Wednesday, December 29, 2004

SEO hot for 2005

imediaconnectionchanges in 2005 will result from cogent business decisions, reaction to litigation and following trends, such as blogging..."SEO is still hot and will continue to gain strength in 2005. I see many affiliates reducing their monthly spend on PPC and focusing on SEO once their sites are indexed and optimized. On the flip side, both Google's policy change and SEO will increase the user experience, in turn, giving the merchant higher quality leads or sales.

"Blogs and data/content feeds are the wave of the future. If you don't have one or both, your program will suffer. Affiliates are becoming more sophisticated each day and demand tools to help them sell or promote your product or service. Get those tech requests in now; we are in store for a big year in 2005!” ...

Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Assoc. Inc. is quoted as saying " Direct marketers will lead... using rock-solid Web analytics to build and guide media planning and optimization decisions. Substantial changes in how marketers compensate affiliates and traffic partners will be announced. Solution providers that innovate and support stand to take all."



Google

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Domain Ip's And Physical Ips -> Linking Q&A

High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum

OldWelshGuy posts "An unatural linking pattern would see as rRon aluded to above, an odd pattern. Lots of links from one site, but no others etc, or possibly a little cluster of sites that is more or less isolated, but very popular with each other. Patterns like that really do not happen naturally online. If a new site appears, and it is good, then people are posting links to it from all over the place online"

Google

Viruslist.com - Net-Worm.Perl.Santy.a

Viruslist.com - Net-Worm.Perl.Santy.a

"This worm uses a vulnerability in phpBB, which is used to create forums and web sites, to spread via the Internet. phpBB versions lower than 2.0.11 are vulnerable.The worm is written in Perl, and is 4966 bytes in size...Using MSN to search for sites containing the above strings gives an extensive list of sites; evidence that Santy.a is currently causing an epidemic."

Only showed in MSN search yesterday, today also in Google results.

Google

European search engine Seekport expansion plan

Computer Business Review

"Seekport Internet Technologies GmbH, a European search engine provider that uses regional search indexing teams to actively filter spam from searches and add relevant, country and market-specific content, plans to press ahead with expansion plans in search of users wanting an alternative to US-centric search engines such as Yahoo, MSN and Google."

Dealing mainly with sponsored links "Seekport sells its search engine services as being able to reduce inappropriate US-based content searches from one in three to one in ten, to deliver significantly better hit quality than traditional search offerings and their reliance on search robots."

Seekport UK - Search the United Kingdom - UK Search Engine

Google

Search Engine Spam? You're Fired!

clickz.com

"Sponsored by Google" P.J. Fusco writes about her experiences with outsourcing SEM listing 3 broad categories of spamming but states that "When I discover an SEM firm practices questionable SEM tactics, there's only one thing to do: Fire it" whatever the level of transgression.

To put right the situation if she is "called upon to resuscitate a site that's been banned by a major search engine, I hire a reputable SEM firm experienced in reinstating wayward Web sites.

It takes a great deal of begging and groveling to get a site back into a major search engine's good graces. I must lay prostrate and bare the company's soul before the search engine that did the banning. Proper penance usually requires the assistance of a trusted expert outside the company to affirm the site has cast off its demons.

Meanwhile, I fire the SEM firm that got the site banned in the first place (of course). I complete due diligence before I confront the wayward SEM firm with a timeline of the facts. I seek legal advice, if necessary, to break any and all contracts with the firm. And I work with legal counsel to pursue damages against the rogue SEM firm."

Her next column will advise on how to "avoid hiring an SEM firm that employs questionable strategies".

Danny Sullivan posts at searchenginewatch.com blog "Firing a firm that went aggressive with the search engines after they told you they would, or because you told them to do so, doesn't make much sense. You shouldn't have hired them in the first place!"

But not all firms are 100% honest about their techniques nor are all hirers of SEM firms as savvy as he is. Surely if SEM purchasers were they wouldnt be hiring surely nor would in-house SEM's commit search spam transgressions.

Google

Hitwise Case Study - How a car rental company increased Google traffic

Hitwise Competitive Intelligence - Hitwise Case Study - How a car rental company used Hitwise data to gain a competitive edge within search engines.

A car rental company was using search engine marketing to increase visitors and online bookings on their website. By using Hitwise 'Clickstream' data they analyzed their search engine traffic and realized that they were underperforming in referral visits from Google.com, a leading search engine.

Using Hitwise search term data, the car rental company performed a gap analysis on their competitors and were able to identify successful search terms driving traffic to their competitors websites, which they were not including in their keyword campaign. By purchasing these search terms within Google, the car rental's website experienced a growth in visits from Google of 29% (from 3% to 32%) over a 3 month period. This growth in visits resulted in a large increase in rank among other car rental companies, well exceeding their major competitor.

With the Hitwise suite of competitive intelligence tools, the car rental company was able to:

1. Uncover successful keywords used by competitors
2. Identify and select search partners and optimize search engine relationships
3. Gain a better ROI on keywords
4. Increase qualified leads to their website and exceed their competitors search engine traffic

Google

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Getting Blacklisted is ALWAYS manual

Eric's Archived Thoughts: SES Chicago Report

Eric Meyer reports on SES Chicago with a few pointers for SEO and makes the following claim: "To get booted from a search engine, someone needs to have reported your site as trying to scam search engines. If that happens, then extra detection and evaluation measures kick in. That’s when you’re at risk of being blacklisted. Note that it takes, in effect, a tattletale to make this even a possibility. It’s also the case that if you find you’ve been booted and you think the booting unfair, you can appeal for a human review of your site."

I will try to find out if he reckons this is true for all the big players.....

Google

Monday, December 20, 2004

Four Essential Practices Of Good Web Design

Forrester Research:
"Four Essential Practices Of Good Web Design" especially the following points

Excellent doc for thoughts over xmas re paths and landing pages in particular:
1) include content that allows top-priority customers to complete their most important goals
2) keep critical paths to those goals free of user experience roadblocks; and 4) test and measure as a way of life.

