A couple of weeks ago, Leslie Rohde from WindRose Software was minding his own business when a user of their signature tool, Optilink, emailed him to ask about the 404-page generated when querying Google.
Optilink is used to trace incoming links to the myriad of sites they originate from. While reporting the URLs of incoming links, Optilink also gathers other information about those sites such as the PageRank score Google displays and the anchor text used in those links. In order to gather that information, Optilink makes multiple queries of the search tools it visits. Some users use Optilink a lot, thus using a lot of resources at Google and other search engines, a practice discouraged and often banned by search firms.
Optilink made use of the search query "link:www.domainname.com". Recently, Google has limited the number of daily queries that an individual IP can make and added a "ransom note" text-box triggered by large numbers of link searches as a barrier against automated systems. This posed a problem that sent Rohde to work at a local cafe where the WiFi was cheap and easy and the distractions less severe.
In an email sent to all Optilink users, Rohde announced the release of Optilink3.4.0, a revision that works around the Google link:domain ban.
"The trap imposed by Google is limited to the "link:" query that is used in the "Linking Page Popularity" option. Ironically, this is probably one of the least useful options in OptiLink thanks to Google's filtering of linking page information.
Three years ago when OptiLink was first introduced, there was comparatively little filtering of linking page data so the option had real benefit as a research feature. That is no longer true today and the only reasonably reliable linking information comes from MSN and Yahoo.
On balance, the limited benefit derived from the Linking Page Popularity information provided by Google is simply not worth the risk and effort, so GOOGLE IS NO LONGER AN AVAILABLE SELECTION IN THE LINKING PAGE POPULARITY CONTROL.
If Google's linking information were someday to _become_ useful, there are indeed ways to get it, but the techniques I have so far discovered -- which do beat the current filter -- are pretty involved and include some undesirable side effects.
Fortunately, the initial query that OptiLink uses to fetch links is undisturbed by Google's new trap, probably because it occurs just once per execution of OptiLink. The browser interface that OptiLink presents to Google would make elimination of _that_ feature very difficult without eliminating the "link:" query all-together.
The PageRank query is likewise undisturbed by the new trap, so in total, we have the two most valuable features retained and the single most questionable feature penalized. :-) "
Rohde understands the situation Google is in when it comes to drains on their resources but at the same time, he noted in yesterday's phone interview that search users and advertisers require tools to engineer better, more effective campaigns.
"Google put in place a means to stop people from automatically downloading search results. They recognize everyone wants a piece of them. They want human eyeballs only."
He went on to say that he thinks Google targeted tools that gather link information such as his, rather than the dozens of automated position-reporting tools, because links matter so much more in terms of search engine placement than the actual content of the site. It's the links that get the site to that position and knowing the position is not going to change it. Knowing your links will.
Imagine this scenario. Too tired to cook after arriving home from a long day at work you call your local pizza shop to order two large pizzas and a bunch of soft drinks. You dial the number as usual and, instead of the familiar voice of Tony, the owner/pizza champion, a younger voice comes on the line.
Pizza: Thin Edge of the Wedge Pizza Factory. Hi (insert name here), thanks for calling us tonight.Just to confirm, you still live at 1812 Main Street?
You: Yeah. I want to order two large pizzas and a half dozen sodas for delivery.
Pizza: Ok (insert name here). Says here the last six times you ordered Hawaiian. I guess you want a couple of Hawaiian pizzas eh?
You: No not tonight thanks. I think we want...
Pizza: Ok fine... No Hawaiian. Let's see here... On March 24 you ordered the Big House special. The time before that you ordered an Italian Pesto and every time before that you always ordered the Tonys special.Hey, wassamatter… You don't like the Tony special anymore? And about those soft drinks...My friend tried that new one and said it was really great.Like, she really liked it eh?Do you want some of those new drinks instead of the usual ones you order?
You: Well, there is a lot of meat on the Tony Special and we're trying to eat healthier these days. My kids like sweet stuff on their pizzas like pineapples... you know... And hey, yeah, I want to try the new drink. Give me six of them please.
Pizza: Well, it says here you like the Hawaiian. You sure you don't want us to make you another couple of Hawaiians?Hey, I have an idea.Let's mix and match the toppings from your last ten orders and make a (insert name here) Special!You like it so much, we'll name it after you eh?
You: Look friend, this is getting too complicated.I don't want a specialized personal pizza. I just want what everyone else eats. Could you just tell me what pizza specials you make?
Pizza: Well ok then, we're only trying to make it easier for you. Please hold the line for Tony. I don't deal with general orders. Did you still want those new drinks?
The Thin Edge of the Wedge Pizza Factory is simply trying to build you the best pizza possible based on tracking your previous history of pizza delivery orders. Having served your supper countless times over the past six years, Tony has a pretty good idea of what you will order, on which nights you are likely to order it, and the most direct route from the oven to your door.They also know how you are likely to pay for the delivery and, if the drivers are really on the ball, they’ll know if you are a good tipper or not.
