StepForth SEO News Blog

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Mainstreaming Means Mergers and Acquisitions says AdMedia Partners Study

Monday, January 30, 2006

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Longest Two Day Weekend, Ever

Friday, January 27, 2006

Google's new China focused portal, Google.cn has been roundly and rightly criticized for censoring results shown in China at the request of the repressive Chinese regime. The absence of material deemed dangerous by the Chinese authorities leaves search results that tell the "right-side" of the story. This is the material open to viewing Chinese citizens.

In an interesting post to the Google Blogoscope (no relation to Google Inc), Philipp Lenssen displays results from 15 experimental searches he conducted using Google.com (US and International) and Google.cn (Google China). Though Philipp didn't make the connection in writing, the results generated clearly show Google not only censors results, it is acting as a propaganda arm of the Chinese government.

Google's senior policy counsel, Andrew McLaughlin, says that "while removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission."

That may be true however a glance at the results generated in Philipp's research shows the distinct use of words such as "tragic", "heretical" and "cult" to describe the spiritual meditation group Falun Gong. A second look shows similar issues surrounding Tibet, human rights groups and even the American Dream as expressed by Hugh Heffner's Playboy magazine.

Google is not only helping limit access to information, it is actively (though perhaps inadvertently) helping the Chinese Government deliver a very limited view of the world. By censoring the Chinese web experience, it is acting as a propaganda distributor for of the Chinese Government.

Already, protests have formed around Google's decision to honour the Chinese Government's requirement that Google self-censor search results. About twenty members of Students for a Free Tibet marched in front of Google's Mountain View CA headquarters on Wednesday. More troubling than a score of protesters is a growing movement among Bloggers to remove Google AdSense advertising from their websites.

Earlier today, Google removed a section addressing censorship from its website. Where it used to say,

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Google.CN Promoting Propaganda

Thursday, January 26, 2006

StepForth is leaving its quiet, residential space in the Fernwood neighbourhood of Victoria and moving downtown to its new Bastion Square offices.

The move is prompted in part by the tremendous growth of our industry over the past few years. We've grown too, bringing on new staff, upgraded services and a growing list of marketing partners. Also, the new location is simply too nifty to pass up.

This will be our last full day in our current space. On Friday, we start the process of ripping out the servers, dismantling the office, disconnecting our computers and saying goodbye to the funkiest section of town.

We'll miss the Thin-Edge of the Wedge pizza parlor, the George and Dragon Pub, and our downstairs neighbour, "Fast Sammy" the convenience store owner. Our free-range mascot, Hydro the death-defying squirrel will also be remaining behind.

Our new offices are located in historic Bastion Square overlooking Victoria 's gorgeous inner-harbour. Our new building houses some of the oldest offices in the Pacific Northwest region, originally built as a warehouse for supplies heading towards the Yukon gold-rush or to logging and mining interests on the north end of Vancouver Island.

Needless to say, we are all excited and a bit intimidated by the move.

As of Monday, our new address is:

StepForth Placement Inc.
#208, 26 Bastion Square
Victoria BC,
V8W 1H9

Please note that our phone numbers and email addresses will not change.

Toll Free (North America) : 1-877-385-5526
Local Phone Number: 250-385-1190

On behalf of the StepForth crew, I'd like to say thanks to the entire Fernwood neighbourhood. You've put up with a lot of parties, traffic, and general geeky weirdness from our space and we're going miss it here. Thanks for the support, friendship and being such amazing neighbours.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: StepForth Placement Moving

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

As expected, the roll out of change in the world of search is proving to be highly disruptive. Though the year is only three weeks old, noticeable shifts are occurring among the largest search entities and throughout the search marketing sector, making the scenery much different this month than it was just a few short weeks ago. These are among the most interesting times on the Internet as the largest players are positioning themselves to take their unique and collaborative runs through the year of global convergence.

For those interested in search marketing, a number of things will soon be different, most notably, our assumptions about the state of competition in the search sector. The three-way race between Google, Yahoo and MSN is, for all intents and purposes, over.

Yesterday, Yahoo's chief financial officer, Susan Decker, suffered the embarrassment of producing a poorly paraphrased quote. She made a simple, clear and brutally honest statement agreeing with a reality everybody else already perceived. It wasn't as much what she said.

Decker acknowledged in an interview with Bloomberg News that Google has a much larger share of the global search market than Yahoo does and that the gap is not likely to be bridged anytime soon.

"We don't think it's reasonable to assume we're going to gain a lot of share from Google,"Decker said. "It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share."

The comment left some questioning Yahoo's long-term commitment to excellence and innovative search technologies. The attendant controversy stems in part from the way she chose to state the obvious but also in part from a public perception that Yahoo has not fully defined its place in the search sector. That three-way race metaphor wasn't working anymore.

Google dominates today's versions of search and both Yahoo and MSN are prepared to admit it. In short, the recent past and the persistent present belong to Google. For its formal rivals, the only place to look is the future. Time is accelerated, often to the point of pointlessness in the tech world and that future is already functioning online. It is just waiting mass user adoption.

The interview was conducted last week, just after Yahoo released fourth quarter financial results that, while wildly profitable, were seen as mildly disappointing by investors. Wall St. appeared to be expecting Google-sized gains from Yahoo, results even Google will have a hard time matching when they release their Q4 numbers next week.

As for the search marketing community, Yahoo actually delivered good news that was buried beneath Decker's first quote. Yahoo's CFO was also quoted saying, "We have held our own, and we should gain revenue share in the industry as we roll out these new initiatives. Our goal has been to hold our share and to be a leading, if not the leading, total marketing platform, which would include both brand and search."

Yahoo is improving its Yahoo Publisher Network and is almost ready to bring it out of beta. The YPN is a live experiment in online publishing built on the idea that an increasing number of individual web users will help funnel large amounts traffic based on shared interests.

Meanwhile, Microsoft appears to have been badly affected by losing the AOL deal to Google. It is almost as if Galileo's law of inertia is applied in double doses in the Pacific Northwest . Very little search related has moved forward from Microsoft over the past year though they do maintain a relatively good search engine.

A year ago, Bill Gates told the world it hadn't seen anything when it came to search. MSN search had just introduced its own algorithmic search engine and was ready to challenge Google. Nine months ago, Steve Ballmer noted MSN search was going to produce much better results than Google.

Six months ago, Microsoft reorganized its management structure to streamline integration between its software and Internet services divisions, challenging Ray Ozzie to bring it all together. Three months ago, Ballmer was said to be throwing chairs in a fit over how badly Google was beating Microsoft, notably around hiring and retaining talent.

A year later, the search results at MSN are pretty much the same and they still haven't introduced a search-advertising product to compete with Google's. Again, Google virtually owns the space.

In the face of Google's dominance, Microsoft is looking inward both figuratively and literally. The reorganization of its management system in the autumn of 2005 was the first clue to how Microsoft is preparing to redefine itself in relation to the search sector. Gates' comments at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month mark the second.

Microsoft is retrenching behind the operating system right now. While it is working to release its paid advertising program adCenter by the summer, much of its efforts are said to be going towards finally shipping the new Vista OS, with a number of search and e-commerce tools included.

Google's dominance of today's version of search is absolute, a big problem for Yahoo and MSN even as they look forward to an expanded search environment. Search is the primary way to access information on the web and in order to stay in business, Google's rivals need to segment the concepts of search and find ways to excel in specific areas while Google overshadows general search.