Google

JupiterResearch - Search Engine Optimization

JupiterResearch - Search Engine Optimization

Research report looks the biz: "Algorithmic listings in search indexes generate an estimated six of seven commercially natured search referrals, forcing companies to consider the appearance of their sites in top search engines' organic results. Given the technical nature of organic search optimization, site operators must appropriately focus their efforts. "

Google

Search Engine Features Chart

Nathan Enns

"Search engine features chart created by Nathan Enns on December 18th 2004. "

Google

Updated Resources: Sites on search engines and search engine marketing

Pandia: "Sites on search engines and search engine marketing"

Google

Friday, December 17, 2004

Comment on comScore Networks study

MediaPost Advertising & Media Directory Mark Naples comments that "another story appeared that didn't seem to garner the attention it could have. I'm talking about the Overture-sponsored comScore Networks study analyzing the impact of search engine usage on the online and offline buying habits of consumers...

The study found that while generic terms accounted for the majority of purchase conversion (61 percent), branded terms (either retailer or product terms) were approximately 30 percent more likely to result in an online purchase.

"It's critical that retailers consider generic search terms as an important part of their keyword strategy," said James Lamberti, vice president of comScore Networks. "Marketers focused solely on specific product terms known to convert directly will fail to address the vast majority of consumers in the buy cycle."

That is to say, they will fail to reach consumers who begin their buying research by typing keywords.

I've read estimates of the value assigned to each consumer search between 9 and 14 cents. The Yellow Pages industry claims that each directory search in the traditional world is worth roughly $1. This kind of efficiency differential in online's favor is part of what makes search such a killer app, both for consumers and marketers. The comScore study seems to demonstrate the veracity of this, especially as it pertains to offline advertisers.

So, why has there been so little buzz about it? "

Google

The Dark Side of Exchanging Reciprocal Links

webmasterworld.com :: forum12

Some highlights from a long discussion re "The Dark Side of Exchanging Reciprocal Links::Some of the tricks Webmasters sometimes use to get around linking back to you."

The "links" are text css styled to look like hyperlinks which incorporatethe "OnClick" command to redirect to target website
Removing link after trading
Link page never indexed
All links hijack the pages linked to
Frame their links page with their root, so it shows the PR of the root though it "appears" that you are on the links page.
Simply having a links page that is not linked to internally...it exists, it can be reached by spiders, but cannot be found unless you have exact url
Use a script disguised as an HTML page. If a search engine spider hit the page out some other content instead of the linksDave Wray has useful hints: and gives this example: as "the trickiest:

Use a cgi counter script.
Use onmouseover to look like their link is there.
Disable right clicking, so they can't check source.
Everything looks legit and they don't suspect anything because the page still has PR.

What I use to get rid of automated linking spam is to use a form on my site. If they can't find the "add resource" link on my main page and just send some canned email, then to the trash bin it goes. I say on my "add a resource" page that I have the right to link back or not link back depending on the quality and usefulness of their site."

NB It is much easier to maintain 20, 30 or 40 high quality links than it is for 200, 300 or 400 low quality links. Think long-term instead of short-term.





Google

Comment on Geico Google case implications

ClickZ Internet Advertising News

"Google's trademark policy leaves individual trademark disputes to be worked out between the trademark holder and individual advertisers. It will 'perform a limited investigation of reasonable complaints,' the policy states. Overture, which settled its portion of the GEICO suit two weeks ago, has a similar trademark policy.

The potential for litigation, as well as other potential negative impacts, leads many search engine marketers to advise clients against purchasing trademarked keywords or using them within their ads, said Melissa Burgess, director of business development at SEM firm Impaqt.
'We highly advise our clients not to buy a competitor's keyword. It's not something that is in the best interest of our clients,' she said. 'We do encourage them to purchase their own trademarks as search terms to protect them.'

A company owning its own trademarks helps ensure that it, and not its competitors or affiliates, gets the traffic from searchers who are farther along the buying cycle, when they tend to narrow their searches with specific brand names, or model names and numbers, Burgess said.
She notes that a PPC search campaign should include broad keywords, such as 'laptop,' more specific keywords like 'Sony laptop,' and finally precise keywords like 'Sony VAIO 500.' This would help deliver buyers who are in various stages of research and buying readiness, she said.

'This helps you get the branding impact, and helps you down through the purchase cycle when someone knows the exact make and model they're interested in,' Burgess said. 'You go broad to get visibility and brand awareness, but you're going to get higher conversions from the specific terms.'
Though Burgess' opinion is shared by many search engine marketers, a recent study by comScore and Overture finds that most people don't even get to the point of searching by manufacturer or product name. The report also revealed that broad search terms that do not include a manufacturer name account for 70 percent of total search volume, and 60 percent of all conversions. Trademark searches, meanwhile, accounted for 20 percent of all online searches. "

Google

Get listed in Yahoo in 10 minutes

infomaniac explains why I put "Add to my Yahoo" buttons on the blogs.

Google

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Beta - MSNBot - Reviewed

WebProWorld

"MSNBot the beta-search spider works very much like GoogleBot, looking for many of the same site elements including incoming links, contextual relationships between linked documents, and overall site context.

MSNBot also seems to be interested in keyword-enriched titles and seems especially interested in anchor text.

MSNBot, like GoogleBot and Slurp finds sites for its index by following links from one page to another within or between sites.

A check of backlinks, or links recognized by MSNBot as being relevant to a specific site almost always shows much higher numbers than a similar check on Google or Yahoo leading us to conclude that, for the time being at least, MSNBot does not filter links to the same degree as its rivals.

One of the biggest improvements MSN(beta) brags about is its ability to figure out the context of individual paragraphs found on a page and apply that context as a "relevancy" factor against pages that might be linked to from that paragraph.

MSNBot likes well defined and functioning link paths within your website

NB for highly dynamic or commerce driven sites, use static URLs to link to products in your database and do whatever is necessary to avoid tracking systems that append unique user IDs to URLs.

Assuming navigation issues have been taken care of, websites that use keyword phrases in titles, anchor text, and early in the page content are doing very well in MSN(beta)'s index. We do not know for sure what MSNBot thinks of meta tags however we recommend using the basic description and keywords meta tags along with robot exclude text when necessary. MSNBot, basically likes clean code with good, common sense SEO. In a previous article, we republished the guidelines MSN posted to the MSN(beta) search site.

The article summarises the MSNBot Guidelines:

Incoming links from other websites with keyword-enriched anchor text used to phrase the links

Easily read code that has been W3C validated

Address one topic per page

Keep your page size reasonable, 150kb is the maximum size recommended in the MSN guidelines

Apply keyword phrases to well written sentences early in the code. Don't use techniques such as keyword stuffing or invisible text.

Use a sitemap to ensure that every page in your site is open to MSNBot.

Other post sagree that MSN Beta seems pretty stable now.

Google

Google Dominates Shopping Referrals

iMediaConnection: Google Dominates Shopping Referrals: "Google contributed to 4.26 percent of visits to shopping sites for that same week.
Hitwise also reported that Yahoo! Search contributed 2.24 percent and MSN Search 0.54 percent of all U.S. visits to shopping and classified sites...While Google dominates overall referrals, it is important to note that the leading search engines vary in their strength to refer traffic to certain categories versus others. Marketers should carefully consider the nuances of each engine in order to maximize their search strategies," says Bill Tancer, vice president of research, Hitwise."

Google

Yahoo tests video search engine

CNET News.com

Yahoo "has been developing a service that will let people search for video clips from across the Internet in much the way they do for Web pages and images. Late Wednesday, the company introduced a beta site for the product on its development page, at Next.yahoo.com. It will search for files in Windows Media, Apple's QuickTime and Real Media."

Multi media search is said to be the next big thing in search...

"the Internet is maturing into an entertainment platform for television, via convergence devices that combine PC and TV features, and search will be essential for people to find and watch media, whether its available over broadband, pay-per-view cable or broadcast..."

The article also details the moves by Google and Microsoft in multimedia search.

Google

Yahoo! Search Results for site:www.totaltravel.co.uk

Yahoo!

Some improvement fro Great Britain from quick check, will check further....: "Results 1 - 10 of about 300 for site:www.totaltravel.co.uk "

Yahoo! Search Results for site:www.totaltravel.com.au/Results 1 - 1 of about 1 for site:www.totaltravel.com.au

Google

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

AOL's Top 2004 Searches

iMediaConnection

"The most searched words overall this year led with 'horoscopes,' with new topics hitting 2004's top 50 list including:
foreclosures (#4);
salaries (#5);
work at home (#18);
home improvement (#19);
airline tickets (#27);
spyware (#43);
credit reports (#43);
texas hold 'em poker (#46);
and blue book (#49)." not Wittgensteins surely?

Google

MarketingSherpa's December affiliate marketing survey results

MarketingSherpa.com

"According to our survey results, affiliate marketing is alive and well. Overall 91% of surveyed merchants and 82% of affiliates expect revenue growth in 2005"....BUT...MarketingSherpa editors and outside experts alike are worried about the future of affiliate marketing... Four key worrisome tactics will directly affect revenues: "

Tactic #1. Search marketing
We suspect affiliate revenues driven by search will decline in 2005

Google's about to crack down even harder on affiliate marketers
Trademark protections
Optimized ranking protection
Search marketing accountability

According to stats we've seen from affiliate management systems, somewhere between 30-40% of affiliates depend almost entirely on search engine marketing to drive traffic.

Of our affiliate survey respondents:

- 49% of all affiliate respondents said they would *not* be
willing to work with a merchant that banned all paid search
ads
- 27% said they wouldn't work with a merchant that banned
trademark search ads

On the other side, 51.1% of surveyed merchants had restrictions on search marketing. 8% said no affiliate could use any search; 7.4% allowed organic search campaigns only; 21.3% outlawed paid ads against trademarks and top terms; and, 13.4% restricted trademarks and top terms to super-affiliates only.

Tactic #2. Email marketing and CAN-SPAM
Tactic #3. Pop-ups
Tactic #4. Dishonest desktop applications (adware/spyware)


Article has comprehensive list of links related to this story

Google

Search Industry Gains Clout

internetnews.com

Susan Kuchinskas reports from Search Engine Strategies trade show, Chicago that "Search engines are now recognized as full-fledged media companies and search engine marketing is no longer a cottage industry, according to Danny Sullivan, editor of the Search Engine Watch Web site...

Sullivan warned marketers to get ready for new search technologies that lead searchers away from that first page of natural search results...

Search histories pose a challenge for marketers and publishers, because they reduce the likelihood that a searcher will happen on a site he hasn't visited before. Sullivan said great, useful content remains the best way to encourage users to visit and to return. Great title tags and descriptions will lure searchers; delivering on the promise of the description will encourage them to save the site.

"Personal search means we'll have multiple fronts in the war between marketers and search engines," Sullivan said. "No longer do people get the same results -- and those little differences may start to add up over time."

Sullivan said desktop search, now available free from MSN, Google and Ask Jeeves, already is changing how search results look on the page. Because they appear at or near the top of the results, often followed by local listings, they tend to push most natural results below the screen. For example, on Ask Jeeves, Smart Search results dominate the page.

He said that it remains to be seen whether marketers will buy ads specifically against desktop search results. "Marketers will move here slowly," he said."

Google

ClickTracks update details

ClickTracks | 5.2 Pro Release

"5.2 Release Welcomes E-Mail Marketing Integration, Exit Tracking, Regional Geo Data December 14, 2004--Santa Cruz, California

Earlier today at Jupitermedia's Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago, IL, ClickTracks Analytics, Inc. (www.clicktracks.com) announced the availability of version 5.2 of their web metrics software. ClickTracks Professional 5.2 adds e-mail marketing integration, exit tracking and regional geographic data to the suite of metrics features that helped ClickTracks win Best Web Analytics Tool in the 2003 and 2004 ClickZ Marketing Excellence Awards.

