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July 31, 2006
Proximity Uber Alles: Relevancy Not Very Relevant
The idea is to encourage visitors to start their searches for additional articles on newspapers' own sites, rather than go to Google News or another news aggregator, said Julian Steinberg, Inform's vice president of operations. "If you give your users all the functionality and content that your users want online, then your users will keep coming back day in and day out," he said.
Julian, we hardly knew ye. Yet online history is littered with the tattered pages of business plans stipulating relevance to be less important than proximity, so there is a long line of tradition for you to stand in and, hopefully, some free drinks remain at the bar from the bubble era to tide you over as you await your on-site search revolution.
Relevance? Fie! We'll worry about relevance after users start searching within our site.
Old media can be so quaint it's almost kind of cute...
Posted by john at 08:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 28, 2006
Xenophobia at MSN
I had an interesting experience with MSN adCenter the other day that caused me to question the relevancy of MSN adCenter. 
You see MSN has been on the fringe of paid search for quite some time but has recently made the bold move to jump in with both feet. Why??? is a question I frequently ask myself and here is how the conversation goes (and yes, I will admit that I have quite good conversations with myself ;).
Me: Why is Microsoft getting into the paid search arena? I mean with Google and Yahoo already dominating the paid search market....
Myself: It's all about the money stupid. With Google raking in over a billion dollars every quarter MSN just wants a piece of the pie.
I: I think it’s about money but I also think it’s about Microsoft trying to remain a legitimate player and not just fade away.
Me: Hmmmmmm.......both interesting arguments. Microsoft is sitting on a large pile o' cash aren't they? And open source seems the way everything is going?
Myself: Microsoft won't have much cash left if they keep ignoring the EU! Plus with Gates 'retiring' who is going to lead the traditionally xenophobic charge?
I: Personally, I was shocked that MSN AdCenter doesn’t support Firefox!
Me: You’ve got to be kidding me? Of course they wouldn’t support it.
Myself: Yeah, it doesn’t bear the ‘Microsoft Genuine Advantage’ digital license.
Me: No dummy, because instead of working with others MSN is playing the only game the only way they know how to.
I: And that is…….
Me: They make you work with them, that’s different then them working with you.
Myself: Ahhhh, I get it. And because they’ve got loads of cash they just try to do their own thing instead of work with others ala ‘open source’.
Me: Bingo.
I: I wish they would just keep their money out of developing a paid search engine and do something novel like try to make Windows actually work without crashing all the time.
Myself: Yeah, or how about closing down all of the security holes? I think my computer downloads critical updates at least once a week.
I: I wish they would bring back ‘Bob’.
Now there was some useful software.
Me: Okay, Okay, that’s enough. As soon as the conversation degrades to ‘Bob’ it’s time to wrap it up.
Overall, Microsoft needs to do some serious core values analysis. I wonder if they’ve ever heard the saying ‘jack of all trades, master of none’. It sure seems to apply in this case. I think they would do themselves a favor to focus on their majors and forget about the minors. Then again, would we ever really trust Microsoft if they ‘took the red pill’?
Posted by brent at 10:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 27, 2006
Shawn Hogan Biopic Gets Greenlit!
Just kidding. You should have seen the look on your face!
So you know all those posts with can't-miss-tips about link baiting? Well, here's mine: Get sued by the MPAA. Works like a charm!
This has been a very interesting story since day 1. It's beautiful that somebody with Mr. Hogan's principles and pocket book has been challenged by the Motion Picture Association of America. And it's beautiful that Wired picked it up, which has brought the story to everybody, not just us geeks.
So here are some highlights from Shawn Hogan's case.
- Shawn Hogan buys a DVD of Meet the Fockers at some point in his life.
- His ISP notifies Shawn Hogan that they have been subpoenaed for his private information.
- A law firm representing the MPAA calls Shawn Hogan, accuses him of downloading Meet the Fockers, and offers to settle out of court for $2,500. The firm also informs him that fighting it would cost much more, and a judgement against him would cost more than $100,000.
- Shawn Hogan receives the law suit and plans to go to trial, expecting/hoping to pay over $100,000 to prove his case.
