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May 31, 2007

Wikipedia Hits the Big Screen in 2008

The future looks bright for Wikipedia, which is coming off a slew of TV guest appearances including frequent stops at The Office and Comedy Central. What's next for Wiki? According to David Manning of The Ridgefield Press, the rising star has teamed up with the William Morris Agency and is currently shopping several different movie ideas. Below are vehicles in concept with Wiki attached and all the studios biting.

Working Title: Cupid's Sandbox
Wary 30-somethings, having been hurt too many times before, build trust in a new love while communicating within the Wiki Sandbox, after a chance encounter while carrying out experiments within the safe testing ground.

Working Title: Wikid Game
A troubled youth logs into a version of Wikpedia that edits his own life and must defend himself against those calling for his speedy deletion.

Working Title: Wiki Side Story
The ancient grudge breaks to new mutiny during a Google Dance, where star-crossed lovers share a transcending moment, only to discover that one is a Wiki editor and the other is an SEO.

Working Title: Wikipedia Phil
A Wikipedia editor awakes to discover he is stuck in a time loop which continually ends with all of his edits being reverted to the previous day's version.

Stay on the Wagon for movie updates and trailers.

Posted by tom at 12:37 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 25, 2007

Keyword Research: Use Data -- and Your Head

We often run into contrdictory data when we use multiple tools for keyword research. Take the difference, for example, between predictions in Keyword Discovery and WordTracker.

KWD predicts that the term [ford f150] will be typed about 1665 times per day, while WordTracker predicts 1298. Actually, that's pretty close, considering that we sometimes see a factor of 5 or 10 between the two services. Take [cardiology], which weighs in with "predict" counts at 1485 (WT) and 209 (KWD).

So which one's right? That part's easy. Clearly, they're both way off. In my opinion, both services utilize a sample size so small that the level of extrapolation required to estimate a "predict" count sends the possible error percentage through the roof.

So does that mean I don't use them? Hardly. I use them both. But I also use my head.

WordTracker claims that the ratio of searches for [ipod nano] to [video ipod] is about 15:1, respectively. Keyword Discovery shows a ratio of about 17:1. To me, that's the critical factor. Across and within their respective samples, [ipod nano] is more frequently searched for by roughly the same margin. I don't need to know a valid daily prediction for this data to be helpful.

(While the two services surely do not agree on all term ratios like they did here, this was my first try. I didn't "shop around" plugging in terms until I found terms that showed similar ratios. Your mileage may vary, of course.)

Another thing to remember is sample location. If you're playing around with keyword tools and see that no one searches for [liquor stores cleveland] but plenty of people search for [liquor stores atlanta], don't necessarily believe that the northern Buckeyes have adopted a philosophy of temperance. (I think we all know that's not true.)

Be aware that sample data in keyword tools isn't always perfectly geographically distributed. In my experience, markets of similar sizes often have search patterns that are very similar -- with the exception of regionally specific keywords. In other words, you might very well find more people searching for [tanning beds] in Bismarck than in Scottsdale, since there's less natural sun in the Dakotas.

You get the point. While sometimes the information in keyword tools does qualify as "good news," I certainly wouldn't call it "gospel."

Posted by erik at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

PPC Management - Analyzing the Results

Analysis is a many faceted thing. Depending on how you choose to look at what you’re analyzing it gives off different impressions. The closest thing that I can think of for an analogy is a trying to buy a diamond. Depending on how you look at a diamond it can give off a totally different reflection. In fact, by not examining all aspects of a diamond you could be led completely astray in determining if it is valuable to you or not.

In my mind I’m immediately reminded of the process that I went through in purchasing the engagement ring for my wife. That turned out to be an education that took a lot of work, but in the end I ended up with just what I was looking for. I remember the whole thing started with me learning about the “4 C’s” of diamond shopping. All of you men who have ever bought a diamond for a lady can now recite them with me: Cut, Color, Clarity, & Carat. Although they are all important, I ultimately had to decide how my wants in each category matched up with my intended result and ultimately, budget.