Additions to ClickTracks Professional 5.2 include:

TRACK E-MAIL SUBSCRIBER BEHAVIOR: ClickTracks 5.2 offers direct integration with leading e-mail service providers (ESPs) like SubscriberMail and IntelliContact, letting marketers measure the effectiveness of their e-mail campaigns as easily as they measure the effectiveness of SEO or banner advertising.
SEND PRECISELY TARGETED FOLLOW-UP: Imagine that a marketer recently sent out an e-mail announcing the addition of purple, green and blue widgets to their online widget store. Wouldn't it be nice to know precisely which individual subscribers were more interested in green widgets based on their exact online behavioral characteristics? Formerly reserved for marketers with huge budgets and an IT staff of thousands, this key feature is now a point-and-click component of ClickTracks Professional.
FOOLPROOF CAMPAIGN SETUP: ClickTracks 5.2's new campaign manager has a wizard-based user interface that makes campaign creation easy. Marketers will be immediately alerted if they've incorrectly configured campaigns, and will have time to fix any issues before the campaign goes live.
DID THEY EXIT, OR JUST FOLLOW A LINK?: Tracking visitors who click onward through a site to external sites used to be impossible-but not any more. Marketers will immediately know whether a visitor exited their site at a particular page or whether they followed an external link the site provided. Note: Available in JDC and Hosted versions of ClickTracks only.
REGIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DATA: In addition to country-level data, ClickTracks 5.2 now offers 'regional' data. Depending on the country and the state, the regional data can show a specific city, a larger region within a state or the state itself. "

Google

Can Inbound Links to Your Site Get You Penalized ?

SEOChat Hugo Guzman discusses tis old chestnut concluding (theoretically not absolutly) that....

"Sitewide or run-of-site text link advertisements. Google may have taken steps to minimize the affects of the backlinks that are acquired via these types of ads. For example, they may only factor in the PR and SERPs boost of the backlink coming from the homepage, but block or dampen the boost that would come from all of the interior pages of that site.

Links from unrelated sites. Google may block or dampen the PR or SERPs boost of backlinks that are not semantically related to the site in question.

Reciprocal links. Google may block or dampen the PR or SERPs boost of backlinks that are reciprocated by the site in question.

Please keep in mind that these are just theoretical examples! None of these assertions are based on confirmed factual information.
Expressed in pseudo mathematical terms, Google applies positive (+) credit of varying degrees or neutral (0) credit, but does not apply negative (-) credit to backlinks."

Contrary to the countless sentiments that are expressed in the various SEO forums on the net, Google’s main priority is the relevance and objectiveness of its organic search. Because of this overarching priority, they will always take steps to ensure that individuals cannot artificially manipulate SERPs in a manner that would damage the relevancy, quality, and objectiveness of their search engine. Penalizing sites, by applying a negative impact on SERPs or by outright removal from the index based on inbound links would definitely conflict with their main priority regarding organic search.

So if you ask me, “Could they penalize me for an inbound link?” I would say yes. I’m sure that they have the technical capability for such an undertaking. But if you ask me “Would they?” I would say no. It is not in their best interests.

Google

Eight worst search optimization techniques

SEO Chat on a similar theme Krissi Danielsson outlines the following as likely to bring grief to your site:

1: Invisible keywords embedded on the page
2: Repeating keywords excessively
3: Completely irrelevant keywords
4: Link farms
5: Hidden links
6: Cloaking or using redirect pages
7: Oversubmitting your site to search engines
8: Using untrained SEO consultants - use someone who will optimize your rankings through legitimate, long-term methods that won't cost you a penalty

Google

SEO Ethics: Which Hat To Wear

seochat.com

"Wayne Hurlbert discusses 'white hat,' 'black hat,' and 'grey hat' SEO ethics, and the reasoning behind each stance. If you care about how your website is perceived by the search engines, read on"...always bear in mind that "the issues involved are very complicated, and highly subjective. What is good “ethical” SEO to one person might be stooping to the deepest depths of evil to another. Defining “good,” “bad” and “best” practices is at best aiming at an undefined moving target. At worst, it is an impossibility due to the lack of complete knowledge of the search engines and their respective algorithms....

Hurlbert concludes that "There is little doubt that all of the major search engines have room for improvement in the area of spam site detection, penalties, and removal from the SERPs. That problem on their part doesn’t automatically translate to meaning a webmaster or SEO can violate the stated terms of service with impunity, however. Noticing an unpunished spam site doesn’t mean it can be duplicated freely, but simply that the search engine has not found and penalized it yet...

.. white hat methods might appear slower at first, they provide long term staying power that can survive any shifts in the search engine algorithms. White hat techniques also let a person rest easy, knowing the site is safe from penalties and banning, while providing useful information and products to the site visitors.

Instead of worrying about other sites, take care of your own site, and you will do well in the search engines. You can then safely ignore any shade of hats."

Hurlbert's main points are that SEOs

Must consider:

Whether to assume the risk of search engine penalty or even an outright ban
Relative competitiveness of the keywords and keyword phrases being contested
Whether or not to compete without bending, let alone breaking, any ethical rules or guidelines at all

There are three main groups: "the “white hats,” their polar opposite “black hats,” and the more loosely defined “grey hats”"
White hat SEO means using generally accepted optimization techniques and scrupulously avoiding even a hint of practices that are listed as problems in Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

Black hat SEO is described as using "ranking techniques that are clearly outside of Google’s stated Webmaster Guidelines, and even outside of the published guidelines for the other major search engines. Methods used to achieve higher search rankings include cloaking, hidden text, link farms, and intensively cross linked sites."

