Google users have been checking out the latest addition to their search results since the Mountain View giant announced that Social Search had been taken out of its Labs site and begun rolling out in English.

The change means anyone with a Google account will notice that their search results feature information gathered from their social networks, including photos and blog content connected to queries.

As Google search vice-president Marissa Mayer revealed at last year's Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, the aim is to make the search experience more personal and relevant with the inclusion of web content from individuals' friends and online contacts.

Social Search's arrival also follows the integration of real-time Twitter posts into results, wherever the search engine considers them to be relevant, to make the search experience as thorough and speedy as possible. News headlines, blogs and Facebook/MySpace feeds also feature in real-time search results.

"We think there's tremendous potential for social information to improve search, and we're just beginning to scratch the surface," the search team explain on the Google blog, adding: "We're leaving a 'beta' label on social results because we know there's a lot more we can do."

The latest move to back up suggestions that Facebook might threaten Google's dominance in the search realm has arrived in the form of the social network's expansion of its relationship with Microsoft.

Users will know that various changes have been made to the site to mark its sixth birthday, and the latest entails Facebook allowing Bing – Microsoft's "decision engine" – to include richer, more comprehensive search listings.

The intention is to move beyond link-based results to provide richer answers and boost the speed of the search experience.

Furthermore, whereas Bing had previously only secured search on the American version of Facebook, a global switch opens up the engine's results to a significantly larger audience.

As part of the overhaul, Microsoft will no longer be responsible for display ads on Facebook since the latter claims its own ads are better suited to the site.

In a statement, the social network's representatives explained: "Ad formats that feature social actions perform better and provide a better user experience since they are more consistent with the look and feel of Facebook.

"This combination of targeting and social relevance is the primary driver behind the shift in strategy."

When affiliate/internet marketing it is important to understand the customer journey, ensuring that you deliver potential customers to the correct content depending on the stage in their buying lifecycle.

“This is one of the most common mistakes for newer internet markets”

So back to basics, what is the online buying lifecycle? Let’s take for example a weight loss product: (more…)

In a move already predicted to boost online marketing in Europe and Asia, Google has made its website analytics tool available in six new languages.

Google Analytics, which monitors website traffic and the effectiveness of marketing strategies, can now be used in Bulgarian, Greek, Lithuanian, Slovak, Catalan and Vietnamese, bringing the total languages available to 31.

In a blog post, Dai Pham and Jeff Gillis from the Google Analytics team cite the "amazing" growth in the global use of website analytics they've witnessed over the past few years, adding: "As usage and the analytics dialogue scales internationally, our product, team and ecosystem are scaling right along with it."

An overview of the benefits Google Analytics presents to businesses is one ingredient of an upcoming masterclass being hosted by the search giant in London's Earls Court.

Google UK product specialist Gilli Goodman will host the session at the Technology For Marketing & Advertising event happening from 23-24 February, revealing how the analytics tool provides the information needed to write better ads, strengthen marketing initiatives and create higher-converting websites.

Another Google session looking at mobile products and advertising will probe smartphone developments and the rapid growth of the popular Android operating system.

Broadcaster Film4 has overhauled its website to set it apart from review sites, with the emphasis on unique content that will make the portal stand out in what it calls "a crowded marketplace".

The new content-driven website is aimed at showcasing the successes of Film4's production arm, from cinema smash Slumdog Millionaire to new release The Lovely Bones. It also highlights the Film4 TV channel and will stream exclusive short films from up-and-coming directors.

Explaining the broadcaster's intention to exploit its unique position of having both a TV channel and a production unit, Film4.com editor Hillary Perkins affirmed: "This makes us stand out in a crowded marketplace. We have unique content that we can make use of."

"On the old site there was a lot of content but it was difficult to understand what we were about," she added to New Media Age, noting that the Film4 production arm's access to casts and crews on movie sets can offer "a real insight" into the industry.

One online marketing channel the broadcaster has chosen to promote the new site is that of social networks.

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Merchants and affiliates alike, rely hugely on the development and accuracy of affiliate tracking technology to ensure that sales and commissions are precisely recorded. There’s nothing more frustrating for an affiliate than finding out a commission has been missed due to a letdown in technology – for merchants and networks this can mean negative PR and even the loss of earning affiliates. After all, who wants to be part of a network that doesn’t accurate track the visitors and sales you make for a merchant or product?