The next few months are going to seem like a waiting game until the bevy of new products already introduced or soon to be introduced, (and user adoption of those products), begins to change the way searchers look for information and results are compiled. There is going to be a lot more stuff available to the common searcher and a lot more sources to draw from.

Yahoo is thinking outside the box by inviting users to create their own media environments in order to facilitate distribution of pay-per-use content (TV, music, movies) and pay-per-click advertising.

MSN is again looking inside the box with its newly revised focus on Vista . It hopes to erase the lines between the user, their computing device and the Internet by integrating search and search related products into commonly used software packages.

Google will continue being Google. As long as it continues to build on its membership driven services and produce better than adequate search results, the general public is likely to continue using it more than any other search engine.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Redefining the Search Scenery

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Yahoo has been the number-two search engine to Google for almost five years, at one point even displaying organic results generated by Google. When Yahoo introduced its own algorithmic search spider almost two years however, Google and Yahoo have competed for organic popularity.

"It kind of makes you wonder about how serious they are about search", said Search Engine Watch editor Danny Sullivan in an interview with Bloomberg, "It really ought to be their goal whether it's realistic or not."

Yahoo is far from giving up the number two spot in the global search market. Many are speculating that Yahoo made this announcement in an attempt to lower expectations they might surpass Google sometime in the near future. Their engineers continue to try to introduce better organic search algorithms. In a weather report to readers of WebmasterWorld, Yahoo announced an update of its organic search results, one many webmasters appear to be applauding.

As of today, however, observers should watch for Yahoo to direct our attention to the Yahoo Publishers Network (YPN), an arm whose muscles will be flexed by Yahoo at every opportunity in the near future. Loren Baker, editor of the Search Engine Journal notes comments by Yahoo CEO Terry Semel from Yahoo's Q4 earnings report in an article titled, "Yahoo’s Goals Beyond Search".

I would like to briefly give you an overview of our key priorities for 2006. Our #1 priority is building and expanding the suite of tools services and solutions for Internet marketers and publishers.

In search marketing, our monetization efforts can be grouped into 3 categories.

First, we are expanding our content match services through the Yahoo Publishers Network to take advantage of the growing number of small publishers on the web. We plan to add new features to beta over the coming quarters including search and enhanced ad targeting. We believe the service will ultimately position Yahoo as one of the preferred advertising partners for small and medium-sized publishers.

Second, we are focused on improving RPS to better matching in relevance algorithms. While our matching initiatives will largely benefit coverage, we're also focused on improving tools to drive higher relevance and click through.

The Yahoo Publishers Network is a self-publishing initiative offering individual micro-publishers unique tools, content and paid-advertising support from Yahoo Search Marketing. Yahoo is betting a large part of its image and reputation on facilitating the growth of content creation and distribution by its users.

Unlike Google, Yahoo has never focused solely on search. Yahoo is seen as a shopping portal, news aggregator and entertainment source as well as being known for its search powers.

Yahoo's CFO might have taken a bit of the heat away from Sunnyvale CA but she inadvertantly refocused it several hundred miles up the coastal highway to Redmond WA, home of Microsoft. If Yahoo can't beat Google, what exactly does that say for the search engine Bill's team built?

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Yahoo Submits to Google's Share

Monday, January 23, 2006

Many search commentators have connected the rapid drop in Google's share-values with their recent tussle with the US Department of Justice over its refusal to share search-records with the Government. As far as I can tell, the only thing connecting the two is the coincidence of timing.

As anyone with even a remote interest in search knows, the legal drama unfolding between Google and the DOJ fell out from the closet and into the public realm early last week, nearly a year after the DOJ initial request was complied with by Google's rivals, Yahoo, MSN and AOL. Of the four major search engines in the United States, Google was the only one to resist the US Governments demand for information on searches conducted by its users.

Within days of the story breaking, Google share prices began to fall, showing a sustained decline for the first time since the search firm went public in August 2004. The sudden drop sent search journalists scurrying to their keyboards to make the unsubstantiated connection between the court case and the value of Google stocks.

What these commentators are neglecting to mention is that investors are becoming wary of the search sector, seeing the bulk of revenues coming from the single source of paid search advertising. Although Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing continue to shower shareholders with positive results, Yahoo's most recent financial numbers, filed last week, just before the Google share drop started, came in one-cent below investor expectations.

The dust-up between Google and the US Department of Justice is very important and something all search engine users should pay very close attention to; however, it is not likely the root cause of the drop in investor confidence in the search sector. Perceived instability in the long-term business model is far more likely the reason investment management firms and the investors who rely on their advice appear bearish about Google this week.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Google Stock Drop Has Little to Do with DOJ

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Google Refuses Bush Admin Order to Turn Over User Data

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Who's Got the Biggest Ego?

If someone were to ask you to name the core business of General Motors, chances are you would naturally respond, "automobile manufacturing". If that were your answer, you would be invited to join the 99% who also answered incorrectly. The correct answer is automobile purchase financing through General Motors Approved Credit, (GMAC). In reality, GM makes most of its money from interest payments it earns helping consumers purchase the vehicles it builds.

Similarly, if someone were to ask what Google's core business is, the vast majority of respondents would answer, "search engine", smiling the giddy grins of those who know they are right. I've tried this one on my friends, most of which are already used to the torrent of trick questions that seem to stream from my tongue. Though most of them have heard me lecture about Google in public and private, most still get the answer wrong. Google's primary business is advertising, as it makes the bulk of its billion-dollar quarters from advertising revenues.

Along with its competitors, Google has been undergoing a remarkable series of changes over the past six months as it adds new features, acquires new technologies and expands its operations. It is no longer a pure search engine company though its search engine is the most popular around the world. Google acknowledged the shift early last summer when CEO Eric Schmidt famously defined Google as a media company.

That is an important distinction moving forward towards global domination. Google is a very big business, one that is growing faster and far more powerful than any other business before it. In seven short years, Google has grown from a university dorm room to universal dominance. After nearly five years of being at the top, being in second place is not on the agenda. That puts Google in the interesting position of being among the most watched firms on the planet. Search Engine Optimizers pay attention to all major search engines but we obsess about Google.

Recently, the StepForth research team took a long, hard look at Google and made some well-educated assumptions about what we saw. Our findings, though absolutely unscientific have been labeled the Unified Theory of Google, an expansion on the European Football inspired name Google United .

The Unified Theory of Google

Five years ago Google had the basics covered, producing the most accessible information resource ever built. Google spent those five years growing rapidly to include as many forms of spiderable media in its index as possible. In that time it has been remarkably successful, having collected more information from a greater variety of sources than any other repository ever has. It also enjoys the highest usage numbers, attracting more visitors in an hour than Disneyland does in a year.

Today, Google is a collection of several Internet technologies, many of which work together to improve the experience of each end-user and/or Google's bottom-line. For example, satellite maps generated by Google Earth have been incorporated into maps generated for users of Google Local search. Similarly, paid-search ads placed through Google AdWords augment organic search results and are also displayed to users of Gmail, Google Groups, Google Local, Froogle, and other branded search appliances.

Google has a number of branded search appliances. Known for its general search engine, Google also has News Search, Image Search, Comparison Shopping Search (Froogle), Local Search, Desktop Search, Blog Search, Google Answers, Video Search, Google Groups, and Email search features through Gmail, (to name but a few). Enabling and supporting the interoperability of its various components has been an important mission for Google engineers. Google appears to be trying to unify itself.

