Web surfers are searching for cheaper deals on the high street by searching for discount vouchers via search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!
For companies looking to boost sales - and SEO firms - it is important they consider optimising their websites to achieve decent positions within the search engines to reap business benefits.
Criticism is aimed at Google for neglecting the UK - the world's second biggest search market - by British online consultants and other experts.
The Internet giant is under fire for faulty search engine marketing rankings, inconsistent results and international results featuring higher than they should.
Online news is currently making its own headlines in the media at present with a debate underway about charging for news sites and search engines announcing improvements to the way news results are served up to readers.
According to research published by multinational search engine optimisation firm Clash Media, more than half of the firms in the UK, Europe and abroad have increased their marketing budgets, with online marketing accounting for much of this.
A faster Google is being developed to improve results for search engine users and to combat competitive threats posed by rivals Microsoft and Yahoo.
Search engine optimisation firms and industry experts are closely monitoring the new project, called Caffeine, because already changes have been noticed in site rankings.
Bing, Microsoft's new Internet search engine, is continuing to grow market share in the marketplace with Yahoo first in its sights.
Some analysts say it is too early to tell if Bing is making any kind of significant progress, but Microsoft report that Bing has eight per cent more users than the MSN search engine had last year.
New SEO research proves companies are missing out on opportunities to grow traffic, customers and profits by failing to develop websites that rank well in Google and the other search engines.
Updating blogs and websites with useful news, topical content and relevant issues is a major hassle for the majority of small businesses, a new survey reveals.
