Just tried out new search engine Cuil to see what all the fuss is about – the query string I entered: Photographic Wedding Invitations.

Here’s what Cuil comes up with:

And here’s Google’s offering:

So, not quite what you’d expect from Cuil, given their self-proclaimed status as “the world’s biggest search engine” then.

The Internet has grown exponentially in the last fifteen years but search engines have not kept up—until now. Cuil searches more pages on the Web than anyone else—three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.

So claims the blurb on the Cuil website, but their 121,617,892,992 indexed web pages don’t include any results for a search query Google returns 3,770,000 for (with one of my sites ranked No. 1 – at least when searching from my computer within Ireland ).

Incidentally, Cuil also draws a blank for the search term Wedding Invitations Ireland, and putting in just Wedding Invitations takes and age before the SERPs are returned. Makes you wonder whether they’ve launched before they’re really ready.

Is Cuil a Google killer. Current evidence would suggest not!

So, for now at least, I’ll be sticking with the big G. And, thankfully for our wedding invitation business, I think so will the majority of the web-searching public.

An article in today’s Sunday Times outlines how spending on SEO in the UK is on the increase as businesses vie for potentially lucrative organic search listings in Google.

According to the article SEO spending in Britain will reach £400 million this year, and the figure is growing 60% year on year.

The article also highlights another, less welcome trend: basically that newspapers really don’t get Search Marketing!

When it comes to describing SEO I found it simplistic. Keeping things simple for the sake of clarity is of course a good thing… but in this case the article manages to be simplistic and confusing.

For example, Author James Ashton describes SEO as:

Part crystal-ball watching, part trial and error, it is the practice of improving lacklustre internet commerce by getting a firm noticed on the results pages of search engines.

Hmm! Not sure that’s really it.

Summarising how companies go about SEO he adds:

Most companies achieve SEO by peppering their websites with keywords that Google’s technology can easily read.

While comparing SEO and PPC he ventures:

Of the two, SEO was invented first, with the concept of paying for positions in search results introduced only a decade ago by Goto.com, now part of Yahoo.

Strictly speaking the article isn’t inaccurate, and it has some interesting facts and figures in it, but overall I found it a tad misleading.

Perhaps my biggest problem with it though is the unwritten implication that SEO is about gaming  the engines — when of course (at least for legitimate businesses looking for long term rankings), that’s really not what it’s about at all.

Think I’ll stick with this SEO theory.

Apparently today (01 April 2008) is the official "day without Google" day.

How did I find this out. Uhm… well, I saw the ReadWriteWeb article in a Google search results page. Oops, too late!

The concept is being championed by Alternative Search Engines — which lists the 100 top alternatives to the incumbent search behemoth. Sorry guys, while it’s a novel idea, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

It got me thinking how much many of us have come to rely on Google. I use GMail for non-business e-mail and IM, Google Analytics to track statistics for my websites, Google Reader to keep track of my RSS feeds, Google Docs to collaborate on documents, Google Alerts to flag things worth reading, Google Maps to find places in the real world, and of course Google Search to find everything else.

In fact, the thought of NOT having Google is quite a scary one… and that, in itself, is a scary thought! I guess like so many people today I’ve become pretty much institutionalised at this stage. Why? Because Google makes my life easier in so many little ways, and that’s very compelling. It makes it hard to leave behind… and the better they get at it, the harder it becomes.

Is there really a viable alternative out there that can rival the services and quality of search results Google offer at the same competitive (FREE) price? Even matching Google won’t be enough — because to entice users away from the Big G, to make it worthwhile, any competition is going to have to offer something substantially better. And from where I’m sitting right now they’re all a long way from doing that.

As for a Google free day… well, maybe next year….

Ireland’s only dedicated search engine marketing event, Search Marketing World, will be held at the Crowne Plaza, Northwood, Dublin, on 03 April 2008. Keynote speaker at Ireland’s only dedicated search event this year is Chris Sherman, Executive Editor of Search Engine Land, one of the world’s leading search engine experts. Joining Chris in Dublin is an impressive list of speakers that reads like a “who’s, who” of international and Irish digital marketing.

Increasingly businesses around the world are harnessing the power of the internet to reach out to consumers in new and exciting ways. Studies show that more advertising spend is being diverted online – and that search is the biggest online channel by far. Keeping abreast of the latest trends in search engine marketing is vital for marketing professionals, web masters, website designers and developers, business owners, media buyers and just about anyone else involved in marketing today.

Search Marketing World is hosted by leading Irish interactive marketing agency, Interactive Return, and offers a uniquely Irish perspective on the global phenomenon of search engine marketing. More details are available on the website at www.searchmarketingworld2008.com, or by telephone on 01 672 9022 (9am – 4pm Mon-Fri).

Technorati Tags: Search Engine Marketing,Search Marketing events,search marketing Ireland,Interactive Return,Chris Sherman

Martin Murray of leading Irish Digital Marketing agency Interactive Return kindly answered a few questions on Search Marketing to assist in my education. I found it very useful, and thought you might like to share in his search insight:

Q. How long have you been involved in search?

Since 1999.

Q. What general advice would you give to someone just getting started with SEO / SEM – people trying to optimise their own sites, or launch their own online business?

First, recognize the importance of search for any business using the online channel. Second, resource your search marketing efforts appropriately. If you’re a small business the most importance resource is you. Give some time to understanding search yourself. It will pay dividends to your business for many years to come.

At the moment I’m working on a sample chapter of the book that will form part of a package that will be going out to a list of potential publisher’s that Damian has drawn up. I’m learning a lot… quickly, and one of the first things that I came to understand is that the fundamentals of search are really quite straightforward.

The more I think about this stuff the more I’m coming to realise that search optimisation / marketing is not about understanding automated robots and complex ranking algorithms (although some of the “experts” out there will probably disagree with me). Search marketing is about understanding people.

Understand the people using search, understand the people running the search engines, understand what both of those groups are trying to achieve… then align your site so that it meets their wants and needs.

Bingo! Sustainable high rankings.

People have this uncanny knack of wrapping things in layers of complexity that don’t really exist. More often than not poor ranking seems to stem from a failure to diligently apply basic principals in a consistent and iterative manner (something I’m as guilty of as the next man); not addressing the “prime directive” — which is to build a site with killer, information rich content that delivers what the user is looking for; or people basing their entire SEO efforts on finding and exploiting “loopholes” in the engines’ algorithms, and then wondering why their sites bomb out when the search engines slam the door.

If you’re looking to rank a site quickly to make a fast buck, those loopholes may well pay dividends. If you’re looking to build a sustainable, trusted online brand with sustainable long-term rankings though, it makes sense to work with the search engines and their users, rather than striving against them.

Technorati Tags: SEO , SEM , Search Engine Optimisation , Search Engine Marketing , digital marketing , internet marketing , digital marketing success