- According to Shawn Hogan, almost 20,000 people have settled with the MPAA or its recording industry counterpart, RIAA. Not one individual has gone to final judgment against them.
- Judge asks that, for the sake of irony, all parties pretend that the movie allegedly downloaded was Erin Brockovich.
Posted by tom at 05:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 26, 2006
You Say SEO... I Say Search Engine Optimization...
...And you would more in the mainstream than I am, my friend.
From Google Trends:
So what began happening at the crack of 2004, after which the twain were never again to meet?
Posted by john at 08:25 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 25, 2006
Conversions and Query Length
At Search Engine Watch yesterday, Barry Schwartz noted that OneStat posted a study showing the breakdown of query length for July 2006. For search marketers, this is great user behavior intelligence that can benefit both organic and PPC campaigns.
I decided to do a very unscientific mutation of the report. I overlaid conversion data from a campaign I'm working on against the OneStat query-length data, just to see what would happen:
(source of pink data: OneStat. source of blue data: Intrapromote.)
If you remember much about calculus, you know that if the two lines overlap exactly, that doesn't mean that two-word phrases, for instance, convert better than three-word phrases. Instead, if the two lines overlap exactly, it means that all query lengths convert at relatively equal rates. For example, if 35% of all queries and conversions come from two-word queries, and if 15% of all queries and conversions come from four-word queries, then two-word and four-word queries convert at the same rate.
Therefore, the noteworthy locations on the graph are where the two lines diverge most dramatically. In my example, one- and two-word phrases convert at higher rates than their respective query volume rates.
Practically speaking, what does this mean to a search campaign?
In my case, it's an indicator that two-word phrases are a revenue-rich target because they have both the raw search numbers and the conversion rate to pay off. Single-word terms have great conversion rates but far fewer raw searches.
Note that this is extremely unscientific. It pits worldwide query string length data against conversion data in a specific vertical. So I certainly need to crunch more numbers. But it gives some good hints about where to look to increase traffic and conversions.
Posted by erik at 11:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 20, 2006
How About One More Solid, Danny Sullivan?
As we recently celebrated the liberation of the results page from ODP oppression, I couldn't help but think of a lesser-publicized instance of serp injustice.
It's the same ole story. Site owner forks out $300 and puts together a spotless title, description, and category recommendation for the Yahoo Directory submission. A week later, the site is accepted, but a few changes to the submission are apparent, namely the title, description, and category recommendation. Oh Well, right? The site is in the best directory there is. That's good enough. Site owner thinks, "Sometimes you just gotta say 'What the F@$%!"
Then site owner notices this Yahoo Directory title, which is simply his url, now occupies the spot formerly held by his most glamorous Yahoo result. Site owner thinks of the difference in clickability, and it is that, more than anything, that leads to his drinking problem.
Repeated requests for an update receive as much attention as a new Chevy Chase movie, and that's when site owner remembers that he paid $300 for this treatment! At that point, site owner goes to the window, opens it and sticks his head out and yells, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
So Danny Sullivan, please do us one more solid. Be mad as hell with us. Champion NoYahoo as you did NOODP, cause, uh, no-one's gonna really be free until serp persecution ends.
Posted by tom at 05:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 19, 2006
Google, Hoops and Hat Tricks
In doing some keyword research this morning, I was checking to see what Google considers to be synonyms of various sports-related keywords.
I frequently use the tilde (~) character in such searches to find ways to vary text but still keep the pages relevant for specific terms and concepts. Google has this to say about the tilde search on its search refinement page:
If you want to search not only for your search term but also for its synonyms, place the tilde sign ("~") immediately in front of your search term.
So I was a little surprised when I did a tilde search for [~nhl] to see that Google considers NBA synonymous with NHL:
I expected to see National Hockey League, and Sports didn't surprise me. But NBA? That's a stretch. (Strangely, searching for [~nba] doesn't return NHL as a synonym, as you might expect.)
I did more tilde searches for abbreviated sports leagues, such as [~mlb], [~wnba], [~nfl], and a few others. In all cases, Google typically returned as synonyms the full name of the league or another related term - but no surprises.