Many affiliate networks use a small and unreliable variety of methods to ensure clicks and sales are tracked through their networks – in many cases becoming dependant on cookie tracking which, although easy to implement, can often be highly inaccurate and unreliable for affiliates, in some cases losing up to 27% of sales generated. (more…)

After the chatter around Caffeine's arrival prompted speculation that page load speed could become a factor used by Google to rank search results, software engineer Matt Cutts has put the record straight in his latest video.

In it, he responds to a user query centred on the importance of page load time and "recentness" compared to a website's content relevancy. Cutts emphasises that the latter remains the most important factor in Google's search results, though he acknowledges the pertinence of a given website's load time.

"If you have two sites that are equally relevant (same backlinks … everything else is the same), you'd probably prefer the one that's a little bit faster, so page speed can be an interesting theory to try out for a factor in scoring different websites," he remarks.

"But absolutely, relevance is the primary component, and we have over 200 signals in our scoring to try to return the most relevant, the most useful, the most accurate search result that we can find. That's not going to change," he continues.

Caffeine, the updated version of Google's "search architecture", increases the speed at which the engine can index website content, which is what led analysts to suggest webmasters "help their sites along" by making them as fast and user-friendly as possible – within reason – while maintaining content relevance.

At the end of last year, Cutts also hinted in a video interview for WebProNews that speed could make its way into the engine's natural search algorithms: "It's sort of fair to say that if you're a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don't want that as much."

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As the marketing world gears up to hear the latest innovations in the mobile arena from Google at this year's Technology For Marketing & Advertising (TFM&A) event in London, Orange has unveiled details of a service that lets brands engage and interact directly with targeted segments of its customer base.

Representatives for the network say Orange Shots will enable businesses to create "rich, creative, engaging and fun" advertising campaigns targeted at customers' interests and preferences.

Working across SMS and MMS mobile platforms, the service is aimed at encouraging customers to message back and give their views and opinions, promising high response rates, strong returns on investment and viral potential.

Marc Overton from Orange UK reveals that the service has already been trialled by brands including 4Music and Snickers, who claim it's provided higher conversion rates than other media. As a result, he believes mobile advertising "as we know it" is ripe for transformation.

At TFM&A in Earls Court this month, Google's Sarah Speak is lined up to host a session entitled "The future is mobile", covering the Mountain View giant's developments in search, display and local and learn strategies, as well as best practice for developing mobile sites and campaigns.

A two-day internet marketing event for Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs), which featured speakers from Google, YouTube and LinkedIn, has resulted in a "groundbreaking" realisation of the potential social media have for the sector.

Held in London, the Social Media in Financial Services event sought to outline how and why the internet is "rapidly changing" financial services distribution.

Organiser Philip Calvert explained that the financial services industry currently engages with its customers the least online, when it actually "has most to gain" from using social media.

"The event proved once and for all that there's a misconception that social media is all about marketing, but it goes a lot deeper than that," he added. "IFAs can use the technology to listen to consumers and industry experts [and] learn and share best practice."

He also singled out the channel's search engine optimisation benefits, its potential for attracting website visitors, building brand loyalty and "creating buzz", networking and building relationships and facilitating promotion and sales.

"We saw once and for all that all consumers of all ages are now actively using social media, and IFAs who assume otherwise are in for a nasty shock," he concluded.

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Marketing professionals at UK rail firm East Coast and theatrical trade association the Society of London Theatre have attested to the results of recent research underlining the ability of email marketing to maximise businesses' return on investment and engage customers who are increasingly carefully researching the best deals in a given sector.

"It is a versatile channel that can be used strategically for brand building and tactically to promote special offers and events," notes Matthew Gordon from online marketing firm eBrains.

Sara Borland from East Coast points to the benefits of combining the email marketing channel with social networks, highlighting that a recent "one-way fares" campaign by the rail firm saw hundreds of travel customers share the offer on their Digg, Facebook and MySpace pages.

"Seventeen per cent of posted links garnered at least one open, and 33 per cent who opened a post then clicked. These are people we may never have reached otherwise," she reveals.

Citing targeted email campaigns used for subscribers in different age groups, the Society of London Theatre's Philippa Salvoni adds: "Using an age-centric subject line, we managed to double average open rates for subscribers in the 16-to-26 age group."