For search engine marketers, a unified Google offers a wide array of information resources to work with in planning and executing strategic initiatives. From a search engine optimization perspective, the Unified Theory of Google starts and ends with the search engine results pages (SERPs).

The SERP is the primary environment where the work of search marketers makes a difference. An in-depth understanding of how those results are generated is the product search marketers sell. Getting a client's URL on the first page of Google results for related keyword queries is the primary goal of all SEMs.

On a typical SERP served by Google there are five unique elements. Starting from the top of the page, users see a coloured box containing the top 2 or 3 AdWords, News results drawn from Google News, Desktop Search results drawn from the computer the search is conducted on, and ten organic results. Running down the right hand side of the screen, under the heading Sponsored Links, are the rest of the paid ads generated by AdWords.

Google has traditionally kept paid advertising separate from organic search results, at least when it comes to calculating placements in each format. Since the advent of AdWords, there has been a fear in the SEO community that Google would give special consideration to paying advertisers. As far as we can tell, Google does not grant organic privileges to paid advertisers.

It does however offer special services to another group of non-paying users, its growing membership. Membership has its privileges in an inter-exploitative sort of way. This was one of the reasons we changed our in-office reference from Google United to Unified Google.

In the early autumn of 2004, Google purchased a well-known web analytics firm called Urchin. In November 2005, Google opened Urchin to its membership, rebranding it Google Analytics. The server-side software package was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm by webmasters, causing a continuing series of problems for Google engineers. They appear to have most of the preliminary bugs worked out now but are still limiting new sign-ups to a waiting list of those who registered in November.

Google Analytics is designed, primarily, to support and promote AdWords advertising. Offering webmasters and search marketers over 70 unique stats that track visitors through the URL, the analytics package gives a clear view of how the public views a particular website. There are several tools included that help webmasters or SEMs improve the conversion rates of documents, along with revenue based goal setting and tracking features.

At Google's end of things, information from Google Analytics is used to inform both Googlebot and Google's AdWords algorithm. While most of the data acquired by Google is not site specific, the info that does relate to unique documents is assumed to be recorded in the historic profile Google accumulates about every document in its index.

An important note, a Google Membership account is required to access Google Analytics. For savvy search marketers, use of Google Analytics, along with other Google branded search features can be highly beneficial to client rankings. In our research, we have been using Google Analytics to track visitors to the StepForth domain. While we do not currently run paid-advertising on any of our sites, we have learned a lot from the experience and are reworking our website accordingly.

Getting clients signed up for Google Analytics will be a priority for us as soon as Google reopens the program to the general public. In the meantime, there are a number of other steps we believe our clients (and other SEOs) should consider when thinking about Google's organic rankings.

No honest SEO is 100% certain about anything in regards to Google, however, following the Jagger algorithm update, we are confidently certain Google has incorporated several of the concepts covered in their March 2005 patent application, “ Information retrieval based on historical data”. (click here to read our examination of the patent)

This knowledge has forced us to take a look at other ways to promote our clients' websites thorough Google's vast system. Working on the assumption that Google considers itself a trusted authority, we have started posting or providing information to as many Google branded search appliances as possible. (Note to all SEOs, follow the rules Google posts in each instance and avoid spamming. Don't blow the environment, its too cool to lose to petty abuse.)

One of the simplest ways to provide information to Google is through the use of an xml sitemap. We continue to subscribe to the SEO School of Spider Control, believing that the more we can drive spiders through our clients' offerings, the better those clients will rank. The trick is, it is not the number of times our clients get spidered, it comes down to how and where they get spidered. For us, that first line comes in the use of the simple sitemap.

Next, SEOs need to convince their clients to pump product or service information into Google Base. Earlier this week, folks at the SERoundTable noticed data from Google Base leaking into the general Google SERPs. We are assuming that including clients in Google Base is going to become increasingly important as Google tests a clustering engine that will produce results drawn from its various search appliances to present them in an info-tree format.

Lastly, SEOs need to pay attention to the past as well as the present when planning future website promotions. As Google acquires more information about the histories of documents in its index, and compares those histories against sites linked together, a continuing cascade will show itself in the SERPs. We believe that Google is entering a period where it favours its membership though we are not convinced this was an intended consequence. We are however, convinced that signing our clients up for Google memberships, primarily through Google Analytics and Google Base will be beneficial in the long run as Google works to draw results from its multiple databases.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Unified Theory of Google

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

4. Mini-Site networks
Designed to exploit a critical vulnerability in early versions of Google's PageRank algorithm, mini-site networks were very much like leader pages except they tended to be much bigger. The establishment of a mini-site network involved the creation of several topic or product related sites all linking back to a central sales site. Each mini-site would have its own keyword enriched URL and be designed to meet specific requirements of each major search engine. Often they could be enlarged by adding information from leader pages. By weaving webs of links between mini-sites, an artificial link-density was created that could heavily influence Google's perception of the importance of the main site.

In the summer of 2004, Google penalized several prominent SEO and SEM firms for using this technique by banning their entire client lists.

5. Link Farms
Link farms emerged as free-for-all link depositories when webmasters learned how heavily incoming links influenced Google. Google, in turn, quickly devalued and eventually eliminated the PR value it assigned to pages with an inordinate collection or number of links. Nevertheless, link farms persist as uninformed webmasters and unethical SEO firms continue to use them.

6. Blog and/or Forum Spam
Blogs and forums are amazing and essential communication technologies, both of which are used heavily in the daily conduct of our business. As with other Internet based media, blogs and forum posts are easily and often proliferated. In some cases, blogs and certain forums also have established high PR values for their documents. These two factors make them targets of unethical SEOs looking for high-PR links back to their websites or those of their clients. Google in particular has clamped down on Blog and Forum abuse.

7. Keyword Stuffing
At one time, search engines were limited to sorting and ranking sites based on the number of keywords found on those documents. That limitation led webmasters to put keywords everywhere they possibly could. When Google emerged and incoming links became a factor, some even went as far as using keyword stuffing of anchor text.

The most common continuing example of keyword stuffing can be found near the bottom of far too many sites in circulation.

8. Hidden Text
It is amazing that some webmasters and SEOs continue to use hidden text as a technique but, as evidenced by the number of sites we find it on, a lot of folks still use it. They shouldn't.

There are two types of hidden text. The first is text that is coloured the same shade as the background thus rendering it invisible to human visitors but not to search spiders. The second is text that is hidden behind images or under document layers. Search engines tend to dislike both forms and have been known to devalue documents containing incidents of hidden text.

9. Useless Meta Tags
Most meta tags are absolutely useless. The unethical part is that some SEO firms actually charge for the creation and insertion of meta tags. In some cases, there seems to be a meta tag for virtually every possible factor but for the most part are not considered by search spiders.

In general, StepForth only uses the description and keywords meta tags (though we are dubious about the actual value of the keywords tag), along with relevant robots.txt files. All other identifying or clarifying information should be visible on a contact page or included in the footers of each page.

10. Misuse of Directories
Directories, unlike other search indexes, tend to be sorted by human hands. Search engines traditionally gave links from directories a bit of extra weight by considering them links from trusted authorities. A practice of spamming directories emerged as some SEOs and webmasters hunted for valuable links to improve their rankings. Search engines have since tended to devalue links from most directories. Some SEOs continue to charge directory submission fees.

