Yahoo & Bing have nearly the same market share

"Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in November with 65.4 percent market share, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 15.1 percent and Microsoft Sites with 15.0 percent (up 0.2 percentage points).

Ask Network accounted for 2.9 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.6 percent (up 0.1 percentage points)."

Google bottom ads – a changing landscape

"Clearly, there is an attempt by them to make the top ads look more like natural results. This could be another move to help create even greater visibility and less noise on the page for these Top ads. [...]

Many experts are rightly predicting that there will be a drop in CTR and a rise in CPC. This will occur because of inventory scarcity. Based on the examples provided by Google, the ad placement shift to the bottom diminishes the number of listings and creates scarcity in the marketplace by removing between 2 to 4 listings from the first page of results. As a result, brands face the same competition for fewer locations in the new format."

Sharing trends in 2011

"Facebook makes up 52.1% of sharing on the web. Twitter makes up 13.5% of sharing and grows 576.9%. Google +1 grows 373% but has plateaued.

Digg sharing continues to decline by 47.7%. MySpace sharing continues to decline by 56.9%."

Study: where people get information about local businesses

"The internet is the source that people most rely on for material about the local business scene and search engines are particularly valued. Newspapers and word of mouth also rank high as sources."

Editor's note: search engines are the most important way to get new customers on the Internet. Make sure that your web pages can be found.

Google incorrectly flags AdWords ads

Google confirmed the problem: "This morning we found a bug in the approval systems that was incorrectly flagging some ads as gambling- or pharmaceutical-related when they shouldn't have been.

We're in the process of sending all those back through our systems and re-reviewing them from scratch so the problems get fixed. There's no ETA yet, but I hope it will be soon."

Microsoft study: domain bias in web search (PDF)

The study find out that searchers pay attention to the URL in the search results before they click. Credible, trusted domain names have an advantage, regardless of their position in the search results.

Search engine newslets

• Let it snow on Google.
• Video: If I buy AdWords, will that cause my algorithmic search rankings to rise? Answer: no.
• Google Scholar is no longer an option on Google's result page.
• Google acquires Clever Sense, creator of a local recommendations app.
• Google Zeitgeist 2011.
• New Scientist: Inside search engines' war on bad results.
• Google introduces smartphone Googlebot mobile.

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• The most important Google ranking algorithm changes in 2011
• New Google patent: does your site have references from trusted agents?
• Five tips with examples: how to turn more visitors into customers
• Official Google information: 10 recent algorithm changes
• Google to penalize ad heavy websites - is your website at risk?
• Has your website been penalized by Google? Here's what you can do
• Google's leaked quality rater handbook: 7 helpful tips
• View all past issues...