Friday, April 30, 2004

Still a highly controversial issue....affiliate sites, duplicate content affiliate sites, duplicate content: "

joined:Oct 22, 2002
posts:150
msg #:168:01 am on Apr 26, 2004 (utc 0)
I read a Mike Grehan interview with Jon Glick? The upshot on the aff thing, or the argument/pretext ;) put forward was that Y took the view that if you have 3 or 4 hundred sites all trying to sell the same thing all vieing for first position then the value to the search engine user could be diminished via lack of 'real' choice.
The reality is that some aff sites are better than those they actually sell the products for. Granted some are not so good, but to simply take a carte blanche your-site-exists-to-earn-a-commision-and-is-therefore-unwelcome is imo, a little sad and has the potential to exclude 1000000's of useful pages that add real value overall.
I know of one hotel provider who shows little if any supplemental information other than the name of the establishment, location, description, photo etc.
One of their affiliates, took their content, and decided to add stuff like, calculating distances to local attractions, airports, train stations etc, offering visitors the option of writing area reviews, hotel reviews. The net effect of their actions are that the pages created as a result are in fact of more use than those that they 'exist' to provide traffic too.
All of that effort took months of planning and research. Are they in the Y!ndex? Nope, they are not. Why? well good question. I'd assume that its because someone decided that they only existed to provide sales to a 3rd party, that someone being a misguided reviewer with a mishapen view of what is and what isnt useful content...
- You have a high ratio of original content to content that can be found on other sites

The reality is that in the example provided it does indeed have content found elsewhere. It also supplements and adds value to that content, yet put against that particular quote it would appear that added value isn't wanted. How does this benefit the user?

Anyhow, the moral of this story is that the owners of this particualr site simply found an alternative way back in to Y index using the same content wrapped up in various flavours and guises and IP addresses.

These people arent rocket scientists and Im sure that many other people will employ similar tactics..the end result is, that Y! just ends up full of multiple websites when if it had applied things fairly, it might not be faced with the spam assualt its likely to get....

Replys....

""or if the main purpose is to channel visitors through their site on to another site where they will collect a commission on a sale. "
This is the way some of us make our living. I used to think Yahoo was rising above Google, but if Yahoo feels this way about my affiliate sites it is going to sink to the bottom fast as there are a lot of affiliate webmasters that provide search traffic "

"I design sites for people to shop at. The content is the variety of products along with descriptions, prices etc of the product. To say this isn't what the shoppers are looking for is very naive. By blackballing affiliate sites, Yahoo is turning away all shoppers"

Google

John Battelle's Searchblog: "hook up with Pierre Omidyar, the founder and Chair of eBay." our conversation always came back to community, the core driver of value at eBay. We discussed Tim's concept of the "architecture of participation" and how critical it is in the Web 2.0 world, and how much of the media world has yet to grok it. You can't outsource participation to the ghettos of discussion threads, in other words. The online media world is still looking for its Pong, as Martin says, but I think we're getting close. Publications are essentially reflections of communities. And I believe the best blogs are publications, in a very classical sense. "

Google

Thursday, April 29, 2004

Web portal for sale, slightly used - News - ZDNet: "Spanish Internet company Terra Lycos has retained investment bank Lehman Brothers to explore a possible sale of its U.S. Internet business, including its flagship Lycos.com Web site, according to a document obtained by CNET News.com."

Google

Research & info...Lessons From the Library: "Legal and consultancy services. Legal troubles? Want a patent? Looking for information on your competition? The British now head to the library's Web site. Information is all presented in a highly accessible manner. Additionally, the library provides a service that will e-mail the table of contents of select journals directly to users' desktops within days of publication. Subscribers receive weekly search results on their computers. From there, a full article may be requested. Though not a novel concept, the ease of access is definitely noteworthy."

Google

Search Engine Showdown Current Awareness: "Call them alerts, trackers, current awareness, selective dissemination of information, or whatever you like, but these tools can keep you updated when Web sites, Usenet postings, and news sources change or add new content. These are just a few selections divided by the type of material which the tool tracks. Most of these provide email alerts when new or changed information is found."

Google

Exploring Search Engine Overlap: "interesting observations in using the tool. For example, the majority of sites that are ranked highly in Google rank poorly in Yahoo, and vice-versa. This suggests that webmasters optimizing for Google alone may be missing significant traffic from other search engines. He also notes that despite AlltheWeb and AltaVista now using the Yahoo database, results for the three engines still differ for the same query, though the divergence appears to be narrowing...

Search ranking and results vary significantly with plurality. For example, using the ranking tool to compare "business" and "businesses" within Google shows very little correlation between results.This suggests that the ranking tool can actually help searchers improve their queries, by running simple variations at the same time and comparing results.

Ranking also varies significantly with reversal of keywords. For example, using the tool to compare "allergy treatment" and "treatment allergy" within Yahoo returns very different results.

Search ranking and pages returned as results also changes significantly with the addition of a single related keyword. For example, comparing "freeware" and "freeware software" within Teoma yields only a 30% overlap, though interestingly, many of the top ten results are highly correlated."

Thumbshots.com Ranking - Search engine results and ranking optimization with thumbnail screenshots. Thumbnails screenshots snapshots thumbshot pictures images: "Search: alltheweb altavista google msn teoma wisenut yahoo versus alltheweb altavista google msn teoma wisenut yahoo

Google

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

ResourceShelf: "Presentations from the 2004 Search Engine Meeting Are Now Available Online
Some really interesting and informative reading for your already full reading lists. The conference took place in The Hague, The Netherlands, 19-20 April 2004. Here's a selected list of the presentations. I STRONGLY urge you to review the entire list. The page also contains bio info for all speeakers. All of the presentations are either pdf or ppt files.
+ Quantity versus quality?
Karen Sp�rck Jones, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
+ The Subtle Side of Retrieval
Elizabeth Liddy, Syracuse University, New York, USA
+ Text and XML querying - Is There a Common Ground?
Prabhakar Raghavan, Verity, California, USA
+ Product Intro: A Holistic Approach to Search
Tuoc Luong, Ask Jeeves, California, USA
+ Information Retrieval: A Single Point of Access
Susan Feldman, IDC, Connecticut, USA
+ Double the Value of Search Using User Behaviour
Laust Sondergaard, Mondosoft, Denmark
+ Social Software and New Search
Stephen E Arnold, AIT, Kentucky, USA
+ Human Intervention in the Search Process
Martin Belam, BBCi Search, UK
+ Learning to Harvest Information for the Semantic Web
Fabio Ciravegna, University of Sheffield, UK
+ Formalising the Concept of Serendipity in Web Searching
Olivier Ertzscheid, University of Toulouse, and Gabriel Gallezot, University of Nice
+ Turbo10: The Mechanics of a Deep Net Metasearch Engine
Nigel Hamilton, Turbo10.com, UK
+ A Relevance Model for Web Image Search
Ethan V. Munson and Cheng Thao, University of Wisconsin, USA
+ Access to Archives of Digital Video Information
Alan Smeaton, Dublin City University"

Google

Old School SEO vs. New School SEO: "The skilled part of SEO is getting large lists of kw's and make sure you rank for as many as possible. Most people type in 3 or 4 word phrases. It's good to have the 1 and 2 word phrases but they don't convert near as well as the long ones. It is much easer to get 300 visitors that type in 3 or 4 word phrases and get a very high conversion rate than to get 2000 visitors from the short phrases and get a lower rate. You have got to understand that the bottom line is the most important stat there is. "The skilled part of SEO is getting large lists of kw's and make sure you rank for as many as possible. Most people type in 3 or 4 word phrases. It's good to have the 1 and 2 word phrases but they don't convert near as well as the long ones. It is much easer to get 300 visitors that type in 3 or 4 word phrases and get a very high conversion rate than to get 2000 visitors from the short phrases and get a lower rate. You have got to understand that the bottom line is the most important stat there is.

Google

SEO basics for feature sites notes....26steps to 15k a Day: "Density, position, yada, yada, yada...

Simple, old fashioned, seo from the ground up.
Use the keyword once in title, once in description tag, once in a heading, once in the url, once in bold, once in italic, once high on the page, and hit the density between 5 and 20% (don't fret about it). Use good sentences and speel check it ;-) Spell checking is becoming important as se's are moving to auto correction during searches. There is no longer a reason to look like you can't spell (unless you really are phonetically challenged)."

Submit:Submit the root to: Fast, Altavista, WiseNut, (write Teoma), DirectHit, and Hotbot. Now comes the hard part - forget about submissions for the next six months. That's right - submit and forget.

Topic directories:Almost every keyword sector has an authority hub on it's topic. Go submit within the guidelines.

Gimmicks:Stay far away from any "fades of the day" or anything that appears spammy, unethical, or tricky. Plant yourself firmly on the high ground in the middle of the road.

Google

A9 more....
Traffick | The Book on Amazon.com's A9 Search Engine: "I'm less than enthused, however, about the 'Site Info' button associated with each search result, which displays Alexa data when you mouse over it. At least for the time being, Alexa's stats are practically useless. Their numbers are only based on the small number of people who have enabled the Alexa toolbar in Internet Explorer. But, now that Amazon has the means to more accurately measure how popular sites are, maybe Alexa's quality will improve. That wouldn't be a bad thing...

Similar to blogging: The Diary button enables you to store notes about particular pages, which should become a cherished feature for students, journalists and info junkies everywhere. Since it's web-based, you can supposedly access it from anywhere. Can you see that Amazon's going to be collecting an avalanche of data in no time? The demands on Amazon's infrastructure will likely prove considerable, "

Google

Pandia cloned by copyright thief: "Pandia cloned by copyright thief
Thief copies the content of Pandia over to new site."
Web Law FAQ: "Web Law FAQ"

Google

Monday, April 26, 2004

News:Adding further fuel to the 'disability internet access' fire, sparked last week by the Disability Rights Commission, further research indicates that even the majority of disability organisations do not address accessibility needs in their websites.

"A report entitled 'Disability 50' has revealed that 58% of disability organisations failed to achieve the compliance level deemed by Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as 'compulsory'."

Those sites that proved 'exemplary' in the sector included AbilityNet, Action for Blind People, British Council for Disabled People, and the Disability Rights Commission. It refused to say which sites performed particularly badly in the test

Google

Keyword basics: Keyword Density FAQ - tools, etc...: "Using a Keyword Density analyzer, am I supposed to analyze a higher ranking site and then use the same KW frequency? If they use the KW 'widget' say - 6.3% of the time, and they are #1, should I adjust mine to 6.3% of the time in order to help??? "

"Use a keyword density tool to view the density of the pages that show up in the top 10 results.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=keyword+density+tool

Generally speaking, I try to have about the same density as those that appear in the top SERPs and just a little bit higher then them so I "beat them out". You don't want to be much a lot higher or too low."

"Besides keyword density, you'll want to look at keyword prominence, and the ranks.nl tool does that. Again, you'll want to be around 3.0 to 3.5 percent keyword density and then have your prominence higher than all those competitors, too."

Remember 1: " Keyword density is simply a part of the greater picture. As bhartzer said...it also matters where you put your keywords, what type of linking you are using, what types of sites are linking to your site, etc... So fine tune your keyword density, but if that doesn't do it, make sure you are also looking at other factors."

"Remember 2: Google PR is based soley on your incoming links, it has nothing to do with your keyword density or anything on your page. It's a factor in their ranking algorithm. Google rank and Google Page Rank (PR) are two different things.

Google

Sorting Out SiteMatch At the beginning of March, Yahoo rolled out a new and somewhat controversial form of paid inclusion called SiteMatch. They also introduced a new Trusted Feed program called SiteMatch XChange™ to replace the existing Inktomi, AltaVista and AllTheWeb feed programs, combining them into one.

In this article, we will be looking at how the standard SiteMatch program works, the impact (if any) it has on results and other issues that may have caused concerns with the new Yahoo! Search Engine.

Were we seeing a revamped Inktomi? According to Yahoo, no - this was an entirely new search technology created by combining the best elements of their recently acquired crawlers. In fact, Inktomi - as a brand, came to an end. Yahoo Search, along with their crawler Slurp (hmmm - seem to remember that from Inktomi) replaced the Inktomi crawler..

At the beginning of March, Yahoo announced that they would be replacing the 3 paid inclusion programs for the 3 crawling engines they had purchased by a single paid inclusion program, SiteMatch. Administered by Overture, SiteMatch could be purchased via Overture directly or through a selection of partners...

In the past, each of the engines had different prices per URL and submitting a page for a year to all 3 engines could cost around $115 per page for guaranteed inclusion. SiteMatch offered an inclusion price of $49.00 for the first page, $29 for the pages 2-10 and $10 for all subsequent pages of the same domain. On the face of it, this appeared initially to be a substantial discount for sites who wanted the fast inclusion and 48 hour refresh provided by paid spidering. Instead of an initial outlay of $1,115 for a 10 page site, you paid $310! This would get you inclusion in all the search portals previously covered by AltaVista, AllTheWeb and Inktomi - with the addition of Yahoo! To good to be true? Well, yes - there was a catch!

Depending on the category your website/pages fell into, you would also have to pay an additional 15 cents or 30 cents per click!

Webmasters world-wide were shocked. Pages receiving hundreds of referrals per day could cost hundreds of dollars per week instead of the fixed annual fee.

Q: Is SiteMatch the only way to get indexed by Yahoo?

A: Yahoo state that 99% of all Yahoo's listings are derived from freely crawling the web. This is done by following links, although, to assist webmasters, Yahoo have now introduced a free submission location. We have tested crawl speeds by putting a new site into the Yahoo directory in March to see how long it would take to get a site crawled from this single link. The root directory was crawled within 2 weeks and we were getting referrals from pages on this site from MSN and Yahoo by week 5. We also put another site into free submission with no incoming links at the same time. Although the home page has been crawled (and no further pages as I write), I have yet to see it rank anywhere.

Q: Will Penalties from Inktomi carry forward to Yahoo Search?

A: Inktomi started imposing some heavy penalties last year via both manual reviews and automated methods. If you were in paid inclusion, this meant that you would appear last on any targeted search term. Another indication is that Slurp will only read your robots.txt file and proceed no further. These penalties have been carried forward to Yahoo. Yahoo have stated that they intend to start a re-review process and have offered the e-mail address: reportsearchspam@yahoo-inc.com for webmasters who wish to appeal a penalty. SiteMatch users can also contact their SiteMatch vendor to find out if they have a penalty and most try to find what has caused it and offer assistance. We have used the standard appeal procedure for a site that we felt had received an unfair penalty. We received a reply confirming Yahoo would review the site within 3 weeks of us making the request and (fortunately) saw the penalty lifted within another 7 days. So, it is possible to appeal their penalties, but ensure the site is squeaky clean!

Q: Will SiteMatch pages receive a boost in the results?

A: This used to be asked about all PFI programs in the past. SiteMatch pages get crawled and re-indexed every 48 hours. A good SEO or webmaster will use this frequent re-spidering to "adjust" the page to see how that affects the page rankings. That is the sole advantage SiteMatch (or any PFI program) gives you. A poorly optimised page will get poor results and vice-versa! So SiteMatch gives no inherent ranking advantage but it does give the webmaster the opportunity to adjust their pages frequently to find the ideal mixture of content to ensure decent listings. It's in your hands!

Q: If Yahoo is crawling the web for free, why do you need SiteMatch?

A: It all depends on how quickly you want to see results! If you have a commercial site with content changing frequently and you want to be showing this content in search engine results within a couple of days of publication, then SiteMatch gives you a great advantage. If you have static content and you are happy to wait a few weeks for the natural crawl and updates then SiteMatch is of no real benefit.

Q: How long does it take for Yahoo to crawl a site in full?


A: Currently, this is a difficult question to answer as Yahoo Search has been out crawling for only a few weeks! Yahoo seems to crawl a site in "layers". First the root directory, with pages linked to by the home page seems to be crawled, then index pages from sub-directories and then some internal pages. The initial crawl seems to take around 2-3 weeks, the second "level" crawl another 2 weeks and we have just started to see Slurp nibbling at some more internal pages. Updates seem to occur on a rolling basis but spidering is not as aggressive as Google can be. As soon as we have seen a sizeable site indexed in its entirety we will post an update.

Q: How does the SiteMatch submission process work?

A: SiteMatch paid inclusion is different to previous PFI programs as pages have to go through a review process to identify or check you have selected the correct category and also to check for spam. This is done manually by human reviewers.

When putting a page into SiteMatch, you are asked to select the most appropriate category for your site or pages. Categories (and their associated CPC rates) are:

Travel $0.30

Process & WARNINGS....
Having selected the correct category, you have the option of selecting the areas or countries you wish to have your results displayed in
. As such, you can exclude your listings from markets where you do not want visitors or enquiries. As a default, all listings are displayed worldwide - so make sure you select just the UK or Europe if this is what you want!

After giving SiteMatch the pages you want included, you are asked to pay the appropriate fee along with a $50.00 deposit to be used for click-through costs. Your pages are then put in a queue for editorial review.

In our experience, this takes around 5 working days. The review process appears to consists of not only checking pages that were submitted, but also other aspects of the site. This can include contact information, links to other websites and (probably) a search for related sites or possible cross-linking. So this is not purely a check for spam on the pages submitted. Your whole site is checked out and (if you have a network of sites) possibly your whole network. If you have other sites with what the reviewer may consider substantially the same content, you could have them all penalised! Sites that have affiliate links may also receive penalties. Any attempt to submit old fashioned doorway pages is doomed to failure. The full list of rules laid down are listed in the SiteMatch Guidelines.

...few can continue to state that SiteMatch is going to flood the results with "paid spam". The criteria for inclusion are tough.


Conclusion: SiteMatch will remain a controversial program for many and can be confused with PPC by webmasters who are inexperienced with SEM. You can't target specific keywords without optimisation of the pages - and for many webmasters, this could cause dissatisfaction with the program. Similarly, many will expect a ranking boost for paying the fee. This just doesn't happen - you are paying for a service which can be used as a tool in your optimisation and SEM portfolio. This, too, may lead many webmasters to question the value of the program. For most it appears that SiteMatch will be unnecessary, for some - it can be of immense benefit. Only time will tell if this model becomes a success. But if it does, expect other search engines to follow suit (particularly MSN).




Google

Friday, April 23, 2004

Usability - ready made check list....MIT IS&T: Usability Guidelines: "Usability Guidelines"

Google

Checking links methods discussionBackling: www.yoursite.com -site:www.yoursite.com - Best Practices Search Engine Forums: "I just got the weekly newsletter from a certain very well-known SEO person today. Someone was asking that frequent question about why Google doesn't display all incoming links to a site. The SEO person replied suggesting the use of www.yoursite.com -site:www.yoursite.com for more accurate results. What do people think about this?

I totally disagree with this statement as this only shows pages that contain 'www.yoursite.com' in the visible text, not a href tags. So this would not return a page linking to your site that linked to you with 'Your Business Name' as the link text.".....

Google

A/b Split Testing -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: Suggestions re "the best way to run a split test of two headlines (etc) online, with all the rest of the body copy the same ..... search engines dont like duplicated content, so is there a legit way to accomplish this and get the info without having it become a SE spamming issue? "

Google

Portal envy strikes AOL | CNET News.com: "After fighting a rearguard battle for much of the past two years, America Online is going on the offensive with a new plan to retain customers and expand its business on the Web--a strategy it has tried before with little success...

News.com - The idea of turning AOL.com into a Web portal along the lines of Yahoo or Microsoft's MSN is not new, but it comes at a critical time for the Time Warner division. Among other things, AOL faces slipping subscriber numbers and two federal probes into its business practices "

Google

UK Directory: "totaltravel" Search Results

Your searched for "totaltravel" :
www.totaltravel-online.co.uk
Total Travel offers you personal service as well as online booking. We can find the best deal for you from a huge range of suppliers.

Australia Total Travel - Discount Australian Accommodation, Tours
Australia travel guide covering accommodation and attractions with photos, maps, transport and more. ... New site launch. Totaltravel Great Britain NEW. This week our featured destination is somewhere rather different, as we ...

Hornsbury Mill - South Somerset weddings, hotel About us
Welcome to Hornsbury Mill, a charming 19th Century watermill set deep in the heart of Somerset, where contemporary capability blends effortlessly with tradition. ... © 2004 Hornsbury Mill and Totaltravel.com Pty Ltd. Powered by Total Travel Australia ...





Google

Revolution Web Site: "LookSmart back in UK under the banner of UK Directory April 23, 2004 Emma Rigby,

LONDON - UK Net Guide has bought LookSmart's UK directory in a deal worth six figures.

UK Net Guide purchased a URL redirect so that visitors to looksmart.co.uk will now be redirected to UK Directory. Paul Mead, head of sales at UK Net Guide, said that they signed the deal to take advantage of LookSmart's much bigger database and established UK user base. 'There has been a definite movement in the market towards search-based technology with many major brand portals moving into the market and snapping at Google's heels,' he said. 'The LookSmart deal and its relaunch as UK Directory demonstrates our commitment to the philosophy of using human editors to guide users to the most relevant sites. Our directory-based model allows the targeting of very specific categories ensuring maximum ROI.' "

Yahoo! Birth of a New Machine: "Yahoo! Birth of a New Machine
By Chris Sherman, Associate EditorFebruary 18, 2004 "(February 18 2004) US Yahoo! is no longer using the Google database for its default search results. Instead it is presenting results from a database gathered by Yahoo! Search Technology, which has results from the Inktomi search engine at its core.

Yahoo! has apparently also learned from the search teams it acquired when buying Overture -- i.e. the teams behind the AltaVista and AlltheWeb search engines -- although the three search engines have not been merged into one -- at least not yet.

Search Engine Watch reports that the Yahoo! search engine will index the full text of web pages, up to a 500K limit. In comparison Google will index no more than 101K.

The Yahoo! search engine does, like Google, also include PDF and Microsoft Office documents. Like Inktomi before it, the Yahoo! search engine, will index the keywords metatag. To what extent this information influence the ranking of pages is unknown, but the effect is probably small.

To search the new search engine more easily, go to the Yahoo! Search page. Yahoo's image search continues to be powered by Google, although we expect it to be replaced by the AlltheWeb index search engine in due time...

The death of AltaVista and AlltheWeb: AltaVista bites the dust

(April 1 2004) Yahoo! has now pulled the plug on the the AltaVista search engine. The AltaVista search site is from now on powered by Yahoo's new search technology.

This follows a similar move regarding the AlltheWeb search engine and site.

Yahoo! has apparently decided to keep the AltaVista and AlltheWeb brands for the time being, using them to explore alternative interfaces and ways of presenting search results. AltaVista was once a pioneer in the development of advanced search engine technology, and was one of the dominating search sites before the rise of Google

Google

AQA Offers Answers Via Mobile Phone: "Looking for great dim sum in London? Now th answer may be just a phone call away. UK based IssueBits has launched a service known as AQA (Any Question Answered) that rivals informational call centers in the United States. The difference is that AQA users text their questions via cell phone and receive an answer within minutes at a cost of 1 pound per question"

About.com: http://www.issuebits.com/: "Top 10 Questions about AQA

Can anyone use the AQA service?
The AQA service is currently available to UK mobile phone users on Orange and Vodafone networks. Customers of other networks should be able to use the service shortly.
back to top

How does the AQA service work?
The AQA service works though a combination of intelligent computer algorithms, database technology and human researchers."

Google

Interesting aspect made obvious...iMedia Connection: How's Your Reputation? iMedia Connection: How's Your Reputation?: "On first blush, search engine optimization (SEO) and reputation management may seem quite distant cousins. Reputation management has largely been the province of corporate communication and public relations professionals. Search marketing, on the other hand, generally belongs to interactive marketing groups whose mission it is to drive traffic, acquisitions and rankings...

according to the Pew Center, 91 percent of reporters say they use search engines to research stories. Further, research firm Jupiter says 90 percent of Internet users use search engines to find product and company information before they make a purchase. With more than 4 billion searches conducted a month, search engines have become a critically important new form of media that can make -- or break -- a company�s reputation...

Negative and inaccurate information -- from articles to product reviews to grassroots sites created by disgruntled customers or employees -- is often ranked prominently under company-branded keyword searches, making this information highly visible and accessible to important company constituents. In a networked environment, where good -- and bad -- news can be passed on virally in an instant, it can also be deadly to corporate and brand reputations.

Here's an example. As of this writing, the estimated 1.6 million a month people who search Google for “Delta Airlines” are exposed to the No. 5 listing, BoycottDelta.org and its tagline, “Less leg room, no privacy.” This means that every month, more than 1.6 million of Delta Airline’s key constituents -- consumers, employees, journalists, regulators, investors and business partners -- are exposed to damaging information about the company. And this does not include viral pass along.

Delta is far from alone. A recent top-line survey revealed that protest sites are actively undermining the reputation of many leading companies, including AOL, Home Depot, Citibank, American Airlines, Ford, Merrill Lynch, Allstate, Microsoft, McDonald’s, Monsanto, Altria, United Airlines, Ford and Nike, among many others.

Some leading companies are quietly implementing an innovative and cost-effective approach called search engine reputation management, or SERMA for short. This approach fuses the best of reputation management skills with search engine optimization. It is founded on a simple premise: According to Jupiter, 75 percent of search engine users never scroll beyond the first page of results. And it is very rare for a user to scroll past the top 30 (three pages) of search results listings. The critical battleground for reputation management then is for who owns the top 30 listings -- or the digital front pages -- under relevant company searches.

By utilizing advanced search engine optimization strategies, together with reputation management approaches that fully leverage a company’s partnerships and create compelling content, companies can ensure ownership of the top listings under their corporate and product names. The benefits are two-fold: It provides a highly visible forum to provide accurate information about a company to counteract some of the negative and false information being disseminated. Second, and perhaps most importantly, it pushes negative listings off the visibility cliff.

While the approach may sound simple enough, accomplishing it requires a nuanced understanding of search marketing and reputation management. It must also bridge a company’s marketing groups -- Web marketing, corporate communications, content development, IT -- that often work in silos with distinct objectives and goals.

Keep in mind, too, that optimized content must be diverse enough to meet search engine terms-of-service, which rightly frowns upon spam-dexing, or the technique of optimizing essentially the same content over and over.

A global human resources company recently found a highly-negative listing ranking No. 5 under its brand name in Google. The company, which advertised aggressively, was finding potential candidates were searching for references for the company online and finding this negative -- and false -- information planted by former, disgruntled employees. Sales dropped precipitously. After a 90-day implementation utilizing an array of primary and third-party content, the negative listing was pushed out of the top 30 listings. Sales rebounded."

Google

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Cre8asite forums. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Black hat techniques and what confuses me. [ Search Engine Optimization, Usability and Web Design. ]:

"Black Hat SEO techniques work fantasticly ... ... right up until one of your competitors notice and report you. That is far more likely and happens far more often that the SE filters detecting it for themselves. "...

Whitehat is the techniques that the search engine want you to use. Google have invested a lot of energy into getting close to SEO's and trying to steer them down this path.

If you are going to pour your heart and soul into a site, then whitehat is the only option.

If you want to make money and are prepared to practice 'crash and burn' then 'blackhat' works just fine.

The reason that we read so many positive comments about whitehat techniques and so few about blackhat is because the SEOs doing blackhat don't talk about what they are doing.

Google

Ask Jeeves: Why Buy Interactive Search Holdings?: "Ask Jeeves' recent acquisition of Interactive Search Holdings (ISH) went largely unremarked amid the recent sparring between industry titans Yahoo! and Google. But the acquisition is significant, broadening Jeeves' reach and providing new resources to beef up its core Teoma search technology.
Ask Jeeves announced its intent to purchase ISH on March 4, in a combination cash and stock deal expected to close by Q3 of this year.
ISH isn't a household name, despite its ownership of some of the Web's most popular properties. According to an Ask Jeeves press release, ISH was the ninth most-visited property in December 2003, with popular but under-the-radar destinations such as My Way, My Search, My Web Search, iWon, and former high-flyer Excite. Online ad rep group, MaxOnline, is also part of the deal...

Combined, the two companies will have about 7 percent market share of the online search space. "

Google

Search Engine Optimization Newsletter Archives - High Rankings Advisor: "Advisor Newsletters"

Put simply, do search engines pay attention to commas and semi-colons when scanning copy for keywords?
Greg

++Jill's Response++

Hi Greg,
The search engines are blind to punctuation marks, and basically treat each as a space.

++How To Get Banned from the Search Engines++



A member of the forum received an email from an alleged SEO company and posted about it at the above link. To summarize, you should NEVER
reply to any email spam you get regardless of what they promise you. Do you ever reply to the ones selling you pills to help you grow certain parts of your anatomy? Do you ever think they might be real?

The emails regarding search engines are sent by the same sleazoids. Trash them, forget about them, and then go about your business. Tell the same thing to your clients who send them to you wondering if they are missing the boat.

Google

Search Engine Optimization Newsletter Archives - High Rankings Advisor: "Advisor Newsletters"

The link command is not a very helpful command at all in Google anymore. It's useless, as it doesn't actually show you the sites that are linking to yours. All it appears to do is show a small, representative sample of links. Many people say that Google only shows links that have a PageRank of 4 or above with this command, but that's not an accurate statement. They don't show every PR4-and-higher site that links to yours, and they do often show sites that are below PR4.

As far as I'm concerned you learn nothing about your site and its links by using that command. I really think it's just one more way that Google attempts to mess with Webmasters' heads. Don't let them get to you! I recommend that you forget it ever existed (as well as the Google toolbar "backward links" check, which is the same thing).

Instead, I suggest you use the following command in the Google search box to get a more accurate accounting of the sites that link to yours:

www.yoursite.com -site:www.yoursite.com
(Obviously substituting yoursite.com for your actual site.)

This command will show you all the pages linking to yours, minus the pages from your own site. If you want to see your own site links too, just remove the -site:www.yoursite.com part, as that's the syntax for excluding them.

Google

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Reverse Engineering Revisited MarketingVOX|SEARCH: "t's been a while since we all discussed reverse engineering the linguistic part of SE algorithms. Over the years, I've done that reverse engineering periodically, in order to arrive at optimum frequency, density and distribution (fdd) of key phrases"

My experience in SEO, which spans about seven years now, indicates that the language reading parts of the SE algorithms do not change as often as many people, including SEM people, believe ...The major changes in ranking algorithms concern extra-page factors, like PageRank, but these factors do not influence the SEO writing one does on a given page...

even a small company that does a lot of SEO would see good ROI from research that arrives at a 10% improvement in the fdd of their SEO writing. Companies with ample resources would benefit from learning it all "optimum copy writing, optimum PPC, optimum design and usability for conversions, and optimum fdd*...

The minor ongoing changes in optimum fdd and the lack of 100% precision in reverse engineering fdd requires that SEO writing diversify fairly broadly ( I take this to mean that don't be obssivly anal about keyword density but keep it at the core of your SEO) around the optimum fdd in a given SEO job, but I strongly believe that it still helps to have a target fdd in mind when doing SEO writing. "

(*fdd = frequency, density and distribution )

Google

Business 2.0 - Web Article - Can Amazon Unplug Google?:

Is Amazon (AMZN) taking on Google? Last fall the giant online retailer announced that it was launching a company focused exclusively on search. Lest anyone miss the implications, Amazon promptly rented an office far from its Seattle headquarters -- in the epicenter of Silicon Valley, near Stanford University.

Tapped to lead the startup (A9 -- the name stands for the nine letters in the word "algorithm") was Udi Manber, Amazon's chief algorithms officer and Yahoo's former chief scientist. Widely respected for his elegant approaches to intractable software problems, Manber was a magnet for Silicon Valley talent. (Either in jest or retaliation, Google responded by buying advertisements on its own search engine for the phrase 'Udi Manber'; type his name into the search form and the top ad link offers job opportunities at Google.)

But Amazon already knows who you are -- or at least, what you buy. .With A9, the company can factor in what you browse and search for as well.

The most obvious feature is your personal search history -- which is integrated into your entire search experience. So your entire search history is available to you, and with the toolbar, that includes all your searches across any search site, as well as all your browsing on the Web.

The history server stores -- on our servers -- your history of interaction with us for the purpose of bringing that back to you in a very convenient way. Whenever you come to the site, we can show you what you searched for in the past in a very easy-to-organize fashion.

I'm very proud of our toolbar's diary feature that allows you to annotate each site you visit. And we have integrated Amazon's "search inside the book" feature into the engine, so now all your results include excerpts from related books.

..having the data of what users search for or where they go is not a new concept. Any site that requires registration -- AOL or MSN, for example -- already has this information. What is new is that we're taking this information and giving it back to the users to make their search experience better and more useful. It gives them more power.

Most illuminating quotes...In truth, Amazon and Google are speeding from two ends toward a very fertile middle ground where commerce and search meet.

The whole goal here is to get better customer experience. Whatever I can find to get better customer experience, I'll do it.

What happens if A9 starts to steal market share from Google? We don't talk about other companies, and to be honest, we don't even think too much about competitors. We try to concentrate completely on the users. I don't look at it as who we compete with but rather how much something helps the users.
You've said search is not solved. What are the problems that need to be addressed?

In general, the main problem of search is very simple: Too often people do not get the results they need. Solving that is hard. We cannot read people's minds, but we can do much better anticipating their needs and making the process much easier for them."

Google

More from Iprospect search research...this time focusing on search user perseverance, search abandonment can affect marketers. Among the surprises: unemployed users and female users are less likely to hang in there than their Web counterparts

MediaDailyNews 04-21-04:

"report, 22.6 percent of searchers bow out after viewing just the first few results, more than 18 percent do so after perusing the first page, over 25 percent leave after the first two pages, and 14.7 percent stick around through the first three pages before ducking out...80 percent of users won't see a listing if it does not fall within the top three pages...

The study concludes that when it comes to sites that are likely to target unemployed users such as Monster.com and Manpower, appearing within the top ten search results is critical. While 38.4 percent of full-time workers and 41.1 percent of part-time workers say they'll ditch a search after viewing the first results page, more than 44 percent of unemployed search engine users will quit after checking one listings page"

Google

If J Whalen is so keen on recycling then why not flag this up again as a reminder for all of the SEO learning curve....Evolution of a Search Engine Marketer

Google

Slashdot | WebCrawler Turns 10 Today: "'WebCrawler, one of the first search engines on the 'Net, turns 10 today. You can read a short history of WebCrawler. When I wrote WebCrawler, one could do a credible job of crawling, indexing, and searching the Web from a single desktop PC. Today, the reality is a little bit different.' "
WebCrawler's History: "WebCrawler Timeline"
Topix.net Weblog: The Secret Source of Google's Power: "Google has 100,000 servers. "

Google

General (legal) netty news: Sex.com Settles Monumental Case Against VeriSign/Network Solutions: "Sex.Com single-handedly caused the courts to define domain names as property, and thus changed the laws governing the World Wide Web.
'After years of litigation, the Sex.Com legal battle set the key precedent requiring domain name registrars to be accountable for their mishandling of such an important public resource as the Internet domain name system,' said Robin Gross, an attorney who specializes in cyberspace law. 'Now, registrars must use the same level of care as any other business and will be responsible for abusive practices,' she added...

In its landmark decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals found that VeriSign was subject to the tort of conversion by not returning property that was owned by another party. Despite Kremen's written complaints with absolute proof, VeriSign did nothing to use their powers to reverse their improvident transfer.

"Hundreds of domain name registrants lost their valuable property due to the negligence of Domain Name Registrars. The court's decision proclaimed that those afflicted registrants have a remedy under law to recover their damages -- providing much-needed protection to Internet entrepreneurs. This ultimately will enhance Internet commerce."

Douglas Masters, a partner with Loeb & Loeb LLP in Chicago, Illinois, says, "Gary's Sex.Com victory is likely to influence legal developments in important areas beyond domain names. In this digital age, the handling of intangible property has taken on enormous importance. The 9th Circuit's decision is an important step in applying settled principles to this new realm."

Google

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

Hmmm, interesting...A9: The Future of Information Access?: "Perhaps A9 is the beginning of deep Web integration with algorithmic Web search in a way that recognizes how people search.
It may also be Google's attempt to rule information access in the same way Microsoft dominates the desktop -- a thought not lost on Microsoft.
Regardless of A9's success, the new search engine probably represents the future of information access. It blends information and commerce into one seamless package. Moving beyond AdWords and in effect making the entire site a useful 'adplication' (an app providing advertising benefits), A9 is one to watch... and potentially to copy."

Microsoft's Internet Search Push Worries Google, Yahoo - Article by The Wall Street Journal: "The idea of unifying the ability to search a computer, a corporate network and the Internet from a single spot is a 'big evolutionary step,' said Tim Hickernell, an analyst at the Meta Group"

A9.com > Search Technologies: "7 Reasons to Use A9.com "

Google

Resources:Interview - Peter Da Vanzo of Search EngineBlog.com: "IMR: If you could give one piece of advice to a novice web pro, what would it be? What is the secret to success?..
I can boil it down to this - 95% of what you hear will be rubbish, so be careful who you listen to.

Here are a few top 5% resources that I've found to be pure gold:

Read SearchEngineWatch. It will give you a solid foundation.

Read http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2010.htm . It will help you tie the basics of SEO into an effective strategy.
Read www.useit.com. Usability and effective SEM are inseparable. Never make it hard for people to give you money.
Then step away from the computer :) I recommend reading Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples, just about anything by Seth Godin, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell, and Taking your Talent to the Web by Jeffrey"

Google

Monday, April 19, 2004


A recently published white paper from iProspect indicates that over 56% of US Internet users say they generally use the same search engine whereas just over 30% use several search engines interchangeably...
Considering Google’s popularity, it’s no wonder WebSideStory found that Google contributed over 40% of US search engine referrals on 23 March this year."

iProspect: top search engine rankings transmit brand equity to Internet users: "The majority (56%) of consumers surveyed expect leading brands to hold top search listings. When Web marketers do not make search engines the primary focus of their online marketing initiatives, they are forfeiting 'top-of-mind' brand position to lesser-known organizations on the medium most frequently utilized by consumers for finding Web sites.
Survey respondents were asked, 'If you spotted a company within the opening few lines of search results, would that make you think that the company was a top one in the field?' Fully 33% of the respondents indicated they would. 'This was the biggest surprise in the survey. Our hypothesis was that people could tell the difference between a major brand and a lesser-known company, product or service that happened to enjoy a top ranking,' said Dr. Amanda Watlington, iProspect's Director of Research. 'What this indicates is that being found in a top search engine match transmits a halo effect of sorts"

Google

good for explanation of how search engines work...
ACM Queue - A Conversation with Matt Wells - When it comes to competing in the search engine arena, IS bigger always better?: "What problems do search engines face today?
MW There are many. Search was quoted by Microsoft as being the hardest problem in computer science today, and they weren't kidding. You can break it down into three primary arenas: (1) scalability and performance; (2) quality control; and (3) research and development. "

'Search is a fiercely competitive arena, even though there are really only five Web search companies today: Google, Yahoo (Altavista/AlltheWeb/Inktomi), Looksmart (Wisenut), AskJeeves (Teoma), and Gigablast. It's a tight little community, and a lot of the people know and watch each other. Microsoft is also coming to the party, and everyone's a little bit nervous to see what it's bringing.'"

Google

Saturday, April 17, 2004

Search/Find/Obtain (SFO) May Be 3rd Killer App of Internet... email/messaging Was 1st… Browser Was 2nd…


This presentation focuses on the twelve key trends that we believe are driving changes for many aspects of the Internet.

We continue to believe that the Internet is still in the early stages of becoming a central communications, information, commerce, and entertainment medium.

1) We believe the Internet should prove to be the growth distribution channel of the decade
2) Search/find/obtain (SFO) is becoming a global reality and may be the next ‘killer application’ of the Internet
3) Residential broadband (with an estimated 88MM global subscribers as of CQ4:03) has hit critical mass, and
pricing continues to decline…
4) The underlying growth rate for global Internet usage remains strong and global markets are ramping
5) Online continues to gain share from offline
6) “Mind share” well above “market share” demonstrates growth opportunity
7) We view Internet momentum/opportunity as compelling compared to other media
8) Consumer appears to be alive and well for key technology-related purchases. Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have benefited
9) Technology platform-driven convenience, low (and transparent) prices/pricing, uniquely strong 24x7 customer service, and extensive selection have been key factors behind growth
10) Online advertising trends could surprise on the upside & online premium services have begun to ramp…
11) Handful of industry leaders gaining share…operating leverage with inherently scalable models is powerful
12) Positive earnings surprises can be, more often than not, followed by more of the same…

High Level Thought Re: SFO…People have very little intuition for what it will mean when the top 40% of US households,
based on income, have half a dozen computers, all of them connected to the Net, all of them with ‘instant on.’ They just don’t know how important a part of our daily life the online world will be!
Jeff Bezos interview with Chip Bayers, Business

Google

Summary of download Search Engine Usage in North America
4/16/2004 Complementary research to the previously released "Inside the Mind of the Searcher." This 59 page detailed research paper, conducted in January and February of 2004, surveyed respondents on search engine usage The 60 page report, "Search Engine Usage in North America" compiles the results of a survey held earlier this year.

There were a number of interesting findings, including:
Google users have much higher levels of satisfaction and loyalty with their search engine than non Google users.

About 70% of participants chose organic results when given two different search scenarios. Google users were the most likely to choose organic results.

There were distinct patterns in search engine usage related to gender, age, income and education.

Listings that offered a source of trusted and unbiased information were the clear favorite of users doing product research. This was particularly true with Google users.

Google users represent the "cream" of the online consumer base, with higher incomes, loyalty and levels of education.

Search queries are generally quite general amongst the majority of users. Queries are usually refined in an iterative process.

Search engines are much more likely to be used to research a purchase than to make the actual purchase. Over 60% of respondents said they would use a search engine to help research a buying decision, compared to only 20% who said they would use a search engine to help find an online site to purchase from.

Confusion about what is and isn't a sponsored link is still quite high and was found amongst 30% of search engine users. Google users were the least confused, MSN users the most confused.

Google

CNN.com - Researchers develop 3-D search engine - Apr 16, 2004: " The mind-boggling speed and reach of Internet search engines mask a severe limitation: They are powered by words alone...

new search engines that can mine catalogs of three-dimensional objects, like airplane parts or architectural features.

All the users have to do is sketch what they're thinking of, and the search engines can produce comparable objects.

Mainstream search engines, meanwhile, are still trying to master 2-D images. For example, Google Inc.'s picture search program delivers pretty good results but can't actually examine the images it serves up. It mines the text surrounding the photos, and hopes for success.

However, 3-D search engines have begun to emerge as improvements in computing power and interactive modeling software have deepened the pool of designs available to query -- not only in industrial settings but also in highly detailed online virtual worlds. Boeing Co. engineers invented their own 3-D search engine a few years ago as part of an effort to reuse more parts

So how can computer programs look for objects? The breakthrough is the voxel.

Digital camera owners are familiar with pixels -- the basic element of a digital image. Each pixel is a tiny grain of color.

Similarly, a voxel is the basic element of a three-dimensional object that is represented in a computer. Each voxel represents the volume of the object at any given point."

Google

Friday, April 16, 2004

Spam & microsites ...Spotting Search Engine Spam: Q&A: "microsites"

Google

On submitting, linking & directoriesSubmitting to Directories - a Comprehensive Guide: "From the site owner and webmaster perspective, we need to be absolutely clear about the benefits we can derive from being listed in a Directory."

Strongest Links - Articles: "Link popularity, link reputation, link farms, link spamming, reciprocal links -it�s easy to get lost among all those links. To help the uninitiated we gathered here a large number of articles, all discussing various aspects of a link campaign. The articles are divided into several major areas. We are quite certain that you will find many gold-nuggets of wisdom among them!"

Google

IMHO the best search related blog to date...

John Battelle's Searchblog: "Obscured a bit in the A9 vortex is this announcement that Google is providing a much more granular tool for local advertisers interested in limiting their AdWord buys to specific locales or cities. "

Google

FreePint Newsletter 158 - Search engines and time management: " 'Searching for success: an update on search engine developments' By Duncan Parry

You've probably seen press coverage of recent news in the search engine industry. Yahoo! stopped using Google to power its 'organic' search results (those labelled 'Web Results') and switched to its own technology. Microsoft
is belatedly entering the search industry too; building search technology for its global network of MSN
websites. And Ask Jeeves purchased Interactive Search Holdings which includes iWon and Excite in March. So what are the main developments at the search engines, and how do they affect you as a searcher or website owner?"

Great brief paragraph for major engines & concludes:

The concentration of a large percentage of the search advertising market in the hands of three global companies - Google, Yahoo! and (to a lesser scale) FindWhat - could raise fears of them monopolising parts of the web and raising advertising prices. Whilst minimum bid prices have risen in the past, the three companies are still competing hard for advertisers and for contracts to supply results to search engines. Contracts may well change as search engines and ISPs are tempted by better deals or wish to stop using Overture now that it is owned by competitor, Yahoo!. Microsoft's search technology (and whatever advertising it offers) will further stimulate competition, and Internet Yellow Pages websites like SuperPages are competing in local search advertising, with their own advertising programmes. Now, two of the three search indexes accept URL submissions for free (links below); an improvement on last year when Inktomi did not. Ask is now the odd man out.

Local search is coming to a search engine near you (especially in the US, where the engines rollout technologies first). Personalisation and other developments should offer more relevant results, for example allowing the engines to understand the context of ambiguous keywords in web pages (Bill Gates cites the ambiguity of the word of "chips" as
an example - computer chips, wood chips, Mr Chips or oven chips?).

Expect more consolidation and innovation in the search industry...see A( for Amazon application of personalisation to search...BTW totaltravel does ok in A9....

Google

News - Hoover's Online: "Amazon.com has quietly launched a test version of its long-awaited search engine, aiming to challenge industry stalwarts Google and Yahoo with new tools to navigate the Web.
A9.com, an independent unit of the Internet retailer, unveiled its Web site on Wednesday after nearly seven months of development. The search site touts a novel design that lets people sift through Web search results, store and view their own search history, and find book information from Amazon related to query terms. It also promotes a search toolbar that blocks pop-up ads."

A9.com > Company > A9

Google

BBC NEWS | Technology | Websites 'failing' disabled users: "An investigation by the Disability Rights Commission shows that most websites are unusable by disabled people.
This means that many everyday activities carried out on the internet - booking a holiday, managing a bank account, buying theatre tickets or finding a cheaper credit card - are difficult or impossible for many disabled people...

The 1995 Disability Discrimination Act requires information providers to make their services accessible.

The problems most commonly encountered by the disabled website testers were cluttered pages, confusing navigation, failure to describe images and poor colour contrast between background and text.

GOOD WEBSITE DESIGN CHECKLIST
Provide text equivalence for non-text elements
Ensure good colour contrast between foreground and background
Pages must be usable when scripts and applets are turned off or not supported
Avoid movement in pages
Avoid pop-ups and don't change window without telling user
Divid large blocks of information into manageable chunks
Clearly identify the target of each link
Use the clearest and simplest language possible "

Google

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Days of One-Word Searches Over?: "According to a report from OneStat.com, most Internet users worldwide conduct online searches with two-word phrases.

The Web analytics firm reports that in February, 32.58% of all online searches were conducted with two words. Another 25.61% were conducted with three words and only 19.02% were one-word searches.... compare to one year ago... According to April 2003 data from OneStat.com, 24.76% of all online searches worldwide were initiated with just one word, indicating a decline in one-word searches over the 10-month period. Two-word and three-word search phrases, on the other hand, have grown in popularity over the time period."

Google

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

The best background reading on search available...been in my links for ever...ongoing � On Search, the Seriesongoing � On Search, the Series: "s series of essays on the construction, deployment and use of search technology (by which I mean primarily �full-text� search) was written between June and December of 2003. It has fifteen instalments not including this table of contents.

Secondary comment On Search, the Series: "Few people with a deep understanding of search can write eloquently about it. Search engine pioneer Tim Bray is one of the few. He's written an absolutely fabulous series of essays that should be essential reading for anyone wanting a thorough understanding of search technology."

Google

Monday, April 12, 2004

Search engine news, on Web searching and search engine optimization: " Yahoo! has now pulled the plug on the the AltaVista search engine. The AltaVista search site is from now on powered by Yahoo's new search technology. This follows a similar move regarding the AlltheWeb search engine and site (see below).
Yahoo! has apparently decided to keep the AltaVista and AlltheWeb brands for the time being, using them to explore alternative interfaces and ways of presenting search results.
AltaVista was once a pioneer in the development of advanced search engine technology, and was one of the dominating search sites before the rise of Google.
The AltaVista site continues to support advanced Boolean searching."

Google

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Web Accessibility Guide : E-consultancy.com: "The 25-page guide includes a full breakdown of the key rules that websites need to comply with. Despite widespread confusion, these regulations have been in force for some time, so if you haven't yet thought about accessibility, now is the time to do so."

Google

comScore Announces Local Web Search Tracking Service By categorizing and analyzing search activity that includes local modifiers, such as city and state names, zip codes, phone numbers or the words “map” and “directions,” comScore's qSearch Local accurately estimates the number, type and search engine of origin of local searches conducted by U.S. Internet users.

Using this methodology, comScore research has found that in one month alone, approximately 36 million U.S. Internet users conducted more than 200 million searches that included local modifiers. This represents approximately 22 percent of U.S. Internet users and about 7 percent of all U.S. Web search activity. (Source: comScore qSearch Local, October 2003.)

Google

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

MediaDailyNews 04-06-04: "Yahoo!, a brand born on the Internet, shows its grown-up side in a comprehensive new brand campaign that breaks on Thursday with four 30-second TV spots positioning the Web powerhouse as a life engine that enables people to get more out of their lives.

The estimated $100 million campaign was created by Soho Square, New York, a WPP Group unit formed especially to handle the Yahoo! account, which draws heavily on the resources of siblings mOne and MindShare, as well as the San Francisco-based creative team of Silver-Melville. Print and radio will be rolled out incrementally, as well as off-network online media buys."

Google

Inside the Searcher's Mind: It's a Jungle in Here!: "just how people searched, and ask them what went through their minds during the search process. It was a fascinating study, and resulted in a 30 page white paper which you can download from www.enquiro.com."

Key findings:

..in most search marketing strategies; the emphasis is put on encouraging the purchase, while most people using search engines are more interested in anonymously gathering info - We believe this to be a fundamental disconnect.

to entice people to purchase online, the web vendor has to offer at least one significant advantage whether it’s price, selection or convenience. if all things are equal or even close to equal people will tend to avoid entering into a purchase process online

...women tended to scan all organic results and read titles and descriptions more carefully than men. An organic listing in the number 8 position on Google might not have been seen by almost half the men in the group, but would have been seen by the majority of the women. This is just one example of how one search marketing strategy won’t fit all prospective customers.

..people have already mentally divided the results page from their favorite engine into sections. These sections tend to be:

1) sponsored listings (in some cases, both at the top and along the side of the page)
2) above the fold organic results (free listings that appear without the user having to scroll down)
3) below the fold organic results (free listings that require scrolling down)
4) other features (such as Google’s news and shopping feed results, just above the organic results).

Not all these sections are treated equally by the user. Some, particularly the sponsored listings, are often skipped over by many users (over half the group) to go directly to the organic listings. Depending on the type of searcher and what they find in the organic results, they may or may not come back to sponsored listings after looking at the organic ones.

..eyes started to drop off as we moved to below the fold organic results and the sponsored results, with only 16.6% of users saying they check out sponsored listings, regardless of what they find in the organic results. 50% of users said they’d check out sponsored listings if they didn’t find anything relevant in organic results.

A typical search is a circular and complex process, with multiple interactions with sites and search engine results pages. The average online research interaction can involve 5 to 6 different queries and interactions with 15 to 20 different sites. Often, the actual contents of a search results page can cause the searcher to take the search in a totally different direction, launching a new query that is at best somewhat divergent from the original purpose of the search. Dead ends are common and the browser back button is used extensively to navigate through the search process. For this reason, the search engine results page is actually used as a navigation aid in negotiating the online research interaction, as people continually refer back to it and launch another online exploration from this starting point.


The long bits of findings.....

Building the Search Query: The Funnel Approach


Over 70% of participants indicated they like to start with a generic, inclusive keyphrase and narrow it down from there. Reasons for this included:

Not wanting to exclude potential quality sites by being too exclusive in the original search
By being broader, the searcher may find other options to help take the search in new directions by looking at the results
Being able to judge relevancy of the original findings and selectively increase relevancy by adding qualifying keyphrases
It’s easier and quicker to type in a broad, short phrase at the beginning
In this type of search pattern, looking at search volumes and typical conversion metrics can be misleading to many marketers.

For many searchers, the search becomes increasingly specific as they go through the searching process. As this happens, the chance of the searcher finding results that could lead to a conversion becomes greater and greater as the search progresses. However, the direction the search takes can be determined by the results found in the early, generic searches. For instance, in one case where a participant was looking for information on cruises, the searcher didn’t start out looking for either a Panama Canal Cruise or a Princess Cruise, but results found early in the search process led her to refine her search query in these directions. If awareness of these options hadn’t been introduced early in the search process, she would have never refined her search in these directions, leading to a likely conversion for Princess for a Panama Canal Cruise.

the Anonymity Threshold

Take...the cruise example used in the buying funnel, it wasn’t until the searcher had found the right destination, type of cruise and cruise line that they were ready to engage in the purchase process. For this reason, they were resistant to purchase process oriented incentives (i.e. discounts) until the very last.

The internet has become very popular as a research tool during the information gathering process because it appears to offer the ability to remain anonymous. Through search engines, you can gather a lot of information quickly and you don’t have to enter into a situation where you surrender your anonymity until you choose to. We believe this is the reason there is a significant drop off between people willing to use the Internet to research a purchase decision and people willing to use it to purchase online. This drop off has been identified by a number of ecommerce studies. The purchase requires people to cross the anonymity threshold and they’re not prepared to do that. They know once they surrender contact information, they will likely be contacted by the vendor and be engaged in a purchase transaction. The consumer wants to do this according to their timing, not the vendors.

An interesting example of a violation of the anonymity threshold was presented by the use of online real time, real person sales chat tools such as HumanClick and Groopz. At first glance, these tools seemed a great answer to the impersonal nature of the Internet. You could watch visitors navigate through your site and if they wished, they could click on a button and initiate a real time chat with a sales person. As long as vendors stayed on this side of the fence, and let the visitor initiate the session, there was no problem. The challenge came when the vendor “pushed” a chat window to visitors, offering assistance. Almost without exception, the visitors left immediately. We, along with a few other vendors we talked to, found that the minute we crossed over the threshold and made visitors aware that they were being watched, they quickly left our site.

People won’t cross the threshold until they have no option. If given the choice between getting information and remaining anonymous and getting the information through registering, people will always choose the former. This creates a bit of a dilemma for the marketer, because generally the key metric is measuring against acquired or converted visitors. Almost every definition of an acquisition or conversion requires the visitor to cross the anonymity threshold. Because of the reluctance of the visitor to cross this threshold, the site owner may be building significant brand equity or trust with the visitor but is not giving credit to it because of the anonymity threshold.

In order to entice people to purchase online, the web vendor has to offer at least one significant advantage, whether it’s price, selection or convenience. If all things are equal or even close to equal, people will tend to avoid entering into a purchase process online.

In looking at most search marketing strategies; the emphasis is put on encouraging the purchase, while most people using search engines are more interested in anonymously gathering information. I believe there’s a potential disconnect here that more search marketers have to give some serious thought to.

Conversion

when participants wanted to search for vacation opportunities. Often they
went directly to a travel portal and, in many cases, never did use a search engine.

In big ticket purchases, there is likely extensive research done, often involving multiple online
research sessions and repeated use of search engines. The search process and the queries
used are usually much more involved and diverse than in smaller ticket purchases.

For example, offering a product brochure, a vacation planning guide, or competitive comparison
charts were all conversion methods likely to attract a researcher. We cover more about observed
conversion behavior in Post Click Behaviors and the Anonymity Threshold.
In cases of small ticket purchases, there would generally only be one online research session and
the path to conversion is much shorter and more direct. There is also a greater likelihood of
online conversion.

Gender...marked variation in search patterns has to be understood by marketers in formulating their
marketing plans. When looking for reasons why women as a group appear to search differently
than men, we believe the reason is analogous to distinct shopping patterns in both genders. For
the sake of clarity, think about shoppers entering a mall. Some go directly to a store, buy an item
and leave. When applying this behaviour to a search engine, these would be similar to the Scan
and Clickers or the 2 Step Scanners. Others shop several stores, compare prices and deliberate
over the buying decision. These individuals enjoy the shopping experience. Again, drawing
parallels to the search profiles, this group would be similar to the Deliberate Researchers or the
1,2,3 Searchers. I think most agree that the first group is generally predominantly male, while the
second group is predominantly female.

1 out of 2 people believe that all search results are tainted to some extent by commercialism.
We also found that Google users tended to have the best understanding of which were paid and
what were organic results.

The Above the Fold Organic Results were the “prime real estate” on the search engine results
page. All 24 participants checked these 2 or 3 top organic rankings. One participant (a Scan and
Clicker) indicated that he usually went straight to sponsored links for a commercial search, but
still looked at the top organic results. If there was a highly relevant and trusted site in these top 3,
it would likely draw clicks from almost 100% of the participants and, if the site met their needs,
they might never return to the search engine results page.

19 of the participants (79%) either didn’t look at the sponsored links at all, or only looked at them
after they had gone through the organic results. We found that Google users were the ones most
likely to skip over the sponsored results.

To me this indicates that any PPC etc search campaign budget is better spent at sites other than google except on premium sponsored listings in the 2 top of page positions...while organic seo remains top priority...and here is why...

found that Google has created an inherent contradiction between their mission and their business model that results in a interesting dynamic with their users.
Google, in their drive to continually enhance the search experience, have always maintained a
sharp distinction between paid and organic search results. To their credit, this is one of the
contributing factors to their success and large market share. Sponsored ads are very easy to
identify on Google. For this reason, users who prefer to ignore sponsored ads tend to be drawn to
Google, because of this ease of identification. Generally, we found users of Google more likely to
be resistant to looking at sponsored ads than on other engines. There was a general perception
that Google’s organic results were the least commercially tainted ones of all the major engines.

While the percentage of users looking at sponsored listings seems to be less on Google,
advertisers can’t ignore the fact that this clear delineation of search results attracts more users,
so in fact by using Google you capture a smaller percentage of a much larger market.

..Google results page,where the similarly formatted AdWords were also ignored by searchers. In effect, Google was
training its users how to ignore its own advertising. This, together with the point below, could explain the greater likelihood on the part of users to scan the premium sponsored listings in the 2 top of page positions.

research search
• Product information: features, comparisons, reviews, prices, Reports
• The exact query in the Title and Description
• Trusted sources of information, i.e. Consume
• Trusted brand names and vendors
• Trusted URL’s

Purchase search
• Offer product information: features, comparisons, reviews, prices
• The exact query in the Title and Description
• Trusted brand names and vendors
• Promises of added value: discounts, free shipping, etc
• Ability to buy online
• Trusted URL’s

relevancy is a key factor in catching the searchers eye …seeing their exact search query in the title (preferably) or in bold type in the listing text caused the listing to “jump out” at the searcher.

attitude towards price information changed as the searcher got closer to the buying decision. Earlier in the research phase, price was important to ensure that the product was “within budget”. As the actual purchase drew closer, searchers then were searching to find the best price...

...certain listings drew a disproportionate number of clicks if they appeared within search results pages. For instance, if a Consumer Reports page or a product review from a well known industry publication or site for the prime key phrases in
e search engine results page, industry publication or site appeared during the research phase in the top 3 or 4 organic listings, they were almost guaranteed a 50% plus click through rate. The same was true to a lesser extent
for listings from very familiar vendors. These names caught the searchers attention and built instant trust, giving a much greater likelihood of click through.

For marketers, it’s important to see if these category killersand, if so, to devise strategies to work around them. By clearly
understanding what the searcher is looking for, it is often possible to minimize the effects of a click through Category Killer.

Google

Monday, April 05, 2004

the Search Engine Journal: "Google and Yahoo have decided to stop displaying advertisements for online casinos, stepping out of the way from potential law suits from US States and the US Government, which have banned or are looking to ban online gambling."

Google

Description of seo for travel, hotels etc by SECURE-RES.COM® search engine optimization website marketing news - secure-res.com: "What is Website Optimization? The Blueprints For A Robust Direct-To-Consumer Online Distribution Strategy SECURE-RES.COM® is a leading hotel and resort Internet reservation and marketing services company. For as little as $74 per month you can have a booking engine on your website and total control of your inventory. There is no commission or transaction fee for our services. We can also design & host your website, and provide Search Engine Optimization ; as you know having your own website will not only produce a higher yield per sale, it also gives you the ability to develop stronger property specific guest loyalty.

To begin with, a hotel website is not an online brochure. It is not meant to serve as reference material secondary to a sales pitch. The website is a 24/7 sales and marketing tool, a hotel's top producing 'virtual' sales office. The website is a 'living organism' with descriptive copy, images and keyword updates, special packages, email capture, and overall fresh and locally relevant information--all meant to enhance the user experience..."

Google

Google Tops, But Yahoo Switch Success So Far: "On Tuesday, March 23, 2004, WebSideStory examined a sample of over 25 million visits and found that Google had the top share of search referrals, 40.9 percent. It was followed by Yahoo at 27.4 percent, then MSN at 19.6 percent:"

Google

Saturday, April 03, 2004

Google PageRank, Meet Yahoo Web Rank!: "Officially, you can't download the toolbar with the Web Rank meter any longer, as the beta test has been closed.
Unofficially, using a link I found in a great thread at WebmasterWorld.com did manage to get the toolbar installed with the meter showing despite the beta test closure. Act soon, as this might not last.
While I can see the meter in my Yahoo toolbar, it's not actually showing any scores. Apparently, this can be a common problem. But never fear! Digital Point Solutions has a web-based WR checking tool you can use to generate a score if you lack the meter or find it isn't working."

Yahoo! WebRank Checking Tool: "Check Any Site's Yahoo! WebRank"

Google

Friday, April 02, 2004

ResourceShelf: "Web Search--AltaVista
As Expected, Changes at AltaVista
On December 15, 1995 AltaVista officially launched. Today, the AltaVista search platform and its many advanced features are no longer available online. However, the AV site remains live and is now powered by the Yahoo database and platform. These changes was expected. Last week, Search Engine Showdown reported that AlltheWeb (now owned by Yahoo) had also moved to the Yahoo database and platform. Other changes?
One of AV's unique advanced features, the proximity operator NEAR, is no longer available.
Other features no longer available from AV include language limiting, nested searching, case sensitive searching, and truncation.
Advanced Syntax No Longer Available
applet:
anchor:
image:
text:
link:
The advanced syntax that remains online is posted on this page. BabelFish (AV's translation tool) and AV's multimedia databases remain online. We can only hope that some of AV's advanced search features will become part of the Yahoo platform."

Google

Thursday, April 01, 2004

MSN new lookMSN's New Search Page Look: "MSN announced a redesign for its MSN Search service last week, a cosmetic change that helps the service comply with U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recommendations about labeling paid placement results."MSN Search -- More Useful Everyday

Main Results Continue From Yahoo

The main listings on MSN Search's results page, those under the "Web Pages" heading, are from Yahoo. These listings combine pages found by Yahoo's crawling of the Web and content obtained via Yahoo's content acquisition program, some of which involves paid inclusion.

After the July change, main listings at MSN will continue to come from Yahoo but will no longer have a "Web Pages" tag.

At some point in the future, MSN expects to replace this data with data found by its own crawler. That's likely to happen toward the end of this year.

If MSN is cleaning things up in terms of paid placement, why isn't it doing more to disclose paid inclusion?

MSN is already in compliance with FTC recommendations. As long as paid inclusion doesn't provide a ranking boost, which MSN supplier Yahoo says is the case, paid inclusion need only be disclosed on a search engine's help pages.

MSN currently does this through an about link next to the Web Pages heading on the results page. It leads to this explanation:

Within Web Page results, there may be links where the Web site owners have paid for either expedited review of their site or paid for clicks to their site. These sites are ranked using the normal algorithm applied to all links within each section, with no change in rank due to payment.

Google
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