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April 28, 2006

Hits for Friday

It's Friday. You've worked hard all week. Here's some fun stuff to get you through the rest of the day.

Be careful what you say in your blog. Andy Beal points us to the news that the CIA has officially launched an initiative to start tracking the ever-growing blogosphere. No word on how they're going about this, but the CIA says the amount of blog-based reporting has gone up in the president's daily briefing. Yikes. Let's keep those posts clean, people!

MarketingVOX reports a new geo-targeting tool being launched by Kanoodle. According to the site, the new tool will help advertisers target their ads directly to their customers based on the location of their IP address. Advertisers can also choose when (on what day, at what time) they want their ads to run. Let's hear it for highly targeted advertising.

Yahoo relaunched AltaVista's Babel Fish yesterday with help from some oddly placed Scarface references. For those unfamiliar, Babel Fish is a free service that lets users translate text or web pages in up to 38 different language pairs. They even created their own drink to go with it. ("Decorate with a scoop of mango sorbet." Ew, way to ruin it.) Personally, I think the Scarface reference is a little misplaced, but the little yellow fish is cute. So thumbs-up.

And because Google likes to rain on Yahoo's parade, they announced that Google Translator now translate English into Arabic and vice versa. Something the yellow goldfish can't do. Sorry, Yahoo.

In other Google news (and there's plenty of it): Google released their new Google China logo, which looks like this. Personally, I like the one that the folks at LiewCF.com created for Google better. It incorporates Google's classic colors into the prominent Chinese lettering, with the world "Google" written in a small, unassuming blue. If you ask me, it's very Google. Good work, guys.

Google is recruiting recent grads straight from their homepage. Nathan reports that if Google detects your IP address is coming from a college or university, they will show the recruiting URL on their homepage. Nice! Unfortunately, I'm not accessing Google from a college, so I have no idea where the URL actually takes you. Could there be a special Google landing page just for college kids? Now I feel old. And out of the loop. Thanks Nathan.

And I know you were all worrying that the folks at the Goog would go hungry after their last world-renowned chef left last May, but calm your fears – they found their replacements. MercuryNews reports that Google has hired Scott Giambastiani of San Mateo's high-end Viognier restaurant and Steve Petusevsky, a former national director of creative food development for Whole Foods Markets to fill the open positions. The search took over a year to complete. No word when the new additions will be released from Google Chef Beta. Let's keep those three free gourmet meals a day coming!

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/28/06 at 11:49 AM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Fun Stuff, Google, Pay-Per-Click, Search Engine Optimization, Yahoo

Forum Member Offers New Google Sandbox Theory

A new thread on the WebmasterWorld forums has made a quick launch to the front page, garnering it a lot of attention. The thread named Flattening Effect of Page Rank Interations – explains the 'sandbox'? offers up a new theory to explain the much-hyped Google sandbox.

The proposed theory speculates that true Page Rank can only be calculated after multiple PR iterations. Thread author Grant hypothesizes that the duration of the sandbox is the 'same amount of time it takes Google to iterate through the number of calculations needed to equilibrate the number of links for a site'. Yowsa, did you make it through all that?

Grant provides a detailed breakdown for this theory. I fear paraphrasing his methodology will weaken it, so I'm opting to leave it intact:

"If you analyze a site with 5 pages that all link to each other (the homepage PageRank is that the homepage is PR 3.5, and all other pages are PR .365 – the largest PR gap that will ever exist through multiple iterations in this example.

This homepage PR represents a surge in PR because Google has not yet calculated PR distribution, therefore the homepage has an artificial and temporary inflation of PR (which explains the sudden and transient PR surge and hence SERPs).

In the second iteration, the homepage goes down to PR 1.4 (a drop of over 50%!), and the secondary pages get lifted to .9, explaining the disappearing effect of “new” sites. Dramatic fluctuations continue until about the 12th iteration when the homepage equilibrates at about a lowly 2.2, with other pages at about .7."

What do you think? It would explain why new sites often appear in the SERP and then immediately drop out of sight. But I suppose lots of factors could account for that. Forum members appreciate the fresh look, calling Grant's theory both 'intelligent' and 'refreshing'. The best thing about this thread, besides the new Page Rank theory of course, is that not everyone agrees with it and intelligent debate is the end result.
Tedster, a WebmasterWorld forum administrator, praises Grant's theory but says while he thinks Page Rank calculations are part of the sandbox effect, he doesn't think they are the sole factor.

"There must be at least one other component to the sandbox effect, because we see it on some keyword searches and not others -- and PR is not related to content."

Tedster thinks deep links (not just links from the homepage) could help infuse sites and 'short circuit the flattening effect that PR iterations produce'.

Other members, like Junior Member Oliver Henniges, have labeled Grant's theory doubtful. Oliver says in order for Grant's theory to be accurate, Google would have to go through an iteration loop every 48 hours, contradicting the held belief that iterations need to be run in one action.

And of course, then you have the members who still think the idea of a Google sandbox is just another urban legend circulating the Web, refusing to acknowledge that it even exists. Fun to theorize, but administrator Trillianjedi (bring on the 'jedi' rankings!) seems to knock that down pretty quick.

And isn't that precisely what makes these threads so interesting -- it's all rumor and every aspect is up for debate. Is there a Google sandbox? I don't know. If there is, does Page Rank work the way Grant thinks? Maybe. No one can say for sure, but it sure is fun to talk about!

Search Engine Roundtable)

UPDATE:

Users' who found this WebmasterWorld thread interesting are encouraged to check out the strong new comments found on the SER site. More people are chiming in as Grant's theory regarding the Google sandbox becomes one very hot topic of discussion.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/28/06 at 11:12 AM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

April 27, 2006

AdWords Tweak Differentiates Terms

AdWords users may want to consider changing how they target keywords thanks to recent tweaks made to Google's AdWords system.

In an attempt to increase the quality of ads being shown, the Inside AdWords blog announced they will show more ads when they think users will find them useful and fewer ads when they believe users won't want to see them.

What does that mean? For users, the changes are minimal: more ads for commercially-based queries (flowers, car insurance, etc) and less for non-commercial terms (dog friendly parks in Mountain View). For advertisers, however, the changes could mean their previously listed ads may suddenly disappear from the Sponsored Listings section.

How do you prevent this from happening? Danny Sullivan offers some advice to confused AdWords participants. According to Danny, advertisers running commercially-based ads should opt for Google's broad match option to help ensure their ads show up. Conversely, if you're running non-commercial ads, using Google's exact match will get your ads to show up where you 'absolutely, positively want them' to. Thanks Danny.

For those still confused, the folks over at AdWords offer up some additional advice:

"If you notice a decline in impressions or clicks on some of your keywords, you may wish to ensure that your most important terms are each specifically entered as keywords in their own right, rather than relying on broad or phrase match to include them. Or, if you notice an unwanted increase in impressions or clicks for some keywords, consider adding negative keywords to more finely tune your targeting."

And though some queries may bring up more advertisements than others, Google says the overall number of Google ad space will not change. Danny Sullivan first reported that he feared the number of ads would increase and that Google would start dumping more and more ads into the search results.

As a result, Danny created a breakdown of the number of ad positions offered by Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Google and Ask, comparing the number of paid links versus free links. He also compares this year's data with his results from 2004. Though we no longer have to worry about Google increasing its ad space (for now), Danny's findings are definitely worth a once over.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/27/06 at 3:15 PM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Google, Pay-Per-Click

April 26, 2006

The First Step is Admitting You Have A Problem

This is cool. Or scary. To be perfectly honest, I haven't decided which one I think it is. I'll let you be the judge.

Last week blogger Joe Schmidt asked his readers a very thought provoking question, and then did what few bloggers are known to do, he provided an answer.

The question: How much do you Google?

Joe's answer? Six thousand, three hundred and fifty seven times a year. According to Joe's math, that's an average of 17.4 unique searches a day, every day, for an entire year. When you think about it like that, it doesn't actually sound like that much. Or maybe that's because these days I receive Google pretty much intravenously. Or because that only includes the searches Joe performed when he was actually logged in to Google.

Either way, Joe uses Google's Search History feature, which I didn't even know existed, to acquire the data. The feature was implemented a year ago and offers users the option of having Google record and index their complete search history. You have to log in to the service before it takes effect, but once it does, Google begins keeping track of all your search queries and the links clicked on and makes the data searchable. I'm assuming they have all this information anyway, no? Isn't that what the DOJ was fighting for? I guess this just gets you access to it.

Being able to search through a years worth of searches is cool, but the real fun comes from the graphs that Google creates out of your data. Oh yes, there are graphs.

First, there's the month-to-month graph which shows you just how much time you wasted spent searching on Google each day. They even color-code it so you can see exactly how much time was spent searching. (We're glad to see that Joe was seemingly able to detach himself from Google for most major holidays.)

And in case that's not enough to send you running to a support group, Google also creates a Trends graph that breaks down your results by Month, Day and Hour. In my opinion, the best part of Joe's post comes from examining the Hour Search Activity graph. Why? Because it tells Joe he is most active between 11pm and 2am, with more than a handful of searches being performed from 4-5am. I guess that's not too surprising, as the "Why" section of his blogs reads: needed something to do at 2am. Geez, get some sleep!

So, we throw the question back to you. How much do you Google?

(Hat-Tip John Battelle)

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/26/06 at 1:42 PM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Google

Blogosphere Round-up

With so much going on in the blogosphere right now, my Bloglines must be exhausted. Here are some highlights:

First things first, ad:tech San Francisco kicks off today (as does SES Milan). Bruce is there speaking at today's Organic SEO Fireside Chat. Aw, doesn't that sound cozy! If you find yourself in the Bay area, definitely try and check it out. Many of the same industry experts that were partying it up at PubCon Boston last week have now made the cross country journey to participate in ad:tech. Here's your chance to pry top-secret information out jetlagged SEO specialist!

Blogs, blogs, blogs. ClickZ reports on a study that shows the blogosphere is attracting readers in four main categories: Politics, Gossip, Music, and Mom blogs. Mom blogs? My mother can't even work a browser.

Search Engine Journal is reporting that Yahoo! TV seems to be 'semi up and running'. The service lets users view photos, movie trailers, video clips, and record their favorite TV shows without ever opening a browser. It's good to see Yahoo's not letting its recent Meedio acquisition go to waste. Yahoo! TV is essentially a free version of Microsoft's Media Center. It'll be interesting to see if users opt for the free Yahoo download or use MSN Media Center which comes pre-installed (with a small usage cost) into most machines.

John Battelle reports that Google is promoting their first non Google product on their homepage. And it's Firefox! John provides a screenshot to show Google's Firefox link that appears prominently on the Google homepage. Sounds good to me, we're all about Firefox around here. I'm just fearful of the new, almost cluttered look it creates. Not so pretty.

And in case you were wondering what a Google job interview feels like, Peter Abilla provides a very interesting account. Think 11 interviews over two days with one weird birthday-related brain teaser. Ouch. Noteworthy items: Google doesn't (or didn't at the time) pay to bring people in for interviews, or pay for their flight or lunch. Cheapskates. Kidding!

More Google-speak: Nathan Weinberg points us to an odd Chinese Flash movie promoting Google China. Nathan provides a translation of the movie, which includes lines like:

"Welcome to Guge. Let’s search for you. Let’s harvest for you. One piece of information is just like one piece of grass, alive and full of vitality, together they build up a big, endless, green lawn."

Hear that, Google is like a big, endless, green lawn. Yeeeah.

Nathan also points to a blog illustrating MSN's Windows Live testing a 'search within a site' feature that appears directly from the search results page. When users do a search they are greeted by a sub-search box listed under each result. By entering a keyword phrase into the box users can do a site command search and only show results from within that site. I personally can't see it, but it's an interesting test.

I'm starting to get concerned that something is seriously bugging Seth Godin. He followed up yesterday's post about not being afraid of the process (or something) with a rant today about the dangers of clearing out your inbox. According to Seth, your main objective is to never be 'done' at work.

Careful Seth, all work and no play puts the computer-bound at serious risk for developing repetitive stress injuries (RSI). Google's official staff doctor (yes, along with gourmet meals, they also get a doctor) offered up some advice on how to avoid carpal tunnel and severe work-related neck and back pain. According to the Google MD, RSIs account for 34% of all lost-workday injury and illnesses. Yowsa -- so much for hard work never hurting anyone. Excuse me while I go crack my neck. Again.

UPDATE:

Matt Cutts announced Google will begin notifying webmasters of penalties. Matt says this is 'both a Big Deal and a Good Thing.' We couldn't agree more. Users will be contacted via the webmaster console in Sitemaps so, in order to benefit, you must sign up for Sitemaps.

Jason Dowdell reexamines the Google click fraud case and gives users a list of Google Click Fraud Settlement Facts You Should Know. Most notable is that Dowdell breaks down the terms of the settlement to illustrate an advertiser who lost $10,000 will be entitled to a whopping $5 (though there seems to be some discrepancy about where to put the decimal. Andy Beal posts a press release that puts the number at $50). If you're advertising with Google, you may want to familiarize yourself with this article.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/26/06 at 11:17 AM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Google, MSN Search, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Yahoo

April 25, 2006

It's like Page Rank for blogs

With the blogosphere growing at an exponential rate, people are looking at blogs in a whole new light. According to data from Technorati, the blogosphere doubles every 6 months. That's enough to make me start feeling like a proud mother. There's a lot of really great content out there (like us!) but there's also a lot of not-so-great content (like splogs). So how do you wade through the garbage to find the good stuff? New blog search startup Sphere has officially launched its search out of beta today (allegedly, I can't see it), hoping to revolutionize the way people use and search for blogs.

Sphere isn't the only blog search out there, but they are the only ones using a three-point algorithm to help users find the blogs they were actually looking for. Unlike the other blog engines that race to try and index every single blog, Sphere indexes blog with an emphasis on trying to understand the content of each post.

This approach involves a unique three-point algorithm that includes an analysis of the blogs inbound and outbound links, the factors surrounding the post (like length, post frequency, related links, etc.), and something Sphere cofounder Tony Conrad calls their “secret sauce”, which is designed to help filter out spam and understand what posts are talking about.

Sphere does a couple of really cool things. Our favorite is that it ranks blogs by relevance, not date. This means when you do a search, it is more likely you will be routed to an authoritative source and not the endless rantings of someone who just happens to mention a word that appeared in your query string. As if that wasn't good enough, Sphere goes one step further, performing a full semantic analysis of blog posts to try and understand what they are about. How is this useful?

Think about it. The Bruce Clay, Inc blog has some authority when talking about SEO. So it's likely if you do a query for search engine optimization you may see our blog in your results page. However, if you do a search for Jedi Masters, though we may mention it during an occasional rant (or two), Sphere recognizes that we are not an expert on Star Trek (or at least, not all of us) and will not rank us for that term. It is able to identify our blog as being associated with Internet marketing knowledge, not about becoming a Jedi Master. It's unparalleled search relevancy for your blog.

It's a very unique feature and a feature that will be appreciated for users looking to better target their blog and rank for the terms that matter to them. Blogs have an enormous reach. Users are starting to look to blogs first for user-friendly advice on topics that matter to them. Isn't it nice to know a search for football will bring up blogs that actually know something about football and not about some 12-year-old's middle school team? A relevance ranking system for blogs helps ensure that authoritative blogs appear in the SERP. If you didn't think blogs were worth your time before, it may be time to have another look.

Sphere is just the latest example of users starting to see the power of blogs. If you were thinking about creating a blog to go along with your company's site (and reap all the branding benefits), now's the time to act. It's not too late to join the blogosphere and get in on the action.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/25/06 at 3:58 PM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Branding

SEO Evolution

You know, I can't stop thinking about that article from Mike Grehan, and since I'm thinking about it, you, my faithful readers, get to hear about it too.

When the article first came to my attention, I read it as many did, calling for the death of "traditional" SEO as though there was no value there at all. But in re-reading and mulling it over, as well as taking into account that Mike is one of the brightest minds in the SEO world, I realized that I never actually disagreed with the article. I disagreed with the language. "Traditional" SEO is often misunderstood as on-page SEO, the addition and adjustments of Meta tags and on page elements, tweaking small details hoping to get big results.

SEO has never been easy. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something. SEO has always been a game of balancing, weighing and understanding. Like most games, it is fairly simple to learn but very hard to master. SEO is also something of a moving target. The goal is to be the most worthy, the most expert, the most relevant in a way that is clear to both customers and search engines alike. The problem, or the opportunity, lies in the fact that "most" is a subjective term. You have to be better than your competition. And your competition is trying to be better than you. That's why every last element counts.

Back in September, we ran an article in our newsletter entitled "The Changing Landscape of SEO". Jayme pointed out then that in the bad old days of SEO, you could do things that are considered spam today and get to the top of the SERPs. Doorway pages were common, as was hidden text, images with spammed out ALT attributes and auto-generated pages. Thankfully, the search engines got smarter and SEO moved on.

But what really is "traditional" SEO? Is it strictly on-page elements? Getting your title tag just right? Well, no, of course not. Not anymore than doorway pages and hidden text were SEO back in the day. The definition of traditional SEO doesn't change just because the techniques being used are. Search Engine Optimization means just that. It's the practice of making everything about your webpage and website move in harmony to tell the search engine and your visitors exactly why your site is the best. In that respect, "traditional" SEO should be considered an ever-changing process, not something that can come and go, and certainly not something that can 'die'.

We believe traditional SEO is a transformative, ever-evolving process. That fact is what makes SEO so difficult and addictive all at the same time -- the rules are always changing. A few years ago traditional SEO meant utilizing methods that today are deemed 'black hat'. Today it means incorporating user-behavior into our process and not just relying on on-page factors to get the job done. Traditional SEO hasn't changed. The importance of tailoring your site with an SEO eye has not weakened. The rules and the way in which we go about it has.

We're believers in the 80/20 rule that states 20% of the work will results in 80% of the results. Some will argue that on-page SEO may make up 80% of your rankings and that user behavior balances out the other 20%. Others will argue the opposite. Whichever side of the fence you find yourself on doesn't change the fact that a comprehensive SEO plan will have to incorporate both, in a sort of ying and yang equation.

That has always been the difficulty behind SEO – perfecting and tweaking your site's methodologies in order to produce the best results. In fact, getting your site at the top of the SERP is harder today than ever before. The players have gotten smarter and the game has transformed to become more difficult. The battle to show your visitors and the search engines that your site is the best, the most relevant, the most worthy has intensified. And site owners are having to respond to the challenge, coming up with new ways to make their site stand out. Which is, after all, what traditional SEO is all about.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/25/06 at 10:54 AM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Design, Search Engine Optimization

April 24, 2006

Matt Dispels More Rumors

We love Matt Cutts. Or at least, I love Matt Cutts. Why? Because he's always on hand to dispel rumors and calm the fears of the paranoid -- and when you're dealing with the Internet, the rumors and the lot of invented conspiracies add up.

If you spent any time trolling the forums last week, it's likely you caught some of the buzz regarding the AdSense bot and the rumor that it was crawling sites and giving AdSense users an unfair advantage in the search engines. Lots of people got themselves all worked up over it.

So, does participating in AdSense get your pages indexed faster and give you a boost in the search engines? Matt says no, of course not. That would be wrong. Why/ how are the AdSense bots crawling the Web, you ask? According to Matt, its all part of Google's plan for 'smarter crawling' and 'better indexing'.

One of Bigdaddy's new features is the 'crawl caching proxy' update which cache's all of Google's bots (GoogleBot, AdSense bot, Blog search bot, News bot, etc.) crawls in one place in order to save user bandwidth. If one bot crawls your sites and then another comes poking around a few hours later, it will know that your site has already been visited and will pass on by. Matt provided a series of flow charts on his blog to illustrate his point, so if you don't find my text description adequate you may want to check that out. Basically, it's part of Google's effort for bandwidth reduction. Smart. Very smart.

It should also be noted that the robots.txt rules still apply to each crawl. Matt explains:

"If service X was allowed to fetch a page, but a robots.txt file prevents service Y from fetching the page, service Y wouldn’t get the page from the caching proxy."

Good to know. And in case you were wondering, the crawl caching proxy is not the same as the cached page users see if they click on the “Cached” link on the search engine results page. Those cached pages are only updated when a new page is added to the index.

So, participating in AdSense gets you no additional crawling in Google's index. You don't get indexed faster and you don't get a boost in the ranking. Can we stop talking about this now?

Matt was also on hand to discuss Lee Odden's question regarding Google and Toolbar data. Lee asked if Google uses toolbar data for its rankings. Matt says he will never answer an outright 'no' to the endless stream of 'Does Google Deem [X] Important?' questions. He says it is wise not 'to rule something out absolutely'. We agree. Kind of like what we said about Meta tags. Don't not do it. If you're going to do something, you may as well do it well.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/24/06 at 3:00 PM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Google, Pay-Per-Click, Rumors

EMetrics Summit –Santa Barbara

Guest Entry by Dana McGraw, Web Analytics Analyst--Bruce Clay, Inc.

My first EMetrics Summit definitely exceeded my expectations! The relatively small size of the group allowed for really insightful discussions not only amongst attendees but with presenters, as well. I must admit that the most lasting impression was left by Avinash Kausik of Intuit! His engaging presentation style really captured the audience and blended humor with really important information and ideas. An important bit of Avinash’s presentation that was echoed several times throughout the Summit was the idea that in reality, the data that we are able to collect is not entirely accurate. Due to cookie deletion and many other factors the quest for 100% accurate data is fruitless. Instead, we must accept the inaccuracies of the data and “get over it”! What is truly important is trending; a baseline must be established and from there it is not the actual numbers but the trends that are observed that are the real basis for crucial evaluation and decision making.

