Google Trends in 2015: Mobile Search, Security and Content Integration

On April 15, comScore released a report about search activity in March. It revealed that Americans used Google to perform nearly 13 out of every 20 searches. Twenty percent favored Microsoft brands, such as Bing and MSN.com. The total number of Web searches increased by about one-tenth during March. Although other engines have made slight gains in recent months, Google remains the dominant player. One major trend is that people increasingly use smartphones to surf the Internet. The Next Web reports that mobile search activity doubled during late 2014 and early 2015. This development prompted Google to initiate a significant change in April. It began to prioritize fast, smartphone-friendly websites in its mobile results. The update didn’t affect desktop, notebook or tablet users.Pre-launch Google did seek to help webmasters optimize their code fortunately. The top search engine created a mobile-friendly testing tool. However, about 220 out of 500 major U.S. companies have websites that fail the test, according to USA Today. Another mobile search development was speculated in February as well – Google started allowing sponsors to place call-only ads. Rather than loading websites, smartphones automatically dial phone numbers when people click the links. As with any Google shift the change may be in beta or stick permanent until otherwise changed.

Content Integration

Another trend has enabled many searchers to conduct research without visiting separate websites. For SEOs this isn’t ideal because it is sort of like jacking the information with giving the original writer credit – but nevertheless it is happening. Each year, Google integrates more useful content into its result pages. It supplies maps, weather forecasts, word definitions, zip codes and other data. Google “Elvis Songs” – look at these results. Although,  this material benefits searchers, it reduces traffic to websites that provide similar information and seems to be heavily focused on Google specific results or YouTube…which of course is owned by Google.

Secure Advertising

Google continues to transition more services to HTTPS and reward other websites for doing the same. The jury is still out on this but I have seen favorable results for strictly E-commerce sites that made the change (although it was a very small sample size). As part of its “HTTPS Everywhere” campaign, the company recently decided to encrypt advertisements. It began using secure connections to deliver YouTube video ads in 2014. The company plans to switch most other promotional content to HTTPS by the end of June.

Social Metrics

One of Google’s major goals is to add more up-to-date social network content to its results. For instance, it displays Google Plus ratings alongside local business listings. The search giant renewed its focus on social media integration when it signed an agreement with Twitter in early 2015. Search Engine Land reports that standard search results will probably contain the latest tweets by June – but I guess we will have to wait and see.

These trends affect webmasters and searchers in numerous ways. Users can expect to accomplish more and more tasks without leaving Google. People with mobile Internet devices will find it increasingly easy to browse the Web. Meanwhile, website owners must work harder to achieve or maintain high rankings in the results (as if it wasn’t already extremely hard). Companies that enhance security and mobile accessibility will benefit from increased traffic as we enter the second half of 2015.