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February 28, 2006
Bo Doesn’t Know SEO
The Three Things All Web Developers Need To Understand About Building A Web Site
If you’ve been following my blog posts, by now you can tell that I enjoy blending things in my life with how I view the SEO world. How else would a hot dog derby, an airport amnesty bin, a classic Dr. Seuss story, and a Peter Gabriel tune remind me of SEO?
This week, for my wife’s new decorating business, her graphic artist and web developer launched a beautiful web site with all its Services pages as pop-ups and all the Service description text in framesets.
If you know SEO, you likely just said, “Ouch!�
If you don’t know SEO, that sentence likely brought no reaction.
Pop-ups and frames are perhaps the two top “No No’s� in search engine friendly design. Besides pop-ups being blocked in most browsers these days, the search engine spider rarely finds them and if it does, it most often runs smack dab into a dead end. Frames still make a lot of sense as a design methodology for certain sites, but frames make it next to impossible for others to link to important content on your site. In most cases, search engines can’t see past the page where the framesets are coded.
The prime pages for optimization on her site are, you guessed it, the Services pages, therefore, the site can’t be optimized.
I had a very nice conversation with her graphic artist and web developer before the site was created. We talked about search engine friendly design and I was very comfortable with their understanding of the search engine spider hurdles and roadblocks to avoid.
Web developers and graphic artists are used to being paid based on how something looks and works. Granted, those are two very important things. We do a lot of work with Shari Thurow at Grantastic Designs because she understands there are not two, but three things that all graphic artists and web developers need to understand about building a web site:
Creativity – how the site looks
Usability – how the site functions
Visibility – how the site is seen by search engines
If you are about to dive into building a web site for your business, ask your developer about these three things and make sure each is given an equal amount of consideration in your project.
Make sure Bo really knows SEO.
Posted by doug at 5:25 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
February 27, 2006
Barry Diller Puts His Ask on the Line
Today, Barry Diller gave the keynote address at Search Engine Strategies, which coincided with a new look for Ask.com. The butler's gone, replaced with a toolbox. (Perhaps if he'd had the foresight to unionize...)
The toolbox is a nice way to show the various search capabilities of Ask. As for usability, it's so-so, but better than some. For example (and this applies to every engine), I never know whether I'm supposed to enter my query terms in the main search box then click the correct tab/tool, or whether I'm supposed to click the tab/tool first, then enter the query. I have a niggardly attitude toward unnecessary clicks and keystrokes, so I wish it were more clear. It's frustrating to type a query, click a tab, then have the engine transfer you to the correct search "area" but lose your query terms.
But that pettiness aside, the tools are nice. Clicking various tools brings up unique search parameter fields, such as the unit conversion tool, shown in the next image. (Careful - the Bloglines button doesn't help you search Bloglines; it takes you to the site.)
Who should be afraid of a successful, new Ask.com? Not Google or Yahoo. MSN and AOL have the most to lose if Ask becomes a huge hit, mostly because they're in the same general tier of market share. Losing 2% of the global market share hurts quite a bit more when you have only 5-10% of it in the first place.
But AOL and MSN both have the "portal" advantage - people start and end their days there, checking email, reading news, and so on. So even if it's a better search experience, Ask will need something extra to pull new users over and keep them.
Despite its relatively small market share, Ask is a profitable business unit led by a pretty disciplined management team. It currently enjoys a nice mix, flying under the radar of consumer and governmental scrutiny, but still making serious money. Time will tell if Diller and the Ask will happily trade more of one for more of the other.
Posted by erik at 11:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 24, 2006
Cool Web Tools: Writely Online Word Processing
I was tipped off several months ago that there was a neat new product in beta testing that could prove very useful in my virtual work world. Always being one who is game to try a new product out, especially for free, I was on the Writely website in a matter of minutes to check out the new product.