Grey hat SEO falls somewhere in the middle...use of some linking tools and content generating software are often placed in this category

Working as a SEO means considering "ethics" from two often opposing points of view:

First, there are the ethics in relationship to the website owner client
Second, are the search engines themselves

So the SEO has to ascertain the website owners real goals, and what level of penalty and banning risk they are willing to assume

Long term 1: build a reputable site, using only best practices optimization techniques
Long term 2 : far less concerned about the techniques used to achieve rankings. Reckon that most sites avoid the various spam filters anyway, there is little concern about penalties or outright bans
No concern at all about long term implications: any technique that raises rankings is fine...if the site is penalized or banned, then a new domain name is boughtand the process starts all over again... the abandonment of the banned site is even part of the plan from the start

Failing to inform the client of the possible results of grey or black hat techniques is not in anyone’s best interests. In fact, a lack of full disclosure of possible filters, penalties, and outright banning as a result of proscribed actions is not acting in the interest of the client.

SEOs have various opinions re the search engines:

As friends: Search engines provide free customers, SEO works to provide best possible sites optimized within the search engine TOS

As THE enemy; reckon Search engines reward heavily spam and black hat sites with high rankings so why stick to TOS if the engines themselves do not...

Pragmatists see Search engines as a necessary evil or just one more tool in Internet marketing: "the search engines are businesses like any other, and as thus not entirely benevolent. The search algorithm is neither good nor bad, but is merely a computer program. The algorithm owes the website nothing, except to attempt to place the pages correctly in terms of search relevance....these SEOs argue, use of their business and products requires the user to follow the business’s rules. In this case, the webmaster guidelines and terms of service are the business rules. In the same way that a restaurant can refuse service to patrons not wearing shirts or shoes, the search engines can deny listing at any time for violation of their rules of use..."

Google

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

The State of Search Engine Marketing - 2004

E-consultancy.com

Available to subscribers: SEMPO's first comprehensive survey of the search industry to get the latest on organic and paid search trends. Includes some benchmark information on growth rates, industry size, keyword price inflation, breakdown of spending between natural and paid search, click fraud and so on.

Google

Monday, December 13, 2004

Auto optimise for Google

MediaDailyNews 12-13-04 Auto generates text and links, one to watch.... "Search engine technology vendor SLI Systems this morning brings to market a product it says will help companies receive a high placement on Google's natural search results. "

Google

Search marketing: Cart? Horse?

Netimperative

"Mike Grehan, author of Search Engine Marketing, argues that too many marketers are trying to solve technical issues instead of analysing why clients aren’t getting onto the front page of Google"

Of course you need pages in the index to link to so that you can earn some "reputation" and become attractive... That's a fact.

But in addition Grehan believes that it is more important to develop "serious marketing objectives and building a quality brand online, in much the same way you do offline, attracts substantially more quality links than simply getting over technical obstacles to being crawled so that you can stick more of your stuff into a search engine index.

There are ways and means of being able to do some fundamental situation analysis to discover what your main challenges to ranking really are, and those are most likely to do with linkage.

So before you (or your search marketing supplier) start blindly throwing your new stuff at a search engine index to see if it sticks - stand back and take a long hard look at your web site and its current web presence first.

And be honest enough to ask yourself as objectively as you can: What is there to link to on this site and why would anybody want to link to it anyway?"

Google

Google and Yahoo compared

John Battelle's Searchblog

John Battelle's friday post forms an astute essay on the the differences between Google and Yahoo and traces the history and possible causes of those diferences:

"Yahoo is a natural media company - the company is willing to have overt editorial and commercial agendas, and to let humans intervene in search results so as to create media which supports those agendas. Google, on the other hand, is repelled by the idea of becoming a content- or editorially-driven company. While both companies can ostensibly lay claim to the mission of 'organizing the world's information and making it accessible' (though only Google actually claims that line as its mission), they approach the task with vastly different stances. Google sees the problem as one that can be solved mainly through technology - clever algorithms and sheer computational horsepower will prevail. Humans enter the search picture only when algorithms fail - as was the case with the 'I Love Jews' snafu mentioned earlier.
But Yahoo has always viewed the problem as one where human beings, with all their biases and brilliance, are integral to the solution. It's humans, backed by technology, who drive the 'also try' results at the top of the page (the process has been automated, but it is classic architecture of participation stuff: 'here's what other human beings find useful related to your search'). It's humans, backed by technology, who push Yahoo's internal content and commerce sites to the fore in the iY results."

He also makes some predictions as to how these fundamental differences will affect both Google and Yahoo in the future:

Google "will become your distribution sugar daddy. We'll be Switzerland - allow us to index your content, and when people find it through us, we'll enable you to sell it." Batelle gives an example: "search for something, let's say "usher," the actual content that Usher has created will come up in the results, and thanks to the distribution deals Google has cut, you can buy that content right there on the spot. Everyone gets paid!...Google, more likely than not, will attempt to come up with a clever technological solution that attempts to determine the most "objective"answer for any given term"

Should Yahoo also become a super distributor of media content... they'll figure out some way to index and distribute media content that is moderated by traditional market forces.


He concludes with a question: "one thing will be certain: Google will never tell anyone how they came to the results they serve up. Which creates something of a Catch-22 when it comes to monetization. Will Hollywood really be willing to trust Google to distribute and sell their content absent the commercial world's true ranking methodology: cold, hard cash?

Google

PPC Search Copywriting Strategies

clickx Part 1 Article gives afew dos and don'ts to follow in part 2..

Search underlines all other marketing so the copy displayed is seen by users at the crucial point as: "your headline and description may be your last chance to capture a prospect's attention before he becomes the competition's paying customer... All the messaging, education, PR, and media you worked so hard to strategize and execute won't matter if your organic listing or paid ad isn't in the search results, or isn't noticed and clicked on. If you've gone to the trouble of building a reputation and a strong brand, don't screw up now."

Google

Trouble at Webmaster World

Pandia report that: "The Webmaster World webmaster and search engine marketing discussion forum is losing moderators."

