The majority of internet users are unable to find what they are looking for on their first search, a recent survey has found.

Writing on the online pages of the Yahoo! blog, Tom Chi, senior director of product management at the search engine, said that a poll conducted by the company had found that 85 per cent of respondents were not successful on their first search.

Utilising a website's vertical content is one way of earning links which many businesses have overlooked, according to one sector commentator.

Writing on the online blog of SEOmoz, Randfish comments that there are "dozens" of vertical directories and Web 2.0 portals which provide references to content areas such as web-based tools, white papers, audio and video feeds and downloadable software.

Website blogs have more of an impact on purchase decisions than social networks do, it has been claimed.

Enid Burns, writing on the online pages of the Clickz Network, explained that this was because blogs became a trusted source of information and opinion and also created conversation, which may cause such content to help companies increase their search engine optimisation.

The charity search engine Everyclick.com has been placed at number 60 in Google's search rankings, it has been noted.

Will Critchlow, who writes the Distilled blog, speculated that there was no real reason for this lowly posting and claimed that it may simply be because it is a search engine and therefore a competitor.

Websites that feature user-generated copy, such as classified advertisements, job listings or rental properties, can end up jeopardising search engine optimisation (SEO) rankings due to the content being featured on other websites, one sector commentator has warned.

Randfish, writing on the online blog of SEOmoz, explained that when the content is duplicated on the websites of a firm's competitors, this can be "frustrating".

One sector commentator has urged search engines to carefully monitor the results that make up the ranking pages for search engine optimisation (SEO).

Randfish, writing on the online SEOmoz blog, said that without doing this, firms are treating the symptoms of manipulated search rankings rather than "curing the disease".

There’s a recession looming, in case you didn’t know, it’s changing how we think and hitwise have been sharing some of their insights with us.

Fast moving search terms for September include Hadron Collider, HBoS, Sarah Palin, Sex on Fire, Elbow, Ryder Cup & Google Chrome, amongst others.

Interestingly, the rate of growth in the Social Networking & Forums category has slowed quite a bit, whilst blogs & personal websites have seen a decrease in popularity year on year – this could be our last post!

There are five frequent and frustrating misconceptions that surround the use of search engine optimisation, according to one sector commentator.

Kevin Gibbons, director of search at SEOptimise and writing on the online blog of e-consultancy, said it was a fallacy that industry buzz words always made good key words.

People relying on search engine optimisation may be interested to hear that Adobe has created Ichabod, a technology which aids search engines to better index AJAX Flash content, it has been noted.

According to Info World, the tool was previously released by Google and now Adobe is working on a similar system with Yahoo!.

There is a substantial disconnect in the allocation of funds between pay per click (PPC) spending and search engine optimisation (SEO), according to one sector commentator.

Writing on the online pages of the SEOmoz blog, Randfish said companies in the US spent $10 billion (£6.107 billion) on paid search advertising last year, but only $1.3 billion on SEO.

In the first few days when new content shows up on Google rankings it may briefly flicker, something which is common knowledge in search engine optimisation, according to one sector commentator.

Ben Hendrickson, writing on the online pages of SEOmoz, said he was left concerned after a project he had spent several months working on disappeared from the search engine results page.

The fact that search engine optimisation (SEO) has grown into such a large industry at such a rapid speed "seems impossible" to one sector commentator.

Writing on the online pages of e-consultancy, Kevin Gibbons - director of search at SEOptimise - said it all began in 1989 when a list of all the websites was compiled and monitored by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet.

Many businesses are now taking advantage of two key ways to achieve higher Google search engine optimisation (SEO) results, but such techniques may not always be recommended, one sector commentator has claimed.

Phillip Lensses, cited on the online pages of the Axandra, said the first trick was to see if the address of the company was anywhere near a city centre or main station.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is about helping content to be found and indexed, webmasters have been told.

An article on SEO Scoop explains that there are five elements to search engine-focused optimisation.

Yesterday, Google announced it would open up its paid search platform for gambling related terms in the UK!

If this floats your boat, you’re probably in the industry and, therefore, this is a seismic u-turn of notable proportions.

If it doesn’t, it’s probably just another piece of online twoddle, it’s likely to be jargon-riddled and mean very little to the common man.

Website analytics may be a little easier as Google has added the ability to detect the source of broken inbound links, it has been revealed.