11. Hidden Tags
There are a number of different sorts of tags used by search browsers or website designers to perform a variety of functions such as; comment tags, style tags, alt tags, noframes tags, and http-equiv tags. For example, the "alt tag" is used by site-readers for the blind to describe visual images. Inserting keywords into these tags was a technique used by a number SEOs in previous years. Though some continue to improperly use these tags, the practice overall appears to be receding.

12. Organic Site Submissions
One of the most unethical things a service-based business can do is to charge clients for a service they don't really need. Charging for, or even claiming submissions to the major search engines are an example. Search engine spiders are advanced enough to no longer require site submissions to find information. Search spiders find new documents by following links. Site submission services or SEO firms that charge clients a single penny for submission to Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask Jeeves, are radically and unethically overcharging those clients.

13. Email Spam
Placing a URL inside a "call-to-action" email continues to be a widely used of search marketing spam. With the advent of desktop search appliances, email spam has actually increased. StepForth does not use email to promote your website in any way.

14. Redirect Spam
There are several ways to use the redirect function to fool a search engine or even hijack traffic destined for another website! Whether the method used is a 301, a 302, a 402, a meta refresh or a java-script, the end result is search engine spam.

15. Misuse of Web 2.0 Formats (ie: Wiki, social networking and social tagging)
An emerging form of SEO spam is found in the misuse of user-input media formats such as Wikipedia. Like blog comment spamming, the instant live-to-web nature of Web 2.0 formats provide an open range for SEO spam technicians. Many of these exploits might even find short-term success though it is only a matter of time before measures are taken to devalue the efforts.

Search engine optimization spam continues to be a problem for the SEO industry as it tries to move past the perceptions of mainstream advertisers. When under-ethical techniques are used, trust (the basis of all business) is abused and the efforts of the SEO/SEM industry are called into question. Fortunately, Google’s new algorithm appears to be on the cutting edge of SEO Spam detection and prevention. Let’s hope 2006 is the year the entire SEO industry goes on a Spam-free diet.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: 15 Shades of SEO Spam

Monday, January 16, 2006

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: In-House SEO :: To Promote and Protect

Friday, January 13, 2006

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Microsoft opens "AdLab" in Beijing

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Google Local + Research in Motion

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Reporters Without Boarders is a public interest group established to protect the right of reporters, journalists, and bloggers to witness and report on events.

It is calling on Internet users and bloggers to support six key proposals it issued last week "... aimed at ensuring that Internet-sector companies respect free expression when operating in repressive countries."

The organization is asking Internet users and bloggers to sign a petition supporting the initiative and to invite others to do so as well. The document outlining their position is important, one that should be read and thought through by anyone interested in protecting freedom of expression online. It mentions concerns around, "ethical lapses displayed by certain Internet sector companies when operating in repressive countries", highlighting actions taken by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Cisco Systems, in order to smooth entry into the burgeoning Chinese market.

Please support the Reporters Without Boarders petition .

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Reporters Without Boarders Want Your Help

Waves of change have cascaded over the search marketing sector in the past year prompting changes in the methods, business and practice of search engine optimization. Though many things have been altered, expanded or otherwise modified, the general search engine market share has not. Google remains the most popular search engine and continues to drive more traffic than the other search engines combined. Another thing that has not changed is the greater volume of site traffic generated by organic search placement over any other form on online advertising.

There are six or seven advanced public search engines out there but the vast majority of SEO attention is naturally given to Google. Many of the tips offered in this piece, while useful at the other search engines, are written with Google in mind. We are also thinking about alternative file formats and other ways visitors might find websites aside from pure-search.

The most visible changes can be seen in the variety of search formats and in search results returned by the major search engines but the greatest changes are taking place in the philosophies and practices of search engine optimizers. As the search environment has changed, so too have the techniques and tools used by search marketers. More time is focused on improving website content and navigation in order to appeal both live-visitors and search spiders. There are also new metrics measuring the success of a search marketing campaign, all of which are far more complicated than simple search engine rankings.

Since the introduction of the Jagger Update at Google, we have been doing a number of things slightly differently and have updated expectations of our clients and ourselves.

Organic search engine placement now requires a lot more work on our part and on the part of our clients or their webmasters. Content needs to be updated regularly, navigation simplified and shared analysis of on-site traffic is increasingly important. Top10 websites, especially around their main entry points, have become production pieces requiring a greater degree of strategic planning than the general, annually updated brochure sites do. Creation of that content needs to be considered a standing business expense though that expense should be more than made up for in long-term advertising savings.

Along with that greater effort, we strongly advise our clients to integrate their PPC campaigns with their SEO campaigns though, not necessarily in the hands of the same person. SEO and PPC are two unique arms of search engine marketing. Many SEOs spread their time crafting both paid and organic campaigns for clients though each requires unique and highly developed skill sets. PPC offers guaranteed placements for a fee but require greater attention and monitoring, along with different levels of analysis. We have set caps on the number of PPC campaigns we can run in conjunction with organic placement campaigns and have taken measures to outsource via recommendation any overload. The key here is to have the PPC and the organic SEO teams working together on several aspects of the client's web documents.

That said, we need to stop thinking of search engines as the main show in website marketing. This might sound like a self-defeating statement coming from a search engine optimization specialist however search, as a tool, is no longer confined to the search engines as we know them. Think about paid-ad generating site visits from a third-party website. The transactions that brought the visitors were not conducted on a search engine, but one or more search engines, in conjunction with that third-party website facilitated them.

Now, think about social commentary and viral marketing. Internet users, as is true with most of us offline, tend to rely on first-person recommendations. I tell a friend about a service that worked particularly well for me. They try that service and tell their friends as well. It works that way with almost any industry from restaurants to airlines, moving companies and magazines. Now, try to imagine your personal network of friends and contacts. How many of them know each other or might connect through a third or fourth party?

Imagine the impact of giving users the ability to tag their search experience with comments. During the Christmas sales rush, Yahoo Shopping experimented with user-compiled shopping lists, sort of a global gift-guide that used social networking and comment tagging to cross-reference for search results. (If you are interested in Stereo Speakers, you might also be interested in StacyB's Audiophile Shopping List.) Yahoo's Flickr photo sharing service has seen amazing growth through global networks of friends exchanging images they have tagged with their comments.

Similarly, the appearance of Blogs has substantially expanded the online marketing environment. It is estimated that by the year 2010, there might be as many as one billion Blogs published online. While most are personal diaries, blogs appear to have lasted long enough to be more than a fad and are evolving rapidly as users learn to modify and improve on them.

Businesses are increasingly turning to Blogs to communicate with customers or to respond to inquiries. Newsgathering organizations are using Blogs to fill the gap between TV broadcast and the Internet by posting everything from breaking news, information podcasts, video clips, and reporters notebooks to recipe ideas, shopping tips and paid-search advertising.

There are two major advantages Blogs offer search marketers. The ability to link Blog entries together to form an information-thread network provides search marketers with a number of tools beyond the improvement of the knowledge base. We are able to help clients establish communications centers from which they can link to information supplied by suppliers, distributors and clients on their websites or blogs. An important goal for search marketers is to help our clients provide users with a clear path to information they need. Clear paths tend to get followed by many people, a trait today's search spiders look and account for. Blogs, if maintained properly can be an important component in a winning website structure.

The second important feature of Blogs is RSS, real simple syndication. Anyone who expresses interest can subscribe to your blog, getting instant notification of updates or messages.

