Live Search

December 1, 2008

Holiday Shopping Made Easy Through Search

I hope everyone had a delicious and relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. I always love Thanksgiving because it hastens the final and most celebratory part of the year -- the holidays! That means sparkling lights lining the streets, sweet, bright melodies that make your soul smile, warm, spicy scents wafting, and for some, presents large and small meant to symbolize the love that has been collecting over the year.

There are always a few people on my list that completely stump me. What do you get the mom who wants nothing? The dad who has everything? The broke college student sister who needs everything? What about the teen whose taste requirements far exceed your own? Every year is a struggle. Luckily for folks like me, the search engines have rolled out some cool features to make getting that perfect gift a little easier.

Everyone's looking for a bargain this holiday season and Live Search is ready to give you one. Building on its cashback program, Live Search is now offering instant cashback when shopping on eBay. Eligible shoppers who make their eBay purchase with PayPal will have their cashback automatically deposited into their PayPal account.

If, like me, you get hung up on what to get your special someones, Google has created a site where all the most-searched-for gadgets, gizmos and gift ideas are waiting for you. Based on recent Google Product Search queries, video games and toys, cold weather clothing, specialty foods and high-tech devices have been rounded up to create the Google holiday shopping guide. Plus, through that site you can redeem special offers when you buy through Google Checkout.

Yahoo's got a similar offering, using search trends to find the must-have gifts of the season. As the close of the year rolls closer, Yahoo is presenting the top ten searches of the year along with a number of top ten searches in niches like news, politics, the economy, celebrities and more. For those looking for gift ideas, movies, tech products, games and shopping top ten lists provide a wealth of information on what your loved ones are drooling over.

The most cheery time of year is upon us. Be free with your affection and fuzzy, happy thoughts. (If you need a lesson, talk to the amazingly generous Susan Esparza or Lisa Barone.) Remember that size and price doesn't matter -- it's the thought that counts. And when you've run out of those, search trend data can keep them coming.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 12/ 1/08 at 4:47 PM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Google, Live Search, Yahoo

November 13, 2008

PubCon Keynote: Satya Nadella

Last day! I'm so excited, it's actually kind of pathetic. All I want to do is go home and watch all the TiVo that's been piling up. But before I can do that, we have six sessions to get through so let's not dilly dally.

Today's keynote is by Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President, Search, MSN Portal & Advertising Platform Group, Microsoft, which is a lot of commas to have in one title.

He's got two topics today: the evolution of search, specifically about what they're doing at Microsoft, and the evolution of services.

Consumer Web ecosystem: Advertisers < -- > Services < -- > Publishers

Services happen at three levels. At the base is a core infrastructure level, above that is an audience level, and finally, an ad platform level. What we're going to see more of is an increasing opening up of scale.

Evolution of Search

He says this is not keynote-level information, but it gives a base to start from. We get a little bit of a history lesson on how search has changed since the industry began -- the changes in the consumer, the market and the search technology itself.

The real question is what's next? Search is driven by the feedback loop of data. About half of users are doing long research sessions of 30 minutes or more. Half are also resuming previous research. A typical research session might take an hour or more, from research words down through the buying cycle.

comScore did a study where they connected latent behavior with the active behavior. The idea is that search engines need to do things to facilitate task completion.

There are three things that the search engines need to get a deeper understanding of in order to solve this problem: queries, content (beyond text) and actions. They're having to connect keywords to semantics.

The next evolution of search technology is rich semantics and user experience. For the consumer, what they'll begin to expect is not merely answers found but tasks completed. To monetize this, the engines will be looking at paid engagement, growing visibility for advertisers and being more proactive in terms of giving the publishers tools.

It's not just a back end technology that they need, it's an increase in user experience. They need to figure out the problem of how do you provide a rich experience through a relatively simple interface.

There's a lot of innovation and testing to be done before they get to this point.

Live Search is focused on:

• Delivering the best search results: The acquisition of Powerset was done so they could apply the natural language processing to the core search. They want to change the definition of relevance. They don't look just at the text results in terms of delivering the best results -- they include images and video in that, too.
• Simplifying key tasks: They are moving from a single query to a session model, defining the difference between commercial and non-commercial domains. It's a broad definition of definition that includes anything with high user engagement and high user task.
• Innovate in the business model: Live Search's cashback program is part of this initiative.

He says they're keeping pace with the leaders in the industry. Aw, so cute.

Satya brings Alexandra Mickel onto the stage for some demos. She does a search for the Bellagio as an image search. They've integrated Virtual Earth into image results. There are refinement tools on the side -- like Ask's refinement, but green instead of red.

Image results have an infinite scroll button. Okay, that's cool.

Travel results include Farecast. Actually, I'm sure that there are people who are using Live that don't know about Farecast, so this is useful for them.

Product results in general search: Results include images, buying guides, and Sitelinks (or whatever Live calls them) for the Canon Web site. Product search has integrated cashback into it so you can see where you're going to get a better deal.

...and now we're looking at Hotmail. That reminds me, I should check my Hotmail so that I don't lose that account. It's been a few months. I'm ignoring the rest of this part of the pitch. Something about that weird sidebar they've added. Hotmail will forever remind me of high school. I'm getting emails about my reunion again. I have no interest in talking to those girls.

Okay, video search! They have that mouse over playback thing, which is kinda neat. They're doing integrations of popular TV shows. Hmm, may have to check that out when I can't get my TiVo fix.

Satya takes back the mic. They release new things every six months, but they are always trying to innovate on relevance. Their Fall '08 release is the stuff that Alexandra just showed us. He'd like you to give Live search a shot for just one day and email him your results. I'm not mean enough to include his email here. Comment below and I'll email him for you!

Now he wants to talk about the cashback program. They're looking to bring the research mode into the buying mode. The primary purpose of a search engine is to bring you information, so they see cashback as a way to integrate advertising into the research part of the cycle without being jarring.

They measure success in three ways:

• Consumer choice: 30 percent increase in products offered
• Advertiser ROI: eBay improved ROI by 50 percent (and other success stories as well)
• Query growth: 4.5 million unique users per month using cashback, referring 13 percent of total online spending. Live Search ranks as the number one engine by commercial dollars spent per player

All those facts can be found in the press release coming out today.

Live Search's new release is Project Silk Road, a service for developers and publishers. It is a broad project in the context of opening up and enabling developer and publisher information. [I'm getting lost in all the buzz words.] They have three goals for the project: increase engagement, generate traffic and drive insight.

Their overall goal is to boost agility and control. There's a whole cloud of technologies they're using to get to that, including APIs, FAST, Instant Answers, etc. The uber goal is to enable publishers to take advantage of the data and platforms that they have built.

Bringing all that together will enable users and publishers to boost productivity. Using Azure to extend site data into the cloud, FAST and SharePoint services to enable powerful site search.

Today they're announcing the next generation of APIs: API 2.0 It's available today from the Live Search Webmaster Center works and that it can find 404 errors for you. No new information here.

The adCenter plugin for Excel is actually good, and if you're advertising with them, you should go get it. Even if you're not, it's got keyword research potential for SEO.

Okay, Alexandra went away again.

Satya says that the keyword intelligence from the Excel tool can help you create a good user experience in your own site. He urges you to sign up for adCenter. I do too. It's their best product.

And we're done. No questions? Okay then.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 11/13/08 at 11:35 AM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Live Search, Liveblog, Microsoft, pubcon08

October 10, 2008

Ask the Search Engines

The last day of SMX East was hectic as I tried to touch base with new friends and contacts, attend all the sessions and make it to my flight in time. I managed to pull off most of those objectives, with the exception of posting a couple of live-coverage entries to the blog. So without further ado, here's what happened at the last session I attended. As my momma always says, "Better late than never!"

Moderator Danny Sullivan has got to feel good right now. Another awesome conference nearly complete! For the final leg of the marathon, let's go straight to the source and talk to the search engine representatives about all the things on our minds.

Danny says that he used to do a session called "I'm So Confused" because of all the conflicting information that is shared at conferences. But this panel will give us the official take from the search engines.

The reps are Nathan Buggia, Live Search Webmaster Central, Lead Program Manager, Microsoft; Aaron D'Souza, Software Engineer, Search Quality, Google Inc.; and Sean Suchter, VP of Engineering, Yahoo.

Sean says that sites should submit sitemaps, either .txt or .xml, and overall it helps with inclusion. He also heard a question about keyword order in Titles. He says that it is important to get right, not because of ranking but for the effect of the presentation in the SERP. Users will react well to seeing the keywords they are searching for in the Title so they should be further toward the beginning.

Aaron says that he's involved in trying to get rid of spam. He hears a lot about companies wanting to put up different versions of content for different countries. They wonder if it's going to be a duplicate content issue. He says that if the URL and the path to the content is reported to Google as specific for a certain location, Google won't see it as duplicate content.

Nathan says that he hears a lot about URLs. He says that session tracking parameters for a page will result in multiple versions of the same page in the index. Competing against own pages for space in the index can be harmful. He recommends submitting a sitemap with one URL for each page, and it should be the shortest form in the canonical version consistently. He also hears a lot about metrics and thinks that people are worrying about metrics that aren't the most important. He thinks it's all about conversions and trying to find the most valuable action. Finally, he doesn't believe that enough people are using the search engine provided tools available.

Now comes the Q&A part that you've all been waiting for. Be kind; Q&A can be hard to blog.

Are there best practice for running A/B tests so search engines don't think you're trying to cloak?

Aaron says that the way they look at it is that cloaking is only a problem if the intent is malicious. So for A/B testing, it is fine because the same type of content will be served. While they don't encourage cloaking, penalties only happen after a human review, so no penalty will be served if it's clearly just testing and not malicious.

Nathan says that A/B generally looks different than cloaking, and while they don't recommend cloaking, it really isn't a problem.

Sean says that the bad situation happens when there are large diversions, not the little ones that are common of testing.

Do you count affiliate links?

Sean says it depends where and in what context the links are coming up. If they are coming up in random, irrelevant places, that's not good. But if affiliates are making them of value to users, it's probably going to be a fine signal.

Nathan says that each link is evaluated independently and it's not necessarily considered if it's an affiliate or not.

