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Thursday, April 29, 2004

Google Issues IPO

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:38 PM

Well, they finally did it. For months rumours have been spreading around the Internet, investment and SEO communities about Google's pending Initial Public Stock Offering (IPO). As of today, April 29, 2004, Google is a public company. Here is the short press release issued by Google earlier today:

Google Inc. Files Registration Statement with the SEC for an Initial Public Offering

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - April 29, 2004 - Google Inc. announced today that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its Class A common stock. A portion of the shares will be issued and sold by Google, and a portion will be sold by certain stockholders of Google.

Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston will act as joint book-running managers for the proposed offering.

A copy of the prospectus relating to these securities may be obtained, when available, from: Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated , Prospectus Department, 1585 Broadway, New York, NY 10036 (tel: 1-800-364-5990) or Credit Suisse First Boston LLC, Prospectus Department, One Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10010 (tel: 212-325-1075).

A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. These securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective. This release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any State in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such State.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:38 PM.

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Lycos for Sale - Remember the Past, Plan for the Future

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:34 PM

This week's big news continues to be dominated by Google's pending Initial Public Offering (IPO). Wall St. is buzzing with the billions of dollars that are about to be flowing from one side of the trading floor to the other side of the continent. While Google itself has remained mystically silent about its intentions, the mainstream media and the business press have been gawking at Google's perceived plans for the past two weeks. If, and in most minds - when, Google goes public, it is speculated the company will be worth $15Billion - $25Billion. Those numbers have a lot of people very interested. Fortunes of varying sizes will be made from this so it is safe to say there is a great deal of personal interest behind much of the hype and many of the stories appearing in the business press. The hype surrounding a Google IPO has pushed the value of shares of other search companies higher, as in the case of Ask Jeeves and Mamma.Com. "If it is search, it is sexy", is a going mantra in investment circles. At this time, it is important to remember one of the first truisms any of us learned in history class, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" (George Santayana, 1863 - 1952). While the hard working folks at Google are preparing to cash in on a tech-lottery win many of us thought had closed three years ago, the hard working folks at Lycos must be holding their breath waiting to see what happens next.

Today, Terra Lycos announced it was looking to sell one of the oldest search engines on the web. In doing so, they will be walking away from one of the largest deals made during the tech-boom of the late 90's and early 2Ks. As reported by Jim Hu in today's CNET News, "Terra Lycos has retained investment bank Lehman Brothers to explore a possible sale of its US Internet business, including its flagship Lycos.com Web site." In 2000, when the tech-bubble was at its peak, Lycos was acquired by Madrid based Terra Networks in a $12.5Billion deal. Today, it is being shopped around to a select group of potential buyers with an asking price of $200Million.

A similar thing happened in January 2000 when AOL purchased the largest publishing empire in the world, Time Warner. (Ironically, Jim Hu covered that story for CNET as well). That deal was worth an estimated $160Billion at the time of the sale however the deal was based entirely on the value of AOL stocks at that time. Renamed "AOL Time Warner", the merger was the largest in corporate history. Today, AOL is such a financial millstone around Time Warner's neck, they recently dropped the "AOL" part of the name and is rumored to be looking to off-load AOL in the near future.

It is important to keep a perspective on the business history of the Internet, especially since this is an environment in which things change or are developed very rapidly. While Google continues to be the world's most popular search tool, advancements by Yahoo and MSN pose direct challenges while at least a dozen other extraordinary search tools are either present in the marketplace or just about to be. Another concern is the lack of critical analysis present in the business press regarding a potential Google IPO. Even if the perceived up-sides are enormous for the economy, especially in the beleaguered Silicon Valley, as survivors of the dot-bomb era, we are left wondering what has happened to our collective memory? What is really going on here?

In reality, the management at Google is caught between a rocking environment and a hard-cash place. As the company has exceeded 500 common shareholders (stock-option holders), they have to report their quarterly financial numbers to the Securities and Exchange Commission by tomorrow at the latest. This will be the first public viewing of Google's finances ever. Financial secrecy has long been part of Google's culture and has given the management a significant advantage of public rivals Yahoo and MSN. Now that they are required by law to publish their books, there is little reason to think they would do so without making a heck of a lot of money in the process though the issuance of the IPO. At the same time, founders Larry Page and Serge Brin are said to be obsessed with preserving the laid-back culture that Google is known and loved for. With roller-hockey games in the parking lot and hearty meals prepared by the Grateful Dead's former chef, working at the Googleplex is likely the most fun part of the day for most of the staff. On the other side of the coin are the original investors who put up the money that made Google a reality. Guys like Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital and John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers eventually want to see a return on the $25Million they invested in 1999. Sitting on an investment in the world's most used information application and not seeing billions of dollars come from it must be galling for these VC's. Recent stories from the Googleplex have the VC side applying immense pressure to the management side to go IPO.

Apparently the discussions have moved from theoretical to action-items as Google has hired Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston to underwrite an IPO. As reported in Monday's CNET News, an unsourced leak from within the Googleplex stated that Google's management is asking for several protections for their workers and the culture that has formed around them. Clearly something is happening and the evidence points to a go-date in the very near future. (Please note, all IPO related statements originating from within the Googleplex are either leaks or speculation as Google has not issued any statements regarding an IPO.)

We are left wondering if another instant bubble is being blown or if its all a bunch of smoke. Investors should look very closely before leaping into the tech market. If, as many who are pushing for the IPO state, a Google IPO can help the rest of the tech-sector gain investment revenue, we are concerned that many are "pulling a Blodget" or simply pushing for something because they personally stand to gain from it. What is going to happen to Google when shareholder expectations become stakeholder-demands?

Google is different from Yahoo and MSN and just about every other business their size. Google is a great search engine and a tremendous business story. While many in the SEO world, myself included, have taken it to them recently, the bottom line is Larry and Sergey have built the world's most popular search tool and have formed one of the coolest corporations that has ever existed. We do wish the world would be more cautious before jumping on the next big-band wagon. As is often the case, everyone wants a piece of success. Just remember the cynical truism that logically follows Santayana's, "Historians learn history, the rest of us are fated to repeat it."

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:34 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Lycos for Sale - Remember the Past, Plan for the Future

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Ask Jeeves Experiences the Butterfly Effect

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:34 PM

This is becoming awfully familiar; once again AskJeeves has shown itself to be in a very reliable and powerful financial position! Thanks to the latest IPO rumors at Google, AskJeeves stock actually doubled since the first of March. The reason? Approximately 70% of AskJeeves profits come from Google via sponsored (adwords) listings showing up in various AskJeeves properties. With Google showing so much potential in the coming IPO, investors are betting that AskJeeves will reap the rewards of higher sponsorship payout's.

Although not without risks, this position is a beautiful one where AskJeeves can selectively compete with Google (via their own algorithmic spider) while reaping the rewards of its competitor's growth.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:34 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
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A Staggering "OOPS" at Yahoo! Japan (by Ross Dunn)

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:33 PM

Next time you go shopping online and you see a price that seems too good to be true... it just might be. This seems like an obvious caveat, however, there is a certain amount of trust and respect attributed to major portals like Yahoo! Shopping so a cheap price might just seem like an incredibly good buy. In this case, however, the discount was a bit more than even the average imagination could have predicted. A mistake in the XML shopping feed at Yahoo! Japan prompted 100 million sales of an Apple eMac computer at a 98% discount! That's right, the eMac was sold for the equivalent of $25 per computer, a discount of $1100 USD. When Catena, the Tokyo based computer firm discovered the mistake, chaos ensued as they contacted 20,000+ buyers to negate the sales. According to Catena they did not have to honor the sales because they did not confirm them by email.

So next time you find yourself with a 98% discount don't get too excited until you receive confirmation of the sale ;-)

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:33 PM.

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PPC for Local Brick and Mortar? (article by Scott Van Achte)

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:33 PM

With Google’s new Local Targeting features, it is possible for a small brick and mortar business with a website to achieve relevant internet traffic from within their local area. For some time now Google has allowed for ads to be country specific. Now not only can an advertiser target specific countries and states/provinces but they can also focus on actual target cities.

Still not enough for you?
Google also offers customized local targeting. What that means is you can target ads at searchers within a defined radius from your actual physical address! By entering either your address or longitude and latitude along with a radius (minimum 20 miles/35 km’s) you can very specifically target your local area, which can open doors for small business who never though it feasible to advertise online.

How does Google know?
Google distributes ads based on two factors, a searchers query and their IP. Their algorithm examines these factors to find where the user is searching from to determine the best ads to serve up. If a user searches for pizza, Google will serve up ads relating to local pizza restaurants, but if the search string is for pizza 90210, Google will serve up ads for that zip-code, regardless of where the searcher resides.

Pros and Cons
Let’s say a small pizza restaurant wants to advertise online. Placing an ad half way across the country will be of little use. Using local targeting will focus their ad on obtainable customers. Although it is bound to become more popular then the traditional yellow pages, online searching is not yet the first stop for searchers. In most cases, advertising your restaurant in this means will not draw much traffic, however the traffic that is received will be at a low cost per click rates and the conversions are likely to be quite high, as nearly all traffic will be pre-qualified.

Let’s face it, local search of this kind will not make retailers rich, but it is a means of slightly increasing a small business' exposure. I am sure many small businesses will benefit from this, but it will be a long time before search replaces the traditional phone books. I use the Internet on a daily basis and have yet to search for a local number online that I could easily find in the phonebook, but as online local search becomes more sophisticated and widespread there is no doubt in my mind that this is the wave of the future.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:33 PM.

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View this Article Only: PPC for Local Brick and Mortar? (article by Scott Van Achte)

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Spider Food (article by Dave Davies)

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:32 PM

Search engine spiders are perhaps the closest thing to a virtual life form the planet has every seen. Racing around on fiber cables like the electrical impulses in your brain, recording everything they see, these systems behave very similarly to the way we think.

Think of the websites that you visit the most often, ones that you went to once and just new you’d want to visit again and so you added it to your favorites. What was it about these sites that made you want to go back. Generally speaking the sites that are most revisited are those with varying content of interest to the visitor. Personalized news sites make very popular homepages. Why? Because you will get new information of interest to you every day. But what if they stopped providing new information? You might keep it as your home page for a few days but after a while you’d stop going back. Search engines act the same, the more frequently you add new content, the more frequently they will visit your website.

Making changes two your website will serve two main functions:

1. Repeat visitors – assuming that you have a well designed site with useful content, periodically updating your website will give visitors a reason to return. Perhaps not on your site the frequency with which it is updated. Or allow people to subscribe for updates when new information is added.

2. Repeat visits from the search engines – the more often you make changes to your website the more often the search engines will spider your site. This is important for a couple reasons. First, if you make changes often you will have more content and fresher content to rank well for. This means that you will be able to rank well for a larger variety of terms and also rank for phrases that are current. Another big advantage to frequent spidering is that when the search engines change their algorithms (and they will) and if your site drops a bit in the rankings, you will have the search engines visiting often and thus, and changes you make to your site to counter these drops will be picked up much faster.

The more pages you can rank your site well for the better. The continuous addition of fresh content will help you rank for a larger number of terms and also help you rank higher for your focused search terms.

The more frequently your site gets spidered the faster you will be able to react to changes in the search engine rankings. Any day you are in a reduced position is costing you money. The faster you can react the faster you can get your rankings back the more money you will make.

So feed the spider. Add weekly articles, add a blog, add specials, add anything useful. Just keep your content fresh and they will come.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:32 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Spider Food (article by Dave Davies)

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Friday, April 23, 2004

PartsExpert.Com - Would you find this on Google?

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 3:23 PM

I just read an article by Declan McCullagh from CNet News about Google's anti-porn filter. McCallagh is, in my mind, one of the smartest Internet journalists out there. Here's an interesting one we never thought of. Did you know that Google has an anti-porn filter? Go to the Preferences link on the Google home page and look for the SafeSearch section. Check the settings there. If you're machine is set on "Use Strict Filtering", you would not see the URL in the title above.

Why not? Because it has the letters s-e-x in it. McCullagh writes a full article on it which can be viewed by following the link above.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 3:23 PM.

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Search, the Financial Frontier :: Planning Search Budgets

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:45 PM

Search started cheap. Years ago, search engines figured their profit would come from two unique angles, advertising and investments. The advertising front evaporated when it was discovered that Internet users did not click on banner ads as often as was necessary to turn a profit. As for the investment angle, there was a time when search engine firms such as Excite worked to develop the "new-web" in partnership with @Home. Those were the days when high-flying IT companies were valued so highly on the stock market that AOL was able to purchase the Time Warner corporation. Those days came to an abrupt end on Friday April 14, 2000 when the NASDAQ lost over 1/3 of its value in one day. After the tech bubble burst, IT firms including search engines needed to find new means of revenue generation.

Just over four years later, there are far fewer major search engines and far higher costs to advertise on the remaining players. There is also a lot more money flowing in from the business of search. Some, such as Google and Yahoo executives can only see these developments as a good thing. Others, such as the typical small business owner may not see a great deal of promise in these developments, just radically higher costs. Finding a balance between intelligent online advertising options and intergalactic online advertising costs will be a challenge for small business owners in the coming years. As with most challenging business problems, the best decisions come from effective planning based on solid information. The first piece of information small business planners should know is, all major search engines now universally see themselves as businesses first, information aggregators second. This means costs are going to rise substantially over the next few years, even at Google.

Google
Google continues to offer free, unpaid listings to anyone with a website. If you have a website, and that website has incoming links, it is almost impossible not to get listed on Google without using meta tags. While getting into Google's database is as easy as getting another website to link to you, achieving Top20 placement under highly competitive keyword phrases has become far more difficult. According to an article published in today's Internet Retailer, sites that don't place in the Top30 results (first three pages) are almost universally ignored by search engine users. Getting into Google's database is simply not enough to get Google users to visit your website, you need to be found on the first three pages, preferably on the first page of Google results. The question is, how to get there...

It used to be much easier to get a first page placement at Google. Great content, solid optimization, and a few relevant incoming links were all that was necessary to put a website on top of Google. Since the infamous "Florida Update" in November, Google has been working almost entirely on incoming links. Without a strong set of incoming links, even the most well optimized site is not likely going to achieve a strong placement at Google (with the exception of non-competitive keyword targets). This situation has given rise to a new version of an old issue for Google; the commodification of links from sites with high pageranks. Most SEOs who've been in this game for more than two years will remember the fiasco when Google degraded listings from the SEO company Search King and sites linked to Search King. The owner of Search King, Bob Massa decided to sell links from his PR8 site and publicly advertised the new service. Massa found dozens of webmasters willing to spend big-bucks on a link from Search King as they felt the link was valuable to improving placements at Google. In theory, they were correct. In practice, Massa found his site and those linking to his site had their PageRank lowered by Google. Widely vilified in the SEO community then, Massa's basic idea has been copied by dozens of other businesses, the most notable of which is called Buy/Sell Links.

As Google continues to be the most used search tool in the world and prominent placement on Google can either make or break an online business, the commodification of links seems a natural, albeit dangerous, outcome. I use the word dangerous because Google's ranking algorithm is, in my mind, in danger of becoming permanently skewed. I think this practice is also dangerous because it will serve to price a good ranking out of the budget of most small business owners. For example, StepForth charges between $600 and $3500 (on average) for SEO services to small business websites. We also have a link-building service in which we activity find relevant links for our clients' websites. That service costs $12/link. Most sites that come through require at least 50 incoming links to compete with the current Top10 under their chosen keyword phrases. Suddenly an SEO project that would have costed $600 last year is now being quoted at $1200! That's double the cost but in some cases, that is what it takes to get the desired placement(s) on Google.

Yahoo
Yahoo is the second most important search engine, based solely on user numbers. Yahoo spent most of last year acquiring Inktomi, Overture, AltaVista, and AlltheWeb, making it the largest network of major search tools on the Internet. With so many search properties came an equal number of paid-inclusion programs which made little sense to the accountants at Yahoo. In what may be a penny-wise but pound-foolish move, Yahoo introduced a new pricing structure that came into effect late last week. Known as Site Match (for smaller websites), Yahoo's new paid-inclusion program has a pay-per-click component along with an annual $49(US) review fee. It should be noted that Yahoo also has a free-submit option that webmasters can take advantage of however sites submitted without signing up for SiteMatch or SiteMatch XChange will not be spidered nearly as often as sites that pay the fees. This change prompted me to write a rather detailed notice to our clients which can be viewed here. The bottom line is that, under the SiteMatch program, each click will cost either $0.15 or $0.30 per click on top of the annually recurring $49 review fee. Based on the number of visits one of our clients received from Yahoo in February 2004, we estimate approximately $2400 in new costs! As this client is a small business, we are left wondering if this cost, an extra $200/month will prevent her from eating well or taking a much needed vacation next year. Alternately, the added costs might make her think twice about advertising her website at Yahoo. For owners or webmasters of larger websites, Yahoo offers SiteMatch XChange. Under SiteMatch XChange, webmasters negotiate costs directly with Yahoo's subsidiary, Overture so we are unable to provide hard-cost figures for this service. For more information view Yahoo/Overture's new pricing policies.

Now we've established this is going to cost you some more money and we haven't even touched on Microsoft yet! Fortunately, MSN continues to draw from Yahoo so there are no extra costs to mention there. It will happen sooner than later though since MSN is rumoured to be introducing a new search tool sometime between July 2004 and January 2005.

Planning a Search Engine Advertising Budget
While the costs have never been higher than they are now, there are far more options available for search engine advertisers. All search tools are offering paid-advertisments much like Google's AdWords and Yahoo's Overture listings which in many cases will present lower long-term costs than the previously free traditional listings do. For example, we know Yahoo will charge 15 - 30 cents per click for "traditional" listings but, what if you can acquire an Overture ad for $0.10 per click? Not only will you save the annual fee of $49, you'll still be paying less per click than you would via the traditional listings. With over 90% of the search engine user market covered in one way or another, most webmasters and business owners would agree it is essential to be listed well at both Google and Yahoo. There is simply no escaping the power these two firms currently hold over the search engine market place. It is wise, however, to take a second look at other services these firms offer advertisers.

Perhaps the best example is Google's e-commerce catalogue site, Froogle. Submission to Froogle costs absolutely nothing, however, you may need to involve your IT department to establish an XML feed to constantly send information to Froogle's database. Assuming that Google retains its current ranking algorithm and Yahoo does not make substantial changes to its new pricing schedule, website owners and marketers will need to factor an additional two to three thousand dollars per year at a minimum in order to continue accessing the largest search tools on the Internet. I would like to note that this is a rather big assumption as Google changes its algorithms fairly frequently and is not shy about making radical changes without notice. Yahoo may also revisit its pricing schedule if it finds a lot of opposition from the webmaster community. At this time, however, there are many webmasters who will feel priced out of the game entirely. For these folks, I strongly suggest the other, smaller search engines such as Lycos, Enhance, Vivisimo and AskJeeves, each of which can deliver a small but vital portion of search engine traffic at much lower costs. StepForth staff strive to keep costs down as much as possible and work towards finding ways to limit the financial exposure of our clients. If you think your business or website is being priced out of the market, give one of our representatives a call and perhaps we'll be able to find solutions for you.