While not new in concept, an online, collaborative word processor is something that would be very useful assuming that it 1) worked well, and 2) stayed around longer than some recent TV shows ala, Love Monkey, which in my opinion was a great new show. Anyway, I decided to try Writely and can tell you that I have fallen in love with it. It’s easy to use, has lot’s of features, and most importantly, is still around.
I’ve been able to use it in various ways to keep “on the same page� quite literally with co-workers, and clients. Nothing is ever perfect, and Writely does have room for improvement, but it’s good features and benefits far outweigh it’s shortcomings.
Overall, I’d give it a thumbs up and recommend that you try it out.
Posted by brent at 4:02 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
February 23, 2006
Join Bode Miller in a Temporary Relocation
Much like his ability to dominate Alpine Skiing, Bode’s website has been temporarily redirected. Bode may prompt you to join him at www.joinbode.com, but this is not where you will find him.
Although it is not the intention of the 302, big brands use it to combine catchy-name appeal with trusted-site value.
Google shows an attractive first result for [Join Bode] with “join bode� throughout, and because Google believes the redirection is temporary, it shows the Join Bode domain name. Click on the result and you are taken to a page at Nike boasting a Nike-like PageRank.
Now Nike could not have predicted Bode’s performance -- of course, that did not stop them from signing him, designing his site, shooting his commercials, and airing them – but let’s pretend that Bode Miller’s Torino performance was good enough to garner more than 40 searches per day for [Join Bode]. Nike and Bode would still just have one good result for one keyword phrase, and way too much room for stolen traffic. If they used the actual Join Bode domain then discussed and linked to it at Nike, they could have had the top 4 results for [Join Bode], and much better results for other Bode searches. Instead, they have a no link presence and no Nike mention. If you think flashing a web address constitutes search engine marketing, see Erik’s post about domain deafness.
If Nike did not want to concern themselves with search results, they should have hidden them like NBC does for [Bode Miller], which grabs 1400 searches per day. The second result is only slightly visible above the fold because the first result has no description.
Fortunately for Nike, all will blame Join Bode’s sub-par performance on Bode.
Posted by tom at 1:50 PM | Comments (23) | TrackBack
February 22, 2006
Revisiting 404 Error Pages That Show 200 Codes
We just keep running into clients whose error pages return incorrect (either 200 or 302-then-200) header codes. Because Google Sitemaps won't let you validate a sitemap file if your server is misconfigured, I thought it was worth another mention.
Johannes Meuller has an excellent article about making sure that your error pages return the correct codes. Unlike a lot of articles in the genre, it gives specific code to fix the situation, covering Windows ASP and Apache servers as well as PHP pages.
As I pointed out here, there are reasons beyond Google Sitemaps for making sure your error page(s) return the correct 404 error code.
If you're in doubt about your error page header codes, test it by plugging in a "fake" URL from your site (such as www.domain.com/xxxxxxx) into a header checker tool. Rex Swain has one of the best. Don't let looks deceive you. Plenty of custom error pages LOOK like they're 404 pages (with all the requisite "File not found" terminology), but they're still throwing bad header codes.
Meuller, the article of the article above, is also the author of a terrific program that generates XML files for use as Google Sitemaps.
Posted by erik at 11:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 21, 2006
Truth and Consequences in Spam Reporting
When it comes to spam reporting, I'm like the annoying art student cliché: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.
Last week, I was doing a manual check for a pretty competitive phrase, for which my client has worked its way up to anywhere from the third to the fifth spot at Google. I noticed a site I'd never seen before, sitting in the top three. The description looked valid, but the URL was a red flag - a .cz (Czech) country code. The Czech Republic represents a strong, beautiful people, but let's just say that it's not particularly known for the query terms I typed.
I clicked through the link, and after a bit of address dancing, my browser settled down at a URL whose very name proclaimed its expertise in "meds." There, the left column treated me to numerous options for curing what ailed me, from Levitra to Viagra to Lipitor and Phentermine. The right column offered me ads relating to my original query, scraped from several third-tier PPC engines.