As if the potent presentations were not enough to make the EMetrics Summit a rousing success in my mind, I was also afforded the opportunity to meet and have discussions with both Eric Peterson (author of Web Analytics Demystified) and Paul Muret (Google Analytics). The beauty of such a young industry is that even those who have been practicing in this space almost since its inception still make time to impart knowledge to the newest members of the industry. I would certainly recommend the EMetrics Summit to anyone interested in Web Analytics (the next Summit in the U.S. is scheduled for October in Washington D.C.). Of course, a hat tip goes to Jim Sterne for a well run conference and more importantly for fostering such an incredible atmosphere of sharing and camaraderie.

Posted by Guest Author on 04/24/06 at 10:11 AM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Analytics

April 21, 2006

Digg'in social ranking a hole

In case you haven't been paying attention, Digg got themselves into something of, well, a hole earlier this week. The supposed user-generated social bookmarking site caught some fire after allegations broke out that the site was skewing results and using 'editorial control' to push certain stories while burying others. This means if you've recently been subscribing to the social ranking approach of internet marketing, you may not want to abandon your traditional SEO methods quite yet.

The controversy began when ForeverGeek's Macgyver posted an article Wednesday hinting that Digg was promoting two almost identical stories, both submitted by Digg user Spit1ire, while banning stories from the ForeverGeek site.

The two promoted stories appeared on Digg's front page and were voted on by virtually all of the same people, in the same order, with a vote by none other than Digg founder Kevin Rose. The folks at ForeverGeek (like the rest of us) found this to be too much of a coincidence. Macgyver comments:

"What made this really interesting was that the 17th digger was none other than Kevin Rose... I've read that Digg gets anywhere from 500,000 to 800,000 readers a day. 16 (or 19) identical diggs for two articles by the same author? 22 of the first 24 diggers being the same for both articles? Somehow I don't think that is a coincidence."

Conspiracy theory or did Rose just read Digg's front page and like the stories? But why would the votes appear in almost identical order? And isn't it strange they were submitted by the same user? It's all very odd and doesn't make much sense.

Digg-ing further, if the stories were voted by enough users to merit them first page status, why don't they have any comments? When's the last time you saw a 'popular' front page story void of any user response? Very strange indeed.

The folks at the Digg blog are trying to do some major PR spin, claiming the error occurred as a result of users creating several accounts to 'mass digg and promote stories'. Rose says those accounts have since been banned. How does Rose explain ForeverGeek's banning?

"The banning of forevergeek.com: Aside from the dozens of user reports, several accounts were created to artificially inflate the digg count of their stories. When a single URL hits a threshold of reports, our standard procedure is to block that URL from submission (spam control). Again, mass fraud digging is in violation of our terms of service."

Macgyver denies that claim and posted his own response to what he calls Rose's 'non-response' and basically tears apart Rose's entire argument.

In response to Rose himself digging the two stories in question, Digg's founder notes he currently tracks more than 40 users within the Digg community. Spit1fire is not on that list. We checked.

Whatever the exact cause of the ban and pushed stories, one fact now remains: the original idea behind Digg is now lost. Recent events seem to show that Digg has gotten too big for its own good. Either the editors are hand picking which stories see the front page, or the site has fallen prey to group think -- causing everyone to 'dig' the same stories.

Regardless, the premise behind Digg and other social ranking sites has now changed (who's in charge – users or site editors?) and marketers and SEOs alike should be wary when favoring social marketing tactics over traditional organic search. Social ranking sites are still relatively new to the game and clearly they still have some growing pains to work out. So let's not abandon the traditional methods of SEO and internet marketing, okay?

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/21/06 at 1:53 PM | TrackBack (1)
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

Weekly Recap

It's Friday so I know you're all looking for some interesting stuff to read. Here is a fine sampling of stories for your reading pleasure...

Andy Beal discovered a new tool to determine who's linking to your blog this week. WhoLinked's backlink tool showcases a list of sites linking back to your blog. According to the tool's site, in one glance 'it convinces your visitors you're serious'. I suppose the basic idea is that if you have trusted, expert sites linking to you, your site will gain instant credibility. I guess that's true if, you know, you have credible visitors. Personally, I think this tool will serve to burst the bubble of many a blogger. Who wants to know the only person linking to your blog is Bob of Bobspage.com? Some truths are better left unknown.

In search news, an Arkansas judge has approved the $90 million click-fraud settlement between Google and its AdWords advertisers. According to Search Engine Watch, of the $90 million, $60 million will go to the advertisers for credits for future advertising on Google and $30 million will go to the lawyers. Overall, I'd say Google made out pretty nicely.

People are doing fun stuff with timelines today. The Blogoscope's Phil Lessen put together a very neat visual Google timeline using pages in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine tracing the engine from 1996 all the way through today. Yikes, check out that on-the-verge-of-cluttered 1998 Google logo. Phil's visual timeline inspired Search Engine Journal's Loren Baker to create one for Yahoo, which inspired me to look up some of the old Bruce Clay, Inc pages. Veeery interesting.

Blogs had another stellar week, finding their way into the news almost every day. On Sunday, The Boston Globe told readers that blogs are essential to a good career (causing Scoble to offer his response), while Technorati founder and CEO David Sifry released part one of his 'State of The Blogosphere..." that claimed the blogosphere doubles every 6 months. Impressive! There were lots more blog related articles during the week (like this one), but our favorite blog-related news link came from Kim Krause who offered up some awesome blog usability links for her users. It's good to see blogs getting the respect they deserve.

Oh, and tomorrow's Earth Day. Try not to kill any trees.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/21/06 at 12:02 PM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Fun Stuff, Google, Search Engine Optimization

Yahoo Helps Jail 3rd Dissident

The search engines love China. Google visited last week to open a new research center, Bill Gates stopped in for a nice photo-op, and Yahoo just loves jailing Chinese citizens campaigning for democracy. Wait, which one gave you that bad taste in your mouth?

Let me personally address Yahoo for a moment: Yahoo, you don't want to be doing this. This makes three. Three Chinese citizens that you have helped jail for advocating "western-style" democracy. I think that's the kind where you can vote and get freedom of speech and stuff. And worst of all, this latest incident comes just two months after you testified, under oath, that you regretted being 'forced' to help in Beijing.

But you're not really being forced. I know you think you're getting a bad deal here. You're crying Google -- that they complied and censored Google China. We know, but there's a difference between Google complying with international customs and you handing over evidence to get people arrested. That's something Google doesn't do. Remember the court case you guys were all in with the DOJ. You need to stop handing over emails that show your users discussing (gasp!) pro-democracy topics, especially when you know doing so will get them imprisoned. For many years.

Back to you guys.

That's right; Reporters Without Borders announced on Wednesday that it had obtained a copy of the verdict against cyber-dissident Jiang Lijun. Jiang was sentenced to four years in prison for producing a pro-democracy article. The verdict notes that Yahoo Holdings provided Chinese authorities with a draft email that had been saved on Jiang's email account. The email was then used as evidence for his 'crime of subversion'.

