Bruceclay.com - August 2005 Archives - Search Engine Optimization SEO Blog

« July 2005 | Main | September 2005 »

August 31, 2005

Blogger Beware?

Guest Entry by Kit Tran, SEO Analyst--Bruce Clay, Inc.

Even though blogging has become fertile grounds for lawsuits, Aaron Wall’s latest run in with Traffic Power is proving a point about the power of blogging as a marketing tool. His entry about Traffic Power’s cease and desist letter was immediately picked up by the Wall Street Journal. Why should you care? This latest lawsuit against Walls, shows that blogging has matured into a powerful viral marketing tool that has the power to increase the number of visitors to your site. Lawsuits aside, you need to start thinking about blogs as a strategic marketing tool to voice your opinion, do damage control, encourage links, stimulate PR and promote extra traffic.

So what’s the final verdict? Sometimes any news is good news. Wall scored a link from the Wall Street Journal and is getting a healthy spike in traffic to his revenue generating site. Not bad, eh?

Posted by sesparza on 08/31/05 at 4:18 PM
See more entries in Branding

Extra, read all about it!

The SEOToolSet Newsletter is done for the month of August. Subscribers will receive their newsletters in their emails very soon to be read at their leisure. Everyone else can follow the link to the online version.

What's in this month's news? Well, we're going back to basics with a look at duplicate content and starting a short series of articles on client-SEO relationships. The news takes a look back at the months of August and catches up on the hot topics as well as some stories that slipped through the cracks.

If you'd like to subscribe, just drop us a line and we'll be happy to add you. Subscription is absolutely FREE which you have to admit is a pretty good price. Happy August, everyone. See you in September.

Posted by sesparza on 08/31/05 at 4:15 PM
See more entries in SEOToolSet

August 30, 2005

Google Sitemaps Update

No, not that update.

The coolest thing Google has done with Sitemaps recently isn't the announcement on the Google Blog about Mobile Sitemaps. In fact, there doesn't seem to have been an announcement about this at all. We noticed today when we were updating our Google Sitemap that next to the domain name there was a link which read [verify]. Upon clicking on this, Google returned a message to create an empty file using the name they give, ie. GOOGLE11e5844324b7354e.html and upload it to the server. Doing so would verify for Google that we were indeed the owners of the domain in question.

Once we did this the link changed from [verify] to [stats]. Clicking this returns this message:

URLs found during our regular crawl process We have been crawling your site as part of our regular crawl process. This includes following links from your pages and the pages of other sites. Below we have listed URLs that we were unable to reach during this crawl process, with links that explain why we could not reach them.
More info can be found here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/faq.html#verify

Google warns that the list that follows isn't exhaustive and only includes the URLs crawled thus far but it's still an excellent upgrade for seeing exactly where Google's spiders are having trouble with your site.

A further FAQ is here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/stats.html#verifysite

Posted by sesparza on 08/30/05 at 3:18 PM
See more entries in Analytics

SEO Book sued by Traffic Power

Aaron Wall, owner of SEOBook.com, was been served a cease and desist and has had a lawsuit filed against him. The claim states that "proprietary and confidential information" was published on the website but fails to state exactly what the information is supposed to be.

When I saw this yesterday, I thought it was interesting but didn't really have any comments. Today, I still don't have anything to add but since Search Engine Watch has a very informative post on the subject, I really don't need to.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/30/05 at 2:19 PM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

August 29, 2005

Unicode characters in MSN Search

Welcome to the search game, MSN. Here's your list of things to avoid and the ways your competitors (including the algorithm to beat, Google) have screwed up before and try not to do too many things wrong your first year.

What's on the list? Well, here's an example as provided by Barry at Search Engine Roundtable.

Unicode in results is messy and doesn't add value to the results. Google did away with it in 2003 and Yahoo fixed it in March of '05. So get with the program, MSN. We know that you're new but your grace period is closing. Learn from the guys who've gone before and get the rookie stuff fixed.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/29/05 at 4:20 PM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

August 25, 2005

Yahoo! Search Marketing Downtime Update

Barry at Search Engine Roundtable got a message from our friends at Overture regarding the upgrade to the DTC and the crash that followed.

"Yahoo! Search Marketing initiated a systems upgrade this past weekend to lay the groundwork for performance and availability improvements that our advertisers will see over the coming months. During this process, we encountered some unexpected issues that affected advertisers' ability to access their accounts. Our number one priority right now is to restore service for our advertisers, so we are working around the clock to resolve this as quickly as possible."

