergency' virus hoax
London Transport and mobile phone firms are warning about an e-mail that is spreading rapidly, which contains inaccurate safety information. The e-mail claims that passengers on the London Tube system can contact emergency services via a satellite signal from their mobiles underground. However, mobiles do not work in the London Underground and satellite signals cannot reach there either.
November 2007 - Get Safe Online Awareness Week: 12 - 16 November
Find out how to protect yourself from identity thieves, viruses, phishing
and other internet threats. Help guard
yourself against online dangers with expert advice from the government,
the Serious and Organised Crime Agency and industry specialists.
Click here to find
out how to protect
yourself online >>
October 2007 - Bournemouth & Poole gets its own Monopoly game!
Poole and Bournemouth, where the land is worth more than the houses built on it, is to get its own tailor-made Monopoly board. Local landmarks, such as Sandbanks and Westover Road, will replace the famous streets, such as Mayfair, in the original game.
The customised version is due on the shelves on 15th November, but can be pre ordered here.
July 2007 - British customers annoyed by firms' email response times
According to a report by Gloucestershire-based hosting firm, Fasthosts,
78 per cent of British consumers are unhappy with the time it takes firms
to answer email queries.
The study showed the average consumer sent three emails before receiving
a satisfactory response. It also found that a third of British consumers
had sent more than ten emails about a single customer service enquiry,
and nearly sixty per cent of those enquiries didn't receive a reply
within the first 24 hours.
June 2007 - Half of Britons 'email addicts'
A survey carried out by ICM Research for Nasstar plc, has found that half of Britons could not exist without email, with 30 or 40-somethings more addicted than teens.
It was also found that 41% of all females admitted they would find it hard without email contact, compared to 38% of males.
More...
June 2007 - Europe online '24 hours a month'
A report by comScore Europe, says that more than 122m Europeans aged 15 and above use the internet each day at home, school or in work.
Out of 16 countries surveyed, the Netherlands had the highest score with 83% of the country online.
The most popular online destination in 13 of the 16 countries was Google, followed by Microsoft in second place and Yahoo in third.
May 2007 - Increase in UK spend on internet adverts
Figures due to be published in June in the AA's Advertising Statistics
Yearbook 2007 show advertising spend in the UK exceeded £19bn, up 0.7%
from 2006.
Online advertising surged 47.5% to £2bn, 10.6% of total expenditure
and, for
the first time, UK spending on internet adverts topped 10% of the total spend.
Apart from the internet, outdoor advertising was the largest gainer. Meanwhile,
money spent on UK television adverts fell for the first time since 2001.
"I believe online spend could overtake TV within the next three to four years," said Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the Internet Advertising Bureau, the trade association for the internet marketing industry.
May 2007 - Helvetica is 50!
One of the most popular sans serif fonts, Helvetica, has just celebrated
its 50th birthday. Some of the big names that use the Swiss typeface
are Gap, Orange, Currys, Hoover, Lufthansa, Panasonic, Royal Bank of
Scotland, Tupperware and Zanussi.
More...
April 2007
Google rolls out 'personalised search'
Google have made some changes to the way their search results work, which may affect a website's search engine rankings.
Several weeks ago, Google started pushing personalised search by default to holders of Google accounts such as 'GMail'. In a nutshell, this can be defined as search engine results that are tailored to an individual's idiosyncratic search habits.
Google are slowly implementing widespread integration of this into standard (i.e. not paid listings - PPC) search results, which will have an impact on the results that are returned when a user searches on something.
Exactly how does search personalisation work?
In the past, Google required you to manually enable 'Search History', but no more. It now means that anyone who is signed in to any Google service (such as 'GMail', 'Analytics', amongst others) will automatically be enrolled into three additional Google Products: ''Search History', ''Personalised Search' and 'Personalised Home Page' (to be rebranded on 1st May 2007 as iGoogle).
On 1st May 2007, location-based personalised search results will be brought in by Google. This means that users who have indicated their default location to Google maps will get more personalised results based on that location. For example, someone with a southern England location who enters "sailing equipment" will see results from that geographic area.
Overall, search results will differ from user to user, dependant on their user profile and previous search history and, of course, on whether or not they are signed into a Google product. If someone doesn't want to see personalised results they can choose to sign out of their Google Account, but how many people will actually know that?
Put another way, someone who isn't signed into a Google product is likely to see different search results from someone who is signed in, and the latter will see results that are tailored to their search history. Not great news if you are a website owner, or is it?
How much might search results vary per user?
Search engine practitioners have found that results for personalised search -v- non-personalised search can vary by as much as 90%.
What does Google say?
Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, said that the personalised home page has been Google's fastest growing product, with tens of millions of users. You can read what Google has to say about personalised search here.
How quickly will personalised search catch on?
It is not known, although a 2006 'Choice Stream Personalization Survey' of 1,100 respondents revealed that over half of them would be willing to trade privacy for increasingly tailored search results.
Will there be any benefits for users and site owners?
Search personalisation can benefit users as it can help make their searches more relevant, since it bases results on their past search behaviour.
It will also benefit websites that have excellent content, with good titles and descriptions (a.k.a. meta tags) in their code. This type of website is likely to be weighted more favourably in search results than those that have poor or little content, and bad or non-existent meta tags.
In short, no change from current advice, i.e. "Content is king!", but it will simply become even more important to web site owners to make sure that all these things are in place.
What are the drawbacks for users and site owners?
There is a possibility of potentially useful websites not appearing in a search purely because they don't fit a user's previous search history. Further, if you have regular website search ranking reports these will change in order to show average rankings rather than absolute rankings.
This is boring! I just want to know what I do to make sure my website won't lose out?
Contact us now to find out more.
March 2007
Are you eligible for website development funding?
You may be able to claim up to £500 worth of website development funding from IT@Work Online.
IT@Work Online provides support, information, advice and funding, enabling businesses to create or develop a website, meeting the needs of their customers and business.
M35 Design is a member of the Business West IT@Work Services Register, meaning that we can promote the availability of the IT@Work Voucher Fund to our clients.
Applying for website funding >>
January 2007
Companies Act - disclosure obligation on emails and websites
From 1 January 2007 all UK companies must include certain information on documentation in their websites and email footers, or they will breach the Companies Act and risk a fine. Under this Act every business must:
1. List its company registration number
2. Place of registration
3. Registered office address
This information should also appear on order forms and in emails.
Download a guide (PDF) from Business West explaining more about your obligation as a company.
Pay Per Click - What is a landing page?