According to the verdict, the recovered document was entitled "Declaration" and is said to be similar to two other documents that were recovered from a computer and floppy disk owned by two additional activists entitled 'Freedom and Democracy Party Program" and "Declaration of Establishment". This is almost too much.

Reporters Without Borders agrees and says we may begin to hear other cases were Yahoo has turned in dissidents to Chinese authorities. The group said they believe there are similar cases pending that could implicate Yahoo but was not able to discuss them because they are still being investigated.

I don't know about you, but people being imprisoned for innocently distributing or creating information makes me incredibly sad.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/21/06 at 11:54 AM | TrackBack (1)
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April 19, 2006

How to Become an SEO Jedi Master

We know some of you are confused when it comes to fine tuning your SEO campaign. You've just been making it more complicated than it really is. In fact, we all have. That's why we really appreciate a recent thread by a newbie Search Engine Watch forum member that breaks SEO down into all its integral steps.

1. Create a website
2. Add lots and lots of keywords
3. Submit to 100 search engines and directories
4. Get loads and loads of links
5. Use Meta tags (just in case some search engines still bother with them).

And that's it! According to the member, whose goal is to become 'an SEO Jedi master' that's all you need to know to become successful at SEO. Excuse me while I go bang my head against a wall.

I'm sorry, but what? This list hurts my brain. I hate to kill a man's dream, but there's just so much missing. Skipping his pivotal first step of creating an actual website (it hurts too much), he's only listed four criteria for search engine ranking. The search engines base its rankings on over 100 variables. My elementary math skills tell me he's missing at least 96 other variables. That's virtually all of them.

What's worse is the four he actually does list, aren't even that accurate. Are you going to use 'lots and lots' of keywords or are you going to research your industry keywords and select a handful of the most relevant to target? Are you going to get 'loads and loads' of links or are you going to be picky about your links and only link to related, expert sites? The newbie's rules may get you into the top 500, maybe, but do you know anyone that goes 50 pages deep into the SERP? What about content? We believe content is key, and yet the SEO Jedi Master-wannabe doesn't even mention it.

SEO is hard. That's why people are able to make careers out of doing. This member got all of his information from reading books about SEO and says his next step is to start creating sites. While we encourage his enthusiasm and understand the importance of practical experience, we would recommend he visit a few more SEO sites before launching right into his design phase.

As a more skilled forum member pointed out, search engine optimization is one area where book experience differs greatly from real world experience. It's about mastering methodologies. A good lesson in creating dynamic content, targeting keywords, establishing a link campaign, tracking results and SEO site architecture is definitely in order. And those are just links to our site. There's plenty of other expert content out there. You just have to take the time to find it. We think its essential reading before this Jedi in training can take his initial steps in becoming an SEO Jedi Master. Right now we deem him at Youngling status.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/19/06 at 12:00 PM | TrackBack (0)
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April 18, 2006

WebmasterWorld PubCon 2006

This just in: the great city of Boston is currently being invaded by the likes of search engine optimization know-it-alls, including our own Bruce Clay! Watch out! The annual WebmasterWorld PubCon kicked off in Boston today and will go through the 20th.

What I wouldn't give to be able to sit in on tomorrow's 9 a.m. 'Morning Coffee Session with The Super Bloggers of Search', featuring Scoble, Cutts and Zawodny. I know, I'm a nerd, but it's certainly worth the early morning wake-up call. And what a perfect opportunity to wear your 'I'm Not Matt Cutts' T-shirt or give Scoble a hug while he's on vacation. With the digs Chris Coulter is getting in while he's away, he just may need it.

Bruce is speaking today and tomorrow at sessions on Organic Search Forums and Organic Site Reviews, respectively. Hopefully, Bruce's panel mate Mike Grehan didn't take offense to yesterday's blog. And if he did, don't look at me -- that was Susan!

If you're in Boston, definitely try and make your way over to the Hynes Convention Center and check it out. If you're looking for a schedule, WebmasterWorld has an itinerary on their site. And of course, conversation is already flowing in the forums.

And while you're in Beantown, be sure to have a lobster roll for me. You just can't find those on the West Coast. Go Red Sox!

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/18/06 at 12:08 PM | TrackBack (0)
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April 17, 2006

Thanks, Danny!

Congratulations to Danny Sullivan who celebrates 10 years of writing about search engines today! Danny treats us all to recap of the past 10 years on the SEW blog, highlighting some of the articles he's written over the past decade.

Some of our favorites include a study he authored on search engines 10 years ago, an article in 1997 that stated search engines were dying and only generated a small percentage of traffic, an article from '98 that introduced users to a butler named Jeeves (!) and his unique question-answering ability, the advent of advertising on Google, a not-so-scary Google bomb and lots of acquisitions, lawsuits, and relevancy and Meta tag issues along way. Hmm, doesn't sound too far off from today, does it?

If you're not familiar with Danny, his post today provides you with an invaluable opportunity to find all of insight in one place.

Congratulations, Danny. Thanks for keeping us up-to-date for the last decade.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/17/06 at 1:31 PM | TrackBack (0)
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Back to asking questions?

Jeeves was killed, err, sacrificed, um, retired because Ask wanted to get away from the question/ answer-based days of search that they felt were long gone, right? Because they felt the asking questions approach wasn't effective. Then why are all the other engines beefing up and creating their own question/ answer social searches? Does this mean if they're are successful we'll get Jeeves back?? Someone get Barry Diller on the phone!

It may not have felt right to Barry, but it sure looks like Q&A and social search may be making a comeback. The word on the wire is that Microsoft is planning to unveil a question/ answer-based social search tool in the coming months. The feature will reportedly allow users to direct their questions to a certain market – whether it be an industry related group or just a network of their own friends – allowing them to benefit from social searching. The idea is to provide a more relevant, customized search by asking like-minded searchers for answers.

Microsoft's dabbling into the social search arena may not rest with just the new tool. Team Gates is also said to be in talks with the swicki startup Eurekster.com. Swicki search engines allow the 'wisdom of crowds' to control the results. As more users use it, the engine learns from their behavior and re-ranks terms based on the relevance, regardless of where that information came from.

So is Microsoft going to buy Eurekster? Or will they just use Eurekster technology to formulate their new tool? And this new tool – how is it different from just dropping your buddies an email. And isn't dropping an email faster? I have so many questions, but I guess we're just going to have to wait and find out.
Of course, Microsoft isn't the only engine to make step towards social search. Yahoo has been the leader in this field since their beta release of Yahoo Answers, which allows users to pose questions to other Yahooligans, who hopefully, have more knowledge than they do.

Yahoo is also testing a service called My Web 2.0 where users can search their own 'personal web' made up of pages saved by members of a network community. MyRank works as part of MyWeb 2.0 and is a search engine (similar to Eurekster, I suppose) that only spiders pages over a user's trusted network, meaning users may find very different results than if they search through a traditional search engine.

And then there's Google, who of course is the King of Search, and can't be left behind. They have their own Q&A tool Google Answers, though their's is fee-based (the nerve!), and have recently launched their Google Base beta, which is one giant social network. Users can use the service to post pretty much whatever they want, to then find pretty much whatever they want. It's actually rather amazing.

Ask may have left the party, but it looks like there's a lot of social searchin' going on these days. If Barry and his crew don't want Jeeves, maybe we can contract him out to one of these others companies. How about MSN Jeeves as the name for the new Microsoft tool? What? You know they're just gonna name it MSN Answers. Where's the fun in that?

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/17/06 at 12:04 PM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Ask, Google, MSN Search, Microsoft, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines, Yahoo

Practice makes perfect but only if you practice perfectly

It's that time again. There's just something about Spring that makes people really want to jettison the old and charge full steam ahead into the new. Part of that yearly trend is someone claiming the death of traditional SEO techniques.

This time, it's Mike Grehan doing the doomsaying. In his article Does Textbook SEO Really Work Anymore?, Grehan notes that he's always on the lookout for ways to streamline the SEO process, "eliminate time-wasting" in his words. Which of course, is great. We all would like to get to the top in the fewest steps.

It's in the interests of saving time that Grehan asks:

But really, if meta tags, H1 tags, alt text attributes, and other components of textbook SEO are so miniscule in the greater scheme of ranking, why do we bother?

Is there really a case where someone was at 856 in the SERPs, then added a meta tag that rocketed the site to number 1? Is there a case where someone was at number 10, added an H1 tag, and slipped nicely into the top 5 results?

The answer is 'of course, not'. If there is someone out there under the delusion that changing your keywords tag is going to get you from 1000 to 1, let me just clear that up right now. It won't.

The problem with the cutting the fat in SEO is this attitude: If it isn't going to drastically improve my rankings, why bother?

Now at first blush, that's a pretty reasonable thought. When you're at 1000, should you be worried about Meta tags and properly formatted Title tags? You're in triage here, after all. The first step is to stop the bleeding, right?

But wait just a second and let's look at that another way. Would you say that doing something half-way or not at all is as good as doing it right? That cutting corners will make you genuinely the very best? We all know that there are over 100 variables in the search engines' algorithms, picking five to do very well and ignoring the rest means that you just lost at least 95 tie breakers. Sure, those five might be the most important but they're just the base. They'll get you into the top 50, maybe even the top 10. But getting those last few rankings takes perfection across the board. Meta tags and Title tags are part of webpage construction. Doing them right is part of the game.

As I've written before, the danger with skipping elements because they're not worth as much as others is the same as paying for everything with cash and throwing away the change. Sure, it's just a nickel and dime, but over time it adds up.

(Hat-tip Andy Beal)

Posted by Susan Esparza on 04/17/06 at 11:52 AM | TrackBack (0)
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April 14, 2006

Did AOL get caught censoring emails?

Poor AOL. They just can't get away from the drama over their certified email program. This time they're facing attacks from non-profit group MoveOn.org who claim AOL began censoring emails that contained links to petition site DearAOL.com. After MoveOn.org made their initial claims, more than 150 people who signed a petition for AOL tried sending messages and received an error message that alerted them their email 'failed permanently' and would not be delivered. AOL claimed a glitch in the system, but non–profits cried foul.

DearAOL.com is an online petition that protests AOL's plans to begin charging an email tax to route email around its spam filters. The online petition has been signed by over 40,000 people so far.

Turning the situation into a complete PR fiasco, upon hearing the news, news site CNet sent out a test email to AOL with the DearAOL.com URL inside it and found it too came back undelivered. Well, that doesn't look good, does it?

When MoveOn.org realized their emails were not be delivered they sent out notices to everyone on its email list claiming that AOL was purposely censoring the protest emails. Taking full advantage, they pointed towards Wednesday's computer glitch as even more evidence that AOL does not have its customers' best interests in mind and should not be allowed to tax emails.

AOL says the blockage was due to a 'glitch' that incorrectly labeled several of the sites as being spammers. An AOL exec said there was 'absolutely no commonality' among the 50 or so sites that were affected. Well, except that a number of the affected emails contained the DearAOL URL. AOL execs pointed they have delivered 'millions and millions' of emails correctly. Yes, yes you have. But that doesn't seem to be the issue here.

And while I love conspiracy theories just as much as the next paranoid blogger, I just can't believe that AOL was purposely trying to censor emails. First, the petition being circulated has been making the rounds for two months now. It doesn't seem viable that AOL has all of sudden decided to start blocking it. Secondly, it's not as if the 'blocked' emails would go unnoticed. It would be ridiculous to think AOL purposely censored the protest-related emails and didn't think it would get traced back to them.

With the amount of email being sent over AOL, you're bound to have a few bouncebacks. Does it look bad that some of the bounced emails were related to MoveOn.org's campaign to stop AOL's CertifiedEmail program? Yes. But what about the emails that got bounced back that didn't have the nefarious URL inside? I think Wednesday's glitch was just that. A glitch. With some really bad timing.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/14/06 at 12:53 PM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in AOL, Email, Rumors, Search Engine Optimization

Quick Note

Philipp Lenssen has created a public Google Calendar called Search Events to help users stay up-to-date on the latest search happenings, including search engine conferences, like PubCon and SES; Google Events, like Google Press Days and the upcoming softball season (ooo!); Yahoo events, like the upcoming YPN Blog Party; and anything else search related. Only 24 hours out of the gate and already we're getting cool and useful uses for Google Calendar.

If you want to add the calendar, copy and paste this URL into the 'Search Public Calendars' box.

UPDATE: Phil has also compiled a list of other interesting calendars which may be of interest.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/14/06 at 10:33 AM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Branding, Fun Stuff, Google

April 13, 2006

Google Calendar is live. Rejoice.

It's here. It's here. Google Calendar is here! Clearly my not-so-veiled threat earlier in the week scared the boys into working overtime to get this one out. What? It's a theory.

My head is spinning and there's so much to cover. First impression: It looks like Gmail and I love it already.

Like most Google toys, Google Calendar is easy to use. Want to create an event? There are so many ways to do so. You can go straight to your calendar and click on the day in question. A pop-window will let you type in all the details, including time, location, description and comments. Or if that's too easy, you can click on the Create Event link, use the Quick Add feature (discussed below), or simply find the day on your mini left-hand side calendar. You can even drag and drop events straight into your calendar, and if you receive an email in Gmail that has event information, Google Calendar will recognize it and ask if you want to add it to your calendar. Cool!

I'm still playing with it, but so far there are a few features I really like.

• Multiple Calendars – Google Calendar allows users to create multiple, color-coded calendars. Make one for yourself, one for your kids and one for your husband who has the memory of a 6-month-old. To see the events of a specific calendar, simply mark the check box next to its name. Google lets you view events from as many calendars as you'd like.
• Calendar Search – Easily search through all public calendars, including friend's calendars and holiday calendars.
• Add Guests – While in the event creation box, users can opt to add guests to their event and send out reminders. Guests can be given the option of adding others or simply to view the guest list.
• Sharing – Personal calendars are private by default, but users can choose to share them with specific people, giving them permission to make changes or add events. Calendars can also be shared via RSS feeds.
• Integration with Google Local – If your event mentions an address, or even a city, you will see a link directing you to Google Local so that you can map out your event.
• Event Quick Add – Click on the day or Quick Add link and type in what's going on in plain text: Having dinner with mom at 6pm? Just type that in and Google Calendar will fill in the appropriate fields for you. Google Calendar is your secretary!
• Agenda View – The agenda tab lets users see all their upcoming events in chronological order.
• Importing -- You can import events from other calendar programs, including Yahoo Calendar and Microsoft Outlook

Google Calendar is here and I am joyful -- I just have two requests. First, I'd like an auto-complete function when adding guests to my events. I don't like having to type (and therefore, remember) my friends' email address. There must be a way to integrate my Gmail address book. Secondly, and I'm picky, I know, but I'd like to be able to access my calendar while offline. Having to be online to view my schedule is somewhat of an inconvenience. On the weekdays, yes, I am stuck in front of a computer 10+ a day, but on the weekends, I do make a veiled attempt at having a life and being able to access my calendar would be nice. So let's see what we can do about that, okay? Thanks.

