New poll results reveal powerful insight into how consumers really feel about search engine regulation. The poll, which was from IBOPE Zogby International and carried out by the National Taxpayers Union (NTU), found that most Americans are satisfied with their current search options and therefore, are against any government intervention.
As Pete Sepp, the Executive Vice President of NTU, explained to us, 87 percent of the more than 2,000 respondents agreed with the following statement: “I feel I can easily switch to a competing search engine if I’m not happy with the results I receive.” What’s more, when asked if “the federal government should regulate the content and appearance of search engines and their results,” 64 percent strongly disagreed while only 3 percent strongly agreed.
According to Sepp, the poll surveyed Americans across various demographic categories, including age, income, educational level, and ideology. He said it was interesting that younger generations expressed an even greater opposition to government regulation with 88 percent voting against it.
Sepp told us the hope of the poll is that policymakers would see that government involvement in regulating search engines and the Internet should be minimal.
Do these poll results reflect how you feel about these matters? We’d love to know.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Mar 10th, 2012. 
Today, most people know that search is a major driver of traffic. According to Duane Forrester, a Sr. Product Manager at Bing, 80 percent of Internet sessions start with a search. However, the problem is that many people are struggling to understand how social impacts this activity.
Forrester told WebProNews that people should be concerned with producing quality content because good content attracts both people and search engines. The people that like this content will amplify it, thus allowing the search engines to give the publisher authority.
Social media comes into the equation because it provides information to the engines, which gives them the ability to return more relevant results. Since most people refer to friends or family for advice before they make a purchase, integrating social into search results helps users make decisions faster.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Nov 9th, 2011.
Last week, Google announced that it would begin encrypting search queries by default for some searches on Google.com. This means that search marketers will not be able to receive some of the referral data that they are used to receiving. As expected, they are not happy.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Oct 28th, 2011.
Bing recently released a new feature to its search engine called Adaptive Search. This new technology is based on a user’s search history and is designed to make search results more personal.
Stefan Weitz, a director with Bing, told us that personalized search and search should not actually be classified separately. He believes that personalized search should be how search is thought of moving forward. He went on to say that Bing thinks this feature will continue to improve the overall user experience.
Adaptive Search is already being rolled out the U.S.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Sep 19th, 2011.
In spite of the innovations and features that Bing has brought to search, it appears to be struggling on the paid search front. WebProNews spoke recently with Mark Ballard, the Senior Analyst at the Rimm-Kaufman Group who said that the company needed to ramp up its platform for advertisers.
Microsoft and Yahoo partnered in a search alliance 2 years ago in an effort to better compete with Google. However, neither company has shown a tremendous amount of improvement.
Ballard told us that he was pulling for Bing but that it needed to make some changes to better meet advertisers needs.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Aug 4th, 2011.
