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November 30, 2007

Will Google's New Linking Stance Create Innocent Victims?

Color me at least somewhat concerned about the latest revision to Google's stance on buying and selling of links. Here's the phrase that worries me:

Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.

Conventional wisdom, until now, has stated that "you can't be penalized due to who links to you; you can be penalized only because of whom you link to." Because otherwise, if you could be penalized based in inbound links, all a competitor would have to do is purchase a ton of "noteworthy" links on your behalf, right?

Isn't this reason for concern?

Posted by erik at 02:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 28, 2007

SEO Speedwagon Killing In Vegas

Who'd have thought a mere 2.5 years from first post we'd be blogging to beat the band?:

Here's the link for proof this isn't a photoshop job, let's just hope the jump in visits doesn't cause them to wonder what is going on.

I for one am having a T-Shirt made of this, anyone else interested?

Posted by john at 08:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Are You A Canonical Fascist? Stand Tall!

We are sticklers with our clients when it comes to issues of content duplication, sometimes to the point, I think, of being viewed as Canonical Fascists. This can be annoying, much like fascism mostly can be annoying, so it is gratifying to see Mr. Google himself lay out just why such annoyance is worthwhile advocacy, even approaching the subject of PageRank Splitting in the process:

When I did a wget from the Googleplex, I eventually got a 301 from the seomoz.com url to the seomoz.org url. But look at the timestamps: " --09:28:33-- " was the initial fetch and "--09:32:41--" was when the 301 came over the wire. Assuming that I'm reading right, that means almost a four minute delay on getting the 301 from seomoz.com to seomoz.org. Googlebot will wait around for several seconds for a page, but it won't wait four minutes. Instead, the connection will time out and we'll treat those urls as separate (and think that we couldn't fetch the seomoz.com url). So if a bunch of people are linking to your article, and some link to seomoz.org and some link to seomoz.com, that PageRank is getting split between two urls, and the long delay on the 301 response can cause Google to believe that the urls are separate and therefore cause dupe issues.

Hat tip to Randfish for calling forth such manna in his heavily commented comments area.

Posted by john at 03:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 27, 2007

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Just when I thought I knew exactly what I wanted for Christmas, I get the following e-mail:

We can increase your monthly web traffic and get you the best position on every major search engine guaranteed never to move (ex: Yahoo! , Google, MSN, AltaVista, etc.). For a free informative consultation and site review email us.

Guaranteed never to move!!!!!!!

During my free informative consultation, they also promised that when I die, on my deathbed, I will receive total consciousness. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

Posted by tom at 09:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 23, 2007

SEO Won't Help You...

... When you're Sears and your site's not prepared for the Black Friday Effect:

Posted by erik at 04:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 21, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

It's Wednesday and Thanksgiving is tomorrow!

One can't help but foreshadow the events that will take place tomorrow. Seeing family and friends, having private conversations about politics, work, etc., hearing from a relative on why this person shouldn't be wearing that outfit, seeing grandpa ritualistically dip his crooked, unwashed finger in the mashed potatoes to ensure consistency, the smell of that bird cooking in its own juices stuffed full of the obligatory bread stuffing, watching fighting amongst the children on who gets the break the wish bone, and so on. Yes, Thanksgiving is upon us once again.

I hope a good majority of us SEO geeks may go so far as to not check email or client rankings over the course of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, but I'm not holding my breath on that prediction.

Let's all try to take a break from our chaotic work environment and take a step back to enjoy all we have to be thankful for tomorrow and over the course of the long weekend. The search engines won't sleep, I know, but let's all try to relax this weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Posted by sean at 10:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 16, 2007

MSN/Live Universal Search

Perhaps I'm late in noticing, but it appears that MSN has finally made an attempt at emulating Google's Universal Search in search results pages, specifically for queries that are off the usual Universal path. Truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of MSN and thus don't check out their search results with any great frequency, but it's better late than never to notice their new results, no?

Anyway, take a look at a quick snapshot I took this AM of their search results for [atv trailers]:

You'll notice at the very top of their search results; links for Images, Video, News, Maps, Etc. "Related" searches are in the top-right corner. And the neat thing about the videos is that they begin playing when you hover over them.

But I think I prefer Google's Universal Search results (video, images, news, etc.) immersed within the search results themselves. However, it may end up being more user-friendly to allow people to use the "Try Also" links at the top of the search results to narrow their search focus to be for just Images, Videos, etc. as opposed to drilling down the search results and clicking on links of interest as is the case with Google.

Should be interesting to see what people think of the new MSN Universal Search functionality.

Is it a copyright infringement to call this MSN Universal Search? I guess we'll know soon enough.

