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Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Traffic Power Class Action - Spammed I am man...

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:42 PM

For years we have been warning that unethical SEO techniques that violate Google's SEO guidelines could result in a site being banned from the Google index. In the past week, Google made a fairly major ranking update that appears to have wiped clients of Traffic Power, from the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

A growing class action lawsuit is targeting what are being called unethical SEO practices used by Traffic Power. Many webmasters are familiar with a regular barrage of unsolicited Emails and phone calls from this firm and most wisely choose to ignore them. Some webmasters, unfortunately, did not ignore Traffic Power and contracted them to perform services on their websites. In the past weeks, clients of Traffic Power were almost universally banned from Google. While there is no way these businesses will make it back into the Google index without a significant amount of work on their websites, they may find some sense of solace in a growing class action lawsuit currently being developed by the San Francisco IT law firm, Girard Gibbs & De Bartolomeo, LLP.

Traffic Power (TP) is a fairly large company based in Las Vegas with a very bad reputation. Since the latest Google update, many of their former clients have posted information in a variety of search engine related forums detailing the techniques TP used to achieve placements for their sites. The postings read like a list of what NOT to do when considering SEO techniques. In the words of StepForth PPC and Link Building expert Scott Van Achte, "They (TP techniques) are so 90's". Getting a huge portion of your client list banned from Google takes a great deal of dedication to poor practices. Based on information provided by their former clients, here are a few of the methods used by TP and how to spot if these techniques are used on your website.

Doorway Pages
While Traffic Power uses the phrase "Attraction Pages", the design of numerous pages on the same topic designed specifically to game search engines is a technique that was banned years ago. As recently as November, Traffic Power told clients they would, "...build 280 individual HTML attraction pages that attract the search engines for your targeted keywords. The attraction pages are designed using a computer-generated analysis to conform to the ranking criteria of the top search engines. These pages provide spider food for the search engine spiders that includes significant unique content relating to your site." This technique directly violates Google's SEO guidelines. Here is Google's take on Doorway Pages: "Another illicit practice is to place "doorway" pages loaded with keywords on the client's site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of keywords. More insidious however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO's other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content."

As of today, Traffic Power's website refers to Search Engine Entrance Pages (SEE Pages). Here is a quote snipped from their FAQ page:
"A search engine entrance (SEE) page is a one page version of content taken from your site that is housed at a new Web site address. To create a SEE page site we register a new domain based on your keywords and upload the SEE page, the Traffic-Power.com code, and over 100 unique Advertising Pages. If someone finds the SEE page directly or through an Advertising Page they will be automatically sent to your original site once they click on any link on the SEE page." This is a spammy technique that violates Google's SEO guidelines.

Automated Link Building - Link Farming
Link building is an important factor in Google ranking. Link Farming is an unethical means of providing links to your clients. Traffic Power does not refer to their technique as Link Farming but instead told clients they would be added to specifically themed "link pools". Google's SEO Guidelines and Webmaster Guidelines have at least two warnings about this sort of practice.

Mouse-Over Redirects
This technique is truly creative spam. Traffic Power designs a page that redirects to the client's website when a mouse is drawn over any portion of that page. What this does is a cheap but relativity simple cousin to cloaking in that Google is fed one set of information but the live-site viewer is offered a different set of information when they move their mouse over the page that ranked well in Google's SERP. From what I gather in the various forums, this is the trick that got a wide array of Traffic Power's client base banned.

I am, or someone I know is, a Traffic Power Client - NOW WHAT?
First of all, take a deep breath. The sky may have fallen for a short period but your website is not necessarily damned to eternal Google purgatory. There are a number of resources you can turn to, depending on your web design skills, the amount of free time you have, and your confidence in your own abilities. The SEO Consultants Directory has taken a lead role in helping former Traffic Power clients cope with the situation they find themselves in. SEO Consultants has been retained by a consortium of business owners who are concerned about this issue. While remaining anonymous, the Consortium is obviously actively pursuing information about Traffic Power and has asked SEO Consultants to gather and publish information about this issue. They have published a series of pages with detailed suggestions on what former Traffic Power clients should do. I strongly suggest anyone who has had an association with Traffic Power to visit this series of pages.

What Does this Mean for Ethical SEO's?
As with our cousins in other service based industries, the Search Engine Marketing sector has had to deal with cheats for years. The fact is, the services we sell can not be touched, smelt, eaten or easily understood by our clients. As a sector, we rely on a trusting relationship with our clients. Without the trust of webmasters and business owners, none of us would work in this fascinating business environment. An SEO who cheats or uses illegal practices as a common rule makes all of our lives more difficult. From a business perspective, cheaters place us all in perceptual peril. From a human perspective, no one with any sense of kindness likes to see other businesses suffer because they got scammed. There are REAL PEOPLE behind the website with REAL JOBS and REAL LIVES, many of whom have never read source-code. These real people have mortgages or rent to pay. They need to feed their children and pay for their educations. A business that has been banned by Google after previously enjoying strong placements will almost certainly suffer for the sudden lack of inclusion. Will any of those real people get laid off from their real jobs due to the techniques used on their sites by Traffic Power? This is a REAL ISSUE for the SEO and SEM communities.

We are in the unique position of seeing commonly used practices suddenly banned by the mediums we work with, however, a good SEO or SEM firm learns to adapt their techniques to meet the ever changing best practice guidelines. As a matter of fact, there is a specific search engine marketing forum dedicated to discussing and promoting best practices in our industry. Run by South Carolina based SEO Doug Heil, the Best Practices Search Engine Forums are among the most widely referred to sources of information and discussion in the ethical SEO sector. As with many other Search Engine related forums, there has been quite a bit of discussion about the Traffic Power issue. Here is a link to the liveliest discussion at the Best Practices Forum. I wrote to Doug Heil asking him his opinion on this issue. Here is what he had to say about "outing" SEO and SEM firms using unethical practices on client sites, "Naming spammers does two things; It 'informs' the general public as to 'who' might risk your website, and it informs the spamming SEO that they have a problem. "Many" times SEO's have contacted me saying they made changes to their business model because of what was discussed in my forums, and have become a true "Best Practice SEO" who follows the guidelines of the search engines." Doug is absolutely correct on this issue.

Here are links to other forums and discussions about this issue.

JimWorld | High Rankings Forums | SEO Chat | WebProWorld
Affilate Gurus | WebMaster World | Traffic Power Sucks

SEOs
This issue is going to spill over into the mainstream media sooner than later. When it does, it is likely our industry will be placed under an electronic microscope. There will be a number of stories about ethical and unethical SEO techniques and there will be a number of SEO and SEM firms who will likely feel the heat. At this time, it is probably a good idea for all of us to review our techniques and be ready to explain them (without giving away the farm of course) whenever clients or the media come calling.

