SEO Industry News Articles by SEO Speedwagon
June 13, 2008
Yahoo to Become Adsense Clearinghouse? 
Sean saw it coming yesterday, and little more than a Month ago I thought it a Yang Threat to balance the Microsoft yin of bluster.
Yet here we have it, and have you ever read anything that made Yahoo suddenly seem more insignificant?:
If the Google partnership passes what's likely to be a rigorous review by U.S. antitrust regulators and lawmakers, Yahoo! intends to use its rival's superior search technology to display ads on its own Web site as well as those of its partners' in the United States and Canada.
Let us all give a collective search way of goodbye to the once great king.
Yahoo to Become Adsense Clearinghouse?
Posted by john at 09:47 AM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
May 21, 2008
The Ineluctable Organic Moment Gets a Big, Big Update
This is from much earlier in this fleeting year, admittedly, but with most focusing on the average words per search query increase angle of the story, I wanted to make sure and dig out a fine morsel from the very mouth of Google that may have been lost had I not:
14% of Google clicks come from paid search and 86% of clicks are organic.
True in court it may only qualify as hearsay, having come from the Google mouth of Avinash Kaushik to the ear of beu blog before finally being transcribed into print; yet, as you may remember from my earlier quest for a documented source behind that most mythical of numbers in all of SEM, the percentage of overall searchers clicking on an organic, rather than paid, search result, hearsay here surely now trumps unattributed there.
And the alleged statement is said to have come from Google's Analytics Evangelist, folks, so I think we are getting closer...
The Ineluctable Organic Moment Gets a Big, Big Update
Posted by john at 06:17 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
May 03, 2008
Breaking: Yang Googles Ballmer
Just when it seemed the twain might soon be making their way down the aisle, arm-in-arm, the mere spectre of Google is enough to call off the nuptials: Mashable has the goods, including Balmer's e-mail that is really more about Google than Yahoo:
We regard with particular concern your apparent planning to respond to a “hostile” bid by pursuing a new arrangement that would involve or lead to the outsourcing to Google of key paid Internet search terms offered by Yahoo! today. In our view, such an arrangement with the dominant search provider would make an acquisition of Yahoo! undesirable to us for a number of reasons:
He goes on to devote almost half of his e-mail to explaining how bad an idea Yang's Google threat is. I caught this on my Mashable feed as I began watching the original Frankenstein movie with my kids. No kidding.
Breaking: Yang Googles Ballmer
Posted by john at 10:01 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
February 18, 2008
MSN's Berkowitz Pulled from the Index 
I haven't seen this anywhere except ClickZ and I thought you might be interested. As of last Thursday, Steve Berkowitz, the SVP of Microsoft's Online Services Group, is out. He'll be staying through August "to ensure a smooth transition."
In the big picture, two years doesn't seem like quite enough time to have turned the MSN Search ocean liner around, despite the fact that Berkowitz is credited with Ask's financial turnaround during his tenure there. But someone has to fall on the sword in situations like this, and it looks like he was the logical choice. One wonders whether a simple management shuffle will have a significant effect, or whether it's merely bringing a sharper knife to the gunfight.
Further reading:
MSN's Berkowitz Pulled from the Index
Posted by erik at 04:06 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
January 16, 2008
Less Sponsored Ads = More PPC Revenue? Que Pasa, Google?
One of my favorite clients of all time, with us now going on 8 years and powered mightily by the rare, dual client-side SEO strengths of search understanding and inter-departmental implementation influence, recently noticed the same thing Mark Jackson saw in Google's most recent round of Universal Search peekaboo:
Notice the incredibly disappearing PPC Ads? My immediate explication was that surely this must be to prove, in a small test sample, that someone's bad idea from above would be a disaster, indeed.
Mark, though, has made me think again:
Google may succeed in encouraging companies to bid more ferociously for the top two positions. If universal search leads to more searches because it's fun, this could be a win for Google (higher revenues) and users (better experience).
Sometimes it's hard for us to imagine that there is a finite set of clicks on any given day. The business model in a closed set like this, then, must discover what to do to increase the value of the average click within the set on a given day. Mark's point about less ads likelier driving up value per is on target, I believe, but thanks to him getting me to think again I think the test layout in question has less to do about increasing searches "because it's fun" and much ado about that map, an image mind you, kissing the PPC ads at the right corner of the screen and making your eye immediately jump there to focus.
Take a look yourself and see where your eye is drawn, and then check out what eye tracking heat maps are telling us about how pictures affect focus on a search page.
Less Sponsored Ads = More PPC Revenue? Que Pasa, Google?
Posted by john at 04:27 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
January 07, 2008
All Eyes on Wikia Search Launch
After more than a year since the initial news, Wikia Search officially launched this morning. I won't bore you with the reviews, which are mixed (although seldom neutral).
Probably the funniest line came from Matt Cutts, whose
...reaction is pretty simple: congrats to the Wikia crew on your public launch, and welcome to the search industry! I’m glad that you’re jumping into the search space.
This seems a little like Tom Brady welcoming his grandmother to the pickup scrimmage at the family reunion.
All Eyes on Wikia Search Launch
Posted by erik at 07:46 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
December 06, 2007
Old Media Quote of the Day
I just love it when Old Media can't adapt to Web 2.0 and tries to pass the buck while hubris prevents them from admitting they are passing the buck:
...the Motion Picture Association of America has asked ISPs to act as monitors of movie piracy. MPAA head Dan Glickman says ISPs need to take on that role if they are hoping for any sort of future support from Hollywood.
Actual buck-passing-disguised-as-responsible-parenting quote from Dan Glickman, head of the MPAA:
The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protected.
Old Media Quote of the Day
Posted by john at 02:01 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
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?
SEO Speedwagon Killing In Vegas
Posted by john at 08:42 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
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.
Are You A Canonical Fascist? Stand Tall!
Posted by john at 03:45 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
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.
Search: Too Sexy for Advertising?
Posted by john at 05:06 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
October 08, 2007
Yes, Virginia(,) SEO Philology
I was quite humbled to see via Link Spiel heute morgen that yours truly unwittingly birthed the SEO Virginia genre long, long ago, circa Summer 2001.
And while they say everything changed after September 11, really the only thing the genre lost in the aftermath was the Really Is convention I thought was authentic at the time. Turns out while I had invented Really completely out of thin air, but not the all-important Is, what we really lost in exactly half of the genre along with our innocence was the comma after the introductory Yes I had faithfully inserted at the time.
SEO Virginia genre history buffs will note Danny Sullivan took less than a year to catch, and correct, his own mistake, the only such self-correction on record. He really is that good.
UPDATE: Reader Brainmuffin e-mails to suggest the genre be officially known as The SEO Virginia Monologues.
Yes, Virginia(,) SEO Philology
Posted by john at 03:06 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
October 01, 2007
Google Search Results Already Finding Columnist Articles
Frank and Maureen and Thomas, oh my!
The chipped cement still has yet to be cleaned up fully from the wall being torn down at that historical error known as TimesSelect, and already we are seeing NY Times columnists able to commune with readers freely at point of search, at least at the Frank and Maureen level:
As internet titan Alan Meckler noted in his posting of the Times e-mail to subscribers, search results like these were the driving force:
Since we launched TimesSelect, the Web has evolved into an increasingly open environment. Readers find more news in a greater number of places and interact with it in more meaningful ways. This decision enhances the free flow of New York Times reporting and analysis around the world. It will enable everyone, everywhere to read our news and opinion - as well as to share it, link to it and comment on it.
Sharing it, linking to it, and commenting on it are the currency of being able to find it in search, and that might be important to a newspaper if, as the latest surveys indicate, 91% of adults use a search engine to find information and 72% get news therefrom.
Ya think?
LATE UPDATE: We just noticed that similar to 1989, another Eastern Block Web Site is about to topple...
Google Search Results Already Finding Columnist Articles
Posted by john at 04:15 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
September 18, 2007
Search Tearing Down Walls Like It's 1989
We knew it was coming and we tried to bake a cake for Maureen Dowd more than a Month ago, yet we are still surprised at how search-friendly they are being in their explanation today:
What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.
If you have any doubt that this is the SEO equivalent of 1989 scroll a bit further down the page for this money quote:
The Wall Street Journal, published by Dow Jones & Company, is the only major newspaper in the country to charge for access to most of its Web site, which it began doing in 1996. The Journal has nearly one million paying online readers, generating about $65 million in revenue.Dow Jones and the company that is about to take it over, the News Corporation, are discussing whether to continue that practice, according to people briefed on those talks. Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation chairman, has talked of the possibility of making access to The Journal free online.