We're currently redesigning our site and the only thing staying the same is the domain. The old site had ten pages and the new one will have 100,000. Are we going to have a problem?

Nathan says that the search engine always tries to find the most relevant page for a query, so if there's a page with similar content about a product as the manufacturer's page about the product which has been around longer, your site's page may not show up as it's considered a duplicate. One way to work around this is if you can add something beyond what's already out there, like pictures or reviews. As the question came from someone who has a weapons site, he suggests that she could maybe do videos of tazing pets... The whole audience laughs and groans and I'm pretty sure Nathan is turning pink. Maybe not the best example!

Aaron says that when you have a unique offering in a market, you will stand out by doing something different. He doesn't think that the reputation credited to the old site will be devalued on the new site, but he does warn to be aware of duplicate content from the old site.

When will Yahoo and Microsoft get country-specific targeting? And what's your advice if you want your site seen in another country?

Sean says that you should use a ccTLD because it's a huge signal. The other big signal is where the users and links are coming from.

Nathan says that you should make sure the international site is all located in the same sub-group or sub-directory because it's easier to identify. If a whole sub-directory looks like it's in German, it's a signal that it is targeted for Germany.

What percentage of false positives do you have in spam protection?

Aaron says that it's low but that it's an algorithm so there are sometimes mistakes. Spam algorithm changes are treated the same way as any other algorithm change. They test changes in a large sample and if they see a generally overwhelmingly positive result, they roll it out.

Sean sways that it's low, but if you think your site is treated incorrectly or if it has been cleaned up, submit a webmaster support form for consideration by the right people.

Danny says that Microsoft and Google will report to you if they think you're spam, except for cases that Google feels are so obvious the site is spammy that you should know it already. Yahoo is working on it.

Should people be bothering with nofollow or not to try to flow their PageRank around?

Sean says that in terms of designing for users, it's not helpful at all, so in the long term your energy could probably be better put into other areas. Aaron says that for the most part the issue comes up when there are way more links on a page than are useful to a user. In that case you have to think if the page itself is good for the user. He doesn't think it's going to cause an issue one way or another. Nathan asks who in the audience is doing sculpting (maybe five) and then he asks who has measured a positive change (maybe two). He says it was higher than he thought, but he still doubts the long term value.

Aaron says that sculpting seems like a lot of effort to put into the one signal of the link equity algorithm. He says he thinks it can be done if there's nothing left to do. Danny recommends testing it yourself to see if you see a difference.

It was suggested in a link building session that you could make donations to charities to get a link on their .org site.

Danny says that, to make it more uncomfortable, Matt Cutts has said that's fine. Sean says that if a charity is offering links for sale, he would think that they'd be getting links from bad guys as well as good guys, which will quickly get them flagged. Then the site will be in the universe of people who are bad and that link will be worthless.

Aaron says that if they were to see that 60 percent of the spam comes from charities, then they'll go after it. If it's rampant and makes up a large portion of spam then they'll see it as low-hanging fruit. Nathan says that if you're giving it to charity, then it's good anyway. But really, a charity that is aggressively selling links is probably going to see other attention as a result of their marketing techniques and see an increase in traffic.

Do you ever do direct intervention to penalize spam, as opposed to changes to the algorithm?

Aaron says absolutely. If it's hurting the results right now then they're going to do something manually. But they want to make the algorithm better, too, which they do by learning about the ways people are spamming.

Do reports that come in from a Google account have more weight?

He says that reports that come in from Webmaster Central are considered first over the external submissions because it's a cleaner data set.

Does the Yahoo algorithm in Japan work in a significantly different way than in the U.S.?

Sean says that there are slightly different signals but that it is the same back-end search engine and system, just tweaked for the market.

In natural search, do you offer some sort of endorsement or certification for SEOs?

Nathan says no. He says that he wouldn't want to endorse vendors because there's so much behind it. Sean says that it's the second time he's heard the question and says it's an interesting suggestion.

Is there a conflict behind your content networks showing up in your search engines?

Sean says that the reason Yahoo has SEOs is because they're trying to avoid a conflict of interest. There's search and there's content and it's not the same thing. So, for the content they have to compete for their user base and thus they need SEO. Aaron says that there's no Google policy to boost Google properties, but for certain properties like YouTube they have more information on them than they have on other sites, so they may show up more. Nathan says that Microsoft tries to keep a firewall between all of their businesses. Even advertisers that spend tons of money get no preferential treatment. AdCenter and the search engine are separate.

Are links still the primary signal for popularity and importance?

Aaron says inks are a good measure of reputation. Clicks are a noisy signal, and so the absence of a click for a result is thus way more useful because it signals that it's not the most relevant result. Sean isn't sure if links are the most important signal or not, but he will say that it's a larger signal than Title tags, for instance.

What's happening with personalized search?

(Okay, I actually didn't hear the question, but this is the answer.)

Aaron says there's a lot of data they have access to because of the way people use the search engine. But in personalized search, one policy is that whatever is done will be told to the user. The user can go in and control what is being used for personalization. They want to give you the ability to say "I don't want you to use this".

And that's a wrap for SMX East! Thanks to Cindy Krum, Eric Lander and Kate Morris, who took time out of their whirlwind schedules to come on SEM Synergy and, of course, thanks to all the great speakers who didn't hold anything back when it came to sharing with hungry audiences. All that's left to post from the conference is the highly-attended Give It Up: White Hat Edition panel, which will be hitting the blog November 7.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/10/08 at 1:17 PM | Comments (4)
See more entries in Google, Live Search, Liveblog, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines, Yahoo, smxeast2008

October 2, 2008

Will Microsoft SearchPerks Pique Searcher Interest?

A few months ago Lisa predicted that the Live Search cashback program was destined to fail. Well, now Microsoft's started its newest rewards program, Live Search SearchPerks.

It's not the first attempt by a search engine to woo users and build trust by appealing to the purse strings. Over at Search Engine Land, Danny Sullivan rounded up a great list of incentive-based search programs that Microsoft is running or has run, along with the now-defunct rewards programs from some of the less-utilized engines like iWon and Blingo. Anyone else see a pattern? Stupid question.

Okay, but seriously, let me take off my trendy skeptic hat for a moment. While my gut tells me that incentive-based programs are ruses to buy my allegiance, I actually just signed up for SearchPerks. If you haven't yet read about how the program works, you basically download this little counter that lives on your IE6 toolbar, and the counter keeps track of how many searches you do with Live Search. Every search you do on Live Search gets you a ticket and you can earn up to 25 tickets per day. The deal ends April of next year and at that point you can cash out your tickets for prizes or hand them off to charity. Just for signing up you get 500 tickets. For perspective, 250 tickets get you 100 frequent flyer miles, while 525 tickets are good for five music downloads. I'll have that racked up by the end of my first day.

It turns out that I'm not the only one willing to sell off a time-share to my soul. Or maybe just a one-month lease. Truly, there's no long-term value to bribing customers if the service isn't up to par. But since signing up for SearchPerks, I've been using Live Search exclusively and the results I'm receiving are relevant and, in many cases, include exactly what I was looking for. Keep that up and they may just get some converts.

That's not to say it's been easy. From a user perspective, the SearchPerks program has a few things going against it. First, there's my habit of searching through my toolbar, and I've yet to change the default to Live Search. This is mostly because I'm not convinced that Live will be my long-term search solution. Seeing the little "G" in the corner of my browser reminds me that if my new relationship doesn't work out, I'll be taken back with open arms. Then there's the fact that for searches to count toward tickets, the search has to be done through IE6. Here I am with five extra windows up than I'd usually have on my screen, since there's no tabs in IE6 and I'm not about to stop using Firefox. It's making me dizzy. And then, privacy advocates may not like that the SearchPerks software records the number of searches you do, the types of searches, the number of ads you click on and any toolbars installed.

Of course, if they expand the apparel prize category to include shoes and bags, it'll be totally worth it.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/ 2/08 at 4:35 PM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Live Search, Microsoft

August 28, 2008

SEO Headlines

What Are You Withholding From Your SEO

Aaron Wall had a super awesome article over on Search Engine Land today that asked Are You Giving Your SEO Enough Information To Succeed? Basically, Aaron details the pitfalls that occur when you just tell your SEO that your site is sick and don't offer up any other information that would help with a diagnosis.

If you're going to hire someone to handle your site's search engine optimization or even if you're just bringing them on as a consultant, you have to be completely straightforward about what your issues are (er, your site's issues. You can save your issues for your spouse.). Otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time as you all keep fumbling around in the dark, never getting closer to solving the problem at hand. There's no use bringing in an SEO consultant to give you advice on making your Web site more spiderable or search engine-friendly if you're going to muddle with your robots.txt and accidentally block the entire site or buy links and get yourself penalized. The only way for search engine optimization to be successful is if everyone knows what's going on and everyone's on the same page.

I don't think clients even do it to be deceitful; they just don't realize. Like in the example Aaron gave, it doesn't even occur to them that that reason their site has tanked in the engines is because they failed to upgrade their WordPress and got hacked. It's not up to you to be able to diagnose that on your own. But you absolutely have to hand over all the information you have to your SEO so that he or she can help figure out what's going on. That's why you're paying them.

As a general rule of thumb: Never lie to people who are there to help. Not even in terms of SEO, just don't do it ever.

Sometimes First Isn't All It's Cracked up To Be

Larry Chase starts an interesting discussion over at Web Digest For Marketers saying that Being #1 in Search Results Isn't Everything It's Cracked Up to Be as searchers don't always stick with the first result when searching in both the organic and paid space.

It's really just one of those things you want to keep in mind because he's right. And it makes total sense. For example, say you're interested in buying a new pair of shiny New Balances (I may be in the market...). You go to Google, type in [new balance] and are presented with this:

Chances are you may do some research on NewBalance.com and some of the other retailers - you'll spend some time looking at the different types of shoes, the colors, look at some 360 views, maybe check out the accessories. And then, when you're on Famous Footwear and finally decide that you liked the show you saw up in the first result, you're going to buy right there. You're not going to hit the back button and start redoing your search.