Webmasters and Business Owners
The only real advice I can offer is to ask difficult questions before hiring an SEO firm. Take a few minutes to learn about the industry so you will be able to make an informed decision regarding the company you are going to bet your placements on. If you feel uncomfortable with the answers you are receiving from an SEO, be sure to copy everything down and check your notes with another SEO firm. Look to see if the SEO firm you are thinking about hiring has posted a statement of ethics on their website. Check with past clients to be sure that the company does stick to its ethics. Most importantly, shop around. The highest price does not necessarily guarantee the highest level of service. Similarly, the lowest fees don't necessarily mean you'll get scammed. In Latin the phrase is CAVEAT EMPTOR or "Let the Buyer Beware". Don't get caught unaware like clients of Traffic Power have.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:42 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Traffic Power Class Action - Spammed I am man...

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Apple's Tiger Jumps MS's Longhorn Sheep

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:41 PM

Apple Computers CEO Steve Jobs has scooped rival Bill Gates for the umpteenth time in their parallel careers. Yesterday, Jobs unleashed TIGER, the new Apple O/S. Tiger's main feature, aside from providing an operating environment is SEARCH. Helping users find documents, email, and websites on their hard drives, intranets and the greater Internet, Tiger seems to have taken the important pages from the MS engineers' notebooks. For anyone who has seen the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley", this seems to be a bit of ironic justice. Sometimes I wish I was a MAC user.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:41 PM.

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MSN Search is ALMOST in the House

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:41 PM

Bill Gates has announced that MSN is about to revamp its search feature and introduce a new, proprietary back-end database to run it. Speaking in Sydney Australia, Gates informed journalists, "The format of the site will change and so will the quality of what you get." We expect the look of the site to change before the technology does but when the back-end is introduced, it may act like no other search tool currently does. Having conducted linguistics and taxonomy research for the better part of a decade, the Microsoft team expects to be able to not only find documents based on specific keywords and phrases, but to also find documents based on the context of the keyword phrase or full sentences entered into their new search tool. While Gates did not set a firm date, the new tool is expected to be released before the end of 2004.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:41 PM.

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Yahoo Challenges Google

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:40 PM

Yahoo's Overture has picked up the Local Search gauntlet dropped by Google's Adwords program in April. As Scott Van Achte writes this week, "Overture's Local Match allows advertisers to promote their business regardless of weather or not they even have a website." In this move, Yahoo is not only targeting Google's Adwords program, they are also taking on the Yellow Pages. "It's an important part of the search business," said Overture spokesperson Gaude Paez. "Our own research, as well as the research of others, shows that many people who search for products buy them offline." (quote from Jason Lopez NewsFactor Network article)

Localized search is one of the key features the major search engines are trying to perfect in order to present stronger competition to each other and other traditional listings services such as the aforementioned Yellow Pages.

In the organic listings, Yahoo is basing its localized results on the street address mentioned on a website while Google bases its localized results on the IP number of the computer conducting the search.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:40 PM.

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New Changes from Google and Overture (By Scott Van Achte)

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:39 PM

Google ADWORDS
In a recent Google mail out sent to AdWords advertisers, Google announced that over the next few days they will be introducing changes to their AdWords program in an attempt to increase the relevance of targeted ads and increase conversions.

Google's improvements will give them the ability to more precisely identify the most relevant ads for a particular query, which in turn may result in more qualified traffic for some advertisers and less un-qualified for others.

In Google's example, a company advertising for Alaskan cruises may select ‘cruises’ as a broad-matched keyword. If searchers were looking for ‘Hawaiian cruises’ the Alaskan ad will show up but generate very few clicks, drastically reducing its click through rate. This would result in the keyword ‘cruises’ being disabled for poor performance. With the new system, broad matched terms such as ‘cruises’ will only be disabled for queries that are not converting and will stay active for more relevant searches.

These changes will only affect broad-matched keywords, but in the future Google plans on making improvements, which will utilize phrase and exact match.

To ensure that you continue to get the most out of your AdWords ads, or any other PPC campaign, regular monitoring and tweaking is always recommended.

Overture LOCAL MATCH
Recently Google introduced local ad targeting right down to a 20 mile radius for its AdWords advertisers. Overture has now begun to offer the same local targeting known as ‘Local Match,’ but is directing focus more towards businesses with a physical street address.

Overture's Local Match allows advertisers to promote their business regardless of weather or not they even have a website. When a user performs a search for a product or service on a search site such as Yahoo, the sponsored ad will appear. When clicked, it brings up the ‘locator page’ which will provide a map to the business, physical address, a link to their web page (if applicable) and other customizable information.

Local Match, although useful for online businesses is more targeted towards companies who are lacking a web presence or are more interested in having customers arrive at their physical store.

Local Match is based on a cost-per-click platform and required a minimum $20 monthly deposit, but unlike Overtures traditional PPC, there is no minimum spend.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:39 PM.

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Paid Placement On The Natural Engines (By Dave Davies)

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:34 PM

In the PPC world the more you pay the higher you rank. A #1 ranking on Overture for “search engine placement” would cost $8.01 and a #3, $5.25. It has generally been understood that this is a major difference between the PPC engines and the natural engines. You can’t buy placement on the natural search engines … or can you?

A relatively recent development in the world of the SEO has been the practice of buying links. The purchase of links serves two functions though only one is of importance for the purpose of this article. Paid links, like paid advertising, can bring you direct traffic through click on your link. This is the less relevant aspect for the purpose of this article. The main reason that the purchase of paid links has become as popular as it has among the SEO community is for the one-way links that it builds to your website.

For any of you who have ever done reciprocal link building you know that finding high quality, high PageRank links can be extremely daunting. If you are willing to pay for those links however the effort and time required comes down quite significantly (though obviously the cost goes up).

Paid links range in price from anywhere between $5/mth to thousands and take into consideration a number of factors including:

1/ PageRank of the site
2/ Number of pages the link will be placed on
3/ The number of characters allowed for the link (i.e. 20 characters long, 30 characters long, etc.)
4/ Whether descriptive text will be included
5/ Topic of the site
6/ Location of the link

PageRank
The PageRank is arguably the most important of these factors. A link from a PageRank 8 site is far more valuable that a link from a PageRank 6 website.

Number Of Pages
This used to be very important but seems to be slipping. Once upon a time a Run-Of-Site link (a link on every page) was extremely valuable as it could translate into hundreds and sometimes thousands of links. It seems that multiple links are no longer valued in the same way as they used to be though there is still a very significant advantage in multiple links from the same site and that is intimidation. When you competition runs a backlink count on you and sees thousands of links pointing to your site they will not like their odds and may choose to compete for a different phrase.

Number Of Characters
When you purchase a link the seller will almost always specify the number of characters the link can be in length. The higher the number of characters the more words you can use as the anchor text for the link. This may or may not be important. If your anchor text is “SEO” then it doesn’t much matter if the link can be 30 characters or not. If your anchor text is “search engine placement” then it becomes a much more relevant factor.

