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March 31, 2006
SEO Speedwagon Is Headed For The Garage
After a while, race cars need to hit the garage for a tune up to keep them competitive on the race track and the SEO Speedwagon is no exception. Starting this weekend, the good ol' Wagon is hitting the garage for a tune up and lube.
Some of the items being addressed are:
·Enhancements for editing posts.
·Additional Spam-fighting features. (Soooooo needed)
I know y’all are probably thinking “what about the candy apple red paint finish�. Oh well, maybe next time our lovely wagon will get a new paint job, but for now it’s all about what’s under the hood.
Have a great weekend!
Posted by sean at 04:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 30, 2006
Wagon's Final Date With March Madness 2006
After a humbling 2-2 last week, the Wagon has decided to pull the plug on the Texas Update to the March Madness Algorithm. To those who bet the house based on our predictions, we will soon be opening shelters throughout the country.. Already being called the George Mason Update, our most recent dance number is guaranteed to finally get it right! That being said, please gamble at your own risk.
The March Madness Algorithm now takes the number of Yahoo backlinks pointing to the Athletic Department and divides that by student enrollment.
LSU (21,100 links / 30,564 students = .687) loses to UCLA (36,400 links / 38,000 students = .958)
George Mason (201 links / 29,728 students = .007) loses to Florida (73,400 links / 49,693 students = 1.48)
... and then Florida takes the 2006 NCAA National Championship!
This will be the last March Madness post until next season, unless of course we ace the finals, in which case you can expect to see a press release, merchandising, and a low budget film starring C. Thomas Howell.
Posted by tom at 03:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 29, 2006
IDG to Introduce PPC Network
Via Joe Wikert's publishing blog, I saw that IDG is rolling out its own auction-based ad network - TechWords - across a segment of its tech-based sites. This hasn't really been discussed much across search-related sites, probably because its limited size doesn't represent a significant threat to any of the major PPC players.
Still, the tendency of small (but highly respected and highly targeted) site networks to create their own PPC network is worth watching to see if and how quickly it spreads across similar networks.
IDG's is a unique program because the links won't look like traditional PPC ads. Instead, "it's more like a related article link than a sponsored link program." It will be interesting to see IDG try to strike the balance between impressing advertisers with "related story" links and still appease the FTC's strong feelings about "clear and conspicuous" disclosure of advertisements.
Depending on the source of your information, there's some discrepancy about the projected reach of the network. The site itself is vague - just a single page. Last week, at the Business 2.0 blog, Erick Schonfeld reported that IDG's network will bridge 400 web sites. Today, I talked with a VP at Computerworld, who said it's more like five sites, representing about 15,000 page views per month.
My guess is that it's a combination of the two versions - that IDG will roll out the program slowly and open it up to more sites, in more languages, as the kinks are worked out.
The program currently is scheduled to launch on April 24.
Posted by erik at 11:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 28, 2006
Top Rankings and Shania Twain
I'm not really a huge fan of country music. Although, as long as they're doing what they do best (singing), I can stomach some Dixie Chicks tunes. It's impossible for my ears not to appreciate those harmonies. And I have to come clean on temporary Garth Brooks and Randy Travis phases in my early thirties. But let's keep that between us ok?
I had a similar phase with Shania Twain, but with a twist. I haven't heard much of her early work, but I found myself really liking some of the songs on her last few studio albums.
There was something going on that sounded very familiar and surprisingly pleasing. It reminded me of something, but at first I just couldn't put my finger on it. She has a pleasant voice, but there was something else there and the more I listened, the farther away I seemed to get from the answer. It was driving me nuts.
It bothered me so much, that I listened to her last three studio albums over and over again. Slowly, I began to figure it out. I narrowed it down to the backing vocals on several of her songs. I listened to them over and over again and asked myself, who does that sound like and why do I like it so much? It took several weeks of head scratching until I finally figured it out.
I was in my car listening to my beloved '80s channel on XM radio. The Loverboy song "Lovin' Every Minute of It" came on. Let's face it, if you're mid 30s to early 40s, it's nearly impossible not to turn that one up to 10.
During the chorus, a sound that most people think is just Mike Reno's amazing voice, really sounds like about 15 Mike Renos along with his Canadian band mates all singing in a tunnel. It's a very big, layered sound that can only come from fancy knob-turning in the studio.
I immediately thought, "That's the sound! That's why I seem to like Shania Twain, but could never figure out why!"
To make a long story short, that backing vocal sound is the true genius of Shania's husband and producer Mutt Lange. Mutt penned Loverboy's first top ten hit which was, you guessed it, "Lovin' Every Minute of It." This studio technique was even more profitable for him on his work with Def Leppard, most notably on Pyromania and Hysteria. Mutt brought that sound to many of Shania's "harder" songs and many became huge hits for his spouse.