Just something to keep in mind as you kill yourself trying to rank number one for your keywords. Sometimes, especially if you're a retailer, ranking a little lower can actually play to your advantage. This type of search engine positioning is extremely valuable for businesses.

Interestingly enough, Bruce recorded an interview with Ralph Wilson last week while at SES and they talked about why soon rankings won't be a metric at all. It's worth a watch.

Help Microsoft Fix What's Broken

If you were at the How to Speak Geek: Working Collaboratively With Your IT Department To Get Stuff Done session last week in San Jose, you may remember that a few digs were taken at Microsoft for not being so SEO-friendly.

Nathan Buggia is asking SEOs for feedback on how to make Microsoft's development offerings SEO-friendly by default. If you've been frustrated with Microsoft in the past, now you're chance to get some stuff improved. Speak up.

Fun Finds

Stephan Miller alerts me to the launch of Bloghology, a new print magazine totally devoted to blogging. It's old media covering new media. Clever. I like it.

While we're talking about blogging I'll also mention that I'll (very excitedly) be attending BlogWorldExpo on Sept. 20-21. The show was an absolute blast last year and I can't wait to head back. So if you're not registered, I'd get on that. I'll see you there.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 08/28/08 at 4:46 PM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Live Search, Microsoft, SEO, SEO Tips & Tricks, Search Engine Optimization

August 20, 2008

Searcher Behavior Research Updates

And we're back from the fastest lunch I've ever eaten. Where does the time go? Moderating this session is Bill Muller (iProspect) and our panelists are John Marshall (Market Motive), Pavan Lee (Microsoft), Dr. Larry Cornett (Yahoo! Search) and Bill Barnes (Enquiro Search). I have to confess I just love the research sessions. Hard data just makes my little heart sing. Come on. You can't tell me you aren't excited about this one too.

I know you are because Bill is telling us about how every year this session totally fills the room it's in. Why? Because if you know more about the way searchers behave, you're going to be a better marketer.

John Marshall starts us off.

The interesting thing about search behavior is that it's not that difficult to get good data. The question is on Monday morning, do you understand search behavior? Most people turn to the keywords report in your analytics tool. That's a reasonable place to start but it's an extremely narrow view of the activity on the Web. You're only look at the keywords that brought people to your site. You only see the search results that brought people to your site. You're running into sample bias.

How can we really see the intent of people, not just the people who made it to your Web site. You don't want the whole forest view. You're probably not going to get the whole forest view anyway unless you have a Hitwise account or something. What you can look at is the single tree of your site.

The trick is to use the site search on your Web site. If you don't have site search, implement it. Even if it doesn't work, it's a great source of user intent. Search engine keywords only give you the people who came to your site. Site search gives you the intent of your users, conversion rate information. A lot of people ignore this data because it's free. Free data is often ignored. If you pay for something, you value it more.

Things that can go wrong:

• Mixed Case -- Google Analytics doesn't automatically change case for you so your data gets scattered across case. You need to convert it.
• Multiple results pages -- Some site search pages for 'no results found' don't get tracked by analytics. Make sure all the pages contain your analytics tracking.
• Usual JavaScript breakage
• Injected terms -- Most Web sites that have site search, they use it as a cheap landing page creation system. You have to filter that out of your data if you're doing that because it's not real data. No one is typing it in.

By using site search you're answering the question: what's the true intent of the users when they're on the site.

Site search data cannot replace competitive analysis but it's the cheapest way to get good data fast.

Pavan Lee is up next. She's from Shanghai.

Background from the New York SES: They've discovered that search listings have a branded value. Paid search listings have a stronger branding impact than organic search. There is a positive branding effect for both. They're trying to measure the brand lift.

They studied five brands in five spaces.

Methodology: Eyetracking and post-search survey.

Key findings: Search display and content ads are effective for branding stand alone but more effective together.

They asked "did you remember seeing an ad" 21% lift content 30% display. 38% both.

I can't see her slides at all.

In all cases with all questions, including lift in purchase intent, there was a brand lift and it was stronger for paired ads.

On the eye tracking side, search is still the most effective tool in attracting attention. There's a roll over impact on a multi-channel exposure. If you see search and display or search and content or search and display and content, it's more effective than just seeing any one of those.

Key takeaway: The power of three. There's a synergistic branding impact across content, display and search ads.

None of this data is public information.

Larry Cornett steps up to the podium.

His talk will build on John's presentation in a lot of ways.

Users do a lot before and after they're on the search page. He's going to talk about that, about the research they're doing, how users experience search, a little about crafting search and how they get from 'to do' to 'done'.

The reality is that the search page is just a tiny slice of online activity. Before the search, the user somehow comes to need to do a search. After the search, they want to go somewhere. They're going somewhere because they want to fulfill a task. The task is not getting to best buy. It's getting an iPhone. You need to know what happens after and how it all links back. How do you support them through the whole lifecycle of what they're trying to accomplish.

There is no single methodology that gives you the whole picture. Some ways that Yahoo does testing are:

• Search editorial
• Bucket testing
• Metrics & Analysis
• Search Science
• Focus Groups and surveys
• Eye-tracking research
• Ethnographic studies

How users experience search

• Starting context (what have they seen and experience before they query)
• Quick Scanning (one to three seconds)
• Information Scent
• Matching intent
• Quick Decisions
• Looking for answers (not a homework exercise. "Don't make me work")
• Feeling safe

They try to help crafting searches with 'search assist' (suggested searches). For most people search is hard. They're not experts.

Focus on the ultimate goal. They're looking to do something, they're wanting an answer. Yahoo SearchMonkey is an attempt at giving them that answer. It gives the user more information about what's behind the link and what's important to know.

What does this mean for marketers?

• Before the SERP
  • Starting context
  • The "Real task"
• On the SERP
  • Intent and information scent
  • Searchmonkey
• After the SERP
  • Fulfilling expectations
  • Being their "answer" and living up to the promise of the search result.

We thought that the reason people were having trouble with search was that it was an artificial session. But field studies showed us that the users were really having trouble formulating queries so we really tried to implement something that would help them.

Bill Barnes is the last to speak.

Their research is grounded in their search marketing and grew out of that.

Why is the first listing seen so important
Why do we scan in groups of 3 or 4
Why branding is important

[Standard heat map image, you've seen it a million times.]

They did experiments with the top SPONSORED listing and played around with really great ad copy versus just 'okay' ad copy.

When they did a survey they didn't ask about the listing, they asked about the search engine and if they'd use it again. The only difference was the ad copy but there was a huge lift in trust in the engine with the great copy.

Working memory: It's what comes to mind with recall. For some reason, we're hardwired to think in threes or fours.

[Oh no, my battery is dying]

There's a 16 percent increase in brand association when brand is the Top Sponsored and Top Organic Results. On an unbranded query. The really interesting thing is that the recognition of OTHER brands drops away at the same time.

There's an 8 percent lift in brand purchase. If you're not there, you lose 16 percent brand lift.

Even for branded queries, you get a brand lift if you appear. Should you buy your branded terms? Yes.

Eyetracking finding: Brand fixation only occurs in the TITLE and the URL not in the description.

If you're a familiar brand to the searcher, they will often skip the sponsored listings at the top. If you're buying the top sponsored, write your copy for a NEW user.

If you have brand A and brand B in sponsored with Brand A in top organic, brand A gets a HUGE lift.

Key Findings:

• INTENT is the most important thing
• Organic and sponsored combined give the biggest brand lift.
• Be aware of who else is on the serp
• Write your ad copy to new clients.
• Don't assume your brand will be in the consideration set. If you're not on the page, you're forgotten.

Q&A

The first question is does offline affect offline. The answer is yes, though the panelists don't say that. Go read the Re Search Online, Purchase Offline session from yesterday.

Why do search views get longer?

Pavan thinks it's because searchers are looking for something in particular whereas display and content ads are push forms of advertising.

Do they really only spend 1-3 seconds and how often do they click?

Larry: It's on average. In some cases, for navigational queries, that's less than a second. It might be longer at home but yeah, it's amazingly fast.

Bill: Females look longer and shop around, males just go straight to results. There's a free paper available.

Pavan: Search intentions lead to searcher behavior. Fact based search stays organic. Commercial searches tend to be more broad. It also varies by culture. Chinese spend twice as long as Americans.

John mentions that his contention is that the site search queries are the same queries that are being typed into the search engines but they're just not getting to your site.

Is the suggested search condensing the search queries?

Larry: Yes. People are moving to longer queries and that search assist does jump them to the queries that will get them to the answer faster.

Are there differences in lift by categories?

Pavan: Yes there is a difference in lift across different verticals but in all cases it does result in lift.

[Long set up about pretending to be a confused searcher and poor SERPS] What can be done to help confused searchers?

Larry: Search assist is just one way. It works mostly for shorter queries?

Does the golden triangle change with non-roman character sets?

Pavan: In Chinese, the scanning pattern is very different. It's a rectangle. You have to look at everything to put together meaning.

Would you suggest not trying to dominate the organic?

Bill: No, never. Always optimize.

What plays into search assist? How does it affect PPC?

Larry: Nothing is paid in those.

John: The hidden message there is: No you can't spam the suggestions.

John says that the other thing site search is good for is manifesting usability problems and for doing competitive intelligence.

If you rank 1 on a non branded term, should you also be number one in paid search as well?

Bill: That's exactly what our research showed. That said, always test and retest and see if the ROI is worth it. Clicks went 50/50 on paid and organic, so make sure that you're testing and monitoring.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 08/20/08 at 2:10 PM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Analytics, Live Search, Liveblog, Pay Per Click, SEO Tips & Tricks, Search Engine Optimization, Yahoo, sessj2008

August 6, 2008

Live Search Updates Webmaster Tools

Lisa's soaking up the sun in Ensenada by now - lucky girl. On the up side, in Lisa's absence, we've all gotten to enjoy the guest blog posts by some of the brightest and most impressive minds in search. And there's more to come! Thanks, ladies!

It turns out that not everyone's gotten to enjoy leisure time lately, as the Live Search Webmaster Center team has been hard at work preparing to roll out the first major update to their Webmaster Tools since the November debut. And it appears that the new features address anticipated improvements to the Webmaster Tools.

