Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 8:54 AM
A recent post at ZDNet shows a screen shot from a Google Maps search for “Microsoft” displaying an unexpected image. The image depicted the windows logo with a slash through it.
How did this happen? Apparently Google automatically associated this image with Microsoft's name using geographically targeted image processing. In this case a “Sara B” from Yelp.com had uploaded the image along with a review of the company. While likely unintentional, this could be a new form of “Google bombing” that could cause some serious problems.
The image has since been removed from the search, but one is left wondering where this may lead. If it is possible for Microsoft, what is stopping something like this from happening to other companies out there?
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 8:52 AM
For quite some time Google has provided a keyword tool for advertisers with search volume represented by a green bar. While this green bar did help to indicate the popularity of a specific term, there was no way to know the actual number of searches.
Over the past few weeks I have seen accounts where some have reported seeing the introduction of actual search figures appearing along side the search volume green bar.
Barry Schwartz posted earlier this month at search engine land and referenced an adamap.com post and screenshot, but he was also unable to see the figures at that time. It appears as if Google is testing out the feature for consideration of a future roll-out.
Displaying the actual search figures rather than a general green bar will certainly make their tool more valuable to advertisers in the future. I for one welcome the release, whenever it may be.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 10:50 AM
There have been reports at search engine land and Search Engine Roundtable that MSN UK has been pre-filling their search box with "The Apprentice BBC". I went to uk.msn.com to see for myself and sure enough, there it was:
I am not sure how I feel about this form of advertising, or how large of an impact it would have on searches. And what happens if the BBC Apprentice site slips from the number one ranking spot? Is their top ranking also being influenced by this?
I do not see this technique catching on as it would likely just irritate searchers forcing MSN to pull the idea. I for one do not want search engines telling me what to search for, but I am curious to know what the BBC has paid for this.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 5:04 PM
Okay, so I said it all in the title. Perhaps you need not even read this article as you may start off not believing it.
Today I read an article written by an unknown name in the SEO industry (at least unknown to me). It had a number of points focused on improving search rankings and provided a bunch of tips on how to improve the overall standings for a site. Sounds like a useful article, and for many who read it, I am sure it was - or at least seemed that way.
The article, sent to me by a client, was surprisingly wrong on several accounts with what the author recommended in terms of SEO. The advice was certainly not anything which could be damaging, but more out dated, now useless information. Many of the tactics recommended may have worked several years ago, but now play little to no role in search rankings.
I found it odd that an article as out dated as this had been published by a seemingly credible newsletter. The source was one I had heard of, but never actually read. I am not trying to discredit the source and therefore will not mention either it or the author, as this is not the point of my post.
I replied to the client and explained which points were inaccurate and why, and then carried on with my day. I got to thinking after receiving a thank you from the client where he stated: "...goes to show you cannot believe what is being written all the time...". I thought, that is very true, and it sparked the idea for this post. I read a lot of articles from a variety of sources, and often spot what I find to be inaccuracies, but never really think anything of it. But what if I were a common businessman with a website, and I was trying to learn about SEO?
How can you tell if the advice you are reading will actually help your site? This is actually a tough question. Most of the advice you read in newsletters and even on authoritative SEO sites is fairly general, applying generic techniques. Very seldom are they focused for a specific site for a specific purpose, so even while the recommendations may be perfectly legit and helpful in most cases, they may not have the desired effect for some. This is not to say they are bad, but merely non-specific enough to do the job. This all makes sense of course, as to be specific enough and cover all possible scenarios, would require articles into the hundreds of pages - otherwise known as books!
Now that I have gone a little off topic, I'll get back to where I was at. So how can you tell if the information in an article is even accurate? Here are three fairly simple points that can help you to determine if what you are reading is trustworthy:
First check out the author. Is it a name you recognize? What are his or her credentials? Have they been around for a while? Are you able to find their articles on any creditable SEO news websites? If not, this does not mean they don’t know their stuff, but it may raise a flag, that perhaps their article could be incorrect. The best of the best are often featured on these news sites and publish a number of articles, so there will likely be at the very least, some reference to them.