So who knows more about hockey than Canada? Logic would then suggest that google.ca would fix this American error - right? Almost. While google.ca still shows NBA in its results for [~nhl], NBA.com appears at number 2 instead of number 1, where google.com puts it.
Posted by erik at 02:50 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 18, 2006
NOODP = Yes!!!
I have no musical reference to my post this week other than to say that I find the instrumental gem called YYZ on Rush’s finest album, Moving Pictures, to be the perfect music to write a blog post to. I highly recommend it. And Neil Peart, I know you're reading this ..... you are the finest drummer on our planet.
Last Thursday, our fair-haired and highly regarded Erik Dafforn sent the Intrapromote staff an email with a Subject line that all IPers (Intrapromote staff) assumed was a bad joke.
The subject line you ask?
“Google now honors NOODP meta tag!�
This would mean that our clients could include a tag on their web pages to tell Google not to pull the often ho hum titles from ODP and use them as the title in search results pages.
“Yeah right�, was simultaneously (I like to think, harmoniously) uttered in our Ohio, Indiana, and Oregon offices as the email appeared in our collective In boxes. However, much to our surprise it is actually true!
Did Google finally get tired of people asking for this or did they quickly follow suit because MSN recently added support for the NOODP tag? Did Danny Sullivan finally get through to Google? Who knows, but my money is on keeping up with the competition.
It was good timing for me since one of the clients I work with needed to shake loose from a Google SERP that listed only their company name as the title. Clickability score? About a 2 out of 10.
If you’re in the same boat of folks disgusted by your ODP title and description and how it shows up upon searches at Google, simply add the following code to the source code of your page:
< META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP" >
Posted by doug at 04:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 13, 2006
Mr. Request-A-Receipt Spammer
SEO Speedwagon Presents: Real Men of Brazen
(Real Men of Brazen)
Today we salute you, Mr. Request-A-Receipt Spammer.
(Mr. Request-A-Receipt Spammer)
You've given us the real American dream: an unsolicited message, fifteen lines of jabberwocky, and a sign that says, "Would you like to send a receipt?"
(Here's Your Receipt, Buddy!)
Pushing free will heavenward, your prompt for a Yes or NO beckons us all to share in the frivolity.
(Audience Participation!)
Because it's not enough just to get the message. But believe me, Mr. R. A. R. Spammer, we get the message! And the next one. And the next one. And the next one.
(Man I just got another one!)
So crack open an ice-cold Bud Light, receipt boy. You know the way to a man's trashcan…and you're taking a few thousand slightly different e-mail accounts with you.
(Mr. Request-A-Receipt Spammer)
Posted by tom at 11:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 12, 2006
Vertical Search vs. Big Search: Drawing Battle Lines
It's late; let's lay it on the table:
In the near future, who can offer the user more - the always-innovating "big" engines, or a slew of vertically focused niche engines?
- Slack Barshinger and SearchChannel say verticals[*] (PDF - registration req'd):
While Yahoo!, Google and the like will continue to dominate the scene and - in aggregate - comprise the bulk of the online consumer's share of mind and media consumption, a myriad of vertical search engines are emerging to address the particular informational and research needs of niche audiences and professions.
- Search Insider (Aaron Goldman @ Media Post) says the Big Engines:
Clearly, until search results can be better customized on the general engines, many searchers will prefer (and find value in) going to an engine or directory tailored specifically to their needs. But think about how far the Big 4 [**] have come in just the past couple years in terms of personalization and tools for refining search queries. The time is not long before the general engines will be able to deliver results as relevant as today’s vertical engines–if not more, when overlaid with past browsing behavior, social networking, tagging, etc.
- Alan Meckler, while not saddling up for this particular battle, has said enough in the past to make me think he'd pick the verticals.
- This is only a guess, but I think the big engines would say "the big engines."
Personally, I'll go with verticals. First, Internet history is littered with the pink slips of people who argued against Alan Meckler. Second, if they're in the game for the long term, people will find the vertical engines and stick with them. The GYM will always win in raw numbers of the great unwashed, but don't underestimate the drawing (read: earning) power of a tightly focused audience of enthusiasts and advertisers.