The first thing that caught my eye is that the little "(beta)" has disappeared!

Webmaster Center this morning:

Webmaster Center following this afternoon's update:

That's right. Live Search's Webmaster Center is out of beta. When I talked to Program Manager Jeremiah Andrick, he said that Webmaster Center's release from beta is just the beginning of their efforts to support the Web publishing community.

Jeremiah explained, "We have staffed a team of folks that are committed to providing more data about your site to improve crawling and developing a strong community around these tools to help answer your questions. We rely on the webmaster and publisher industry to provide us feedback on where we can improve and will continue to add new features and improvements in the future."

So what exactly are these nifty new features?

Crawl Issues: Webmasters and SEOs will be pleased to see the report of issues Live Search found when crawling and indexing your site. The four issue types reported on are 404 errors, URLs blocked by Robots Exclusion Protocol, long dynamic URLs, and unsupported content-types. According to Jeremiah:

"By addressing these issues, webmaster can improve how Live Search sees them... We expect that a webmaster will use this report to identify these problems on their site and fix the issue with the broken link, or create a 301 redirect the URL to a more appropriate location."

Backlinks: The new incarnation of Webmaster Tools offers an enhanced look at inbound links from external sites. Along with the increased quantity of reported inlinks - up to 1,000 can be downloaded - the improved backlinks tool is capable of filtering results by a number of factors. The new filter functionality allows sorting of backlinks from specific sites, sub-domains, or sub-folders, as well as backlinks from specified top level domains.

More actionable data: The other cool new features included in today's update are intended to help make the data gleaned from the tools more actionable. Understanding that webmasters and SEOs will often need to import the data into offline programs such as Excel in order to analyze it, this update makes possible just such an action. The download option makes the first 1,000 results available in a CSV file that can be opened with Excel and other database or custom reporting tools. Advanced filtering, as demonstrated in my explanation of the improved backlinks feature, lets webmasters filter results by up to two sub-domains or two sub-folders, allowing for easier access to the desired gems without having to excavate entire mountain ranges. Both the download and filter options have been enabled on all reports, both old and new.

From the look of it, this update has gone a long way to improving the resource that is Live Search's Webmaster Tools. Interested in seeing the update yourself? I don't blame you. Give it a spin and let us know what you think!

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 08/ 6/08 at 2:46 PM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Live Search, Microsoft

June 16, 2008

SEO Weekend Update

Hello. Do you have coffee? I'll give you a cat for a cup of coffee. Coffee? No? Just some SEO news then? Fine.

What's Your Blog Comment Policy?

Scott Allen had a really good post with Thoughts on Blog Comments, Moderation, and the Conversation where he talks about the part comments play in the overall conversation on blogs. There's been some debate about blog comments lately, both internally and abroad, and what right the blog author has to moderate or even delete them.

Personally, I think it's completely the blog author's job to set the rules and make sure that everyone in the community sticks to them. Around here I've had to do quite a bit more moderating and editing than in the past. Some subjects have hit closer to home or excited a far more passionate response and sometimes people let they emotions get the better of them. When someone leaves a lengthy comment that is nothing more than a personal attack on someone else, it's not going to be posted. If it can be edited and salvaged, it will be. But if all you've contributed is a 1,000 word essay on why you don't like X and why X would be better off locked in a closet with no food or water, well, you're not giving me much to work with. Take a nap and then come back.

Blog comments should enhance the quality of the conversation. They should offer alternative points, present debate, enter in some humor, etc. They should keep the integrity of the blog intact. If not, then the owner of that blog has the responsibility to moderate it and help bring the conversation back on topic. Or at least those are the rules we play by. What about you? Do you publish everything that users submit? How fearful are you to edit the thoughts of others?

Yes, XML Sitemaps Are Important To SEO

Barry Schwartz asks if Google Sitemaps are important to search engine optimization. We also talked about the issue back in February in our SEO Newsletter article entitled Building an XML Sitemap.

Barry points us to the Google Groups thread where Googler JohnMu explains that it's generally worth the time to set up a complete XML Sitemap, listing the kinds of data that Google is most interested in.

Back in February, Bruce Clay Senior SEO Analyst Maryann Robbins discussed many of the same features and explained that building an XML Sitemap was absolutely essential for search engine optimization purposes. They not only give Google a complete list of the pages you want indexed, but they also give you the opportunity to provide supplemental information about those pages. They help with canonical issues, tell the search engines how often the page changes, when the page was last modified, how important the page is to your Web site, etc.

So if you're asking whether or not XML Sitemaps are important for search engine optimization, the answer is "absolutely" and "yes".

Microsoft's Plans For Search

Now that Yahoo is no longer an option, General Manager of Microsoft's Search Business Group Brad Goldberg sat down with Robert Scoble to talk about what they're looking to do next. Topics discussed in the interview include Microsoft's plans for mobile, how they plan to compete with Google, the quality of the Live engine, and whether a Mahalo-type strategy could help them gain market share.

If you have half an hour or so, it's worth a listen.

Fun Finds

The Times of London reports that the average teenager's iPod has 800 illegal music tracks. Hee, ouch. Those damn kids are nothing more than a horde of pirates!

Everyone's favorite job search engine Indeed.com has just launched job analytics for employers. Now if only we could get them to launch a coffee delivery program for employees.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 06/16/08 at 4:24 PM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Blogging, Live Search, Microsoft, SEO, Search Engine Optimization

June 3, 2008

SMX Advanced Opening Keynote: Kevin Johnson - Microsoft

Hey kids, it's time to kick off another SMX. This time we not only have bagels and orange juice but there are power outlets in the front row. It's like blogger heaven! Getting us started will be Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's Platform & Services Division.

Before Kevin starts, Danny is going to give us a quick talk. He calls it the "hangover break". He's wearing crazy-colored socks and thanking people. Danny says he got Microsoft a little gift - Yahoo is waiting out back. Hee! Danny's now making fun of the bloggers. He calls out me and Tamar and Marty. Okay, time for the good stuff.

Kevin says that Microsoft is focused on four core businesses - desktop, enterprise business, the consumer electronics business and the online business.

At the center of online is the concept of the advertising platform. You think of search and display and the end-to-end platform. When you look at the ad platform, it's about scale economics: The more inventory you get, the better it's able to deliver. It's a software problem. Microsoft believes they can bring value to the ad area because it's about software and that's something Microsoft knows about. It's about what ads to serve, how to improve the buy/sell process, creating software that provides workflow and manages massive amounts of data. It's involves a significant investment in capital. When you look at the industry, they believe it will be better served when there are N numbers of players and N is greater than one (hee). They're looking to invest and to provide choice for advertisers, publishers and consumers.

They hope that through their investments, they'll be able to play a significant role in creating choice. They think they have some unique value to bring.

Danny: Is there a danger that Google becomes so entrenched that you can't pull away share?

Google is already entrenched. When you have a competitor like that you have to focus on disruptive ways to change the paradigm. That can be in the user experience, in the business model, in the distribution, etc. Their focus is how they can continue to innovate on the broad horizontal relevance of search. They're going to amplify the areas where they look at verticals. They want to connect buyers and sellers. It's a long-term investment.

Years ago they said they were going to get into the process of building servers, and they were told they'd never do it because they were a software company. People joke that Microsoft NT stood for Nice Try. When they look online, they're going to take the same long term approach. They're going to be thoughtful and recognize that they have an entrenched player. They're going to deliver on innovation and grow their share and value to the market.

Danny: What is the most innovative and disruptive thing Microsoft has done?

Improvements in image search, video search, the integration of Tell Me on mobile, Farecast, etc. They're changing the way people go from individual queries to a task. There are a lot of areas they can point to for innovative. With Cashback, they're trying to change the business model. They want to reward consumers for shopping and do it in a way that's good for the merchant and the advertiser. They're trying to differentiate the product in a way that benefits advertisers.

Danny asks about the Cashback program. Have you had any results in where it's going yet?

The team looks at it every day. They're monitoring it and watching traffic and making sure that everything is working effectively. They're on top of that on a real-time basis. Over a year ago, they had this concept that said search is about connecting the buyers with sellers. In the process you ask why the middle man keeps all the money. They're looking for a way to reward users for their actions. The concept of Cashback has been around for a year. A year ago they tested the concept of consumer loyalty in search. They launched Live Search Club and saw a 2 or 3 points of share increase in a 60 day period. That led to them acquiring JellyFish. They think Cashback is one element of changing the business model.

[It concerns me how much hope they're putting into Cashback. It's not going anywhere.]

Danny: Are there any other kinds of loyalty programs we're likely to see?

You'll see loyal among three verticals - Entertainment, Commercial Intent, Reference - and on the broad horizontal. They're focusing on all of those. The first wave that they're going to amplify is Commercial Intent. Over the next year you'll see much more focus on that. Cashback is a key pillar. As they learn, you'll see that evolve. He expects to see Cashback evolve over a lot of new loyalty programs.

Danny: What's the biggest obstacle to getting people to use your search product?

You have to recognize that the brand Google is a very strong brand. When users think of Google, they think of search. When you have an entrenched competitor you need to make your brand and your offering stand for something. They need to focus more on distribution. This week they announced their distribution deal with HP. As users try it, that user experience starts to create a brand image. Then you have to do the marketing that reinforces that brand image or brand perception.

Danny: What's your top advantage?

They have great engineering resources. They have the opportunity to take the long term perspective. They're going to deliver innovation in a way that is impactful for the consumer. By doing that they think when consumers think of product search or travel search, they think they should use them. They recognize that commercial intent queries make up 30 percent of the search queries but it makes up 80 percent of the revenue.

Danny: Google's greatest advantage is their brand. What's their weakness?

User experience hasn't changed much. Any time you have some legacy experience, there's some risk of change. That's their Achilles heel. He wants Microsoft to think out of the box and do new things. They have teams constantly trying different ideas. They're constantly measuring. He thinks there's a new paradigm that users will wants and embrace, but it's up to them to deliver.

[I love how Microsoft is suddenly the "underdog" and Google is the one stuck in its corporate ways.]

Danny: Why not go back to the MSN brand? People don't seem to like Live.