There is a lot of power in mining information. By knowing before hand the general wants and needs of his customers, Tony has better control over his inventory and output. After recording six years of orders, Tony can cook with greater confidence and hopefully deliver a faster and better service to his customers. This is assuming his customers actually want him to change the pizza-maker/customer relationship by recording and mining the vast amounts of personal information they give every time they order a pizza.
Some people like to personalize everything, mixing and matching from an enormous variety of options to suit their unique tastes.Others are not so fond of the concept of information personalization, fearing the trend will remove their ability to access the same options everyone else gets while trampling whatever sense of personal privacy they once held.Regardless of how consumers personally feel about the concepts of data mining and information personalization, it is now more of a modus operandi than it is a trend in marketing. The major search engines are adopting this method of operation with both Google and Yahoo announcing personalized search features in the past two weeks and MSN presenting information on one they are working on.
Early last week, Google introduced the beta version of My Search History. Requiring user registration, the feature records and displays your Google search history, making it accessible on any computer you might be working on. My Search History uses a calendar format showing what you searched for, where the searches took you, and the date and time of those searches. This information is stored by Google and is easily viewed by clicking a link added to the general search page at Google.com. Avni Shah from the My Search History team explained Google's motivation in a blog posting last Wednesday (April 20).
"How many times have you used Google to find an obscure funny website or fun facts about "The Wizard of Oz," but then got distracted by other web pages and tasks? I know - me too. Wouldn't it be great to find them again, and for that matter review all your Google searches over time? Which is exactly why we built My Search History . When you're signed in to your Google Account , you can use My Search History wherever you go. An additional bit of fun: try the handy calendar to check the level of your Google activity on a given day, or see related searches you've done over time. Look for the link in the upper right corner of your Google web search home page and results pages."
While the results gathered by My Search History do not affect general organic results, marketers expect Google to use the information to better determine which paid-ads to serve individual users. There is speculation that personalization could eventually affect placement of organic listings displaying Google AdSense however there is no actual evidence to suggest that will happen.
This week Yahoo responded with My Web, a slightly more powerful personal search history-recording tool. My Web provides a storage space for everything users choose to save while surfing Yahoo search results. An RSS feed will allow users to blog and distribute content from saved sites sharing notes, links and other information inputted by the user. My Web promotes a form of social networking giving individual users a personalized space to evaluate information saved in their searches. The space is built on the information My Web records while they move through Yahoo results.
In a posting to the Ysearch Blog , Senior Product Manager Kevin Akira Lee wrote, "Today, we launched 'My Web', a new personal search engine fully integrated with Yahoo! Search. My Web is based on a very simple principle - a search engine should enable you to define and use the information that's important to you. Specifically, My Web enables you to find the information relevant to you, save it, share it, add your own notes to it, and easily find it again, whether it's three days or three months later. The idea is a simple one - we provide a "Save" button on our search results, on the Yahoo! Toolbar (for both IE and Firefox), and, in the future, anywhere you might find useful info on the Web. When you hit the "Save" button, My Web grabs that page and makes a cached copy which is fully searchable. Anytime you need that page, all you need to do is search My Web. You can publish your My Web links via RSS and, of course, there's an API for My Web published on YSDN."
My Web opens more doors for search marketers and advertisers. Yahoo Search Marketing is working to integrate their various features such as Yahoo360, Instant Messenger, YahooMail, etc, with their paid-ad delivery network innovating on the model outlined by Google's integration of AdWords and Gmail. By making it easier for search marketers to work with their system, Yahoo is betting they can motivate ad-buyers and search marketers to migrate away from Google.
Both Google and Yahoo are responding to a larger long-term threat posed by MSN's long-pending release of their all-encompassing Longhorn operating system. First scheduled for release in mid 2004, Microsoft now sees December 2006 as a likely release date. Longhorn was meant to be the end-all-be-all when it came to merging search tools into the operating system. Back in 2003 when Microsoft started hyping it, Longhorn was going to incorporate a desktop search feature, blog creation features, a personalization tool called Stuff I've Seen, a expandable toolbar, and dozens of other features that would give the new operating system extra clout in the completive world of search. Everybody knows that MSN has the dice loaded with their control of the vast majority of operating systems used on the Internet. While Microsoft's absolute dominance might be cracking with open source products taking huge shares of what was once theirs, the software giant has been working triple time to enter and dominate the search market.
Recently, MSN's research specialist Susan Dumais released a presentation showing that Microsoft's vision of search is as heavily influenced by its competitors as theirs are by Microsoft. In her presentation , "Personal Information Management, Helping the Finders Become the Keepers" Ms. Dumas notes that search is about finding previously retrieved information as much as it is about finding new information. With a control over the operating system and allowance from its users, Microsoft will be able to scan your hard drive to find stuff you saw and saved that are in any way relevant to your search query. Their recent experiments with document clustering might point to the direction these personalized results will be presented.
Over the past two years, Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, and other search firms have rolled out variations on products and features thought to be incorporated in Longhorn. They have also developed other products, innovating on other ideas and concepts in the realm of information retrieval and distribution. The rapidity of change in the information environment, along with the ironic tendency of other firms to innovate on Microsoft's stated intentions are the likely reasons Longhorn keeps getting pushed back quarter after quarter. Even so, Longhorn is still said to be coming and Google, Yahoo and the rest have only so many months to make hay while the sun is definitely going to shine .
Google is introducing site-targeting for paid-advertisers in a bid to perfect their golden-egg ad-distribution network AdWords. Yesterday Google announced a limited beta test of a unique feature to AdWords, a system allowing advertisers to choose where their ads are displayed by selecting the sites or pages they will appear on. Billing will be done on a cost per thousand (CPM) impressions basis.
AdWords will continue offering its traditional keyword-targeting paid advertising, charged on a cost per click basis with the new site-targeted ads only open to advertisers who want to promote their products though Google's AdSense content partnerships.
Larger media buyers and traditional advertising agencies have long lobbied Google for a system based on cost per impression vs. cost per click, reasoning it is simpler to purchase bulk accounts and track CPM billing.
When the site-targeting feature becomes available to all advertisers, AdWords users will see an interface similar to the one they currently use.One difference will be the addition of a text-box in which specific URLs can be entered beside another text-box in which trigger-keywords are added. If users select site-targeted ads, another new bidding text-box will appear asking them to determine how much they would spend every time their ad appears 1000 times on their selected sites.
Site-targeted ads will compete with the traditional keyword-driven ads in such a way that searchers shouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two. When deciding how to rank multiple paid ads generated by both AdWords systems, Google will evaluate the highest CPM bids of all site-targeted ads and compare them against the traditional cost-per-click + click-through rate ranking process it uses to rank keyword-targeted paid ads.
As a billing model, CPM is not necessarily replacing the amazingly successful cost-per-click format which helped Google increase revenues by a factor of six over last year. Like the rest of the search marketing industry, Google is waiting to see how their rivals react. By meeting the needs of their largest clients however, Google expects a highly favorable reaction from corporate advertisers and larger ad-space buyers.
"What's the use of a good algorithm if you can't change it?" Dr. Who (The Fortune Program)
Search engine optimization firms tend to have unique relationships with their clients. Like our colligate cousins in the web design field, our clients often see our services as one-time events. Once the initial SEO campaign is completed and websites have achieved Top10 placements, some clients are content to go about their business assuming their placements are going to stay in place. In many cases, they do. A website that has been optimized by a good SEO can prove difficult to dislodge, even when these placements are targeted by other SEOs.
Strong placements can stay in place for months but change is an inevitable constant, natural in the real world and in the virtually real world we work in. There have been a lot of changes in the search environment recently. From the introduction of new ideas about search engine functionality (vertical vs. general search) to the increasing sophistication of Google's link-evaluation algorithms, to the unveiling of parts of Become.Com's AIR algorithm, the changes predicted in previous months are quickly defining what will be a constantly shifting "new normal" for search marketers.
The emergence of a "new normal" in the search marketing industry presents as many problems for search marketing companies as it does opportunities. Search marketing is still a highly disorganized industrial sector that has only risen to prominence in the past three years. Even though countless articles have been written about the sector and huge ad-firms such as Avenue A have entered the picture, there still remains a great deal of misunderstanding about the cause and effect nature of the work. It is not only difficult to track outcomes past the actual placements; it is also difficult to quantify how general changes in the search sector might affect each individual client.
In times of change, one of the biggest problems for established SEO firms is in sustaining good relationships with previous and current clients. These problems can be easily characterized by two categories. Regardless of the category these issues might fall into, each represents real people whose incomes are partially dependent on the outcome of the campaign.
The first category consists of issues presented by past clients whose rankings have dropped over time or because of a variety of on-site issues. While most SEO firms offer some form of long-term maintenance options, clients often see these options as unnecessary expenses, especially when placements are sticky over long periods of time. In our practice, about half the clients choose a post placement maintenance contract. The other half is willing to take their chances over time, a decision that in some cases might be cost effective but could also present major expenses for others. In previous years, if a site with great placement continued to enjoy that ranking over twelve or more months without a lot of intervention, a maintenance contract would likely be an unnecessary expense. On the other hand, if one or more competitors also hired professional search optimizers, the cost of maintenance might be considered a necessary cost of retaining prominent placements in the organic SERPs.
That was the general gist of advice we offered our clients when they considered their options towards the end of a successful placement campaign. That advice works well when all factors that might affect rankings remain static or equal. We don't want to dissuade any client from signing up for long-term maintenance; after all we are in business. We do however wish to provide them with an honest view of what might or might not happen in the future. Under the "old-norm" where Google was the absolute dominant search tool and things were a bit more stable, the advice was sound. Today, search is more serious and the structure of the "new-norm" for organic search is quite different. In other words, what was good advice yesterday might not be wise today.
For past clients whose relationships have lapsed over time, there are often high costs associated with reoptimizing their websites. Costs in the SEO sector have increased over the past few years as the environment has become more complicated. Clients returning to SEO or SEM shops should be prepared to pay fees higher than those charged two or three years ago. Then again, maybe the site simply requires a quick once-over and fees can be limited in light of a previously successful relationship. Every situation is different and this is a topic in which generalization is very difficult.
The second category pertains to current clients whose sites were optimized for what would be considered the "old-norm" or need to be re-optimized to meet the criteria of the new and unique vertical search tools. As a contractual arrangement exists between SEO and client where a rhythm to the working relationship has already been established these circumstances are a bit more precarious.
Here is an unlikely scenario that could realistically play out. (Please note: I am just making this up. This scenario does not pertain to any current or past client.) Client X has a website optimized in January. The site springs to the Top10 of the rankings on all four major search engines and is relatively settled in place within eight weeks. The contract between the SEO firm and Client X was scheduled to last twelve weeks. On the Friday of Week6, the largest of the search engines implements a new algorithm that radically alters they values it applies to incoming links and on-site elements but the effects of that change don't actually manifest on the results pages for another two weeks. On the Monday of Week8, the client sees that his or her site is ranked exactly where it should be but as the week progresses the site starts to drop.
Who is responsible and what should be done about it?
Many SEO firms faced a similar situation in previous years. Those in the business in November 2003 might remember weeks of sheer panic. Given the propensity of many in the sector to play fast and loose with linking strategies over the past year, many more might soon face new but similar dilemma; a very complex scenario for both SEO and client as neither is remotely responsible for Google deciding to update its algorithm. The common way of looking at such situations is to assume the SEO conformed to what would be considered the best practices of the time the work was performed. In our world, an algorithm shift is sort of like an Act of God is to the insurance companies.
Here is another scenario that every SEO firm faces right now. A new type of search engine appears on the scene and slowly gains popularity. It uses a unique ranking formula that is based on the use of spiders but differs from more common algorithms in many ways. While in previous months it was relatively easy to balance the needs of Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves in a full-site optimization campaign, the addition of a new search tool complicates your optimization plan. You have several clients at various stages of their campaigns and do not have the time or resources to upgrade each and every client to meet a new set of standards introduced midway through their contracts. At the same time however, ethical SEOs have an obligation to immediately inform their clients of major changes in the search landscape that would affect their campaigns. What to do?
First of all, absolutely nothing should ever be done to a client's site unless the SEO has a full understanding of the new criteria. The new search tool is Become.Com and their new algorithm is known as Affinity Indexing Ranking (AIR). SEO practitioners are urged to learn as much as possible about AIR in the coming months. Next, as each placement campaign develops, most SEOs tinker here and there with it during the period of the client contract. StepForth's head SEO, Scott Van Achte often adds new snippets such as zip codes for local search and even longitude and latitude coordinates for GPS search tools as part of his ongoing service to clients. By adding new snippets of geographic content to sites during the campaign, he can regularly update the site with highly useful information in addition the more general updates. During the contractual period, it is possible to lightly add new optimization elements to a site as part of regular optimization updates.
There are some cases in which algorithm updates necessitate a full reoptimization of a website or retooling of a large section of current optimization plans. For the SEO, this is a nightmare scenario in which they must explain to their clients exactly what has happened and that there is nothing anyone can do about it except roll up their sleeves and get to work as quickly as possible. Most SEO contracts have a section recognizing that the SEO is not responsible for costs associated with a major algorithm shift. Telling your client that they will have to pay for reoptimization, no matter what the contract says, is never an easy task. The test for this necessity is fairly straightforward but the SEO had better be very certain before talking to the client. First, an algo shift must be demonstrated to have taken place and acknowledgement of that shift within the SEO/SEM community is essential. Next, the SEO has to be able to show that the shift will affect the client. Lastly, the SEO must have a coherent plan to reestablish rankings before calling the client.
Ultimately, the relationships between the SEO/SEM community and their clients can be characterized as healthy, unique and evolving. Both sides of the relationship should realize that the next few months are likely to be highly volatile times. The search engines are changing friends. There is nothing the SEO/SEM community can do about these changes except to study, experiment and learn as quickly as humans with electronic assistants can. Again it is important to note that this article is not intended to frighten clients into calling their SEO or to lecture SEOs on their obligations to their clients. It is meant to convey the idea that the environment and the markets it supports are changing and many of those changes are happening right now.
"Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind." Leonardo DaVinci , Notebooks (c. 1500)
Yahoo reported better than expected revenues in a first quarter report issued early yesterday. Yahoo's earnings from January 1 to March 31 were $205 million, up from the $101 million they reported last year. Excluding money shared with search partners such as MSN, revenues were up almost 50% to $821 million.
Wall Street analysts had expected revenues around $797 million. When monies paid to search partners are included in Yahoo's quarterly revenues, the number rises to $1.17 billion.
Yahoo has several revenue streams resulting from years of content development and numerous advertising programs. Paid-search in the form of contextually delivered ads makes up the greatest part of their income, responsible for about 45% of annual revenues.
Yahoo showed growth against every standard used to rate it. Domestic revenues in the US increased by 37% to $819 million from the $599 million reported last year. International revenues increased a dramatic 124% to $355 million from $159 million in early 2004. Yahoo Japan also posted record revenues last quarter, showing a 34% increase in revenues over the same period last year.
Google Labs has released the beta version of what might become the application that changes Google's relationship with its users forever. My Search History (beta) is an opt-in program that records your Google search history and where the search results led you, making that history available for personal viewing on any computer. Users who sign up for the service will learn a lot about how they use Google. In turn, Google will learn a lot about every user as well.
My Search History will record everything a searcher does while using Google. Users will note the amount of time they spend on Google, where they went, the amount of time they spend on each document found through Google, the last time they visited a web document, and where they went after visiting a web document.
Over time, this information will start to affect and personalize the search results Google displays for individual users. If a specific user tends to access one or two documents each time they do a search for "Blue Widgets" Google will start to indicate to that user that, historically, they have found those two documents more relevant than others.
This is the first major stab at visible personalization for any of the major search engines. Google users who have already established a Google Account, (Gmail, Google Groups, Google Alerts or Froogle), can sign in immediately. Those who don't can easily establish an account.
For what it's worth, if you are a Google user with a pre-existing account, signing up for My Search History is not going to give Google any more information about you than they already collect. It will however change your relationship with the results Google produces for you.
Yahoo has officially dropped the Overture brand name from its paid-search products.The company announced plans to drop the Overture name in the North American market at the beginning of March. Yahoo will phase out use of the brand internationally in the coming months though they will retain the Overture name in Japan and South Korea.
The branding change comes eighteen months after Yahoo announced it had acquired Overture in October 2003.Overture was the original innovator of the pay-per-click advertising business model.Introduced as GoTo.Com in 1998, Overture proved that advertisers would be willing to pay based on a search-driven ad's performance. After changing their name to Overture, they started to provide paid-search results to other search engines, which generally appeared as three "Featured Sites", or "Sponsored Sites" listings directly above organic listings.
Overture grew rapidly but almost immediately faced stiff competition from Google whose AdWords program eventually replaced Overture's offerings as the most popular paid-advertising vehicle.After absorbing smaller search firms AltaVista and All-the-Web, Overture itself was absorbed by Yahoo. While many speculated at the time that Yahoo was fishing for the data-mine of patents held by AltaVista, AlltheWeb and Overture, paid-search now provides about 40% of Yahoo's annual revenues.
By dropping the Overture name and bringing all paid-search services under a common name, Yahoo Search Marketing hopes to clear any lingering confusion about who offers which services. They also hope the move increases their competitive position against rivals Google, MSN and Ask Interactive.
"Unifying all our search marketing and related products under one umbrella is one of the many steps we will be taking to provide an easy, one-step experience for our advertisers", said Steve Mitgang, Yahoo Sr. VP of Product Marketing in a press statement.
Yahoo Search Marketing has changed a couple of other familiar names as part of the rebranding process. The core, contextually driven paid-advertising product, Precision Match, is now being sold under the name, Sponsored Search.Local paid search is now called Local Sponsored Search.
Yahoo has also added three new features.The first, called Travel Submit, allows tourism and travel operators to submit packages, deals and other offers that will be displayed on Yahoo's travel search site.The other two features are tools designed to make the jobs of search-marketers a bit easier.Marketing Console is a tool designed to help marketers track paid-advertising campaigns while Search Optimizer is meant to enhance ad-copy and keyword targeting to improve campaign performance.
Adobe Systems Inc. has announced an agreement to purchase Macromedia for approximately $3.4Billion in stocks.
Adobe and Macromedia both make software for the creation of web documents.Adobe's most famous product is the document security software Acrobat.It also makes the popular website editing software GoLive, and image editors Photoshop and Illustrator.
Macromedia creates the world's most popular web editing software package, Dreamweaver.Marcomedia is also known for its web animation software, FLASH and database/website coding language Cold Fusion.