Descriptive Text
Some site owners will allow you to include descriptive text for relevancy (much like reciprocal links pages but better). This is extremely beneficial if the content of the site you are purchasing links from is not entirely related to yours. This will help the search engines see relevancy between the two sites.

Site Topic
Relevant now and destined to become more important as time passes. If the content of the site you are purchasing a link from is entirely related to yours the link would be more valuable. Again, the importance of this will only increase as time goes on.

Location
The location of the link on the page is very relevant. The higher up and further left the link is the more weight it will be given. A link in the left-hand navigation is ideal; a link in the footer is the least valuable.

So where do you go to find links to buy if you do want to go this route. There are a number of resources you can use. The first is Google itself. Running a search for “text link” your topic is a good place to start and you can refine your search from there.

There are also a few auction/brokerage sites that allow you to advertise the sale of links on your site and bid on links from others. A few of the more popular are:

LinkAdage (my personal favorite)
BuySellLinks (a good one for lower quality but less expensive links)
TextLinkBrokers (this is a brokerage firm that sells links for others)

Some General Rules To Follow When Buying Links
The buying and selling of links, like PPC campaigns, must be monitored to insure that you’re getting the best return on your investment. Some of the basic rules are:

- Monitor the sites you are buying links from on at least a monthly basis to insure that the PR they were when you bought is the same or higher.
- Try to get your link on many but not necessarily all pages of the site. If you can get your link on 20 key pages of a site rather than a run-of-site you are probably better off. As Google and the other search engines try to detect and reduce the weight of paid links, things like a link on every page MAY become indicators to them (I know I would add that in if I were Google).
- Look around before buying. Check all the auction sites and run some searches on Google to find the best values. If you want to get even better results you may want to use the tool I raved about in last week’s article; PRProwler. It will help weed out low PageRank links.
- Unless the price is just something you can’t refuse, try to only get links on highly relevant sites. Relevancy is sure to become an increasingly important factor as time goes on. It’s also a good practice if you’d also like to get real click-throughs from the site you’re buying links from (especially if the link is well located on the page).

I do hope that this helps you in your promotions. If you have any questions about paid links or other SEO issues please don’t hesitate to contact us.

SEO Warning: This technique is still useful but may be targeted by Google in the near future. A good rule of thumb is to be certain the site linking to you is relevant to the topic of your website.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:34 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Paid Placement On The Natural Engines (By Dave Davies)

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Can-Spam Act seems to mean I CAN SPAM

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:33 PM

Six months after coming into effect, the US Can-SPAM act is being called a failure. Montreal based Email security firm Vircom says that of the 547,685 email messages it has examined since January 2004 when the law went into effect, only 71 or 0.013% of them conformed with the law. "It is apparent from these results that spammers are not worried about any potential legal action," said Marc Chouinard, head of Vircom's Spam Buster Team. "If a business relies on legislation to handle the spam problem, they are pretty much out of luck," Vircom spam expert Michael Gaudette said in a statement.

One of the reasons the Can-SPAM act is toothless is that the majority of SPAM does not come from businesses based in the United States. While 55% of all email SPAM originates in the US, less than 1% of the websites the SPAM directs readers to are based in the US. According to a Globe and Mail article, 99% of all websites referred to by SPAM emails are hosted in China, South Korea, the United States, Russia and Brazil, with a whopping 73% of those sites being hosted in China.

Under the Can-SPAM act, unsolicited Emails must have the following elements to comply with the law:
- a functioning return e-mail address
- a postal address and include an option to "unsubscribe."
- a subject line that is not deceptive.

The vast majority of SPAM email does not carry any of the three above mentioned elements. SPAM is a scourge on the Internet. I use CloudMark's SPAMNET to catch SPAM email before it clogs my inbox. I dumped my SPAM box on Monday of this week. As of this minute (Wed. 3:26PM), SPAMNET has filtered 1,222 pieces of SPAM. That is approximately 400 unique SPAM emails per day.

There is one sure-fire way to beat the SPAMMERS right now. DO NOT BUY THEIR PRODUCTS, ever. Do not click their ads and do not open their emails. Eventually they will stop mass-sending. Even though it's that simple, thousands of people will order sexual enhancements or some such other uselessness from SPAM emails today. Sad.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:33 PM.

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View this Article Only: Can-Spam Act seems to mean I CAN SPAM

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Monday, June 28, 2004

SEO-Spam Class Action

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 10:55 AM

The folks at Traffic-Power find themselves in a pickle this week. Due to the use of unapproved SEO techniques such as 1x1 pixel gif links, doorway pages and cloaking, many of the clients have found themselves banned by Google.

A class action lawsuit has formed lead by the San Francisco firm, Girard Gibbs & De Bartolomeo, LLP.

Also, We received a notice by Email which read:

The SEO Consultants Directory have been commissioned by a Consortium to assemble and publish a collection of online documents that refer to a search engine optimization company by the name of Traffic-Power.com out of Las Vegas, Nevada. If you are a client and/or partner of Traffic-Power.com, it is suggested that you read the following information. (Please click here)

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 10:55 AM.

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Friday, June 25, 2004

Google Update - IPO, SERPS, Open & Outsourcing, GMAIL

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:57 PM

Over the past seven years, it is fairly safe to say that the use of search engines has revolutionized our methods of finding and valuing information. Almost any activity involving research from personal travel planning to corporate business planning has been made far easier through the use of search engines. When one search tool or firm dominates as Google has for the past three years, it will get a lot more attention from the public and the media. Case in point, Google. Synonymous with search, Google has changed the world. For the most part, Google has made it a better place to live. That in itself justifies the intense scrutiny constantly focused at virtually every move made in the Googleplex. The fact they are changing rapidly further justifies the public and media interest and the hoopla.

This week, Google continues to find itself in the public spotlight despite the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) imposed "Quiet Period" preceding the issuance of their long awaited IPO. It has been a busy week in Mountain View California. Google has made several announcements in the past few days, each of which could warrant a full column on their own. Here is a quick run-down of the past seven days of activity.

IPO NEWS
As anyone with a computer knows, Google is issuing its Initial Public (stock) Offering in a "Dutch-Auction" format. This means that individual investors will have a short window of time to bid on Google shares in an auction format. As with all auctions, the highest bidders will get the goods. In order to issue public shares, Google had to file detailed plans with the SEC. As with most businesses, especially in the tech world, plans often change when the business or technical environment changes. This week, Google made a few modifications to their original filing with the SEC.

1) Google has lowered the minimum number of shares individuals can bid on to 5 from the traditional 100. This will allow smaller investors the opportunity to participate in the auction by purchasing a smaller block of shares. Google has issued a warning to investors stating that over-enthusiastic bidding might push the price of shares to a cost-price that has no relationship with the actual value of the company, thus pushing the price of shares to unsustainable levels. If this was to happen, speculators and professional investors might choose to short the stock, an action that would burst the balloon and quickly devalue the price of shares.

2) Google is going to outsource its "critical financial functions" which include billing, credit evaluation and collections. This is extremely important to Google as the number of revenue-sharing agreements with individuals, webmasters and other corporations grows exponentially. Google does not have the experience or person-power to track the millions of agreements it has made while it continues to base its bottom line on revenues generated through these agreements. This section of their filing concludes with the statement, "If we do not successfully implement this project, our business, reputation and operating results could be harmed."

3) Google has dropped the venerable brokerage Merrill Lynch from its roster of underwriters. While neither Google or Merrill Lynch are able to discuss details, sources in the financial media cite Merrill Lynch's unwillingness to modify its operating procedures to meet the auction format for such a small profit margin.

GMAIL NEWS
Google's new GMail system will electronically scan the text of all Emails and place contextual advertising based on the topic of the Email. This has raised a great deal of concern for privacy advocates and may prompt legislation banning the practice as is currently being debated in California and Massachusetts. Google has noted that concerns around the collection, use of, or sharing of, personal information found in GMails might "hurt its reputation". In reaction to our increasingly prurient culture, Google has announced several sectors that will not be allowed to target GMail recipients. GMails with words relating to sex, guns, drugs, online dating, and other topics that might offend "family values" will not have advertisements displayed in them. Google will also avoid displaying an ad beside text that criticizes a product or series of products. In other words, if your (BRAND NAME HERE) car breaks down and you write your friend about it, Google will not show ads for cars in that GMail.

Google Dancing with the Penguin? (Open Source Google)
One of the most interesting Google rumours from the past week comes from a tech recruitment trip to Australia where Google hopes to open a Research and Development centre. According to company VP of engineering Wayne Rosing, Google's technical director Craig Silverstein has initiated a project to scan Google's code to determine which parts can be released to the public safely. While they will not open the entire box of code that makes Google operate, especially with Microsoft breathing down their necks, there are several (massive) sections of code that would be of great benefit to the development community.

Google PR and Backlink Update (Just in case you haven't noticed)
Google is in the midst of what appears to be a major update of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), starting with a change in the number of incoming links being measured and a subsequent change in PageRank for most sites. In the past four hours, we have seen PageRanks (as measured by the Google Toolbar) fluctuate wildly, in some cases defying what we understand as "Google Physics". On a Quit-Smoking affiliate product site owned by StepForth's marketing director Dave Davies, the INDEX page was recorded as a PR5 while one of the internal pages showed a PR6! One of our clients wrote me this morning to tell me that a new site which had a PR0 was now a PR5! We measure backlinks twice each day with our first check at 9:15am and our second at 4:15pm. This morning we noted that Google showed StepForth.com had over 2250 incoming links. A few minutes later we noted only 1540 as seen by Google. Similar fluctuations are being shown for several client sites as well.

These fluctuations will have an impact on the rankings as shown in the SERPs. We expect to see some fairly significant changes to the SERPs in the coming days. Google is in an interesting position today. The responsibilties of being the most popular information resource in the world must be enormous. Add the responsibilities of running one of the largest tech-businesses and one can emphasize with the pressures on the executive trio running the show at the Googleplex.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:57 PM.

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View this Article Only: Google Update - IPO, SERPS, Open & Outsourcing, GMAIL

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Find.Com - New Business Search Engine

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:56 PM

A new search engine focusing on business and industry was released earlier this week. Find.Com is a very interesting tool that seems to combine the "clustering" format of Vivisimo with the variety of a meta-crawler search tool. Owned by Empire Media of New York NY, Find.Com works with search-technology developer TripleHop Technology's enterprise search software, MatchPoint. Here is the explanation of the software and how the search tool works, copied directly from their About page:

TripleHop’s solutions were designed on the premise that the relevancy of search results depends on the task at hand and the intended use of the information collected, and thus changes with the context. TripleHop’s core technology combines the best of semantic and statistical analysis to bring unparalleled recall, precision and contextualization to your queries.
MatchPoint is based on a service oriented architecture that includes several layers. Functional layers include an Information Discovery layer that consists of a set of “intelligent” crawlers and connectors, an Information Processing layer that features most of MatchPoint’s extraction and categorization technology, which feeds the data model (or Information Model) layer. The Information Retrieval layer includes an automatic result categorization (clustering) technology as well as the cornerstone of MatchPoint: the Federator, which merges results from internal indexes with results from the search engine connectors and achieves normalization and cross-sources relevance ranking.

In other words, Find.Com may have built a better mousetrap by combining several successful techniques into one technology.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:56 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Find.Com - New Business Search Engine

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Never Turn Down a Link... Almost (Scott Van Achte)

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:55 PM

There was a time when link building meant finding only high PageRank links that used no forms of tracking, but now, free high PR links are extremely difficult to find, and more and more webmasters are using various tracking techniques.

When many people go out looking for links, they tend to focus on higher PageRanks. High PR is certainly useful and very important, but its important to know that those sites have not always had high PR’s. All sites have to start somewhere, and if you can get that free link while the site is at a lower PR why not?

My suggestion, continue to seek out the high PR links, but don’t overlook the sites with a PR 2, 3, or even 0! If you come across a site with a low PR that will offer you a free and relevant link, without taking too much of your time to submit to it, go for it.

We have obtained free links in relevant directories with very low PR’s that now show a PR6 and charge for submissions! This goes for PR0 sites as well… if you find a new site that’s just starting out, and it looks like it has what it takes to move up in popularity, take the link while you can. Always keep in mind, today’s PR2’s are tomorrow’s PR 6’s and 7’s.

Although you should seldom turn down a link, there are times when you should steer the other way. If you come across a site that uses spam or any other ‘illegal’ SEO tactics, stay clear. A link on these sites in many cases may actually damage your placements. Straight link farms are less dangerous, but
will also pose very little, if any, benefit and are best to avoid.

Links on sites that have no relevance what so ever will certainly not harm you, and in some cases may help, but try to keep focus on sites that are related, as you’ll get the most juice from these.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:55 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Never Turn Down a Link... Almost (Scott Van Achte)

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Google Results DO NOT Assist Dismal or Lazy Journalism

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 12:53 PM

Search Engine Watch editor Danny Sullivan posted an interesting thread in the new Search Engine Watch forums yesterday. It seems Danny was interviewed by FOX news in their attempt to prove the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had an anti-American bias. The evidence used by the FOX journalist was that there are 51,100 sites related to the keyword phrase “BBC Anti-American” listed at Google. This sort of statistic is available to anyone as Google displays the approximate number of sites in which keywords entered by a searcher can be found in the upper right corner of search results. Problem is, as an analytic tool, this stat is absolutely useless. The only reasonable inference one can make from viewing this number is that there are approximately 51,000 websites that contain both of the words "BBC" and "Anti-American".