SEO Segue ... (you knew there had to be one...)
Now, when I see a top search engine placement, whether it's one our team has helped achieve for a client, or one that another "Mike The Genius" has helped achieve, I often see Mutt Lange.
Mutt is the SEO person that has worked hard perfecting his or her technique and finding his or her own SEO secret weapons. And in the end, Mutt looks up at the charts and realizes he's finally made it to #1.
Then, it's just a matter of using the secret weapons again to duplicate that success.
Posted by doug at 02:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 27, 2006
SERPS: The Winnower of the 50-Millisecond Judgement
Dorky as far as acronyms go, yet fitting in its ultimate geekiness, SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages for you virgins out there) have always been known to be a winnower of destination based on input intent. What we may not have fully grasped or accounted for, however, is the winnowing that occurs of our ultimate judgment of the destination we choose.
Back in February Gord Hotchkiss, he of the cool name, penned a fascinating look at what he coined the 50-Millisecond Judgement-- the amount of time it takes a site visitor to decide whether or not they like the site they are visiting:
Dr. Gitte Lindgaard and her team undertook a fascinating study at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Their goal: to determine just how long it takes to make a reliable judgment of the visual appeal of a Web site. They found that we can accurately judge visual appeal in just 50 milliseconds, or one twentieth of a second!
Moreover, we even try to persuade ourselves that our blink-of-an-eye judgment is an accurate one:
If we have a positive emotional response in those first few milliseconds, our logical mind will kick in and try to rationalize that response. We will look for positive reasons why it was the right decision, and we will tend to ignore negative factors. If the first impression is not good, the opposite occurs. We look for reasons not to like something, and tend to discount any positives we might find. We want to prove our first impression right.
Now back to SERPS. Doesn't it stand to reason that layered atop this head game we play with ourselves at moment of judgment might also be a hangover from why we chose to go to that site in the first place? If so, then apart from pure position politics, the winnower here would have been the title and description, those twin trusty building blocks of a SERP.
We've long known that split-second judgments on what to click on a SERP are heavily influenced by whether keywords that had been input are sprinkled in the title and description. Combined with the fidings from the above study, having the right keyword combination therein might not only have helped you achieve the relevancy to appear where you did on the SERP at issue in the first place, but also give you a head start in being liked before you are even clicked.
If you can wrap your head around that, you've just made an argument not only for The Long Tail and Keyword Torso but also site-wide, comprehensive optimization of a website. The more pages you have optimized from a site the more critical phrases you have an opportunity to appear for, and along with that, the greater the chance that, owing to the winnowing effect of titles and descriptions, your visitors may have been pre-wired to convince themselves that they like you. They really like you.
Even before they clicked.
Posted by john at 09:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 25, 2006
Considering PPC? Ideas to help your decision
PPC has been all the rage and will continue to be for as long as there is significant dollars involved. When asked what I do I invariably launch into an explanation of what Pay-Per-Click is and how it works. Besides the occasional look of blasé’ I usually find that people are surprised to find that there are actual paid placements on the search engine results pages. Now this comes as shock to me, but I’ve been around it too long so I guess it really shouldn’t.
I also find that a lot of people seem to have the Field of Dreams mentality…..�if I build it, they will come�. They assume that people will come to their site as long as they just put an ad out there. They probably will get some traffic, but not the kind they are hoping will come. Effective PPC campaigns contain more than the highest bid, they also combine quality copy, and effective calls to action.
This trio of ingredients combine to help a PPC campaign reach higher than it can with just a strong bid. Google refers to this as the Multiplier, and Yahoo refers to this as the Click Index score. An important question to ask your PPC manager is how they plan on integrating these key components so that they can work together to maximize the effectiveness of your campaign.
So, considering a PPC campaign? Remember that although the results can be instant, to truly drive the traffic you want, you’ll need to do more than just pay the highest bid.
Posted by brent at 11:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 23, 2006
NCAA March Madness 2006: Sweet 16
The Wagon has not received much feedback on the March Madness Algorithm, which can only mean it is producing relevant results. The only man bold enough to place his Keds in front of the Wagon was Ray Brower, who suggested we base our predictions on links to the athletic department as opposed to the school. Thanks, Ray. We love the idea!
So if you want to win deep in the tournament, you better have some deep links (or a separate site with lots of links). Here goes nothing, and I truly mean nothing.
Tonight's projected NCAA winners based on links pointing to their athletic department:
#4 LSU (257 links) loses to #1 Duke (945 links)
#13 Bradley (109 links) loses to #1 Memphis (591 links)
#6 West Virginia (4,760 links) beats #2 Texas (948 links)
#3 Gonzaga (385 links) loses to #2 UCLA (1290 links)
Posted by tom at 04:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 22, 2006
Technical Book Publishers: A Search Report Card
SEO Speedwagon is launching a series of "Search Report Card" articles that explore the state of search in various verticals. This is the first such article, and it examines how well technical book publishers are utilizing search and user behavior within their sites.