Search is going to be a facet of all information applications and many electronic appliances moving forward into the next decade. The major search engines are each working to make deals with the major appliance and electronics manufactures in order to provide search results to users in planes, trains and all automobiles, along with your kitchen, living room, mobile phone and quite possibly to display screens appearing in shopping carts.

In other words, search will be a greater part of our daily lives, which brings us back to search engine optimization for websites. That's still important, even if the traditional search engine rankings pages are less important.

Building a good website structure is critical. Search engines have changed radically over the past ten years to the point that we are now in a period of what appears to be constant change and evolution. The most important elements of SEO today, more important than writing the perfect keyword enriched title tag, are ease of navigation, clarity of purpose, and relevant links (think of links as information-threads). Keywords are important, make no mistake about that but search engines have moved far beyond simple keyword/context measurements.

Search engines have significantly improved their ranking algorithms over the past two years and in particularly, the past few months. From the earliest years until about five years ago, search engines looked for keywords in several areas or elements of a website, including incoming and outgoing links. Rankings were determined by the arrangement of keywords and the number of incidents of those keywords found on or around the site.

For the past five years, Google has set the standards SEOs work to achieve but over the last six months, those standards have subtly changed and will continue to change long into the foreseeable future. What made Google different five years ago was their method of using a standard keyword based spider that also factored in the number of incoming links to each site. That led to a number of techniques based around making artificial link-densities by creating link-networks, portal sites and other tricks aimed at gaming Google. After a series of algorithm updates aimed primarily at preventing “black-hat” manipulation of its rankings, Google has moved well past the basic premise of PageRank and its simple, democratic explanation.

We believe the Jagger Update is only one of many algorithm shifts that are leading Google away from pure link-context to include shared incidents of semantic intention found between linked documents.

Where we used to look at a website as a collection of similar documents, often of a common file type, found within a distinct URL, we are now examining far more complex layers of differing web-documents strung between several URLs. Again, think of links between documents as information threads being followed by the spiders. As much as possible, these threads should be more than useful links between relevant sites, they should help complete whatever story the live-user is experiencing. Your site visitors are looking for something, at least, that's what Google, Yahoo and the rest want to think. Google is especially interested in how visitors use your site, how often they return and how often they use links leaving your site.

Google has just reopened Google Analytics on a limited, invitation basis. Overwhelmed by massive user-interest when it released its modified Urchin site-statistics program, Google Analytics provides a detailed look at how visitors use your site. We are strongly urging clients to sign up for Google Analytics as it becomes available and will be offering assistance interpreting data extracted. One of the features of the free software package is the integration of AdWords/AdSense support showing how your ad campaigns are performing and how ads displayed on your site are doing.

While Google is making it easier for search marketers and advertisers, its goal is obviously to make itself more money by increasing click-through rates while collecting user data from the millions of websites signing up with the service. It has also provided SEOs with a dashboard view of critical factors involved with how it ranks sites.

The practice of search engine optimization has in some ways become more difficult but in others, has actually gotten easier. SEO has come a log way since its early days in the mid 1990's. A decade ago, SEOs were considered secretive and manipulative cowboys, roughneck mercenaries who would (because they could) do just about anything to get a site ranked in the Top10 on the major engines of the time. There were more search engines along with a variety of directories, spidered databases such as Inktomi that sold results to other engines.

This switch, combined with the rapid growth of the Web necessitated better search algorithms and a crackdown on manipulative search marketers. At the same time, the SEO and SEM sectors have seen tremendous growth due mostly to a shift towards paid-search marketing by major advertisers and the attendant growth of interest in Google, Yahoo and MSN. The search marketing sector has doubled or perhaps tripled in size in just twenty-four months as new practitioners were hired by established SEO firms or forming their own businesses. Many of those new practitioners have spent that time absorbing and adding to the huge volume of information that makes up the SEO sector's knowledge base.

Those SEOs are coming of age, professionally speaking, and are very good at what they do. Their skills are going to be an important asset to the sector in the coming year as the business of search expands way beyond the desktop and into everyday life. Change is good.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: SEO Tips In a Sea of Change

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

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View this Article Only: SEO Tip :: MSN Search by IP Number

Monday, January 09, 2006

Google

For sheer performance power, Google did not disappoint. Using the talents of Robin Williams to humour the audience and shield Page from difficult questions, the Google presentation scored high however some of Williams' material included riffs on Chinese and European accents and a few dreary jokes about the French. Luckily for Williams, the Adult Entertainment Expo running next door provided extra ammunition to make juvenile jokes that, while racy, did not always devolve into racism. The pokes at Chinese accented English and Europeans were discouraging as was the use of Williams' acerbic tongue to belittle those who lobbed difficult questions towards Page. Google is supposed to be better than that. So is Robin Williams.

Page used his speech to announce and debut a bundle of free software known as Google Pack. According to a new story spun by Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, Google Pack was developed after founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin spent the better part of an afternoon adding software to a new computer purchased for their office. The want for a faster solution led to the creation of Google Pack, a case of necessity being the brother of branded bundling. Most of the components offered in the bundle are made up of proprietary Google software but there are a few interesting items made by other firms.

Google Pack revolves around the Google Updater, which downloads, installs and automatically updates components included in the Pack, or prompts when updates become available. The following pieces of software are available in the bundle:

Google Software Included:

• Google Earth - (3D satellite images of virtually anyplace on Earth)
• Google Desktop - (Desktop workspace organizer)
• Picasa - (Google's photo and image editor/organizer/sharing space)
• Google IE Toolbar - (Search toolbar made for Internet Explorer w/auto-fill features, pop-up blocking)
• Google Pack Screensaver (takes photos from Picasa collection and converts them to screensavers)

Additional Software Included:

• Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar - (Alternative web browser with Google Toolbar built-in)
• Ad-Aware SE Personal - (Lavasoft's free antispyware utility)
• Adobe Reader 7 - (PDF reader for Acrobat documents)
• Norton Antivirus 2005 Special Edition (with six month subscription to critical updates)

Yahoo

Yahoo's Terry Semel used his speech at CES to announce Yahoo Go, a suite of products and services designed to allow users to access personalized image, music and broadcast information via their PCs, mobile devices and televisions. Basically another series of bundled services, Yahoo Go will be pre-installed in Nokia Series 60 phones and is immediately available for download in 10 major countries. In the US, customers of Cingular and AT&T can sign up immediately.

Yahoo Go Mobile includes Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, photo sharing, a calendar, address book, Yahoo web and image search, Yahoo news, sports and finances (as well as the ability to personalize information sources).

Microsoft

Bill Gates was the opening speaker at CES. Calling the 2Ks the decade of the digital lifestyle and workstyle, Gates used his time to re-introduce the long-awaited Vista operating system and to show how Microsoft does not consider Google any form of competition. Last week, I wrote a longer piece on Gate's CES presentation.

To paraphrase Chairman Bill, Microsoft is not irrelevant. Microsoft is primarily a software maker and the "magic" of good software will never go out of style. Gates gently reminded the audience he was the first to start talking about convergence over a decade ago while strongly suggesting Microsoft Vista will substantially raise the bar on operating systems. Gates said he sees IBM as a much more frightening competitor than Google.

All in all, the three major speeches from the heads of the three major search engines, while high in pre-event expectation, were light on major announcements. The landscape has not changed in any noticeable way though Google might have gotten yet another leg up over its competition by speaking last and presenting the Google Video Store announcement.