But this wasn't what Google saw. I went back to the original Google SERP, disabled JavaScript (thanks PrefBar), and clicked the result again. Now I saw it. A plain vanilla page of about 1000 words, about 530 of which were terms from my two-word query. That's what Google saw, and that's what made the page rank in the top three.
I hate scrapers. They're the shifty kids who leach onto smart kids and copy their homework right before class starts. The thing about scrapers is, the searcher almost never ends up seeing content that she's searching for. To me, that's the line in the sand. Hyper-aggressive SEO - whether it's IP-based cloaking, JavaScript doorways, or old-school keyword stuffing - is something I generally don't report - as long as the query intent is eventually satisfied with real content. (And I don't even report scrapers unless they're beating a client, because I don't have the time.)
Some SEOs would criticize me for reporting any sites at all. Some would criticize me for my lax attitude and not reporting enough. NPR's Daniel Schorr says that when you anger people evenly on both sides of the issue, you're probably on the right track.
I reported the site within a couple hours of finding it. A few days after I made the spam report, the Czech domain had disappeared, receding into the cold Prague night. I would love to take full credit for its exit, but I can't. I'll never know whether it was my reporting, or if Google's algorithm caught the site on its own.
Posted by erik at 11:27 PM | Comments (26) | TrackBack
February 20, 2006
At the Intersection of Language and Creativity is Search
The Superbowl having come and gone, and in its wake the shards of the TV ad bombs having exploded, falling now listlessly back to earth, we earthlings interested in the media mix might ask ourselves why we didn't hear the report we always expect: a sonic boom. It certainly wasn't because no one was watching.
Perhaps there is something of a language barrier at play. Marc Babej tackles the problem well in Being Reasonable: A Creative Roundtable:
What do we get for all this "creativity"? We get metaphors without meaning: Financial services company Wachovia gives us "Uncommon Wisdom" but fails to tell us why we should choose it over the competition. We get sentiment without sell: Coca-Cola welcomes us "to the Coke side of life." And we get cutesiness without content: VW touts the Beetle as a "Force of Good." Much of what passes for creativity these days has become untethered from promoting actual products. The more untethered, it seems, the more "creative."
Or, as my Dad always manages to put it pithily at the conclusion of each such commercial, turning to all in the room- "What the hell were they trying to sell?" What the hell, indeed. Striking, too, in that as Search becomes more tethered to the actual language we earthlings use in pursuit of actual products, down to the exact phrasings--a moveable feast of consumer intelligence--TV ads manage to move away, rather, straying further and further from reality.
I call on Robert Murray to provide the hook here:
...traditional agencies should love search marketing because it can actually help them advise their other forms of media buys. That's right, search is not only an effective and efficient medium for their clients in its own right, but it is also an important tool for agencies because it provides insight about their clients' customers. Specifically, search behavior reveals how a client's customer thinks and how he/she uses language in his/her thought process.
Returning to Babej, were we to search for [Uncommon Wisdom], [the Coke side of life], or [Force of Good], respectively, we would find nary a Wachovia or Coke product in the natural or paid results and only the Beetle integrated enough to prepare a site beforehand that would connect the messages in the mediums. Clearly all three megabrands wish these to be the sentiments consumers carry to their products- yet at least two major agencies were asleep at the wheel in tethering them to the reality of Search.
I suspect they remembered to cash the checks, however.
Posted by john at 5:09 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 17, 2006
Yahoo! site index count
This is a recent discovery of mine, but perhaps not new to some of my co-workers and peers. I just recently noticed that Yahoo! now allows for webmasters to check their total page index count @ Yahoo! with the same operators that have always worked at MSN & Google: [site:www.yahoo.com]. It used to be that in order for anyone to check Yahoo!, they had to search by [domain:www.yahoo.com]. Yahoo!'s old way still works, but I like the fact they have followed the same advanced search functionality as MSN and Google. It certainly makes for checking total pages indexed at the search engines simple for all of the "Big 3".
The way to check Link Popularity @ Yahoo! still remains the same however. One still needs to check link popularity @ Yahoo! by doing the search [linkdomain:www.yahoo.com]. Perhaps at some point soon, Yahoo! will transition this advanced search functionality for checking link juice to the way MSN and Google do it: [link:www.yahoo.com]. Time will tell.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Posted by sean at 4:34 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
February 16, 2006
Atop Brokeback Mountain
If you need help inserting a joke here, . . .
I must admit that I devised the linking structure for IMDb (that should be read as “I have absolutely nothing to do with IMDb, but I love the site�). The site is incredibly helpful to its visitors in terms of quickly tracking down important (some people might read that as “trivial�) information about your favorite movies, and its linking structure is more than helpful when it comes to ranking well in search engines.
It is no surprise who is atop [Brokeback Mountain], a phrase currently searched for more than 27,000 times per day. IMDb adds movies to its database as quickly as possible, and thereafter generates internal links from all involved parties ranging from star to assistant dialect coach. Each link -about 200 for Brokeback, which is not a large budget movie by an means- includes the movie name in its text and comes from a page filled with unique content. If that were not enough, other features like Movie News, Now Playing, and Awards keep the content and internal links coming.
2 Thoughts in closing:
Your internal linking structure has the power to propel your Link Building campaign.and
IMDb, I'll never quit you!
Posted by tom at 2:42 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
February 15, 2006
An Open Letter to Search Engines
Dear Search Engines,
Here's a word for you: Relevance. I know you have it. And I know you know people want it. But here's some difficult news. They're not getting it, because you're making it too hard for them.
I know, I know. You're trying to get the word out. You have "advanced search" pages. You have APIs. You have tabbed searches for tiered results. You have these and a ton of other features that NO ONE USES, because despite more-or-less-accurate fantasies about how important you are to the world, you refuse to understand that people, while not exactly stupid, aren't exactly as "search literate" as you need them to be.
What's that, Google? You say you're getting the word out in the world's 8th most popular blog? I'm sorry, I guess I had trouble hearing that over the din of NO ONE KNOWING WHAT A BLOG IS. That's like saying your brand of calculator is the most popular among Hyperbolic Topology Ph.D. candidates. Woohoo!
Part of this isn't your fault; it's ours. We fill your comments and trackback sections. We write article after article about search engines. We spend days telling you what we think about preferential treatment of subdomains, or the mishandling of 302s, or how to measure effectiveness of site-wide links, and you start to believe that we represent a significant portion of potential users (we don't). Even the dreaded MSM is jumping in - a sure sign of the social dissemination of your technology, right? You can't even wend your way to the Times Op/Ed section without seeing half a dozen articles about how cool search is. But don't be misled: Most of these articles are mind-numbingly shallow, and they're mostly read by people who know thrice as much as the authors themselves. Not a lot of additional reach there, unfortunately.
Here's the bottom line. The most popular searches in your very own search boxes are actual URLs. Did you hear that? PEOPLE SEARCH FOR URLs IN YOUR SEARCH FIELDS SO THEY CAN SEE THEM IN YOUR SERPs AND THEN CLICK ON THEM. Does this sound like a group of people who are looking for a way to restrict search results to a specific TLD or find out how much they weigh in a popular British/Irish format? (By the way, would you call that "13 stone 8"?)
Search engines, here is the brutal reality: you're trying to get your message out in a world where 17% of HDTV owners mistakenly believe they're watching a high-def broadcast simply because they own a high-definition television. What's the moral here? YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS STUFF TOO SIMPLE FOR PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND.
- Spend less time posting to your official blogs and more time putting your message on tray liners at fast-food restaurants.
- Spend less time speaking at tech conferences and more time buying a few TV spots to showcase your features. (When people see something on TV, they want to try it. When they see a tiny link to it pulling them away from a comfortable place, they don't. Pontiac should not understand this more than you do, but it does.
- Spend less time catering to corrupt governments and more time creating ad inserts for Sports Illustrated or Parenting or Marie Claire or whatever publications target the users who aren't fully exploiting your capabilities. Trust me, that's just about all of them.
Your employees have spent a lot of their time creating some very cool search features. It's time that some of them spent their hours thinking of innovative ways to educate searchers. And remember, counter to your intuition, "innovative" means "less technical." Users who know how to use search engines correctly better understand engines' potential for solving problems and are even more likely to associate specific engines with relevant results. And the managerial subset of that group will really understand how important it is to have a viable search engine presence. When that happens, everybody wins.
Posted by erik at 11:22 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
February 14, 2006
Search Engine Spam Amnesty Bins
I was in the security checkpoint line at the Cleveland airport last week when I noticed an amnesty bin about half way through the line.
Am I the only one on the planet that hadn't seen these before? These containers were actually introduced in 1993 as a way for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to encourage overseas travelers to dump undeclared plants and exotic living things forbidden from entering the states.
For the last 12 years, amnesty bins have been used to dump everything from dirty diapers to drugs to python snakes.
Believe it or not, people have even used amnesty bins to relieve themselves. Wow, that must have been a very long line!
Coming soon to an amnesty bin near you, additional verbiage: “Please do not pee in our amnesty bin.�
Apparently they have evolved into more than just amnesty from forbidden plants and such. In 2006, an amnesty bin can now forgive the transgression of knives, guns, scissors, and other weaponry like the dreaded fingernail clippers. And the bins are clearly marked that if you drop your stash, there will be no fine or prosecution. Sounds like a good deal doesn’t it?
What does this have to do with SEO you ask?
I hereby propose that search engines introduce amnesty bins for search engine spammers and companies that have unknowingly hired a company that used spam techniques on their site. Across the front of the Search Engine Spammer Amnesty Bin would be: “Confess Spam. Dump Spam. Avoid Search Engine Delays and Penalties.�
“Attention all search engine spammers and unknowing passengers, for your convenience, amnesty bins are located at the nearest security checkpoint.�
I think we all know that for the most part, search engine spammers themselves would not use this amnesty bin (except maybe to relieve themselves). They’re spamming and they know it and most would laugh at the idea of search engine amnesty. However, it’s the companies mentioned above that I feel deserve the right, at least one time, to ditch their prohibited spam, no questions asked, say a few “Hail Googles� and be forgiven of their sins.
Do I hear an Amen?
Posted by doug at 5:44 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 13, 2006
Are You Strong Enough to Buy My Media?
Taking aim, unlike Cheney, Bart Feder sprays his target with the type of gunshot that stings even after one bids adeiu to the ICU- the bitter, acerbic report obtained when one points one's barrel at the white elephant crossing from old media to new, squeezing the trigger:
...Bart Feder of FeedRoom was openly disdainful of the "big fat lies" that network TV media planners and buyers rely on--that is, Nielsen ratings. "They're lies, and what's more, everyone knows they're lies," Feder opined.Later, he dismissed skepticism about the Internet as cultural inertia: "There might be doubt that someone is actually looking at an ad online--that you don't know anything for sure. But they haven't known anything forever! Are you telling me the Nielsen numbers are more trustworthy than click-throughs and so on? I don't think so."
Ah, the Nielsens. Those 5,100 households strong that define what stays and what goes nationally- the arbiters of the least common denominator of popular culture, if you will. And how many, you may ask, arbit what stays and what goes in a major city like NYC, for example, whose greater metropolitan area houses 22 million people? 500. Even more depressing, from a truth in tracking standpoint, is that the 56 markets that are metered thusly leave out 30.34% of the country.
This is at the heart of the chasm between old media and new. Lie to me- I promise, I’ll believe is a refrain that has enabled such hassle-free media buying in the old world that the prospect of the meta-tracking convergence will bring scares the household shares out of the old guard.
Advertisers, likely, want the truth. You know that if you are in SEM, down to the most infinitesimal set of click-throughs. But old media, like Col. Jessep, will protect them from it as long as they patrol the wall between online and off.
Posted by john at 10:26 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
February 10, 2006
Crisp, Clean, and no Caffeine
I wrote an article two weeks ago on the eve of the much-anticipated release of Google’s fourth quarter earnings. I must say that I have been amazed, but not surprised, at the reaction of Wall Street.
Ok, so you’re wondering what in the world the title has to do with Wall Street. Well, if you’re old enough to remember the 7up commercials from, shall we say, many years ago this was their catch phrase. One that rings true in light of this discussion.
As probably everyone is aware Google’s earnings were not quite what Wall Street expected. By looking at Wall Street’s reaction one would think that Google’s servers had been compromised by Bush’s wiretapping. In reality how can one be upset with earnings that represent a 22 % increase over the prior quarter, and an 86 % increase over the previous year’s same quarter earnings? But, you see, I said the magic word……reality. We can never forget that Wall Street is built on perception, not reality. Now I’m not saying that the self-corrective nature of the markets are not good, they just should not be viewed as perfect.
I must say that I find Google’s refusal to disclose earnings predictions quite refreshing. Google is doing what more companies should do, and that is be more concerned about fulfilling their mission, than about fulfilling their shareholders. If you’re curious about just trying to fulfill shareholders look no further than the recent scandals.
So Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc., continue to strive to produce a good product, not please Wall Street. If you are always striving for a better product, then your customers and Wall Street will be pleased. Actually, you’ll probably be heralded as a “revolutionary� company who put first things first.
Isn’t it crazy how simple things can really be. Just do a good job, the rest will take care of itself.
Posted by brent at 4:01 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack
February 9, 2006
Are you looking for Good Morning America or GMA?
Both my readers know that Google sends traffic when The Gonetwork is pulling the strings, but what happens when the puppet decides to leave the traffic and take the cannoli? That story today on the Wagon!
Fittingly, Good Morning America owns the first two results for [Good Morning America], but I doubt these results are enough to wet the The Gonetwork’s beak.
The second result essentially has no information due to an unfortunate redirect. The first discusses “GMA,� which Google has decided is similar to “Good Morning America.� Neither result actually says anything about “Good Morning America.� That distinction, along with traffic, is conceded to the third result.
In fact, it’s hard to find “Good Morning America� anywhere on the Good Morning America main page (that Google can notice). It is not in the title or description. It appears once in the text and twice in the keywords. Conversely, “GMA� appears once in the title, once in the description, and nine times in the text.
To gain a better understanding of the "GMA" Strategery, we asked Wordtracker if people are searching for [Good Morning America] or [GMA]. Below are the top 5 searches per day involving these keywords:
Phrase...........Predicted Daily Traffic
good morning america.............4409
abc good morning america..........590
good morning america recipes.....209
gma...................................479
gma recipes...........................90
WCHS TV is pulling as much of the 4409 daily searches as possible for [Good Morning America] and owns the best result for [Good Morning America recipes] and [GMA recipes], while Good Morning America fights tooth and nail for the 479 daily searches associated with [GMA]. Perhaps they just don’t have a wartime consigliere.
****SPEEDWAGON UPDATE: A representative of the Gonetwork has delivered the following message to Good Morning America:
“The Gonetwork says that if you can’t take care of this, I have to.�
This might be completely unrelated, but my favorite horse is also missing. Hopefully, he'll show up by tomorrow morning!
Posted by tom at 2:21 PM | Comments (25) | TrackBack
February 7, 2006
Ode to a German Auto
A stable grows, but not all steeds the same
They know my new, but no one knows my used
My jockeys came to me to boldly claim
Disable JavaScript and be amused
Yet viewed through lenssen (not of rosy hue)
My stable's fate rests in the whim of Man
Depends which country code you're looking through
My doors are lock'd because of irksome ban
But when the sun sets here it calls to thee
My stallions' lovers will demand their say
And hit the track to once again run free
When new moon's passing seems like just a day
I tremble when I find myself between
Gott und Die entscheidende Suchmaschine
Posted by erik at 11:25 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 6, 2006
The Ineluctable Organic Moment
Gord Hotchkiss, along with having a really cool name, recently and brilliantly captured in words what has heretofore remained known but unspoken in our odd little industry: the genesis of organic interest within a company, or what we'll coin The Ineluctable Organic Moment:
Here's the typical scenario: marketing has been convinced to try sponsored search. They're generally happy with the results, but then they read an article or attend a conference where someone (and I happen to be a prime culprit) tells them that 70 percent of the clicks actually happen in the organic results. "Wait a minute," they say. "I'm spending $4.28 a click and I could get more traffic with a free listing?" They immediately run to the nearest computer and see how they rank for the terms they're currently buying. Nothing on the first page, or the second, or the third. Ah, there they are! Number 48 for their term--stuck in no-man's land.
I quote at length but for me it was a Popean what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed epiphany. Moreover, an adverb used expertly but almost to extremity by Al Gore in a recent speech and one which I will attempt to employ for the first time in a published fashion at risk of dangling a modifier, it hearkened me back to what I believe was the first public sharing of The Ineluctable Organic Moment, although again, ne'er so well expressed as Gord's accomplishment and, certainly, as yet unlabeled.
The Scene was Auditing Paid Listings at SES Chicago 2003, and going off-topic we began to approach this elusive, unnamed entity. Danny Sullivan, being Danny Sullivan, pursued it as a subject to be pursued and was able to coax out the 85% number that became part of SEO Mythos for a good while.
Whether we have fallen since to the 70% quoted above or none of us knew what we were talking about at the time remains open to discovery, yet it is still quite a tilt in the favor of Organic. And quite a moment, ineluctable.
Posted by john at 9:07 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
February 3, 2006
Super Bowl Sunday!
I have a feeling there are a LOT of folks out there who are technically in the office today, but not quite mentally in the game. It is in fact the weekend and the Super Bowl is on point for this Sunday in Detroit. Being a Browns fan myself, I'm not totally pumped about the Super Bowl but can't help but be excited about the game and more so about the commercials.
Remember last years Super Bowl when the first GoDaddy.com commercial aired when a lady in a courtroom setting spoofed the unforgettable Janet Jackson breast mishap that took place in the halftime show of SB 38? The FCC may not have been very pleased with either occurrence, but GoDaddy certainly was. Not only did GoDaddy get flooded with direct URL traffic and TONS of brand exposure, but they got pounded with search engine traffic to boot.
I'm totally pumped to see what GoDaddy has in store for us this Sunday and can't wait to check their SE searches go through the roof!!
Oh yeah, I'm rootin' for the Seahawks! Sorry Steelers fans, your team has had too many trips to the Bowl and I have to go for the team that hasn't been graced with previous Super Bowl experience.
Maybe one day my beloved Brownies will get their turn to play at the Bowl. But until then, I will continue to listen to my friends and acquaintances whine and moan with the same montra-like statement “we’re rebuilding our team� even though Browns fans have been saying that every year for about 20+ years now.
Go Seahawks!
Posted by sean at 11:26 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
February 2, 2006
Way More Google Results for ABC
We have come to expect more Google results for the biggies, and ABC is certainly a biggie. But just how many more Google results is ABC getting? That story today on the Wagon!
A search for [ABC] leads to ABC with additional links to ABC's best from the news, drama, sports, and kids sectors. Google covers any other bases by linking to more results from ABC.
And a search for [ABC News] leads to ABC News with additional links to the network, the local affiliate, and Good Morning America. And just in case, Google still offers more results from ABC News. 
Searching for [7 Online] leads to this local affiliate with additional links to ESPN, ABC News, Movies.com, and ABC. And yada yada yada, more Google results. . .
When [ESPN] pops up, it starts to become obvious that the Go Network is pulling the strings.
I would continue the investigation, but someday, and that day may never come, I might need to call upon the Go Network for a favor.
Until then, I will simply end with a word from our sponsor.. . .
Posted by tom at 12:55 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Shedding the SEO's Technicolor Leisure Suit
I was kicking off a campaign a few weeks ago with a conference call. Along with the client was the client's new web dev/hosting vendor, and the three of us had a great call. We prioritized the issues we wanted to cover and discussed potential obstacles and set up a list of tasks to tackle first in the campaign.
At the end of the call, the web dev consultant said, "Well, I have to admit I'm impressed. When I heard there was an 'SEO' on board, I assumed you'd recommend joining a few link farms and leave it at that."
Et tu, Coder? I think it's a shame when all it takes to impress someone is not being an idiot. Where had he gotten that impression of SEO?
So then I was reading through Todd Malicoat's great post about the relative lack of unity within SEO/SEM, and I can tell he's had similar experiences:
Most SEM’s dread when people ask them what they do. It is difficult to explain. Web design, technology, marketing. We rank people high in search engines. ... I don’t, however, want to be associated with e-mail spammers, search engine submitters, or people who sell overpriced meta-tag optimization. I like small business owners much more than I like these folks, and our reputation with them is important. 90% of this industry is great, and I’d like to see it represented that way. We’re really not shady, worthless criminals.
Pretty much anyone can hang up a shingle and claim to be an SEO. And maybe that's part of the problem. Have you ever received hundreds of emails from offline marketers claiming that they can submit your company details to Time, Newsweek, NYT, and hundreds of other major publications for $199?
Chances are that you haven't, because no one would believe it. Unfortunately, however, the Web is still cryptic enough to many people that comparable claims about web sites are pervasive.
In his article, Todd suggests that a stronger industry association (such as SEMPO) would help legitimize our profession, and he may be right. Traditionally, we've avoided the industry groups because of the SEO's Paradox:
- If you let just anyone in, then affiliation really doesn't mean anything. But on the other hand,
- We don't want to be subject to the rather arbitrary group-consensus approach to rigid definitions of professional SEO.
In nearly seven years, we've never had a prospective client who questioned our lack of "industry affiliation." So clearly, to them, it's not the same as a doctor practicing without a license. But maybe it should be, and maybe it will be in the future. We'll watch and see.
Posted by erik at 7:59 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
February 1, 2006
Dynamic URL Rewriting Done Right
A recent press release announced Biblio.com selecting Intrapromote as their SEO partner.
Biblio.com touts 30 million used books, rare books & out-of-print books. You can imagine the mass quantity of database driven dynamic URLs on a site the size of Biblio.com.
It's no secret that some search engines still stub their indexing toe on dynamic urls, especially wildly dynamic URLs. Invented and originally written in 1996, a URL rewriting program called Mod Rewrite is perhaps the most popular URL rewriting program available today. We've recommended it to hundreds of site owners since our inception in 1999.
Mod Rewrite uses a rule-based rewriting engine to rewrite dynamic URLs on the fly. That may sound fairly simple, but it's not for the technical faint at heart. The good news, however, is the end result which can be the transformation of a dynamic URL into a static URL such as:
http://www.biblio.com/books/64717327.html
Sure beats:
And search engines gobble up that beautifully rewritten URL (insert Pac Man "whacka whacka" sound)! Well done Biblio.com!
For more on Mod Rewrite, we recommend:
Beginner's Guide To Mod Rewrite
Mod Rewrite Forum
Mod Rewrite Original Apache Documentation
Mod Rewrite Tips and Tricks
Posted by doug at 1:24 AM | Comments (845) | TrackBack