A handy tool for lazy journalists or those who simply choose not to figure out how search engines work is Google Fight. This tool allows users to enter two competing keyword phrases. Just for fun, let's test "BBC Anti-American" against "Fox Anti-American"... BBC had slightly more hits with 51,100 results against Fox's 50,300 results but as the numbers tell, the count is very close, maybe a bit too close.... A quick note to the Department of Homeland Security. Check out that Robert Murdoch fellow or his Fox News employees, Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson. Not only would that be fair and balanced, there just may be something there... Just a thought...

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 12:53 PM.

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View this Article Only: Google Results DO NOT Assist Dismal or Lazy Journalism

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Wednesday, June 16, 2004

SEO Technique Update - Google/Yahoo/Ask (June 2004)

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:23 PM

Every few months it is a good idea to review SEO techniques in light of changes in the ranking algorithms used by the major search engines. As of today, there are only two major organic search tools we worry about, Google, and Yahoo. Both of these search tools look at different elements of your website when considering where to rank the site in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). While considered one of the "Big Three", MSN continues to receive results from the Yahoo/Inktomi database with LookSmart listings being displayed from time to time. MSN is likely to release its own algorithmic search engine in the coming months. What works for Yahoo tends to work with MSN. Please note, these basic rules for rankings may change at any given moment. That's one of the things that make this job so much fun...

Google continues to be the most popular search engine in terms of user visits and the number of queries each month. Feeding organic results to AOL, Netscape, Iwon, Go.Com and Excite, as well providing onsite search tools for webmasters wishing to include a search function on their websites, Google is said to drive just under 50% of daily search traffic. Google was founded on a basic algorithm known as PageRank. PageRank is fairly basic in explanation but extremely complex in its application. In as few words as possible, Google checks the number of incoming links directed to each site in its database. The larger number of incoming links from relevant sites, the better chances of achieving strong placements.

According to reports from the Search Engine Strategies conference held last week in London, Google is basing much of its ranking formula on incoming links. There are other factors or elements that Google examines but the real power at Google is in the strength and phrasing of incoming links. There is a great deal of power in links however all links are not created equal. For Google to consider a link as a reflection of the validity of the site in question, that link needs to meet a few basic standards. First of all, the link needs to originate on a page that is relevant to the topic of the page being linked to. Next, the anchor text of that link should be phrased to be relevant to the topic of the site being linked to. We tend to use our main target keyword phrases when acquiring links for our clients' sites. Finally, links from pages that are considered "authorities" such as directories, non-profit organizations, or sites with high PageRank (6/10 or higher as shown in the Google Toolbar), tend to produce stronger results than links from non-authority sites. Other site elements that need to be considered include the TITLE, DESCRIPTION META TAG, BODY TEXT and ONSITE NAVIGATION. With the TITLE, be sure to include your strongest keyword phrase in the title of the website. You should use unique titles on each page of the site, making the title specific to the topic of each page. The DESCRIPTION META TAG is important as it helps Google determine the topic of the website. Keep the DESCRIPTION short and highly focused, weaving your strongest keyword phrases into a well written sentence. The BODY TEXT should also be highly focused with incidents of keyword phrases appearing as near the beginning of the text as possible. Lastly, be certain Google's spider can travel through the entire website from point "A" to point "Z". You can do this by using a text-based navigation map, generally appended to bottom of each page in the site. It is important to understand that Google works by having its spider follow every link it comes across on the web. You don't even need to submit your site to Google if there are links from other sites leading to your site, Google will find it on its own.

Google at a Glance:

- Incoming links from relevant websites
- Keyword enriched anchor text for all incoming links
- Keyword enriched titles (unique for each page in site)
- Well written Description meta tag
- Topical and focused body text with main keyword phrases appearing early in the text
- Easily followed text-based internal navigation

Yahoo has made major improvements on their search tool over the past months and is seen by many as providing more relevant results than Google currently does. Yahoo provides results for, MSN, Overture, HotBot, Excite, and thousands of other websites using Yahoo as their onsite search tool provider. Yahoo's spider (a version of Inktomi's Slurp) works the same way Google's does by following every link it finds on the web. This is the primary way Yahoo populates its database. Like Google, Yahoo does place some weight on the value of incoming links, just not nearly as much as Google does. Yahoo seems to be more interested in the actual site content, which may be why the results shown at Yahoo seem to be more relevant. In order to vie for a strong ranking at Yahoo you should concentrate on extremely well written site content and pay attention to the following site elements: TITLES, DESCRIPTION META TAG, KEYWORDS META TAG (yes, you read that right), BODY TEXT, INTERNAL NAVIGATION, and the number of keywords that appear within your body text.

TITLES should be topical and should include at least one incident of the target keyword phrase. You should write page-specific titles, using different internal pages to promote different keyword phrases. The DESCRIPTION should be short (99 characters or less if possible) and contain as many incidents of the keyword phrase as you can write into a proper sentence. Yahoo seems to be giving some weight to the KEYWORDS meta tag so it is wise to take a bit of time preparing this tag. The BODY TEXT is extremely important at Yahoo, more so than at Google. Be sure you use your keywords and keyword phrases wisely and place them as close to the beginning of the body text as possible. At this point, you need to consider the number of keywords and keyword phrases in comparison with the total number of words used on the page. You want to shoot for a density of approximately 1 keyword for every 20 words found on the page. Please note, this is an approximation. Check your competition to see what their keyword density ratios are as the optimum ratio is often different from one business sector to the next. Lastly, it is important to provide a roadmap for Slurp as it travels through your site by providing a text based navigation map at the bottom of each page in the site.

Yahoo at a Glance:

- Keyword enriched titles (unique titles for unique pages in the site)
- Short keyword enriched Description meta tag
- Keywords meta tag
- Well written, keyword enriched body text
- Easy to follow internal links phrased in standard text
- Keyword Density (ratio of keywords vs. non-keywords) conforms with average from competitors' sites

If you make your website meet the basic standards for the search engines, your site has a much better chance of seeing strong search engine placements. Another essential element for any website is a text-based sitemap listing every page in the website. This provides the ultimate roadmap for search engine spiders and also adds another level of navigational assistance for live-human visitors.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:23 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: SEO Technique Update - Google/Yahoo/Ask (June 2004)

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PPC for Pennies - goClick great alternative to Google (by Scott Van Achte)

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:22 PM

If you are looking to spend some of your advertising dollars on Pay Per Click (PPC), but don't care for the high prices of Google and Overture, you may want to take a look at some of the other PPC engines out there.

Many PPC Engines charge set up fees and have minimum click through rates of 5 and 10 cents, along with minimum monthly spends. For a small business on a limited budget testing the PPC waters, this may prove to be rather expensive. goClick offers no set up fees or minimum monthly spend, and click rates as low as a cent.

Once you have signed up, your initial deposit can be as low as $10 to allow you to try out their services, thereafter the minimum is $25. With no fees and such a low initial deposit, this gives advertisers a great opportunity to try out goClick without the risk.

In many cases you will find keywords normally selling for over a dollar on Google, can be purchased for just a cent on goCLick. For advertisers on a limited budget this gives them the chance to bid on some of the more popular keywords without draining their advertising resources. With a search network handling more then 600 million searches per month, goClick is a great alternative providing quality traffic.

goClick’s interface is very simple and straight forward, and for someone new at PPC they will likely have no problem figuring out how to set up and manage their account.

For an experienced AdWords advertiser, there may be a level of frustration with goClick's lack of reporting features. They currently offer a fairly basic means of reporting that displays keyword clicks, average cost and average position, and a report to isolate specific days. For most, this will be sufficient, but for some users, they may prefer more detail.

Overall for someone interested in generating some new traffic at a relatively low cost, with a minimum commitment of only $10, goClick is certainly worth a look.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:22 PM.

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View this Article Only: PPC for Pennies - goClick great alternative to Google (by Scott Van Achte)

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Tools Of The Trade (by Dave Davies)

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:16 PM

A carpenter has his hammer, a plumber his wrench, a doctor his scalpel, and an SEO … well an SEO too has a wide variety of tools at their disposal to aid in the process of producing a successful search engine placement campaign. From the selection and balancing of keywords to the building of links, there are tools that aid in the optimization and ranking process.

In today's articles we will outline some of the most prominent and some of the best that we have found. Some of them are extremely useful, and some are just very "cool".

Tools For The Selection Of Keywords
There are two main tools that we use in helping our clients select keywords. It is important to use these tools and make sure the keywords you're selecting are the best for your campaign. Choosing the right keywords is the first and arguably the most important step of your promotion. Take your time and use these tools well.

Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool
The Overture search term suggestion tool is a free tool provided by Overture that allows you to enter a single keyword (like "health") and see how many people ran searches on the Overture engine for health-related phrases. (for example: the single keyword "health" got 3,440,458 searches, the next highest was health insurance with 701,629 searches. The tool displays a long list of results, right down to occupational health and safety with 7,046 searches last month.

The biggest drawback to the Overture search term suggestion tool as it applies to natural search engine optimization is that it automatically corrects misspellings and also negates plurals. This means that all singular spellings of keywords, plurals, and misspelled keywords are all lumped into the same number.

WordTracker
WordTracker is a pay-for service with a great free trial. WordTracker does account for differences in singular vs. plural forms and also does differentiate misspellings providing a much clearer view of how the searches break down.

The biggest drawback to this is that it's a paid service however I would highly recommend checking out their free trial. It will only produce the top 15 results but who knows, that may be enough.

Tools For Optimization
Two good tools to use during the optimization process are WebPositon Gold and goRank's keyword density analyzer.

WebPosition Gold
While I am not a big fan of the optimization tips given by WebPosition Gold I am an enormous fan of their ranking reports. No tool I've found makes it easier to check all your keyword rankings across so many engines with such ease.

The software starts at $149 but given the time it will save you it's easily worth every penny.

GoRank's Keyword Density Analyzer
GoRank provides a series of optimization tools. While I don't subscribe to all of them their keyword density tool looks pretty good. Keyword density reports the percentage of your page content that is made up of your keywords. A commonly accepted theory among SEO's is that this percentage is very relevant in ranking your website. While the ideal percentages are not known 100% and vary from engine to engine you can analyze the sites in #1, 2 and 3 for your search terms and go from there.

This should not be considered the end-all-be-all of the optimization process however it's certainly a worthwhile step. This is a free tool

Link Building Tools
There are two tools I use often in link building. On of these tools I have used for years, the other I have only just become aware of but which has had a significant impact on my link building performance. These are the Google Toolbar and PR Prowler.

The Google Toolbar
The Google Toolbar is one of the basics. A must-have for any link-building campaign. With the advance features set to "On" you get to glimpse the PageRank of the site you are potentially exchanging links with. If you are unsure of what PageRank is there is a definition on the WebProNews website.

So download the Google toolbar, set it to "Advanced" and start looking for some high quality link-partners that will positively affect your rankings.

PR Prowler
While this is a recent find by the StepForth staff it's certainly been a welcome addition to our link building arsenal. With PR Prowler you enter the minimum PageRank site you want to exchange links with, the search terms you would like to use to find them ("health submit" for example) and let it run it's course. Once it’s done "prowling" you'll have a great list of high PageRank sites that contain the word "health" and "submit" (i.e. it’s about health and contains the word "submit" which will help weed out high PageRank sites that don’t have a submit feature.

It's not 100% accurate in that you will still get sites that are either unrelated or which don't exchange links, however it weeds out low PR sites and generally produces a great list. It's highly recommend for anyone who does link building.

Cool Tools
Every now and then we stumble on something that isn't so much helpful as it is interesting. Below is a list of just a few of our favorites.

Dave's Pick :: RustyBrick PageRank Prediction Tool
This is a tool that runs it's own algorithm and predicts what your PageRank will be after the next backlink update. While it's not 100% accurate it's interesting to watch and from what I've seen in a few tests it seems to be fairly close though I've seen one case where a PR6 site was predicated to go to PR10 and in fact dropped to 5.

Jim's Pick :: Langreiter.com’s Google vs Yahoo Comparison Chart
Another interesting tool. This tool shows the relationship graphically of differences between Google results and Yahoo drawing lines between pages that are the same. It's easier to run a test and see for yourself what this does than to explain a graphical tool with words so check it out and see what it does.

Scott's Pick :: Google DataCentre Watch Tool
This tool will show results for 56 individual Google datacenters. It's useful in that it will show anomalies and fluctuations however given that often these anomalies disappear before ever making it into the real results and the fluctuations are still unexplained it gets to fit into the "Cool Tools" section rather than the useful ones. Interesting to watch but not worth putting too much weight on.

Ross' Pick :: Deleted Domains
A very "cool tool". This website allows you to run searches of domain names by an individual keyword or keywords, choose the maximum number of characters for the domains, and then searches all recently deleted domains for ones matching your search criteria. A great way to find domains that already have backlinks and which contain your targeted keywords.

If you know of any other interesting and/or useful tools that you think the readers of the StepForth newsletter may be interested in please feel free to email them to us at dave@stepforth.com.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:16 PM.

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View this Article Only: Tools Of The Trade (by Dave Davies)

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Old News is Good News

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 4:15 PM

British history students and researchers will be pleased to find their favourite 19th century newspapers are being scanned and put online by the British Library in a £2,000,000 project. The Library has set a goal of putting over 1Million pages from the last century of news publishing online within 18-months. Currently anyone wishing to see this material has to visit the Newspaper Library in North London.

Once online, the Newspaper Library will provide access to articles written by icons of English literature including works by Charles Dickens, W.M. Thackeray, Samuel Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

This collection is particularly important as the time period spans several social eras, including England's transition from being an agricultural economy to a modern, industrial economy. Anyone interested in England's history and by extension our own should look forward to the completion of this site.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 4:15 PM.

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StepForth CEO Ross Dunn in the News

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 2:07 PM

The following article is sourced from Canada's most prominent newspaper The Globe & Mail. This article can be found in its original format in the Technology section here.

--------------------------------------------------------
Canadian conceives fully accessible search engine
Canadian Press

Winnipeg — YouSearched.com bills itself as the world's first truly accessible search engine for those with a variety of disabilities.

It fills a valuable niche and actually brings something new to the Internet, according to the Canadian consultant who came up with the idea.

"It's really rare to find anything on the Net that hasn't been done," said Ross Dunn, of Victoria-based Stepforth Placement Inc., who suggested the concept to his client, a British-based website developer.

"In this case we were able to bring something to the table that not only presented him with a niche market that he could build on, but also something that was really going to offer some value to the Internet."

It has already earned the highest standard of accessibility certification offered by the Royal National Institute of the Blind in Britain, the World Wide Web Consortium and other certifying groups.

"You can't get any more approval," Mr. Dunn says.

There are a host of gadgets on the market to help those with disabilities use a computer, but none are much help if the stuff that's on the screen isn't compatible.

Refreshable braille devices turn what they see on the screen into braille text that can be read by those trained to use their sense of touch to replace their eyes.

Screen readers are another example, says Lee Roberts, the Oklahoma-based accessibility expert who worked with Mr. Dunn to make the site fulfill its goals.

They're marvellous machines that can turn what they see onto the screen into spoken words, albeit in what Mr. Dunn describes as Microsoft monotone.

But Mr. Roberts says they can't cope with the way many websites are laid out and will do what would amount to reading a newspaper and mixing lines of text from one column with lines of text from another.

"This website (www.yousearched.com) is designed and laid out in such a way that the content is deliverable in a manner that can be read correctly," he says.

"No other search engine out there has taken the chance or taken the time to make their site [fully] accessible, none."

Mr. Roberts has worked both at home and internationally on accessibility issues for the Internet.

The blind aren't the only people who have problems using many traditional search engines, and the easily understandable, large icons on YouSearched.com are also aimed at people with physical or cognitive disabilities.

Some people lack the fine motor skills to use the traditional mouse or keyboard. Others have difficulty comprehending what they see.

"They could have strokes, they could have dyslexia, they could have Down syndrome, any number of cognitive difficulties," Mr. Roberts says.

The best thing about sites like YouSeached.com for Deborah Stienstra, director of the interdisciplinary master's program in disability studies at the University of Manitoba, is they don't tackle accessibility as an afterthought.

"We need to think [about accessibility] at the beginning of our design process," she says.

She says making Internet websites in general more accessible is something that would benefit companies in more than one way.

"When you create something that uses plain language or something that is accessible to a screen reader you appeal to a market well beyond Canada and the United States and Europe and into emerging markets . . .

"There's a huge market where English isn't the first language or where reading isn't the regular means of communication."

Of course, any search engine is only as good as its ability to find the information a visitor is seeking.

For North Americans, the heavy weighting to European content and sponsored links makes YouSearched.com considerably less useful than it might be otherwise.

It requires major digging to find even basic sites, such as Canadian government departments.

Other attempts to find North American content produced complete non sequiturs, with the one constant being advertising.

It's a failure Mr. Dunn acknowledges and one he says they hope to address down the line. He calls it a "temporary setback."

"Since this is version 1.0, we know we've got a lot of work to do to make it useful to the other markets . . . I think we're one major step ahead at least hitting the Net and finding that niche other people seem to be ignoring."

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 2:07 PM.

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Thursday, June 10, 2004

How Does One Play Smart with the Big Three? Ask Jeeves...

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 10:34 AM

Ask Jeeves is in a class all to themselves, literally. As the only truly independent algorithmic search engine driving more than 5% of search traffic, Ask Jeeves is in a unique position. While they are not playing in the same league as the Big-Three (Google, Yahoo and MSN), they are competing on the same field. In order to compete with the Big-Three, Ask.Com has made several intelligent moves, the most recent being their entrance into the world of Desktop search and a filing with the Securities Exchange Commission that will allow them to raise about $400-Million through a special "shelf" stock issuance.

Desktop Search Function
Earlier today, Ask.Com announced the acquisition of San Jose based start-up Tukaroo. In January of this year, Tukaroo released a desktop based search function that can find information stored on a computer hard-drive, a corporate Intranet, a Local Area Network, or the Internet in milliseconds. The acquisition is obviously aimed to compete with Microsoft's pending O/S "Longhorn" and Google's soon to be released desktop search application known as "Puffin".

In a January article published in the science journal RedNova, Tukaroo's VP of Marketing, Douglas Cheline claimed, "This novel software from Tukaroo will revolutionize the way user's access information in the digital world. The world of hard drives, local area networks, and the Internet!" While Mr. Cheline may be over-optimistic in his assessment of how Tukaroo software will alter the habits of searchers, the software will effect the habits of Ask Jeeves users and may provide a stepping-stone into the realm of the Big-Three.

Tukaroo is said to have features that emulate different aspects of Google, Yahoo and MSN's services. The most interesting of these services, (aside from the elimination of browser-based searching), is a contextual-advertising concept called "Smart-Ads(tm)". With this feature, Ask Jeeves users will be served information on unique products and services based on the keyword phrase entered in the search window. Another interesting feature is the ability to structure results dynamically, basically allowing searchers to dictate how relevant information is displayed when searches are conducted.

This purchase gives Ask Jeeves a leg-up on their competition. Microsoft is said to be at least 18-months away from the Longhorn release date and Google has not yet released its beta version of Puffin. Yahoo has recently signed a deal with email application provider Plaxo that will assist in keyword searching one's emails however, Plaxo's application is dependant on an email program and does not put Yahoo search on a computer's desktop. Of all the major search engines, Ask Jeeves may be the first to offer a fully functional desktop based search feature.

Taking Stock in Jeeves
In another move this week, Ask.Com filed a Form S-3 with the SEC which will allow them to raise approximately $400-Million though a public offering of its common stock, preferred stock, depositary shares, debt securities and warrants. According to the text of the filing, Ask.Com will use the money, "...for general corporate purposes, working capital and capital expenditures. We may also use the proceeds to fund acquisitions of technologies or businesses or to obtain the right to use additional technologies. However, we currently have no commitments or agreements for any specific acquisitions or investments. We may also use the proceeds to purchase or redeem our outstanding securities."

In other words, Ask Jeeves is committed to competing with the Big-Three in the search engine market. With these two recent moves, Ask Jeeves appears to be in a better "actual" position than its larger rivals. It is independent and has been flying (for the most part), under the radar for several years. Ask Jeeves is one of the best-branded search tools with the P. J. Wodehouse butler, Jeeves quietly resurfacing from his retirement in the past few months. Lastly and most importantly, when it came time to roll-out innovation in order to keep up with the direction the industry appears to be heading, Ask Jeeves is most likely going to get there first. With a bit of luck, the Big-Three may have to admit a fourth property to their exclusive club. This time, the butler won't be using the servant's entrance.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 10:34 AM.

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Google - Trouble on the Horizon (with a capital T)

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 10:33 AM

Google has two major legal problems plaguing them this month. If I was Google's lead lawyer, I would approach the administration with a simple question... Do you want the good news or the bad news first? The good news is that their first problem is not nearly as damaging as their second problem. That's about where the good news stops.

Google, which has been in a SEC mandated "quite period" ahead of its pending IPO is being sued by a few large corporations for trademark infringement over its policy of allowing AdWords advertisers to bid on keywords containing the name of a competing company. For example, if Royal Tissue wanted to advertise their facial tissues, they could bid on the keyword "Kleenex", which is a registered trademark of the Kimberly-Clark Corporation. The same can be said for Geico, the auto insurance company owned by Warren Buffet's holding firm, Birkshire Hathaway. The major difference is that while the word "Kleenex" is almost synonymous with facial tissues, the word "Geico" is not necessarily synonymous with auto insurance. Nevertheless, both Google and Overture sold use of the word as a keyword to rival insurance companies. Now Geico is suing both search tools. Both Google and Overture (a division of Yahoo) make the vast majority of their revenues on the sale of paid-placement advertising. If Geico is successful in their suit, both Google and Overture will be forced to limit the scope of keywords websites can be advertised under.

The second suit on Google's horizon is much more threatening and may make their IPO even riskier than it already appears to be. Overture is suing Google for infringing on their patented method of selling advertising based on bidding on keyword phrases. This practice is the basis of how Google's main revenue generator, AdWords works. The suit, which was filed in April 2002 revolves around a patent filed in the spring of 1999 by GoTo.Com (Overture's original name) for a, "system and method for influencing a position on a search result list.'' The patent application details both the auction-bid system for determining placements, and the ability of advertisers to alter their bids and ads via a web-browser. The full patent was awarded by the US Patent office on July 31, 2001. About seven months later, in February of 2002, Google unveils AdWords. Flash ahead to today and we see that AdWords provides the major revenue source for Google, accounting for over 80% of income last year. Trouble...

...That's trouble with a capital T, which rhymes with P and that stands for Patent.
(with apologies to Meredith Willson, author of The Music Man)

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 10:33 AM.

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Don't get scammed when buying links

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 10:30 AM

Links have been a factor in ranking well in the SERPs for a long time now, but recently they have become much more important, especially when seeking high rankings on Google. Because of this, incoming links have turned into a hot commodity, especially from high PageRank sites.

For a while now websites have been offering paid run-of-site links, the higher the PR, the higher the cost. But now some webmasters may have found a way to essentially steal or borrow PageRank, giving the illusion that their site is much more powerful in order to drive up advertising costs. If you are thinking of purchasing site wide links, this is something of importance to watch out for.

How do they steal PageRank?
The scammer starts off by registering a new domain and placing a 301 permanent redirect to a site with a high PageRank. After Google does its next link and PageRank update, the inbound links and PageRank are applied to the scammer's site. Once Google has applied the 'stolen' PageRank and link counts to the fraudulent site, the Webmaster quickly removes the redirect and posts his or her site in its place leaving the impression of link popularity and PR.

Individuals looking to purchase site wide links see the high PR and make the purchase. Once Google does its next update the scammers site PR and Link counts drop back to 0, exposing to the advertiser that they have wasted their money. By this time the Webmaster is likely nowhere to be found.

How can you tell if the site is a fraud?
There are a few ways to check to see if a sites PageRank is stolen.

- Check the internal pages. If the index page has a PageRank of 8, and the internals have no PageRank, there is a good chance that something is up.

- Do a back link check on the suspect site, and closely look at a few of the pages that show up. If you can't find any links pointing it, this brings up another flag.

- Perform a WHOIS and check the registration date for the domain. It is highly unlikely that a new site would have a high PageRank. If the site is less than a year old and has a PageRank of 8, this may raise some flags.

- Be weary of webmasters contacting you with sales pitches, in most cases sites offering link spots for sale will not solicit.

If you are careful and take the time to make a few simple checks you can ensure that you won't be scammed by these fraudulent sites. I would suspect that Google will realize that this is happening and take action against it relatively quickly, but until then it is always best to be careful. If you have a bad feeling about a website's credibility, then it is probably best to pass it by and move on.

As scams come and go, there are always new ones just around the corner, so it's best to take the time and make a few checks before jumping into anything.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 10:30 AM.

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American General Contracting - Amgencon.Com

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 10:28 AM

One of the absolute joys of this job is virtually meeting some of the nicest people and new StepForth client Ron McIlnay is one of them. Ron is a formerly retired mechanical and electronics engineer living in western Washington State who runs a home-based consulting business specializing in electronics. From PCB design, materials and process to manufacturability consulting, Ron brings decades of experience and integrity to every job.

Ron's website, www.amgencon.com presents a lengthy list of his expertise and personal accomplishments. If you are in the design or pre-manufacturing process, or are looking to improve your current products, a quick visit with Ron McIlnay might save your company time, money and headaches.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 10:28 AM.

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One Royal Pain in the ATM

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 10:27 AM

"I swear to you, it must have been a computer error! The money is in my account."...
How many times do you get to hear that old line in a year? If you are a landlord, collections agent, or bill collector, chances are you hear it nearly as often as a school teacher hears, "I swear the dog ate it..."

Starting last week and continuing into this week, customers of the Royal Bank of Canada have lived through a financial nightmare when a cascading computer error made mincemeat of transactions and deposits from one end of the country to the other. Every direct payroll deposit was lost. Many withdrawals from automated tellers were noted twice. Money transfers were lost and entire accounts were mis-balanced. The situation started during a routine systems upgrade in Toronto and quickly spread across the bank's massive network causing absolute chaos when cheques and deposits bounced from Halifax to Victoria and back again. Royal Bank IT departments across the country worked 24/7 trying to restore the system and, in most cases they have been successful. Accounts are back online and transactions are being properly recorded again.

For a week nearly 1/6 of Canadian bank account holders were held in limbo due to a computer error. Imagine if it happened around Christmas.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 10:27 AM.