AOL, Yahoo and MSN join forces to take on Google while Amazon becomes the leader in brand loyalty. Read all about these developments and more in this week’s Netx industry news update!

How Many Pages are on the Internet?
CNN.com
Although no one exactly knows how many websites or individual web pages there are in the seemingly infinite digital universe that is the internet, we are on our way to finding out.  Thanks to a $1 million grant from Google, a group called the World Wide Web Foundation is creating a web index that will be the world’s first multi-dimensional measure of the web and its impact on people and nations.

Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft Band Together for Ad Plan
AllThingsD.com
AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft will begin selling ad inventory on each others’ sites in a plan to make them each more competitive with Google.  The strategy is also designed to help regain some ad spending that has ended up in the hands of ad network in recent years.

August 2011 U.S Search Engine Rankings
comScore.com
Google continued to lead the U.S. search market in August despite losing 0.3% of their share.  Yahoo remained in second place with 16.3% of the market while Microsoft rounded out the top three with 14.7%.  Yahoo and Microsoft increased their market shares 0.2% and 0.3% respectively.

Retailers Should Author Facebook Posts on Wednesday
Clickz.com
Retailers get 8% more engagement out of their Facebook posts on Wednesday than other days of the week, according to new research by Buddy Media.  It was also found that messages longer than 80 characters receive 40% lower engagement while overall engagement drops by 29% if companies post more than three times a day.

A Conversion Boost for Online Retailers
InternetRetailers.com
Nearly two-thirds of online retailers report higher conversion rates over the past year, according to a new report from Shop.org and Forrester.  More than half say their AOVs have increased and 25% are reporting that fewer shoppers are abandoning their shopping carts.

Almost 75% of Active American Social Networkers Shop Online
SearchEngineWatch.com
The value of the time consumers spend online and on social networks and blogs continues to grow, most visible through the influence on purchase decisions, Nielsen reports.  Adults active on social networks and blogs are 12% more likely than the average user to shop online while nearly 4 in 5 active internet users participate in these activities and 70% make online purchases.

Amazon is the #1 Loyalty Leader
MediaPost.com
Brand Keys’ new, 2011 Customer Loyalty Leaders Index shows Amazon having displaced Apple’s iPhone in the #1 spot.  Additional loyalty leaders include Facebook, Zappos, Hyundai and Patron.

As the summer winds down Google Android continues to lead the mobile platform market while consumers are on the prowl for back-to-school deals.  Catch these headlines and others in this week’s Netx industry news update!

Negative Online Reviews Change 80% of Shoppers’ Minds
DigitalTrends.com
A recent survey found that the influence of the internet and online reviews on consumers’ purchase decisions is stronger than ever.  Slightly less than 90% of consumers said they found online sources of product and service reviews to be trustworthy while 80% of consumers have changed their minds about a purchase based only on negative information they found online.  On the other side, 87% of consumers reported that a favorable review has confirmed their decision to go through with a purchase.

July 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share Report
comScore.com
There are now more than 82 million Americans that own a smartphone!  Leading the mobile platform market is Google Android with 41.8% of the market while Apple is in second place with 27% of the market.

Clothes and Social Media Occupy U.S. Web Users in July
InternetRetailer.com
Facebook and Twitter both attracted record traffic in July while back-to-school shopping helped increase visits to e-commerce sites by nearly 13%.  Apparel sites also had strong growth as the category increased 8.2% to 66 million visitors.

Email Volume Drops 14% YoY
DMNews.com
According to a study released by the marketing services firm Epsilon, the average number of emails sent per client fell by 14.3%.  Open rates increased 0.4% YoY to 22.2% while click rates remained flat at 5.2%.

Google Experiments with Infinite Scrolling
SearchEngineWatch.com
With the use of infinite scrolling Google is trying to move beyond the first 10 results of the SERP.  Since infinite scrolling has been a hit in Google Image Search, the same idea is being implemented for the core search results.  Aside from confirming the experiment, Google has shared little else about it.

Those Searching For Google+ Are Younger & Have More Income than Facebook Searchers
SearchEngineLand.com
A recent study has shown that there are some striking differences between those looking for Google+ versus those looking for Facebook.  Surprisingly, Facebook had a larger percentage of searchers over the age of 35, while Google+ trended younger.  In addition to the younger demographic, Google+ searchers skewed towards higher incomes.  Google+ saw 32.1% of searchers with an income of above $100,000 a year, while only 22.8% of Facebook searchers had an income of above $100,000 a year.