Their marketing teams are focusing on the brand problem. They can deal with it more now that they've backed away from Yahoo. He acknowledges that they need to get that fixed. He asks Danny for suggestions. Heh.

Danny: In terms of the fixing, does fix mean change or build or what?

Fix means fix. If that means you have to change it, then change it. If that means build it, then build it. Fix means fix.

Danny tries to get some dirt on the Yahoo acquisition but Kevin's not giving him any. It's the same spiel we've been hearing for weeks. They made a bid, hoped Yahoo would find it fair, but now they're moving on. They'll see where the dialogue leads.

Danny: Back to distribution: the HP deal was a big win. What other places are you looking to make changes?

You think of distribution broadly. There are a variety of ways you can get distribution. They're going to work the full range. Some ways are better than others. It's a combination of distribution and good marketing. To get good marketing, you have to make your brand stand for something.

Danny: Do you think search is being over-credited for conversions happening online?

Search provides great line of sight metrics and analytics for the advertisers. What they're trying to do with the Atlas institute is engagement mapping. They want to see how display and rich media ads are performing to provide advertisers the end-to-end view they need to balance their media mix. Everyone is interested in how they're driving conversions. It also provides tools for search marketers to look at the broad set of investments that really drive what they want.

Danny: If search is a long term gain, one of the things I'd give Google credit for is Google Books. Then in September you rolled out Microsoft Books and Academic [Danny means Live Search Books--Susan] and then you took it away

It's not gone. We've scanned millions of journal articles and books. We're going to keep doing that. What we've done is say because of the advanced tools, it's more efficient to have first party publishers doing that scanning themselves. Users are still going to be able to find them. We're putting the publishers in control of their content. We'll be there to help them with tools. The industry is maturing.

Danny was upset with Google's DoubleClick acquisition, but Microsoft also has its own search company. Shouldn't you do what Google did and split them off?

When we acquired aQuanitve it also included Avenue A | Razorfish. They're operating it at arm's length. The ad platform is there to serve publishers and it's there to serve advertisers. They think running those things in conjunction help them to run their ad platform better.

Danny: What's Microsoft's tagline?

In the online world we're investing to create a world class ad platform. They're investing in that in a way that provides the industry choice.

Danny says that's not a tagline. In 4 or 5 words, what is Microsoft about?

They're a company that believes in software plus services.

Danny: How do you define success?'

Getting more and more publishers and more and more inventory. They've had success in that but it's been in things other than search. They really need to increase search. To him success is if they can carve out the differentiation and make the brand stand for something related to commercial intent.

Question and Answer

What improvements are going to made to adCenter? Can we get an offline editor?

Last September, he spent a week in NY visiting search marketers. The feedback fell into buckets - make your tools easier, it takes too long to get keywords into the system and more inventory/share of search. That was the feedback. With adCenter, they've continued to make improvements. This week they'll announce an adCenter offline tool. That's just one step in the process. Visit the Microsoft booth for an invitation to the editor.

When I think of search I think of Microsoft as The Man and Google as a way to get at The Man, how do you plan to overcome that perception?

Google's entrenched. In any industry, choice is good. At the end of the day you have to deliver a great product. If you do that, users will use your product. They have to grow their market share and they'll do that by innovating.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 06/ 3/08 at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Live Search, Liveblog, Microsoft, SEM Events, Search Engines, smxseattle08

February 11, 2008

What’s going on with Yahoo & Microsoft?

Are you tired of reading about Yahoo and Microsoft on every blog under the sun? I know I am. And as a result, we haven’t mentioned it here in an attempt to NOT bore you to tears. However, there is now so much sordid speculation, rampant rumor and pundit pondering that I thought it would be useful to sum some of it and see what’s really happening.

Let’s face it, the coverage regarding the potential Microsoft and Yahoo love connection has been everywhere for a week now, and everyone has an opinion. Seriously, I headed down to San Diego this weekend and even my boat-builder traveling companion was quizzing me on details and offering his personal insight. You can’t escape it, no matter how far away you drive.

And now the conversation is getting even bigger with news that Yahoo will reject Microsoft’s $44.6 billion offer because they feel like it undervalues their company at only $31 a share. Yahoo says they won’t take any less than $40 a share or more, a statement that Robert Scoble has called arrogant. (Pot, kettle, anyone?) It’s possible that Yahoo is just trying to play hardball and get Microsoft to make a counter offer, but what if that doesn’t happen? Nathan Weinberg offers up some possible scenarios for Microsoft, but let’s take a look at Yahoo. What are their options?

• Microsoft forces a hostile takeover: If Microsoft is really serious about buying out Yahoo, they can start pressuring the Yahoo board and talking with shareholders individually to force a vote. If you’re a Yahoo shareholder not too excited about the path Yahoo is on or liking the idea of getting bought out by some deeper pockets, becoming a subsidiary of Microsoft may start to look pretty appealing. It's worth noting that Yahoo will make this scenario somewhat difficult due to the poison pill (via SEL) they adopted in 2001. What this does is allow shareholders to buy Yahoo stock at a bargain price in the event Microsoft starts to accumulate too many shares. This, in turn, increases the number of shares Yahooers own, making it harder for Microsoft to buy them out. Exciting, right? Absolutely. If this happens, SEO blogging in 2008 is going to be a lot of fun. You’ll get to hear all about the riveting antitrust meetings and get to blog “leaked” screenshot of the crappiest, most overhyped search engine to date. Huzzah!
• Yahoo takes help from Google: If Yahoo isn’t okay with being bought out by Microsoft, would they perhaps be open to forming an alliance with Google? Maybe. God knows Google doesn’t want to see Microsoft and Yahoo team up. They’re all about “preserving the underlying principles of the Internet” where Google has more money than everyone else and can tell people what to do. While Google would never get passed antitrust regulators if they tried to all out purchase the company, they may be able to offer some financial assistance if Yahoo decides they want to go it alone. Also, remember that Google owns a 5 percent stake in AOL, which just so happens to related to our next possibility…
• Yahoo partners with AOL: It’s been rumored before and speculation has lit up again thanks to Yahoo’s current situation. If Yahoo were to buy AOL, they could increase their cash flow and strengthen their content network by leveraging all of the AOL entertainment properties. You also have to consider that AOL is owned by Time Warner, which also owns properties like CNN and others. Getting in good with Time Warner now could open them up to lots of new and exciting partnerships down the road. A Yahoo/AOL merger may make some sense from a business perspective, you have to wonder whether or not it would be damaging to the brand. What kind of faith are you going to instill in stockholders and users when you pair with a company that is already seen as dead in the water?
• They go it alone: It's possible Yahoo will be able to stay out of Microsoft’s clutches and decide to keep on the path they’ve been going. It will be more difficult now that Microsoft has made an offer and publicly stated that they think Yahoo is in need of saving; however, it is possible. If they do go it alone they’ll need to start building out their verticals and conquer the niche market. Really, they’ll just need to start doing something. Otherwise, it’s just a matter of time because they’re swallowed up by a bigger, more aggressive fish.

Honestly, it’s really too early to know what’s going to happen with Yahoo. There are so many factors and variables that come into play that there’s no telling what they’ll do. Maybe it will be a completely different company that swoops in to purchase them and save from themselves and others. Whatever happens, it’s going to be a long time before we see any real action, even if some sort of deal were to be made in the next few weeks. So unless you’re a shareholder, let’s try not to freak out too much. Sound good? Okay, then.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 02/11/08 at 2:44 PM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Live Search, Microsoft, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Yahoo

December 4, 2007

Duplicate Content Issues Duplicate Content Issues

I know someone thinks the title of this panel is clever and...okay, it is, but it is also a very mean thing to do to someone as compulsive as I am. I keep wanting to correct it and it's painful to just leave it like that. Duplicate contents hurts more than your rankings, people; please, think of the obsessive compulsives!

Tackling those tricky issues today are representatives from the four major engines: Rahul Lahiri, Ask.com; Derrick Wheeler, Microsoft; Evan Roseman, Google; and Priyank Garg, Yahoo. Aaron Shear moderates.

Aaron introduces Rahul Lahiri first as being from "Ask Jeeves". Rahul is quick to correct him, "Ask.com". Heh. Everyone still misses the butler.

Rahul says he's going to go quickly. Oh dear, I haven't had any coffee yet. This could be a problem.

He begins with the standard definition of duplicate content: Same content on multiple URLs. Why don't search engines like it? It impairs the user experience and consumes resources that could be better served crawling content that's unique. Duplicate content carries a risk of losing valuable votes because your links are spread out over multiple URLs instead of on the expert page. At Ask.com, duplicates are eliminated at all stages: crawling, indexing and ranking.

Contrary to belief, it's not a penalty; it's more similar to not being crawled. It's performed on indexable content, templates aren't included. It's not a concern for supported ccTLDs, like for example a site used in UK only search. (Same web sites on different ccTLDs are okay.)

They filter when the confidence factor is high. They have a low tolerance for false positives.

Some sources of duplicate content:

• Multiple URLs with the same content
• Printer Friendly pages
• Dynamic pages with session IDs/URL variant
• Content syndication
• Localization
• Mirrors

Scraping is the big concern. He asks for a show of hand of people who have had their content scraped--practically the whole room raises their hands.

Duplicate URLs might be necessary for Branding but avoid meaningless parameters and sub-domains if you can.

Rahul urges webmasters to act on the areas that they're in control of, particularly in the area of printer friendly pages. Block Robots from printer friendly pages. Even though many printer friendly pages are quite useable, they're not going to hold visitors because they present no path into the rest of the site. So block it and make sure that the in-site page is the one presented. Aaron asks when you're blocking from printer friendly pages: how do you do it? Rahul says put it in its own folder and robots.txt it out. Otherwise, make sure it's in the head section Meta Robots.

How do you make content unique? He puts up two nearly identical pages with one image name different and one word different in the title. It's nearly impossible for a spider to tell which is the original. Add unique Titles and Meta Descriptions. Add value to syndicated content to make it unique.

All JavaScript pages are a challenge for Ask.

He says you need to make it hard for Scrapers. Mark your territory--use your brand name, use absolute links, host images locally and take legal action when necessary.

If your content gets tossed for duplication, you need to content them for a re-inclusion request.

Evan Roseman is up next. He's going quickly too. Woe.

Why is Google so down on duplicate content? Users don't like it, it uses resources, it uses resources on your server and they're concerned with original authorship --they want it from the person who created it instead of secondhand.

He says URL like a name. Earl. Go ahead and imagine that every time I type it, okay?

Much of what he covers is similar to Rahul. He does point out that www vs non-www is not as much of an issue for Google as before and mentions that you can specify in the webmaster tools. Session IDs and URL parameters can split the PR between them.

Google's goal is to serve one version of the content in search results.

Hmm, interestingly his slide says that dupe content is generally just a filter and it won't destroy your site. I guess that means occasionally it isn't and it will? Now he says it's 'definitely not a penalty'. So which is it? Definitely or generally? Inquiring minds, Evan.

For exact dupes, use a 301, like in the case of tracking URLs and www vs non-www.

For near duplicates, use noindex/robots.txt such as clones of other sites. If you syndicate content, he repeats, make sure you're adding value.

Domains by country:

• Different languages is not duplicate content
• Use unique content specific to the country
• Use different TLDs (also specify in Webmaster Tools) for geo-targeting

Put data which does not affect the substance of the page in a cookie instead of in the URL so that they don't have to try to figure it out. URL parameters are problematic and can cause duplicate content.

What can you do if another site takes your content? Include an absolute URL. If you're syndicating, send out different content than what you keep.

Don’t worry about scrapers or proxies too much, they don't generally (there's that word again) affect your rankings. [Please tell blog search that, they seem to trust everyone else more than the original author.] If you're concerned, file a DCMA against the other site.

You can let them know about any issues at the Webmaster Help Discussion Group

If you're having trouble with your RSS replacing your rankings, let the discussion group know and they'll help.

And then the mics go out, so I get to catch up, yay!

And we're back. Priyank Garg is up next. He skips back about five slides because they're repeats of the other two.

He mentions a few reasons why search engines WOULD want duplicate pages:

• Site restricted queries
• Back ups
• Alternate document formats
• Multiple languages

Some other kinds of duplicate content:
Accidental duplication like session ids in URLs (a URL is a URL is a URL to search engine) and soft 404 errors -- make sure your 404 errors return a 404 error not a 200 okay. [See also our tedious explanation of the same.]

"Dodgy" forms of duplication:
Replicating content across domains unnecessarily
Aggregation of content found elsewhere
Identical content on the same site.

Approximate dupes may be filtered (real estate sites that just change out the city/state.)
Weaving and stitching (mixing and matching phrases, sentences paragraphs, and sections from different sources to create 'new" content) is also duplicate content.

Basically the same tactics work for Yahoo as for the other engines in keeping duplicate content out (robots.txt, meta, 301 dupe pages.) They support wildcards in robots.txt. Site Explorer allows you to Delete URLs or paths from authenticated sites.

Use Robots-nocontent <div>tag on non-relevant parts of the page. The tag can be used to mark templates or syndicated content that's useful in context for the user but not for search engines. (More information on the tag can be found at Ysearchblog.)

Dynamic URL rewriting available: ability to indicate parameters to remove from URLs across the site. Leads to more efficient crawling, better site coverage, more unique content discovered, fewer crawler traps and cleaner URLs that are better for users to read.

The trouble with all these engine specific solutions is that they are engine specific. I like it better when they get together and come up with standards. Sure you can rewrite your URLs just for Yahoo but then where are you in Google?

Last up is Derrick Wheeler. He's adorably brought his own mouse and mouse pad. His job is in house SEO for Microsoft.com but he says that he expects to get questions about Live Search, Office, why things don't work. He doesn't know the answers though, so it won't help.

Aw, today is his one month anniversary with Microsoft. Happy anniversary!
Major accomplishments:

• Signed up for benefits
• Find the cafeterias
• Return to his office without getting lost
• Can finally remember a couple people's names

There are over 27 million pages on Microsoft.com--it took three weeks to discover them all. It's just a little site, really. They've indexed about 7 million of them. In Derrick's view, every duplicate content page is keeping one good page out of the index.

Review your site and make sure that you know what's there. Find duplicate content there before the spiders get there. Know your parameters and which you can drop for search engines. Do a regular crawl report that includes referring URL, fetched URL, redirect path with type, landing URL with status code, Title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords. Sort by Title then landing URL and review them for dupes.

Ew! He's got a picture of spiders in a trap. EW.

Detect engines and strip out parameters that you don't need. He doesn't consider that "bad" cloaking. Remove session IDs. Smartpages.com stripped out session IDs and went from 1,000,000 pages indexed to 10,000,000 pages indexed. (A few months later, someone turned them back on and their page count fell. Whoops.)

Look for things that might be causing problems, like dynamic breadcrumbs, related products, etc. They might be helpful for users but you're probably going to get into trouble.

Q&A

Aaron: When you make changes in your rewriting can you fix it easily?

Yahoo: We validate and let you know if there's a failure. The returite starts ttaking effect in the system over a period of time. In the first few months, it's reversible, after that it gets hard.

If I did a 301 to clean this up, how soon do I expect results?

Yahoo: as soon as we start seeing it--a few weeks but it can take a while to percolate
Google: Same thing, as we recrawl, we'll incorporate. Up to a couple months.
Ask: Same.
Microsoft: Derrick's experience is 6 months to a year for full effect if you're 301 to a new site.

If you do a site: command in Google to find www vs. non-www and you come up with different counts, should you 301 the smaller number to the bigger?

Evan: First he wants to emphasize that the site colon estimates are just that, very rough estimates. He wouldn't take them as the golden number. Very very rough. Aside from that, pick whichever form you like better and they'll take it.

Is Google planning on following Yahoo in how their tools are developing?

At Google, we try to do the best we can detecting these things (that Yahoo allows webmasters to correct) automatically. Can't say when or if they'll be following on the allowing webmasters to specify.

Do breadcrumb navigation with a cookie instead of URL parameters. Aaron says that you can detect search engines and strip out parameters. Evan jumps back in to say that Google requests please don't do something special for us. Let us figure it out and if there's a problem contact us.

On what scale do you think Proxy sites (sites entirely duplicated with just a phone number different so they can track PPC calls) will affect your organic results?

Evan: In most cases, they're not outranking the original sites. They're not that popular. We do see them. If they're causing a problem for you, contact Webmaster Help.

What is the line of near-duplicate/duplicate?
Evan: I think you're looking at it from the wro9ng direction. Create unique, useful content and you'll be fine. [The room laughs. That requires work!]

Derrick: It's like the Supreme Court decision on obscenity; you know it when you see it.

Can I report copyright issues through the spam channels?

Priyank: Spam is more subjective. The DCMA is the right channel.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 12/ 4/07 at 1:02 PM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Ask, Blogging, Google, Live Search, Microsoft, SEM Events, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines, Yahoo, pubcon07

September 27, 2007

Live.com Re-Released, Actually Relevant Now

Quick! Microsoft just rolled out a new and improved version of Live.com and TechMeme is on fire! It’s just so beautiful to watch.

Yes, Microsoft held its big Searchification event yesterday and the bloggers are all in a tizzy. There was even liveblogging by Vanessa and Todd. (Wait – There was liveblogging and no one called me? Am I not pretty enough for you people?)

I wasn’t at the event, but it's okay (I guess). There is plenty of coverage. So much coverage, in fact, that it’s somewhat hard to figure out what’s important, who’s just biased and what’s sounding a little too much like a press release.

Here’s what I think you should know.

• An Actually Relevant Index: For me, this is the biggest improvement of them all. The new Live.com index is now four times as big as the old one. Sweet! I did some standard query testing to try things out, and I have to admit, the results are decent. I’d even go as far as to call them “relevant” and maybe even “useful”. Microsoft revealed that they’ve incorporated more clickstream data to help the ranking and relevancy process. Things are looking good, guys. Congrats!
• Deeper Verticals: We mentioned the kick ass new version of MSN Video yesterday, and the guys from Redmond aren’t stopping there. Microsoft is making “deep investments” in the areas of entertainment, shopping, health and local. Why? Because, according to their numbers, 40 percent of searches fall into these categories. Their investment includes creating special results pages for queries related to these verticals, along with health and local. These “special pages” will give users a comprehensive overview of the topic, using blended search elements like images, reviews, ratings, and maps.
• Better Rich Answers: The new version of Live Search will include a revamped Answers platform that will give users instant responses to queries related to weather, images, celebrities and entertainment, sports, stocks, Yellow Pages, maps or quick facts. It doesn’t seem quite as in depth or impressive as Ask’s offering, but still, nice.
• Another Rebranding?: I haven’t heard this anywhere else, but Mary Jo Foley reports that Microsoft still isn’t sold in this whole “Live” thing. I guess they find it just as silly as they rest of us. Live Search General Manager Derrick Connell told Mary Jo that Microsoft continues to look at how they can improve branding. Perhaps a new name is in the works?
• Dedicated to Fall/Spring Release Schedule: Microsoft will stick to its Spring/Fall release schedule for every year Live continues to exist (that sounds promising, eh?). The upcoming spring release will involve enhancements around community. I guess we’ll hear more about that once the flowers start blooming. [Hands up on people who actually think they'll make that schedule? --Susan] Shh, don’t kill their buzz.

And that’s everything you need to know about the new release in a nut shell. Microsoft is getting a lot of press right now and I keep hearing about how they’re “equal to Google”. First of all, I don’t think that’s true. Is Microsoft better than it was a year ago? Sure, but it’s still not in the same league as Google. And quite frankly, no one, not even Google, is doing blended search as well as Ask.com.

And even if they were as good as Google (whatever that really means), it wouldn’t be “good enough”. Google has the brand, Microsoft doesn’t. In order for users to trust them, they’d have to be light years ahead of Google, and they’re not there with this release. They did a great job of increasing the size and relevancy of their index, they did some funky things with their maps, added some new features, but I haven’t seen anything that is really different. So far it’s just been catch up. Needed catch up but catch up all the same.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 09/27/07 at 12:12 PM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Live Search

September 26, 2007

Yahoo Podcasts, MSN Video, & Google Video Alerts? Oh, My!

Yahoo Closes Down Podcasting Site

This made me kind of sad, but Read/WriteWeb reports that Yahoo will be closing down its 2-year-old podcasting directory effective October 31. Bummer. As the screenshot depicts, Yahoo doesn’t give any information regarding why they’re closing down the site, they simply offer an apology and expiration date.

There’s been talk that the reason for the closure may be that they’re revamping their entertainment offerings (Yahoo Music, Yahoo TV, etc), and perhaps podcasting will be included in that. Frankly, the site could use a little clean up. The currently podcasting directory isn’t altogether user-friendly. There weren’t any RSS feeds and users were forced to log in with a Yahoo ID in order to download any of the content. Hopefully, we’ll see a fresh launch sometime soon, or at least I’m going to go ahead and keep telling myself that. The podcasting audience is just starting to grow; I’d hate to see Yahoo miss out on an excellent opportunity to reach people. We’ll see what happens next.

Microsoft Rolls Out A (Much, Much) Better Video Search

Microsoft released a new version of its MSN Video site, hoping it provide a better experience for both users and advertisers. R/WW’s Marshall Kirkpatrick took a look and called it the video site of the future, adding that it’s not pretty, but it is something you need to check out.

Why is it the video site of the future? Because MSN is implementing a new time-based advertising system that will deliver ads based on the amount of time a user spends viewing, not how many clips they watched. The idea is that advertisers will be able to insert an ad at set time intervals, perhaps every 5 minutes or so. I’m not so sure about this. My thought would be that if I’m trying to watch a long video and you’re inserting an ad every 10 minutes, well, I’m probably not going to stay very long. I’m most likely going to get highly agitated and then go blog about it. That may just be me.

And I’m inclined to disagree with Marshall over the attractiveness of the site. I don’t really remember what the old site looked like, but I happen to think the new site is quite pretty. Its openness encourages readers to browse through Microsoft’s video catalog and engage with the site. Also neat is the split screen format Microsoft is using so that users can view one video while still browsing for something better. Ah, it’s my type of video viewing.

Google Alerts Get Video

Google is making it easy for users to track interesting video content with the release of new video Google Alerts. Now you can keep tabs on videos about the things important to you the same you do with Web, news and blog content. I set one up for Bruce this morning and found some interesting videos that I hadn’t seen before. Good stuff!

Fun Finds

Performancing had a good post about learning how to blow your own horn. It seems that sometimes this modesty thing ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. I rule.

ResourceShelf lets us know that the Google/DoubleClick hearing will take place tomorrow (Thursday) and that search nerds can listen to it live online. Ooo! I’ll be listening, will you?

Posted by Lisa Barone on 09/26/07 at 5:23 PM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Branding, Design, Google, Live Search, Microsoft, Search Engine Optimization, Yahoo

August 20, 2007

Universal & Blended Search

It’s time for this morning’s Universal & Blended Search session. In case you’re confused, “blended search” is what they call Universal Search when it's by anyone but Google. All caught up? Good.

Chris Sherman is moderating the session with Greg Jarboe (SEO-PR), Sherwood Stranieri (Catalyst Online), Bill Slawksi (Commerce360), David Bailey (Google), Erik Collier (Ask.com) and Tim Mayer (Yahoo) speaking.

Greg Jarboe is up first and calls Google Universal Search (GUS) the biggest thing to hit search since the Florida update. This means that even if you are new to the search sphere you’re not at any kind of competitive disadvantage to the old dinosaurs who have been doing this for years and years (like Bruce!).

Greg shows the audience the effect GUS has had on the search results with a few screenshots.

He notes that back on June 29 (aka the day after my birthday) if you did a search for [iphone], you would have noticed that the fourth result in Google was a News Result with an Apple-created YouTube video in the 8th position. Greg polls the audience on whether they thought Apple’s nicely planted YouTube video was intentional and a sign that Apple understands Universal or if it was just a happy accident. Personally, I think it was just a fluke, but then again, I’m bitter.

Since images are appearing in Google results, Greg says that site owners must absolutely start optimizing their images to appear in the engines, especially images for key executives. You don’t want a photo of your CEO and his girlfriend to appear on the front page of a user’s SERP, or at least not until his divorce is final.

More examples of GUS in action:

• A search for [Hillary Clinton] yesterday showed a News result ranked at number 4, with YouTube videos, blog posts and three totally unflattering photos appearing below the fold. Greg blames the unflattering photos on the right wing conspiracy (heh), but then says we can’t quote him on that. Oh well, already did.
• A search for [hurricane dean] shows News results are ranked number one, with a myriad of blog listings at the bottom of the page. He predicts in the next few days we’ll begin seeing images and videos because that’s the stuff users are going to be looking for. Because we like looking at pictures of destroyed stuff.

What does all of this mean? It means that all the rules of search have been rewritten. Universal search changes what appears in the “golden triangle”.

Search remains the number one way journalists obtain additional information for a story. If you’re not optimizing your press releases for search engines, please come to the Bruce Clay Simi Valley headquarters next week so that I may kick you. I promise it won’t be too hard, just enough to leave a mark. Media relations should be focused on the top Google News sources. Google News Report and Newsknife will both tell you which news media optimizes their results better.

Always include a JPG with your news release, as 90 percent of journalists say that visuals are somewhat or very important to them. Even better, an image acts as the eye candy that will catch readers' attention and make them click on your story. This means that even if you’re sitting at position four, your story is far more likely to be read than the story positioned at number one with no photo.

Something else to keep in mind is that though Google doesn’t incorporate video into Google News right now, a recent interview hints that they’re working on it and it probably won’t be too long before we start to see it.

Greg talks a bit about using social mapping tools to help identify the most influential bloggers in your niche (ME!). With millions of bloggers out there, it’s important to pitch your stories to the influential ones. Who cares what the Susan Esparzas think about you anyway?

A few years ago there was a panel at SES that discussed how the vertical creep was being ignored by searchers and search marketers. You can’t afford to do this today. You cannot ignore Universal Search. Google is making specialized and vertical content more visible through Universal Search, and it will act as a huge boom to those who pay attention to news, video, image and blog search. What Universal Search does it take the different verticals (silos) and slides them together. Your company needs to start collaborating.

Up next is Sherwood Stranieri to talk about apples, oranges and Universal Search. Mmm, oranges. (Apparently I am unable to spell “oranges” today. It’s only day one and my brain is already fried. This can’t be good.)

Sherwood notes that Universal Search compiles results from multimedia and news resources in order to create a single search results page for consumers. There are a few variations on the theme. There is the Ask3D approach which divides results into sections (Microsoft and Yahoo do something similar. [Yeah – only theirs sucks]), and then there is Google which stacks everything into a merged list.

Sherwood mimics Greg’s earlier statement and says that blended search changes the game. He even goes as far as to call Google the “game changer” because it’s the format most disruptive to the status quo. [I’m sorry, but since when does “disruptive” equal “game changing”? If anyone is changing the status quo (and for the better) it is Ask.com. Google is barely even implementing Universal Search right now.

Fine, Lisa rant over.]

Sherwood focuses his presentation around Google’s Universal Search and Video.

Previously, video had been spread virally, but now it’s in search so we have to start looking at it. How does GUS compare videos and text-based pages? Do conventional search engine optimization ranking factors come into play (indexability, content, linking)? What about metrics like views or comments? These are all things we have to look at.

[Sidenote: It’s really distracting to me that everyone keeps referring to Google Universal Search as GUS. I’m waiting for this really hip, game-changing guy named Gus to be carried through the door at any second. (Will he be played by Dule Hill? --Susan)]

To determine how Google is ranking video, Sherwood created a test subject out of its client A&E Television. A&E has thousands of video clips across three TV channel sites. Many rank in Google currently, some authorized, some pirated. Putting the pirating issue aside for a moment (arrrrgh), Sherwood and his team looked at how the video content was actually ranking.

He uses the creepy show as his example:

GUS Page 1:
Page 1 shows a healthy mix of videos and conventional Web listings.
Data was collected for page 1 videos, as well as Web page listings on pages 1 and 2
Both search engine optimization-specific and video-specific stats

Sherwood examined the videos that were ranking for the Criss Angel query and examined the traditional search engine optimization ranking factors like PageRank numbers, incoming links, keyword phrases. Everything looking the same regardless of where the video ranked.

From there, he looked at just the video factors, things like the number of views, comments, tags, etc. He determined that the number of views a video gets definitely contributes to its ranking, but that wasn’t the complete picture. Not surprisingly, in order for a video to rank well, it takes the combination of search engine optimization factors AND video factors. It is the mix that determines placement.

It makes sense that it’s not just the number of views that will cause a video to rank high because otherwise the SERP would be clogged with old videos and the new stuff would never get a chance. Also, you have to think that Google can use tools like Google Hot Trends to determine whether a video is hot and therefore deserves to be ranking.

There are a few loose ends.

• Video statistics themselves (Google can read the number of views and comments).
  For Google to be able to add in the video metrics, it needs to be able to recognize the info on the page. Dan Crow from Google Crawl Systems presented information indicating that it can.
  Google has to warm up for the indexing on one of these Video portal sites.
• Bad News: This is why there are only a few portals are in GUS.
• Good News: It is likely video factors are being read into the equation.

Next up is Bill Slawski who I met last night for the first time. Huzzah!

Bill comments that he doesn’t see Universal Search as a revolutionary process, instead he thinks of it more as an evolutional (I’m with Bill). It’s only evident if you’re looking for it.

Bill pulled up a search for [spider] on the four major engines to see what the results looked like. Google and Yahoo had 10 blue links, Microsoft had 10 blue links and some images, Ask.com, of course, totally rocked.

He talks about Google’s Universal Search patent and how it originally suggested that Google would list alternative results in the right hand side where the ads currently are. Obviously, this isn’t the Universal Search we’re seeing now but it was the prototype back then.

Bill again comments that Universal Search is like an evolution. The timeline going something like this:

Infoseeks’ blended search (1995) > Vertical Creeps into Organic Search > OneBox Results and UI Experiments > Universal Search.

From here Bill gets very technical. I tried to follow along but he’s (a) way smarter than me and (b) he talks fast. Here’s what I could pick up:
Log Data is collected and organized as triples (u=user info, q=query info, r=information about repositories). This info varies based on the country, language, time of day, etc. You want to learn how to rank really well in this specific vertical and try to rank for what people are searching for. That's how you get into Universal Search.

He comments that Yahoo also had some old patents that discussed blended search. They talked about using labels to personalize results. It didn't use terms like tagging, user annotations, though.
How does the information get from a Web page to an index? If you want to rank for a definition you want to make sure you include the words “definition” or “glossary” on the top of the page. You want to make sure it’s easy to distinguish one set of definitions from another.

One of the motivations of providing Universal Search is to enhance the user experience and to make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for. It changes search engine optimization a bit. Why should someone come to your Web page if they get the answer straight from the SERP? Bill says chances are if a user finds something interesting, they’ll click through to the rest of your site.

Next we hear from the engines themselves. Each rep gets 5 minutes.

Up first is Dave Bailey from Google. Hey Dave.

He reminds us of Google’s mission statement to organize the world’s info. He thinks Universal Search is just an extension of that mission. Google wants users to have a single search box to rely on and to get results for anything they’d like. Why just one box? Because people have busy lives. I mean, some of us have to cover 16 SES sessions in 3.5 days. Google doesn’t expect you to remember about all of their different verticals.

There are also certain pages out there that are special. He uses the query [arctic butterfly sensor cleaner] as an example. (What? You totally search for that everyday, don’t you?)
There’s a OneBox up a top with product results and then a YouTube video about how to use it lower.

If you search for [origami crane], you see images at the top of the results, plus a MetaCafe video. A search for [Cranston RI] brings up a map from Google Local.

What Google is doing with Universal Search is digging deeper to find relevant results and then using smarter ranking techniques to determine where the media belongs on the page. Does the video belong at the top of the page or does it below lower down?

A query comes in and Google sends it everywhere. Each vertical does it best to determine how they should handle the query. Do we want to include blogs? How are the books results?

What does it mean to search engine optimization?

Dave must be on another planet because he says it will be business as usual. He assures us that things aren’t changing as radically as some SEOs think they are. Web results will always dominate the page and many universal results are just Web results anyway.

However, do think about creating quality content in other forms. Create useful video content, include images, enhance your Google Local listing, upload product listings to Google Product, etc.

Up next is Tim Mayer to show some of things Yahoo has launched recently.

Tim says if you cover up the logo it’s difficult to differentiate one search engine from another (um, it is?). He says Yahoo is moving to a better optimized user experience. It’s about getting the best result from the Web in the number one spot.

Recently launched Yahoo features:

• Music Artists Shortcuts – Go to official page, hear clips, get lyrics, etc. It’s very different from previous years where the purpose of the SERP was to send the users off as quickly as possible. Here, Yahoo is encouraging interaction.
• Movie Shortcut – Show times, Reviews, Trailers, etc
• Hotel Shortcut Inline – Blends the additional content with traditional results courtesy of an expand arrow.
• Consumer Electronics Shortcut: People want to buy a camera but they don’t know which one. Yahoo offers suggestions, most popular brands, most popular products, to help them narrow their search. Clickthrough rate is very high because users are exploring the topic and looking for help.

Next up is Eric Collier from Ask.com. Before he starts, I just want you to know that my toes are frozen. Yes, I’m done whining.

He shows the audience the Ask 3D interface. The point was to highlight the vertical content more because users weren’t taking advantage of it. They also want to get as much above the fold as possible and get users their answers as quickly as possible.

He explains the 3 panels of the new Ask interface:

On the left hand site you have the search box (complete with search suggestions) and the Narrow/Expand your search options. In the middle you have the Smart Answers and organic search results. On the right rail is really where they get into blended search.

Types of content sources include encyclopedia, blogs, television, narrow your search, search suggestions, health, video, music, etc.

How has this changed user behavior?

Ask has seen a huge jump in user satisfaction, a 30 percent drop in users clicking through to the second SERP, 15 percent drop in users sessions with more than one search. Users really are coming and getting what they want in that first page of results.

What should search marketers expect?

• A larger percentage of SERPs with blended results.
• User location will play a larger role in SERPs.
• Expect to see fewer web results in the SERPs (I agree, which is why I didn’t agree with Brian’s assertion that Universal is “business as usual” for search engine optimization).
• Blogs, images and videos will take online reputation into account when ranking.
• Pay attention to other search drivers – Search suggestions, related search, etc.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 08/20/07 at 3:09 PM | Comments (4)
See more entries in Ask, Google, Live Search, SEM Events, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines, Yahoo, sessanjose2007

June 5, 2007

Penalty Box Summit

After a break and a yummy cupcake, we're back for our first Organic Search Engine Optimization session. Danny Sullivan is our moderator for today's Penalty Box Summit. Speakers today are Peter Linsley (Ask.com), Aaswath Raman (Microsoft Live Search), Tim Mayer (Yahoo) and Matt Cutts (Google).

Danny and the panel put on hockey masks (because it's about penalties, geddit?) I cheer for the Ducks and inadvertently set off Danny's rant about Orange County sports teams. Whoops. (Go, Ducks!)

Okay, back on topic--Danny explains that we're going to be focused on improving the general level of understanding and applying penalties, not dealing with single site issues.

Tim Mayer is up first.

Tim comments first on an unfortunate misquoting of Yahoo's commitment to search. Guess what? They're really committed to it and they feel personalization is an important part. It was "unfortunate and [they're] obviously very committed to search". It's okay to be shocked.

He emphasizes that spam is about INTENT with which you use techniques and the EXTENT to which you use a technique rather than the specific technique you use. There are legitimate uses for almost every technique. IP cloaking for geographic targeting, for example. The important thing is be smart about it. Use it to help, not hurt, user experience.

The acceptable line varies by industry, some categories are more competitive. If you're doing optimization, you should be appropriate for your industry. [Susan's Hint: You can use the SEOToolset and Free Tools to get a baseline on your competitors.]

Tim says that he has a link internally that can report a quality problem in the index. Webmasters can report spam through Site Explorer. About 70% of the spam reports they receive through the tool are legitimate spam, the rest is just noise. The tool also allows you to report spammy in-links so that you don't get penalized by association.

Tim refers people to the Webmaster Resources. Come on, Tim. This is the advanced crowd. We already have those memorized. He goes on to discuss what to do for a re-inclusion request. Tell them "this is what I think I was penalized for, this is what I've done to clean it up." They'll review it pretty quickly.

Peter Linsley is up next. They just launched the new Ask.com last night. "For you livebloggers, go check it out". Not right now, Peter. I'm blogging. ;)

Peter talks fast. Here we go:

Candidates for penalty are: hurting the user experience and gaming the search engine. Areas for penalty are links and content.

Gaming includes: Cloaking, Keyword Stuff, hidden text, link farms, scraper sites--basically all SEO Spam 101.

Hurting the user experience includes: Dead pages, no content, dynamic content. Pages that are different every time damage the user experience. Pages with no utility at all are hurting the user experience.

Warning signs of a penalty: drops in traffic, drops in rankings (duh.)

Don't let the spammers leverage your site. If you have a blog, moderate your comments, don't publish your access logs, etc.

Re-inclusion requests are looked at case by case.

Peter mentions sneaky JavaScript re-directs which are the most irritating in the world.

...wow, you should see the CAPTCHA he just put up. It's a math equation and there is not enough caffeine in the WORLD. I'm sure that Matt looked at it was all like 'Oh, that's EASY.' Whatever, Matt. The point is, make sure you have a way to keep out the spammers. Don't let them abuse you.

Aaswath Raman is up next. He's going to review guidelines, why they use penalties, how they handle them and blah

He repeats what Tim said about spam being about intent and targeting the search engine for gaming.

Example: starwarsactionfigures.com links to starwars.com (okay) but also to cheapcasinohandbags.org (suspicious). So they evaluate to see if it's just an affiliate or if this is a case of trying to game the engines.

On the page level -- being useless to users (strings of keywords, etc) is cause for penalty

On the link level -- in-links from bad neighborhoods and out-links to suspicious pages

On a general level -- Deceiving users through redirects and misleading information

Suspicious or spammy behavior may cause a ranking penalty. More blatant or harmful spamming could be cause for de-listing. It's like a venial or mortal sin--one means a single Hail Mary, the other send you to hell. That's my analogy, not Aaswath's.

webspam@microsoft.com is their email. They are working on better ways to improve their ways of getting feeding. All de-listed sites are automatically reviewed.

Matt Cutts is up last. He's going to read a list of spammers. This should be FUN!

He says he was going to do a "you might be a spammer" joke. "If you've left 10000 comments..." but he thinks that we probably already know what spam is. Yes, Matt, we do.

If you can keep someone from spamming because there are better ways to make money, that's the way to go but really, there will always be spam. So they try to counter it. They want to make the user experience as good as it can possibly be.

They alert webmasters that they might be having issues so that they can take action and correct the problem. When that happens, they can do a re-inclusion request and everyone's happy.

Yesterday, Pat asked why the guidelines were so brief (You&A with Matt Cutts). As a result, the webmaster guidelines were beefed up LAST NIGHT. Good Lord, Googlers, don't you ever sleep? Oh wait, it's been in the works for a while. Wow, they're all linked to a specific page on the actual issue. Yay, time for more dissection.

Matt likes that the new pages are written so they don’t automatically assume that you're a bad guy. They explain how things can be interpreted as spam. The whole webmaster guidelines silo is much bigger and deeper now. Cool.

There are a lot of Googlers whose job it is to get feedback. Matt mentions Vanessa Fox and Adam Lasnik, specifically. These are the people you should mob if Matt is busy.

If someone reports off-topic porn, they want action now, so google reserves the right to do manual edits but by and large they want to take care of things algorithmically. Matt doesn't say that he thinks there needs to be a scalable and robust solution but I know he's thinking it.

They send out emails in 10 languages to try to help keep people in the loop if their site is in trouble. They distinguish between types o