Users with a Google account can access Google Calendar from this page. If you don't have a Google account, you'll need to sign up before being able to access it. All right, that's it. I'm off to go play.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/13/06 at 12:30 PM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Branding, Fun Stuff, Google, Search Engines

April 12, 2006

Pump up the Volume

Where do you get all the latest SEO news and discussion, plus tips, tricks and advice, while you work? WebmasterRadio.fm of course!

Andy Beal linked today to a great article by David Wallace. The article reviews WebmasterRadio.fm and covers the history, shows and value of the station. He's dead on too. Where else can you find such on demand programming featuring the biggest names in SEO, including Danny Sullivan (disclosure: Bruce Clay, Inc. is a sponsor of Danny's show, the Daily SearchCast), Matt Cutts, Tim Mayer, Jeremy Zawodny and of course, Bruce Clay?

WebmasterRadio.fm has it right, lots of quality content, easy access and great archives that can be transferred to your iPod (whoo hoo, SEO on the go!). Mobile casts are also available for those of us who live and die by our cell phones. They're also active, covering practically every convention worth attending, and as David points out, throwing some rockin' parties. (Psst, for more about that party at Buddy Guy's check out our December Newsletter feature story: SES Wrap up and Year in Review.)

Posted by Susan Esparza on 04/12/06 at 2:37 PM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in SEO Tips & Tricks, Search Engine Optimization

Google Changes Name to Corn Song

In case you were wondering if Google felt bad about censoring search results in China – they don't. Google CEO Eric Schmidt says the decision to censor Google China was "absolutely the right one" and says telling China how it should be run would have been 'arrogant'.

Schmidt spoke in China on Wednesday to announce the creation of a research center in Beijing that he hopes will be used to create 'products' for markets worldwide. No word what those elusive 'products' could be.

Schmidt also used the occasion to début Google's Chinese-language brand name — "Gu Ge". Now, I know it sounds like something usually mumbled by a drooling infant, but the word actually translates to "Valley Song" or "Corn Song" in Chinese. The name, which draws on Chinese rural traditions to describe a fruitful and rewarding experience, is meant to show Google's commitment to China. Well, that just gives you the warm and fuzzies, huh.

While Google renamed itself High Fructose Corn Syrup Corn Song, Yahoo added satellite imagery to its maps and the rest of the world fell in love. Seriously, everyone is buzzing about Yahoo's new high resolution maps which are supposedly better than Google's. John Battelle, Google Blogoscoped, Charlene (who goes as far as giving a complete Yahoo/ Google/ Windows Live comparison test), Inside Google, Jeremy and just about everyone else, are all commenting about how great the new maps are. Personally, I'm walking a fine line of not caring and not being generally impressed. I punched in my old Long Island residence and all I got was a nice picture of the baseball field connected to the church up the street. I prefer Ask's Aerial view which, when zoomed all the way in, lets me see my dad's car in the driveway.

What I do find cool is the rumor that Yahoo is playing around with placing images in their sponsored search. Search Engine Roundtable is reporting a user in Canada was reading an article via Yahoo News and noticed the sponsored links at the bottom of the page had thumbnails of the linked sites next to each result. Using images to help increase your PPC click-through rate? Now, that sounds interesting – unless they're immediately blocked by your browser. Then not so interesting. These results don't seem to be showing up in the United States. All we get are boring tax season ads.

By the way, don't forget to do that. Just 6 days left.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/12/06 at 12:21 PM | TrackBack (1)
See more entries in Ask, Branding, Google, Pay-Per-Click, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines, Yahoo

We don't usually like using the 'M' word, but...

Microsoft has officially released its Windows Live Academic Search beta into seven English-speaking markets, including the United States. The service will allow students, researchers and nerds alike to easily scour the pages of academic and scholarly journals.

CNET reports that MS Academic Search is designed to index 'library-subscribed content' and supports OpenURL, the current standard for linking subscription-based material. MS Academic Search uses information given to them by libraries and/ or research facilities regarding their OpenURL links and then Academic Search provides the researcher with direct access to links and full text material.

Results are then displayed in a split-panel view with articles titles and info on one side and a preview pane – used to show article excerpts -- on the other. Users can sort and cluster results by author, conference, date and journal, as well as perform quick and easy citations.

Though the search results are free, users can only access journals to which they have a subscription. If a researcher comes across a pertinent article found in a journal but they don't have a subscription, they will receive a message asking them to pay a per-article fee to access the full-text results.

Academic Search and Google Scholar seem to have one main difference: the way they retrieve information. Google Scholar crawls the web looking for academic-based content. Academic Search works directly with publishers to build its academic index, making users confident they are reading trusted, expert material. Also very cool, is that users can get keyword-based RSS feeds. How great is that? Where was this technology when I was in college?

Another thing I like about this: no plans for sponsored listings. That's right, no ads! Microsoft says there are no plans to make money directly from the service; instead, the service is about building loyalty. Don't tell Bill, but it's going to take a lot more than an academic search to make me start trusting Microsoft.

Right now MS Academic Search only includes articles related to Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Physics. A Microsoft exec said other topics would be available in the 'near future' but could give no estimate as to how long that would be. There was also no mention of how often the academic index would be updated: Daily? Weekly? Monthly? What? We don't know – guess we'll have to wait around and see.

Ask's Gary Price has an excellent review of the service over at Resource Shelf.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/12/06 at 10:59 AM | TrackBack (0)
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April 11, 2006

Flying Blind

You'll have to excuse me if I'm a little slow on the uptake today. My Bloglines has decided to take the morning off so I must visit each one of my 40 or so blog feeds individually. Let's just say things aren't moving quite as quickly as normal. See what I do for you?

Here's what I can decipher so far:

Nathan Weinberg has more leaked screenshots of CL2. What's particularly interesting about the two new looks is that they hint at fun things. The first image gets me very, very excited as it suggests that CL2 may actually be integrated directly into Gmail. Take a look. That sure looks like a Gmail screen with an added CL2 feature to me! The second leaked image appeals to my inner geek, making it appear that after an event location is entered users are greeted to a Google Maps link. You mean I can get directions to my event, learn what local business are nearby and (I'm guessing) see where all the other participants are coming from? Let's hear it for full Google integration!

CL2 get's me very excited; if only because I have way too many events going on to keep track of them in my head. However, if CL2 is not released soon... well, Google will have to answer to my fists of fury.

Elsewhere, Andy Beal is poking fun at all of yesterday's Google-Orion hype. It seems we weren't the only ones to find the acquisition less than 'revolutionary', and saw it as, perhaps, an Ask rip off. But as Andy says, "If it's Google, it has to be good right? Even if it's not unique".

In that spirit, Andy kids about two new Google products: Google Fire, a 'very hot and amazingly colored element developed by Mr. Nee. Anderthal' and Google Wheel, 'a new technology that will enhance (or dare I say, revolutionize) how we get from one location to another'. Wow, sounds exciting. Make sure to keep an eye out for those two.

In the forum world, Rustybrick over at Search Engine Roundtable points to an interesting thread over at the DigitalPoint Forum that discusses a handy PageRank tool. What's unique about the tool found at http://www.webmastereyes.com is that users can plug in their URL and see the PageRank for every link on their site via graphical bars. It's especially cool if you have a properly linked sitemap, as you can easily get PageRank information for all of your inner pages.

It reminds us of Bruce Clay, Inc's SEOToolBar currently in beta. The SEOToolBar offers a unique overlay system that allows users to view PageRank, back links and pages indexed for the top five results of virtually any search on Google, Yahoo or MSN. While PageRank is not the key factor in determining your Google rankings, users may find both tools useful, if not simply informative.

Chris Sherman at Search Engine Watch comments on two studies that alert marketers to what everyone already knows – that users rarely venture farther than the first page of the search engine results page, and the news that searchers are becoming more search savvy -- learning how to redefine their searches and use longer query strings. We needed a new study to tell us that? You can read more about both studies in the SearchDay article entitled, Searcher Behavior Research Update.

Also of interest, have you caught the new Yahoo! Publisher's Network blog? The blog is designed to help users learn and navigate through YPN. Only a day old and already some interesting posts.

Without my feeds, that's about all I got.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/11/06 at 11:08 AM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Google, Search Engine Optimization, Yahoo

April 10, 2006

MSN: "Next time we will be more ready..." Next Time?

It would seem that when trying to make up ground among your search engine competitors, having your engine crash would be considered a bad thing. Keeping with that theme, you can deduce having your system remain crashed and inoperable for almost four hours would then be considered a very bad thing; that not having an answer to explain WHY your engine crashed more than 24 hours later would be very, very bad; and that preparing your users for your next crash would be slightly dim-witted.

And yet, that's exactly what MSN did.

For those who don't obsessively check their blog feeds or who don't acknowledge MSN's search engine, you may be unaware that MSN suffered an outage of sorts last week. Users who tried to access the dead engine between 8:30am and 12:15pm PST on Thursday were greeted by an 'unavailable' error message instead of search results. Web Search General Manager Ken Moss issued a statement late Friday apologizing for the outage, MSN's delayed public response and said next time their engine crashed they would keep users up-to-date on the recovery process.

Next time? Are they planning for their engine to instantaneously crash again? That doesn't particularly instill a vote of confidence.

Now, we want to like MSN. We are all in favor of 'scrappy startups' overcoming and overpowering their large corporate rivals in the battle of search. In fact, that's a battle we would pay to see. So when we heard of their outage, we wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. We had hoped they would be up and running in no time and that they would have a clear, reasonable answer as to what happened and how they would make sure it never happened again. Unfortunately, it took more than a day to hear from them and the analogy used to explain why they didn't have more information left us puzzled. Moss explained:

"Say you are in a car accident – a rear-end collision at 10mph can turn into a 10-car pileup, and the folks at the end of the line have a hard time figuring out exactly why their car was affected."

Huh? Why would I want to imagine myself in a car accident? And more to the point, weren't the users at the back of the pile-up? Shouldn't the engineers have been in car 1? And how did the boys of MSN get the engine up and running again, you ask? By disabling the spellchecker. What? But I guess we should give the folks behind MSN Search a break. It's refreshing to have a company be honest about their mishaps, and like Moss said – "we're still new to the search business – and in many ways we're still learning". I guess Thursday was one of their first (and most public) tests.

Let's hope their users are grading on a curve... and don't have trouble spelling.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/10/06 at 2:55 PM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in MSN Search, Search Engine Optimization

Google to 'revolutionize' search... again?

Marketing Pilgrim is reporting the news (via News.com.Au) that Google has acquired a new search tool set to 'revolutionize the way people retrieve information', while welcoming the tool's creator into the Google family in the process. Ori Allon, a 26-year old PhD student at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), has created an advanced text-search algorithm nicknamed Orion that works as an add-on to existing
search engines to improve search relevancy.

When a user performs a search, Orion will locate pages that have a 'strong connection' to the related keywords and then provide an excerpt of the page so users won't have to venture off the results page to determine if the site meets their needs. The add-on will also list other related topics so users can pick the most relevant and redefine their search. Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like Orion simply incorporates Ask's binocular tool with the features of a clustering search engine.

Allon's supervisor Dr. Eric Martin says Allon's tool will make surfing the net (yes, he did say 'the net') 'much easier, and much less frustrating'. He expands, "you won't have to click and see if what you're after is in this webpage, and go back and forth again and again'. While I understand what he's getting at, the image of the eternally confused Internet user hitting forward and back on his browser repeatedly does put a slightly malicious smile on my face.

From what I can tell, the only thing Orion will give me that Clusty will not is a summarized version of the returned web pages. Handy and useful, yes; 'revolutionary' not so much. However, it will be interesting to see how Google will use, and eventually expand, the text-based algorithm. Danny Sullivan comments Google may be walking a fine line: '... extract[ing] heavily from web pages without sending them actual traffic, the more likely they'll come under legal pressures of stepping over the fair use line." A significant point.

Google has not commented on the acquisition beyond acknowledging that Allon does work at Google's Mountain View offices.

Sources say Orion is said to be at least 12-18 months away from being completed and that UNSW will retain ownership of Orion since the tool was created within the University's PhD program. I have to wait a year? No fun.

Completely off topic, but too good not to mention -- did you hear about the First Annual World Wide Web Invitational Dodgeball Tournament held this past weekend? The search engines met up to throw rubber balls at each others heads. I kid you not. Go ahead; take a minute and get the image in your head.

Hee! Inside Google reports that MSN beat out both AOL and Google in the battle. When's the last time you saw that in print? Too easy, I know.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/10/06 at 11:04 AM | TrackBack (0)
See more entries in Fun Stuff, Google, Search Engine Optimization

Cre8pc: User-Centered Design with an SEO soul

If you've spent any time at all around this blog, then you know that around here we have certain biases. We love Jeeves and Ask. Lisa thinks Google is on a path to world domination and I get all giddy over the crossroads of usability and SEO. So it shouldn't come as a shock that I am a huge fan of Kim Krause's Cre8pc blog and Cre8asite forums.

The blog is really an all star performer. Where some blogs take the quantity over quality approach, publishing many short bon mots everyday, Kim instead blogs an article about once a week--sometimes more, sometimes less. Either way, every time my Bloglines notifies me of a new posting from Kim, I'm sure to read it and probably will leave it open for re-reading for the next couple days.

Kim is blogging about usability and user centered design, but her secret weapon is that she used to be an SEO consultant. This means she speaks a language we can all understand. Some people will claim that you can't be user friendly and search engine friendly at the same time. Kim consistently demonstrates how entirely untrue that is.

And then there are the