Mr. Murdoch, tear down that wall!
Search Tearing Down Walls Like It's 1989
Posted by john at 03:53 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
September 17, 2007
PPC vs. Yellow Pages vs. Direct Mail CPA
Via Chris Zaharias via MediaPost via Piper Jaffray, we get this stark contrast:
Search advertising has proven to be fertile ground for customer acquisition. A recent study by Piper Jaffray & Co. entitled, “The New eCommerce Decade: The Age of Micro Targeting,” indicated that the average CPA for search was $8.50, considerably lower than the CPA for the Yellow Pages ($20), online display ads ($50) and direct mail ($70).
Could you imagine how low the Organic CPA would have been in comparison, had they found a way to incorporate that into the study?
PPC vs. Yellow Pages vs. Direct Mail CPA
Posted by john at 04:03 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
August 30, 2007
New MSN Tools Coming Includes Sitemaps 
Back in April, I updated Wagon readers on the latest in Sitemap and Sitemap Protocol news and now it's time for a quick update.
Last week on MSN Live Search's blog, MSN trumpeted their new Webmaster Portal that will allow sitemap creation and submission. A beta program has been started and the Wagon has applied for a test drive.
Along with these sitemap features, MSN also announced that the Webmaster Portal will also include crawling and indexing tools as well as statistics about web sites. As we've said in the past, these statistics can be very helpful.
Stay tuned for news on the beta program. Official launch of the Webmaster Portal is expected in early Q4.
New MSN Tools Coming Includes Sitemaps
Posted by doug at 09:15 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
August 21, 2007
Microsoft Talking Points Parroted: Day II
It's always seemed strange to look for information on a brand, and to see it appear both in the organic search results and at or near the top of the paid listings. Why spend money on a brand term that's going to deliver a top five organic result for the same query anyway?
If this sounds eerily similar to what many Wagon Riders thought yesterday was a lede of questionable intelligence, then your parotid attention may have kept you from swallowing full gulp. For those caught in the act of mastication, though, it's good to know that the above meme is being pushed by Atlas, owned by Microsoft, neither of which are owned or own or like Google, beneficiary of the great majority of the branded ad spend currently under PR assault.
Here at The Wagon we get the same strange feeling the Talking Point pushes in the quote above when we fix our eyes on a graph like the below:
With search behavior like that, why in the world would you want your brand to appear more than once, let alone a single time, in the same screen space above the fold? Good advice from the originator of democracy of screen space.
Microsoft Talking Points Parroted: Day II
Posted by john at 10:56 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
August 16, 2007
IAB, DMA, and SEO: WTF?
I just noticed this posted by Barry Schwartz over at SEL: The UK flavors of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK) and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) have joined forces "to establish industry-wide search standards", as they put it in their release on the IAB's UK web site.
Every few years I see this stuff and I try -- really, I do try -- not to by cynical. But trying to qualify and quantify best practices is like sprinting like hell to get to the end of a Mobius strip. Historically, any efforts to define acceptable and unacceptable practices in SEO have been either so rigidly prescriptive as to except significant portions of successful (and lauded) SEO companies, or they've been so toothlessly vague as to allow access to anyone who can forge a backstage pass.
To which of these camps does the IAB/DMA "charter" belong? Judge for yourself: Following (in bold) are the minimum corporate qualifications found in the IAB's charter document (MS Word, 238K), with a little commentary (mine) in italic.
Many -- many -- of the industry's best SEOs are one-(wo)man shops.
That's actually not a bad benchmark. For PPC. How about the other 80% of clicks?
I'm not exactly sure what "trading" means, but I think it's a UKism for "having been in business." I certainly concede that most good SEOs have been in business for more than 6 months. But most of the lousy ones have been too.
Now we're getting somewhere. Explore the links to the membership pricing levels of the IAB UK, IAB Europe (PDF), DMA, and SEMPO.
I have nothing personally against any of these organizations, but answer this question honestly: With mass adoption of this charter by SEO companies, who benefits more -- these four membership organizations, or companies in search of a reputable SEO firm?