Google is clearly ahead of the pack in grass roots, direct to consumer services. Yahoo clearly demonstrated it understands where the various media are heading and is providing crossover software to enable user's ease of access. Clearly, Microsoft might have created the best operating system ever, or it might not have. Actually, that one is still rather murky. We'll have to wait almost another year to find out.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Searching for Realistic Expectations - Consumer Electronics Show Letdowns

Friday, January 06, 2006

• Search Engine Optimization - $8.50 per new customer
  
• Yellow Page Advertising - $20 per new customer
• Email Marketing - $60 per new customer
  
• Direct Mail Campaigns - $70 per new customer

• Search Engine Optimization - $0.29/lead
  
• Email Marketing - $0.50/lead
• Yellow Page Advertising - $1.18/lead
• Banner Advertising - $2.00/lead
  
• Direct Mail Campaigns - $9.94/lead

• The most effective lead generation practice was in person seminars/road shows (33% of respondents communicated it was very effective).
  
• The second most effective lead generation strategy was search engine optimization (25% of respondents communicated it was very effective). The value of search engine optimization has proven itself to be a "must-do," when it comes to lead generation in all industries.
  
• Paid Search Advertising (or PPC) came in seventh in the study.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Searching for Cost Savings

Yahoo Local & Yellowpages.com Partner for Local Advertising

(source: Search Engine Journal)

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View this Article Only: Yahoo Local Partnership with Yellowpages.com

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View this Article Only: Google's BigDaddy Data Center

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Gates Touts Magical Software, Downplays Google at CES

The year opened with two major items regarding Yahoo. The first involves Microsoft, the second, MTV.

The LATimes, yes, the same publication that made a false start on rumours of Google computers, is reporting that Microsoft made an offer to buy Yahoo for $80 - $90 Billion. This is another thing that probably never happened. While highly unlikely, the rumour does shed light on a particular problem Yahoo and Microsoft both share, they want the same things but a common threat stands in the way, Google.

Yahoo is trying to become the primary online entertainment provider, a meta-network surpassing satellite broadcasting in range and choice. Yahoo is rumoured to be interested in buying Viacom, owner of MTV and a number of other mainstream media content creators. Along with their partnerships with music labels, other TV networks, and movie distributors, the purchase of Viacom would put Yahoo far beyond Google and Microsoft in the field of digital home entertainment.

Microsoft wants to continue to be the biggest thing ever and to do that; it needs to remain the operating system of choice in a rapidly changing world. To stay #1 means providing consumers with what they need, something both Google and Yahoo are almost but not quite capable of doing on their own.

The obvious piece of speculation, aside from the erroneous assumption they might buy Yahoo is an offer to partner up with Barry Diller at Ask Jeeves. On their own, Diller's IAC has not yet capitalized on the potential of the fourth most popular search engine, MSN's adCenter might have the technology and clout they need to even hope to compete against Google.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Yahoo and MSN Speculation

It all starts with a rumour. Someone said something to someone else and that someone told another person and before you can say, "cheese-doodle", a wrong-story rumour grows out of control as speculation spreads it far and wide. Each retelling of the story adds another dimension, based on the teller's assumptions and perspective. An interesting phenomenon has played out in the search engine press over the past two days, as a non-story about something Google is not doing grew into the imminent death of Microsoft almost overnight.

Did you hear about Google cornering the market on low-cost PCs? It was a big story, broke by the tech-savvy folks over at the LATimes . According to the story, Google was about to introduce ultra low-cost PC's and sell them through Walmart. In the 24-hour period it took for Google's PR-chief David Krane to respond, speculation led to introduction of the long anticipated (but never confirmed) Goog/OS operating system.

As the story grew, the Google-branded computers would be manufactured in China and sold below $199 in Walmart stores throughout North America . Sporting a Googlized version of Linux, the mini-computers would run what was essentially a Google made operating system, employing Google's vast array of free, membership based services, server-side software features. Free Gmail accounts and one gig of online storage space with every computer along with the host of other real and anticipated Google features. The Google/AOL deal would give Google primetime and feature movie content that could be sent via the proprietary Google-Video Viewer that would also come coded into the OS in every unit. Since all the software is free, along with the server-dependent operating system, that older company in Redmond would be made obsolete for the satisfied home user. The wonderful world of the Googleverse in a cube shaped box packaged and ready to ship to an eager market. Amazing but not real.

If the story were a bit more real than a rumour, it would put the fear of a grass-roots god into Microsoft. The mere thought of it should. Gates and Co. should be watching very closely as Google is more than capable of doing something similar, even if they have no plans of delivering their own computer units. Like Microsoft of old, they don't need to make the computers; they just need to work with computer makers. Google, better than any other search engine understands the Internet itself is a meta-operating system used alongside the primary OS running individual computers.

Microsoft has grasped it, appointing Ray Ozzie as VP in charge of getting-it-back-together, in late 2005 however they might have grasped it too late. The biggest speculations about Google are the same story as the biggest speculations around Microsoft. They are two sides of the same ever-spinning coin.

Larry Page is speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. So are Yahoo’s Terry Semel and Microsoft’s Bill Gates. A number of announcements are expected to emerge, leading to speculation that a lot more column space will be filled thinking about what it’s all about.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Year Opens with Google Speculation

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Happy New Year everyone! After a two-week slowdown, the North American business world is gearing up to its general terminal velocity. In the high-tech environment we work in, terminal velocity often appears to approach the speed of light. Being human beings however, we are not capable of moving as fast as light. Our working environment moves or changes faster than we can possibly keep up with.

Last year (2005 for those who've already forgotten) was all about change and, aside from the obvious fact that everything in search is going to be or has already been affected, 2006 will be no different. After a full year of rapid changes, many search marketers might be excused for using an excessive variety of four-letter words however, there is one four-letter "F" word that aptly describes the environmental forecast for 2006. " FLUX " (Any definition displayed on linked page will do. For minutes of fun try mixing and matching them.). Flux is rapidly becoming my favourite four-letter "F" word, replacing the much maligned word, "Free".

Given the complexity of the sector, perhaps a few simple words such as "free" might be a good starting point. For the vast majority of users, search is popular application that is offered for free. All costs are borne by the search engines, which charge advertising fees to advertisers of all shapes and sizes. Access to all content shown by the major search engines, regardless of whether any fees are in any way attached, has remained free for search engine users, over the years. With the advent of pay-for-download entertainment content such as music and movie files, the major search engines are going to take the subtle step from being public information resources to becoming private participants in the information-as-entertainment industry.

Free has always been a widely misused word in relation to the Internet. Nothing comes for free in this environment. The simple fact you are currently reading this article is being recorded by more machines than either of us realize. That information is extremely valuable and has been collected for years. This is the year we are going to get a limited taste of the true power of personal information processing. More on that in a few paragraphs but first...

What we are witnessing is the ability of the major search engines to consolidate the major facets of commercial information distribution into a massive but nifty package delivered at the speed of light. Remember the 1980's when networked computers eliminated file clerks and the middle management that ran them? The transit of the search engines from public resource to commercial players is going to be noticeable and highly disruptive. Lots of sales, marketing and distribution folks are likely to lose their jobs because of this consolidation but for them the writing has been in the source-code for several years. Over the next twelve months expect to see a lot more references to proprietary content appear on each of the major search engines.

