StepForth SEO News Blog

Thursday, March 06, 2008

"The idea that we're going to become a women's site is just plain wrong. We know that a sizable group of our core user base is women, and we know they come to us for a certain kind of search: to get answers, often in areas of reference, health and entertainment," Graham said.
...

"We want to address the answer-seekers, who put things in a search box in certain ways," Graham said. "We think it's smart to identify who our most active users are. It's smart to identify the kind of searches they're looking for, and focus on building that up. We want to be the first place our core customers come when they're looking for answers."

1. Ask let go of major Ask supporter and icon Gary Price. Gary represented a beacon of hope for Ask and its future as a competitor in mainstream search. By cutting Gary they cut one of the few vital lifelines they had to the search community.
   
   
2. Ask let go of Patrick Crisp, the Director of Public Relations at Ask. Patrick was a fantastic spokesperson for Ask in the SEO and search community; he listened to suggestions and earned my respect by being very candid in his responses. Without Patrick, Ask has lost a very real asset and they must know that; which speaks volumes to their lowered commitment or at the very least to their lacking management team.
   
   
3. Ask has chosen once again to refocus on the Jeeves-style Q&A model. Originally this model was fantastic and frankly I thought it was the only smart branding Ask had but the search company chose to diversify into a broader search market... why abandon this so soon? By once again changing its stripes Ask is beginning to appear like a schizophrenic corner business that keeps changing sign color and name; that hardly inspires trust.
   

Labels: Ask, Ross Dunn

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Ask Claims it is Still Committed to Search

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Labels: Ask, Ross Dunn, smxwest08

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Apparently ASK Doesn't Always Have the Right Answer

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Now About those Other Guys
In other news, in order of their overall traffic share Google.com increased its search share by 9.4% followed by Yahoo.com's more modest 4.3% growth and Microsoft's Live.com experienced an impressive 10.5% growth.

Labels: Ask, Online Statistics, Ross Dunn

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: ASK Has Highest Growth Rate in Latest comScore Study

Friday, February 08, 2008

Labels: Ask, Scott Van Achte

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Ask Expands Skin Ability

Thursday, December 13, 2007

The issues surrounding online privacy have been a hot topic on the web lately, and Ask.com has taken the concern a step further with the introduction of AskEraser.

Ask announced the launch on Tuesday in their official Blog. This new feature added to the Ask site provides control for the searcher over how their search activity data is handled. At any time users have the ability to turn on the service which will result in their search data being removed off the Ask servers within a number of hours. Information removed from their servers will include search terms, clicks, IP addresses, and any user or session IDs.

Using AskEraser could not be any simpler. When visiting Ask.com you will see an "AskEraser" link at the top right corner. Clicking this link will bring up a window explaining the service and provide you with a button to turn it on. Once on, the link at the top right will expand to offer you an on / off toggle.

AskEraser is all part of the move to expand the end user's privacy. While it may be a smart move for Google to follow suit, I suspect this feature is one they may not move towards.

Labels: Ask, Scott Van Achte

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: AskEraser Goes Live at Ask

Thursday, November 01, 2007

• Receive driving directions for up to ten different destinations at one time. In other words, plan your driving route for an entire day of errands - pretty cool.
• It now includes walking directions.
• "Landmark Assistance" is included which, I presume, allows you to find your way to particularly popular points of interest; this would be quite handy on a holiday!
• Subway stations are marked for those who wish to get around a little quicker.
• Curious about how everything might look in a particular location? Try the satellite view which will give you a decent photo view of the surroundings.
• Satellite shots are available for purchase on the fly... odd but okay.
• If you search for any UK city within Ask Search you will be presented with a myriad of city details including hot spots, links to maps, tips, etc.

Oh yes, I'd like to congratulate you on your maps.

I've never used Ask.com before seriously, aside from just testing out one or two things; but that was until I found your maps had walking directions.

For me, someone who doesn't own a car and travels mostly by foot or public transport, this was a really nice feature - and one that works well.

So congratulations; you've done good with this maps malarky and I'll be using your map service from hereonin.

One thing I would like to see, but this would be a harrowingly long and tedious job, is to see a mapping system that recognises subways and narrow paths. This route suggested by Ask, for example, would be much quicker if you nipped under the subway.

Labels: Ask, Local Search, Mobile, Ross Dunn

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Ask Launches Improved UK Maps

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Labels: Ask, Google, MSN, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Dogpile Outranks Google

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Ask’s portion of the search market is a mere 4.3% (src. Hitwise) so it is understandable that optimizing for Ask is a low priority in the eyes of many webmasters. That said, despite the company’s rather infamous advertising campaigns Ask has some incredible and unique features that I believe will slowly but surely steal search share from its more popular brethren. Consequently, it seems appropriate to provide some tips on how to optimize for Ask without sacrificing rankings on the other search engines. To that end the following instructions are supplementary to the recommendations provided in my “How to Optimize for Yahoo” article.