The purchase, which gives Adobe a firmer foothold in markets previously dominated by Microsoft, is seen by many as a direct challenge to Microsoft, especially in rapidly developing markets like China.It is also seen as a way to leapfrog Adobe ahead in the race to produce products for creating content for cell-phone displays.
The acquisition, which is expected to close in Fall 2005, is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by the stockholders of both companies and regulatory approvals.
Over the past week, SEOs and SEMs have noted some significant changes in the search engine results delivered by Google. Google appears to be actively cleaning its listings by targeting sites using suspicious link-building techniques. A couple of well-known search engine marketing sites have vanished from Google results under keyword phrases they dominated just last week.
The sudden disappearance of these sites, along with a notable difference in search results under other highly competitive phrases has led many in the SEO/SEM industry to conclude Google has implemented some of the spam-link busting filters outlined in their 63-point patent document published two weeks ago. After examining results displayed at Google since Friday April 8, we too are drawn to this conclusion. In other words, something has changed in the way Google ranks sites. Given a lack of any other credible information, we are looking toward the sorting methods and ranking techniques Google has protected under U.S. and international patent laws to provide details.
As stated in previous articles, one thing to be very clear about is that nobody except a very small number of Google engineers can claim to know the exact variables Google uses to populate its ranking algorithms. We do know how Google and other spider-driven search engines operate, how they operated in previous months or years, and the outcomes those operations have produced historically over time. Having watched search engines for years, experienced SEO and SEM firms can make such predictions and assumptions with some degree of accuracy. After all is said and done, the proof is always in the pudding, so to speak, and our predictive assumptions are either proven or shown false in the search engine results pages.
This time, the big "trigger target" for Google appears to be links. As anyone who has followed search engine optimization techniques knows, Google puts a lot of stock in the value of links between documents. PageRank remains the core concept of Google's general algorithm though the weights and measures used to determine "page rank" as we understand it have changed radically over the years.
Back in the earliest days, one link equaled one positive vote, a rather clean sorting concept that worked extremely well in a much cleaner Internet environment. As Google rose to become the dominant search engine, the search marketing industry started to focus on Google. An amazingly vast pool of brainpower started to deconstruct every nuance in the basic algorithm, making changes, shifts or additions to the algorithm cause for lively discussion and analysis at any one of a dozen search marketing discussion forums. A very small number of Google search engineers, no matter how extraordinarily intelligent they are as individuals or collectively, simply can't keep up with the SEO/SEM industry without resorting to making sweeping change to the core-algorithm periodically . If Google ever loses its dominance in the sector, the next search firm to dominate will, without question, face similar concerns. We have seen similar algo-updates in the past, the greatest being the Florida Update of November 2003. This week's update was not nearly as severe as Florida , at least not yet. Given that this suspected update is based on measuring the value of specific links, it might be weeks or even months before we see the full results.
If you or someone you know has been engaged in a link-building plan that relies on link trading between multiple sites that don't actually relate to or do business with each other, you might want to take a few hours to examine your link-building strategies.
About four weeks ago, an article appeared in Wired Magazine telling the world how simple it was to game Google by bulking up on links. The article became a focal point for discussion in many circles and might be inadvertently responsible for a notable rise in the number of link-trading email spam offers. It may have also alerted Google that it was high time to implement a number of new link-evalutation filters designed to separate the good from the bad. This idea has been the subject of a few recent articles and is backed up by several sections of the 63-point patent document.
To recap the central theme of the patent document, Google compiles document profiles based on the historic data of several elements relating to every URL in its index. The historic data included in that profile plays a determining factor in various scores, or points Google assigns documents when generating keyword driven search results. It is therefore easy to extrapolate the concept that the recent update is based on historic data in regards to links.
It is also easy to extrapolate another assumption, though this one is a bit of a stretch. There has not been a visible backlink or subsequent "PageRank" update in months. Together these two thoughts might indicate that Google's index has become a lot more fluid with micro-updates that affect unique sets of document profiles as opposed to massive updates that could put the entire index in flux for weeks at a time.
Link building is and should always be an essential part of the search engine optimization process. All spider driven search engines find new documents by following links. This is the underlying concept of the "world wide web" analogy. Linkage between documents is actually what the web was built for. Google will therefore value these links as long as the web exists. In this way, Google is a victim of its own success. It is the world's most popular search engine and it values links more than any other search engine. It stands to reason that the hyper-brainiac forces of the SEO/SEM world spent a lot of time figuring out elaborate link-generation schemes. These schemes, by the way, are pretty far from the spirit of the evolving web, as I understood it a decade ago. Good links made a useful web. Links designed primarily get attention under multiple keyword phrases are not so good. Perhaps the "O" in SEO should also represent "organic". Google really appreciates links that develop ORGANICALLY.