And in case you're still reading, thanks. Here's your reward, pulled from the original charter Word document, and delivered in the world's most accepted currency -- laughter:
Monitoring compliance
The charter will be self-policed by the SEM industry.
IAB, DMA, and SEO: WTF?
Posted by erik at 10:08 PM
| Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
August 15, 2007
NY Times Select(s) Death over Charade
As you probably know, the NY Times has been the most prominent experiment in the paid content-behind-a-firewall-yet-at-least-partially-indexable model, and they are indeed now, finally, announcing via trial ballooning they are no longer going to put their most popular columnists behind that magic curtain one has to pay to sweep aside. After the magic show ends and the same fingers which initially drew the curtain are finished being pointed this way and that, this failed experiment will have had much to do with the principles of Link Building.
A party-goer cloaks her content as Maureen Dowd. Found on Flickr. Copyright 485i
First a great quote that helps explain the decision's relevance to our industry:
But the truth of the matter is that you get far more eyeballs when you're not locking away your content from the general public. The reality of Web 2.0 news is that people a rising tide raises all the ships. If you've got good content, and the Times does, people will link to it. When people read a technology blog like Engadget or a political blog like Daily Kos and find links to articles at the New York Times, everybody wins. Keeping your archives, op-eds, and other content locked up means that blogs and news sites won't link to you, won't give you credit for finding a story first, and won't drive up your traffic.
This lack of inbound links to the content-behind-the-firewall damaged traffic to the site not only through a paucity of visitors being able to click on these links to the columns themselves...:
...the share of traffic that the NY Times sends to NY Times Select has been decreasing over the past year – down by 16% year-on-year in July. With NY Times Select receiving more than two thirds (67%) of its US traffic from NYTimes.com, the decline had an impact with US visits to NY Select down 22% in the past year.
...in having to rely far too heavily on the parent site rather than third party links for traffic, but also in the residual effect such had in these columns' search engine visibility. With few third party inbound links accumulating with each new column, in fact from a deliberate online community decision not to link to content-behind-a-firewall, it is also very difficult for each new column to be judged more relevant than similarly themed columns emerging on the same topic that immediately acquire inbound links in the form of the same online community recommending them. It's no wonder the Times Select had to rely so heavily on clicks from the parent site for visits, as a great many of those visits were likely already subscribers. In that situation it is difficult to grow at the rate of the internet. Try these two simple searches for Frank and Maureen alone: nary a column to be found. Haven't they written quite a few?
I think everyone likely to read this blog knew this would happen. But to say we knew it would happen ultimately is not to say we are not happy to see even giants felled by an algorthm rejected, not select(ed).
NY Times Select(s) Death over Charade
Posted by john at 03:35 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
August 08, 2007
Download all query stats for this site (including subfolders)
I get the feeling that most people, even in our industry, using Google Webmaster Tools for themselves or a client aren't scrolling far enough on the Query Stats page to reach this link:
What you get if you click is rather unwieldy, sure, especially if you are dealing with a very large site, but the payoff is simply as large by the same degree. We are beginning to view it more and more here as a kind of matrix for how Google views your site architecturally, especially in light of GSI now having been moved to an undisclosed location. Actually, now that I've said it I'm a bit afraid it, too, will be taken away...
Download all query stats for this site (including subfolders)
Posted by john at 02:59 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
August 01, 2007
Happy Fourth Birthday, High Rankings Forum
Let us be one of the first "outside" sites to wish Jill Whalen and her High Rankings Forum a happy fourth birthday.
Here's a great quote from Jill from the announcement on July 30, 2003:
I know, I know. The last thing the world needs is another search engine marketing forum! But I like to think that this one will be unique because I've lined up some of the best and the brightest in the search engine marketing industry to be expert moderators. This means that people who are truly "in the know" will be answering your questions. I've met most of the moderators in person, as a good portion of them speak at the same conferences that I speak at. These guys and gals know their stuff!
I joined the forum a little "late" -- about a month after it launched. I visit the site pretty often, but I rarely contribute, for what I consider a couple good reasons. I simply don't have time to follow up on posts and join too many "conversations," and I don't want to be one of those "drive-by" posters that I find so annoying. Plus, it's not as if I have a ton to add: Jill has assembled a crack staff of moderators, and I rarely disagree with the consensus over there.
So congratulations Jill.
