So what’s the deal with real time searches? Well, if you’re a consumer looking for a specific product then this might not pertain to you. Real time searches typically bring to mind current events and news, and that does make up the majority. Essentially real time searches are applicable to anyone who wants to know what’s going on in a particular topic right now. That’s why the news last year of the deal struck between Twitter and both Bing and Google was so big. Obviously Google was going to trample the competition right?

Well, maybe not. Google chose to go the route of integrating their real time results into their regular results, if they’re interesting enough. Bing, on the other hand, made tweets and real time results available on a separate page. It may seem like a pain having to go to a different page just to get those, but it’s looking as though Bing has stumbled on the ultimate targeting strategy.

According to OneUpWeb, a large portion of Google users don’t even know how to find the real time results, much less express an interest in them. That’s because the majority of searchers aren’t looking for real time topics. Those who are can’t be bothered to go sifting through below the fold listing to find what they want and prefer going to a page that’s designed specifically for them. Don’t count Google out yet though. They’re known for having a few tricks up their sleeve so they may yet surprise us.

Why do people in the UK not like Microsoft very much? Why knows? Well to be fair, no one knows whether it’s an actual dislike of the multi-media giant, but the fact remains that Google holds roughly about 90% of the search market share there. Microsoft has thus far had to be content with a paltry 3%…thus far. Word is that Microsoft is planning a major push in order to increase the popularity of its own search engine, Bing.

The news was revealed by MediaGuardian.co.uk. Apparently Microsoft is set to pump a few million pounds into television ad campaigns. The problem though isn’t that people don’t know about Bing, not with the innumerable number of threads at various forums. They’re just not using it. Google has taken a lot of time to refine their search parameters and they’re always tweaking the system. Perhaps that’s what accounts for their huge lead in the market share.

Microsoft will definitely have their work cut out for them but, should they be able to make some inroads, it could be a good thing for search marketers. After all, competition drives companies to offer better things to their customers in order to keep their business. With this in mind, what could be expected should Google and Microsoft end up in a head to head battle? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Well the news is out. Apparently the much discussed search advertising deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft has been given the go ahead by both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Union. Many are heralding that decision as the end of the Yahoo! search market share, which is sad because that’s kind of what Yahoo! has become known for over the years. Sure Yahoo! has their Shopping, Mail and News categories but they’re most thought of as a search engine.

So what does this deal mean for Yahoo! Essentially their free search capabilities will be transferred over to Bing while a paid search platform will become known as adCenter. The justification for this was that the deal would increase the level of competition amongst advertisers. Well this is good news for the companies, but not so much for search engine advertisers since more competition for ad space will ultimately drive those prices up.

So what’s an advertiser to do? The most logical step is to disperse advertising resources across fewer high cost methods and look for effective low cost methods to invest in. One of these is social media, which is possibly the cheapest way to get access to a large number of people. Some SEO gurus are already predicting that 2010 will be the year of social networks, with more and more advertisers moving away from search campaigns. After all, there aren’t that many effective search engines left.

Lately we are seeing more and more evidence that Google maybe loosing its grip on the search field. One of the main reasons for saying this is because we are seeing huge problems in the UK results at the moment.

Basically a huge volume of USA based sites are being filtered through and its something that actually looks veryworrying. Google or Matt Cutts have yet to say anything about what has happened, but I can assure you that its something UK searchers do not want to see especially for product related terms.

As an example if someone searched for “Buy computer games” or another product related term they do not want to see results that are USA based, it just doesn’t make sense.

Next if we then look at Google Trends

For almost every product related search you will notice that we are seeing a gradual decrease in volumes. This shows that users are just not searching like they used too. But another interesting fact is that if you search for brand names on Google trends such as “Ebay” or “Amazon” you will notice a great rise in overall volumes.

Which potentially shows that a lot of people could be losing trust in Google over the past few years. I mean why shouldnt they? Google’s popularity grew because they were the best they had the best possible results for someone making a search. Looking at the UK results in their current state looks pretty shocking and to be honest I have not seen results that bad from Google for years.

Dont get me wrong I love Google like most people, but it just seems as though they are taking their eye off the ball a little, and what a bad time for this to happen, because as we know Bing has recently launched and personally their results are looking a lot better.

I would really like to get some answers on the state of the UK results and the reasons behind it? Matt Cutts?