In Google Webmaster Tools, inbound broken links to a domain now include a report of where the link resides on the internet, Search Engine Land explains.

Text content in Flash presentations is now being indexed by Google, meaning it can count towards search engine optimisation (SEO), it has been reported.

However, Brian Ussery writes on his beu blog of the ways in which Flash content is still handled in a different way to the HTML page into which it is embedded.

There are a number of obstacles faced by in-house search engine optimisation (SEO) teams which may be avoided by enlisting third-party assistance, it has been claimed.

Writing for Search Engine Watch, Kevin Ryan explains that individuals within an organisation can hamper SEO efforts.

Search engine marketers must not waste the investment made during pay per click (PPC) campaigns, it has been suggested.

Writing for ion interactive, Scott Brinker identifies a level of detachment among many marketers between acquiring clicks and catering for the resultant traffic on their websites.

Adopting a particular persona when writing content for websites can prove beneficial to search engine optimisation (SEO), it has been suggested.

Julie Joyce makes the assertion in an article for Search Engine Land and explains that targeting a specific audience can help to yield positive results.

Making use of advanced operators in Google searches can complement website analytics, it has been claimed.

Writing for Search Engine Journal, Ann Smarty explains that a number of the additional options in Google can provide illuminating website statistics.

Google have entered the world of web browsers with one of their latest releases, Google Chrome.

Chrome is a web browser that, on the face of it, seems to be in line with most other browsers.

It's currently in Beta stage so there are certain things it still doesn't do for example, still no Google toolbar!

There are things it does above and beyond all other web browsers though.

Different websites can have different effects on the success of social media marketing, it has been noted.

Writing on the SEOmoz blog, Jane Copland points out that some social media websites use 'nofollow' outgoing links.

Many different elements of a search engine optimisation (SEO) campaign can work together to increase sales, it has been noted.

Online marketing commentator Leon Bailey Green explains that some firms may wish to hone their campaigns to a single element that works best.

Google applies the same approaches to its own website design that pay-per-click (PPC) campaign managers could be wise to adopt, it has been suggested.

Writing for semvironment, shanesnow notes that Google's login page for AdWords uses text and image rotation.

Webmasters should do more to acquire natural in-bound links as part of their search engine optimisation (SEO) campaigns, it has been claimed.

Tad Chef writes for the SEOptimise blog of the benefits of natural links over their paid counterparts for SEO.

The 95-character limit on many pay-per-click (PPC) advertising programmes has made optimised ad copy into a work of art, it has been claimed.

Writing for Search Engine Land, Josh Dreller explains that marketing managers must attempt to inspire their readers within the space of 95 characters.

When targeting geographical areas, search engine optimisation (SEO) practitioners have been advised to consider local misspellings of words.

Dave Chaffey writes on his blog of the misspelt words which are prevalent in some regions of the world.

Website analytics can be made to work within different information environments by implementing RSS feeds, it has been suggested.

David Snyder explains in a Search Engine Journal article that information environments represent regions of content below domain level, typically covering different topics or categories.

While many pay-per-click (PPC) campaign managers may believe that it should take only one click to complete a transaction, one industry expert suggests otherwise.

Scott Brinker writes for the ion interactive post-click marketing blog that two clicks can sometimes prove to be better than one.

Following our recent post ‘Fannie Mae Get Help, But Will the Crunch Affect Online’, it seems marketing folk are making the shift to online in readiness for what may be a more difficult year ahead.

Webmasters have been given some website analytics tips from Google, some of which are aimed at those with large amounts of content to administrate.

For example, the search engine notes on its Webmaster Central blog that content management systems can allow small errors to spread across a large number of pages relatively quickly.

It’s staggering to see how many PPC campaigns are still being managed through automated software and are set on position-based, automated bid strategies.

We see this every day when analysing the competition and tracking competitors’ positions.

This approach can reduce the efficiency of a campaign and, as a result, it’s important for campaign managers to take greater control of their bid strategies if they want to increase the returns.

Specifying pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements to use broad match keywords can result in low-quality traffic being driven to a website, it has been claimed.

Writing for PPC Hero, John explains that marketing managers could find their efforts made more effective by diversifying the match types they specify for different advertisements.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) professionals are being advised to ensure that their landing pages do not undermine their search marketing efforts.

Online Media Daily reports the views of Scott Brinker, president and chief technical officer of ion interactive.