Posted by sean at 02:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 15, 2007

Tagging The Site Organic

We spend a great deal of time on site structural issues with our clients, and one of the first things we usually do with a new client is try and transition them from thinking of SEO as a page-level concern to more of a holistic, organic discipline, one where we must try and understand the site architecture in its interdependent relationship between the whole and its parts. After all, organic is ultimately the moniker that won the day.

Almost invariably the large sites that we recognize are not living up to their potential are what we call top-heavy architecturally, in that the TLD so dominates all things search that even the main folder levels are all but invisible, let alone deeper, longer-tail-rich pages. As we explain the phenomenon we often find ourselves referring to blog structure, and how we might borrow some of the structural characteristics of a blog in discovering how to flatten out the top-heavy site. There are reasons blogs are so eminently crawlable.

One of those reasons is tagging, and I was pleased this morning to find a fellow tag-appreciator in Stephan Spencer, explaining his tag appreciation more eloquently than I have yet seen done to date:

Tagging isn't just a tool for usability (even though it's typically mostly thought of in those terms), it's also a powerful weapon for search engine optimization. That's because tagging allows you to rejig your internal hierarchical linking structure, flowing the link juice more strategically throughout your site. And because those links are textual and keyword-rich, a tag cloud is far superior in terms of SEO to the traditional graphical navigation bar.

Bravo, Stephan. Long live tag conjunction!

Posted by john at 07:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 13, 2007

A Link Building Rap - Why Didn't I Think of Thap?

Link Building is not exactly an attention grabbing party stopper. When civilians query my occupational passion, my rousing explanation scatters the masses like a Harry Chapin song dropped on a dance floor. While most answer a silently ringing phone or feign illness, some remain, trapped by eye contact or some other barricade. Upon conclusion, I transition to them with, "Guess I'm Not Ready for Prime Time. So what do you do?"

Well, thanks to Chuck, AKA the Poetic Prophet, we Link Builders may find some party invitations in the mailbox this holiday season.

I am having a hard time pulling this off on my own though, as any rap sounds like "We Didn't Start the Fire" when I get done with it. Perhaps there is a Link Building Power Ballad out there for me. Pull out the lighters.

So now I link to you
With HTML
Nothing is blocked
Confirm with Rex Swain
So here I am
With HTML
Hoping you'll see
What your link means to me
HTML

Any other suggestions?

Posted by tom at 09:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 12, 2007

Is Jill Whalen a Scam? Yes, She Is!

In my research for last week's post on click distribution across Google Sitelinks, I found something pretty funny. I was testing to see what names, when used as queries, generate sitelinks when the names themselves are not part of the domain.

About the only person in the SEO/M space who can claim that is Jill Whalen, because a query for [jill whalen] brings up a set of Sitelinks for her site, HighRankings.com. And that is very impressive.

But what concerns me is the paid ad that comes up for that query:

I don't want to give that site any real credence (so if you want to key it in, go ahead, but don't expect a link). I clicked over, expecting to at least find some valid accusations. Instead, it was more like a biography written by an eighth-grader (to be read, apparently, by sixth-graders).

But if we start to put the pieces together, I think we might find that Jill really IS a scammer. To wit:

• She offers a newsletter on Thursdays, yet I can recall several instances of issues coming out on Wednesdays, or worse yet, Fridays. LIES.
• On the High Rankings Forum, several topics are labeled as "pinned." Yet they're not really "pinned" at all, are they, Jill? Aren't they really suspended in place using some sort of code? HALF-TRUTHS.
• Jill co-founded SEMNE, or the Search Engine Marketing Network for New England. Yet sometimes it is called the Search Engine Marketing Organization for New England. So which is it? And shouldn't it be SEMNNE? Or SEMONE? Where did the other letters go, Jill? Where? DECEPTION.

I think I've made a pretty strong case. Proceed with caution.

Posted by erik at 05:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 09, 2007

Web 2.0.1: Introspection and Backlash

It's hard to toss a drunken twenty-something across a room these days without him or her landing on a "social media expert" (who, coincidentally, happens to be another drunken twenty-something), but here's a collection of fogies (people over 30) who have a nice sense of history and perspective:

• Rich Skrenta, Network Effect Entrepreneurs. New technology is fine, but many recent successes came from using old technology in a new way -- and being the first one to capitalize on it.

  Ebay was like this too. You could write a clone of ebay in a weekend. It's printf's and a database. But there's no point, because the trick would be how you would get everyone from over there onto your site.

• Nicholas Carr, The Social Graft. A live vivisection of Facebook's advertising announcement, with a light dose of snark.

  There is no intimacy that is not a branding opportunity, no friendship that can't be monetized, no kiss that doesn't carry an exchange of value. The cluetrain has reached its last stop, its terminus, the end of the line.

• Jill Whalen, Social Media Marketing: The New SEO? A really good take on what social media really is -- and isn't.