ASK OVERVIEW

Ask differs from the other search engines because it has fully rolled-out universal search. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term universal search is the integration of results from a variety of sources (i.e. images, video, local information, news, blogs, etc.) into a single results page. Although Google has implemented universal search to some extent Ask is the first search engine to leap head-first into these complex waters and they have done a great job of it. Since universal search is slowly going to be rolled-out across Google, MSN and Yahoo, Ask is a great place to prepare for the competitive world of universal search. The areas I will cover are images, blogs and feeds, local search and mobile.

ASK IMAGE OPTIMIZATION

Just how do you get an image to show up within Ask.com’s universal search results? The key is to remove any doubt of the image’s relevance to the keyword you are trying to achieve rankings for.

1. Alt tags need to be created and must clearly represent the topic of the picture while utilizing the target keyword.


2. The content nearby the image should be relevant to the picture and for best results should include the keyword used to describe the picture in the Alt tag.


3. The filename of the picture should utilize the keyword.

ASK’S LOCAL SEARCH: ASKCITY

AskCity is Ask’s local portal where various maps and locally themed content (such as event news, theatre tickets, etc.) can be readily found. AskCity was launched in December 2006 as a far superior upgrade over Ask Local and it remains a solid leader in the growing and highly competitive local search marketplace. Fortunately having a presence at AskCity only requires that your business is added to their database if it is not already there.

How to Submit Your Business to AskCity

Submit your business information to askcitybusiness@help.ask.com with the subject line “Ask City Feedback – Business”. Ensure the following information is added to the email:

• Business name and complete address
• Phone number
• The category your business best fits
• The website URL
• A contact person’s email address

According to Ask the turnaround time is no more than 28 days.

Tip! You might notice that your business profile (once it is online) has a rating system attached to it; shown as a five star system. If you wish to influence your rating then I suggest sending your happy customers to CitySearch, Yelp.com, and Insiderpages where these results are drawn from. Once they are there have them find your listing and provide a positive review of your business.

MAXIMIZING VISIBILITY IN ASK BLOGS & FEEDS

Ask is the proud owner of Bloglines which is one of the foremost news aggregation tools on the web and happens to be the database behind Ask Blogs and Feeds. To ensure that your blogs and feeds are included in this system I suggest creating an account at Bloglines and be sure to include your feed within the profile.

In order to have any chance of influencing your position within Ask Blogs and Feeds you need to be aware of a couple things. First, the order of results within Ask’s Blogs and Feeds is determined by a combination of Ask’s ExpertRank algorithm (their intensive search engine algorithm) and Blogline’s vast 12 million plus blog database. Ask uses this combination to create the first order of results which is dictated by relevance; not by date which is the most common first viewing at Ask’s competitors. Consequently, it is important that you pay close attention to the relevance of the keyword density in your title, body and links within each post you write on your blog. By keeping your ideal keyword ranking in mind while writing your posts you will have a better chance of obtaining a ranking based on relevance.

Secondly, aside from ordering results by relevance and date (noted as “most recent”), Ask also offers a sorting by popularity. I can only postulate how this works but it makes good sense that a popularity ranking is derived from a mingling of Ask’s monitoring of the stickiness of certain articles (how long users stayed at an article before returning) and how many times a feed and/or a post is accessed within the multitude of user accounts at Bloglines. Considering these factors it stands to reason that creating a sticky blog post is the clearest and most obvious first requirement. The second requirement would be to get active in the Bloglines community and try to spread the word about your quality blog(s) throughout your community. The more people that add your blog feed to their Bloglines profile and interact with it, the better chance you have of achieving a top spot when results are ordered by popularity.

ABOUT ASK MOBILE

Ask Mobile utilizes ExpertRank and appears to be based on Ask’s standard website database. This may seem odd at first. After all, how can Ask provide mobile users with full size websites? The trick lies in their use of Skweezer technology that squeezes normally unwieldy websites into more digestible one column sites for mobile users. It may seem that there is nothing that can be done then to influence mobile rankings at Ask. Not true, the answer lies within the fact that Ask Mobile is focused on providing local results to cell users while they are on the go. With that in mind it makes sense that you improve your website’s odds of being found by ensuring it has a comprehensive listing in AskCity.

Tip! If locally based results are extremely attractive to you then I also suggest adding your physical address information within the footer of every page so that Ask and other locally focused search engines have a better chance of associating your website with a region.

SITEMAPS ARE CRITICAL

Ask’s spider is the least active of the big 4 search by far. When reviewing client spider reports I see Ask visiting websites 50% less or more than MSN, Yahoo and Google. In fact on many websites that have not yet added a sitemap or have less than ideal site structures Ask often does not even index pages deep within their website(s). As a result, submitting a sitemap to Ask is critical if you want your deep content to be properly indexed.

1. First create a sitemap. On StepForth’s recommended SEO tools page we noted our favourite tool currently: Vigos Google Sitemap Generator. Download this free utility and have it spider your website. Once it is complete set whatever custom data you want (info is provided within the program) and then generate the sitemap.xml file. Place this file within the root of your website and move to step 2.
   


2. To submit your sitemap to Ask you have two options: add a link to the sitemap into your Robots.txt file or simply inject your sitemap.xml address into the following URL and then visit it:
   
   http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.the URL of your sitemap here.xml
   
   Of the two options I strongly recommend going the route of adding the sitemap auto discovery link to your robots.txt file because this is now an agreed method of submitting a sitemap amongst the major search engines. Just place the following code on its own line within your robots.txt file:
   
   SITEMAP: http://www.the URL of your sitemap here.xml

USING ASK AS A RESEARCH TOOL

Ask has a helpful resource included in its universal search layout called “narrow your search”. Try typing in your keyphrase in Ask and then take a look at the narrow your search section of the page. There you will see popular searches that are relevant to your keyphrase. Record this information when conducting keyword research because it is a valuable glimpse into what Ask’s ExpertRank algorithm considers closely relevant and it may also show what users are actually searching for.

OTHER INFORMATION

There are a few personality traits that you should be aware of when working with Ask that are quite unique:

1. Ask does not currently support the “nofollow” tag which could mean that any link leaving your website is considered a vote of confidence for the destination site.
   


2. Ask utilizes a site/content preview window for each listing it presents; represented by a binocular icon. Since users may use this tool to get a glimpse of your site before visiting it is more important than ever to ensure the content above the fold (that appears first without scrolling) is enticing to users and relevant to their search.

CONCLUSION

I am solidly impressed by the technology at Ask and its successful foray into the realms of universal search. In fact, my research for this article has moved Ask from a bystander in my set of daily search tools to the forefront. I highly recommend utilizing Ask for your search needs and to keep an eye out for future technology additions to this solid search engine. In my opinion Ask is cutting edge enough that we can expect many search engines will be copying their successful implementations in the future.

Now… if only Ask could get the positive attention it deserves. If I were them I would start by creating a stronger connection with webmasters to interact with them and build awareness. That would be far more effective than the ad campaigns they are currently flooding the airwaves with.

Are you an Ask fan? If so, what do you think they need to do to improve their visibility? Post your thoughts by commenting on this article and perhaps Jim Lanzone and his crew will get a helpful tip or two.

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
Celebrating 10 Years of Web Marketing Excellence

Labels: Ask, Ross Dunn, SEO, SEO News, SEO Tips, Tutorials

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: How to Optimize for Ask

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Labels: Ask, Google, Microsoft, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: How Safe is Your Search?

Monday, May 14, 2007

• Share My Location: opt to let specific friends know where you are at any given moment... creepy but cool. If a friend wants to meet with you their Sprint phone will provide step by step directions to get to your location.
  
• Directions: navigate to any available location using audible driving (or walking) directions provided in real-time by the GPS enabled phone.
• CitySearch: search for specific stores or facilities in your current area. The CitySearch will provide recommendations within a predescribed distance of your location.
• EVites: receive and send invites to friends for parties or simply a coffee meeting. You can create, view, cancel or accept EVites easily from your phone. In each case the EVites can provide directions to the event location.
• Favorite Places: save shortcuts to your favorite locations for easy access to directions wherever you are.

Labels: Ask, Mobile, New Tech, Ross Dunn, Social Marketing

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: ASK Mobile GPS Provides a Glimpse of What is to Come

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Labels: Ask, Ross Dunn

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: ASKx.com - A Beta Vision of ASK's Future

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".

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth SEO Services
Celebrating 10 Years of SEO Excellence

Labels: Ask, Google, Ross Dunn

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: ASK Shows Some Competitive Flair

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Labels: Ask, Paid Inclusion, Ross Dunn, Yahoo

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Ask.com's CEO Reconfirms His Opinions on Yahoo Paid Inclusion

Thursday, January 04, 2007

• Windows Live: will continue the uphill battle of branding their relatively new search platform; the confusion over whether Windows Live is a replacement for MSN contributed to their forbidding decline in market share in 2006. My staff and I firmly agree, however, that MSN/Windows Live will rebound and increase its market share slightly over pre-2006 statistics.
  