In the meantime, Yahoo continues to honour paid-inclusion contracts from Inktomi so many webmasters will find their sites continue to thrive at Yahoo. Sites with suddenly diminished Google rankings can go on a crash, do-it-yourself, link-building campaign but should beware the pitfalls of irrelevant links or links coming from linkfarms. If you require more information about the new fees and costs associated with search engine advertising, please feel free to contact StepForth by phone at 1-877-385-5526 or by Email at info@stepforth.com

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:45 PM.

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View this Article Only: Search, the Financial Frontier :: Planning Search Budgets

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Insight into the Future of the Growing AskJeeves Empire - By: Ross Dunn

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:42 PM

Only days after my March 3rd interview with Jim Lanzone, VP of Product Management, AskJeeves announced its plan to purchase Interactive Search Holdings (ISH). As a result of this purchase AskJeeves acquired a diverse set of sites such as: Excite.com, MyWay.com, MySearch.com, MyWebSearch.com and iWon.com. Now you may have heard of these sites before but it is difficult to say just how popular a site is just from basic brand awareness. According to an AskJeeves press release, however, ISH was the 9th most visited web property in December 2003.

Where does this leave AskJeeves? At the moment none of the sites exclusively utilize Teoma technology; will they be converting each platform on each site to the Teoma engine? According to AskJeeves CEO Steve Berkowitz his long term goal is "to have 50% of the web searching with Teoma", so it is a safe bet that you will soon see more and more Teoma results appearing. As for Excite, at the moment the veteran portal is a meta search engine that combines results from Google, Yahoo, AskJeeves, About, Overture and Teoma; meaning a minimum 1/3 of the results are from their own systems. The other "My..." group of sites are all providing multiple engine data as well.

In short, it appears AskJeeves is playing their familiar game of inches by comfortably insinuating their presence into our lives. If their expansionist philosophy is any indication, I think we can safely say we have discovered a major element of their marketing plan; small but steady steps with a realistic goal of obtaining 50% of the marketplace. This appears to be a smart positioning technique which sticks to the safe and smart approach that many investors will appreciate.

Expect to see much more from this competitor in the near future including another set of buyouts in early 2005.

Press Note: Not so sure about Ask's marketing strategy? AskJeeves presented first quarter financial results showing 73% growth over the same quarter in 2003! View the AskJeeves Press Release here.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:42 PM.

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View this Article Only: Insight into the Future of the Growing AskJeeves Empire - By: Ross Dunn

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PPC Keyword Research for AdWords and Overture - by: Scott Van Achte

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:41 PM

If you have decided to start a PPC Campaign with AdWords and Overture, and don’t know where to start on selecting keywords, here are some ideas.

When starting out you will probably have some keywords in mind. I suggest using Wordtracker to find how popular those keywords are for searchers and to help locate additional quality keywords you may not have thought of. Create a spreadsheet and list all the keywords you are interested in along
with their predicted searches and then move onto determining cost-per-click rates.

Open up Overtures view bids tool. (To do this, perform a simple search and click on ‘sponsored listing’ following one of the results). Use this tool to find out what each of your prospective keywords are selling for and add them to the spreadsheet.

Next find the going rate for AdWords. This is not quite as simple as Overture, nor does it provide as accurate of results, but will give you a rough idea. Start by creating a dummy ad campaign and ad group. Paste the list of keywords into the ‘choose keywords’ box and click save. This will bring up a page to choose the max cost per click. Leave the suggested value as is and click calculate estimates. Add these cost-per-click estimates to your spreadsheet.

Keep in mind Google provides these estimates based on historical data, so if you happen to enter keywords that are seldom used, the numbers they provide may prove to be inaccurate. It will at least however, give you a rough starting point.

Now you should have a spreadsheet with 4 columns - keywords, Overture costs, Google costs, and predicted searches per day. This sheet will provide you with a quick reference in deciding which keywords will be of most value.

Things to look for:

> Low priced keywords with plenty of searches. These are the keywords that will drive the most traffic to your site for the least money.
> Inexpensive keywords with few searches. These keywords will provide you with very little traffic, but tend to be highly targeted generating qualified traffic.
> High priced keywords with plenty of searches. Watch out for these. With Overture you cannot determine a daily budget, and keywords of this nature can quickly exhaust your account.
> Large differences in pricing between Google and Overture. You may not always want to use the same keywords on both engines

You know your business better then anyone, so when it comes down to it go with your gut instinct. But this should give you a starting point in trying to decide on keywords and costs for your PPC Campaign.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:41 PM.

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View this Article Only: PPC Keyword Research for AdWords and Overture - by: Scott Van Achte

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Google IPO? - WSJ says it is coming very soon

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:39 PM

Just a heads up...

the Wall St. Journal is reporting that Google will be issuing an IPO in a few days. We have heard this rumour several times before so... This may be happening, this may not be happening. In December the WSJ also reported an IPO was coming very soon. It was delayed by a sudden downturn in the market then and uncertainty around Yahoo and MSN. Perhaps conditions are right today. The biggest evidence that Google might issue is the April 30 deadline for filing corporate information with the US Government. As Google has more than 1,000 employees, they must file corporate and financial information for the first time in company history.

Stay tuned to this one folks, it will change the search engine environment in ways we can't predict.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:39 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Google IPO? - WSJ says it is coming very soon

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Friday, April 16, 2004

Google is on the move this weekend

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:21 PM

Just a quickie here folks:

Along with several other SEO's who have called us over the past two days, we have noticed a huge number of changes in Google's listings, back-links and assigned pagerank values over the past 72-hours. These changes appear to be increasing. We believe that what we see today will be radically different next week. Just to let you know.

jh

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:21 PM.

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Sales vs. Marketing - Story by Dave Davies

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 1:40 PM

Often there is some confusion between these two crucial roles and what they function to provide. The biggest confusion being that to perform one well will, by default, secure the other. This is not the case.

The role of marketing is to attract as much attention as possible to a product or service. The role of sales is to take the people who have noticed what you have to offer and turn them into clients. Definitely complimentary roles if done correctly, however, often people focus too strongly on one to the detriment of the other.

As a search engine placement firm, StepForth fits more into the marketing side of the equation. The web designer(s) and telephone sales staff fill the sales roles. One assumption that many business people make is that hiring a marketing company (SEO in this case) will, by necessity, increase sales.

There are some considerations that must be taken into account to make this true. If you bring the visitors, are you providing enough quality information and visual appeal to turn them into buyers. Does your website sell your product well? Is it nicely designed? A test that every business person should do who wants to market their website is to take a good solid look at their competition. Does your website sell your product as well as the sites of your competition? If not, why not? Throwing money into being found on the search engines, in banner ads, etc will only provide a good return on investment if you have insured that what the visitor will find is something worth going to.

A great example of a promotion gone horribly wrong can be seen in a search for natural acne treatment on Google. If you look at the #9 site it is http://www.acne-treatment.com/. The webmaster has obviously gone to efforts to attain good rankings (including a few tactics that will get them banned in the near future) however you have to ask yourself - would you EVER buy anything from a site like this? Probably not. So all the time and effort put into SEO is pretty much wasted. Had they coupled that with some efforts towards creating a well structured, nicely designed site they would have seen an excellent return on investment.

That said, many businesses find themselves in the opposite situation. Using the same search term lets look down to position 30. There we will find http://www.naturalacneremedy.com/ with a nice design and 3rd page (almost 4th page!) listings. They obviously spent more on design that search engine placement. Will they see a good return on their investment? I cannot say for sure as I do not know their exact marketing strategy however what I can say is that with SEO and their already nicely designed site, they could definitely increase their sales significantly.

While the examples used were website related (its what we know best here at StepForth) these philosophies carry over to traditional brick-and-mortar business practices as well. Do not advertise if you are not set up to sell, and do not set up to sell if you are not promoting either through advertising or by location.

Only with a good balance of both marketing and sales can a business strategy truly achieve its maximum effect.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 1:40 PM.

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View this Article Only: Sales vs. Marketing - Story by Dave Davies

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What is the Benefit of Professional PPC Management? - Story by Scott Van Achte

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 1:37 PM

As the competition for search engine placement becomes increasingly competitive more and more small website owners are turning towards Pay Per Click advertising to draw the much needed traffic.

But as this new means of advertising also becomes more popular, keyword click-through rates are rising. This medium, once inexpensive, can be a very costly means of generating traffic.

Every industry has its super-competitive and highly expensive keywords, but they also have a variety of untapped, inexpensive keywords or phrases that draw fewer searches but tend to attract more qualified visitors, costing pennies on the dollar.

This is one example where hiring an outside PPC manager comes in handy. SEOs who work in the industry are up to date on not only the rules of various search engines but also tricks that tend to increase qualified click-throughs. PPC professionals will do the research to find keywords that will not only cost significantly less per click, but that are also less competitive, giving you that higher-ranking position. Some PPC search engines rank their ads solely based on your maximum click through rate, but others, such as Google, use a more complicated system for ranking, and in order to maintain top spot, regular maintenance and tweaking is necessary. Having a professional manage these campaigns for you can save hours, freeing up your time to focus on other important aspects of your business.

While traditional search engine optimization is still very important to build a dominant web presence, and is essential for every promotional campaign, PPC can start to deliver traffic today. With PPC your listing is worded exactly as you like while directing traffic to the landing page of your choice. This can play a significant role in increasing conversion rates.