Bob links to Jane because Bob thinks Jane has information relevant to viewers of Bob's document. As it turns out, Bob was right and the anchor text he used to phrase the link accurately represented the content found on Jane's document. Bob was not paid to link to Jane. As a matter of fact, Bob expects nothing in return except perhaps a better environment for his site-visitors. Both Bob and Jane score good points in their document profiles and everyone lives happily ever after in a naive representation of an intellectual nirvana.
As the web works today, Jane is almost certainly selling something to pay for the high cost of providing good information while retaining the ability to pay her mortgage. Jane therefore benefits from a link provided by Bob and wants to get as many as she possibly can knowing that if she ranks higher than anyone else, she will likely make more sales. The moment Bob sees Jane building links for financial benefit; he starts to think of what he can get in return for a link. An industry built to game Google is thus born and Google engineers start to worry about how their link-driven results are perceived by the search-surfing public.
Google is using a number of logical measures to both predetermine and actively-determine the value of each and every link it follows. Google is interested in the long-term behaviour of links and compiles a life-cycle analysis of links as part of the document profiles associated with all documents in its index.
Here are a few observations and questions for performing link analysis. While there is no proof Google will or will not consider these points in relation to a document at any given time, there is plenty of evidence that webmasters and search marketers should at all times. According to a number of sections of the patent, (particularly those numbered in the 50's) Google is capable of taking a much wider analysis of links and their purpose than previously thought.
When new links are added, Google examines how their appearance or disappearance affects other links associated with the document. When a link appears is important to Google. If a number of links appear to a new or existing document at once, Google would like to be able to easily gauge the value of each of those links. One of the ways it does that is by date. When did the link appear? What other links were present on the document the link came from when the link appeared? How does the presence or disappearance of various links on that document affect the relevancy of the document or the perceived relevance to the document it points to?
How do documents networked by links relate to each other over time? Links can change over time. Google wants to be able to judge if a link is seasonal or time driven as part of its weighing criteria. One of the ways it judges time, seasonal or event driven linkage is by trends associated with documents connected by links. Are there similar link-trends shared by documents that are linked together?
What date did the fresh link appear? When did Google notice a fresh link exists? The date Google becomes aware of a link is a benchmark date. Google compares a number of other factors against that date in the profiles of documents associated with that link.
What anchor text was associated with the link? Google uses anchor text as a relevancy determinant. A link using "blue widgets" as its anchor text should therefore link to a document directly associated with blue widgets.
When did links directed to a document start using specific keyword phrases as anchor text? Again, Google refers to a benchmark date. In this case, it compares the benchmark start date against those of other links in the document profile.
Does that anchor text change? The next two obvious questions are, when and to what. Google uses this information to track link-campaigns and to determine link-spam advertising from active, organic links. For instance, a link with anchor text that remains static might be judged harshly if other links on the page are also static. If that same link was found on a page where other links changed from time to time, Google would take a brighter view of the value of that link.
When the anchor text of a link changes, was that change relevant to changes in document content? If the anchor text of a link changes in relation to content on the document linked to, chances are the link was placed with care and consideration. Google would then assign a higher score. If, however, the anchor text is noted to change without any relation to the text on the document linked to, there is a chance the link is part of keyword-link branding campaign.
Google is using a number of other factors to determine the validity of links, some of which involve the behaviours of those who follow links to documents in Google's index. Determining the value of a link also means considering if human-users think the link is valuable.
The concept of document profiles is very real. Google is making a list and checking it more than twice when determining the value of links and webs they weave. Google examines these link-webs as they relate to both individual documents and the sites they are associated with. When building, buying, placing or otherwise acquiring links in an SEO or SEM campaign, it is wise to think about what Google is going to think about that link. One thing you know for certain is that Google is going to think quite a bit about it and every other link associated with it.
What is happening behind the scenes at Google these days? Trying to figure out exactly what is happening behind the closed doors of the Googleplex is much like trying to get solid information on the Illuminati. One can find lots of rumour and conjecture but there are a very limited number of individuals willing or qualified to offer a credible quote. For obvious reasons, Google does not allow its employees to talk to the media without first obtaining several levels of permission.
Built on the corporate ethics motto, "Don't Be Evil", Google promised the world it would think and act differently from its corporate cousins when it issued its IPO last August. What a difference half a year makes in the minds of those who depend on Google.
Google has a growing public relations problem. Starting in early January with the introduction of the "auto-links" feature in the third beta version of their popular Toolbar, Google's reputation as the darling of the search world has taken a number of recent hits. In late February Google, along with ten other leading search firms, was named in a lawsuit which states they continue to charge for clicks they know to be fraudulent. The plaintiffs in the suit are trying to be accredited with class action status to allow other advertisers to join in. This week, two new controversies brewing in the background are leading many in the Search Marketing sector to view Google itself as a threat to the SEO/SEM industry.