Posted by sesparza on 08/25/05 at 3:05 PM
See more entries in Pay-Per-Click

AOL News second only to Yahoo! News in popularity

AOL News, which uses a combination of Google News results, Topix.net information and human editing, is now more popular than both of its sources. AOL boasts a unique audience of 16.5 million according to a Nielson//Netratings report for July. Only Yahoo News is still more popular.

AOL News as relaunched in June along with the release of the new AOL.com portal.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/25/05 at 11:32 AM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

Yahoo Bulk Submit

While the wait for Yahoo Site Explorer goes on, there has been an upgrade to the submit page. The familiar submit page got a new line added.

You can also provide the location of a text file containing a list of URLs, one URL per line, say urllist.txt. We also recognize compressed versions of the file, say urllist.gz.

The service isn't a comprehensive as Google's Sitemaps offering but it's a step in the right direction. And if you already have a list of URLs to submit (one per line) then they can be used for both search engines.

Posted by sesparza on 08/25/05 at 11:17 AM
See more entries in SEO Tools

August 24, 2005

Overture Down?

Guest Entry by Erin O'Brien, SEM Analyst-Bruce Clay, Inc

What’s going on over at Yahoo!? Over the last few days we have been having trouble logging in to manage our Yahoo! sponsored search accounts. Yes, Yahoo Search Marketing was down for "system upgrades" this past weekend, but it still seems to be running extremely slow or not at all.

Yesterday the system was down periodically, and now today it took 20 minutes to get to the login page, and when I did I only got the message:

"System Slowness We are currently experiencing intermittent delays and slowness with our system. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience."

Hopefully things will be fixed later today. Who knows what position our top performing keywords will be in or how much has been charged to the accounts since the system has been down.

Read more about this in the discussion at SEW forums - Held Hostage by Yahoo!

Posted by sesparza on 08/24/05 at 1:34 PM
See more entries in Pay-Per-Click

Google Talk

The rumors are true. Google Talk really does exist and as always Search Engine Watch provides a good rundown of the features. Google Talk uses your existing Google account and automatically adds any contacts that also have the service as well as lines up the rest of your contact list for invitation and features integration into the gmail accounts.

While there isn't anything new and exciting about Google Talk, it does serve an important purpose for Google. IM programs create loyalty and that's important for a company that sees its market share slipping in recent months. However, Google Talk has a long way to go to win that loyalty. There just aren't enough features yet to convince anyone to switch.

Posted by sesparza on 08/24/05 at 9:13 AM
See more entries in Branding

August 23, 2005

Not that it's not cool…

Matt Cutts is, um, happy about Google winning the NIST challenge. Says Matt, World-class machine translation makes me hot.

Actually, I can't laugh too much. I have to agree that I'm looking forward to the day when machine translation is good enough to make world-wide communication a breeze. It'll make everything harder for SEOs though. Before you only had to compete with those in your language. When we all read the web in our native tongue, just imagine the duplicate content issues.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/23/05 at 10:48 AM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

Great Google-y Moogly:

Yesterday, Google released Google Desktop Search 2 and knocked it back into beta. Grabbing all the attention during the release was the brand new Sidebar. SEW gave an overview of the product. Some liked it, some hated it, some saw possibilities.

Speaking of possibilities, the New York Times has this interesting quote.

Google executives say they plan to unveil on Wednesday a "communications tool" that is potentially a clear step beyond the company's search-related business focus.

Rumor has it that the communications tool will be an IM competitor and maybe a Skype competitor as well. CNN today referenced an LA Times article discussing just that.

I'm curious to know where Hello will fit in. I suppose we'll all find out tomorrow.

Posted by sesparza on 08/23/05 at 10:17 AM
See more entries in Branding

August 22, 2005

Google Dance 2005 site up

Phillip over at Google Blogoscoped points to the Google Dance photo site. Spotted first by Amit Agarwal, the site collects photo memories of this year's dance.

It looks like it was a blast, lots of games and demos and fun. But what caught my eye? The food, of course. I wonder if they let you keep the glass.

Google hasn't announced the site yet. Be the first on your block to relive the wacky memories.

Posted by sesparza on 08/22/05 at 9:47 AM
See more entries in Branding, Fun Stuff

August 19, 2005

Google UI tests

Matt Cutts goes over a couple user interface tests for the SERPs. He discusses the purpose behind the tests and gives screenshots examples of each. Then he very carefully and clearly states no you can't pay for these. It's all algorithmic.