Google is going to work with AOL, giving it access to content from the world's largest information creation-distribution machine, Time Warner. MSN and NBC have a long-standing working relationship with each other. Until recently the two co-owned the struggling MSNBC network. MSN's interest was bought by NBC-Universal two days before Christmas though its parent company Microsoft retains equal ownership in the network with NBC. Yahoo is also offering TV content from CBS, along with music content. All are thinking about getting into feature movie distribution with plenty of rumours circulating.

Today, be glad you never got the chance to work on Madison Ave. or in any other facet of the infotainment distribution industry. While those currently there are making scads of money, 2005 was the watershed year after which everything flows in another direction. Unless one had the sense to buy Lloyd Braun, 2006 is going to be the year of the immaculate resume. I don't think we're going Hollywood anymore Toto.

That's not to say the dedication to providing clear and representative organic results is going to slip in any way. The Internet will always remain a highly intelligent space where users have remarkable control over community values and standards. If Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask were to salt their organic results with their own commercial content, the backlash would (one hopes) be beyond enormous. What is going to happen though is an erosion of core-mission thinking by the major search engines when it comes to branding, marketing and energy.

How this shift happens exactly and what it means to the greater culture remains to be seen. The baby steps have been taken and the machine is ready to run. The big question for search marketers and their clients is what does this mean for webmasters and small business advertisers? It means the bar has been raised substantially.

Search is a far more serious business environment on every level than ever before. Just a few short years ago, search was described as the quiet equalizer for smaller business advertisers but over the past twelve months, search has become the mainstream method of finding new information and accessing previously viewed information. A long-term habit of searchers is to remember keyword phrases instead of URLs, basically using the search engines like a filing cabinet. This habit continues to be exhibited by search users but, as finding information via search engines displaces traditional telephone directories, classified ads and TV/radio commercials, a smaller number of businesses stand to benefit. In other words, demand far outstrips supply and the competition to rank in the Top10 is more intense than ever.

Webmasters and search marketers have a lot more to think about as user-experience is becoming as important as the content the users are experiencing. Search marketing is going to require a greater degree of website maintenance than ever before and in many cases will likely require site-makeovers. Again, this isn't Kansas anymore. Search is rapidly becoming the most competitive advertising arena and merchants both large and small who wish to compete effectively need to develop the tools and assets, or have those tools developed for them. The days of the relatively free ride are ending and your websites now need to be thought of as productions, not as brochures.

Every website is different and therefore has unique needs. There are a number of general elements all sites share though, the first being the fact they are public documents. Anyone can see them regardless of whether they are attractive or unappealing. Your index page is very much like your storefront and is visible to anyone who happens to be passing by. Obviously, you want as many passers by as possible to come into your store and buy something. It helps if they are interested in the merchandise you have to offer. What you need to do is find a good way to funnel them into and through your store in order to maximize their chances to purchase something. Think about that next time you look at your index page and then apply a similar line of thought as your navigate through your website. While you do that, keep in mind that GoogleBot, Yahoo's Slurp, MSNBot and other search spiders are judging the site (in part) by its navigation and how live-visitors use navigation options.

Another thing merchants think about is getting customers to come back again and again. Repeat customers are much less expensive to cultivate and often easier to please than new customers are. The longer they browse, the more likely they are to buy something. The more interesting, esthetically pleasing the store is, the longer they will browse. The longer they browse through your cyber-store, the more documents visitors look at making the site rank better in the electronic eyes of the spiders.

Search-spiders are like the eyes of elephants and as every child knows, elephants never forget a thing. The search engines know practically everything there is to know about your website and the documents contained within. They even know who likes your site enough to visit it on a regular basis. That knowledge, combined with the personal information we all give search engines as we use them will be harnessed this year in many ways.

For some search engine users, their own search history will determine some of the references that appear in the search engine results. Obviously commercial content such as advertising generated by AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing is already being served specifically to users with known interests. It is a widely held assumption that personalization will have an affect on the organic search results viewed by an increasing number of search engine users in 2006.

Lastly, search engine users and advertisers should learn to use and develop information for a number of search-related genres such as blogs, image search and business-sector related networking tools. This is going to be increasingly important even though some of the current genres will change over time or become obsolete. Search marketing is not only about being found on the results pages anymore. It is about being found, period. In an increasingly complex and competitive environment, websites and the folks promoting and maintaining them need to use as many relevant tools to communicate their message, or risk being lost in the static energy missed by rapid eye movement.

Welcome to the emerging new world of search. 2006 is going to be another year of transition but at least we have a better idea exactly where this transit system is going.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: State of Search Marketing 2006

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

It is that time of year again. Between the extra helpings of turkey soup and sandwiches, writers of every stripe are making lists of predictions for the coming twelve months. Last year, we got just over half our predictions correct. This year we hope to do as well or better but in an industry as dynamic and rapidly changing as the world of search, we couldn't expect to hit a home run on every prediction. The only thing that is certain is the idea 2006 will be as or more interesting than 2005.

Here is our perceptive look-ahead, a series of educated guesses that amount to little more than shots in the dark. Given the enormous growth and maturity of the search marketplace in 2005, some of these shots can't help but find their targets.

1. MSN + someone

Microsoft really wanted to kick the year off with an announcement of a paid-advertising partnership with AOL but that is obviously not going to happen. They got skunked at the last second by Google which is taking a 5% share of AOL in exchange for a billion dollars and a heck of a lot of AdWords purchasing power. That doesn't mean Microsoft isn't going to find a partner to work with however. After investing tens of millions in the development of MSN AdCenter, the senior-geek crew in Redmond is not inclined to give up on the most lucrative market on the Net.

Look for Microsoft to saddle up to Barry Diller, owner of Ask Jeeves. For our money, this appeared to be the most likely scenario as both need to find ways to enter the paid-advertising market with a band rather than a stifled whimper.

The biggest knock on this theory is a blog posting by MSN manager, Ian McAllister that Ross, the boss,found the other day. In it, Mr. McAllister states that Microsoft is in talks with another tier1 Internet company which he is "... 99% sure you're a customer of." That makes me think about companies like eBay, Amazon, or a major telco.

For the purposes of prediction, let's leave it with MSN + someone. This is a must happen for Microsoft.

2. Usability and Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is going to continue to be the most important facet of search marketing however, the process of SEO is going to evolve enormously over the coming year. A large part of the focus will shift towards website functionality and usability for two reasons. First, search engine algorithms are increasingly taking user-experience into consideration when calculating ranking. Secondly, mainstream advertisers are moving back towards SEO but those advertisers will require something stronger than Top10 placements to justify spending money on the mysterious marketing miracle SEO represents. When an SEO can tell his or her clients they will not only get strong placements but will also get a website redeveloped specifically to increase conversions, that SEO will make more sales. Look for most of us (SEOs) to start talking about usability and conversions as a standard part of our services.

3. SEO/SEM Community expands services to include specialties and features such as Google Base, MSN Fremont and Yahoo Shopping.

This prediction follows on the previous one. Most people continue to think "Google” when they think "search", but as we all know, the front face of Google is hardly the definitive limit of "search". As a matter of fact, the front face of Google and all the other major search entities is likely to be heavily influenced by the appearance and placement of online businesses in other, less known search-venues. This will move SEOs to offer services supporting Google Base, MSN Fremont and Yahoo Shopping, along with the slew of other "alternative" search arenas.