Check out the website in their bio. (If they don’t have a bio, there's another flag). Do they even represent an SEO company? If they do, use whatever SEO knowledge you have to see if their site reflects the industry. While not all good SEO companies will necessarily have their own rankings, the basic SEO fundamentals should be in place. Check for the basics, things such as unique title tags, on page textual content, proper navigation etc. In the vastly outdated article I read, the author's bio pointed to a web design company. Now their design was quite nice, and they seem to know their stuff – in terms of design, but their site did not address SEO properly at all. In most cases good designers are not good SEO's, just as good SEO's are not necessarily good designers. There are of course exceptions to every rule, but chances are you would not pay a visit to your lawyer to ask for medical advice. For that matter, you would also be unlikely to see your doctor to have a tooth pulled, perhaps a closer analogy to SEO and design.
Check out the author's advice. If you plan on implementing the advice or specific recommended technique, do some research to verify if what they say is true before putting your site at risk. If their recommendation is one that can be helpful chances are someone else has also written about it. Take a look at some of the popular forums and check for references on the technique – even add your own post asking for thoughts on the item. It is possible that the author is writing about a breakthrough discovery that nobody knows about, but in virtually all cases where a breakthrough occurs, it is kept secret, one would not want to give away a goose that lays golden eggs.
This may seem like a lot of work, but it may certainly be worth it. If you plan on undertaking your optimization efforts on your own you want to ensure that the techniques you are about to use are not only up-to-date, but also worth while and legitimate. Check out your sources and their recommendations. If they are legit, you will most likely be able to verify it fairly easily.
I want to throw in an extra note here. It is very possible that you could stumble upon an article by an unknown name, with no website, and no prior history of contributing articles to any news publications, and it is very possible that this article and author are highly knowledgeable. There are exceptions to every rule, and everyone has to start somewhere. Just because an author comes out of the woodwork it does not mean that he or she has not practiced SEO extensively as perhaps an anonymous face in a large company or even as an in-house SEO for a large corporation for example. My point is basically to do your due diligence before applying any techniques you read about, because you just never know.
And in case you were wondering, no - you don’t have to believe anything I say either.
Danny Sullivan wrote an article today describing Flash optimization and how it is unlikely that Flash will be a completely spiderable medium anytime soon. The article is sobering for those of us who were hoping for a 100% optimizable version of Flash, but at the same time I must stress that there are ways to optimize around Flash if no other alternative is possible. Danny points to a blog describing Flash workarounds that I had not previously seen and I enjoyed a great deal.
All-in-all I consider Flash an amazing technology that can add immense value to a website. That said, if organic rankings are desired it is my preference that Flash be added as a page element versus being the entire website. Flash-only websites are not impossible to optimize but they are extremely undesirable in my opinion because spiderable, optimized content must be hidden in the background of the page (the source). Managing hidden content essentially doubles the work of managing a website because both the Flash and the hidden website needs to be kept current.
I checked this myself from Canada to see if it was a regional alteration but no dice; Canada has been affected as well. I have mixed feelings about this change. On one hand, the link to a directory listing was a great indicator that a website was 'verified' by Yahoo staff since human review is required for directory inclusion. In essence that made the directory link in results an added incentive to pay the price of directory inclusion. On the other hand, removing the directory link has saved 10 lines of valuable screen property on every Yahoo result page. I am unsure what Yahoo will do with this free space but considering their lust for profits (see Yahoo reinvents paid inclusion) I wonder if some additional advertising or another form of profit generation might be forthcoming. If this newly freed space is to be used I just hope it is done creatively.
Also, Barry Schwartz noted this may be a step towards folding the Yahoo Directory. This may very well be true, it would certainly explain the result alteration. That said, I hope Yahoo's Directory sticks around because at this point it is the only directory that has any real validity these days. After all, DMOZ (the Open Directory Project) is a complete mess and I don't honestly know of any other directory other than DMOZ and Yahoo that has any reasonable clout. To put it simply, Yahoo would be foolish to drop their Directory but they do need to reinvent it. I think they should intertwine social media with their directory to give it some freshness and potential energy.
Thinking off the cuff... Yahoo could offer directory listing owners the opportunity to make their listings more robust and they could provide a listing of the most recent articles associated with a company listing. Heck another option that comes to mind is a social media tagging system where any site that met a confidential threshold would get a free review and ultimately a free or discounted listing in the directory. The key is to get the big players in the directory again and make it more attractive and interactive. Personally I could spend ages brainstorming this, it would be a blast... unfortunately it is up to Yahoo to make it work.
As a final note, I was horrified when I could not find a single link to the Yahoo Directory on Yahoo!'s home page. I guess it is true... the directory is being put on the backburner. Does anyone have any sure insight on this topic?
According to Search Engine Land, Google has been caught testing new navigation formats. From the screenshots on Search Engine Land and the adjoining articles it seems Google is attempting to find the right way to include more personalized navigational elements such as Google Calendar, email, etc. into their main navigation. I look forward to seeing the result. I for one, would be very happy to see a quick access link to my Google Calendar or GMail.
Are you still a little fuzzy on social media networking and what affect it has on the web? If so, I expect this review of Digg, one of the more significant social media websites, will provide you with a great introduction.
China is a nation of strict censorship and the country has been rightfully dealt a wealth of criticism for this fact. As many of you know the Internet is carefully screened by China to ensure the proper 'facts' of life are fed to its people. So I wonder, what exactly does China consider worthy of censorship?
Does your website fall into China's wastebasket? The Great Firewall of China is a website that is designed to tell you if your website is blocked in China. Try it yourself and see if your website is a banned substance. Although it is not now, I expect that the StepForth SEO Blog will be banned very soon thanks to this posting.
Here is just a sampling of sites that are completely blocked in China:
Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com)
The New York Times (nytimes.com)
The BBC News (news.bbc.co.uk)
Amnesty International (amnesty.org)
I found other site examples but they were not always banned, it seems site-wide censorship may occur only at certain times or connectivity issues are to blame. The other possibility is China is providing a slightly kinder viewpoint for users of the greatfirewallofchina.org. After all, they are bound to have noted this site's existence and heightened popularity.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:58 PM
More details are now available on selected searches as Google unveils “Plus Box”. Wherever you see the plus box icon “ ” clicking on it will provide you with additional information on the link. A search for Microsoft, with the plus box clicked shows the following:
Currently there are two types of plus box results being displayed. The above stock example for Microsoft, as well as maps for appropriate local results, such is the case with a search for “Babbo”, a restaurant in New York.
This information is not available for all businesses but Google is working on increasing its availability.
If you would like to find a search for your business including this extra information, ensure your full business address is located on your webs site in a textual format and then visit Google’s Local Business Center to add or update your information.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:56 PM
Tuesday, Matt Cutts posted a status update for the KinderStart / Google lawsuit filed by KinderStart more than a year ago. The judge in the KinderStart cases granted Google’s motion to dismiss without leave to amend.
“The instant case has been intensively litigated for more than eleven months. Under these circumstances, the Court concludes that there is no reasonable likelihood that KinderStart will cure the defects in the SAC [second amended complaint] by further amendment. Accordingly, the motion to dismiss will be granted without leave to amend.”
The judge ruled that KinderStart will be responsible for some of Google's legal fees, a practice common with frivolous lawsuits.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:40 PM
Remember way back when HotBot offered customized home page graphics? Actually, I believe it was HotBot, but it has been so many years since I have seen it, I can't recall exactly. I tried to grab a screen shot but was unable to find it, so perhaps the option is long gone by now. At any rate, Google has now followed suit and added customizable themes for the personalized view of Google Search.
These screen shots have been taken from their beach theme. They offer a small selection of dynamic themes that change to reflect the time of day. Some selections include a bus stop, city, and seasonal.
These themes are available to anyone logged into their Google Account who selects "Personalized Search". I for one prefer the basic simple interface. I am not much for all this customization as I personally don't use these extra features.
It is interesting though that Google has taken an age old idea from HotBot and implemented it themselves. I guess making the theme dynamic adds a twist on this old idea. Will it catch on? I suppose only time will tell.
On March 16th, the International Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) publicly de-accredited the domain registrar RegisterFly.com for fundamental contractual breaches. BusinessWeek Online appropriately called the RegisterFly.com debacle a "Train wreck" and although this is not SEO-related I think StepForth SEO Blog readers should be kept in the know about this situation. Perhaps this post will help you protect your domain(s) and ultimately your livelihoods from future train wrecks. To that end, I have outlined some tips at the end of this post that will serve as a checklist to help protect you.
So What Happened at RegisterFly.com? Near as I can tell it all began when the owners of the company began a power struggle that ultimately eroded customer support to appalling levels. As a result, customers were not able to transfer or renew their domains and in some cases personal information on their domains were even switched to reflect RegisterFly ownership.
Here is a comment from the BusinessWeek article that speaks volumes of the bad will well-earned by RegisterFly.com:
"This has been a travesty. The transfer system was designed to work between two trusted registrars and completely breaks down when one has gone bad. RegisterFly has held customers hostage by not providing the "auth codes," by arbitrarily locking domain names, by changing the "Whois" info, and by arbitrarily putting your domain into "ProtectFly", their service to protect your identity but also keeps you from transferring your name.
We have lost domains and, more importantly, production Web sites have just gone dead, heading to a RegisterFly parking page instead. Try explaining this to customers depending on these sites for their business. RegisterFly's debacle has ruined businesses and lives. And this could have all been avoided with a better process in place and more in-depth criteria for accreditation. This process must be improved before the Internet can truly be used for mission-critical applications."
What Has ICANN Done to Help? The International Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) came under severe criticism as a result of RegisterFly.com's actions because affected domain owners were frustrated ICANN took so long to act. Unfortunately it appears that the domain registration system has some serious flaws because ICANN, which is the only authoritative body in charge of domains, had little power to wield. Here is a March 7th excerpt from the ICANN Ombudsman Blog that provides some insight into ICANN's efforts:
"ICANN is not a regulator. We rely mainly on contract law. We do not condone in any way whatsoever RegisterFly’s business practice and behaviour.
The options for customers to transfer their names to another registrar at this stage are limited. We will advise if we have more information on this point. Last Friday, ICANN convened a telephone conference among those needed to implement a plan that will help cease unintended deletions. This will prevent names from being deleted from the registry and becoming available for re-registration by others. RegisterFly has assured us (for what that is worth) that they will process such requests as soon as they are again technically operational. We will keep a close eye on this.
We do hope this information is helpful and provides some small level of comfort in what is clearly a stressful time for registrants and others affected by these events. Check in at both here and at our website www.icann.org where these issues (amongst others) are being discussed."
For what it is worth, ICANN's 16th of March posting announcing the de-accreditation of RegisterFly also indicated that "ICANN intends to hold a forum to discuss the reform of the Accreditation policy and process at its Lisbon meeting in a week's time." What will come of this meeting is uncertain but there is no doubt that ICANN needs a far larger stick to wield at future companies like RegisterFly.
Do your due diligence and check on the reputations of your prospective registrar before registering domains with them. Try searching with their name followed by "complaint" or any other related words and see if you find anything alarming. Most large registrars will have a complaint or two which is understandable but definitely go the other way if you too many or if, in the worst case scenario, you see a movement such as www.registerflies.com.
Do NOT host your website with your registrar or use their DNS records because any downtime on their part may turn your website into a 404.
Be careful registering your domain with a hosting company. Just like a registrar, a hosting company can leave you in hot water if it goes South. Generally hosting companies are just resellers of domains so all is not lost; with some effort you may be able to skirt around the hosting company and contact the core domain registrar.
If you must make your whois information private then use a 3rd party privacy service - one that is not directly affiliated with your registrar. This way you can be reasonably sure that your privacy options are under your control only.
Do NOT allow your registrar or hosting company to have any stake in your domain whois records. For example, making a hosting company contact the Admin of your domain opens you up to potential problems.
Make certain your whois information is accurate so you can be contacted should complications arise. You are out of luck if privacy is in effect but that should be an understood sacrifice of such a specialized service.
Register important domains for a few years instead of just one so that you can be sure you will not lose your domain to renewal should you find yourself with a bad registrar.
Closing Remarks My heart goes out to all of those affected by this horrid situation. The idea that clients of RegisterFly may have lost domains after investing thousands of hours and dollars in their website - is a sobering thought. I can only hope that those most painfully affected by this mess get some justice - better late than never. Sincerely, Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth SEO Services
PS. I don't think this post would be complete without a creative video that YouTube user "hd1080i" used to put the RegisterFly events into perspective.
Today Adobe unveiled the alpha release of Apollo which Adobe's Mike Downey describes as a "cross operating system runtime that allows users to install desktop applications built using web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript and Flash." In layman's terms, Apollo enables web developers to create applications for your computer using the web technology they already know and work in.
Mike Downey provided a glimpse of what the Apollo system could do using a demo created for/by eBay. The eBay demo provided an impressive glimpse of a desktop application simply installed from eBay and then operated in a slick interface on the desktop; just like any other program installed on a computer. What I was most impressed with was the offline capabilities built into the program; the runtime works autonomously from the Internet if you happen to be without an Internet connection. Obviously there are limitations without a connection but you can setup new products to sell, totally configure them, and even take photos of the products directly from within the program with a webcam. When the computer reconnects, the system automatically synchronizes with eBay and voila, your new products for sale are online.
So what are the implications of such a system? Well the fact that applications can be developed from HTML, JavaScript and Flash is extremely alluring. After all, as an amateur web designer I know I would rather not learn yet another web programming language. That said, I am mostly curious how Apollo would offer any benefit to someone designing a website using less complex technologies (Adobe Flex is no walk in the park). If Apollo can promise ease of creation, implementation and maintenance I think it will be a rocket ship. It is extra impressive to me that it maintains the general integrity of the Internet by being cross platform.
What Impact Might Apollo Have on Online Marketing? This is my loaded question of the day because Apollo will conceivably extend interactive marketing Internet to both the online and offline desktop which opens a variety of doors. Here are a couple of off-the-cuff concepts:
1) Offline Advertising? What if Google could now provide advertising to offline desktops? Obviously users would not be able to visit websites due to their offline status but perhaps clicking on Adsense/Adwords advertisements would then make the clicked ads appear again (in click order) in a bolder fashion once the user when online. To mitigate fraud the advertiser that ultimately had a clickthrough would be the only one to pay for the extra offline visibility; perhaps via an additional percentage of their click fee. I am not sure how feasible this strategy would be, but I am sure better minds than mine are seriously thinking this one through.
2) Say Hello to Ad-Supported Everyday Computer Applications Apollo opens the door to a simpler environment for providing everyday office and personal computer applications. First of all consider that it is cross-platform, enabling the creation of a single easy-to-install application for Mac and PC. Using a single application, a developer could offer a free, powerful toolset such as an image editing/management program supported by the subtle use of text ads, recommended for-fee plugins, in-window image editing tutorials supported by commercials... etc.
3) Knowledge Bases You know when you get a new computer product that comes with one flimsy manual that essentially tells you to go online and use the manufacturer's troubleshooting site? That can be annoying but the capabilities of Apollo would render this need obsolete. You may still have to visit a website but only once to download a troubleshooting application. The application could download all of the latest information on your product and store it on your computer for future need OR just keep the help files that seem to respond closely to the issue you are currently having. In each case the tool would allow you to access troubleshooting information in an offline environment; after all, in my experience device issues often occur at the most inopportune times. So what is the marketing angle? The manufacturer could easily post the latest news on next generation products or even allow partners to pitch compatible wares.
Until Later... I guess you can tell I am impressed. Yes, my mind is afire with ideas; something that usually happens when there is a new technology on the block. Especially a technology that appears to leverage existing technologies versus requiring a massive new learning curve. I don't know how Apollo will be received over the next few months but I expect many online giants will be jumping on this bandwagon soon once they realize the potential it offers. That is unless a competitor is set to launch a competing product any day now (Microsoft... are you listening?).
Some Notable Benefits of Apollo in Short Form
Apollo provides developers with an immense amount of control over their applications since they control the content on the machine of every user.
Content is updated/update-able on every reconnection to the Internet.
Online advertisers now have an open door to the offline computer user.
Installation is simple - at least according to the one demo seen so far ;-)
Apollo applications are cross-platform.
Applications offer instant updates and notifications: I expect news agencies will be all over this.
Questions I Have About Apollo I wonder if...
there are any requirements for cross-platform compliance?
Adobe can publicly state that any search engines have taken an interest in this software yet. Better yet, have any search engines begun creating an application?
there are any impressive web applications Adobe can demo that utilizes simple JavaScript and HTML? Or is Apollo really only worthwhile for the programming minded?
has advertising been incorporated yet in any Apollo application? I would love to see the first introduction of ads in this product. Let us just hope it is more creative than a banner.
Today I came across a beta viewing of ASK's future layout and platform. I didn't look at it hard so I can't say anything all that super intelligent at the moment but my first impression was so-so (i.e. nothing that blew me away): www.askx.com.
Last week a UK guerrilla marketing campaign launched by ASK was photographed on a train on a London subway featuring ASK's familiar oval logo background shown below the loudspeaker (photo credit Ben Werdmuller). The campaign has raised the ire of a few people and opened the eyes of some others. All-in-all, the campaign has been shown to be one hell of a news-making promotion... which has undoubtedly forced a grin from the staff at ASK. Anyway, here is a little run down on the events to date:
The advertisement is actually rather anonymous, merely suggesting that viewers visit www.information-revolution.org. Once on that site, however, if you look around the page you can ultimately tell it is a ASK website via the logo on the bottom right of the page.
So what the heck is all of this about you might ask? Well ASK is railing against the UK's widespread adoption of the "biggest search engine". The following snippet says it all, without saying Google, of course:
"Did you know that more than 75% of people in the UK use just one search engine to find information? The same search engine. The biggest search engine. The most popular search engine. Why? It's not that there aren't choices, it just seems that most people don't use them."
According to the Information-Revolution blog, the purpose is against "settling for the status quo". Further the March 15th posting states: "Google has a very good search product, and we’re not preaching that people should abandon it. Some people are mistaking this movement as a movement against Google."
Personally, I think the image on the right makes it fairly indisputable that Ask has launched this against Google. This screenshot (right) was taken by Danny Sullivan before ASK removed it from their results (original). This image of a puppet was shown whenever a user typed in "Google" in ASK.co.uk search. To be fair, it is unknown if this occurred on other search engine searches - anyone know the answer to that question? All-in-all, I see no reason why ASK would dispute the intention of their campaign... of course it is against Google and I see nothing wrong with that.
Whatever ASK's reasoning is you can expect to hear and see much more about this 'movement'. According to a recent interview Danny Sullivan had with Jim Lanzone ASK will be launching radio and TV advertisements depicting faux revolutionary takeovers of UK news stations to get out the word on the "information revolution".
Blink
Del.icio.us
Digg
Furl
Google
Simpy
Spurl
Y! MyWeb
” clicking on it will provide you with additional information on the link. A search for Microsoft, with the plus box clicked shows the following:
On March 16th, the International Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) 
Last week a UK guerrilla marketing campaign launched by ASK was photographed on a train on a London subway featuring ASK's familiar oval logo background shown below the loudspeaker (photo credit 