I met up with Ralph Wilson at the Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference a couple of weeks ago and had a great time as always doing interviews. Ralph Wilson's Web Marketing Today is one of the oldest (since 1995) most respected web marketing resources in the world and as one of Ralph's hand-picked writers for SEO I feel very privileged to work with him.
In the following interview, Ralph and I discuss the advantages of blogging for building valuable links and reputation online.
Note: we had some trouble with the recording device so you might notice Ralph looking sternly at his camera occasionally... that was to make sure it was still recording :-) We had to re-record parts of this interview about 4 times.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 11:03 AM
The Los Angeles Times reports German researchers, through the help of Google Earth, have discovered that 2 out of 3 cows point North.
Using Google Earth, the researchers studied more than 300 herds of cattle from around the world. Of the 8510 cows they observed, two thirds of them had aligned themselves to face magnetic north while grazing or resting.
This is the first discovery of large land mammals to have this built-in compass. Other animals such as birds and most bees have a similar trait to aid with migration.
So, if you ever find your self lost out at the farm, take a look at the near by cows to help guide you safely home.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 10:30 AM
Is there no end to lawsuits against Google? On Tuesday Judah Klausner, an inventor from San Francisco, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, Verizon, LG, Citrix Systems, Comverse Technology, and Embarq.
Klausner's company, Klausner Technologies, filed a patent back in 1992 for "visual voicemail", a way to apply a graphical means of interacting with voicemail messages, similar to the use of e-mail.
Back in June, Klausner had a similar lawsuit settled against Apple, AT&T, and eBay (Skype) over its "visual voicemail" features on iPhone devices.
Verizon apparently had anticipated the lawsuit from Klausner and two weeks ago filed their own lawsuit in US District Court, to have the inventor's patent declared invalid.
In an article published on Reuters Tuesday Jim Smith, a Verizon spokesman stated: "We anticipated Klausner's action. We are seeking a declaration that Klausner's visual voicemail patent is invalid and that Verizon's system does not infringe the patent in any event."
The latest lawsuit is just a series of suits filed by Klausner dating back to the first in 2005 against AOL.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:11 AM
According to ABC 9 Eyewitness News, Yahoo has applied for a huge state tax break to help them setup shop in La Vista NE.
In order to qualify for the tax breaks Yahoo would have to create at least 50 jobs with an average salary of at least $68,700, and invest $100 million over a four year period.
The Application for these tax breaks is no guarantee of Yahoo’s plans to build in Nebraska. Its interesting that with all the financial trouble Yahoo seems to be having, that they may be willing to move forward with such a huge development.
Last week's Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose was awesome! The content was exceptional - a cut above previous conferences - and the parties were a blast. To drive all of this home I invite you to check out the photos from the conference that I posted a few minutes ago.
A number of the photos include the following SEOs that you may know: John Carcutt, Darrell Long, Matt McGee, Andy Beal, Lisa Barone, Loren Baker, Leif Nissen, David Snyder, Jeff Quipp, Jennifer Osborne, Jeremiah Andrick, Daron Babin, Chris Boggs.
There are more photos to come too but for now enjoy!
Google Dance 2008 was, as usual, a great time and I felt it was time to share the festivities with the rest of the world that can't make it and may just be a little curious about Google's headquarters. So here we go, welcome to Google Dance 2008:
I hope I can count on seeing you at Google Dance 2009! Just sign up for Search Engine Strategies San Jose when it comes around and in addition to learning about web marketing you will enjoy some great parties (that includes the spectacular Search Bash!).
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 1:27 PM
A few months ago I wrote an article about 13 ways a webmaster can go about building links to their site. One of these ways was through the use of directory submissions.
There are many reasons why you may consider a directory submission. You could be trying to build your brand, focused on links for organic rankings, or simply want to drive traffic to your site. Below we will focus on the link building and organic ranking aspect of directory submissions.
There are countless directories out there these days, some are free, some are paid, and many are garbage. If you decide to build links to your site using online directories, there are some things you will want to consider before spending your hard earned money.
Page Rank Check the Google Page Rank. The visible page rank is only a very slight indication of a page's strength, but a PR 6 still represents a site of more value than a PR 2. Do not discount a site solely based on PR, but know that a higher PR site, if relevant, will give you more value.
Outbound Links Check the number of outbound links on the category page you would submit to. If the page has more than 100 outbound links, then chances are it will help you very little but there are of course some exceptions to the rule. Let’s say that the page in question has a few sites listed that are organically ranking in the top 10. The page also has a Google PR of 6/10, and the page is highly relevant to your industry. In this situation, even if there were as many as 150 or 200 outbound links, you would probably still want to get your site listed.
The same holds true for DMOZ. We know that DMOZ is a great place to get your site listed, and while listing your site on a page with the fewest links will give you the most value. In the case of DMOZ, even if the relevant category for your listing exceeded 100 outbound links, I would not hesitate to continue with a listing submission.
Category Pages Check the number of pages per category. If your main category has 10 pages of listings, you may want to forget it as the deeper you dive into these pages, the less value they will hold - they also add the risk of the directory being downgraded due to spam etc. If you still want to be listed, what page will your listing appear on? If you can’t get the first page, you will probably want to walk away.
Are listings alphabetical? Are new listings added to the top or the bottom of the list? If they are added to the top, you should know that in time, as more people submit, your site will get bumped down to the subsequent pages, reducing its value with every new bump.
Success of Other Listings Take a look at other listings in the directory. Are any of these sites ranking for related top phrases? Try to assess if other sites in your category are benefiting from a link at this directory, especially if it’s a paid directory.
Anchor Text Does the particular directory allow you to determine the anchor text used, or does it simply link you URL. If you can choose the anchor text, the link will be far more valuable as it will allow more value to be passed on due to the relevance of the anchor text and the target phrase for your site.
Indexed in Google? Are the directory and your preferred category sub page both indexed in Google and the other major engines? If it is a paid directory and they are not indexed, don’t waste your money. If the directory is well indexed including your preferred category, and has a fairly recent last cache date, then it is worth considering.
Price Prices for directory listings can range from free to hundreds of dollars, so you have to ask yourself "is it worth it". If you find that the directory is in good standing, other competing sites in your industry are ranking organically and listed here, and the page has a decent visible PR, this may warrant paying a higher premium to be listed. Be sure to consider if the billing is a one time or recurring expense.
If you have only a $300 annual budget the $299 a year for Yahoo may make sense, however if you break that up into 10 listings in other top directories for $30 a year each, this may be a better investment – it all depends on what is available for your industry, how high its quality is, and at what price.
Can Google See the Link? If your focus is on search engine rankings, then you definitely want to ensure that both your link, and the page your link resides on, are both fully spiderable by Google. Ensure that the rel=nofollow attribute is not used on your link, or on the pages that link to the directory page; also ensure that the page is not being blocked by a robots Meta tag or within the robots.txt file. The best indication that a page is seen by Google is if there is a recent cache of it within the Google index. If this page is also noted as a back link for others sites listed, it’s a pretty safe bet that yours will be seen also.
SPAM Ensure that the directory you are submitting to is totally on the up and up. If you find that they are doing anything shady turn the other way. This could be in the form of hidden text or links, or abusive pop-ups, etc. If they are promoting some software or anything that may include adware or malware, you definitely do not want to be associated with this site.
If the site is free and without an approval process, you may as well forget it. It will (if not already) end up littered to no end with irrelevant links which will drastically downgrade the value of the link to as low as zero. While Free-for-All sites can be a quick source for links, the links will actually be useless, so avoid them.
There are many ways to build links for a site, and directory submissions are just one of them. By having your site listed in a number of relevant directories you can help your sites overall link reputation to grow. It is important to remember though, that directory links are usually not enough on their own, they are just one piece of the big picture.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 1:12 PM
Possibly the most exciting post for me was from Oliver Marksat ZDNet . Here is a company that is thinking outside the box and developing an alternate interface for search on the internet; it involves returning results based on aggregate sets of information. Freebase Parallax is a fascinating peak into the future and it utilizes the strongest attributes to browse and explore data, a sort of marriage between Google and Wikipedia. This article has been placed under the Google section because I predict they will quickly snatch up this company and its revolutionary approach.
"Still technically in alpha, Freebase will be the underpinnings of many future companies - some would say this approach is the future of the entire Internet.
"It’s built by the community and for the community - free for anyone to query, contribute to, build applications on top of, or integrate into their websites - basically an open database of the world’s information."
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:57 PM
Tuesday, Microsoft announced a new plug-in for Outlook 2007. Information Week reports on this collaborative effort between Microsoft Research and Office Labs. The plug-in targets email overload and "uses various algorithms to automatically identify the importance or urgency of e-mail messages delivered into an Outlook 2007 in-box."
It will allow automatic prioritizing of emails, and allow user to pause email delivery.
"Email Prioritizer affixes e-mail with between zero and three stars to represent the urgency or importance of a given message. The program uses a number of algorithms that take into consideration things like the name of the sender and whether the receiver is on the "To" line or the "Bcc" line of an e-mail to determine priority, though at this point Microsoft isn't forthcoming with a full list of exactly what Email Prioritizer takes into consideration.
"Users can also set e-mail priorities manually by changing or assigning a star ranking themselves. These user settings can inform automatic prioritization: for example, if someone always sets e-mails from his manager to three stars, those e-mails will eventually begin to arrive already bearing the three stars.
Email Prioritizer also comes with a "do not disturb" feature that allows users to tweak Outlook's settings so that no new e-mails arrive until set periods of time between 10 minutes and four hours have passed.
Office Labs is one of a number of public-facing Microsoft "labs" attached to product groups that Microsoft has created in the past few years, including Live Labs and AdLabs."
by Bill Stroll, Sales Manager, StepForth Web Marketing Inc. Celebrating over 10 years of web marketing excellence.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:48 PM
Is there a new interface in the works for Yahoo? Search Engine Roundtable reports August 19th on grouped or indented search results.