4. Yahoo moves aggressively into home entertainment.

This prediction is sort of a given, given the fact Yahoo is already flirting with facilitation of home entertainment services such as providing movies on demand, legal downloads of music and independent publishing. Gary Price from Search Engine Watch wrote a story earlier this week about Yahoo offering access to four CBS sitcoms. Look for Yahoo to leverage our love of home entertainment into the building of a business sector they are fully prepared to dominate. Someone has to do it and Yahoo looks like they are ready to do it right. If they do, not only will they differentiate themselves from rivals Google and MSN, they will be the first to fully open the brave new world of information provision Bill Gates seemed focused on a few years ago.

Yahoo had best move quickly as a report from Garrett Rogers over at ZDNet earlier this week says Google is about to enter the video rental market. The online home entertainment venue is currently Yahoo's to lose but as we all know, when working against Google, everything can shift on a dime.

5. Google's dominance remains practically unchallengeable.

Google will continue to be the most popular search entity. It dominates the organic search market and has nearly absolute power in the paid-advertising arena. Having beat Microsoft to the deal with AOL, Google enters 2006 even more powerful than it entered 2005. Nothing less than a major earthquake in the Valley will shift Google's dominance of search in 2006.

6. Google's reputation takes huge hits. Mainstream net-users begin to compare Google 2K6 with Microsoft circa 1995.

The closest thing to a non-physical disaster on Google's horizon is a major shift in public opinion. Google continues to be immensely popular and even continues to enjoy the "freshest" reputation of all major search engines however, their image took a number of major hits last year. The downward trend around Google's reputation is obviously going to continue well into 2006 as information from the AOL deal comes to light and Google itself continues to grow. Long gone are the days when the three word corporate ethics policy "Don't be evil" could possibly cover the range of choices available to Google executives and engineers. Search, as a multi-billion dollar business has not even approached its peak and will continue to grow. As it does, look for search-users to increasingly compare Google circa 2006 to Microsoft, circa 1996.

7. International conference planners tend to move away from US-based locations as increased security discourages or denies some non-US participants entry into the United States

This is the most unfortunate and darkest of my predictions for this year. While US citizens might not have noticed, many non-US citizens don't come over to visit as much any more as the result of increased security processes and measures. In reaction to this, I suspect conference planners will start to look for venues outside of the US , just to ensure a truly representative number of participants are able to attend. This is unfortunate because America is a wonderful place to visit even if you don't live there.

8. LookSmart revamps vertical search tools, re-issues press release and is stunned to find nobody really cares.

LookSmart? Since when? ‘nuff said.

9. Google lights up its massive dark fiber network in a show of force reaction to US telco's threats to overcharge search engines for bandwidth. In essence, Google becomes the first cyber-telco.

We all know that Google has a lot of unused fiber under its hood. How much or exactly where might remain a mystery to us but knowing the network already exists leads us to believe they will eventually light it up. I suspect it will happen early this year for two major reasons. The first is the threat from US based telcos to overcharge search engines for their extreme bandwidth usage. I expect Google to light the network up in a well timed reaction to poorly thought out bluster from the old-boy's network represented by the telcos. (Anyone remember the scene in Crocodile Dundee when actor Paul Hogan looks at the mugger, pulls a machete from his coat and says "You call that a knife? That's not a knife, this, this is a knife".) The second is because they can. Look for Google to become the first major cyber-telco of the new century.

10. Jeeves is going to be fired, this time for good.

Actually, Jeeves is already quietly being phased out amid repeated death threats from Ask Jeeves owner Barry Diller. In France , the world's best known butler has already been suspended. He is expected to be suspended in Japan and Singapore in the next week. It is only a matter of time before Britons and their North American cousins awake to find the butler has left the building for good. He will be missed.

Here is a last prediction that is almost certain to come true. Search marketing is going to undergo a number of major changes over the coming twelve months. Search engines have become far more precise in finding, reading, sorting and ranking information found on web documents and websites. Search marketers are rapidly adapting but the biggest shifts in the sector remain to be seen. 2005 was an amazing year for our industry and 2006 will be even better as the business of search marketing will become less convoluted and increasingly specialized.

On behalf of the StepForth team, I would like to wish everyone a peaceful and prosperous New Year. Thanks for a wonderful 2005 and here's to a better 2006.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: 2006 Predictions - MSN'ing someone?

Many thanks to the readers and responders who nominated our blog as one of the top search engine optimization related blogs of 2005. In the end, we did not win however, we feel honoured to have been nominated and are pretty much pleased with the results.

The winner of the category we were competing in was Google engineer Matt Cutts . Matt, as many of you already know, is more popular than Britney Spears in the search community and (arguably) better known than Bono. He is one of the mega-stars of search and as such, writes one of the most popular blogs on search marketing. He is also the closest thing search marketers have to a real Google Guru. He helps mould the machine we market across and is gracious enough to speak and write about it in public. His win was almost assured from the moment he was nominated. Given the prominence of the writer of the winning blog, (one I strongly suggest all interested in search marketing read religiously), he who came a close second should also be considered a clear winner. Unfortunately, that wasn't us either.

Fortunately, the author who came in second is one of those guys who you just can't help but like, Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com . To say Aaron is a nice guy is like saying Google is a rather popular search appliance. Last year, after the devastating December 26 tsunami, Aaron donated six week's worth of proceeds from the sale of his most recent book to tsunami relief efforts. I have seen enough posts authored by Aaron extolling the virtues of charity, service and common sense to tell me he is the real deal when it comes to helping others. That, in my books, is enough to make any person a winner. I have also read enough of his posts on SEO and SEM to know that not only is Aaron one of the biggest hearts in our industry, he honestly knows his source-code.

Coming in third was another of the rock-stars of search marketing, Rand Fishkin . Rand is well known and well liked among his colleagues and I consider myself a fan. Oddly enough, Rand was disappointed to come third, calling it a loss. I stand with other posters to his blog in saying being the third most popular SEO blog in the world is pretty good, especially when the Top2 are Matt and Aaron.

Now, at this point, I would like to point out that the voting was very close for all of the thirteen blogs nominated in our category. We came in ninth place, a respectable enough finish considering our blog is known for its long analytic articles, a notable difference from most of the others which tend to contain a larger number of shorter posts. Rounding out the remaining ten blogs we find (in order of votes), StuntDubl, Greg Boser, Jim Boykin, SEOBlackHat, SEO Speed Wagon, StepForth SEO Blog, Link Building Blog, Text Link Blog, SEObytheSEA, and FishSEO.

The one nominee I am disappointed to have been beaten by is the black-hat blog. While the others tend to provide good, ethical information, I am of the opinion the black-hat blog does the industry a tremendous disservice by promoting the absolute wrong way to run what should be an honest business. This is not a game, this is real life. To be successful as an industry, we need to act ethically and be seen to act ethically. The black-hat blog is not a haven for ethics.

Aside from being beaten by practitioners from the lower end of the ethics pool, I can't help but feel the StepForth SEO Blog is in good company and has received a vote of confidence from our readers. Thank you all very much.

The results of the Search Engine Journal poll will result in some major changes to our blog. We will be posting a lot more frequently and with a regularity that would make a Metamucil executive jealous. We will continue to endeavor to deliver a strong dose of analysis and educated assumption, as we did throughout 2005. We would also like to do more interviews, test more products, and take advantage of more of the technologies we have been privileged enough to preview or beta test. 2006 is going to be a transformative year for the StepForth News team and, I think, for the SEO side of the business that supports us. We are looking forward to the coming year and hope that, with hard work, clear writing and good intention, we will place higher in voting for the 2006 SEO Blog awards.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: 2005 SEJ Blog Awards - Thanks All