#iThinkMedia October Wrap Up Search Highlights

It’s the end of October and there has been a whole range of tech and marketing news this month to talk about. Today we want to share some news highlights across the landscape of SEO, Paid Media and Content. Here is #ThinkSearch October roundup.

Privacy Focused Search Engine hits 30M daily searches

Earlier in the month, it was announced that ‘Duck Duck Go’, a privacy-focused search engine reached 30 million daily searches. That’s a 10 million increase from last year’s 20 million searches record. That’s a 50% increase. So, why is this search engine gaining so much momentum?

With privacy being a huge concern amongst users, some people are turning away from services that track everything you do and looking for somewhere to go where they won’t be stalked by corporations. Google is a huge player at monetizing user data.

As search gets more expansive, Google understanding your needs can serve a benefit to users and cut out unnecessary search processes. Google maps will know your frequent journeys, where you like to go and then suggest helpful routes. Youtube will know what you like to watch and suggest relevant videos. Google will know what you like to buy and suggest interesting products to you. But at what point does this all start to become a bit too creepy?

For many users, the internet has become an Orwellian nightmare. Duck Duck Go offers a solution, a search engine that doesn’t collect data on everything you do. Ads are not displayed based on machine learnings of your behaviour online. Ads are displayed based off of the keyword you are searching for, the old-fashioned way. Duck Duck Go’s surge in popularity is a strong signal to me that privacy concerns amongst people are growing, and some people are sick and tired of being targeted at the expense of their privacy.

Google has made it easier to customise privacy

Interestingly, Google just recently has rolled out an update allowing you to delete search history, and customise your privacy settings. Is this in response to the growing popularity of Duck Duck Go? Or maybe it’s to protect themselves from the growing pressure of Europe’s Privacy policy. Who knows, but it is definitely a welcome change and benefits the consumer.

Before this update, it was suspiciously hard to find your privacy settings on your profile. A trend shared by the likes of LinkedIn and Facebook. With this update, your privacy settings are not buried away, and you even have the ability to easily toggle personalised ads on and off. You can now also delete search history within Google now. Currently, this update has been rolled out for Desktop. iOS and Android will receive these features later. Google has also said that they plan to integrate these privacy controls into Google Maps to overhaul their privacy controls across the entire platform.

Google’s visual strategy is being rolled out

We recently discussed some of the new features Google are bringing to users this Autumn/Fall. Today, Google has rolled out their new Discover feature to the Google Homepage on Mobile devices in the US. We will keep you updated on our Twitter when this update rolls out for the UK.

Last month, we also shared that Google’s image search technology ‘Google Lens’ will be coming to Google Images later this year. Google has now pushed this live for some users.

eBay Acquires Motors.co.uk

Gumtree is bolstering their presence in the automotive industry through the acquisition of motors.co.uk. Parent company eBay has announced that an agreement has been made to acquire automotive company Motors which will become part of the Gumtree division.

“By combining Motors.co.uk’s extensive inventory, dealer engagements, traffic and cutting-edge tools and services with the considerable audience of in-market car buyers provided by eBay and Gumtree, this acquisition would give UK car dealers a significantly broader reach.”

General Manager of Gumtree UK, Matt Barham

Debenhams Dominating Fashion In New Share of Voice Report

In a new report from Pi Datametrics, Debenhams is number 1 in a Google Share of Voice Report in the fashion market. 14000 of the most valuable keywords around fashion were analysed and it has been revealed that Debenhams are dominating in all sub categories in fashion. Womenswear is where they are running away with it the most.

12.7pc is Debenhams’ share of voice score, making them number 1 by far. In 2nd place is Next at 9.41. From there, there is a huge gulf in class with 3rd place PrettyLittleThing at 5.23pc. However, with Boohoo being the parent company of PrettyLittleThing, their combined share of voice would take it higher than Next but Debenhams would still be top. With Christmas season around the corner, this is great news for Debenhams. Especially after the bad news last week that Debenhams will be closing more retail stores in a £100M cost-saving plan. Debenhams could be another big retailer shifting away from physical retail to the online e-commerce world from here on out.

Halloween game on Google Home Page

Google has added a fun Halloween game on the Google homepage. You can host it and even play with friends. The aim of the game is to collect as many flames as possible whilst competing against another team. You can steal the opponent’s flames and quickly run off to deposit them at your base. It’s a nice little addition to the home page and I’m curious to know if they will add more of these kind of games around other seasons.

iThinkMedia Went to Search Love London

If you haven’t been around, you may have missed that we went to Search Love London 2018 earlier this month. We learned a lot about how Google Posts can have a direct ranking factor in Local SEO. We learned the importance of regularly encouraging creativity to ensure content, outreach and PR campaigns are resonating with our audiences. Be sure to check out our top takeaways from Search Love here.

iThinkMedia Nominated for 2 UK Search Awards

Last but not least, iThinkMedia have been shortlisted for 2 awards at the UK Search Awards. We have been nominated for ‘Best use of Content Marketing’ and ‘Best use of PR in a Search Campaign.’

Keep up to date with the latest SEO, Content and Paid Media news here at the iThinkMedia Blog and our Twitter. Got any exciting updates to share? Feel free to drop a comment or tweet us @Honcho_Search.