Pandia also comment that "Webmaster World was founded by disgruntled moderators from Jim's Search Engine Forums. Could the same happen again?"

Oilman Quits Webmasterworld - Yet another high profile admin Quits Threadwatch pulls together posts about this shakedown, commenting that: "After losing Webguerrilla, MacGuru, and Shak this week, webmasterworld.com takes yet another body blow as Todd Friesen, aka Oilman, bails on the beleaguered webmastering forum...

I can only guess at what's going on backstage their now, but word on the street has it that all is not well in the moderators forums as news of Brett Tabkes plans for the future of wmw were thrown upon the mod staff without notice or apparent thought. This information comes from several, very reliable sources but has not been confirmed in public."

Google

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Search 2005: crackdown on spam in searches & Yahoo Desktop Search

Technology News

"Did-it said the other most notable search trend for 2005 will be the increased personalization offered by the search engines, which will deliver better local results, behavior-based advertising and a crackdown on spam in searches.
Yankee Group senior analyst Laura DiDio told TechNewsWorld that regardless of the number of pages or documents on which a search engine is drawing, the most important thing will be features. 'It's what people can see and use that's going to have cachet, not five or eight billion [indexes],' DiDio said"

Google

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Yahoo! expands local search results pages

MediaDailyNews

Yahoo! this week moved to expand its local search offerings by allowing merchants to easily add detailed information about their businesses to the Yahoo! local search results pages: "business owners to submit basic facts such as their hours, addresses, Web sites, phone numbers, category, operating information, and the nature of the services or products sold, at no charge, to be included on a page detailing their business. Entrepreneurs can also pay $9.95 a month for premium listings, which can include a tagline, business description, links to coupons, photos, and performance reviews"...previously "business owners could request limited changes to their listings, but the form used for those requests didn't invite comments about details such as hours of operation, or taglines."

Google

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Yahoo!, Google search for competitive edge

MSNBC

"the corporate cultures at Google and Yahoo! show you just how different these companies are..."These are two fundamentally different cultures," said American Technology Research analyst Mark Mahaney, who notes that the search engines themselves are also very different.

"There two fundamental different approaches,” he said. “Yahoo! comes at search as a way to monetize traffic. Google goes at sponsor search as a way to monetize a very interesting technology that they've developed.

Google

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

DoubleClick Exits Site Analytics Biz, Strikes Partnership

Clickz

"Online ad technology firm DoubleClick will discontinue its SiteAdvance Web site analytics product, and try to migrate its 50 existing clients to new partner Omniture's SiteCatalyst.... JupiterResearch analyst Eric Peterson, who follows the Web site analytics industry, believes the business is Omniture's to lose. "They get to preserve this closed loop of metrics around DART, and that, in my opinion at least, is a fairly valuable commodity," he said."

Google

Yahoo, Redirects & Disappearing Sites to Google Hijacking Problems

Yahoo, Redirect Problem Fixed?

"TheotherTim Official Y! Rep: Redirect Handling
Well I can say we recently revamped the way we handle redirects in Yahoo search.
We have documented the behaviors of 301s, 302s and meta refresh redirects in the presentation that I gave at Pubcon in Vegas. I will go through this again at the meet the crawlers session in Chicago next month. The presentation is available for download on the Yahoo Search Blog ( http://www.ysearchblog.com/ ) and is called 'Search Engines and Webmasters'. The changes have been rolled out and will take place incrementally over the coming weeks. "

As I posted in the Search Engine News Blog on Monday, November 29, 2004 re WebmasterWorld's Search Conference :: Yahoo! Presentations, the details of Yahoo's "fix" for the redirects problem was announced in Tim Mayer's Webmaster World presentation.

This is discussed on the official Yahoo! Search blog December 06, 2004 in the "Tim Converse Interview, part 2."

"YQ: What actually happens there? I've heard of companies who have used 301 redirects and yet their old pages continued to show up in the search engines anyway. Why is that?

A: The underlying problem is that people out there haven't changed their links and search engines do pay attention to links.


I can't give you a date, but we're changing how we deal with redirects. The thing about redirects is that everyone thinks it's obvious how a search engine should treat them and the obvious answer is not really that helpful. Any policy you develop with redirects is going to make someone unhappy but what we're about to roll out we will pay better attention to 301 redirects and the exact problem you're talking about should be less.

[In the time since we met with Tim, the team has rolled out a fix for 301/302 redirects. Documents will be handled by the new redirect policy as they are re-crawled and re-indexed and webmasters will start to see many of the sites change in the next couple of weeks. The index should be fully propagated within a month.]"

The Q&A session also has the following comments which may indicate which way YAhoo! is intending going with their search indexes and spam detecting formulae...

Tim Converse is quoted "The way we're approaching search itself has changed a lot.

The big things for us are "relevance," "comprehensiveness," "freshness," and "presentation." That's "RCFP" and it's kind of our mantra."

For instance, comprehensiveness is a much bigger deal these days. In the Inktomi days we wanted just one copy of anything that was good because serving documents costs so much. Now we'd really like to have everything.

JQ: ...that assumes there'll be a lot of junk?

A: You really want to put everything out there but then...Right and so then the challenge is identifying and appropriately ranking it all.

The big question is what effect, if any, this will have on Totaltravel listings ( not to mention rankings) on Yahoo!


In a related thread redirect problems at Google are discussed: Come on Google, Fix it !!!

Robert_Charlton writes to GoogleGuy - "Thank you.... That's an historic post... the first indication I've seen online that Google is looking at the problem.

I can't tell you how much this would have helped in the past year. From the 'outside,' when you're a webmaster and sending such info to Google, it's kind of like sending it into a black hole. You never know whether you've been heard.

Fortunately, I've been able to have all such links that have been affecting me removed, but I've been lucky that the links were from cooperating sites. I basically instruct clients to avoid links from any sites using redirects."

RC also suggests "that it would be helpful for Google to have a bug report request page with known or rumored issues posted, with suggested keyword identifiers. Otherwise, only those who happen to stumble across your posts, sometimes buried in a thread of several hundred, will know what's happening."

Here, here do I hear you all say?

Google

Ask Jeeves and Lycos to offer SEO services.

This story has been bubbling under on the forums Search Engines and the SEO Business A major criticism is that Lycos appears to be advocating multiple, frequent auto submission which most SEO's reckon is spamming the search engines...

Shari Thurow sums up: "Some search engine optimizers feel a search engine company offering optimization services is a clear conflict of interest. Others believe it's the natural evolution of search engine monetization"

She also points out that "A level of paranoia has always existed between SEO firms and search companies. SEO firms get light praise at best from search engines. SEO firms were largely responsible for demonstrating search engines' monetization value. Now, however, they feel they're being treated like an increasingly unnecessary middleman, one that can be disposed of once search engines have learned enough of the trade"

Shari concludes “As search-friendly site designers, the search industry is good for our Web design business. But we also like the search engines because they help us in our personal and professional lives.

We understand search engines need to make money and continually provide relevant results. We have no problem with paid inclusion programs, because they allow sites with problematic URLs (such as Session IDs) to be indexed without having to undergo costly redesigns.

However, too many questions are still unanswered for us to give a wholehearted thumbs-up or thumbs-down.”


The original article describes SEO as “Modification of site-content to achieve prominent listings has always been the domain of “outsiders” in the SEO/SEM sector, thus allowing the search engines a greater degree of credibility. Unless a webmaster or SEO used deceptive or spammy techniques, the search engines could be expected to treat all sites algorithmically, in other words, equally. Now two smaller but significant search firms, both of which have deep financial dealings with Google and Yahoo, offer direct organic SEO services.

That smaller search engines feel the need to draw revenues by providing organic search optimization services to clients shows how dominant Google, Yahoo and MSN are on the search landscape. Organic website optimization is an important form of mainstream advertising and like almost every other form of mainstream marketing is about manipulation. The difference between SEOs and mainstream marketers is the audience. Every other form of marketing is about subtle manipulation of consumers, assisting buyers in making product choices. Search engine optimization is about manipulating site content to present information to electronic spiders. When the search firms blur the line between organic and obvious paid-advertising, search engine users have cause for concern. Now that two well known search firms have entered the organic market, that line may become even blurrier, a trend that should worry SEO practitioners.

At Internet Search Engine Database Jim Hedger takes a dim view: "That smaller search engines feel the need to draw revenues by providing organic search optimization services to clients shows how dominant Google, Yahoo and MSN are on the search landscape. Organic website optimization is an important form of mainstream advertising and like almost every other form of mainstream marketing is about manipulation. The difference between SEOs and mainstream marketers is the audience. Every other form of marketing is about subtle manipulation of consumers, assisting buyers in making product choices. Search engine optimization is about manipulating site content to present information to electronic spiders. When the search firms blur the line between organic and obvious paid-advertising, search engine users have cause for concern. Now that two well known search firms have entered the organic market, that line may become even blurrier, a trend that should worry SEO practitioners."

Over at Webmaster searchenginewatch Lycos, ASK to resell SEO in the US a bit of debate over who actualy broke the news...

Daria_Goetsch asks "Wouldn't this imply that search engines admit SEO is worth something by getting into the market?"

Chris_D jokes: "So you guys think that I should just tear up this Google contract to be their SEO for Hire? Ok - its a joke. I don't have any such contract. Just joking

But what would you do if Google offered your company such a contract? Conflict of interest - or put in your bid?"

KeywordMonkey (who is...Floating in a sea of search terms) comments:"Bullseye - vaporware is right. Note that Lycos, a search engine reselling SEO, doesn't have it's own index - uses Yahoo Search technology (formerly All The Web)."

Voodoo Buddha chips in with "I think its more amusing when Web Hosting companies try to get involved in SEO...If you want to see one of the worst ones, go to vianetworks.com (See those "SEO testimonials?" All done with link farms.)"

ihelpyou clarifies the relationship..." rep. They are outsourcing. The company was already named in this thread. It's a "branded" deal where the client does not know it's "not" coming from Lycos.

The SEO will give a "report" on what the client needs to change on a page by page basis. Up to 50 pages of the site is like $10,000 for this report.


The latest post by KeywordMonkey sums it all up "they sell expensive links next to search results outside their normal PPC deal. ""Dodgy" is the best way to sum it up."

Google

Clinton blows horn for search start-up - Accoona

CNET News.com

"A Web search upstart is cutting the ribbon on a new service with the celebrity muscle of Bill Clinton, a sure sign that dot-com hype is back

Accoona plans to improve Web search with artificial intelligence and data on more than 10 million businesses. Its search engine will let people refine search queries with particular emphasis on certain words. Alternatively, people can look specifically for company information such as its address, phone number or revenue.

The company has licensed search-related advertisements from Overture Services, a unit of Yahoo.

'Our technology learns and grows as time goes on; we think that's our differentiator,' Kauder said. "

Google

Saturday, December 04, 2004

Marketing Sherpa Search benchmarks

PDF $139.00 New benchmark data on SEO and paid search ads for you to base your budget on (and compare results to)...
Do you know if your search marketing clicks and conversions are as good as they should be? Or, if you're budgeting the right amount of money on optimization and/or paid search ads?
Now you'll find fast, reliable numbers in MarketingSherpa's Search Marketing Metrics Guide, including self-reported data from 3,007 marketers on:


How SEO (search engine optimization) results compare to Pay per Click search ads

Conversion rate data galore for visits-to-lead-generation and visits-to-sales

Which types of keywords are best to target for cost and effectiveness

Pricing data on search marketing campaigns, and how much other marketers in your field are budgeting for search

Demographics and usership for top search engines (reach and usage frequency differ more than you may think)

Heaps of information on online shopping and search

Data on specialist agency campaign results versus campaigns conducted by do-it-yourself marketers

Samples of measurement reports and tips for measuring your own results

Click attrition by page rank, and click latency data to help you pre-estimate campaign results
169 charts and tables are included. Click here for a complete list of charts.

Find out what 3,007 marketers revealed about their budgets, optimization results, click rates, cost per click, and conversions from search traffic:

MarketingSherpa surveyed 3,007 marketers in July 2004, who revealed an extraordinary amount of real-life data on their own search marketing experiences.

You'll get cost, click, and conversion data broken down by type of site, including:
- b-to-b product marketer
- b-to-b services marketer
- content site
- b-to-c brand marketer (not ecommerce)
- ecommerce site with less than $50 average sale
- ecommerce site with $51-100 average sale
- ecommerce site with $101-200 average sale
- ecommerce site with average sale over $200
- ecommerce site with average sale over $500


Plus, you'll get best-of collected study data from 30 research sources

Saves you days of research. The Search Marketing Metrics Guide includes the most useful data from more than two dozen studies conducted over the past year (90% of data is 2004),

Top 12 Questions You Can Answer Easily with the Search Marketing Metrics Guide:

#1. If I only advertise with one engine, such as Google, what key demographics will I miss? And, how do Google PPC ad costs and results compare to Overture?

#2. What factors in keywords chosen and landing page design will make the biggest difference in my ultimate conversion rate?

#3. Is it really worth spending the extra money to hire a specialist agency to do SEO and/or PPC search ads for me? Or should I save the money and handle things in-house?

#4. How do results from PPC ads in shopping search sites differ from ads in regular search engines?

#5. Do consumers use major search sites for local search? How much? Is it worth advertising under local terms?

#6. I've heard search engine spiders hate dynamic sites -- but how much? If we switch to static HTML, how much more traffic can we get from organic listings?

#7. Is affiliate search ad arbitrage a rapidly growing problem? Should we stop all affiliates from doing campaigns under our trademarks?

#8. What are the stats on search marketing for business-to-business marketers? Any data on lead generation campaigns?

#9. Do MSN search and AOL search users have dramatically different click patterns on both PPC and organic listings than other search engines?

#10. What's the hottest search engine to reach influential US male teens? What about rich people? How about Brits?

#11. How should I measure my search marketing results to ensure accuracy? Can I run predictive models on search terms with any degree of reliability?

#12. How do clickthroughs and conversions change as my ranking on the page slips downwards?

Google

Organic listings click through far higher than on paid ads

MarketingSherpaaccording to a recent survey, 69.9% of respondents said they click on organic listings, not the paid ads. (This number increases to 76.7% for Google uses, Google being the #1 search engine for B-to-B prospects, according to the survey.)

This paper also has the following topics with stats tables with comments:


Importance of Search in B2B buying decisions- 3 -
Table 11 – Time Spent Online- 4 -
Table 12 – Work vs Personal Internet Use- 4 -
Table 13 – First Choice Online Destination- 4 -
Table 14 – Online Destinations broken down by budget- 5 -

Importance of Google- 5 -
Table 21 – Favorite Search Engine- 6 -

When Search is used in Buying Cycle- 6 -
Table 31 – Where in the Buying Cycle is Search Used?- 6 -
Table 32 – Place in Buying Cycle and Breakdown by Budget- 7 -
Table 33 – Place in Buying Cycle and Education Level- 7 -
Table 34 – Buying Phase while using Search Engine- 8 -
Table 35 – Results of Online Research- 8 -
Table 36 – Place in Buying Cycle and Online Destination- 8 -

Links chosen- 9 -
Tables 41 & 42 – Types of Links Chosen- 9 -
Table 43 - Organic vs Paid by Engine- 9 -

The Importance of Position for Click Throughs- 10 -
Table 51 – Effect of Listing Position on Click Throughs- 10 -

Sponsored: Is Top or Side Better?- 10 -
Table 61 – Section of Search Results Page First Looked At- 11 -

Search User Patterns- 11 -
Diagram 71 – Search Engine Page Sections- 12 -
Table 71 – Favorite Engine and Area First Looked At- 12 -
Table 72 – Area First Looked at and Next Action Taken- 13 -
Table 73 – Area First Looked At and Listing Chosen: Organic vs PPC- 13 -
Table 74 – Next Action and Listing Chosen: Organic vs PPC- 13 -
Table 75 – Area First Looked At and PPC Position Chosen- 14 -
Table 76 – Area First Looked At and Household Income- 14 -
Table 77 – Area First Looked at and Sex- 15 -
Table 79 – Feelings Toward Organic vs Sponsored Advertising- 15 -
Table 710 – Scanning Search Results- 16 -
Table 711 – Clicking on Links- 16 -
Table 712 – User Behavior Matrix- 16 -

Conclusion- 17 -



Google

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Anyone using geo-tagging?

SEW Forum debate from July restarts, Andrew Goodman posts that "In recent conversation with Sukhinder Singh of Google I heard that the company is very concerned to figure out how richer data about local businesses could be accessed by a search tool. If there is no way of "enriching" the current local listings, then online local listings will not improve much over the previous generation of standard flat analog local listings. Obviously, some contextual info in the form of reviews, mapping, etc. can be added, but at some point, businesses will need to participate in providing more information themselves.

Here, the old problems can apply of course: what about geo-tag spam. The data need to be verifiable. Exact same problem with keyword metadata on the public Internet.

This topic seems to be of critical importance right now."

Google

Got A Link Building/popularity Question?

High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum "Link Building Articles"

Google

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

The Great SEO Myths of our Time

forums.searchenginewatch

A choice few...

"Puting long lists of keywords on the bottom of a web page helps ranking
AdWords are moving to the left of the screen
I can get you top rankings for Viagra for $100
Google hates me
KEI is useful
You NEED to comma seperate that keyword tag baby!
guaranteed top rankings . . . some even say in a few days / weeks / months"

Google
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