I like that Matt is unambiguous about this. It's better than dealing with a lot of unfounded speculation about the UI tests being ads or paid listings.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/19/05 at 4:23 PM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

August 18, 2005

Google: Geico was a win

Today, Google used their blog to discuss exactly why they thought the court decision yesterday in the suit over keywords was a victory for them rather than the defeat that has been widely reported. The court upheld that there was not a likelihood of confusion for a consumer when the trademark was used to trigger an ad--that is, it is legal for competitors to bid on a trademarked term.

What has generated the confusion is another part of the ruling, of little significance to Google, that relates to the use of "GEICO" in ad text. Google already has a policy that prohibits advertisers from using someone else's trademark in their ad text when the trademark owner objects.

Google's policy on ad text is stated on their Trademark Complaint Procedure page. That page also covers the proper way to file a complaint with Google if you feel your trademark is being infringed.

(By the way, Google blog used 'here' as their anchor text for the link I just gave you. Where did these guys learn SEO anyway?)

Posted by sesparza on 08/18/05 at 9:22 AM
See more entries in Branding

August 17, 2005

Adwords Update

Guest Entry by Erin O'Brien, SEM Analyst-Bruce Clay, Inc

Yesterday Google unleashed the new simplified keyword states and quality-based minimum bids for AdWords. They have said goodbye to the (often confusing and frustrating) normal, in trial, on hold, and disabled keyword states, and keywords will now be either active or inactive, depending on their Quality Score and maximum CPC.

We haven’t noticed much change in the accounts that we manage other than the keyword status going from ‘normal’ to ‘active’. We ran one of their new reports to see what the keyword min. CPC’s were and most of the keywords we bid on now have a min. CPC of > $0.03. One has a min. CPC of $0.20. This is different than the prior system where the min. CPC was $0.05 no matter what. The new system takes “quality score” into account when determining the min. CPC and creates a unique min. CPC for each keyword. Over the next couple of weeks we’ll keep you updated on how this new change affects our campaigns.

Posted by sesparza on 08/17/05 at 11:03 AM
See more entries in Pay-Per-Click

Busy week news week (for August)

After the slowdown last week during SES, this week has already brought us a great deal of exciting news stories. I'll try to catch some of them up for you right now.

Google:

Lost their suit with Geico. The judge ruled that while using a trademarked name as the trigger for an ad wasn't illegal and using a trademarked name in an ad text wasn't illegal, it was illegal to use the trademark as both the trigger and in the ad text. Google claims to be pleased with the outcome.

Purchased Android. World gets ready to welcome their new robotic overlords. Okay, so really Android makes wireless software but wouldn't sentient robots have been more fun?

Yahoo:

Is hand-editing high traffic SERPs? Webmaster World thinks so. So do we.

Updates Yahoo Local, making it even better.

Ask Jeeves:

Opened up their paid listings program to everyone.

Still discussing rebranding. Keep the butler, I say! Loren Baker disagrees and says to get rid of him. Nothing is finalized according to Barry Diller.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/17/05 at 9:37 AM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

August 16, 2005

So how big is your index?

Just in case we were all ready to fall under the spell of 'bigger means better' that all this Yahoo vs. Google squabbling about index size can cast, Barry points to a very good reminder that it is relevancy not size that counts.

MSN, it seems, is indexing Ask Jeeves SERPs. But wait there's more. Not only are they indexing AJ's SERPs they're also indexing their own. Check out Search Engine Roundtable for screenshots. Go ahead, I'll wait.

See? Now, just a little message to MSN. Guys? Really, you don't have to stuff pages in to make us respect you. Giving back results that matter is much better. So figure out how to block those pages from being indexed and don't try to claim them in a catch up battle with Yahoo and Google. It's all nonsense anyway.

I promise, I'll respect you more in the morning.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/16/05 at 2:14 PM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

August 12, 2005

Yahoo responds on Index Size, Stands by number

Yesterday, John Battelle said he'd talked to Google engineers who claimed to be confused by Yahoo's claim of a 19.2 billion page index. Today he updates with Yahoo's response and points out that it is quite possible indeed.

He also notes that while Google's front page still reads 8 billion, that number is over a year old. Since we know that Google hasn't stopped indexing that span of time, it's not absurd to think that, particularly with the influx of pages following Google Sitemaps, Google's 8 billion number is very out of date and very much under reporting their index size.

And so it goes.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/12/05 at 10:04 AM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

August 11, 2005

John Battelle on Google's response to Yahoo's update:

I asked Google to go on the record with their concerns about Yahoo's index and whether they believed the news was in fact accurate, and Google agreed. The quote, which I can only attribute at this point to a "Google spokesperson," is as follows:
"Our scientists are not seeing the increase claimed in the Yahoo! index. The data we have doesn't support the 19.2 (billion page) claim and we're confused by that."

In This Battle, Size Does Matter: Google Responds to Yahoo Index Claims
John promises more details to come.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/11/05 at 9:58 AM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

Vacation on Neptune!

Perhaps after having a little too much fun at their SES Party, Ask Jeeves journeys further out into the solar system than any search engine ever before. Virtual Neptune marks all the most important sights to see on the eighth planet from the sun.

Is it just us or is this mapping thing getting out of hand?

Posted by sesparza on 08/11/05 at 9:48 AM
See more entries in Branding

August 10, 2005

New Blog to Read

Search Engine Watch reports that Google Engineer Matt Cutts has started a blog where he will talk about life at Google and the joys of working on the index and on quality control. From the looks of entries like Step into my Shoes, it should definitely be an interesting read.

"You really don’t want to get the sincere email from me," he says. From the look of the reply he sent a recent complaint? He's not kidding.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/10/05 at 4:31 PM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

Google Ups Image Count

Well that didn't take long.

As expected, Yahoo's announcement of a bigger index was countered today by a similar announcement from Google who would like everyone to know that they've increased their image index from 1,305,093,600 to 2,187,212,422, nearly doubling the reported size and topping Yahoo's report 1.6 billion images.

Posted by sesparza on 08/10/05 at 10:57 AM
See more entries in Branding

August 9, 2005

20 billion channels and nothing to see.

Yahoo announced today that as of their last update, their index has been increased to 20 billion documents topping Google's 11.3 billion document index handily. Charlene Li has an excellent write up on why this is or isn't important.

The most basic question of course is "are there really 20 billion?" Charlene documented her search for some basic queries to find out how many results were actually returned.

So I decided to conduct a few basic tests on Yahoo! and Google. I tested the searches [“angel island” “Christmas tree” light] on Yahoo! and Google and [“mt. trashmore riverview”] on Yahoo! and Google. One tip Google had was to go to the last page of the search results. For the Angel Island search, on Yahoo!, I got an estimation of 798 search results, but by the time I got to the end, there were only 117 shown out of an estimated 179 search results (hmmm, what happened to the other 619?). Google initially reported 391 search results, but the last page showed only 180 entries. When I clicked on the links to show “omitted results”, Yahoo! expanded and then dropped down to 166 out of an estimated 169 results by the last page, while Google expanded to 392 search results and showed 390.

It brings up a good philosophical question. Like a tree falling in the forest, if we don't get the search results, do they really exist?

Posted by sesparza on 08/ 9/05 at 9:01 AM
See more entries in Branding

August 5, 2005

Complicated Math, Simple PR

"MSN search results are determined independently and objectively by an algorithmic search engine. We believe our algorithms are competitively designed and more intuitive in order to return the most precise results for consumers." So says MSN Product Manager Justin Osmer in response to a story on News.com but reporter and blogger Elinor Mills suggests that those famous algorithms are just a little biased.

According to Mills, the top results for "Dr. Lee court documents Google Microsoft" at Google tend to favor Google's side of the story focusing on results containing Google's contention that the whole suit is a charade. Meanwhile over in MSN Search, the top results are about Microsoft's recent court victory. Mills used the metasearch engine Dogpile to determine this alleged bias.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/ 5/05 at 11:06 AM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

August 4, 2005

The Google Blog is making me hungry

In their apparently desperate search for "industrial-strength" chefs (and finding an industrial-strength chef is no laughing matter, believe me. You'd be amazed by how many chefs will break down and start to cry at the thought of a spur of the moment 500 VIP party) the Google Blog has taken to posting their menus, perhaps hoping that the high occurrence of food-related keywords will help them rank for 'mass produced geek food'--a favorite search of industrial-strength chefs everywhere.

We'd like to help them out, of course, because we know that SEOs often moonlight as chefs. So if you're interested in helping Google out, here's the job posting.

Posted by sesparza on 08/ 4/05 at 10:31 AM
See more entries in Branding

Coming Next Week: MSN Keywords

August has been a very busy month so far, with the release of Ask's PPC service, Yahoo's publisher network and ClickZ being sold but the changes aren't done yet. MSN will be announcing their PPC product next week (possibly an SES announcement?)

MSN Keywords will be a beta project, because releasing in beta is what the cool kids do. The WSJ article notes that the actual US testing won't begin until October and it will be an invitation only beta of 500 members.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/ 4/05 at 9:41 AM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

August 3, 2005

S.E. Roundtable SES Coverage

Can't make it to San Jose for the conference? Or you are going but can't decide which session you want to go to most at each time slot? Never fear. As always, Barry (rustybrick) at SER will be live blogging the sessions. This time, he's gone a step further an organized a team that will cover three of the four tracks. He's posted a schedule of the sessions that will be covered so you can plan ahead.

However, Barry does have a disclaimer: The schedule is subject to change. Please note, there are parties at night and it is possible that we might not be able to cover every session listed on this schedule. But trust us, we will do our outmost best.

Party on, guys.

Posted by sesparza on 08/ 3/05 at 10:19 AM
See more entries in SEM Events

Yahoo Releases Publisher Network, MSN Soon.

Today marks the release of Yahoo's Adsense competitor, Yahoo Publisher Network. Inside Google provides a good summary of the press coverage. Currently the program is invitation only, you can request an invite here.

According to NYT:

Yahoo will invite 2,000 sites to take part in the test, beginning today, and will open the system to blogs and other publishers by the end of the year.

Search Engine Roundtable has an interview with Will Johnson, VP & GM of Yahoo! Publisher Network Online.

As always, MSN promises a similar product soon.

Posted by sesparza on 08/ 3/05 at 9:59 AM
See more entries in Branding

August 2, 2005

Jeeves to Show Fewer Paid Links Starting Tomorrow

In news that caused me to literally applaud, Ask Jeeves will be showing fewer paid listings above the organic results. Barry at Search Engine Roundtable had an opportunity to talk to Ask VP, Jim Lanzone about the change.

My summary of his notes: Jim said that AJ always wanted to lower the number of ads displayed but they owed it to their stockholders not to give up such a large revenue earner. When IAC President Barry Diller came on board, he was very interested in the long term of Ask and is willing to take the revenue hit for the greater good.

Of course, just yesterday Ask Jeeves announced that they will be premiering their own Sponsored Listing service. Dropping the number of ads displayed also means that they will push up the visibility and attractiveness of their own service and drop Google Adwords. All around, a great move.

Posted by sesparza on 08/ 2/05 at 3:38 PM
See more entries in Branding

Search Engines Not Identical

It's tempting to think that Google, Yahoo and MSN deliver essentially the same results with only slight spins on the data but new data suggests that might be wrong. Chris Sherman reports on the divergence of search engines. A recent study by Dogpile and researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State University reveals that the top four engines overlap on first page results merely 1.1% of the time.

From the article:

73.9% of Ask Jeeves first page results were unique to Ask Jeeves
71.2% of Yahoo first page results were unique to Yahoo
70.8% of MSN search first page results were unique to MSN search
66.4% of Google first page results were unique to Google

Dogpile, of course, is a meta search engine with a vested interest in proving that you should be searching more than one engine for every query but that doesn't make these findings any less interesting or important for every search engine marketer. Considering the wide gap between engines, it's doubly important that you ensure your clients have visibility across all engines. Optimizing for multiple engines is getting harder all the time.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/ 2/05 at 9:41 AM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

ClickZ, SEW and SES sold.

Just before dashing off to meetings, Danny Sullivan announced that JupiterMedia is selling the ClickZ portion of their network, including Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies Conferences, to Incisive Media.

Danny points to the press release for more details but assures that things will continue as they always have for SEW and SES.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/ 2/05 at 9:26 AM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

August 1, 2005

Ask Jeeves to launch PPC engine

What was just rumors on Friday is official today. The AP is reporting that Ask Jeeves, backed by new owner IAC is scheduled to launch a new engine as early as today. Barry at Search Engine Roundtable thinks that AJ will bring something exciting and new to the table.

Ask Jeeves, of course, is contracted to use Google Adwords until 2007 but IAC is known for shaking things up so who knows where the wind blows on this one.

Posted by sesparza on 08/ 1/05 at 10:43 AM
See more entries in Pay-Per-Click

Google Organizes Help

Google has reorganized their help pages into a new format and added a search box making it just that much easier to get cryptic answers about your SEO questions.

You can search or browse through five categories.