In much the same way with PPC campaign management what I need to use to analyze my campaign depends on what I’m looking for, what’s important to me, and last but definitely not least, how much I am able/willing to spend. In the spirit of the 4 C’s let’s look at each of them.

1) Cut is the equivalent of how is my campaign designed? For CTR? For Impressions? For click quantities? These can all be measured fairly easily and should be monitored on at least a weekly basis. Contrasting current data with historical data should give you a good set of ‘pulse checker’ indices that can give you a heads up to any potential trouble. If the cut is proper, your stone/campaign will have the best foundation for stability and the ability to reach it’s greatest value potential.

2) Color relates to the question; What is my campaign designed to do? Drive traffic? Drive sign-ups? Drive purchases? This is a level deeper than ‘Cut’ and thus entails actual tracking of specific actions that are desired of the customer. Tools like Google Analytics can be extremely helpful in determining if specific desired actions are happening, and help provide us clues as to why or why not our desired actions are happening. Knowing the Color of the campaign will allow us to keep focused on what is important and what is not. In other words if we know the stone/campaign is blue, then we can make sure that those things that enhance its beauty are placed around it.

3) Clarity causes me to ask the question, Is it easy to see results? Do my measurement parameters match my customers buying cycle? Of all the of the 4 C’s in PPC Management this is perhaps the most overlooked key to proper analysis of the results. Every PPC manager & client should be acutely aware of this fundamental issue. It is easy to miss perhaps because it is so glaringly simple. But knowing this can allow for tracking cookies to be set for the appropriate period of time and allow for analytical calculations to take this into account. Not knowing this can lead to comparing conversions that should belong to last month, in the current month. I can’t overstate the importance of this, if the results aren’t clear, everything you do to optimize your campaign is like swinging at a Piñata with a blindfold on.

4) Carat is the equivalent of; Is my campaign performing as well as it could be? How big is my bang for my buck? I find sometimes that bigger is not always better. Sure, the more money we have to spend the more people we can reach etc., but the key aspect to remember is ‘qualified’. If just driving traffic with no regard to having qualified visitors is your goal, that would be akin to having a 7 carat diamond that is so cloudy and flawed that it is virtually worthless, but everyone WILL notice it. If we are truly honest, we would all say that we want to have the biggest Carat, but after we see what it costs and what our budget is we usually try to get best bang for our buck.

As with many things in life evaluating a diamond or a PPC campaign is not as easy just one or two of the 4 C’s. Inevitably we strive to get the best overall value that we can by incorporating all of the 4 C’s together and balancing them against our budget. In the end though diamonds are not a PPC campaign. For diamonds 3 out of the 4 C’s are determined by nature. For PPC the 4 C’s are all products of what is put into the campaign. Determining the balance of input into each category should match your goals and desires for the campaign. If that is followed, you will ultimately be poised for the greatest success in your campaigns.

Posted by brent at 01:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 22, 2007

Google Hell: Is That Google Poo On Your Shoe?

One of the hottest topics these days in SEO forums, message boards, and blogs is Google's Supplemental Index. We've had some hearty discussions here at Intrapromote about GSI!

If you have a lot of web pages in Google's Supplemental Index, then you may refer to it as "Google Hell". A kinder, gentler reference I've seen is "The Google Poo".

Hell or poo, both stink and no one wants to have anything to do with them.

Perhaps most interesting ..... I have a feeling that hundreds of thousands of web sites have stepped in the poo unknowingly.

Heaven or Hell

Google's Supplemental Index (GSI), as defined by Google:

Supplemental sites are part of Google’s auxiliary index. We’re able to place fewer restraints on sites that we crawl for this supplemental index than we do on sites that are crawled for our main index. For example, the number of parameters in a URL might exclude a site from being crawled for inclusion in our main index; however, it could still be crawled and added to our supplemental index. The index in which a site is included is completely automated; there’s no way for you to select or change the index in which your site appears.

Did you get through that without falling asleep?

If you want to see if you have web pages in the GSI, simply replace "www.abc.com" below with your web address and search at Google for:

site:www.abc.com *** -view

Welcome To Hades. Have A Nice Day.

Here's what you need to know if you find you have pages in the GSI. Searches conducted at Google, with rare exception, will return pages in Google's Main Index. So, your pages in the GSI will have little opportunity to ever be found by potential site visitors. Pages in the GSI simply do not rank well.

However, when it comes to the GSI, you'll be glad to know that the wages of sin are not always death.

Google Reconciliation

Here's what to do if you want to smell better to Google. Take a close look at your web pages in the GSI:

First, check the quality of your web page content. Especially look to see if your pages contain duplicate content from other web pages in Google's Main or Supplemental index. The majority of the pages we've seen in the GSI have been banished there because they contain duplicate content. So, one way out of Google's lake of fire is to make sure your web pages have unique content.

Second, check the quantity of your web page content. We've seen a lot of pages in the GSI that have little or no content. Again, make your web pages as unique as possible.

Third, check the backlinks to your pages. We've seen a lot of GSI pages that do not have any links to them. If your page(s) are linkless, securing quality internal and external links from pages not in the GSI may prove to be your online salvation.

Lastly, once you have addressed the items above, resubmit your HTML or XML sitemap to Google.

Posted by doug at 02:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 16, 2007

Google Universal - a Quick Look at Google's New UI

Today Google rolled out "Google Universal," a major update to its SERP interface. For me, it literally happened at about 45 minutes ago, as I was looking up some restaurant information.

In the following query for [mentos experiment], the first thing you'll notice is that the links to Web, Images, Video, News, Maps, and "more" are now at the very top left of the screen (see pink highlight below). The "more" link drops down to offer (as expected) more options.

Note the Google Video thumbnails near the bottom of the shot. Also highlighted is pink here is an additional set of options -- possibly. In the shot above, only "Web" results are available in this search. But look at the following search for [adidas stan smith], which shows the additional options of Products and Images:

Clearly, this is a little bit of server-side decision-making on Google's part: Show additional vertical search options only when the index warrants it. Still, this could potentially get a little too "busy," as the "Images" link right above the Google logo points to the same page as the "Images" link below the logo, which seems redundant.

Basically, Google's new interface dumps every conceivable data format onto the SERP and lets you decide which direction you want to take it. On first look, it's a pretty nice upgrade, which, along with the new release of Google Analytics last week, gives SEOs something new to chew on for a while.

Note: Don't bother telling me that Danny Sullivan already did a post on this that was earlier, longer, and funner. I get it.

Posted by erik at 10:25 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 15, 2007

Rosie Now Powerful Enough to Mock SEO Speedwagon in The SERPs

My oh my. We have to admit we were a tad worried here at The Wagon of backlash when we exposed Rosie O'Donnell's exact same URL appearing as result #'s 1 and 2:


What we didn't know, though, was that her media influence extended to being able to poke us in the eye with a self-conscious rejoinder of a description in her now magically changed #2 result:

Never mind that she doth seem to protest too much in her description. The sheer SEO power of this woman is breathtaking.

Posted by john at 05:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 10, 2007

What Does Mundane Have To Do With Dictionary?

Q. What doest mundane have to do with dictionary?

A. Absolutely NOTHING!

But Google seems to think so:

This reminds me of a discovery I made a while back where a search for "therapy products" pulled up a "see results for Yahoo" suggestion mid-page.

Does Google really think dictionaries are mundane? Maybe, but I'm leaning more towards them having a small glitch with this particular SERP.

Posted by sean at 06:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 08, 2007

PPC Demographics…. Mystified

I quite frequently run across strange ‘anomalies’ where a particular client will do well at one search engine and poorly at another. The obvious question is why? The obvious answer is …………well, there is no obvious answer but let me share the thought process with you.

It goes something like this……

Me: Why in world is ABC doing better at Google than they are at Yahoo?

Myself: Maybe it’s the different technical aspects to the PPC campaigns…..

Me: Hmmmm, that’s a good idea but I don’t think that’s it. I mean they both have a title, they both allow 70 characters, and they both try to rank based on quality issues.

Myself: Ok, so your saying technically there is no difference?

Me: Well…….there is a difference, just not a vast chasm.

Myself: So we can use the same campaign at both places?

Me: Not exactly, its okay to start with similar ones. They have to be fed to the engines in separate ways, but other than that……

Myself: So how does this help me with the why?

Me: I’m just trying to think the process through to identify or eliminate things.

Myself: Ah, okay. So what’s the next ‘step in the process’

Me: Well, the next step is the ‘creative’ side of things, you know, what the ad’s actually say.

Myself: Hmmmmmm that sounds logical. You’re saying that the ‘audience’ could be different at Yahoo than it is at Google?

Me: Exactly! Not only that, but the market share could differ from industry to industry based on demographic as well.

Myself: Wow! Why do you think that?

Me: Just observations at this point. I mean there really isn’t hard data to support this that I’ve run across. The closest I’ve come are market share reports for keywords.

Myself: That sounds like a start. What have you ‘noticed’ about the different engines?

Me: Well, now remember this is only speculative but……….Google seems to have more of the ‘business crowd’. The more high dollar value the item/search, the more success they seem to have at Google. Yahoo seems to be more of the non-business crowd with lower dollar value search items. Now I have seen high ticket items do well on Yahoo, but they tend be community based like, the racing community, or the hiking community, or the camping community. {DISCLAIMER: THESE ARE PURELY FICTIONAL COMMUNITIES}

Myself: Ahhhh, so by community you mean a group of people who share the same interests?

Me: Exactly. I would go further and say that they like to only go to one place to do things online. I.e. they probably use Yahoo mail, search the web through Yahoo, and connect with others through Yahoo.

Myself: That’s a pretty interesting theory. Seems to make sense though. You’ve failed to mention MSN though.

Me: Who? Oh yeah, MSN. Well, as of press time they are trying to make a splash by purchasing Yahoo but that would add how much market share to Yahoo’s 20-30%? About 5% by my [unscientific] estimate. MSN Paid Search seems to well if you’re targeting people who never change the browser after they buy it from Best Buy, Fry’s, and (Insert Big Box Store Name Here).

Myself: Isn’t that kind of harsh?

Me: Not really, when people ask me about what I do, most of them still aren’t aware that there are actually paid ad’s in search results.

Myself: Seriously!?!?!

Me: Yeah, it’s true, but that discussion is for another day – suffice to say that it’s important to think outside the ‘bubble’ of SEO when considering our audience and what our clients are trying to get the word out on.

That last sentence is important enough to repeat: It’s important to think outside the ‘bubble’ of SEO when considering our audience and what our clients are trying to get the word out on. In the same way that TV runs the Captain Crunch commercials on Saturday morning and not during the football game, it’s vitally important to be cognizant of our audience and where they are ‘at’ on the Internet.

Posted by brent at 11:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

SEO Best Practices - International or Region-Specific Sites and Domain Issues

Suggested Best Practices:

A good first question to ask is “Who exactly are we targeting?�? If you are targeting a specific country, targeting a specific language-speaking audience, or your web site copy is specifically for a country or language-specific audience, use a ccTLD (country code top level domain) that relates to your target country rather than a general .com domain. For example, a ccTLD would look like www.domain.fr, www.domain.ca, www.domain.jp, or www.domain.co.uk. Always use ccTLDs for each language of your site.

Avoid having multiple language sites on the same domain, e.g., www.domain.com for English language content and www.domain.com/fr/ for French language content.

Make sure that there is not any duplicate content on your .com and any other sites.

Make sure your pages identify what language they are in, e.g., meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="jp"

If you cannot use a ccTLD, use a subdomain, e.g., fr.domain.com. Google views a subdomain as a separate site.

Benefits Of Best Practices:

A ccTLD communicates to search engines the focus of your site.

A ccTLD is the quickest and most accurate way to communicate regionality to the search engines.

A ccTLD assigns more weight for local search. It allows your site to be more easily included in Google Canada, Google Mexico, etc.

Search engines tend to have higher confidence and often give a ranking boost to a ccTLD site for local searches. For example, Google France may give a more favorable ranking to a France-specific (.fr) site.

FAQ:

Q: What about using subdirectories such as www.domain.com/fr/? Can we do a 301 redirect from a subdirectory to a ccTLD, e.g., from www.domain.com/fr/ to www.domain.fr?

A: From a search engine perspective, it is always best to use a ccTLD. If a ccTLD is not possible, then consider using a subdomain. We do not recommend using subdirectories for international sites or language-specific sites.

Q: What does Google say about the use of TLDs, ccTLDs, subdomains, etc.?

A: “Use TLDs. To help us serve the most appropriate version of a document, use top level domains whenever possible to handle country-specific content. We're more likely to know that www.domain.de indicates Germany-focused content, for instance, than www.domain.com/de/." (Source: Google Blog)

Posted by doug at 11:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 03, 2007

SEO Lessons from Jurassic Park

I get a kick out of it when SEO and Analytics overlap into other areas of life.

There's a great passage in Crichton's Jurassic Park (I don't think it made it into the film) that is applicable in all sorts of business and personal situations.

I can't find my copy of the book anywhere, since it's been about 15 years (!) since I read it. So I'll have to paraphrase. Here's the scene: An outside auditor is watching a Jurassic Park computer guy monitor a specific type of dinosaur within a certain part of the park from his computer workstation.

Here's the paraphrased scene. Remember (as if it will be hard) that I'm no Crichton:

Auditor: Hey Computer Guy. What's up?

Computer Guy: Hey Auditor. Just checking on how many T. Rexes we have in Area 8H.

Auditor: Cool. How do you do that?

Computer Guy: Oh, you know -- each one emits some fiction novel-based signal that is picked up by my computer sensor here.

Auditor: Cool. How many T. Rexes do you have?

Computer Guy: Twelve.

Auditor: Cool. How do you know that?

Computer Guy: Well, according to our records, we're supposed to have 12. When the computer counts the signals and finds 12, it tells me everything's okay.

Auditor: Cool. Why don't you try searching for 25 of them?

Computer Guy: Okay. Hey now, that's interesting...

Auditor: What happened?

Computer Guy: It found 25.

Auditor: Cool. Why don't you try searching for 50?

Computer Guy: Okay. OH CRAP.

Auditor: What's wrong?

Computer Guy: Can you lock that door over there?

AND ... SCENE.

So what does this have to do with SEO or web analytics? It means that getting the right answer is very important, but only when you're asking the right question or looking for the right data.

• If you're going after a "trophy phrase" -- and you actually start ranking for it -- you might think you've hit the jackpot, when in reality, some keyword research would reveal a much smarter strategy.
• If you're buying traffic to hit a certain visit or pageview goal -- and you hit those marks -- you might think you've achieved something, while sales languish.
• If you're pursuing a link-building strategy based on PageRank or raw numbers -- and you get that SuperLink or hit the right IBL count -- you might expect your sales to skyrocket, while instead you get a bunch of curious tire-kickers who do nothing but suck bandwidth.

So remember: When you're looking for dinosaurs, find out how many there are, period. Don't just stop when you get to 12.

I hope you've enjoyed this edition of SEO Morality Theatre.

Posted by erik at 04:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 02, 2007

More Sitelinks Hijinks with Google Duality : A Tail of Two 301's

It's not just Rosie enjoying the new Google Sitelinks Value Meal. FON, that guerrilla Wi-Fi startup knocking at Starbucks doors via their neighbors, is also now seated at the table:

But note in the above the two highlighted URLs, which are indeed the same page, do a bit of a pa de deux with how they serve the language, in this case English. The Sitelinks serving places the language as served from the en subdomain, yet that very URL redirects in this manner:

So that subdomain 301s from its English language subset that the subdomain indicates back to the non-language specific setting at the WWW level, whence it makes another direct turn back toward the language specific:

The whole trail of 301s serving to have moved the language specification in the URL from subdomain to folder level, with a waving pass through nothing. Quelle bonne idée !

Perhaps it is if it's another way to order a Google Sitelinks Value Meal.

Posted by john at 11:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack