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November 12, 2004

Pure Search Engine Evil: Microsoft vs. Google (Round Two)

Ever wonder why "sandbox" is such a popular term with search engines? Because when it comes down to it, everyone is still that five year old that has fun kicking sand in peoples' faces...

In retaliation for Google ranking Microsoft as the #1 result for "more evil than Satan" in 1999 (as a result of prankster Google-bombing), the new MSN Search Beta ranks Google in the #1 slot for "more evil than Satan".

Plus, MSN is also listing Google #1 for evil search engine. However, even MSN has to rank Microsoft #1 for "evil corporation". In the end, only time will tell who is more evil. Right now, Google is ranked #1, but Microsoft is running a close #2.

Here's my vote: Microsoft is most definitely the more evil search engine and corporation if for nothing else than making me waste time doing ridiculous searches on their new engine. By the way, much thanks to Danny Sullivan for the welcome diversion on a Friday afternoon.

Posted by Guest Author on 11/12/04 at 2:46 PM
See more entries in Fun Stuff, SEO, Search Engine Optimization

November 11, 2004

The Upside of Search Engine Indexing Wars

Thank you MSN for pushing Google to index 8 billion pages in order to surpass your advertised 5 billion page index. It's really nice to wake up and see that your client's indexed page count has nearly doubled overnight. Let the indexing wars begin...

Posted by Guest Author on 11/11/04 at 5:03 PM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines

November 8, 2004

Linking in a Meritocracy

One major problem with link–based algorithms is that positive publicity and negative publicity have the same effect on a website’s rankings: it increases their link popularity. So how can you direct your readers to a webpage without explicitly endorsing it?

Technorati developers have come up with a new VoteLinks specification that allows you to "vote-for", "vote-against" or "vote-abstain" for a website that you are linking to. Technorati has already incorporated this information into their redesign, listing which blog entries have received positive or negative links from other blogs in the blogosphere.

Meanwhile, an Aussie blogger name Lachy has come up with some intriguing ways to describe link relationships in XHTML.

What to keep your eye on: the W3C integrating endorsement data into the W3C’s XLink and RDF standards.

Until then, linking to webpages that you do not want to endorse without increasing their rankings in the major search engines remains tricky. Some strategies:

• Provide your readers with an unlinked URL and require them to copy–paste the URL into a browser to see the webpage.
• Javascript your link in a non–standard fashion.
• Add a redirect code to the link to reduce the amount of PageRank that is passed.

Somehow adding metadata to your links seems so much easier and user–friendly than any of the options above... Hopefully this catches on.

Posted by on 11/ 8/04 at 10:14 AM
See more entries in SEO Tips & Tricks

November 5, 2004

Search Engine Hacking for SEOs

Gary Price at SEW mentioned a CNETAsia article about protecting yourself from Google hacks. It's a great reminder of how important it is to properly use your robots.txt file and metatags. However, visiting the Google Hacking Database (GHD) provides inspiration in that it reveals how much information you can really find with Google's advanced search operators. In the spirit of the GHD, here are my favorite search engine strings for finding important SEO information:

• In Google, site:www.url.com +inanchor:keyword to see which pages within your site are receiving the proper keyworded anchor text.
• In Yahoo, linkdomain:www.url.com +inurl:keyword finds how many sites link to you with your keyword in their URL.
• In Gigablast, link:www.url.com +ip:123.12.123 shows you how many links your site is receiving from within the same IP range.
• Plus, to find additional words or permutations to use to support your rankings for a keyword, ~keyword in Google presents what Google sees as synonyms and stem:keyword in Yahoo presents permutations of the word in Yahoo.

Posted by on 11/ 5/04 at 9:24 AM
See more entries in SEO Tips & Tricks

November 4, 2004

Google Posts New AdWords Guidelines

Google posted their new AdWords content guidelines today, focusing mainly on excluding advertisements for certain products (fireworks, black boxes) and ideas (violence, sex) from being advertised in the AdWords network. It seems like the devil will be in the details. Now, a search for "brass knuckles" results in an eBay AdWords ad for SAP Tactical Gloves with steel—shot knuckles.

Interesting thing that is still missing: that the website must actually fulfill its advertised promise. The editorial guidelines state that sales and offers in AdWords ads must be reflected on the website, but for actual delivery of goods and services, we still must rely on online reputation sites like Epinions, Bizrate, and Ebay along with legal recourses like the FTC, the Better Business Bureau to keep advertisers in check.

Posted by on 11/ 4/04 at 5:24 PM
See more entries in Branding, Pay Per Click