I sat on this discovery for a few days. I didn’t know what to make of it. I was just too foreign to me. But after a few days I started my quest to answer the question that had been plaguing me… “Why is Google advertising mobile search?”

The answer may not be as obvious as you’d suspect.

I did a little digging around and found some interesting information to support the theory that Google is losing the battle on Mobile search. Yes, I said it, “Google is losing the battle on Mobile Search.” [NOTE: If I go missing tomorrow please search for me at the GooglePlex – where I’ll likely be held in detention with all those other people who have said that Google isn’t number 1 at everything on the Web.]

“Where did he come up with such an audacious suggestion?” you may ask. Well, I found an interesting statistic to back my hypothesis up. Both Verizon and T-Mobile offer a mobile search portal to their users (84 million users in total). If just 10% of those users used search on their carriers portal, there’d be 8.41 million users – twice as many users than Google Mobile.

But it doesn’t end there. Encyclopedia Britannica has also entered the fray with their mobile search, as has Alltel wireless with their own Mobile search solution. And yet, there’s more. Some search providers are already rolling out speech enabled mobile search – thus breaking down the barriers of mainstream usability – namely data plan costs, network speeds and hardware issues. So, while everyone may not have a device that displays search results well, they certainly have the ability to speak there query into the device. It is a phone after all.

I could continue but I believe you get the point.

So, what does Google’s campaign really mean? Their campaign is a proactive attempt to get us (i.e. – Mobile web users) to put them top-of-mind when we go to do our mobile searches. It means that they understand the challenges they face in getting users to adopt their version of Mobile search. It means they’ve got some catching up to do.

“We applaud the spirit of the idea, but our own analysis as well as that of others shows that making the Google homepage black will not reduce energy consumption. To the contrary, on flat-panel monitors (already estimated to be 75% of the market), displaying black may actually increase energy usage.”

At least it got the conversation started on how we can make small changes in our daily lives to save energy.

Google commissioned a study through Media Screen to measure the impact of paid search ads on organic search terms for four consumer packaged goods (CPG) categories: cosmetic, beverage, food/snack, and household/laundry.

Respondents were asked to complete a brand survey to measure the brand impact on aided awareness, unaided awareness, purchase intent, and purchase consideration after being exposed to search results.

Key findings:

When the test brand appeared in paid search positions, unaided awareness and purchase intent increased for that brand.

The survey also observed the impact on competitive brands and found: When the test brand appeared in paid search positions, unaided and aided awareness decreased for other brands.

Yahoo! did a similar study with Media Vest and found that a sponsored search link has a positive impact on unaided awareness. Conclusions were that search provides branding for consumer packaged goods.

Source: Google CPG Blog

Note: There are other studies and sources to support the branding value of search; if interested contact me directly.

· Removal of the minimum bid requirement. This will be replaced by “first page bid,” which is the bid estimated to get your ad on page one. All listings will be eligible to appear, and positioning will be based on quality score and maximum bid amount.

· Quality Score will now be calculated at the time of each search query.

· Keywords will no longer be judged “inactive for search.”

These changes will produce a lot more listings for any given search phrase if advertisers are willing to pay. It remains to be seen if advertisers will pay more to be on the first page. If the past is any indication, they probably will because paid search is effective, affordable and accountable if you have the advertising budget.

Google will make these quality score changes to a very small set of advertisers over the next few days with a full rollout in the coming weeks.

Source AdWords Blogspot

Other search engines remained stable or declined slightly. AOL gained (3 percent), Yahoo! and Ask dropped (2.5% and 1.3%, respectively), and MSN remained the same.
This year’s survey gives the highest satisfaction score to Google (86), with other portals trailing. Yahoo!’s score was 77; MSN’s, 75; Ask’s, 74 and AOL’s, 69.

Conducted by the University of Michigan and ForeSee, the American Consumer Satisfaction Index began their annual consumer satisfaction surveys 14 years ago.
The report notes its consumer satisfaction data correlates with market share data from Hitwise. In June, Google had 69.2 percent market share, up from June last year at 63.9 percent.

ForeSee President Larry Freed attributes the big gain to word of mouth about many of Google’s non search products. “On one hand, there’s a simple and basic interface to search,” said Freed. “But Google is also known as an innovative company and has other great apps that are slowly starting to gain market share. … As they launch these things, sometimes it takes a while until users get to know it.”

Source: AdAge
Source: SearchEngineLand