A few years ago, in the days before the introduction of Google's Florida Update, SEO was a quasi-Masonic vocation practiced by an expanding order of techno-monks who acted openly but held secret the minute details of their trade. As search engines and SEO techniques evolved, that old order was already dying, long before the discovery of Florida in November 2003.
I was reminded of the olden days yesterday when fielding a question over at one of the SEO Forums I spend time in. One of the new members wrote in asking about the correct range of Keyword Densities for the various search engines. That got me thinking about many of the lesser known tricks of the trade that have been used by search engine optimizers over the years and how some of these "tricks" have incorporated themselves into our SEO practice while others have been roundly rejected by SEO practitioners.
To clearly examine SEO techniques over the years, we need to separate search into two unique time periods, pre-Florida and post-Florida. (We are clearly moving into a third unique period in the history of search, which we will cover in the StepForth Weekly Newsletter.)
On November 16, 2003, Google introduced the most comprehensive algorithm shift in its history. Before this date, Google's algorithm acted primarily on site content and link popularity. After that date however, Google's formula was much smarter, almost intuitive. For the past two years, Google has used an algorithm capable of understanding content and contextual relationships. Florida made many old-school tricks useless or radically less powerful. It wouldn't be long before the other major search engines followed suit.
The first obvious SEO trick was the practice of keyword stuffing. Used in the earliest days of the industry, SEOs would simply place as many incidents of keywords (both visible and invisible) on a page in the hopes a spider would find them. When older SEOs get that far-off glassy look remembering how simple it was ten years ago, this technique is likely what they are thinking of. To this day, we come across meta tags stuffed with nonsensical usage of keywords and phrases. We also continue to see invisible, keyword stuffed text used to promote a site or page. While we remember the history of these techniques, StepForth optimizers have not used them for at least seven years.
The practice of keyword stuffing led to a technique that measured Keyword Densities. Keyword densities were one of our favourite pre-Florida secrets. At one time, before the rise of the great Google, search engines operated strictly based on words found on the page. In order to prevent keyword stuffing, search engines measured the ratio of keywords against all words found in the text of a document or page. If that ratio fell into the correct range, (generally 3 - 7% of words found on the document), that document would likely fare better than competing documents would.
While writing text to apply to client pages, we are still affected by our use of keyword densities though we rarely actually measure them. It comes out in the writing where force of habit drives us to create copy that would almost certainly fall within those formerly magic keyword densities if actually measured.
Measuring keyword densities is a fairly benign technique, however, since each search engine had a slightly different keyword density to target, another much less benign technique evolved; the use of doorway pages. Please note, this technique has been banned by Google and has led to the de-listing of several sites that have used it, including those of a few SEO shops.
Operating under several different names such as gateway pages, traffic-pages and also (a term shared with pages AdWords are directed towards) landing pages, the doorway page technique is still in use today.
The basic premise is to design a series of pages uniquely suited to the various ranking algorithms used by different search engines. MSN and Yahoo have slightly different ranking criteria but both drive a great deal of traffic. Wouldn't it make sense to create pages specifically designed to rank well at each engine? It might, however search engine spiders will find each doorway page, regardless of which engine the pages are designed for, thus plugging search results with duplicate content and degrading user experiences.
Doorway pages often look like carbon copies of each other with minor variances included to please the different engines. As Google emerged on the scene in 2000, the use of doorway pages led to yet another "seo trick", the interlinking of these doorway pages.
When Google was first understood by SEOs, the most obvious exploit was found in how it measured incoming links to determine the relevance of a document in its index. Links between a series of doorway pages were designed to fool Google into thinking a large link-density had been established for a site. If the SEO could artificially inflate the number of incoming links (often by linking doorway pages together), Google would generally rank the target document higher. Artificial link networks became a mainstay of several SEO shops, some of which used the technique up until the summer of 2004 when Google slammed and banned a couple of well known SEO shops (along with their client lists) for using it.
As Google became better able to determine the context of a document and to detect multiple incidents of duplicate content, the doorway page technique changed towards the creation of several smaller, search engine specific sites, each designed to rank well on unique search engines but ultimately designed to work best at Google. The logic and process behind mini-sites was the same as it was for doorway pages but at a more robust level due to the increased sophistication of Google and the other search engines. The technique is still in use today however Google has penalized sites for its use and is likely to do so again in the future.
After the Florida Update, each of the techniques described above were basically disempowered. They stopped working for the good of a site and, with the exception of Keyword density analysis, can actually work against strong rankings for a site or document.