"In the past, Yahoo never ever indented search results. In fact, in the past I thought they did do indenting and then stopped, but Yahoo told me that they have never grouped results.
Many search results, including a search for search engine roundtable return grouped results now. Here is a picture:"
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:46 PM
News.com says Google is number 4. For a brief period of time last week Google's market cap slipped from third to fourth position. Apple’s market cap reached $158.84 billion and edged out Google which was at $157.84. Wikipedia defines market capitalization as "...a measurement of corporate or economic size equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding of a public company. As owning stock represents owning the company, including all its assets, capitalization could represent the public opinion of a company's net worth and is a determining factor in stock valuation."
The post states "Google's share price is much higher, at $505.82 compared with Apple's $178.97, but Google has only 314 million outstanding shares while Apple has nearly 886 million." Microsoft is still the leader at $255 billion and IBM follows at $170 billion.
by Bill Stroll, Sales Manager, StepForth Web Marketing Inc. Celebrating over 10 years of web marketing excellence.
Before the Search Bash began CEO Daron Babin of WebmasterRadio.FM got everyone talking after he proclaimed the entertainment at the Search Bash would be better than ever... even to rival Google's impressive Google Dance the night before.
Well, it is safe to say we were all pretty skeptical that Google's party could be beat. That said, I don't know of anyone that would doubt Daron's capability to go over the top - he is a true entertainer. As a result, attendance was high for the kick off and I don't think anyone was dissapointed by the entertainment that got progressively awe inspiring as the night continued.
Here is the kick off compliments of my little Canon Powershot S1000; my apologies for the poor camera work but I think it gets across the impressiveness of the event.
After the kick off the acrobats provided a number of shows intermittently throughout the night and the shows got progressively better and better. Here is an example of some of the later entertainment.
My apologies for not having more footage for you but I am afraid my camera memory and battery was not up to the task of recording more of the amazing entertainment.
In short, next year don't miss SES San Jose! Every year I have an absolute blast here as I learn from experts in every field of search engine marketing... oh and the parties are awesome.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:48 PM
When you look at it on a global scale Google is by far the leader when it comes to searching for online information. Nobody really questions that. But what is the next step for Google? For some time now they have been helping users to find images, videos, news reports, and so much more - but once the internet is fully categorized within the depths of Google, and the monetization is solid for all its efforts, what will Google move to after that?
It seems that I cant escape the mention of anything work related during my personal life. This weekend when reading the September issue of Discover Magazine I saw an article on DNA testing that mentioned Sergey Brin and Google's contribution of $3.9 Million to 23andMe, a genetic testing company back in 2007. This is old news, but it got my brain thinking off to a tangent.
Could the goal behind this investment be to prime the company for a future takeover by Google? Perhaps the future for Google is to index you, and me, and all our deceased relatives. By fully indexing DNA, perhaps we will someday have the ability to load in a drop of blood, saliva, or a hair, into our computers and have Google spit out a complete list of all our relatives, their info, and real-time Google Earth images or videos from above showing what they are doing at this exact moment, all with ads of course.
It may sound far fetched - (and okay, maybe it is), but less than 50 years ago so was the idea of us having personal computers in our homes - and only a few centuries ago the world was still flat! So while it may be unrealistic, in a few generations we may be able to research the DNA of potential mates from our homes by simply entering their name (probably telepathically) into Google. What a scary thought.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:48 PM
About three years ago Google took on a 5% stake at AOL for a whopping $1 Billion. Today Google is not so sure that the investment was a good choice.
While they are not saying the value they believe the investment is worth, they are certainly not pleased by the past decision.
"Based on our review, we believe our investment in AOL may be impaired. After consideration of the duration of the impairment, as well as the reasons for any decline in value and the potential recovery period, we do not believe that such impairment is 'other-than-temporary'." Google noted in their lengthy 10-Q on June 30, 2008.
AOL apparently has also been looking for potential buyers - Certainly MSN and Yahoo have been in consideration, but one must wonder, that even if they think their $1billon investment may have been a bad idea, would they be willing to buy out AOL to keep it out of Yahoo and Microsoft’s hands? Time will tell.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:45 PM
Looking for free music online in China just got a lot easier - and its legal! Google recently launched Music Onebox over at Google.cn to try and grab a larger percentage of the search market over in China according to the LA Times. Currently Baidu is the Chinese leader in search - one of its strongest features is music, however, most if which is illegal.
By providing a legal alternative Google hopes to snag some additional market share. According to a Google spokesperson: "We are launching Music Onebox to give users an easy and legal way to find the music they're looking for, and to give music labels and publishers a new channel to distribute, promote and make money off of their valuable music content."
When visitors at Google.cn perform a search for music they are directed to top100.cn where they can download and stream music. Ad revenue on the site is split between top100 and the record labels and publishers.
Baidu is currently under pressure due to music piracy issues, which gives Google the perfect opportunity to swoop in a grab what they can.
I met up with Ralph Wilson at the Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference a couple of weeks ago and had a great time as always doing interviews. Ralph Wilson's 
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