Happy Fourth Birthday, High Rankings Forum
Posted by erik at 07:12 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
July 03, 2007
SEO Speedwagon Enters its Third Year
Over the weekend, SEO Speedwagon celebrated its second birthday, which I suppose means we're beginning to enter the "terrible twos."
With any luck, we'll be able to effectively deal with problems that surround typical two-year-olds, such as the following:
- Increasing our vocabulary (more categories!)
- Effectively dealing with our waste (pages in the Supplemental Index)
- Learning how to share (better linking out to SEO resources)
- Handling growth (Intrapromote is adding staff -- and that means more bloggers!)
- Trying not to annoy you by constantly asking "why?" (we are inquisitive, after all)
For some historical perspective, here are some of the issues that were on the plate in the summer of 2005, when we started blogging:
- Adwords introducing geo-targeting and dropping five-cent minimum bids
- Click fraud reaching $1B annually (by some estimates)
- Ask (Jeeves) and MSN publicizing their imminent PPC systems
- Google's quarterly profits growing four-fold over the same period in 2004
Looking back, we've acquired a really strong and loyal group of readers, and we really appreciate the feedback we receive. Here's to a strong third year.
SEO Speedwagon Enters its Third Year
Posted by erik at 12:17 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
June 19, 2007
High Rankings Seminar in Denver - June 28-29
Jill Whalen asked us to mention her upcoming seminar in Denver next week, June 28-29. I'm getting around to it a little late, but there's still room if you're a) going to be in Denver next week and b) need rock-solid SEO advice from one the best known names in the biz.
Jill's been doing SEO since the late '60s, loves chocolate, and is giving away two free tickets for non-profit groups (more details). By themselves, those three qualities are okay. But put them together, and that's a good show.
High Rankings Seminar in Denver - June 28-29
Posted by erik at 03:50 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
March 27, 2007
Did You Know WWW and Non-WWW are Two Different Sites?
If you're an SEO you certainly do lest you are malpracticing. And if you're a Cutlett, you've likely concurred here just a little while ago but more likely immediately.
Yet in spite of immediate pick-ups of everything Matt posts and that fact that this is a day later, Good God, I want to highlight his explanation of why, if only to be able to link to this portion of it when I am asked why and do a poor job explaining why:
Some people ask “Why don’t you just assume www.example.com and example.com are the same?? The answer is that they don’t have to be, and for some websites they are different. For example, http://phpicalendar.net/ is a different page than http://www.phpicalendar.net/. This happens more often than you might think; FindWhat has different www vs. non-www pages, for example.
Best and simplest it's ever been put.
Am I now a Cutlett, too?
Did You Know WWW and Non-WWW are Two Different Sites?
Posted by john at 12:03 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
March 15, 2007
The Ineluctable Organic Moment Goes Primetime
It's one of the most mythical numbers in all of SEM, rarely published, seldom spoken; yet most industry insiders nod and agree, even if furtively, that the organic search share of total search clicks, meaning the percentage of overall searchers clicking on an organic, rather than paid, search result, is somewhere in the 70% - 85% region.
I was quite stunned, then, when by happenstance I came across this line in Macworld, of all places:
Site owners are eager to get their hands on the 75 percent of free Google traffic that is not affected by AdSense and AdWords, Google’s pay-per-click programs.
Still within that magical, mythical margin. Still unattributed. Damn nice to see as a given in a non-industry mag.
The Ineluctable Organic Moment Goes Primetime
Posted by john at 07:18 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
March 02, 2007
Matt Cutts Concurrence Committee Part Deux
A year after our inaugural ode to Matt Cutts sycophantism, the Concurrence Committee continues to raise the bar to unimaginable heights of fawning flattery. From the mouth of Mr. Cutts today comes the manna of eight (8) words brilliantly crafted into an iambic pentameter gift to the Committee:
I want to play some roller hockey today.
For the poetic purists among us this would actually have to be read as follows to achieve that vaunted meter, though:
i WANT to PLAY some ROL ler HOCKEY to DAY
We're betting the Committee will concur with such a reading.
To be sure, the generous giftiness of the souring gift of phrase did not go unnoticed by the Committee. To date, the eight (8) word throwaway line, albeit beautiful, has received 39 comments!