StepForth Placement has the experience needed to assist clients in getting the best bang for their buck when it comes to PPC management, and we are always available to answer questions. If you have been interested in have a PPC campaign started, contact us to find out what we can do for you.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 1:37 PM.

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Hitting the Fan, Again & Again - A Gmail Update - Story by Ross Dunn

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 1:36 PM

There have been a great deal of news since last week's issue on the advent of Google's controversial Gmail system created to compete with Yahoo! Mail and MSN's Hotmail. The news can be summarized quickly; upheaval.

Here are some examples of what has occurred since our last newsletter (April 7):
1/ US Senator Liz Figueroa of California launches a legal attack on Google's email scanning technology citing serious privacy concerns. Figueroa notes Gmail scanning is like "having a massive billboard in the middle of your home."

2/ Privacy International complained loudly to the UK's Information Commissioner regarding Gmail's intrusive email scanning and lack of compliance with data protection legislation in Europe. This compliance issue was focused on Gmail's terms of service which does not allow users to delete email permanently... in fact emails will reside on Gmail servers long after an account is closed!

To date the response from the UK Information Commissioner is that Google will not be penalized if it is upfront with these privacy issues during signup; don't expect privacy advocates to let this lie.

3/ The Market Age, a company based in the UK has claimed ownership of the Gmail name, legal action will be forthcoming.
The Result (to date)
In true Google style the company reminds the public that Gmail is in a 3-6 month test period and that it will be open to tester suggestions. That aside, Google is "batting about" ideas for satisfying privacy complaints before the product goes public.

Intentions
What does this mean for you and why does StepForth care so much about Gmail? Simply put, email scanning could launch an entirely different marketing segment that will mean mountains of additional publicity for pay-per-click clientele. This type of advertising could have an altered 'tint' as users begin to relate it to the hated spam email; not exactly a benefit to the honest PPC advertiser. It also suggests that there is no limit to privacy invasion as long as it is conducted by automated and "non-malicious" software. Frankly, the potential precedence here scares the hell out of me!

BONUS: Here is a screenshot of the Gmail interface posted by a Google employee
(Note: opens in new window and if it appears garbled just expand the window to the full size of your screen)

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 1:36 PM.

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Google to Allow Bidding on Trademarked Names

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 1:34 PM

Search engines work on word and character association. That's a fairly obvious simplification of how an extremely complex algorithm can detect a topic or theme from a 2 - 5 word search string and deliver a list of websites having something to do with that subject. Words are powerful in any language but English is the unofficial universal language of the web and English is a very imprecise language. Words can mean any number of things in a language built on several other languages (such as French, Latin, German and even Swedish). Loaded with synonyms, antonyms and homonyms, communication in English often crosses many perceptual barriers. The Internet is mainly a text-based medium in that words are primarily used to convey the message. When the same words are used often enough by a company or corporation, or to describe products and services offered by a company or corporation, these words become essential to the message put forth by that company or corporation. In many cases, protecting the use of those words becomes as important as protecting a brand-name. This presents an interesting paradox. What happens to words when they are registered as trademarks such as the phrase "Just Do It" has been by Nike?

Google has faced this issue several times in the past, most notably in a continuing case with American Blind and Wallpaper. This case centers around the use of the words "American Wallpaper" in paid and traditional listings. When searchers type the keyword phrase "American Wallpaper" into Google, several sites used to come up before the sites owned by American Blind and Wallpaper, as did several AdWord advertisements for other companies selling home decorating products. Recently, the site owned by American Blind and Wallpaper, (decoratetoday.com) started appearing in the #1 spot, just ahead of another site, adwf.com which is a redirect to decoratetoday.com. AdWords spots no longer appear under this keyword phrase for American Blinds and Wallpaper or for any other company for that matter. Clearly, Google had succumbed to legal pressure and was limiting an advertiser's right to use specific words that might be trademarked by other companies. That changed yesterday. In a move that will likely boost revenues and long-term legal costs, Google is once again allowing AdWords advertisers to make bids on keywords and phrases that may be covered by another company's trademark.

While allowing bids on keywords and phrases that may be used by another company, Google is not allowing advertisers to pass themselves off as that other company or to use the trademarked term in the ad-copy or title of the AdWords advert. Google is not about to let advertisers subvert the marketing and branding efforts of their competitors. Google seems to be taking a fairly realistic view of the usage of words and language in the search terms used by consumers. When a search engine user types product specific words into a search engine, they may not be looking for that exact product. Instead, they might be using a trademarked word that has become what I call synonymous-slang terms such as "Fridge", "Kleenex" or "Coke". The word "Fridge" is by far the most commonly used word to describe a refrigerator but it is actually a contraction of the company name "Frigidaire". Similarly, "Kleenex" is the brand-name of the facial tissue produced by the Kimberly Clark corporation but is the commonly used word to describe that specific type of product, regardless of the manufacturer. "Coke" is synonymous with both a beverage company based in Atlanta and an obnoxious narcotic derived from the leaves of the Coca Plant. Who's to say what a searcher is really looking for when they enter these keywords or others with similar synonymous-slang terms into a search engine?

Quoted in today's MediaPost, Douglas J. Wood, the founder and Chair of the Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance, says the incongruity between keyword buys and trademark infringement boils down to a similar problem that software-based adware companies face. For example, when a person orders a Coke at a fast food outlet, they'll often accept a soft-drink like Coke, such as Pepsi. After being exposed to mass-market advertising, consumers often naturally confuse a brand-name product with competing products produced under different names. Similarly, consumers are prone to equating a brand-name with an entire category of products, as in the case of Kleenex.

Google's move to allow advertisers to bid on what may be considered trademarked words will likely open the door to more revenue but will also undoubtedly present Google with litigation issues. It also allows advertisers to represent their products under keywords they feel will be used by searchers when looking for products of that type. According to Google spokesperson David Krane, "Our revised trademark policy significantly enhances the Google search experience and ensures that users are exposed to a wide variety of relevant, commercial information sources. This change in Google's trademark policy removes an obstacle that had prevented certain advertisers from targeting their ads in the manner they believed most useful." Whatever the outcome and whatever the spin, we expect to see costs rise in the future for brand and product specific keywords as bidding wars are started in order to claim the online market's ultimate goal known around these parts as the Eyeball advantage. The more eyeballs viewing an ad, the more product pushed by that ad. With Billions of dollars at stake in the contextual advertising market, it is no wonder Google is willing to push the boundaries when it comes to the ownership of basic words.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 1:34 PM.

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New Yahoo Fee Structure Applies NOW

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:05 PM

Many of you will have received notice from AltaVistas InfoSpider program stating that Yahoo will no longer be accepting paid-inclusion results from Inktomi. This statement is half-correct in that as of today, April 16, 2004, Yahoo is switching to its own database which has been developed from the Inktomi database. Yahoo recently unveiled a new paid-inclusion program that has a pay-per-click component along with an annual $49(US) review fee. This new pricing policy came into effect at midnight, April 15/16, 2004.

Now, before any panic sets in, please take note of a promise Yahoo made back in March when the new pricing policy was announced. Yahoo will honour all paid-inclusions made through Inktomi previous to April 15, 2004. That means that your sites are NOT about to fall out of the Yahoo/Overture index today but will continue to be spidered and included in the database until such time as your paid-inclusion contract with Inktomi expires.

That said, most webmasters will soon need to make some decisions regarding how much they are willing to pay to be listed at Yahoo and the network of sites that draw from the Yahoo database. The table at this link outlines fees for review / submission along with the estimated cost per click-through based on the industry or sector your business is involved with.

Pay-Per-Click
Pay-per-click rates are charged whenever a person clicks on your link at Yahoo or on one of Yahoos affiliates, AltaVista and AlltheWeb. These fees have been set by Yahoo and will be charged by Yahoos Overture division. We are not certain if these figures are set in stone or if they will change in the future. We are also not certain Yahoo will stick with this policy as there is a lot of opposition to this new pricing structure. The last search tool that introduced a pricing structure similar to this was LookSmart. They faced a webmaster revolt and lost literally millions of advertisers within six months of the introduction. This move contributed to the massive decrease in LookSmarts relevancy over the past year and may have played a role in MSNs decision to move from LookSmart listings to Inktomi (now Yahoo) listings. (there is a mother-lode of irony in them there hills)

Free Submit
Website owners do have a free-submit option with Yahoo however, for commercial websites or for highly competitive sectors we do not recommend relying on free-submit. It is recommended that each page of the site be submitted via free-submit. In order to facilitate that, StepForth will need to charge a specific submission fee as the time taken to properly submit the full site will depend on the size of the site.

The biggest difference will be in the frequency of spider visits to your site. Sites that are submitted to Yahoo via (paid) Site Match will be spidered every 48-hours. Site submitting via free-submit may be spidered once per month. This will present a significant competitive advantage to webmasters whose budgets allow for paid submission and click-through fees as all changes will be seen and recorded much faster for paid sites than non-paid sites.

Site Match XChange

For larger websites, corporate sites, or for sites that contain a lot of dynamic content that changes more than twice per week, another means of submitting up to date information from the site exists. In these cases, the Site Match XChange program may be the best option.

Site Match XChange uses an XML live-feed to constantly send information to the Yahoo database. While there is no annual review fee, costs per click will vary with the specific website. Please contact your StepForth representative for more information or to begin the process of setting up this type of account.

If you have any questions about this client bulletin, please contact Jim Hedger by Email:
jim@stepforth.com

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:05 PM.