Florida was a rapid departure from the PageRank dependent search algorithm that many still associate with Google. PageRank was the original name of the Google algorithm however that algorithm has changed so many times over the years it is now remarkably different than it once was. The term PageRank carries its own meaning in the SEO community as well. PageRank is a score affixed to a webpage or document by Google. It is assumed to be a number between 1 and 10 Google assigns to a document to note the relevance or authority of that document. In previous years, SEOs took the concept of PageRank very seriously as links from documents with high PageRanks tended to perform better in Google's index.
Links have always been an important factor at Google but, as the legions of link-farms that continue to exist have proven, links have always been remarkably easy to manipulate. The algrorithm Google used in its pre-Florida days was fairly link agnostic. It didn’t care as much where the link came from than it did that the link existed. Knowing Google would reward sites with many incoming links, SEOs started signing their clients up with link-schemes of varying sophistication. Google's post-Florida algorithm was remarkable for its ability to find the contextual connection between linked documents and measure the relevance of those relationships and if such relationships existed at all. When it discovered that no true relationship existed, it either dumped or devalued the link. It also stopped displaying an accurate metric of the PageRank it assigned to documents in its index, now displaying a measure known to be for "entertainment value only". Needless to say, link-farming is a dying profession.
There have been several changes made to Google's algorithms since November 2003, many of which have forced SEOs to make subtle changes to their tactics and techniques. The biggest accomplishment of Florida, from an SEO standpoint, was that it stands as the first major step Google took to distance its rankings from SEO spam. Florida set a new standard, a cornerstone for the optimization sector to build new structures for the user-centric services practiced by today's ethical SEOs.
What is Social Networking and how will it affect online marketing in the coming years? That's a question a number of people have been thinking about since the dawn of the commercial 'net. In the earliest days, online social networks formed between users of bulletin board services (BBS). People met each other by joining the board with planned, in-person gatherings taking over entire cafes. That was a time so geeky it seems quaint in remembrance. Today's social networks are enormous, robust and sophisticated. The medium is a lot of things but these days, there's nothing geeky about it.
Ever since Friendster established itself as the dominant "circle of friends" networking tool in 2003, younger Internet users have trended towards accessing the Internet primarily as a social space, as opposed to a purely informative space. This trend has been gaining momentum for a while but in the past year, a bulk of new users has accelerated adoption of the medium to the point where the most popular network, MySpace sees more traffic in a day than Google does.
Something about a statement that ends with, "... more traffic in a day than Google does." makes a search marketer's eyebrows rise. One of the most solid rules of the web says that users dictate what happens to any new piece technology. As they adopt new ideas or technologies and adapt to them, they begin to innovate new ways of using that technology. Invention begets innovation. People inform each other and the faster that happens, the faster things change through invention and innovation.
The reason it is so hard to put your finger on what Web2.0 is from a search marketing perspective, is that it is a rapidly moving target and difficult to actually point at. To be basic and blunt, there are two ways of looking at the web as an advertising medium and both are still valid though the latter is rapidly supplanting the former. These two types of thinking are happening concurrently in most SEO and SEM shops but the new types of user will eventually overwrite previously established ideas and norms that form the old way of thinking.
The classic way of viewing search engine marketing has users accessing the Internet using a number of unique applications they are comfortable with. Some use IE, some use Firefox. Some use Google while others use Yahoo. This group primarily accesses information by seeking it out from scratch. They search, and, if we have done our jobs properly, they find what we want them to. They connect, our clients do some business and we hope that visitor keeps coming back. The web, for many of its users is an intricate and never ending series of one-way streets. You can always get there; find what you need and leave, returning only when necessary.
Another way of viewing the web has users accessing the net through a social portal offering search and recommendation options. People who like each other (in the offline world) tend to like or do the same things. They tend to have similar interests that somehow draw them together. Now that they know each other, they begin to inform each other. This basically is the way Top40 radio worked for decades. Today of course, everyone is a DJ and virtually everything is of interest to visitors drawn from a global audience. Some kid in Mississauga Ontario named Kari doesn't know it but an MP3 track planted in her personal Myspace site has just told me about a band I really want to check out. When I get around to it, I'm likely to add it to the recommendations list on my new Myspace profile/site.
As a search marketing application, the basic concept of social networking is simple. There are multiple points of connections between almost anyone on Earth. Working from that basic truism, virtually anything imaginable is possible to find, share, enjoy, and track, providing a cross-reference can be found. With social network applications, user choices and preferences are saved, stored, shared and used to build rapidly growing chains of endorsements.
As those cross-references are established, the profile of a person, company or service provider, along with its traditional website increases in recognition and reputation. Think about how links affect rankings at Google but on a different, more chaotic sort of scale. As search marketers however, our job is to get our clients' sites recognized and to build traffic across their domains using whatever legitimate means is available and relevant to their business.
A similar social network, LinkedIn, has formed for the IT business community. After accepting an invitation to register, new users suddenly find themselves able to browse an online Rolodex made up of everyone in that network's contact list. It is surprising to actually see how quickly the range of connections through the search marketing community leads to folks like the director of search products for AOL, a VP at RazorFish, along with over 5000 other possible contacts.
By nature, most of the SEO and SEM community are focused on the classic way of viewing the Internet as a marketing medium. It will continue that way for the foreseeable future. Even as a new and highly dynamic wave of web users is introducing Wiki communties, Wikipedia, MySpace and other participation driven applications, organic search results as supplied by Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and the rest will continue to be integrated into those applications. At the same time, user-popularity is becoming an important factor in the ranking algorithms of the major search engines. Google for example, uses bookmarks, personal references and repeat visits as a gauge of relevance and importance.
With the exception of our experimentation and research, StepForth's services are primarily targeted towards the web as a one-way street. While we preach the gospel of blogging and RSS, and our SEO techniques, consultation and recommendations have been moving rapidly to encompass usability and accessibility principles, the opportunity and necessity to embrace social networking on behalf of our clients has not previously arisen.
Then again, we had not previously read statements that ended with, "... more traffic in a day than Google does." Suddenly, we are paying a lot more attention to the power of social networking.
For years, the major search engines have been building membership lists by offering a diverse range of services to registered users. Yahoo and MSN, for instance, have offered email accounts to registered users for several years. The major search engines are working to brand user experiences on as many levels as possible and claim memberships as indicators of user loyalty.
The membership race heated up dramatically over the past two years with the introduction of Google's wide array of membership driven services.
A study released yesterday by Boston based marketing firm Compete shows that search engine users are a fickle bunch but if being part of a branded club is a measure of loyalty, Google has again beaten its competitors.
The study, Searching for Loyalty, examines the search habits of people who have declared themselves "loyal" to one brand or another. Every user tends to start their search with their preferred search engine. Compete's study shows how many searchers ventured beyond their search engine of choice and how many used one brand exclusively over others.
Google, by far and away, gets the most loyalty from its users. Predictably, Yahoo and MSN follow in second and third respectively but there are many surprises to be found moving down the list.
Google: 71.0%
Yahoo: 48.1%
MSN: 27.8%
Excite: 23.4%
AOL: 23.2%
Ask: 21.6%
AltaVista: 16.6%
Clusty: 10.3%
A9: 6.4%
Lycos: 5.8%
The results of the study give a good indication of how reliable search engine users find the search engines they use. It doesn't necessarily show which engine is better or more relevant but it does show that even the mighty Google has a user-bleed rate.
The study also shows that there is often a pattern to where search engine users go when moving from one engine to another. Knowing how and where search users are likely to migrate can help SEOs and SEMs better serve their clients by strategically concentrating on the interconnections between the search engines and user habits. Repetition is the key to remembrance and helping searchers remember the name of our clients is most certainly a goal.
The room was excellent, providing seating for about 50 people per session. The chalkboard and flip charts were fully stocked with fresh chalk, clean brushes and brand-new Sharpie markers. There were three thermoses of organic coffee, which never seemed to empty, no matter how many cups were consumed. The overhead projector and the A/B/C switch (attached to the three laptops used by the presenters) were wired and the movie screen behind the podium automatically raised and lowered at the push of a button. Sizing up the situation at half past seven o'clock in the morning, Bruno, Frank and I smiled, each knowing something interesting was going to happen in just a few short hours.
Yesterday, I had the privilege of speaking at the inaugural Search Engine Business World seminar held at the downtown campus of Vancouver 's Simon Fraser University . The event was a success though registrations were slightly lower than expected. The number of attendees was relatively small but based on the names of the corporations they work for; the collective advertising budgets they work with are enormous.
Speaking to a room made up primarily of corporate executives is somewhat different than other forums where the audience is generally the IT crowd. It is easier to speak to a room full of executives than it is to speak to a room full of techies. The executives have absolutely nothing to prove to each other and are willing to accept the panel as experts in our fields. The attendees have, by and large, benefited from a classical education and it shows in their manners, their language and their depth of understanding. The session feels more honest and the audience feels more willing to make a connection with the speakers.
The tone and phrasing of questions is milder and often clearer, even if the person asking the question is sometimes unclear about a few technical concepts or advances. Along with the five-star treatment, there is a healthy measure of respect in this room from both sides of the podium. The conference eventually becomes a very interesting, agenda driven conversation between business people and highly qualified technicians.
Here are a few observations I walked away with.
First of all, the event was well received by the audience. The format, lower number of attendees and the overall attitude of the group allowed for a more intimate conversation. This gave the presenters enough room to work from one idea to another. The environment was crucial to the event.
Secondly, though their website doesn't necessarily show it, the execs have learned a lot about search engines and search engine marketing. They are fascinated with the world of search from a number of different angles. For instance, a portion of my presentation dealt with the evolution of search engines and the evolution of SEO techniques. As I assumed, the audience was very interested in the general history of search engines and I saw a number of people nodding or smiling when various names were mentioned. I used the history and evolution of search to demonstrate how SEO techniques have evolved over time. By knitting the history of search with the evolution of SEO technique, I hoped to address concerns about redirects, doorway pages, link-farming, and other spammy techniques that have become synonymous with SEO in the mainstream press.
This approach led to my third observation. There is a perpetual knowledge gap among corporate executives when it comes to IT, their corporate websites and search marketing. Without a doubt, they understand the "big picture" perfectly well. It is the little things, the numerous fine details of how the machine actually works that they often face problems with. Based on my experience yesterday, the executives came to the presentation already knowing this. That's why they were there without people from their IT departments.
The people I presented to yesterday have experience managing the people who run their search marketing campaigns, but for the most part were really not satisfied with the results of those efforts. They either want to micro-manage in house SEO and SEM efforts, or they want to learn how to properly outsource it.
The knowledge gap appears to be one of language and definition more than a lack of conceptual understanding on the part of the execs. While they don't necessarily expect themselves to be on the cutting edge of technology, they realize they need to know more about how the medium is, and can be used for marketing.
A simple example of this is the use of the word "Keywords". It is impossible to address SEO without using the word in several sentences. The word has two distinct meanings, one more relevant than the other. Keywords are found on a document and in the source code.
Many of the attendees understood the word to mean the Meta tag, period. It took me a few minutes to realize why many of them were not quite getting it when I was speaking about keywords found ON a document. I had to take about 90 seconds to clarify the difference. That's when I made a fourth observation.
Even when I stressed that the keyword Meta tag is not an important or powerful tool, questions often drifted back towards the use of it. It happened at least twice as the seminar progressed. In both instances, I found the executive was holding on to the last information he or she had received, likely from their IT department. In order to comfortably let go of one idea and start to see another, they had to push a bit to test the strength of the limb they suspected I had ventured out on.
For the past few years, their firms have been using search marketing in one way or another and they have absorbed a lot of information in that time. Some of them confessed to feeling overwhelmed during the session, while others were furiously reconsidering a number of assumptions they had made about search marketing.
The knowledge behind their assumptions comes from two primary sources, the IT workers in their offices and business media relevant to their industries. Members of the IT department forwarded much of the technical information they received about search marketing. They know they need to challenge these assumptions, especially in light of the thumping some of their sites have taken as a result of the Jagger/Big Daddy updates at Google. They are going to be attending a lot more conferences, seminars and workshops in the future.
A fifth and final observation is that the executive level is learning, en masse, that the world of search and search marketing is moving faster than their already beleaguered IT departments can keep up with. Corporate executives are people whose roles train them to think about a number of factors surrounding any given issue. Their job is to set the big goals and marshal the efforts of different departments in their organization to achieve them. In some ways, the execs appeared to view search marketing as a "space race" against their competitors, an attitude formally reserved for traditional media such as television and print.
There is going to be a lot of pressure put on IT departments from firms that want to exploit the marketing potential of search with in-house talent. At the same time, it will be extremely important for those in-house SEO/SEM teams to learn to communicate their knowledge to their management. SEO and SEM are becoming far more important and management is starting to find outside sources of information.
This is a good thing for everyone involved in the SEO/SEM sector, both corporate in-house workers and independent SEO/SEM firms. Corporate decision makers are without a doubt, favorably reconsidering the importance of organic search engine placements. SEO consultancies, such as the one offered by StepForth, will be in much higher demand in order to help outline and analyze campaigns executed by in-house SEOs. Outsourcing of SEO and SEM projects is also likely to increase as the decision makers realize that the boundaries of the search marketing world are constantly shifting and expanding.
Search Engine Business World Vancouver was a mini-conference that became a conversation and looks like it could become a community. For me, it was more than a pleasure and a privilege speaking to a room of corporate executives; it was an invaluable learning experience. I hope it was for those who attended as well.
Blogs have become a bastion of free speech on the web – where anyone can start their own personal commentary on any topic for free. Businesses use blogs to post their latest news, celebrities make fans salivate as they update their blogs with news about their day, and they even demonstrated the power to keep online vendors in line (Google bombing). The fact is, blogs have become massively popular and it seems the sky is the limit for this online phenomenon. But that is not the end of the story, I wrote this article to tell you how blogs are soon going to influence buyers of your products in the offline world.
Yes you read that correctly; ‘the offline world.’ A new technology has been slated to emerge within the next 2 years that will blur the lines between the web and the real world and make blogging and in-turn SEO even more of a necessity for retailers. The key to this new world will be the popular cell phone and the emergence of barcode search technology.
Barcodes other wise known as UPC (Universal Product Code) are present on the packaging of every consumer product you find in your local retail store. These codes are often shown in a format of closely spaced vertical lines which when scanned by the store’s barcode reader will describe the product and the price. These barcodes were put in place to make monitoring and pricing inventory simpler for retailers. Unbeknownst to the retailers, such technology will soon be used to allow you, the consumer, to not only find the best price for a particular product but to check on consumer opinions of the product. Toshiba recently announced that as early as April 2007 this barcode technology will be available to consumers on its latest cell phone offering.
How this system works is best described by example. While visiting your local electronics warehouse you walk over to a new plasma television and your mouth impulsively begins to water as you watch the HD television feed gloriously swim across the screen. Next you look at the price and wonder just how much you could get for one of your limbs. Pricing aside, let’s assume you can afford the TV and you wonder how this TV stacks up against the plethora of similar Plasma TV’s displayed nearby. To answer your question you casually take out your camera-enabled cell phone and snap a shot of the barcode located below the TV. Within a few moments your cell phone screen displays a menu detailing an average consumer ranking of this TV as well as the best price found within your area. Now, armed with this invaluable data you can either move onto another TV that fits your needs or get the best price possible. Where does all of this information come from? Blogs of course; upon request of your barcode inquiry Toshiba’s servers will pole up to 100 blogs known to have information on the TV and provide you with an average rating based on the opinions found.
This concept has been around for a while but to my knowledge Toshiba is the first to announce a rollout with enough clout suitable to note. Once this technology has taken flight, and I have little doubt it will in one form or another, I anticipate there will be a serious need for a single entity to provide a spam-controlled, un-biased arena for search. Here enters the king of search; Google. Google already has the database and the technology to weed out a vast amount of spam and it would have everything to gain by including a search technology for barcode surfers. All of a sudden, this new technology will gain a legitimacy of epic proportions and consumers would be able to poll millions of blogs versus the mere 100 that Toshiba’s first generation will be capable of. A new generation of vendor accountability will be here and the consumer will be more powerful than ever before. Sound grandiose? Sure, I admit that I am excited, but the implications of this technology are undeniable; blogs and the rest of the online world will play a far larger role over which products are bought in the local store.
With the emergence of this technology every vendor with an inch of respect for the Internet will have to create their own review blog where they will need to provide incentives for consumers to post product/service reviews. That’s right, not only will vendors have to provide a better product but they will need to ask consumers to help them promote it. After all, they will have to stand out from the rest of the vendors asking for the same favour! It will also be important for vendors to ensure that their review blog is optimized for the search engines so that home surfers can find their review sites and to ensure that Google indexes it regularly.
All-in-all I think this upcoming technology offers a wonder of positive possibilities; responsible product manufacturing, fiercely competitive pricing, further credibility for the Internet, and a boom in online investment. Another element which shouldn’t be missed is the further levelling of the online playing field; the best products, not necessarily the biggest vendors will have a chance at a large share of the consumer pie. You just have to love the free spirit of the ‘Net!
In a few hours I will be boarding a small, single prop sea plane (likely a DeHavilland DHC3 Otter) for a short hop across the Georgia Strait into downtown Vancouver. There, I will be met by Frank Klassen and Bruno Hoffman, co-founders of Vancouver based Search Engine Business World, a conference and planning organization formed to educate Canadian businesses about search engine marketing.
Tomorrow, I will be speaking at the downtown campus of Simon Fraser University addressing topics ranging from a brief history of search to the latest tools and trends in search marketing. I am not certain if registration is still available but if you find yourself in Vancouver tomorrow morning and are in the mood for some informative fun, SFU Downtown is the place to be.
While in Vancouver, I have some spare time tonight and tomorrow afternoon. If any StepForth client or reader is interested in having a coffee, please feel free to call our office (1-877-385-5526) or email jimhedger@stepforth.com to arrange a time.
The banner across the top of the site reads, "In a World of Conflict, the Truth Must Survive". Below the banner, we see a twenty-two year old image of a dead man, minutes before he met his fate. The image, captured by Israeli photographer Alex Levac in 1984, shows a Palestinian hijacker being led away by Israeli Defense Forces. Minutes after the shot was taken, the hijacker was dead. The official story issued by Israeli authorities said the hijacker was already dead when the IDF found him. The story illustrates the importance of war correspondence in an environment where the greatest casualty is almost always the truth.
For the past six months, journalist Kevin Sites has been traveling to some of the most brutal places on Earth to document and share stories that would otherwise go untold. Calling his journey an experiment in "backpack journalism", Sites’ goal is to, "... cover every armed conflict in the world within one year, and in doing so to provide a clear idea of the combatants, victims, causes, and costs of each of these struggles - and their global impact."
This week, Sites examines one of the most confusing and captivating wars, the Israeli / Palestinian conflict. The coverage will tear your heart out, regardless of your political opinions or cultural heritage.
Sites' approaches his subjects with a humility rarely seen in Western journalists. He not only wishes to inform his readers about the conflict he is covering, he tries to introduce his readers to the human element often ignored in the course of televised war coverage. Using the Internet as his medium offers Sites the advantage of virtually unlimited space to tell those stories. As he does, his viewers are aptly reminded that the dead once spoke, often with passion, grace, love and emotion.
Sites enters conflict zones armed only with communication equipment consisting of a high definition Sony video camera, a Samsung Camcorder, an Apple Powerbook, Palm Treo Smartphone, and a satellite phone/modum. His material is available as content through the Yahoo Publisher Network and for all readers of Yahoo News. Thus far, he has covered stories from Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Sudan, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Israel / Palestine.
This is likely one of the most relevant and important experiments in citizens' journalism, ever. Though Sites is a professional journalist, he is working from the grassroots without the support of a traditional news gathering organization. In the process, Sites tells a series of stories that fill in the gaps left by mainstream and alternative news sources. Sometimes the most important truths about war are found in the little details, the people living in the conflict zones.
I made a critical error in my piece on Lycos yesterday, one that has left me with the writer's equivalent to the blue-screen of death, the red-face of embarrasement. Yesterday I noted that Lycos owns Wired Magazine. That is not true. Wired Magazine is a Conde Nast publication.
Google has made another alteration the Google Help Center, this time removing the assurance that Google's results are completely automated. The change was first noted by Phillip Lenssen in his Google Blogoscope.
As recently as February 2, the document outlining Google's Principlesstated, " The order and contents of Google search results are completely automated. No one hand picks a particular result for a given search query, nor does Google ever insert jokes or send messages by changing the order of results. Occasionally, when a particular website is the subject of public attention, other sites begin linking to it. This may elevate its importance as gauged by our ranking software, which assigns a PageRank value based in part on who links to a given page. Higher ranking in Google results may lead to more awareness, which may lead to more links and so on."
Today, the same pageopens with the headline, " Does Google ever insert jokes or send messages by changing the order of its results? "concluding, "... No. Occasionally, when a particular website is the subject of public attention, other sites begin linking to it. This may elevate its importance as gauged by our ranking software, which assigns a PageRank value based in part on who links to a given page. Higher ranking in Google results may lead to more awareness, which may lead to more links, and so on."
The Google Principles navigation page was altered as well, changing linked text worded, "Does Google ever manipulate its search results" to read, "Does Google ever insert jokes or send messages by changing the order of results?"
Uh, huh... Is Google playing a joke on its critics or is the change a post Valentine's Day love letter to their new friends at AOL, and in Beijing , or are they making subtle comment on the two-minute cloaking penalty assigned to BMW last week.
It is very possible that the deal made with AOL in late December and its continuing collaboration with the Chinese Government in regards to censoring Google.Cn, has prompted a universal realignment of the company's stated values. If that is true, they haven't "jumped the shark" they have been consumed by it. (You are what you're eaten by?)
It is also possible that the alteration is a reference to the delisting and rapid reinsertion of the German language version of the BMW website last week. Google confirmed BMW had been removed for using a technique known as java-script cloaking, a spam-offence generally punishable by 30-days in the penalty box. After BMW.de complied with Google's demand they remove the spam, their listing was re-included in the index. All obviously done by hand. If this scenario is true, Google might just be clumsy enough to fall into the shark's mouth, get chewed a bit and spit out as unappealing.
Whatever motivated Google to remove the assurance of automated organic results, the alteration, we are no longer able to tell clients Google's results are guaranteed by Google to be 100% organic. That is a very bad thing for Google today.
Yahoo and smaller rival Lycos have both publicly conceded the general, organic search space to Google but recently, it has taken a number of major hits to its reputation, some well earned, others slightly misplaced. It continues to dominate the search engine spectrum but is now the in the center of the ongoing discussions about human rights and freedom of information.
Google's greatest asset is the faith its users place in it. With billions of dollars in the bank and a number of the world's greatest minds working under its roof, we cannot understand why Google would break with the very core-principle that made it unique.
It's been a long time since we've heard from Lycos. Long lost amidst the choppy seas of corporate change, Lycos was once one of the ruling elite. Today, Lycos appears to be a number of fragmented shells of its former self. That might be changing soon though.
Last week, word of a restructuring phase at Lycos spread around the web based on a post on John Battelle's blog and an article written by me. As it turns out, the information was correct but our assumptions were wrong. Lycos is not getting out of search, exactly, it is simply changing the way it approaches the search engine marketplace as consumer use of search engines evolves.
In an interview with StepForth Tuesday morning, Lycos Chief Operating Officer, Brian Kalinowski noted Lycos was going to be releasing a series of products marketed to producers and distributors of web content over the next six months.
The firm's focus is shifting towards ... consumer created and specialty niche content". This means Lycos plans to support independent creators and publishers by building products, services and platforms that allow them to make professional content and distribute it through social-based search applications.
"Search is an absolute, necessary vehicle," said Kalinowski, "Web2.0 search is the primary vehicle for navigation and discovery. Lycos is not the general purpose [search] destination of choice but it will always offer competitive commercial search and specialty search for niche content."
Currently, the Lycos search network is fragmented with the "international version" of Lycos (the .com address) displaying results culled from the Ask Jeeves database. Regional versions of Lycos tend to draw results from the Google database. Both search engines databases are available through HotBot , (another of the original search tools but now owned by Lycos).
"Territorial relationships are managed by separate groups", said Kalinowski, noting how Lycos.ca chose Google for organic results while Lycos.com has been showing results from Ask Jeeves since March 2005. Over the coming months however, Kalinowski says Lycos will "...dramatically be changing its overall search experience in the next three months", with a dramatic relaunch sometime in the next two.
Lycos is much larger than most people think. As it was one of the original search engines, it has been a part of the scene for a very long time. It has been involved with innumerable deals over the past decade, many of which helped shape the Internet as we perceive it today. In some of those deals, Lycos itself was a hot-commodity and in others, it appeared to be an asset too big to lose but too ungainly to hold on to. Along the way, the company picked up products as varied as, Wired Magazine, Quote.com (sold to IDC on Feb 1st.), Tripod, Anglefire, HotBot, Gamesville, Raging Bull, and Wired's WebMonkey.
Over the past year, Lycos has consolidated a lot of products. "We had 42 unique products in May but have boiled them down to 16 - 20," said Kalinowski. "Our primary focus is rolling them into 7 or 8 key properties. "He went on to identify key areas as; news, entertainment, games, content, email, blogging, photo albums and multi-media / social networking products.
A glance at the Lycos Network Help page shows they already have many of the technologies in place. Anglefire and Tripod are services geared to helping beginning bloggers or website builders create web-ready properties ready to accept fresh content. Much of that content can be stored, shared and gathered using Planet, a youth-focused social network platform introduced by Lycos. New webmasters can register domains through Lycos and receive HTML tutorials, manuals and gadgets through the WebMonkey and HTMLGear services. Wired Magazine is considered to be among the most credible sources of Internet and technology news.
That collection of assets gives the management structure at Lycos a wide resource base to work with as it reinvents and reasserts itself in relation to its much larger competitors, Yahoo, Google and MSN.
For Lycos, reinvention is, "... the opportunity to go from a large public to a small private company." While admitting Lycos is, "...never going to beat Google," at pure search, Kalinowski says Lycos will focus on areas, "where we can make a big dent."
The area Kalinowski identified as Lycos' primary target is niche content created by independent producers. Lycos wants to become a, "... destination for not only consumers but for producers and creators where they can market and promote the goods they create." He noted there are several independent producers of films, music, video games, and written products.
As an example, it plans to create and promote a virtual record label associated with the Lycos brand along with becoming a virtual publishing house for games, films and text creations. "Anybody has the ability to self promote, produce and market their own goods," says Kalinowski. The system will enable end users to drop-ship product and can accept payments via Visa, MasterCard or Paypal.
"In the typical publishing industry, take music, 100 bands will be marketed from the 1000 bands that are signed and produce an album without promotion. We are trying to focus on that segment of content not large enough to make it without the support of the 5 or 6 big-boys [who dominate the various publishing sectors]."
Lycos sees a great deal of potential serving long-tail searches in order to aggregate content that appeals to small markets that control niches in the larger marketplace. The idea is that fresh content will draw viewers, "... creating a larger audience of varied, eclectic tastes." Lycos plans to be a big player in a lot of smaller markets.
"We see and use search as a discovery engine,"Kalinowski said. "It will evolve in a few years to personalized content based on user interests and desires. Google needs to stay on the cutting edge of general search, sort of a one-trick-pony. We see many niches so if one falls off..."
If anything, Lycos is a survivor. When asked how search engine marketers should think about Lycos, Kalinowski replied, "As the sleeping giant. We will never come back and be the $100 billion company. We're aiming at capturing a lot of smaller niche markets, satisfying needs that Yahoo and Google can't because that requires focus outside of their capabilities."Lycos intends to, "... take a significant position for indy content creators and content outside the realm of mainstream publishers. This is a very dedicated commitment for us."
As the search sphere segments, it will be interesting to watch Lycos' continued evolution.
A report in today's Financial Times says, "Yahoo has called for broad co-operation among internet, media and communication companies and the US government to counter Chinese censorship on the web."
The company is calling on the other tech giants, along with the US Government to take a harder, collective stand against Chinese Government censorship of the web.
Along with rivals Google, MSN and Cisco Systems, Yahoo has drawn a lot of flak from human rights activists and values based western businesses for appearing to give in to Chinese Government demands regarding the censoring of information and for providing information on China based users.
Yahoo has faced a great deal of criticism after information it gave the Chinese Government in at least two instances resulted in prison terms for Chinese bloggers. Last week, the press freedom organization Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) called on Yahoo to supply a list of all cyber dissidents it has provided various governments data on, starting with 81 people in China.
In its release, RSF said, "The firm (Yahoo) says it simply responds to requests from the authorities for data without ever knowing what it will be used for. But this argument no longer holds water. Yahoo certainly knew it was helping to arrest political dissidents and journalists, not just ordinary criminals. The company must answer for what it is doing at the US congressional hearing set for February 15."
Michael Callaghan, Yahoo's general counsel told the Financial Times, "This is everyone's dilemma, operate in a country and comply with laws that lack transparency, or withdraw. No one company, no one industry can tackle this on its own. We very much look forward to taking this to Washington."
Yahoo's basic dilemma is this. They are required to follow the law of the land in which they operate or leave. Leaving is, of course, not an option, especially with direct rivals Google and MSN competing their way into the Chinese space. Yahoo is not going to make sacrifices on its own unless every other player agrees to make similar sacrifices. That seems natural. Would you want to be on the management team explaining to shareholders the details of a sudden, unilateral exit from the fastest growing market in the world?
Yahoo appears to be taking a moral stand, one that is a long time in coming. It will be very interesting to hear their Congressional testimony on Wednesday February 15. It will also be interesting to see if other western businesses who profess to value freedom of speech and freedom of information heed Yahoo's call for collective action.
Something interesting is happening at the Googleplex. Just a week after publicly slapping BMW for using cloaking and doorway techniques, Google has confirmed a much larger penalty it applied in 2004 against what was once one of the largest SEO firms in the world, Traffic Power. When an SEO firm gets its own site banned from Google it is somewhat interesting but not terribly newsworthy. It becomes an enormous story when that firm’s client list is banned from the index.
About eighteen months ago, Google assigned a penalty against Las Vegas based Traffic Power setting off a chain of events that continue to affect the SEO community to this day. Sometime in the first weeks of June 2004, Google brought the boom down on Traffic Power, banning it and its client list from the Google index.
Having already made a bad reputation for itself by hiring a legion of phone solicitors to cold-call small businesses, Traffic Power had accumulated a fairly large client list. Traffic Power was huge, boasting over 10,000 clients at its peak. As a result, they fell hard. On the way down, they filed a civil lawsuit against popular blogger Aaron Wall and the owner of a consumer-rant site called TrafficPowerSucks.com. They also sent Cease and Desist letters to a number of other web-publishers, effectively creating a climate of liable-chill to forcefully dissuade others from reporting on the saga.
Along with dozens of other bloggers, a search marketer named Aaron Wall covered the story on his blog, SEOBook.com. What made Aaron different from everyone else is that Traffic Power chose to use him as an example, filing a lawsuit against him in the early summer of 2005. They chose the wrong target. Aaron is a popular and sometimes controversial figure in the SEO/SEM industry. He has a lot of friends and even more friendly acquaintances. Coverage of the suit propelled the story back to the front pages of the
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