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Are Search Engines Still Useful?
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - January 8, 2001

Fresh from festive over-indulgence, the uk-netmarketing list sprung back to life. With all the gloom shrouding the new media landscape, it's not surprising that one of the first topics cropping up concerned search engines' place in peoples' surfing habits.

Will Drew posted some details from a recent story in a US magazine, writing, "... only around 7% of global referrals come from search sites. 47% coming from direct navigation and bookmarks, with the rest from Internet links. ... So, does it appears that links, banner advertising and its affiliates may be more useful than search engines?"

Darren Wallace replied, "Search engines are still important in terms of people tracking down your site ... but as more and more sites appear on the web, so the effectiveness of search engines drops. Simply, they can't keep up. I remember reading over a year ago that the #1 ranked engine in terms of covering all websites globally was www.northernlight.com. However, even this engine only managed to pick up something like 35% of websites. ... I think that the search engine companies realised this some time ago. And that's why a lot of them re-branded as portals - i.e. with other reasons to keep using them (webmail, sticks, news, weather, chat, ecommerce), etc."

'Teddie' added, "I personally find search engines incredibly useful and rely on them for finding new tools and information, but what seems to be happening is the amount of high quality fresh of content in the main search portals is declining. Could this be because search and retrieval technology (Spiders) and website management tools don't compliment each other well, so as websites get more creative their index ability is dramatically reduced? It's a double-edged sword. Design vs. Marketing. The future of search engines becomes questionable when site designers don't consider them at development stages. Macromedia Flash sites effectively hide the raw data from Spiders and also dynamically driven sites are in most cases impossible for Spiders to traverse. How can they get indexed?"

Does this mean the end of search engines, as we know them? Teddie highlighted some of the strategies that are being employed both by search engines and those trying to get listed. He continued, "Lately there have been quite a few discussions about whether Search Engines should be adopting 'Pay for Position' models, well the vicious truth is in many cases they may have no choice. In order to get certain sites into their databases they have to assume a level of directory like input. The idea behind IP targeted (Bridging) pages designed specifically for indexing seems to be taking hold. This technology is definitely a point of contention: does it increase the value of the search engine because they can get fresh content from otherwise unindexable sites? Or does it diminish the quality of the content? In my opinion search engines are useful, and would be more so if they had access to more data. If you want access to a fairly powerful search tool try http://www.lexibot.com I've found it to be pretty effective."

Ashley Pomeroy, emailed, "I think that, after a while, people settle on a group of a dozen or so favourite sites that they visit regularly, usually using bookmarks or, in most cases, by typing the link into the location bar. The widespread view of internet users as constantly-surfing thrillseekers is probably an exaggeration, and I'm sure there are studies out there to show that ... people settle down into a pattern of site visits with the occasional foray into the wider world of the internet. It's like cable television - there are dozens of channels, but you end up using three or four, and flicking past the rest..."

Mark Bunting replied, "There are indeed. There were some surveys in the States that show the average number of sites visited by regular Net users has declined, and a similar study over here has just picked up the start of what might turn out to be the same trend. ... Kind of ironic that as the number of sites competing for our attention has exploded, we actually start to use fewer of them..."

It seems that search engines will face the same market rigours that are causing the headaches for many of the e-commerce based websites. Clearly, as the systems for creating and maintaining sites becomes more sophisticated the humble search engine will have to keep up.

SMS Location based Sales

It's long been touted as a potential 'killer' t-commerce (telephone commerce) application for SMS, surely you've heard the scenario, "you walk past a coffee shop and you receive a targeted SMS message, telling you about a special offer if you walk in right away".

Tim Moore asked about a recent trial that put this theory into practice. He wrote, "I remember seeing, on the news, I think, an article about a company which was using SMS to sell products to folk in a shopping centre. I think what they were doing was sending promotions, etc. to individuals, from the shops in the centre, based on the phone owners' location? Didn't think this was feasible yet, but any way, can't remember the name of the service. Can anyone throw any light on this mystery?"

Rebecca Rabin had the facts to hand, "The ZagMe trial at Lakeside Thurrock was done by SpotFlash (backed by Carphone Warehouse). However, it wasn't a location based service as shoppers had to subscribe to ZagMe by SMS when they were in the centre and then tell them how many hours they were planning to be in the centre for - hardly location based. You are right that real location based services are not yet possible and are likely to be impacted by the Data Protection Act. You can get more info on wireless marketing from the Wireless Marketing Association, whose members include SpotFlash and also Flytxt, who did an SMS campaign at the recent Smash Hits concerts.

Ben Thompson added, "Well, Orange are about to launch location based services and they are WAP rather than SMS based (i.e. the person is clearly requesting the information prior to it being sent). I can't see any problems under the DPA in this circumstance as the information doesn't need to be recorded (after all Barclay's hardly needs to store that I've just requested the location of the nearest cashpoint relative to Kings Cross Station say). As an aside location based stuff is a pig to do correctly."

Russell Buckley, who was involved in the trial, emailed, "A couple of small points though. The ZagMe service has been expressly approved by the Data Protection Commission. I think the story re the DPC had more to do with Telco's tracking subscribers in real time and passing the information to third parties without asking their consumers' permission first. Having said that, this would be foolhardy anyway and against all best practice principles of wireless marketing. The Lakeside trial is going damn well, on any dynamic (subscribers, redemptions and retailer feedback) and we're launching in Bluewater shortly. This will allow us to properly test the concept in the largest two shopping malls in Europe. It's right to say that it's not really real time positioning, but it's the next best thing given the current technology constraints."

The possibilities offered by this technology will no doubt be sprouting inside the furtive minds of many marketing folks over the next few weeks. I have a feeling 2001 is going to be a year of many new digital direct marketing techniques and, I suspect, plenty of Data Protection grumblings. We shall see.

LINKS OF NOTE:
A quick round up of interesting, funny, useful and other links gleaned from the uk-netmarketing list, office gossip and other nefarious sources...we take no responsibility should you chose to click...basically, it's not our fault. Enjoy:

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