• by Mark Naples , October 28, 2005

Anyone who reads this space knows that I've not yet become sold on the vitality of blogs. That is, I don't really see what the big deal is, except as they pertain to a special class of sub-media, if you will. That is--blogs feed search. And when people search for something, as an increasing number do, they are at least as likely to be influenced by blogs as they are by anything else.

So, if you see the value of search engine marketing, and especially if you see the value of search engine optimization, then you'll get the value of blogs. Search is fast becoming as influential a form of media for marketers as any other. Just ask anyone who bought Google stock before it crested 100.

But what are blogs without search? In that case, they become sort of what Web sites were maybe 12 years ago, unless you're talking about blogs of a certain kind.

These blogs, when they're from certain influencers such as columnists and researchers, and especially when they are tied to the brand of an employing or syndicating outlet or company, can become far more than just search-subordinate media. They can become a valuable resource for insightful commentary and more. Back in January, I wrote about a blog belonging to Ed Cone, one of the Greensboro, North Carolina-based journalists who have given blogging so much credibility. Others have written about blogs focused on public affairs, which have certainly helped inform those interested in our foreign and domestic federal affairs in these very complicated times.

But some of the best blogs originate among the research intelligentsia of our industry. One such blog belongs to Bill Tancer, the general manager for Global Research at Hitwise. If you follow other search-related blogs, like John Battelle's very good and very popular one and you want to know how to make sense out of search trends, I can wholeheartedly recommend Tancer's effort, which can be found at http://weblogs.hitwise.com/bill-tancer/.

In the past several weeks, Tancer clarified a wide variety of topical items. To sample:

He used hard data to reveal that critics of Google Print, such as the Authors' Guild, may have it completely wrong. Hitwise data demonstrates that among the downstream sites seeing increases in traffic from Google Print are Amazon at 2.0%, eBay with 1.8%, Barnes and Noble with 1.0% and Alibris with .21%, probably giving even the harshest critics of Google Print some pause.

He demonstrated that searches for plasma televisions increased around the beginning of the NFL football season, and that searches for the suddenly more affordable DLP televisions increased in volume to match that of plasma's just as DLP prices began to drop, an intuitively apparent enough predictor.

Two weeks ago, when former U.S. Education Secretary and longtime conservative radio pundit William Bennett was getting himself into so much trouble over his racially insensitive remarks, searches under his name drove remarkable spikes in traffic to two sites in sequence: first, to Media Matters for America and through that site, to the site for the book Freakonomics, referred by its coauthor, University of Chicago Professor Steven Levitt. (Watch these spaces when our next presidential election features Hillary Clinton running against John McCain. We have not yet begun to blog, America!)

Tancer illustrates that there is little limit to the insights that search term data can provide--including how important government- or marketer-promoted campaigns like October's Breast Cancer Awareness Month can be toward actually raising awareness of causes. Measuring the volume of searches on "breast cancer" provided insight into the awareness of Internet users, which is hardly a cross-section, but is meaningful nonetheless. Tancer illustrated the sharp rise (more than 200% from August to October 2004) in "breast cancer" searches that coincided with last year's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, proving that, in the hands of experts, search engines can provide tremendous insights into the thinking of many consumers. Even if you're already familiar with the meaningful information to be gleaned from search, Tancer's is a useful blog, the likes of which I hope we see more of.