Our favorite by far:
Hi Matt, as a frequent reader, I was wondering if you could help me out. I know you’re insanely busy, but could you shoot me an email?
Suggested Refrain:
All glory, laud, and honor,
to thee, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children
made sweet hosannas ring.
Matt Cutts Concurrence Committee Part Deux
Posted by john at 03:52 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
December 18, 2006
Google Gobbles Up The Globe
We've noticed the Google juggernaut gobbling up more and more international marketshare from our SEO perch here over the years, especially with many of our clients wanting to know what engines matter most as we move across the globe results-wise. Still, this blurb from The International Herald Tribune is quite staggering:
For Europe as a whole, as in much of the world, Google leads in Internet search. Of all those who visited search and navigation sites in Europe this October, 86 percent went to Google at least once, compared with 30 percent for Microsoft's search sites and 21 percent for Yahoo, according to comScore, an online market research firm.
Using this as a plank from which to dive into explaining how the sea is ripe for European competition against the Big G, though, I have to find fault with the article's assumed assessment throughout that the results are basically the same across countries. We have noticed quite the opposite, with a local bias quite evident.
To take a look at this phenomenon yourself, try your favorite search phrase at the .com version of Google and then, in your address bar, change the domain extension to the the country extension of your choice, like http://www.google.jp, and then give that same phrase a spin.
Google Gobbles Up The Globe
Posted by john at 11:24 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
December 07, 2006
Smells Like ... Thursday Potpourri
Just a few items of interest on a dark and stormy night...
- Segmentation of the SEO/SEM convention audience? As Doug noted, Danny Sullivan is heading out on his own - and not quietly. He and his team have launched a new media company, news & blog site, and a webcast site. But the one that caught my eye was the new convention he's planning, Search Marketing Expo. The first SMX event will be in June 2007, last for two days, and "will be especially geared toward advanced search marketers" - a distinction that separates it from the ever-expanding Search Engine Strategies franchise. At four days long and up to five sessions deep, SES is on the verge of suffering from the all-things-to-all-people syndrome. With Danny leaving, SES seems ripe for becoming, as Yogi Berra might have said, "so crowded nobody goes there anymore." Alan Meckler also weighs in.
- Happy Birthday, SE Roundtable. A belated third birthday wish to SER. Nearly two years ago, as we scoped out the editorial vision for our own blog, one of the potential routes was a SEO-news-as-it-happens approach. It was quickly put aside, however, because SER was already doing it, and doing it so well.
- SES Coverage. Speaking of SE Roundtable, make sure to catch its coverage of the current SES show, including an especially erudite post from our old pal, Amy Edelstein.
- Adsense and Al Qaeda. First spotted at WebGuerrilla and followed up at Search Engine Journal is what promises to be a very sensational story - one on which Webmaster Radio has apparently done much research - regarding terrorist groups using Google Adsense and Adwords programs to fund their organizations. No one (at this point) is accusing Google of actual complicity, but this will surely ignite further debate on click fraud and finding the balance between privacy and openness in the PPC money trail. Stay tuned.
Smells Like ... Thursday Potpourri
Posted by erik at 03:54 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
December 05, 2006
SEO Speedwagon Congratulates Chris Elwell & Danny Sullivan
Door Number Three
The Wagon would like to congratulate our colleagues and friends Chris Elwell and Danny Sullivan in their successful launch of Third Door Media, a new firm that will focus on search and interactive marketing.
Readers of the Wagon will definitely want to check out Third Door's search news blog that will provide daily, in-depth information about search engine marketing and how search engines work in general. Daily coverage begins on December 11.
SEO Speedwagon Congratulates Chris Elwell & Danny Sullivan
Posted by doug at 05:26 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
October 25, 2006
SES Registration - Now Five Times as Open!
Say, does anyone know whether registration is now open for Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2006?
Oh, wait. Forget I asked.
SES Registration - Now Five Times as Open!
Posted by erik at 12:54 PM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
October 10, 2006
Is Google Gagging? 
I was very surprised when I just came across this story in Webpronews.com. Apparently in an interview with LA Times reporter Chris Gaither, Sergey actually admitted what a lot of us probably feel. "It's worse than that," said Brin, Google's president of technology. "It's that I was getting lost in the sheer volume of the products that we were releasing."
I for one am pleased that they are going to focus more on integration, but perhaps mostly so because they admitted a problem and are fixing it. I'd say this adds to their credibility in the "Do No Evil" department and is a breath of some fresh, honest, air.
Is Google Gagging?
Posted by brent at 03:19 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
High Rankings Seminar in Dallas/Ft. Worth - Oct. 19-20
Colleague and fellow chocolate lover Jill Whalen asked us to post the details of her upcoming SEO seminar.
For the uninformed - if there are any left - Jill has been doing SEO since long before it was called "SEO." She's a regular speaker at SES and has been since Larry and Sergei were studying for their SATs. (That's probably an exaggeration, but it makes a good line.)
Here are the specs:
What: High Rankings® Search Engine Marketing Seminar
When: October 19 & 20, 2006
Where: American Airlines Training and Conference Center in Dallas/Ft. Worth
Why? To deliver the proven strategies and techniques of search engine optimization that will make your site work harder than it ever has before.
Get full details at Jill's site.
Discount: If you use INTRAPROMOTE as your discount code when registering, you'll save 25% off the seminar's sticker price.
Note that we do not receive any sort of referral fee, nor would we ask for one. Our recommendation is not for sale. We mention this only because Jill's that good, and sites of any size will benefit from her program.
High Rankings Seminar in Dallas/Ft. Worth - Oct. 19-20
Posted by erik at 03:34 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
August 09, 2006
SEO Quick Hits: NYT Mocks AOL, Inaccessibility Turns 10
Everyone's either at SES this week or too busy to attend (I fall into the latter camp), so I wanted to give you a fast, dim sum-style post today. If the first bite doesn't taste good, just move on to the next plate.
NYT + AOL = FUBAR
Gotta love the New York Times. While you might have heard about the fiasco involving AOL releasing the search queries of over 600,000 "anonymous" searchers, here's the kicker: In less than a day, the Times looked at the search queries of one particular searcher and identified her.
Perhaps next, the Wall St. Journal will both identify another user and decry the anti-privacy implications of identifying users.
Flash Turns 10
In a Wired article today, the tenth anniversary of the release of Flash, Michael Calore interviews Robert Tatsumi, one of the program's two inventors. Personally, I love Flash, in sort of the same way that exterminators love termites: job security.
Yahoo Expands Site Explorer
I've said again and again how much I love YSE. Yesterday, the team announced upgrades to the service, including the ability to "claim" your site to find additional information, upload sitemap feeds, and see when those feeds were last accessed. It's a lot like Google's new "Webmaster Central" area (formerly known simply as Google Sitemaps), which is a nice indication that Yahoo is equally committed to good webmaster relations. And it's pretty fast too; it authenticated me instantly and fetched my sitemap feed in under an hour.
I'll keep an eye on its reporting and see if there's any effect on indexing and let you know anything I find.
SEO Quick Hits: NYT Mocks AOL, Inaccessibility Turns 10
Posted by erik at 01:53 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
August 01, 2006
NOODP: Should Google Have Kept Greasing Wheezer?
One of my favorite Little Rascals episodes is called Bear Shooters where Spud can’t join the gang on their hunting trip because he has to stay home and grease his little brother Wheezer. It’s rumored that the band Weezer took it’s name from this classic episode.
"I can't come out," whines Spud. "I've got to stay home and grease Wheezer!"
It all works out for Spud in the end. But, I’m wondering if Google should have stayed inside and greased Wheezer a while longer before adding support for the NOODP tag. Did we celebrate prematurely?
We’ve read several site owner reports that allege their rankings have dropped significantly since implementing the tag on their sites. A few of these also report that they removed the tag and their placements returned to their former positions.
The only Intrapromote client so far that has implemented the tag has also experienced a drop in placement for their most important and competitive search phrase at Google. About the same time, they’ve also seen a major drop in the number of pages indexed by Google.
Coincidence?
Poor Wheezer was better off with the croup?
Hmmmmm . . . . . . . . . .
Our client plans to yank the NOODP tag to see if normalcy resumes. Stay tuned. I’ll let you know what happens.
NOODP: Should Google Have Kept Greasing Wheezer?
Posted by doug at 05:15 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
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...
Proximity Uber Alles: Relevancy Not Very Relevant
Posted by john at 08:47 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0)
Printer-friendly version
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