  My fear with all the hype about social media marketing is that people new to search marketing will believe it's what SEO demands and what SEO is all about.

  It isn't. Not by a long shot.

  
  

Posted by erik at 07:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 06, 2007

Google Sitelinks Expansion: Early Results in Traffic Funneling

As you probably recall, Google rolled out an enhanced version of Sitelinks in mid-October. I thought it would be interesting to monitor the early results and see how effective the new links are.

Following is a typical example of Sitelinks. Google now shows up to eight links instead of the maximum of four that it showed only a month ago. When I refer to traffic later in the post, these Sitelink numbers are the links/URLs I'll be talking about:

The point of this post is to show you what happened (if anything) to the traffic that had traditionally funneled to either the main link or to the four Sitelinks. I plotted traffic to each of the nine links through October to see what would happen. the following charts reflect these filtered criteria:

• The query term was a single word
• The referrer was Google (organic)
• The entry page was the exact URL of the link being discussed

In addition, here are some important caveats:

• These charts are NOT all the same scale; I can't give actual visit numbers, but I will give the percent of all clicks received. The "main" link, as well as Sitelinks 1-3, pull in some serious numbers. While the traffic spikes in Sitelinks 5-8 will look pretty large, they shouldn't be construed as having the same traffic numbers. More on that as I discuss each link.
• Don't necessarily infer any proposed correlation between drop in traffic to one link and rise in traffic to another. These things are controlled by many, many more factors than the mere existence of new Sitelinks.
• The Sitelinks change was announced around 10/18, but it took a while to roll it out to all DCs. I didn't see it for any searches until at least the 25th. Keep a gradual rollout in mind when you look at the charts for links 5-8.

Okay, here we go. Following are descriptions of each link followed by a graph of the traffic to that link for October.

URL/Sitelink 0: The "main" link -- represented by "Company Name and Stuff" in the shot above. A slight drop overall, but it appeared to happen across the month, not necessarily at the same time as the Sitelinks rollout. Total traffic: 67.6% :

URL/Sitelink 1: The first true "Sitelink" link. A slight decline throughout the month, but again, not necessarily correlating to the Sitelinks rollout. Total traffic: 25.2% :

URL/Sitelink 2: Like the previous two links, it declined slightly. It looks a little more aligned with the rollout, but not completely. Total traffic: 5.1% :

URL/Sitelink 3:This link actually showed modest gains, starting about the time of the rollout. Total traffic: 1.6% :

URL/Sitelink 4:In early October, this link was already coming down from an offline push that peaked in late September. But the Sitelinks rollout didn't seem to help it, as it shows additional decline after the rollout period. One additional thing about this link: It's not what you'd traditionally think of when you type "keyword," so I attribute a lot of its clicks to curious onlookers who didn't expect to see it there. The other side of that sword is that now, the query shows four new, shiny links in the other column that will continue to drain clicks away from this guy. Total traffic: .22% :

URL/Sitelink 5:Okay, the first of the new links. From out of nowhere, it starts getting traffic on 10/17. But not that much. Total traffic: .12% :

URL/Sitelink 6:Like Sitelink 5, this one really jumped when the rollout started. It had just a few clicks before the rollout for this query, because this URL also ranks for "keyword" on its own somewhere beyond Page 2. Total traffic: .07% :

URL/Sitelink 7:In addition to its new location as Sitelink 7, this URL also lives above the fold on Page 2 for the same query. Since the Sitelinks rollout, it's on a pace to roughly triple its former traffic (for this keyword only, of course). Total traffic: .06% :

URL/Sitelink 8:This link came from nowhere, but it didn't do much. Part of it might have to do with being in the eighth spot, but more likely it's because I believe this particular link doesn't interest people who are searching for "keyword." Total traffic: .02% :

Required disclaimers. This click distribution across the nine links (main link plus eight Sitelinks) is highly variable and will change depending on what Google picks for your Sitelinks, how well the links match the query itself (and the intent of the searcher), etc.

The interesting thing for me here is not that Sitelinks 5-8 are getting clicks. That's not newsworthy. But from a behavioral perspective, it's interesting to watch how users react to links they might not have expected to see associated with their query.

One final note: These eight links are the ones that Google auto-generated. We'll be doing more posts about the ability to subtly affect the Sitelinks choices in the future.

Posted by erik at 02:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 01, 2007

Search: Too Sexy for Advertising?

Search Quote of the Day from He of the Great Name:

Search is utilitarian. Search is constantly accused of not being sexy. That drives me nuts. The irony is that in pigeonholing search as being boring and utilitarian, all these brilliant advertising minds are missing the biggest idea of all: search works because it’s the customer driving the process, not the advertiser.

I'm with you, Gord. In our industry, conversions are sexy.

Posted by john at 05:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack