Keltex Blog

Google has been touting their new Instant search as giving users “better search results, faster”. But it seems that organic search results have suffered.

Here’s a search test I did using the phrase Insurance Quotes. This is a pretty highly advertised for search term. Here’s “Google Normal”

Notice that you get 4 organic results above the fold. And 8 paid results. Here’s the same search using Google Instant:

Now there’s barely 3 organic search results, 25% less than without google instant. So who suffers here? Probably Geico for one. They were the #4 search result, but now they aren’t even visible above the fold. So what does this do? Probably encourages Geico keeps their paid advertising high so that they are visible in the paid results. 

And those paid results haven’t suffered at all. Still 3 paid results below the search bar and 5 paid search results on the right side. So you’ve gone from 4 out of 12 search results being organic (33%) to 3 out of 11 searches being organic (27%).

So instead of giving you “better search results”, you’re getting less search results. So this seems to add more fuel to the fire that Google’s Instant is more about enhancing ad revenue than improving users’ search experience.

In my opinion, if Google was trying to improve user search results with Google Instant, instead of stealing screen real estate from the organic results they would steal it from the paid results. Why not show 2 paid results below the search box when google instant is active and 3 results when it’s not? Wouldn’t that be more fair?

Note: I did this test at 1024x768 resolution… a relatively common notebook resolution. Your results may vary. Some people have higher resolution screens. Others don’t use their browser maximized or have additional toolbars so they have less effective resolution.

Leaving .net by Dave Newman struck a cord with me. I’ve been using Microsoft technologies professionally since 1994. One of my client’s platform (still have him to this day) evolved over time from Excel to Access to SQL Server with an ASP.NET front end. Most of my income is from these long term clients whose businesses run on the .net platform.

.Net Used to be Fun

Getting started with .net for me was a lot of fun. That’s because it’s how I learned web technologies and evolved away from the desktop. My gut said that the web was going to be far more important than the desktop and fortunately I was right.

But years later working on stable platforms, my work is mostly just maintenance. Adding a new report here. Adding new business logic there. Sometimes I get to add a new feature or two (“can we run those refunds directly through authorize.net?”). 

It’s nothing exciting of course. But it pays the bills. And I’ve done this so long now that I can get what I need done efficiently and quickly.

But it’s nothing exciting. Even with ASP.NET MVC which is sort of a breath of fresh air, there’s no way for me to go back and rewrite my clients’ applications in this framework. Maybe I’ll use it for new projects, but even though it’s “better” than ASP.NET forms it still feels a few years behind some of the more cutting edge platforms.

I crave the excitement that I see in the Ruby on Rails and Python communities. I dabbled a bit in RoR a couple of years ago. The project didn’t go very far but I really liked the Ruby community who responded quickly to my questions. 

.Net’s Lack of Community

The thin .net community is definitely a problem for me. For example I asked a question on StackOverflow regarding iCal a few days ago. I think SO is currently the most active community for .Netters. No response. Not a one. Googled for hours and can’t find any sort of answer.

If I was working in Ruby, there’s a whole library for dealing with iCal with what looks like excellent documentation. That looks a lot more appealing to me than the cone of silence I received in .net

But I can’t just jump ship from my current work. It pays the bills. My clients like me and depend on me. 

So What Do I Do Tomorrow?

Now here’s my dilemma. I have a new project idea that I would like to move forward with. Do I write it in ASP.NET MVC which I know pretty well? Or do I take the leap and learn/write the new thing in RoR or Python? I know that if I pick one of these newer platforms it will take me a lot longer to get up and running because of the learning curve. I’m tempted (once again) just to dive in with .net because that’s what I understand. But I’ll still be suck with .net.

There are two things that your online competitors are probably doing right now:

• You competitors are clicking on your AdWords ads.
• Your competitors are looking at your AdWords ads to figure out how to improve their online campaigns (and trying to take market share away from you).

If you don’t believe it’s likely, then don’t read any further. But if you think either is possible, then read on.

Read More

I tried to login to Microsoft adCenter today using Google Chrome (my current browser of choice). Then I got this Non-Compatible Browser message:

So Chrome is not supported. Ok, fine. It’s a pretty new browser. So what exactly IS supported then. I click on the link:

Wait. Am I reading this right? The only supported browsers are:

• Internet Explorer (IE 6, IE 7, and IE 8)
• Firefox (1.5 and 2.0)

No Firefox 3.x (released 20 months ago… June 2008), No Safari. No Chrome.

But read a little closer. The only operating systems supported are Windows 98, 2000, XP Vista. That means No to Windows 7, Mac OS X and Linux. No to Virtual PC either… whatever that is.

No Macs? Another memo to Microsoft adCenter team: In 2010 lot of creative agencies are mac based and use modern browsers. If you want people to use your advertising platform, make sure you support them.

I run a few different PPC campaigns for an online business. Google adwords, Yahoo Sponsored Search, and Microsft adCenter.

Trying to be a good businessman, I like to track my advertising and other expenses on a quarterly basis. So I go into adCenter and see that I can select various date ranges: Last 3 months, last 6 months, etc:

But I need last quarter which is from 10/1/09 through 12/31/09. No problem, I select Custom Date Range and then enter in these dates. Then I get this:

Er, what? You can’t entered a custom date range longer than 31 days? What the hell? How do I get this data. After fiddling around, here’s the “solution”:

1. Go to the Report Center
2. Create a Campaign Performance Report
3. Set the Unit of Time to be Month
4. Set the date range to be Custom.
5. Enter Oct 2009 through Dec 2009

And presto here’s the report.

Oh and you have to add up the monthly Spend yourself.

Memo to Microsoft… if you’re competing in the online advertising space, maybe you ought to make it easy for customers to pull out the simple data they need to run their business. I mean you’re hardly worth it as is, compared to adwords, so stop trying to make customers jump through hoops.

Maybe next post I’ll tell you about adCenter’s odd date selection methodology.