The purpose of this article is to explore, using a representative (but unscientific) sampling of industry-leading publishers' web sites, the level of focus currently being applied to search.
[Some history: I spent about 10 years in technical book publishing, both in-house and as a freelance editor. When I left the industry, search was just warming up, so it's been interesting to apply some current SEO benchmarks to some former-life web sites.]
Background: Challenges in the Computer Book Industry
Offline technical publishing currently faces many potential obstacles, but that's nothing new. Historically, one of the industry's greatest threats has been the contrast of the paper-publishing timeline versus the shelf life of the technology covered in the book. In other words, publish an 800-page book on June 1st about "version 4.5" of any given program, and 28 days later, "version 5.0" goes into beta testing.
Today, the old threats remain, and they're bolstered by new ones. Even Alan Meckler takes time off from buying companies to weigh in on potential risks to the model (although his post focuses more on trade mags). And then there's Amazon, the Silvio Dante of distribution partners: Nice hair, but do you really want to get into the Cadillac with him?
Publisher Sites Examined
I picked seven major computer book publishers at random:
Note: Wiley purchased Sybex in 2005, but the two maintain separate web sites, and thus both seemed suitable candidates. Peachpit and Que are both owned by Pearson Technology Group, but again, their products appear on separate web sites.
Methodology Used
I took a two-pronged approach to evaluating the sites for their respective search awareness.
First, I checked over some basics. The following criteria, taken individually, don't mean a lot, because lack of one aspect can often be accounted for by presence of another. But as a whole, they show signs of which publishers are really paying attention to search.
- Sitemap. This represents a check for a Google Sitemap file - either sitemap.xml or sitemap.xml.gz. (All sites had a traditional sitemap page.) Absence of a Google sitemap file isn't necessarily damning, especially if the site is already well indexed. Results: Only O'Reilly appeared to have a sitemap XML page.
- Custom 404. A simple test for a error-trapping 404 page.
Results: All sites had a custom 404 page. Que and Peachpit have a 404-style page in place, but it doesn't produce the correct HTTP header code. Instead, it uses a series of 302 redirects before settling on an error page with a 200 code. As we've discussed before (here and here), incorrect header codes in error pages can produce problems.
I also picked one backlist title from each publisher to perform some random on-page checks. The title was published in late 2005 or early 2006 - plenty of time to be naturally indexed, barring any obstacles.
- Unique Title. Does the page devoted to the randomly selected backlist book have a unique title page? Second, does the title contain the book's ISBN?
Results: Each publisher offers a unique page title for the pages devoted to a specific book. Strangely, however, none inserts the ISBN number in the title. ISBN searches make up a small (but not insignificant) percentage of book searches. Because the publisher is the first party to receive ISBNs as they are issued, they should own the query. - Meta Desc. Does the page have a unique meta description?
Results: Only O'Reilly and Microsoft supply their pages with unique meta descriptions (or meta descriptions at all, for that matter). Meta descriptions are a very easy place to put a book's category and description - especially if the book page template is item/list-based and doesn't contain much space for narrative text. - Deep URL. Is the URL of the specific book indexed at all three major engines (GYM)?
Results: None of the publishers appeared to have indexing problems, although due to the dynamic nature of some of the sites, I could easily navigate to a version of the book page whose URL differed from the one indexed at the engine. (Example: URL obtained by site nav and via SERP) - Robots.txt. Check for the presence of robots.txt file.
Results: All sites contain a robots.txt file.
While O'Reilly seems to hit on all cylinders, no publisher is completely ignorant to search. As I suggested earlier, these could be considered fairly superficial criteria for search awareness. They're a series of "little picture" elements that are important, but not all-important.
Second, I tried to consider the bigger picture.
Generally speaking, for most tech publishers, the current search strategy appears to be targeting their specific products. "Computer books." "C# programming books." "isbn 0470009241." And so on. And for the most part, they're doing a decent job of achieving those goals, even though sites like Amazon and smaller, one-off sites are taking a bite too.
Most publishers, however, aren't even coming close to fully exploiting the search traffic they could be. Why? Because they're busy fighting for long-tail crumbs of "book" related searches while in addition, they could be grabbing the valuable keyword torso as well.
Here's an example. For every searcher querying [c programming book], 60 search for [c programming]. For every searcher querying [windows xp book], 240,000 search for [windows xp]. For every searcher querying [xhtml book], 8000 search for [xhtml].
In other words, publishers need to become known for their subject areas - not books about their subject areas.
Is it harder? Sure. But can it be done? Yes. Who is more qualified to rank for a subject area term than a publisher with a backlist of a dozen titles or more in that subject area? Very few sites, providing the publisher uses its assets efficiently.
So what's the secret? There isn't just one. It requires an entirely new look at the structure of the publisher's web site, external sites, link-building strategy, and the role of the books themselves in the grand scheme. Following are some ways that publishers can leverage or generate the content necessary to improve traffic for their book topics.
- Bring your authors home. Computer book authors have a lot to say. I worked with dozens of them, and 90% of the time, if a book had "page count issues" during development, it was too many pages, not too few. These people live to write, and blogging has been a godsend for many of them. Publishers must provide a blogging platform for each author, and strongly encourage its use. Give them the main and right columns, and keep the left one for yourself.
Amazon is already offering a blogging space to authors (known as (gasp) "plogs"), and good authors are taking them up on it. The issue here isn't that Amazon might sell your book instead of your own shopping cart selling it. Instead, as I pointed out a couple weeks ago, Amazon doesn't care whose book they sell. With every click on Amazon, the odds that your book will be purchased are diluted - even if the odds of a book purchase increase.
- Make all roads lead to (and spring from) specific titles. Publishers have at least three "brands" in each title: The author, the series, and the topic. The URL for each unique book is the cross-section of all three:
As such, the book title URL should be the fountainhead for all types of content, from comments and reviews to coding samples to related announcements to the aforementioned author blog.
- Treat your backlist like a blog. When it comes to site architecture, think of the similarities between a publisher's site and a typical weblog. New titles (posts) emerge and are filed under specific topic headers (categories). Just as Engadget's "Gaming" category receives regular updates via new posts, so should your ".NET" category receive regular updates via each new published title. Reviews (comments) are added regularly, and all hope that the author (poster) will engage the audience in a dialogue.
- Cultivate new backlinks based on your content. Without getting too specific, if you're wondering why you can rank well for [.net programming book] but not [.net programming], one smart place to look is your backlinks. Do a query for your topic, both with and without "book," and take a look at the sites linking into the above-the-fold placeholders. Would any of the new content described earlier lead to incoming links from those different types of sites? If all your backlinks are coming from publishing-based sites, do you realize what Google considers synonymous with [~publishing]?
Who Gets It?
While none of the publishers appears to have fully grappled with search from a holistic perspective, many are approaching search intelligently, mostly via consumer-generated methods like blogging:
- It's hard not to recognize O'Reilly's Radar blog as a dominant force in the publisher-as-tech-blogger circles, but the tie-in from blog to backlist is a little lacking. Still, the book site rocks, and smart programs like Rough Cuts help to propel titles like Ruby on Rails Up and Running into SERPs for queries like [ruby on rails programming] - several months before the final book is even pubbed.
- At the acquisitions end of the product chain, Jim Minatel's Wrox Blog takes a microscopic look at the publisher-author relationship, and Joe Wikert's simply-but-smartly titled Book Publisher Blog looks at the bigger picture, while at the same time owning [publisher blog].
- While somewhat lacking in text, the Que individual title pages - via their breadcrumb nav and title-specific list - offer nice links to each of the three axes (author/subject/series) referred to in the graphic above.
Conclusion
Outside the comfortable surroundings of SEO/SEM, we're sometimes shocked by a vertical for whom search isn't at the forefront, and as SEOs, it's good for us to gain that perspective. Search should be a significant part of a bigger picture, not the picture itself. But in the face of ever-growing threats to their business model, publishers would be wise to better capitalize on searcher behavior. In a way, publishers are lucky. Many verticals, as we'll show in the coming months, need to start creating assets by the bucketload. Fortunately for publishers, all they really need to do is start utilizing the assets they already have.
Posted by erik at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 21, 2006
Don't Discount The Offline Conversion
From the I bet you weren't figuring this into your ROI file-- a new study by Google and ComScore Networks found that more than half of purchases related to consumer Internet searches occur offline:
The Internet giant teamed with the Reston, Va., research firm to examine consumer search and purchase behavior. It found that 25 percent of searchers for product information in several categories eventually made purchases. Of those, about 37 percent happened online, with the rest happening in stores.
The remarkable finding is even more remarkable in certain verticals:
Buyers who looked for information about video games, for example, visited stores for the product 93 percent of the time. That figure was above 80 percent for the electronics, music and toys categories.
We are still many such studies away from offline influence being fully and regularly credited to online, and not primarily due to the tracking leap required logistically; our great lurch forward from infancy to pubescence in the marketing mix has been propelled in fits and starts over our life span thus far by the sharpness of the direct marketing blade and the immediacy of real-time conversions taking flight at the very whirl. That is a big wheel indeed to unspin, and one that, you online marketers will know, can lose as many as it gains if it must necessarily grind completely to a halt in the proving.
Posted by john at 09:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 20, 2006
Are There Inalienable Organic Ranking Rights?
If you have a superior above you in your hierarchy who thinks so, this may seem like a nightmare you may have had about a staff-meeting action item gone horribly wrong:
KINDERSTART.COM, A DIRECTORY AND SEARCH engine focused on children, filed a lawsuit Friday against Google, alleging that in March 2005, Google wrongfully lowered KinderStart's ranking in the results, sending its traffic plummeting by 70 percent. As of Sunday, the first result that appears when users type "KinderStart" into the Google query box is a U.K.-based site about nursery schools. But the directory KinderStart.com is the first result to appear on queries for KinderStart on Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com. Among other relief, KinderStart is now seeking to force Google to reveal the formula by which it determines a site's placement in the results page.
The last sentence is laughable, and you are likely laughing with me right now as you read this, yet the sentiment expressed in the foregoing is very real and serious if you've had the nightmare I opened with or, worse, been in a real staff metting careening out of control with organic rankings rage. You see, some people in a company have a notion, difficult to be disabused of, that organic rankings are a right- as if there were some Bill of Rights relative to company web sites and how they rank in the organic results.
That there is not a magical Restore Your Rankings Bill of Rights to invoke is the type of pill that for some mouths just won't fit, let alone swallow.
The spoonful of sugar? That is another blog post in and of itself, if not a novella- or a full blown tragic drama.
Posted by john at 05:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NCAA March Madness 2006 Proves an Untamable Shrew
The belief that link popularity conquers all just might have some kinks. We'll take our 12-4, but the Wagon was looking forward to the sweet satisfaction of 16-0 and the distinction of being the first blog added to the Vegas Black Book. In sooth, our March Madness prognostications were probably on par with the alleged savant 3 cubicles to your left.
Below are results from Friday's Round 1 games:
RIGHT - #15 DAVIDSON (1,820 links) loses to #2 OHIO STATE (8,310 links)
WRONG - #14 NORTHWESTERN STATE (452 links) loses to #3 IOWA (10,200 links)
RIGHT - #9 WISCONSIN (28,000 links) beats #8 ARIZONA (9,910 links)
RIGHT - #9 BUCKNELL (1,850 links) beats #8 ARKANSAS (1,470 links)
RIGHT - #10 NORTHERN IOWA (2,880 links) loses to #7 GEORGETOWN (3,440 links)
RIGHT - #11 SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (530 links) loses to #6 WEST VIRGINIA (5,540 links)
RIGHT - #16 MONMOUTH (649 links) loses to #1 VILLANOVA (2,340 links)
RIGHT - #16 ORAL ROBERTS (351 links) loses to #1 MEMPHIS (1,850 links)
RIGHT - #12 KENT STATE (4,060 links) loses to #5 PITTSBURGH (6,820 links)
WRONG - #11 GEORGE MASON (3,590 links) loses to #6 MICHIGAN STATE (8,480 links)
WRONG - #10 NORTH CAROLINA STATE (8,430 links) loses to #7 CALIFORNIA (15,700 links)
RIGHT - #16 ALBANY (2,220 links) loses to #1 CONNECTICUT (5,870 links)
RIGHT - #14 MURRAY STATE (1,110 links) loses to #3 NORTH CAROLINA (21,400 links)
WRONG - #13 BRADLEY (841 links) loses to #4 KANSAS (4,540 links)
RIGHT - #15 PENN (9,320 links) loses to #2 TEXAS (29,700 links)
RIGHT - #9 UAB (654 links) loses to #8 KENTUCKY (3,850 links)
We are planning to update the March Madness Algorithm prior to Thursday's games, so please share feedback and suggestions.
Posted by tom at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 17, 2006
NCAA March Madness 2006 Decided by Link Popularity
Many people assume they will outrank competition for important keyword phrases if they have the most links. Link Building involves so many other variables. This assumption is as arbitrary as today’s NCAA tourney matchups being decided by number of links.
Well the Wagon is all for arbitration, so here are today’s guaranteed winners based solely on Google backlinks. Guaranteed! 2006 March Madness has been tamed!
#15 DAVIDSON (1,820 links) loses to #2 OHIO STATE (8,310 links)
#14 NORTHWESTERN STATE (452 links) loses to #3 IOWA (10,200 links)
#9 WISCONSIN (28,000 links) beats #8 ARIZONA (9,910 links)
#9 BUCKNELL (1,850 links) beats #8 ARKANSAS (1,470 links)
#10 NORTHERN IOWA (2,880 links) loses to #7 GEORGETOWN (3,440 links)
#11 SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (530 links) loses to #6 WEST VIRGINIA (5,540 links)
#16 MONMOUTH (649 links) loses to #1 VILLANOVA (2,340 links)
#16 ORAL ROBERTS (351 links) loses to #1 MEMPHIS (1,850 links)
#12 KENT STATE (4,060 links) loses to #5 PITTSBURGH (6,820 links)
#11 GEORGE MASON (3,590 links) loses to #6 MICHIGAN STATE (8,480 links)
#10 NORTH CAROLINA STATE (8,430 links) loses to #7 CALIFORNIA (15,700 links)
#16 ALBANY (2,220 links) loses to #1 CONNECTICUT (5,870 links)
#14 MURRAY STATE (1,110 links) loses to #3 NORTH CAROLINA (21,400 links)
#13 BRADLEY (841 links) loses to #4 KANSAS (4,540 links)
#15 PENN (9,320 links) loses to #2 TEXAS (29,700 links)
#9 UAB (654 links) loses to #8 KENTUCKY (3,850 links)
Posted by tom at 09:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 16, 2006
Is eBay Spamming My Beloved Google Search Results?
The weekend approaches and I find myself itching to hit yet another local motocross track to stretch my Yamaha Banshee's legs and, of course, blow off some steam from a very busy week in the SEO world. Uh oh, I need to find me a kill switch in order to qualify for riding at the indoor track. Sigh...I guess I'll look for a "yamaha banshee kill switch" on Google and check prices.
Uh...Ok, so there are only 22 matches for the exact phrase "yamaha banshee kill switch" but seven out of the top ten listings are from eBay!! I don't know about y'all, but I like having at least a few different websites to choose from within the confines of the top ten search results.
Having looked at the top ten pages individually, there wasn’t a single page that had the exact phrase match "yamaha banshee kill switch" on the active page. As a matter of fact, the only site besides eBay that matched my search in the top ten list of results was www.on-the-i.com, but even that was eBay-related.
Ok, this obviously isn't working. I'll try "banshee kill switch" and see what comes up. Nice! I have a whopping 112 matches to this search and only a couple of Supplemental Result returns on page one. Damn it, eBay, you're doing it again. You own six out of the top ten results for all of your domains and subdomains. Well at least I have a few other sites to consider, right? WRONG! eBay's affiliates are populating the other spots and I have no option but to conduct a generic search to find my much-needed kill switch.
It's pretty obvious that eBay is taking advantage of subdomain structure to the point where they are spamming to wipe out the competition from the top ten real estate on Google. I have nothing against subdomains in particular and feel they are necessary in some cases, but this is just malicious.
Google, I beg you, please find other relevant content pages for ancillary product search phrases other than eBay.
Pretty please with a cherry on top?
Posted by sean at 01:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 14, 2006
Pithy Comments About SEO Tools
There are a lot of SEO Tools available to both “in-house� SEOers as well as agencies like ours that specialize in SEO. There are tools for nearly everything – from keyword research tools all the way to Google vs. Yahoo SERP comparison tools. We’ve even created our own helpful tools to assist us in directing client campaigns.
The success of some very good SEO tools has been a catalyst for a plethora of SEO tools being created and made available online. Some of these are unique and useful, many are simply “me too / jump on the bandwagon� applications, and some are really not tools at all but rather experimentations. The latter group are the ones that you say “Cool!� when you see them, followed by “What exactly is that?", then you never visit them ever again.
Here’s my pithy comments about SEO tools...
If you are going to throw an SEO tool out to the public, please make sure it works. And if it’s broken, at least put up a notice on your site that it’s temporarily unavailable.
I visited two of the most popular online SEO tools this week and both of them had major problems. One didn’t work at all and the other gave incorrect results.
Crippled SEO tools reflect poorly on your company and our industry. If you are doing SEO in-house, make sure to verify some of the results provided by your frequently visited SEO tools.
Posted by doug at 11:56 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
March 13, 2006
The Fog of Local Search Reportage
Now, perhaps the reporting standards will not reach the zenith of the run-up to the war, but there sure is a similar fog--or perhaps even Nielsen-like nimbostratus--clouding the collective judgement of the Local Search Reportage Posse. I had always imagined, as the crocus is the herald of spring, that somehow these stories were planted, even payola'd, yet last Friday I found evidence of a much less sinister conspiracy- pathological extrapolation:
To analyze the current state of local search advertising, Borrell researchers examined more than 2,100 paid links to appear on Google and Yahoo queries for city-related keywords--such as, for example, "Des Moines real estate." About 36 percent of such pay-per-click links were from local advertisers--up from 5.6 percent 18 months ago.
Bam! With hard-nosed research like that, how can we doubt Borrell's assertion that Local Search will peak at $4 Billion by 2010 (quadrupling during that period, mind you)? When my little sister was 3 years old she was 3 feet tall. I worried what we would do when she turned 9 and could no longer fit beneath our 8 foot high ceilings.
Posted by john at 08:29 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 10, 2006
American Idol Success
Success, according to Merriam-Webster Online dictionary, can be defined as “the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence�.
Quite often in life we see examples of success and we say to ourselves “wow, that sure would be nice to have achieved X�, and indeed it would.
I look at success as being in two different categories, short-term and long-term. Most of us would settle for any fleeting bit of success no matter how short-term it might be. The euphemism “15 minutes of fame� comes to mind as well as American Idol icon William Hung. But let me pose a question, would you rather enjoy the fruits of long-term success like Grammy award winning artist Kelly Clarkson, or the memory of short-term success?
In the SEO world there are many examples of top rankings that flamed out as quickly as they appeared. There are also an equal number of examples that just seem to always be at the top. That may be your situation. Or you may be the competitor who just can’t seem to overtake that top ranking. In either case the solution to long-term success is simple, not easy, but simple.
Lasting success is attained through diligence, perseverance, doing things the right way. It may seem sometimes that this is not the case, and there are exceptions to every rule, buy by and large the three strands of success weave themselves together to become a rope that is stronger than the sum of its parts, and will pass the test of time.
It is a long journey but don’t lose heart for the long road is what sustains the achieved success. Stated another way, in our own lives the path we take to our own success is really an investment in our own personal success. What may appear to be short-term, smaller goals, or even failures, will eventually contribute to our long-term success if we keep our perspective. Look at your SEO projects the same way and don’t fall for the “short-cut� method to success. You may rise quickly, but you will fall even quicker.
Finally, it’s nice to know that even if you’ve chosen the short path you can correct it. Your path to long-term success has just gotten longer, but you can always learn from past experiences and begin the long road to lasting success.
Posted by brent at 02:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 09, 2006
If the Brady Bunch Were a Links Page . . .
Sha na na na na na na na na, Sha na na na na.
If the Brady Bunch were a links page, how would you know the Bradys had jumped the shark?
It is necessary for Link Building to be about as time consuming (and exciting) as trying to set the teeter-totter record. After all, you cannot judge a room by its beaded entrance. You have to check out each site, but if you are going to be efficient, you must train your eyes to easily catch the least groovy characteristics of a links page and move on.
So here are some Link Building thoughts inspired by the one day when the lady met this fellow.
- Don't waste time looking for Tiger if you go to his site and get a 404. Just find a new dog.
- If Greg invites you to his room but takes you to his dad's den, assume the worst. A redirected links page is a bad sign!
- Vacations bring bad luck. If you see links to travel sites (and you are not in the travel industry) avoid it like the Brady Tiki.
- Just one Cousin Oliver link can kill. A page linking to a gambling, payday loan, or adult site bears the kiss of death.
- If a site looks like it took a football to the nose, assume it is not being updated or damaged goods, at best.
- A Marcia Marcia Marcia links page has the same keywords repeated too often and is considered Spam Spam Spam.
- Like a bathroom occupied by 6 kids, you never get your due and proper on a page with too many links. Just go somewhere else.
- It looks like somebody stole the playbook when you start to see the same links section duplicated on many different sites. Don't get involved, unless of course it was DMOZ's playbook.
- If you cannot easily find a site's contact information, consider him George Glass.
- Paying someone to date your sister is wrong, unless that person is Yahoo or an established, relevant directory offering link text.
You see kids, a gift is only a good thing when the giver has given thought to that gift. But when the gift the giver gives gives grief, then that gift should give the givee regrets.
Posted by tom at 04:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 08, 2006
MSN Search Unveils New Features at Live.com
A post at Threadwatch yesterday noticed that MSN search results now stop at page 25. Additional results pages appear to exist, but when you click on results page 26, for example, nothing happens.
That curiousness was partly addressed later, as the Seattle Times pointed out that it's a feature, not a bug. The new MSN Search interface is in beta at Microsoft's live.com site.
The company is capping the maximum number of results at 250, or 1,000 for an image-based search, betting that no one really wants to sift through more than that. The move is risky in that it ratchets up the pressure for Microsoft to make sure those 250 results are the best and most relevant."We've made significant progress on the relevancy of our results and have to invest on improving that area," said Lisa Gurry, a product manager for the project. "The 250 number absolutely gives us the right level of depth."
The interface of the MSN Search beta is clean. One neat feature is a set of "slider" controls that enables you to efficiently skim results.
The small, horizontal slider controls the amount of information shown per result. At the minimal setting (far left), only a page title and URL are shown. The middle level shows those items plus a snippet of text from the page. The far right "maximum" setting shows an additional "Search within this site" feature, which, when clicked, opens up an additional search box enabling you to search within a site before even clicking over to that site. I like this capability, although I'm not sure how often the average user would use it.
The tall, vertical slider is also pretty cool. A click of the up or down arrow scrolls to the next pane of search results. You can also drag the slider up or down to move very rapidly through results. The big change here is that all search results are now shown on one page; you no longer need to click a new link to load the next 10 results. (Note to SEOs: Getting to the first "page" of MSN results just got a lot easier...)
As with all search engine interface changes, it's not necessarily how relevant the changes are, it's the combination of relevance, buzz, and adoption. MSN's Gurry is right when she says that average users probably don't need more than 250 results. The Times reporter is right that these 250 results need to be more relevant than ever.
By the way, I got the Live.com site to load correctly in IE, but not Firefox.
Posted by erik at 07:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 06, 2006
Amazon and the Anti-Cloak
I found something interesting poking around between Google and Amazon.
If you go to this page at Amazon, you'll see a page devoted to a specific book about C# programming.
But if you arrive at that same Amazon page via a Google search for [c# programming] - my search shows the Amazon page at spot 9 - the page contains additional dynamic data that suggests Amazon is integrating the Google search query into the HTML.
When you arrive via Google, the first "special" area appears near the top - a gray bar just under the Amazon search box - showing other related searches that a user might be interested in.
A little later on, Amazon does a similar job, using a variation of the technique that has doubtless made them millions of additional dollars over the years: the old "customers who bought this title also bought..." spiel:
Cloaking? Technically, yes. Google doesn't see either bit of query based data in its cached version of the page.
But it shows Google less data than it shows the user, so there's very little chance that this technique is helpful from a purely SEO-based perspective. No, this is user-focused, all the way. And it's another reason why blanket, binary statements like "cloaking is bad" do everyone from webmasters to SEO practitioners a giant disservice.
Posted by erik at 05:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 03, 2006
Google: Stop Caching that Czech!
Last week I wrote about a Czech site cloaking its way to an above-the-fold spot for a query to which I feel quite attached. I reported it and a few days later, it was gone. That's where the post ended.
But a day or two after that, it was back. Sort of. Same domain, but a different folder. A similar stuffed page was visible if you had JavaScript shut off, and the same ad-loaded scraper site was where you ended up if JS was turned on.
I was about to report it again, but instead, I decided to see what would happen if I didn't. And just like before, two days later, it was gone again. This time, without my reporting it.
So this doesn't necessarily prove anything, but it leaves me with some possible theories. Maybe the algo caught it both times, and its disappearance after my initial spam report was merely a coincidence. (I even suspected as much when I wrote the first post.) Or, maybe someone else reported it this time, and Google plucked it manually.
I'm leaning toward the algo catching it both times. It's probably hubristic, given the amount of spam reports Google must receive, to think they'd act on my recommendation so quickly. But since Google now longer denies hand-involvement in site-pulling, anything's possible.
Note: I'm fully aware that an update to a spam report post isn't particularly compelling. But I had a post title with a double pun, and I wasn't about to give that up. I can't live on sonnets alone.
Posted by erik at 07:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 02, 2006
The Bright Lights of SES NYC 2006
One need only meander toward the steaming Cup O' Noodles sign at the apex of Times Square to have the pedestrian thought--NYC is all about advertising.
No small wonder, then, that SES NYC 2006, too, was dominated by the advertising side of the SEM coin. The difference from previous versions of the NYC portion of the SES franchise, though, was that SEO didn't just seem to be given a dutiful nod and wink as the progenitor of SEM. Rather, much as if I were bold enough to aver some others than family were reading what I wrote last week when I suggested that as natural, or organic (or opposite-of-PPC for you advertising folks), or just plain SEO 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--might some in the advertising world actually find some use for what is currently being treated as little more than shrapnel?
In the wonderfully prescient Leveraging Search Data Beyond SEO And SEM, Max Kalenhoff sees the light I was trying to shine:
One significant area where search has tremendous potential involves the long trail of search-query data that consumers leave behind when seeking, comparing and analyzing information. Similar to consumer-generated media--which marketers are increasingly paying attention to amidst the rise of blogs and other social media--consumer search queries represent one of the largest pools of unprompted consumer intelligence. Setting aside keyword buys, consider the wealth of real-time insight into consumer intentions, behaviors, attitudes and drivers.
Make sure to take a look at the four specific areas he outlines where the wealth of information currently being ignored can be leveraged:
1. Identifying The Right Marketing Questions.
2. Divulging Consumer Insights.
3. Identifying Issues and Trends Early On.
4. Measuring Brand Equity and Marketing Effectiveness.
I couldn't have said it better myself, but then again I'm not really from the bright lights of advertising.
Posted by john at 09:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack