We’ve all been there. For the past couple of years it’s been a nightmare for us developers to spend hours either changing our CSS or HTML mark-up just so Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) can render our webpages correctly.  Since the launch of IE7 back in 2006, web technologies and web standards have changed significantly. Whenever I develop websites for clients, I usually don’t have any problems in regards to testing it cross browser, 98% of the time my websites work seamlessly on pretty much all the modern browsers until I’m asked to test it on IE7.

It is understood that most developers (including myself) still optimise websites for IE7, simply because there happens to be a small minority of users who still use that browser. Latest stats as of February 2013 show that usage of IE7 has dropped to less than 4% globally. The question we need to ask is, is it still worth putting in the effort to optimise websites for IE7 for this minority of users?

Based on my previous experience, it takes an enormous amount of time to make a website or web application optimised for IE7. Due to these problems, and the very small percentage of people who even use the browser, it doesn’t make it worthwhile as far as time, effort and money is concerned. Yes, it would be nice to have a website that is compatible with all browsers, but what are the chances of your visitors (target audience) accessing your website using IE7?

Why should we stop optimising for IE7?

Big name websites such as Google and Facebook officially announced last year that they no longer support older browsers like IE7 because they don’t have the capabilities to handle today’s modern web browsing needs. Google has urged people to update their browsers for a better and safer browsing experience. Facebook’s timeline has been completely phased out from IE7. When users visit their Facebook profile page they won’t see the timeline, but instead will be presented with the old profile page.

Some ecommerce websites have even started charging an ‘IE7 tax’. Australian retailer www.kogan.com was one of the first websites to come up with the idea of charging their users with an extra 6.8% tax. The website detects when visitors are using IE7 and issues a pop-up warning about the tax if the users purchasing goods from their website. The purpose of this approach is to encourage their users to upgrade to a modern browser for a better browsing experience of their website, thus avoiding the extra charge at the same time.

Why are people still using IE7?

One of the biggest reasons people are still stuck with IE7 is because some of them are still using Microsoft’s older operating systems. IE7 came pre-installed when Windows Vista was first launched in 2006, an operating system that many PC owners still use. Microsoft has also used several methods in an attempt to get its users to upgrade, but some organisations find it very expensive and time consuming to get all of their PC’s upgraded to modern standards. Most importantly it is our fault as developers as in the past we have spent hours optimising websites for IE7. This has only encouraged IE7 users to continue their browsing experience with IE7.

What can we do encourage users to upgrade their browsers?

• We can use similar tactics like the Australian retailer “Kogan”.
• Create landing pages that can detect if the users are using IE7 and provide them with a warning and upgrade solution.
• Use badges and small banners somewhere on your website to encourage users to upgrade. Last year a website called “The IE7 Countdown” launched to dedicate the countdown of IE7. They provide code snippets that can be easily embedded on your website to display tiny badges and banners. www.theie7countdown.com

I think it is time to stop spending unnecessary time fixing IE7 bugs and instead using that time to do something more productive.

The post Is it time to bury Internet Explorer (IE7) for good? appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Under the arrangement a special box with an Encyclopaedia Britannica fact will appear on the search results page whenever it is deemed relevant to the enquiry in question.

The box will also include links to Wikipedia, Freebase, Kwiki, and other information resource sites if the latter contain further information on the subject in question.

Commenting on the move, a spokesperson from Microsoft said:

“We are excited about how new instant answers from Britannica Online delivers relevant information in a more organised way that helps people find information more quickly.”

Meanwhile, Bing’s Franco Salvetti, said he believed that the “useful facts and figures” from Encyclopaedia Britannica would help build trust among users of web searches.

Many industry commentators have seen Bing’s enhancement of its search engine facility using Encyclopaedia Britannica data as a response to developments on other search engine sites; most notably Google’s attempt to consolidate its data resources to provide more in-depth findings for users.

Known as Google’s ‘knowledge graph’, the additional search result information has been available since the middle of May, and is most usually apparent to the user in the form of a box on the results page providing a data summary together with pointers to where the user can obtain more information.

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The full report is yet to be released, but there have already been some interesting conclusions drawn from the data.
Bearing in mind the origin of the funding for this project, it’s likely to have a certain bias, and highlight the benefits of spending more on a non-Google search engine.The research suggests that you can roughly pigeon-hole people based on their search engine preference.

“Consumer preference for a specific train [search path] demonstrates a unique demographic and psychographic profile … The search experience on different search engines yields different results, with some being more relevant to the consumer than others. [This] contributes to overall customer and brand awareness. If the results of the search satisfy the needs of the consumer, then the search engine has greater appeal to that potential customer and he or she will have a deeper connection to the brand and the search engine. Therefore, the research indicates, search engines provide different degrees of a “brand lift” to the destination site.”

I have to say, this is an ambitious statement to make, because it assumes that you can group people into just 3 different user types based on what could potentially be the search engine that was set as the homepage on their PC. They go on to segment by industry, giving different conversion rates for Google/Yahoo/Bing users for certain brands, products and services.

So far, the data that comes into the main focus regards conversion rates for the various verticals, but the snippets of the results are so specific to brand, that we will have to wait for the full report to be released to come to any actionable conclusions.

For the original press release : Research by Wunderman Finds Link Between Brand Building and Search Engine Use By Consumers

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The Bing Toolbox gives you the latest blog posts from the webmasters blog while incorporating the usual features such as submit sitemaps. It’s very similar to Google and Yahoo’s versions however it feels more intuitive in some ways. The feedback it gives you is also excellent and very much worth in to.

To submit your sitemaps etc head over to http://www.bing.com/toolbox/ and follow the ‘Add A Site‘ link

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So if you’ve seen a spike in referral traffic since the 1st of June, then the reason this is probably the reason.

The same type of thing happened after the launch of Google’s own browser Crome.  It wasn’t tracking people’s use of Crome at the start… which was a bit of an oversight as it’s their own browser.

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Well it’s not exactly brand new, Microsoft have had a search engine since 1998 (powered by third parties), and have had their own Microsoft powered search engine since 2004.

So I was having a look at Bing xRank, which on the surface looks to be a sweat shop counterfeit of  Google Trends. But after digging slightly deeper, it becomes clear that it’s purely about famous people.  It includes the trend for searches on their name, a biography, and media which features them.

I can see that this search functionality would be useful for journalists, music & sport enthusiasts and celebrity spotters. So I have to get over the fact that I’m not the desired user… but I still can’t ignore some vital flaws in the system.

Bing xRank has the following features :

• Search for a name and they will tell you who they are and how they rate.
• Browse a bio or get the latest news headlines about the person you’re interested in.
• Explore a celebrity’s latest videos, images, movies, albums, etc.
• Discover relationships among notable people. Thumbnail photos at the bottom of xRank show you the associates, friends, enemies, and romances, of that person.
• Look over the rankings for names that interest you. Arrow icons show how their movement is trending.
• View a person’s popularity over the past six months on the xRank History chart.

These last two items are very Google Trendy.

They have suggested ‘Related Searches’, but mostly these are not people but related items such as albums, news stories, lyrics, etc.  So when you actually click on any of them, they almost always bring you to a ‘no results’ page.

Surely they could determine whether they have xRank results, or whether these related searches should point to a standard web search.

I tried 50 cent in the searches, as he seems to be trending in xRank, but it looks like Microsoft is getting confused with stock market results, house prices and other things that include percentages.  I feel this may be skewing Mr Bling’s trend results.

I also tried searching for The Pope.  No results, so I assume I’m being ignorant by not specifying which one. And after selecting the suggested search result of Pope Benedict then Pope John Paul II – still no results.  OK maybe he’s not got an album out at the moment, but neither has Paris Hilton*, and she’s got an xRank bio page!

And John Lennon will be smiling from above, because acording to Bing xRank, he is bigger than Jesus.

*Slight edit – Paris Hilton does have an album, which she released in 2006, and she’s working on her next one now.

The post Microsoft Bing xRank – the new pants version of Google Trends? appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Although there are many factors that influence where your website will be ranked in the SERP some factors are more important than others. After taking a look at Bing for a few days now and carrying out some analysis it has become apparent that Bing uses a very different algorithm to Google. A good example that shows this clearly is searching for SEO Manchester in both Google and Bing.

The two SERPs looks very different, only one of the top ten results are the same and many big SEO agencies in Manchester are missing from the Bing SERP. You’ll also notice that the Bing Local Listings are not very competitive at all with only one agency being listed.

So which factors should you focus on to rank well in Bing?

• A mixture of inbound links including a good number with good keyword rich anchor text (see this great article on Link Building Secrets by Patrick Atloft).
• Make sure you write keyword rich, unique meta data which is also human readable.

If you have any other ideas on which factors are most important to rank in Bing please leave a comment and let us know!

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Here is an example of organic local listings for a Bing search in Manchester:

As you can see there is little competition for Bing Local Listings at the moment and the results are not great, one nightclub, a cafe and a strip club…

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