Goldman argues, rightly, that users will consider it a pain to hop from vertical engine to vertical engine to get into the specific data silo they're looking for. But user fickleness is a sword that cuts both ways. Is the user any more likely to delve into the "big" engine's personalization settings? Might that not entail getting (gasp) an account with the engine? Maybe we should ask the .5% of the internet population who knows what Froogle or Y!Q is, or maybe the 3% who know how to use any engine's advanced search features. Google can attribute much of its success to its visual simplicity and having avoided the temptation of cluttering up ("portalizing," if you will) its prime real estate. Requiring the user to dig past that to opt in and configure personalized searching would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
[*] I suppose you should keep in mind that SearchChannel is a developer of niche search engines, which might account for some of their exuberance. Still, the report is worth downloading, if for no other reason than the nice directory of vertical engines that makes up the back 60% of the report.
[**] In case you're curious, #4 in this instance is Ask.com.
Posted by erik at 11:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 11, 2006
Are you B2C or B2B? Are you sure?
Wendy Davis at MediaPost shared some interesting numbers earlier today (pulled from a JupiterResearch report) about how small businesses use the web for online shopping.
According to the report,
Sixty-two percent of those that make online purchases said familiarity with the vendor is among the most influential considerations; 46 percent said the same for online research and 39 percent said that advice of friends and business associates plays a major role. (Respondents were asked to choose up to three factors that influence online shopping.) E-mails and coupons were influential for just 21 percent of small businesses’ online purchases.
In the quote above, I've emphasized the key factors that drive employees to select an online vendor:
- Familiarity with the vendor. How strong is your web presence? Does your name consistently appear for searches within your niche?
- Online research. Do you own your online reputation?
- Advice of friends and business associates. What's your track record for keeping customers happy, and giving potential customers a reason to come back when they're more motivated (i.e., further along the purchase track?)
One of the report's major findings was that "almost eight in 10 small businesses, 79 percent, shop online regularly, compared to 65 percent of online consumers."
The end result is a blurring of the lines between B2B and B2C. In other words, while you can be pretty sure that an order of 8000 boxes of thumb tacks are a "business" purchase, there's also a pretty good chance that when Mark in Memphis orders a microwave oven, he might need it for the company break room. And maybe Mark's company is growing, so he might need an espresso machine soon.
What does this have to do with Search?
- Do your page descriptions and web copy (and thus, your search results) discuss corporate relationships? Corporate accounts? Bulk discounts? Despite the type of business you're in, are you friendly to both the big "B" and the big "C"?
- Does your PPC dayparting (changing bid strategy based on time of day) make (perhaps faulty) assumptions about who's coming to your site at 2 pm?
Search results mean very little if the user clicks over and doesn't find what she's looking for - either specific products, or even a subtle vibe. Ensuring that your site appeals to people when they're both on and off the clock, despite what you think you know about your vertical, is never a dumb move.
Posted by erik at 11:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 07, 2006
Highlighting the Highlight Post
Call it tooting your own horn. Call it whatever you want. The Wagon prefers to call it the Highlight Post.
Last week, Erik updated our readers on an issue near and dear to our hearts, Google's failure to recognize the Speedwagon due to the fact that "apparently, there's a band with a similar name." The update, of course, was that Google finally welcomed the Wagon! And in closing, Erik expressed his surprise that no one picked up on our post regarding the therapy products results page.
Now, of course we are aware (as most are) that linking to posts yields a very nice search engine impact. That is an important result of the Highlight Post, but the intent should always be the focus. As in Erik's post, the intent was to update one story and to comment on another. And when that focus is met, far greater results can be attained: both stories were picked up by very reputable sources.
So we highlight posts to give further attention to stories that warrant it. And now we understand a little more about its effect on reader behavior. The Highlight Post clues readers in to the fact that we feel something is worth more attention. In this circumstance, our readers agreed and offered further exposure.
Posted by tom at 02:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Yahoo! Knows What Time It Is
Being in sales, it's important to know what time zone your clients and prospects are in for appropriate timing on calls. With so many cities/states broken up into separate time zones, it can be somewhat difficult to determine what time zone they’re in for calling.
Let’s face it, you don’t want to call someone @ 8:00AM Eastern when they’re on Pacific time. So, what can you do to avoid those awkward phone calls to Pacific timers @ 5:00 AM? Well...let’s see what the search engines have to say.
Lets take a look shall we.
Google doesn't know what time it is:
http://www.google.com/search?q=provo+utah+time+zone&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
MSN doesn’t know either:
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=provo+utah+time+zone&sourceid=Mozilla-search
Yahoo! knows what time it is! Check it:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=provo+utah+time+zone&ei=UTF-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&fr=moz2
From what I can tell, Yahoo! is the only SE that will show you straight up what time zone a particular city/state is in and to boot, they’ll show you exactly what time it is for your time zone search in real-time! Yahoo! does this without having to have the end-user click on listings to find it unlike Google and MSN!
It’s cool tools like this that keep me from making mistakes on calling people waaaay too early and also helps distinguish one search engine from another in terms of unique tools.
Yahoo! gets a nod on this one for sure.
Posted by sean at 10:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 05, 2006
A SERP of One's Own
With apologies to Virginia Woolf, a bit of SEO potpourri today, revisiting topics both old and recent.
Google Finally Knows Us. One of Tom's pet peeves has always (and I mean always) been that a Google search for [seo speedwagon] brought up Google's famous "did you mean...?" line, suggesting a typo. (Apparently, there's a band with a similar name.)
Finally, the confusion seems to be over; a query for [seo speedwagon] gives the user just that - like it or not.
Of course it's impossible to accurately define the "tipping point" at which Google decides that a query no longer needs spell-check assistance, but it's likely a combination of the following:
- Age of the subdomain that lists the query term
- Number of backlinks and the anchor text used
- Number of times a specific phrase is searched for, as measured by the engine
- Sheer number of times the phrase exists on the Web
- A comment from the CEO's mother
Now that the Speedwagon issue is resolved, I'll leave it to Tom to sort out his similar issues with Tom Huston.
Hardly Therapeutic. I'm a little surprised that no one has picked up on Sean's find from last week - namely that Google, in a mid-SERP "see also" result, suggests that the user try Yahoo when searching for [therapy products]:
An inside joke? Perhaps. Regardless, we'll not speculate as to why Sean was seeking therapy products in the first place, but instead hope that he found relevant results.
Posted by erik at 11:44 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
July 04, 2006
Can an Algorithm be Intimidated?
One would hope not.
Yet, as we were all readying our kindling sticks for bomb and brat alike here in the old US of A, many of us seem to have missed this very, very strange blurb:
A FEDERAL JUDGE FRIDAY INDICATED that he is inclined to allow a company to proceed with a lawsuit against Google stemming from low rankings in search results, according to published reports of the proceeding. The judge reportedly said he might permit KinderStart.com to amend its complaint against Google by spelling out its allegations in greater detail. In March, KinderStart.com sued Google, alleging that last year, Google wrongfully lowered KinderStart's ranking in the results, sending its traffic plummeting by 70 percent.
Blogcritics.org, to their credit, had the only extended piece on the courtly decision, one we had laughed away as an impossibility only 3 Months ago with a flavor of derision we will partly reprise here to jog our riders' memories:
The last sentence [about KinderStart seeking to force Google to reveal its algorithm] 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 meeting 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.
We stand by our previous derisiveness.
U.S. District Court Justice Jeremy Fogel, however, doesn't, persuaded by the old antitrust boogeyman:
Kinderstart claims that Google violates antitrust laws in delivering rankings based on secret criteria. The suit seeks damages, but more importantly, it seeks disclosure of the methods Google uses to rank sites. It calls Google's practices anti-competitive, and it was this claim of anti-competitive behavior leading to antitrust that caused U.S. District Court Justice Jeremy Fogel to suggest that he intends to let the case proceed. A hearing in the case has been set for September 29, 2006.
Fogel did draw a line of absurdity, though, thankfully:
A claim that Google violated the first-amendment rights of Kinderstart did not seem to move the judge.
Whew.
Posted by john at 08:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack