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November 30, 2005

Diagnosing Potential SEO Problems - Without Guilt

From a psychological perspective, it turns out that asking a new or potential client, "Have you ever engaged in any spammy or controversial SEO activity?" is quite a loaded question - somewhere between "Have you stopped beating your spouse?" and "Are you really going to wear that tonight?"

While we ask this question for diagnostic reasons only, it elicits immediate defense from most marketing managers. "No - of course not!" they interject, before we can even finish the question.

Too bad. I actually enjoy unthreading the spaghetti-like mess that some clients bring to us. I have fun looking at things like doorway pages, scripts that create cloaked pages, and complex link networks to see exactly how they're sculpted, and to compare the intended result of the technique versus the actual results attained. What I don't enjoy is finding out about these techniques six months into a campaign.

So recently, I recognized the error of our ways when we discovered a client, who had previously promised that all was on the level, had several additional domains, all on the same IP block, using a meta refresh to point to the main site. This was the likely cause of rejection from a few human-edited directories.

So why was it our error? To the client, it was on the level. Long ago, they had purchased domains that they either intended on using, or that they didn't want their competition to buy, and they simply pointed them to the main domain the only way they knew how. Fast-forward to the last few years, when the specific technique you use in redirection is a critical component of SEO strategy.

So now I phrase it differently. "Tell me about your site's history," I say. "What have you done in the past, and how did it work?" It's a little bit clinical and sterile, but we end up finding out much more helpful information.

As a post-script, to phrase it in terms free of the slightest hint of judgment, here are some site activities that, while we're sure they were done with ONLY THE BEST OF INTENTIONS, might cause you some eventual grief in the indexing and ranking processes:

• Exchanging links with a site or group of sites whose sole criterion for offering a link is verifying your willingness to offer a link in return.
• 5000 (or any-thousand) doorway pages with 75% keyword density that redirect to your normal site.
• Any activity whose description was punctuated with, "Don't worry, no human will ever see this anyway."

(Humans, we keep finding, are one of the most annoying factors in web usability.)

Posted by erik at 02:14 PM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2005

A Ping to a Fellow Local Search Agnostic

Well, not quite. The title of the article alone, Local Search: Just About Ready, belies Gary Stein as a full stop short of agnosticism, as does the happy ending the local search cultists I have noted here and here will find no less gratifying:

Ultimately, we should expect local search to now attract attention (and money) not because the engines simply see a new application for existing technology, but because the work has been (and continues to be) done to make the experience fit the need.

Yet I ping a salute to Mr. Stein today as among the familiar up-tempo local search house beat he is the only drummer duly banging it slowly, and at the very pitch the rest of the band has always been unable to perceive:

If consumers see the value of using local search above using the Yellow Pages or 411, it becomes a much easier sell to advertisers.

Bravo. As I've said before, local is small business and small business is primarily local, and therein lies the current adaptation problem: not until local search supplants, rather than just augments, the physical yellow pages will small business move their small advertising budgets from the latter to the former.

And then, the sounds of an angelic choir.

Posted by john at 07:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 28, 2005

Comment Spam the Wagon? ITSOK with Me

Maintaining the SEO Speedwagon is not quite as glamorous a task as, say, Alfred might have with the Batmobile, or Q with his fleet of Aston Martins. In fact, our version of machine guns hiding behind headlamps is a simple button marked "Ban IP Address," which we reserve for commenters and trackersback who attempt to hijack our fair vehicle to carry dirty links across the border.

I'm not the first one to notice a new, two-tiered spamming tactic among blog comment spammers. First, the links these spammers are pointing to are usually large, legitimate brands, such as Apple or Microsoft. Second, they include the rel="itsok" attribute on a link. Of those sites that have noticed this approach, however, not too many have figured out exactly why spammers are using it. Surely, SURELY, they're not dumb enough to think that it's overriding the rel="nofollow" attribute (definition), about which I became all sappy last week.

Turns out they don't believe that at all. A very articulate explanation at Concurring Opinions reveals the motive - which only hardcore spamhunters (or hardcore spammers) would naturally intuit:

These comments are a funny sort of trojan horse. They are designed to be easily and readily flagged as spam; however their links are to popular and legitimate sites. Spammers do this so that popular legitimate sites will be added to the blacklists, corrupting them. If the blacklists are full of mainstream sites, and kill comments that use links to apple.com or yahoo.com, then bloggers will stop using the blacklists. And they will once again be easy prey for the spammers.

Sigh. No wonder I thought spammers were lousy at checkers; turns out they've been playing chess the whole time.

Posted by erik at 03:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thanksgiving, a time for reflection.

Hello all, I just got back from a trip to visit my family over the Thanksgiving holiday and I just wanted to reflect for a quick moment on all that I have to be thankful for. I hope that as you read this it will remind you of all the things that you have to be thankful for and may those memories brighten the rest of your day.

-I am thankful for my faith first and foremost which gives me hope.
-I am thankful for my wonderful & beautiful wife, who has made me better than I ever would have been without her.
-I am thankful for my son who brings joy and light into my life each and every day.
-I am thankful for my family who has done whatever it took to give me every chance to succeed.
-I am thankful for my job (yes, I truly am), it is a privilege to be able to work and I am thankful for it.
-I am thankful for my country that allows me to take time to reflect on all that I have to be thankful for.

I will cut my list off here because I don’t want to bore you and I have a TON of things on my desk begging for my attention. But don’t think that I am not thankful even for them, for they are why I am here ;).

I trust that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and was able to spend it with those they are most thankful for – see you next week!

Posted by brent at 01:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 23, 2005

No Fearing the Nofollow Link Attribute

While I believe that sites that are ultimately successful do have high quality, user-focused content, many people incorrectly infer the converse of that statement: that if they have high quality, user-focused content, they will be ultimately successful. I don't necessarily believe that, because the demand is simply not great enough for all the high quality, user-focused sites out there. Many will do great, but not everyone is going to get rich.

But my pessimistic outlook is still no reason to avoid creating the best content you can - both at your own site and elsewhere. Think about the "nofollow" link attribute and its recent influence in SEO.

The mass adoption of the "nofollow" attribute about a year ago meant that site owners now had a way to illegitimize comment and trackback spam, even if they couldn't control its spread. If a link on your site has the "nofollow" attribute, engines know that you don't "vouch" for the authenticity of the link. Consequently, the engines won't reward such sites with any rankings benefits.

This effectively squashes a spammer's chances of benefiting from your site's status. He can add all the comments he wants to your PR4 post, but the links back to his site don't get a vote of confidence like they would if you made the exact same link in your post.

Unfortunately, however, many people promote their sites via forum and blog comments that are well reasoned, helpful to the discussion, and quite informative. And many of these people now feel that their sites no longer benefit from the links in comments. A mass exodus from SEO Chat forums is a recent example. While the introduction of the "nofollow" attribute was only a small reason for the members leaving, it was certainly a factor.

But if you think back to the days before link popularity was a religion, it's no different now. If you have something intelligent to say, if you're contributing to the discussion, and if you're offering a fresh perspective - and you do this long enough - you'll earn links the old fashioned way: By earning them. People will click through to your site via your profile, and eventually, if you impress them long enough, they'll want you to be a part of their community.

You've always had to impress potential customers with your intelligence and perspective. Be glad that "nofollow" is here, because all it has done is allow the specter of easily gained popularity to find peaceful rest.

Posted by erik at 11:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 22, 2005

SEO Mailbag: Meta Tagging - Dead or Alive?

I regularly check the Speedwagon keyword reports to see exactly how people first come across our sleek, cast-iron chassis. I contrast their query text with their landing page, and if their query is vague, I try to intuit their intent. Did they find what they wanted when they arrived?

A lot of people are still concerned with the state of meta tags in SEO. Here are some referring query strings we've seen in the past few days:

• meta tags dead
  
• meta tags are dead
  
• are meta tags dead 2005 - (Hang on - I think the 2006 decision will be announced soon.)
  

When most people talk about meta tags and SEO, they're usually talking about the keywords and description tags.

• meta name="keywords" - the punching bag of choice for SEOs. While it's true that most engines completely avoid the keywords data in pages, I still add a modest set of keywords in this tag. It's not going to hurt you, it takes about 15 seconds, and some clients' site-search programs utilize the data in this tag. John goes so far as to wax poetic about our love/hate relationship with it.
  
• meta name="description" - While engines may not use the description in ranking a page, the description is often used at Google, Yahoo, and MSN as the descriptive (get it?) text on their SERPs. Following is a shot of a Google SERP for the query [firefox tricks]. The descriptive text below the title is pulled from the meta description:

Other meta tags do exist, however. In fact, by their design, meta tags are a user-defined system of data encapsulation, so there's really no bona fide standard list. (In fact, check out my favorite WHOIS engine's use of meta tagging. Hint: search the source code for "jedi".)

• meta name="robots" - This can be useful if you know what you're doing. Depending on the attributes you use, you can control the bots' indexing of the page, whether they follow links on the page, and whether their indexes retain a cached copy of the page. But if you don't have any robots tags, don't worry: By default, if robots don't see a robots tag, they're supposed to index the page and follow its links.
• meta name="revisit-after" - This is a long-running joke. It's a legitimate attribute - if you're targeting an obscure Canadian engine - but for everyone else, its presence marks you as a novice. Somewhere along the way, people spread the word that you could control robot crawl cycles using this tag. You can't.
• meta http-equiv="content-language" - Well, sure. You need this - it specifies the primary language of your page. But nearly every web dev system I've ever seen (okay, not Notepad, penny-pinchers) takes care of this one.

I could go on, and someday, I might. The point is to not get caught up in generalizations like "meta tags are dead," because your fresh-faced web dev crew might interpret that as "delete everything in the header tags." And that would be a shame.

Posted by erik at 11:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 21, 2005

Classic Rock Web Design

We here at the 'wagon, among other things, are devoted to quality web content and quality music. We keep our standards high in both aspects and I was reminded of these two ideals one recent morning when a strange "alignment of stars" if you will took place. As I was starting my day two unique and unrelated events took place, and my brain, badly needing coffee (obviously) took it from there.

What happened? Well, I came across a printout that my wife had accumulated in her pursuit of her Masters degree. Isn't it funny that as I wax eloquently and proudly about her Master's degree in Health Education that I'm eating Nilla wafers and was disappointed that we're out of store bought mini-muffins - but I seriously digress. And as I was selecting some music to listen to first thing in the morning from Yahoo Music I had an inkling to listen to some classic rock, namely Led Zeppelin. But what I found on Yahoo Music was that the only thing available was a karaoke version of their greatest hits. I was disappointed at first but found that I could appreciate the songs for just their music, words weren't really necessary to qualify it as good music. Their just the icing on the cake.

The printout that I came across dealt with web credibility guidelines [http://credibility.stanford.edu/guidelines/index.html]. The guidelines are a very common sense, albeit outdated in "internet years" (internet years are a lot like dog years), approach to website design and content. One of our main jobs is getting traffic to our clients websites, but keeping them there is equally important. Just as traffic can be driven to a site using various methods, commonly referred to in search engine land as Black Hat and White Hat (a reference to the old cowboy movies where the good guy wore the white hat etc.), your sites content can be derived from many different methods. And as important as proper, ethical, white hat techniques are to good long-term sustainable SEO results, so is good quality content that is easy to use important to your website visitors.

So as I was listening to the Led Zeppelin karaoke music, I was in awe of the musical genius that put together the original arrangements. I realized that even though I love Robert Plant's vocals, I equally love just the plain old music by itself. The seamless integration of musical chord's, tempo's, beat's, etc. make Led Zeppelin the classic rock band that it is. That's why I'm still drawn to it, and why I inherently like or dislike certain websites. If they follow the guidelines they are bound to be classic's.

One more comparison and then I promise I'll finish. Led Zeppelin wasn't the most complex or overproduced band in the world, they just rocked. A classic website doesn't have to have the fanciest flash in the world or be filled with all kinds of cool interactive mouse-over's. It needs to be correct, usable, & useful. Pleasing to the eye is nice, but let's remember the phrase "eye candy" and not let it rule the web world and rot out the core of what is good for quality web sites.

So with all that being said, and I apologize in advance for what you're about to read, let your content and SEO be excellent, thus combining for your online.........wait for it.........stairway to heavenly results.

Posted by brent at 10:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 18, 2005

Google Sitemaps Tests Your 404 Error Codes

Today, Google unwittingly unleashed an entirely new service. It motivated thousands of webmasters to validate their error page code.

Back in September I posted about the importance of making sure that your 404 pages deliver a true 404 error code; many sites unknowingly (or knowingly) pass a 302 or 200 code instead. At the time, I wrote

In the health checklist of SEO, this issue isn't equivalent to a broken leg or clogged arteries. It's more like an old football injury that flares up at inconvenient times. The most likely results of a deceptive header code on your error pages are search query results that return error copy in the SERP description, and possibly an artificially inflated index count. Neither one will kill you, but it's something you shouldn't ignore.

Today, something strange happened. Sites that both fail to give the correct 404 error code AND that have Google Sitemaps files in place became vulnerable to a security breach. Anyone else with a Sitemaps account could look at the clickthrough stats of your Sitemaps-based pages. It's not akin to dumping your customer credit card database into the street, but it's certainly data you don't want just anyone to know about.

The moral of this story is not my prescience (I was afraid to buy Google at $85, after all). Instead, the take-home lesson is that today's C-list site dev priorities can become tomorrow's raging infernos - through no fault of anyone at your organization. No one predicted that Google would use a security measure that relied on your site spitting out a certain error code - why would they?

References: Although this story was buzzing at all the usual haunts today, I first saw it at SERoundtable, and as usual, Danny has an authoritative summary.

Posted by erik at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 17, 2005

Link Building Anecdote: Big and Small Business

The Intrapromote client list shows off a diverse bunch. While the big names may seem more impressive, we are just as proud of our small business clients. It has always been our goal to succeed with big and small brands alike.

You learn not to be surprised when you deal with such a variety. Take a couple meetings I had this morning, for instance. The first was with a large client. As I made recommendations to the site’s internal linking structure, the client told me he would have to run the changes by marketing, legal, IT, parliament, and the Vatican. About a half hour later, I was making similar recommendations to a much smaller client. Before I finished speaking, he told me to refresh the page and asked me if the changes looked right.

Just Another Day. Du Du Du Du Du

Posted by tom at 03:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 16, 2005

The Cult of Local Search Needs a Compound

Ok, at least it's not the same crackpot local-search-explodes-beginning-next-month mythology we've become used to like failed Seinfeld spin-offs. But you have to wonder what kind of local The Kelsey Group was smoking when they made this prediction:

THE ANNUAL VOLUME OF LOCAL commercial searches could surpass 20 billion queries during 2006--roughly 20 percent of total Web search, according to a new forecast by research firm The Kelsey Group.

20% of total search would indeed be fertile ground from which to erect the local compound, yet Kelsey (the Group, not Grammer) acknowledges something doesn't mesh currently with their rosy prediction:

At the same time, spending on locally targeted search ads accounts for just $500 million of the $7 billion market projected by the end of 2005.

When oh when will the true local search faithful be delievered? What say ye, Kelsey?

...local search ad spending lags because advertisers haven't worked out the logistics of making efficient buys.

Ah, logistics. Doesn't that get us all in the end?

Posted by john at 05:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

My New iPod

I'm about to get my very first iPod and I can't say enough how excited I am to get one. This will be my very first iPod and look forward to using it...excessively.

This sucker comes with everything.

* 30GB
* Stores up to 7,500 songs (I'll never fill it completely)
* Battery life for up to 14 hours
* Up to 3 hours of slideshows with music
* Stores up to 2 hours of video playback

Enough with that.

I thought I would share one of the main SEO-related podcasts I plan on getting for my new toy.

The Daily SearchCast - Brought to you daily by the people over at Search Engine Watch. I feel this podcast will be one of my favorites because Danny Sullivan and the folks over @ SEW are some of the most well-respected in the industry and always have their fingers on the pulse of the SEO industry. This daily podcast ranges from 10-15 minutes in length and is basically a recap of the previous day's news.

I'm new to this whole iPod and podcasting thing and starving to find good quality SEO/SEM podcasts I can put on my list. Please feel free to chime in with your favorites.

TIA

Posted by sean at 04:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 15, 2005

An SEO Checklist for Site Redesign

When you're about to unleash a site redesign, your to-do list probably appears endless. And once you've taken care of the design itself and the graphics, page files, and remaining assets are accounted for and tested, you still have to consider SEO.

A more comprehensive SEO checklist for site redesign surely exists somewhere, but my goal is to show things that site owners typically overlook and that, when added up, can have significant impact on a site's performance over time. Note: When I refer to "redesign" in this context, I'm not talking about changing domains. Instead, I'm referring to changing the entire file, folder, and page structure of the existing site, and perhaps (but not necessarily) a migration to a new code type, such as going from PHP to ASP (or back).

• Account for your top URLs. Analyze the last few months of web stats and determine your highest performing pages, both in terms of entry pages and strict page views. Brochure-type sites will have a smaller number than database-driven sites. Determine whether these top pages will have counterparts on the new site. If so, map the old pages to the new ones using a 301 (permanent) redirect. (James discusses 301 redirects here.)

  As for your non-performers, that's a judgment call. Even if certain pages don't get too many views or don't have new-site counterparts, you need to account for them when you roll over and make sure that if users land on them, they end up somewhere relevant. You can map those remaining pages to the home page (again, using a 301), or, you can avoid a lot of work and let a custom 404 page handle it (see below). Using a 301 will transfer lots of little fragmented bits of link pop and PR to the root, but a well built custom 404 page will likely be more help to your users and save them a click or two in getting to their final destination.

  Along these lines, do a thorough backlink check to see who's linking deep into your site. (Yahoo Site Explorer is currently one of my favorite backlink checkers.) Even if these links don't send much traffic, chances are the traffic is pretty qualified, so you should take special care of the visitors that come from reputable industry sites and make sure that the page they land on isn't a black hole.

  I often read articles that recommend you contact everyone linking to you and request that they update their links. In my experience, this hasn't been necessary. When a 301 is properly implemented from old_page.htm to new_page.asp, I've always seen links to old_page.htm eventually show up in a backlink check of new_page.asp.

• Prepare your custom 404 page. A custom 404 page is like a trapeze artist's safety net. Even if a user calls for a page that doesn't exist, she'll still end up on your site instead of seeing the ugly (and near-useless) default 404 page. A well made 404 page is often a variation of the site map, along with an introductory note that apologizes for the lost page, and an earnest hope that the user will find what she needs by following one of the links on the page. Most important, make sure that the links on your 404 page correspond to your new site content, not the old content. Otherwise, your users might just end up swallowing themselves in an endless 404 loop. (One more thing: If you're on a Microsoft platform, make sure that your 404 pages give a true 404 error code.)

• Update your robots.txt file. Many people forget to update their robots.txt exclusions when their folder structures change. If your private data, images, or testing area has changed locations, make sure to add a line in the file to account for it. Now this is important, and it needs emphasis: Don't replace old exclusions with new ones. Instead, add new exclusions and retain old ones. From the engines' perspectives, those old folder structures will still be around for a while, so if you delete old exclusions, you could see some funky things happen for several months.

• Update your analytics and conversion definitions. Here's another item that often goes overlooked until the monthly reports come out. If your analytical conversions are based on views of certain pages, specific click paths, or hits on certain files from the old site, make sure to update your conversion definitions to account for the new site. You don't need the accounting mess created when the revenue and the analytics program disagree about conversions and ROI.

• Remember your outgoing links. When everything else is done and you have time for a bit of altruism, remember that your outgoing links are likely benefiting someone else - either another site you own or a site you have recommended. Any old articles or resource pages that link to those sites will no longer benefit them if they're deleted. So if you still think those sites are worthy of your link, make sure to recreate them somehow.
  

I hope this list brings up some issues you hadn't thought of. If you have other ideas, drop a note in the comments and I'll post them later on.

Posted by erik at 11:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 14, 2005

Are You MSin or MSout?

I must admit that when I was approached about writing about the financial aspects of the "Big Three" (Google, Yahoo, & MSN), I was a bit leery about writing about MSN. Simply stated, I don't personally use it. I'm not a Microsoft "hater", but I have fallen out of lust with a lot of their products mainly because of security issues and their disdain for open source innovation. But putting that aside they are the third biggest search engine and worthy of a rundown.

Now on the financial side of things I'll have to focus on what they are doing business-wise instead of stock price etc. because they are apart of the Microsoft juggernaut, and therefore financial information is not easy to come by regarding their division.

The MSin'ers
They are currently ranked as having between 15.5% and 12.6% of the search market depending on which study you go by. That is not a number to be ignored. So my first question is why do those 15.5% to 12.6% of people use MSN? I found an interesting answer in an article by Danny Sullivan that basically states that users of MSN use it because they are there for other reasons.

What's ahead for MSN...
Well, from the recent hoopla it appears that "Windows Live" is what's ahead for MSN in articles that I read from Betanews.com and CNet. The basic rundown is that many of the services now offered through MSN will be moved to Windows Live, leaving MSN apparently more like its counterparts in search - that is relying on paid advertising for its revenues and focusing more on search. For a more detailed rundown of what Microsoft is actually talking about moving over to Windows Live start at this article; it will provide you a good starting point.

One final thing to consider about MSN is that its parent, Microsoft, controls the operating system market for desktops and based on a recent shopping adventure for a new PDA, they are striving for a similar dominance on handheld devices that are ever-increasingly becoming tied to the Internet.

Bottom Line...
MSN is not going anywhere. To ignore them is foolishness especially in light of the fact that they have a big following in Asia in particular. Right now the search world is focused on the U.S. market but this I'm sure will be changing as time goes on. Just look at all of the press that is being generated by Google, Yahoo, and MSN in the race for China's market. I'm not sure how to say "Have a Coke and a Smile" in Korean/Vietnamese/Thai/Chinese but I'm sure it's all of those places, and I'm sure the MSN Butterfly has migrated there as well.

Posted by brent at 10:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 11, 2005

More On Content Management Systems (CMS) and SEO

Last week in my post, I recommended some questions to ask your potential CMS vendor before adding a CMS to your site.

This week, I spoke with a company who explained how their CMS forces them to have identical HTML title tags and page content titles. This will definitely lessen the flexibility needed to optimize your title tags and for your more competitive keyword phrases, you need all the SEO flexibility you can get. So, I'm adding this to my list of questions which now are:

1. How can I change my title tags and meta tags (code)?
2. What will my URLs look like?
3. Can I have unique title tags and page content titles?

I also had the opportunity to sit in on a training session with a client who is making a change to a new CMS that uses a Base-10 platform. I haven't had a chance to really dig into it yet, but all three of my questions were answered positively and published pages were search-engine-friendly and optimized.

I'll report soon about more findings as we get our "hands dirty" with this new CMS. But, so far so good. Stay tuned.

Posted by doug at 03:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Pay Per Call Reminds me of SEO back in the 90s

I remember back in the 1990s when companies all over where throwing around money like it was going out of style. Back then, SEO/SEM was still in its infancy and only a handful of attendees where at Search Engine Strategies conferences. It was in those days that companies where touting themselves as the next IPO winner, offering mad amounts of stock options, and millions upon millions of dollars were being thrown at "eyeballs."

Countless cold calls were made and I found it absolutely amazing how some of those marketers could justify millions of dollars being spent on "eyeballs" and for whatever reason couldn't justify spending a few thousands dollars over the course of a year on targeted search engine traffic. Those of you in sales from back in the day know exactly what I'm talking about here.

Today, SEO/SEM is the hottest thing around and continues to grow in popularity, almost daily it seems. The same marketers who couldn't justify the spend on search marketing back then are now trying to find ways to tap into other department budgets to find more dough to throw at the engines.

Pay Per Phone Call (PPP) reminds me of those days. Right now, a lot of people just don't get it or have a hard time understanding the technology and/or overall value of pay per call. It may be that, like SEO, it will take time for this vertical to mature and for advertisers to grasp and embrace this "new" (to some) marketing avenue before it can really take off. Time will tell.

If you keep asking yourself the question "what's next with search," perhaps you should take a look at pay per call.

Posted by sean at 02:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Reciprocal Linking Horse: OK, OK, I’m Dead!

Hark! 2 in every 3 heralds are singing. In sooth, only time will tell if the backlash truly matches the ballyhoo, but white hatters deserve this moment of frivolity. We have, each one of us, experienced the frustration of battling competitors who perform well with not-so-admirable linking strategies.

So, what's the next focal point? Link extraction. The price for Google holding sites more accountable for their links is that Google will be holding you more accountable for your links. This is much more of a concern if you have employed unethical linking tactics in the past, but it is a concern for all sites, nonetheless. Google will penalize you if an overwhelming majority of your links are irrelevant and identical.

Review your links every time Google updates links. You want to make sure your link text varies and that your links are coming from reputable, relevant sites. Do not allow this defensive link strategy to keep you from the offensive, though. Look for opportunities to upgrade link text from good sites as you seek to remove links from bad sites.

Enjoy the moment, white hatters! Take pleasure in the fact that Jagger aftermath for you is just business as usual.

Posted by tom at 11:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 10, 2005

Taking the Wagon's Domain from Potential to Kinetic

Sadly, our typical level of interaction with other SEO firms involves having our proposals snagged (non-disclosure agreement, how you mock me!), reminding them that using our website copy verbatim is frowned upon, and pretending we don't know it's them when they call, disguised as prospective clients wanting to find out more about our pricing and services. So it's a breath of fresh air when an industry colleague sends some strings-unattached courtesy our way.

Months ago, as we had just begun road-testing the Speedwagon, an alert Giovanni Gallucci (then of Zunch) found me, to progress the tortured metaphor, asleep at the wheel. With only a few posts on the odometer, I had not yet even gotten around to registering seospeedwagon.com. Giovanni noticed this and snapped it up quickly to keep it from falling into the wrong hands (that is, anyone but us). We recently completed the domain transfer, and we extend a sincere thanks to him.

You might know that Zunch and several members of its management team (including Giovanni) recently parted ways, with the latter group starting an SEM and online presence management firm called Kinetic Results; we wish both parties the best of luck going forward.

Posted by erik at 01:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 09, 2005

Repeat After Me: Local is Small and Small is Local

We hear it almost every Month: surely, I tell you, next Month will be the birth of the biggest thing we have ever seen in paid search: LOCAL!

And if not next, then surely the Month after that!

And yet, just as we hear it each Month we also come across shortly thereafter an item like today's from Online Media Daily:

"Two-thirds of small businesses are confused about online marketing," said panelist Greg Sterling, an analyst with the Kelsey Group. "Nobody is advising small and medium businesses how to get in front of the online consumer. Consumer adoption of the Internet... has been far greater than corresponding use of online marketing by small business."

There really is no mystery here. Local is small business and small business is primarily local, and therein lies the current adaptation problem. Many of these companies have as their only budgeted marketing item an annual ad in the (local) yellow pages. They've not only been doing it that way since the birth of their business but also cannot afford any external marketing on top of that.

Local will become truly LOCAL! in the online world of advertising when the physical yellow pages no longer work, which will be right about the time when the last man performs the last search in the last physical (local) yellow page book for a given industry in a given locality. Then a Month or two later companies in the given industry in that given locality, their phones having stopped ringing, will supplant yellow page advertising with LOCAL! paid search.

Can you imagine the articles we will see then?

Posted by john at 06:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 08, 2005

Google Search Appliance: A License to Forget Intranet Usability?

Google is clearly interested in increasing its presence in internal search, now offering a free Google Mini to any company replacing its current enterprise search system with a Google Search Appliance (GSA).

Google's offer uses a couple case studies to show how effective Google internal search tools can be for the enterprise. One claims that user complaints were reduced by about 95%. That's clearly a good thing. The other case study notes that employee searches "increase[d] by 8-10x" over their previous numbers.

If an increase of internal searches mirrors an overall increase of intranet usage, that's good. But if searches increase while the user base remains static, I'm not so sure.

If we can assume that the rise of popularity of Google (now I'm talking about web search, not enterprise search) implies a certain chaos to the web in general, what does a ten-fold increase in internal searches say about the usability of your intranet as a whole?

Enterprise search solutions are critical for keeping employees productive and informed. But if your intranet ignores several other key usability aspects (such as navigation, file-naming, and content formats) and encourages employees to run right for the search box, the overall productivity increase likely isn't as high as it could be.

One final question*: If a company has already purchased a Google Search Appliance, what is it going to do with a Google Mini? Personally, I'd rather Google reduce the price of the GSA by the price of the Mini - which would represent a 10% discount off the GSA's $30,000 price tag.

* It's rhetorical. I'm sure some of you could find plenty to do with a Mini, but if you already had the Appliance, would you need the Mini?

Posted by erik at 11:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 07, 2005

Yahoo or Yahwho?

In my research for last week's post, as well as this week's post, I have been struck by how much of a "business" the search engines really are. Oh they try and put a different face on things, but in reality they are clawing and scratching for market share just like the search results for Britney Spears. Why? Because of money and power, but I'll save that for another post.

I steered away from digging into numbers in last weeks post and will follow suit this week. Numbers, surprisingly as it may seem, can show an awful lot about what anyone cares about, whether it's a person or a company. (What would your spending reveal about you…) But for the sake of time and not wanting to bore myself as well as you the reader, I'll focus on information, not necessarily numbers.

I came across an excellent article from James Fallows in the New York Times about Yahoo and where they are going as a company. They mentioned several ways in which they are different from their main competitor, Google, and ways that they want to leverage their strengths to remain strong in their industry.

Yahoo seems to be focusing in on becoming small-minded. What I mean by this is they see the online future as smaller social networks where friends share reviews, advice, etc. This is a logical step for them as they have a great stronghold in user groups, forums, shopping, etc. Their "portal" approach has won millions of fans and thus ensuring that Yahoo will never become Yahwho?

Now for some numbers, sort of. Yahoo was one of the few companies to survive the dot-com bubble bursting. Looking at their historical stock chart is almost like looking at a histogram of the dot.com era. Currently, Yahoo's stock price ($37.65) is a tenth of Google's ($394.80). Does this mean anything significant; your guess is as good as mine. Suffice to say that investors love innovation and until Yahoo starts beating Google to the punch on innovative add-ons that attract new users (as opposed to further hooking the existing ones) the price difference will probably be significant.

In conclusion I am becoming more and more convinced that just as we've had "The Big Three" auto companies in the past, we're moving towards an awareness of a similar convergence in the search market. I guess it will be up to us to determine what bells and whistles we want with our search that will determine whom we favor.

Posted by brent at 11:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 04, 2005

Content Management Systems and SEO

Are you considering a Content Management System (CMS) for your site?

I've seen many Content Management Systems in my day. The main purpose of a CMS is so that site owners can make changes to the content of their web pages without having to ask their Webmaster to program the changes. You log in, find the page you want to change, make the changes to text on your page, log out, and your changes are live.

One important thing to understand: There's a reason it's called a "content" management system. It's focus is on the content of your site, not the code.

If you're considering a CMS for your site, from an SEO perspective, there are two important questions to ask:

1. How can I change my title tags and meta tags (code)?

If a client is considering a move to CMS, we've learned to ask right away how title tags and meta tags will be changed on the site. And we've heard more than once, "Oh, you can't change those." Ouch.

Make sure while gaining flexibility to change text on your pages that you're not giving up the ability to make changes to your titles and metas.

2. What will my URLs look like?

A CMS can be paired with wildly dynamic URLs that search engines have difficulty crawling and indexing. Make sure that the CMS produces search-engine-friendly URLs.

Know of an SEO-friendly CMS? I welcome your comments below.

Posted by doug at 02:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 03, 2005

Google Dance Invitation Proves Fickle

SEO Speedwagon could have taken the Nicolas Cage route, but why deny the pride we feel for the name bestowed upon us. Like the pine trees lining the winding road, we’ve got a name. We’ve got a name that opened doors for us, but at some point we proved ourselves worthy of entry. Didn’t we?

Google invites us to the dance but still gives us a hard time at the door. No matter how many times Google see us, it still wants to see ID. Lately we have been wondering at what point will the bouncer simply recognize us? How many pages indexed, how many links, and how many relevant search results will it take for Google to believe that people are searching for our Wagon?

I guess we shouldn't feel too sorry for ourselves. As one Initech employee would be quick to point out, at least our name isn’t Michael Bolton.

Posted by tom at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 02, 2005

Even more PPP (Pay Per Call) companies

In previous post a few weeks back, I discussed pay per call service providers Ingenio, eStara, & VoiceStar. Now its time to shed light on a few other players I've come across over the past few weeks.

thinkingVOICE - I first became aware of this company when the CEO, DC Cullinane, commented on my last "pay per call companies" post letting me know they're right up there with the Ingenios and VoiceStars of the world. ThinkingVOICE offers a ppp service called CallActivator that provides live voice call back on demand and can be applied to just about any form of online marketing activity.

CallSource - Founded in 1994, CallSource appears to be one of the older and possibly more seasoned companies in the pay per call market. Headquartered in Southern California, CallSource offers call tracking and reporting technologies along with performance analysis services, call center services, and training programs for increasing employee phone skills.

Jambo - Heres a company that just inked a deal with InfoSpace to be the ppp provider for the InfoSpace network of properties that also includes mobile applications. Jambo, which in swahili means "hello", was founded by the same guy that founded CallSource, John Melideo. Like several other pay per call service providers, Jambo offers ppp service with real time reporting and has offerings for any business with a telephone.

There is a heck of a lot more detail for all three of these companies as well as the previous three companies I discussed a few weeks back. I encourage any and all able marketing professionals to take a look at any of the six pay per call providers I've discussed in my posts. You won't be disappointed.

Posted by sean at 09:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yahoo Announces Algo Update

Tim Mayer at Yahoo announced a new weather report late last night:

We will be making changes to the ranking of our index tonight. I would expect that this update will be mild and quick compared to recent ones but will impact the ranking of some sites.

So keep an eye on your Yahoo SERPs.

As an aside, we applaud the glasnost of the Weather Report concept, as pioneered by Yahoo. Google obviously agrees, since Matt Cutts has also been very good lately at mapping out the rollouts of Google algo updates. It appears the major engines have decided (rightly) that announcing updates ahead of time helps webmaster relations and PR (public relations, silly) far more than it compromises any sort of corporate secrecy.

Posted by erik at 06:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 01, 2005

DMOZ: Hard to Get Into, Harder to Escape

So you think it's hard to get your site into the Open Directory Project (DMOZ)? Try getting it OUT.

ABAKUS Internet Marketing Blog posted this morning about one man's efforts to have his site removed from DMOZ.

As I've written about before, Google sometimes experiments with its user interface by pulling title and description data from a site's entry in DMOZ. Site owners themselves frequently dislike this phenomenon, because it gives them little or no control over how sites appear on a Google results page. The case found by ABAKUS is no different. In the Resource Zone thread it cites, a site owner asks for removal from the directory because

• Google is pulling his DMOZ data for its results pages, and
  
• That data, apparently created by a DMOZ editor, was a poor (if not inaccurate) description of his site, and he claims it was causing him to lose business.

If you follow these topics closely, this thread is a classic - a perfect illustration of why site owners and DMOZ editors have few positive words for each other. While the situation seemed to resolve itself rather peacefully, the original question - why, upon request of a site owner, a site cannot (or will not) be removed from DMOZ - is never really answered, other than it's simply not their policy.

Posted by erik at 03:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack