When I sit down with new clients and discuss the status of their new or existing site they are often shocked when I am forced to inform them that their site is not search engine friendly. Encountered with a blank but slightly shaken look I then explain that this means their site has a particular problem that is hindering search engine rankings. Often this is represented by an inflexible design, overuse of advanced web technologies, or simply a weak navigation scheme. As a result, if they were to continue with the site as it stands they are unlikely to attain competitive search engine rankings.
The following is checklist designed to help you gauge the search engine friendliness of your website and, if you are in the midst of planning a website this checklist will help you avoid the common pitfalls of unfriendly designs.
Technologies First consider what technologies your website is using. There are certain technologies that require a little more hand holding than others to ensure search engine compatibility.
FRAMES Lets start with this oldie. Luckily, frames are becoming a way of the past what with the use of DIV layers and the slow onset of incredibly flexible AJAX coding. The long and the short of it is that if you have Frames on your website then you are starting off at a disadvantaged position that cannot be truly search engine friendly no matter what you do. There are, however, some remedial fixes that will tie you over until you can redesign your site; yes I said redesign. The fix that I recommend is to use a noframes tag whereby you place another version of your web page inside of your framed page. This ‘backup’ page is what the search engines will view; here you can place relevant content and navigational elements so that the search engines can at least navigate portions of your site that are (hopefully) not framed.
FLASH There was a big brouhaha that Flash had become search engine indexable and you no longer had to worry about its search engine issues. Frankly, I have not seen the fruits of this ‘improvement’ to a respectable degree yet so I still consider it a kiss of death for websites designed solely in Flash. If you have a Flash-only website then I recommend one of these two options; one is to design an html version of your website and make the home page of your website html rather than Flash where you can then allow users to choose between html or Flash. The second option is to redesign the site so that it mixes both html and flash together. For example, this might mean implementing Flash amidst content on an HTML page as you would an image. I realize there are certain limitations to this option but if you can create a slick site in this manner then you will have the best of both worlds; clean search engine friendly content along with an interactive, multimedia feel. Just remember that the majority of relevant text should be in HTML format for the search engines to index.
Search Engine ‘Unfriendly Dynamic URL’s Unfriendly dynamic URL’s are a common side effect of using a Content Management System that is not designed with search engine rankings kept in mind. Here are some examples of some unfriendly URL’s:
Sample 2:http://www.surfboardsforyou.com/boards/filename.php? id=F98ZF4&productId=39222§ion=wicked&brand=582&template=532 These URLs are problematic because a search engine may consider these addresses too complex to spider. Why too complex? Suffice it to say that the more complex the URL, the higher the chance that a search engine robot will consider the content too dynamic to read; it changes too often to be valuable to a search engine.
The way around these types of URLs is actually not so difficult; it may only require a small investment of time and money. The ‘time’ will be required when researching which URL fix is right for your system. The money may be required to pay a programmer to implement and test the new URLs. Here are how the URLs might look once they are fixed to be search engine friendly:
These URLs are better because they do not include the extraneous characters that are so telltale on dynamic websites. In addition, the URLs are designed to appear like normal website directories when in fact they are dynamic URLs.
Important: it is vital that you minimize the length of the URLs that you use. Search engines may stop crawling a website if there appear to be too many subdirectories. The samples above show fixed URLs that have about as many subdirectories as I would allow (4).
Design This section focuses on the overall layout and usability of your designs from the perspective of a search engine robot. Search engine friendly design is occasionally quite complex so I have provided a list of the most common issues to consider.
Menus Are the menus on your website spiderable? If not you may be hiding major areas of your website from search engine spiders and missing out on additional search engine rankings.
The fact is there are very few menus out there that a search engine will have a problem following, but there are definitely some worth avoiding. For instance do not use a JavaScript Jump Menu (example) as the core mode of navigation of your website; search engines cannot index this type of menu. Also be careful of Flash menus, they look slick but they will impede the progress of a search engine spider especially if they are the only means of navigation within your site.
General Menu Rules The ideal menu would be text based and each text link would include the keywords you are targeting on the destination page. Setting up a menu with this much forethought requires that you determine the layout and content for your site before web design begins. Once you have a clear picture of the content for each page you can then research the keywords that are best to target per webpage. This essential keyword research can be done in house easily enough using systems like keyword research tools that provide you with a glimpse into how your customers think by showing how many searches there are per month (or year) for a particular term.
Remember, almost every page within your site has a very real opportunity to gain a top ranking; all you need to do is ensure that the design, content and site structure is optimized. Ensuring that the menu is carefully thought out and designed is a crucial step for top rankings.
Finally, if you are at all uncertain whether your menu is search engine friendly then be certain to back it up with a text menu in the footer of your page using the same keyword targeting principles noted above.
Tech Advice: a simple text menu may be less than desirable for you; in this case I recommend DHTML menus. These menus use text but in a manner that is quite appealing and very search engine friendly.
Sitemaps Sitemaps can dramatically help the visibility of your website by allowing search engine spiders easy access to all of the pages in your site. Place a link to the sitemap on every page within your site to ensure easy access no matter where a search engine or user enters your site.
Sitemap Tips Just having a sitemap will help but how you build your sitemap will also play a role in how well the search engines catalogue it. For example, if you have a twenty-page website it would be ideal to create a sitemap where each page is represented by a title along with a short description. Ultimately, the page may be a bit long but it will have content that the search engines like to index and it will boost the relevance of the linked pages because the titles will accurately represent the content. So in effect, you will now have more than just a sitemap; you will have a table of contents for your site that has the potential of getting a ranking and provides an extra boost to the ranking worthiness of each page.
Google Sitemap Google Sitemap is an additional design element that you should consider adding. Here is an article Scott Van Achte wrote on how to implement your own Google Sitemap.
Layout How you layout your page can make a significant difference in how well your site ranks and ultimately how search engine friendly it is.
Tips for Layout Search engine robots read a webpage from the top of the source code (the programming that made your page – see “view source” in your browser) all the way to the bottom. As a result, it is important to ensure that both of the following elements are found as close to the beginning of code as possible:
A) A short sentence introducing the topic using the keyword targets you have chosen for the page.
B) Your text menu and other navigational aids, or if this is not possible it would be even more beneficial to start with a paragraph or two of relevant content followed by the navigation.
By placing this information near to the top of the page, you will promptly present the search engine robot with relevant text that backs up the page title and backlinks. You will also provide an immediate sitemap of sorts for the search engine to spider, which includes keywords relevant to each page.
Splash Pages – ACK! With the odd exception Splash Pages are a kiss of death for a website because the home page (the first page seen when someone visits your domain), your most important page, is often converted into nothing but an excess entry point with little or no relevant content on it. Aside from reducing your chances for ranking, you are also making your visitors take another step to get to content or sales material in your site. Any additional steps you add will lessen the likelihood of a successful sale.
Please Let Me Change Your Mind If you think you need to use a splash page then you need to talk to someone who will change your mind. No, honestly, give me a call if you want because there is nothing more painful to a SEO or search engine friendly web designer to see a Splash Page in use. If, in the unlikely scenario your splash page is required, there are ways to make it slightly more search engine friendly.
a) Add a highly relevant and well-worded paragraph to the page so that the search engines have something to index that shows them they are in the right place.
b) Either provide a link to your sitemap or implement a text menu in the footer of the page so the search engines can access the internal workings of your website without having to take an extra step.
In Summary Creating a search engine friendly website requires a basic to advanced understanding of how a search engine works, depending on the complexity of the planned website. Complexity aside, the notes above provide a good basis for you to evaluate the friendliness of your website and make changes where necessary. If you have questions regarding your website you can call me toll-free at 1-877-385-5526 (within North America) or email me and I will do my best to help or I will direct you to someone who can.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 10:13 AM
We were recently contacted by a client who had found a number of occurrences of search engine SPAM. What made this SPAM a problem is that they were targeting the clients business name and coming up in some of the top 10 rankings! The pages were littered with the company name, and appeared to have been created by a bot (which the majority of SPAM pages are).
The question we were presented with was: "These sites keep popping up, they are blatantly using our company name as an SEO landing page, do i have any recourse?"
If it is a serious issue that is causing significant problems, the option of pursuing legal action is always there, but this can be a lengthy and very costly option that in most cases may not be worth it. The big 3, Google, Yahoo, and MSN, have methods for submitting SPAM, and this is likely the most probable way to see these listings removed. Here are those methods:
MSN: Perform the search that displays the offending site, then click on the link at the bottom of the results page that reads "Didn't get the results you expected? Help us improve." Select "Found SPAM" in the "Type of Feedback box", and explain your situation.
You may also want to consider contacting the sites webmaster directly. While this may likely turn up no response, it certainly cant hurt. If the site does not have any contact information, you may have to check the WHOIS data for the site. With any luck you may find a valid email address, however, because these are SPAM sites there is a good chance the email will not work, and if it does, they wont care.
If you have encountered this or a similar problem and found another way to resolve the issues, or had no luck at all, I would love to hear your story. Please drop me a note at scott@stepforth.com
Danny Sullivan, the best known and respected SEO in the world announced today that as of December 1st, 2006 he will leaving the home that he originally created www.searchenginewatch.com.
Why is Danny Leaving? The reasons for his departure are eloquently described on his blog in Danny's straight forward and professional manner, which I highly recommend reading. The short version is that he and Incisive Media, the new owners of SearchEngineWatch (as of 2005) , were not able to come to an agreement on the terms of his contract renewal.
So what happens to Danny now? He doesn't seem to know for sure but you can bet he will be wading through a herculean load of business proposals in short order. I only wish I had something to tempt him with but alas StepForth is a boutique SEO company without the vast resources to bring on such renown talent. Anyway, Danny Sullivan has noted that if he doesn't work with someone else he may start his own company or conference business.
Whatever Danny does it is sure to be solid gold and although he is sure not to need it I would like to wish him the absolute best of wishes from everyone here at StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.
Google launched a free packaged business solution for enterprises today (Sunday, August 27th) including online chat, email, calendars, and hosting. Called “Gmail for Your Domain” (a ghastly name that is only slightly better referred to as “Google Apps” within the actual admin area) this application package will allow a business owner or administrator to create a separate account per employee.
Each Google Apps account comes complete with the following Google applications:
Gmail: Google’s email program is the central offering of this set of applications; it acts as the main portal where the Talk and Calendar functions are provided. Each user has 2 gigabytes of email storage complete with some robust email management tools that allow automatic email filtering, POP email access, SPAM management, and contact management.
Required Setup Procedure: Requires that you shift all email protocol from your domain (i.e. www.stepforth.com) to Google so that email can be sent and received using your domain (so that your email correctly displays it came from your domain).
Google Calendar: Probably the most feature rich application within this entire package, Google Calendar provides users with the ability to share appointments or entire calendars. It also has a basic event management option that allows you to manage RSVP lists and invite associates to meetings. Check out the full Google Calendar feature list here.
Google Talk: An instant messaging and voice chat application, Google Talk automatically allows access to the contact list within Gmail making connections to business associates and employees simpler. Here is the official description on Talk from Google: “ a downloadable Windows application from Google that enables Gmail users to quickly and easily talk or IM with their friends for free. Google is focused on developing innovative technologies that enhance people's lives, and Google Talk encourages and simplifies instant communication across the web.”
Required Setup Procedure for Google Calendar and Google Talk: The only requirement is that you prove you are the legitimate owner of the domain you setup your account with. The activation process is simple; just upload a specific html file to your website for Google to verify and voila, both Calendar and Talk are enabled.
Google Web Publishing: This is a free hosting and page creation system (Page Creator) that allows you to create and publish your enterprise site. The site is hosted on Google servers and can only be a maximum of 100 pages in size.
Required Setup Procedure: You must add a CNAME to your domain management configuration (usually by asking your hosting provider) which will setup a subdomain (i.e. http://site.yoursite.com) that you can upload and administer through Google Apps.
Account Administration The account administrator using a central online Dashboard can administer all Google accounts. Within the Dashboard, the administrator can do the following:
setup domain aliases,
setup email catch-all addresses,
create internal email lists (i.e. staff@yoursite.com would go to… list all in-house recipients)
make minor cosmetic (color) customizations to the company sign in page,
customize your Google Apps system with your company logo,
enable or disable contact sharing; which when enabled provides a central contact list that all users will have access to.,
create and update multiple user accounts at once by uploading a spreadsheet with username and password information,
centrally configure individual user privileges, alternate email addresses and passwords,
view access, and email quota statistics for each user.
My Take on Google Apps I setup an account to see how this new offering works and I think it has some real potential as long as the needs of an organization are basic. I say this because the majority of companies that I know of would not be comfortable switching their vital communication and scheduling systems to an online model that is not under their control. After all, I do not expect there will be anyone to bark at if Google Apps experiences problems; one of the significant minuses of using a free system (never mind one in beta).
Additionally, a couple of the applications are definitely in their infancy. For example, Google Calendar doe not offer any synchronization capabilities for handhelds or PC’s, so if you make the switch there is no way (currently) to update your handheld with your Google Calendar schedule. This chink alone is enough to keep me from making the switch. Oh and I must not forget Google Page Creator and the free hosting service; it is, well, pointless in its current state. After all, there is no way to upload a website other than using Page Creator, which is a website-publishing tool in its extreme infancy. I can only assume that the web-publishing facet of Google Apps was included as a frill.
Will Websites Hosted on Google Have an Advantage? Perhaps but the advantage is minimal; Google states in the Google Apps help area that new sites within their system can expect to be indexed within “a few hours of publication”; an impressive turnaround. Hosting on Google will also likely lead to faster indexing of updated content. After all, faster updating would be a considerable tease if (make that ‘when’) Google wants to make a bolder step into the web hosting industry and provide more advanced hosting packages. It is truly a brilliant plan, I mean, how could other search engines compete with a rival search engine that merely has to look to its own network to index a sizable portion of the Internet. At any rate, this basic hosted solution has been around for a while so I don’t want to waste your time with information you may already know (here is more info on Page Creator).
How Long Will Google Apps Be Free? If you signup during the Beta test of this program you will get use of Google Apps for free indefinitely according to the Google Apps Terms & Conditions but after the Beta Period you “may not” get the benefit of newly added technologies without paying. The following is relevant snippet from the T&C:
"No Fees . Provided that Google continues to offer the Google Hosted Services to Customer, Google will provide a version of the Google Hosted Services (with substantially the same services as those provided as of the Effective Date) free of charge to Customer indefinitely; provided that such commitment (i) applies only to End User Accounts created during the period when the Google Hosted Services are considered a beta service (the "Beta Period") by Google (such Beta Period determination at Google's sole discretion) and (ii) may not apply to new opt-in services added by Google to the Google Hosted Services in the future."
Will There Be a More Advanced Version of Google Apps Soon? “For sake of clarity, Google reserves the right to offer a premium version of the Google Hosted Services for a fee.” (Excerpt from Google Apps Terms & Conditions) . In fact, the answer appears to be a resounding yes since Google wants you to notify them if you are interested in a premium version so that they can let you know when it comes available.
What Else May Be Coming to Google Apps? I fully expect that following apps will be included in the near future, just click on them to see their formal description at Google:
Google Notepad (more info) Share important notes with your staff and allow them to search notes company-wide.
Personalized Home Page Okay, I cheated here, Google has already posted that this will be coming and they even have a help menu setup for this already. Essentially this option will allow you to customize the home search page for your employees to a limited degree locking certain areas of their Google start page.
Google Reader (more info) This is a free RSS viewer that allows you to subscribe to and label RSS feeds such as The SEO Blog. I believe this application will be added to Google Apps, or at least should, so that Administrators can keep their employees up to date on their own company’s blog as well as their competitors’. In addition, RSS feeds are a great venue for continued education for anyone in a company; I constantly use them to keep up to date on the latest website analytics tutorials and upcoming web technologies. Ultimately, it would be great to enforce the viewing of certain RSS feeds for employees; much like locking areas of their personalized Google home page.
Google Spreadsheets (more info) Create your spreadsheets online and share them across your enterprise.
Google's Writely(more info) Create documents online, share them and publish them to your website.
So You Have More Questions About Google Apps? Well! I tried to cover a lot in this article but I likely missed something so here is a direct link to Google’s help/FAQ area for this new service.
Please note that I strongly recommend using ClickTracks versus Google Analytics. My experience with ClickTracks has been far more favorable and I believe that the statistics provided are more accurate. Indeed, keep in mind that if you go with Google there is a certain lack of transparency regarding what they do with the statistical data collected from your website. Anyway, that is my two bits but I wanted you all to know about this news if you hadn't heard about it already.
There is a low buzz in the SEO world about a new Google patent titled: "System and method for supporting editorial opinion in the ranking of search results". You can find the actual Google patent here. As far as patents go this seems to be an odd one; there are a wide variety of interpretations of this patent and from what I can tell they all have some merit.
I don't personally have much to say about this patent now because the simple fact is that I have to give it a more thorough read. I can tell you, however, that reviewing new patents is not a priority for me because they are only *possible* indications of future updates; too much 'if' for me to consider it a concern. At any rate I do consider it a bit of a hobby to keep up on what the latest and greatest minds of search engine companies are coming up with and maybe you do to.
Here are a few sites that have posted opinions about this patent:
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 10:45 AM
Recently the world of online auctioneers saw the rates at eBay spike a little higher, and has a number of sellers very unhappy about the situation. This has also sparked a number of eBay listings surrounding this hike, like this T-Shirt "I survived the eBay Rate Increase of August '06". Wonder how many they will sell?
Finding information on the eBay rate increase was more difficult than expected. One would expect to find a press release, but a look at their PR page come up blank (). I'm curious, eBay sends out a ton of messages advertising free listing days and other various news to its users. I on the other hand did not receive a single message from them stating the rate increase. Would this not seem like a natural thing to do?
Many are turning to Google in hopes that the internet search giant will come out and develop a true eBay competitor. Today eBay has a virtual monopoly on the online auction business. While there are many auction sites on the internet, none can even come close to comparing to the immense power and spread of eBay. Where's Google? Even Yahoo has an auction site, although I have to be honest, I have yet to try it.
This does bring up the question, why has Google not come out yet and created a competitor? Google seems to have a knack for this kind of thing. It seems to me that because of the power and revenue generated by AdWords ads, they could do quite well even offering a free online auction service. The ad revenue could far exceed the auction listing fees and combined with an even stronger online presence, Google could certainly overtake eBay and profit considerably.
A search of Google Labs, or even a general internet search doesn't turn up anything official even suggesting that Google is thinking about going in this direction, but it does seem like a natural progression seeing as how they have roughly 50% of search already, and have developed a name trusted around the world.
This March an online word processing startup called Writely was purchased and merged into Google. This fledgling company had one of those great ideas that Google seems to have a hard time passing up; online interactivity and document interaction. To quote Jen Mazzon, one of the creators and a part of the new Google Writely Team, "everyone told us it was crazy to try and give people a way to access their documents from anywhere -- not to mention share documents instantly, or collaborate online within their browsers. But that's exactly what we did." (source URL).
Since the purchase Google shut Writely down to incorporate it into its system. As of last week, however, Writely.com is back up and accepting new users (see Google posting)
So here goes Google again... launching another online application, except that this one appears to be exceedingly useful. I like the idea that multiple users can work on a document on the same time and the written material can be uploaded to their own website and even to their blogs. Automatically saving articles securely every 10 seconds is another great bonus (for those who forget to use the save feature!).
Since this is an entirely free system backed by Google I expect Writely to become quite the phenomenon in the next few months. Anyway, this is yet another place where Google can extend its formidable advertising reach.
PS. Oddly, I tried to find the press release for the relaunch of Writely but there doesn't seem to be one... did Google forget to publicize this?
Now located on the right side of every page of The SEO Blog, StepForth has provided you with easy access to all of the latest and greatest SEO news! This is all thanks to a new search tool called Rollyo.
Rollyo is a new search tool that allows you to create your own "searchroll". A searchroll is essentially your own customized list of sites that you want to search. In other words, using Rollyo you can create a search option where your query is restricted to the sites you want to read.
"Search Other SEO News Resources Here" I have to admit, I customized the Rollyo search code a bit. I changed the default search provided by Rollyo to allow users to search the "Top SEO News" immediately. This search was customized by myself to search some of the most popular SEO blogs and SEO news sites such as Matt Cutts, the Official Google Blog, The Official Yahoo Blog, Jeremy Zawodny's Blog, and much more.
By providing this tool I hope that my users will find even more value in visiting The SEO Blog regularly. Additionally you can create your own Rollyo account and add my custom search "Top SEO News" to your own searchroll. I will be updating this "Top SEO News" searchroll fairly regularly with other timely news sites.
I hope you enjoy it and find your customized Rollyo experience effective. I must add, however, that Rollyo runs on the Yahoo! API. As a result, the search engine results that you ultimately see are totally up to Yahoo!
Webmaster tools are becoming a hot topic in the major search engines these days. It is becoming increasingly obvious to search engine companies that they need to begin listening to webmasters and provide more tools to ensure future brand integrity. It is about time! I have been waiting for the search engines to wise up and over the past couple of years both Google and Yahoo have begun to prominently feature such tools. This article is devoted to Yahoo’s Site Explorer tool and how you can harness it to help you improve your search engine rankings and improve your odds for online success.
THEN: September 29th, 2004 Yahoo! officially launched Yahoo Site Explorer (see release). This new tool was designed to promote feedback between webmasters and Yahoo search staff. Ever since Yahoo! launched and became the powerhouse it is today it has had a rather bleak reputation for responding to customer search inquiries and ranking or directory complaints; this is another great step they took to change public opinion.
When it launched in 2005, Yahoo! Site Explorer provided a central interface for the following:
List all subpages of a site domain (domain.com) or path (domain.com/~yourname)
Backlinks (or inlinks as Yahoo calls them) for both site domains and paths.
Free submission of sites not indexed yet by Yahoo. Submissions can be done either one at a time or by bulk. The bulk method requires that you identify the location (URL) of an online text file with the list of URLs to be submitted.
Download up to 1000 search results in TSV format (TSV can be read by Excel)
NOW: August 8th, 2006 – New and Improved! Yahoo has announced a fairly dramatic update to this service which provides more tools and a cleaner operating environment.
Yahoo Site Explorer has added the following new capabilities:
Additional information about each page within your associated website(s): - “Last Crawled Date”: This is the last time your page was indexed by Yahoo! Slurp (Yahoo’s robot). - “Language”: the language of the page (a waste of space in my opinion) - Show pages from subdomains: this will list any subdomains that Yahoo has identified and will allow you to choose between seeing indexing results on “all subdomains” or “only this domain”. This is merely a filtering feature.
RSS Feed Submission: submit your RSS or Atom feeds and manage them from your Site Explorer control panel.
Automated page update notification service (info link): designed for the Yahoo Developer Network this is useful only to those that have automated applications that can interface with Yahoo!’s API. This service allows you to tell Yahoo when your pages have been updated so that it knows when to recrawl.
Getting Down to Business: How Yahoo Site Explorer Can Help You!
There are two main areas that I want to focus on in regards to how Yahoo Site Explorer can help you.
1. The “MySite” Area – Your Own Websites This following points require that you have authenticated your website(s). Click on Figure 1.0 to see what this screen will look like if your site(s) are authenticated.
The first and most obvious advantage of seeing your sites in Yahoo Site Explorer is verifying which pages have been indexed. If you find that many pages of your site are missing this may be a great indication that your site is not search engine friendly. Is your site search engine friendly?
The ‘inlinks’ (aka. backlinks) option is a fantastic way to view the links pointing to your website. The best part is that unlike the linkdomain: search that Yahoo offered before, you can actually download up to 1000 results in a small file that you can then filter with Excel or your spreadsheet application of choice. Why is this helpful? First of all this is an effective means of determining which sites are providing the most links to your website. These websites are obviously very interested in your product/services so perhaps contacting them and strengthening that relationship would be a good idea.
Again the inlinks has another advantage; determining which sites you should appear on *more* often. Let me explain by describing this review step by step because this is a little bit advanced but well worth the minimal learning curve. (If you find the following information just too much to handle keep in mind that StepForth offers professional website analytics and competitor analysis services to take the work out of your hands.)
1) Look at the referrer information in your website statistics and write down the sites that appear to be driving a lot of traffic to your website.
2) Now, download the inlink data from Yahoo Site Explorer for your website (up to 1000 results can be downloaded) in TSV format.
3) Open the TSV file in your local spreadsheet program and sort the results by website.
4) Now that the website results are sorted alphabetically try to find any sites from your list of top referrers that are standing out as having particularly few links to your site.
5) If you have found a site that has a high ratio of traffic to backlinks then you might have just stumbled on a gold mine. Say what? Just consider what you have found for a moment. Here is the situation; a particular website has few links pointing to your site but it is still delivering a high level of traffic. Armed with this information your next step should be to figure out how to get more links from that site. Perhaps the webmaster will be interested in providing more exposure to your site freely or for a low advertising cost. You simply never know unless you research the site and/or contact the webmaster.
And keep in mind that even if you don’t find any goldmines you are still learning a lot more about your target market such as which sites they frequent and what information appears to be of interest to them; which is always helpful.
You can submit your RSS feed if you have a blog. This is a great way to be certain that your feed is being spidered by Yahoo.
Are you curious why a particular page in your website is being used as an access point? Try typing in that page’s address into the search bar in Site Explorer and if that page has been indexed by Yahoo it will appear. Now click on the inlinks report for that page and you will have a complete listing of the websites that are linking to that page. Look at each inlink page and you will get a better idea of why your site page is becoming an entry point. This research method is nothing new but this quicker approach is slick.
2. The “MySite” Area – Your Competitor’s Website The following points focus on the analysis of your competitors so site authorization is not required. Figure 2.0 provides an example of the screen when you are viewing a site you have not been authorized for.
Are you curious what your competitors are up to? Recently I wrote an article on how to conduct your own competitor analysis and I wish I had included Site Explorer’s features in it. Here is how I use Yahoo Site Explorer to check in on the competition. After I have shown you how to get the information I will explain what information you can glean from it.
1. Type in the main domain of the competitor in Site Explorer.
2. From the competitor’s result screen click on ‘inlinks’ so that you have the full inlinks (backlinks) report on that competitor.
3. Now just above the first set of results you will see the following options that allow you to filter the inlink results:
The “From All Pages” means that you are seeing inlinks from any page; including links from the competitor’s site to its own site (internal pages linking to each other). So in order to remove these links that don’t provide you with any useful information you want to change this to “Except from this domain” so that you are not getting internal links showing up. This is how it will appear:
4. The resulting list will now show only external sites linking to your competitor; a much more valuable report since you have now removed backlink information that is useless to your research.
5. Next you have two options; one is to download as many results as you can using the “Export Result to TSV” command (usually only 50 or so will download) or you can begin reviewing the sites visually, page by page. I would start with the first step and then move on to manually reviewing the sites within Site Explorer after you have exhausted the first 50 that are handily provided in spreadsheet format.
Okay you have this report… now what? Here 3 key pieces of information you may find valuable:
1. Benefit from their Work: You can now create a list of sites that your competitor(s) have managed to get links from. Next try to match these links by contacting each site’s webmaster and asking if they would consider linking to your website. This is a great method for in-house link building.
2. Advertising Revealed: Have you noticed that a large number of backlinks seem to be coming from a particular domain? Look into this domain closely; it could be that your competitor is paying for a link which is directly converting to beneficial backlinks. It may be worth contacting these site(s) and requesting pricing for advertising of your own. If advertising is not possible then at the very least you now have a part of the equation for your competitor’s ranking successes (if they have any).
3. Forums and Blogs: Keep an eye out for backlinks from forums or blogs. These backlinks may indicate a particularly useful forum that could drive business to your website. It also cannot hurt to benefit from the forum interaction by placing a backlink in your post signature (same as an email signature). Just don’t expect much of an advantage from signature backlinks because rampant spam from unimaginative spammers has rendered such links less important.
Yahoo Site Explorer is Now Unavoidable For those that like to do research by hand you may be asking “why would I use Site Explorer when I can perform my own research by hand?” Yahoo Site Explorer has made itself somewhat unavoidable since it began redirecting most searches for “link”, “site” or “linkdomain” to Site Explorer which in-turn requires that you have a free Yahoo account.
Summary The tools provided within Yahoo’s Site Explorer tool may not be ground breaking but they sure make certain forms of research much easier. By making queries that used to be entirely manual (link:, linkdomain:, site: etc.) available automatically they have certainly made the world of competitor analysis that much easier to experience for the average site owner.
Kudos Yahoo! I think you guys are definitely on the right track; you have certainly earned thumbs up from me for this innovation.
Google provided a little insight into their plans for the spidering of images across the web. Over the next few years they are going to be focusing on facial, geographical and other forms of recognition within images. The plan is to improve the capabilities of their free Picasa tool but you can bet that this will spread into Google Images. What does this mean to you?
Just imagine if you could search for all pictures taken in a backwater location in your home town... say your favorite lake. Some day Google may have the ability to show you all pictures that appear to match those surroundings; I doubt it will be even 80% accurate but it is still a huge step.
You may also be able to search for pictures of your buddy 'Bruce' by letting Google analyze a photo of Bruce that you have on hand. Then, after some whirls and clicks, Google would provide you with additional photos of Bruce found online. Okay I may be reaching a bit here with how this might work but I honestly believe this is in our future.
With Google you can pretty much let your imagination run wild. After all, Google is the perfect example of a company with unlimited financial and intellectual resources so the sky is the limit.
Blink
Del.icio.us
Digg
Furl
Google
Simpy
Spurl
Y! MyWeb
Gmail: Google’s email program is the central offering of this set of applications; it acts as the main portal where the Talk and Calendar functions are provided. Each user has 2 gigabytes of email storage complete with some robust email management tools that allow automatic email filtering, POP email access, SPAM management, and contact management.
Google Calendar: Probably the most feature rich application within this entire package, Google Calendar provides users with the ability to share appointments or entire calendars. It also has a basic event management option that allows you to manage RSVP lists and invite associates to meetings. Check out 
Google Talk: An instant messaging and voice chat application, Google Talk automatically allows access to the contact list within Gmail making connections to business associates and employees simpler. Here is the official description on Talk from Google: “ a downloadable Windows application from Google that enables Gmail users to quickly and easily talk or IM with their friends for free. Google is focused on developing innovative technologies that enhance people's lives, and Google Talk encourages and simplifies instant communication across the web.”
Account Administration