Reports from a number of paid-advertising focused SEMs say that Google is poaching their larger clients out from under them. For those unfamiliar with advanced PPC management, if an accredited SEM has a very large client with a very large budget, Google provides a direct contact/sales rep to help manage the campaign. This extra assistance was originally sold to the SEM community as a benefit of partnering with them. In a recent Search Engine Watch Forums post, European SEM Mikkel deMib Svendsen (well known on both sides of the Atlantic), reported that Google refused service to another (unnamed) European SEM who had just signed up a very large corporate client. According to the post, the Google rep told the SEM firm two things. First, the Google rep informed the SEM that the corporate client was one Google wanted to serve directly. Secondly, the Google rep said the SEM firm was simply too small to deal with such a large client and that, in the interests of the client, Google would take over the account. In other words, Google considers some clients of SEM firms to be THEIR clients, not those of the SEM firm.
Other reports have Google offering organic page and site optimization advice directly to webmasters and businesses, a move that could spell doom for many in the burgeoning SEO sector. If Google begins offering basic optimization information to webmasters, many may choose to perform optimization internally, sidestepping professional SEO firms. Optimization services are also offered by Ask Jeeves and Lycos through partnerships with third-party firms.
Does this spell the end of the chilled but mostly friendly symbiotic relationship between Google and the SEO/SEM industry, or is it just another in a series of misunderstandings and missteps Google has been involved in over the past six months? There are two distinct schools of thought on this question.
The first says that due to the sins of the growing minority of SEO-spammers, it was only a matter of time before Google decaled open season on search marketers. Google may feel forced to take action. 90-95% of its revenues come from Paid-Search Advertising, a medium that relies on high user retention and maximum ad distribution. Recent forum postings at Search Engine Watch and ThreadWatch written under the title "Black Hat PPC" offer ideas on how to radically-game your PPC campaigns. Google must therefore take an immediate stand that might be somewhat over-reactive to protect whatever integrity its core-revenue generator has left. In this scenario, Google is simply laying down whatever version of the law it sees fit at whatever time it feels it necessary. This argument is bolstered by last week's release of the 63-point patent document that describes a more rigid link-evaluation system than most SEOs thought Google used.
The second school of thought says this is all a big brouhaha, a molehill over Mountain View of sorts. Google is not interested in being predatory. They already have scads of money and a few revenue generation machines. Google is interested in protecting the integrity of their search related products, especially AdWords. In some cases, that means shutting down techniques used by a few firms that specialize in taking advantages of every single loophole and techno-bug they can find. The person who noted his friend's SEM firm had a client poached by Google happened to be the author of an essay entitled, "The Art of Black Hat PPC Management: Applying Black Hat SEO techniques to PPC", Mikkel deMib Svendsen. This doesn't suggest that Mikkel's report was untrue; it is just worth noting that Google itself might have legitimate issues with the source. Even though Larry, Sergey and Eric have each stated that Fortune1000 companies are seen as their target-clients, they don't really need to poach revenue from SEM shops. They do however need to stop the pros from promoting the sort of anarchic mayhem often seen in the organic listings.
Proving once again there are at least five sides to every issue; a Google spokesperson issued this statement when asked about the poaching-post at SEW:
Google believes the search engine marketing community is an extremely valuable and important industry, to both Google and advertisers. We work with advertisers in whichever way best meets their needs, whether it is through a third party or direct.
The Google Advertising Professionals program is designed to empower the ecosystem of third parties around AdWords by providing tools and training to help them manage accounts. The program is designed for all individuals, from small SEMs through large agencies.
We do not comment on compensation and are declining to comment on the particular complaint.
That 'bout clears it up, eh?
There are obvious changes happening with Google and its relationships, both internal and external. There is a stratified atmosphere existing under the surface and if it suddenly seems that everything is about money, that's because everything is about monetization. Google seems to be in that awkward adolescent stage as it starts to deal with the harsh realities of shareholder satisfaction, a rapidly growing search sphere, and the increasing sophistication of the technologies it brings to search. In the midst of such change, a culture shift was inevitable. The real question to ask now is, "What kind of a global citizen does Google want to be as it grows up?"
SEOinc had recently been embroiled in a link-trading controversy that started when a third party link-vendor sent several competing SEO/SEM firms a spam-email asking them to provide a link to SEOinc on their sites in exchange for a link to their sites from another, unnamed website. Aside from being a particularly un-tempting offer, many in the SEO community saw it as proof of what are perceived to be blatant link-spamming techniques designed to game Google's rankings. SEOinc currently has 24,900 backlinks recognized by Google. By comparison, SubmitExpress, the number one listing under "search engine optimization" only has 4,580 backlinks recognized by Google. StepForth, a consistent fifth or sixth under "search engine placement", has only 812 backlinks seen by Google.
This may be one of those temporary glitches seen from time to time. Over the weekend, we will be watching Google to see if SEOinc returns to the SERPS and if there are any cascading issues consumers should know about.
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