Google – Mike Berry Associates

The Answer is “Google” – now what was the question?

by Mike Berry

Ancient Athenian Philosopher Plato described the human condition: “Man is a being in search of meaning.”

But where can we find it?

We humans are a curious species – I don’t mean weird, I mean nosy. We want to know stuff.

As parents we patiently answer our children’s questions with joy in our hearts. We encourage them to challenge and to think for themselves – to seek answers and meaning. To learn and so make their way in the world.

Educators encourage curiosity in students – every Lecturer/Professor I know welcomes dialogue in class – ‘chalk and talk’ can be as boring […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T17:40:56+00:00November 29th, 2020|Education and training, General, SEO|0 Comments

Need for Speed online

I read recently that in the ‘Browser Wars’, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer’s share has dipped below 50% of all users (on all devices, globally). Lest we forget, in 2004, IE’s share was 95%. Firefox was the first real challenger to IE and continues to gain ground, but the big winner is Google Chrome, which positions itself as a new, fast browser.

‘New’ is a familiar advertising copy word which has been proven to be effective (after all, new must be ‘improved’…). But what about ‘fast’? The car manufacturers aren’t allowed to sell ‘speed’ any more but browser makers still can.

Google announced last […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T16:57:33+00:00December 29th, 2011|Trends|1 Comment

End of the Hippie Dream: did business break The Web?

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a scientist and something of an idealist. Oh yes: and he invented The World Wide Web. I wonder what it says in his passport under ‘Occupation’…

In my book that’s about as cool as having been in The Beatles. However I’m certain Sir Tim is worth less than Sir Paul (even without an expensive ex-wife). You see he has deliberately chosen not to exploit his invention for personal gain. Which (many would say) is also pretty cool.

When Mr B-L was working at CERN in 1989-90 he wrote […]

Mike Berry2021-08-18T09:00:19+00:00March 2nd, 2010|General|9 Comments

How was it for you? The joy of UX

Google is planning and currently beta testing some design/ layout changes, both on the Home page and the Search Results page to include a new left-hand navigation pane. Google is known for making such changes very rarely and when it does, for researching them very painstakingly. Which raises the question: isn’t agonizing about miniscule changes in logos, column width and colours all a bit unnecessary? After all, Google has a strong brand and isn’t it the reliability of its search results that really matters?

Well, in a word, “No”. We’re talking about the User […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T17:18:52+00:00November 28th, 2009|General|7 Comments

PPC: how much will you pay per click? It’s all about Quality.

If you know all about Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) you might want to sit this post out (or better, please read and comment; this is Web 2.0 after all.)

Today’s big news in the world of tech/digital marketing is the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal, which sees Microsoft become Yahoo’s search provider while Yahoo’s sales team will sell advertising on behalf of both companies. This will, subject to regulatory approval, create a serious rival to Google in the world of search and specifically in the world of PPC.

A random sample of advertised jobs from this week’s UK (digital) marketing press (online and offline) includes […]

Mike Berry2021-08-17T11:43:45+00:00July 26th, 2009|General|7 Comments

SEO: "seek, and ye shall find." (Luke 11)

Anyone remember WebCrawler? Infoseek? HotBot? AltaVista? Lycos? As long as we’ve had search engines, we’ve had SEO (= search engine optimisation). And as Microsoft announces a UK roadshow to launch its new search platform, Bing, as a serious rival to Google, SEO is firmly established as part of the digital marketing landscape.

Indeed SEO or ‘natural search’ is a whole separate industry these days. It can be defined as: helping site owners to optimise their ranking in Google and other search engines when users search by certain relevant “keywords”.

The evolving role of the practice of SEO is currently a […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T17:29:19+00:00June 4th, 2009|SEO|13 Comments

Google: they know where we live!

These are unusually tough times for Google. The company, which is not accustomed to announcing bad news, is cutting 200 jobs in sales and marketing, (following the 100 recruitment jobs earlier this year) the biggest round of layoffs in the company’s history. Meanwhile a group of British MPs is up in arms about the new Google Latitude mobile tracking technology and various consumer groups have noticed Google’s share of the search market (79% globally and over 85% in the UK).

Now what’s all this fuss about Google Street View? And why is Google doing it?

Well […]

Mike Berry2011-07-06T09:35:41+00:00March 27th, 2009|General|4 Comments