  
• Yahoo!: We expect Yahoo to improve in 2007 due to the fresh perspectives of new staff (from the 2006 executive restructuring) and the incredible potential of this massive search network. Unfortunately, I read that Yahoo is comfortable with its current market share and has no illusions about ever being a market leader; hardly the kind of intentional goal setting that leads to results. Their unfortunate vision statement aside, I anticipate Yahoo will increase its global market share from the current 19% to 24%. Frankly, I am still dumbfounded that Yahoo has anything less than a 30% stake. I realize Google is the clear victor in the search engine wars but Yahoo definitely has the necessary weight to grab a better than 19% share.
  
  
• Ask: 2006 was a good year for Ask because they stuck to their guns and focused on what they were good at; answering questions. Ask has gained quite a loyal following over the past couple of years and I expect it will continue to do so as long as it maintains its focus; Ask’s push into local and mobile answers search was particularly well timed. I expect Ask will not lose any market share over 2007; in fact I would be surprised if they didn’t take a few more percentage points over the year.
  
  
• Google: Google’s insatiable appetite for growth will have it pushing for more market share in Asia and Europe where new Google outposts have recently opened. In addition, I expect that its algorithms will be improved sometime in the 3rd quarter to further devalue the benefit of reciprocal links (see more in Section 2 under "Link Building"). Google will continue to improve its mobile services which will culminate in more aggressive promotion of searching “on the go” wherever you are in the world.
  
  
• Baidu: I don’t consider this engine to be one of the major 4 search engines (yet) but it has grown so much over the past 2 years that it just felt right to add it. Who is Baidu? Baidu.com is China’s leading search engine and since its conception in 2000 by two young entrepreneurs, this company has experienced massive growth (i.e. their IPO in 2005 started at $27/share and is now sitting at $122/share); sound reminiscent of Google? In my opinion Baidu is not going to be another Google but it has potential to grab a noteworthy piece of the search market when it finally premieres in North America; still no word yet when this premiere might happen but I expect the first steps to begin late this year. Part of Baidu’s success stems from its simple and effective methods of searching for multimedia such as mp3’s and videos online in addition to standard searchable content.
  

• Link Building: The industry of link building will take quite a hit this year as Google (among other SE’s) continues the process of weeding out unscrupulous linking techniques such as haphazard reciprocal link building and advanced link building directories (previously missed in other weedings). By no means will Google get a handle on all of the less desirable links but an onward push to cleansing rigged results based on false popularity will be noticed throughout the industry.
  
  The future of link building will be more difficult but definitely more effective because one-way links (someone linking to you without need for reciprocation), be it through carefully researched paid links or from premiere link building companies, will finally be known as the only way to provide a lasting ranking advantage. For more information visit the home of the guru of link building, Eric Ward or read "Thinking (a lot) About Link Building" by Jim Hedger.
  
  
• Search Engine Optimization: As the most complex search engine Google tends to set the bar for best optimization practices so focusing on attaining results on Google usually nets favourable results on the other major engines. With that information in mind I do not see any reason that ethical optimization tactics will be revised to any significant level in 2007. If you would like a refresher on what it takes to optimize a web page see "The Ten Minute Optimization REDUX" white paper.
  
  
• SPAMMERS Beware: This year Google will begin a more focused campaign of eradication for websites using keyword stuffing to attain search engine results. It amazes me to this day that I still find top ranking sites with keyword-stuffed footer navigations designed to fortify competitive rankings and attain dozens of long-tail results. At any rate, it has been a long time since I have seen a significant cleansing of Google’s SERPS and I would be blown away if we don’t see at least one significant cleanse this year. For more information on what is considered SPAM please see "15 Shades of SEO SPAM."
  
  
• PPC: This year Google will crank up the volume and remove 99% of the Adsense-driven leader pages that repeatedly clog the top ten rankings under many queries. Unfortunately, Google’s “don’t be evil” catchphrase may clash with their interest in the bottom line since these SPAM sites effectively add to Google’s pocketbook.
  
  
• Mobile Search: I cannot stress enough the importance of this emerging industry and I expect that the increase in R&D from Google and some effort from Yahoo and Microsoft in this area will produce an undeniable need for separate, mobile-friendly websites (i.e. .mobi sites designed entirely for mobile use). This market place will see significant growth this year as Internet marketing companies jump into the fray and begin offering mobile site creation, promotion and optimization. For more information on the emerging mobile market place see "Stake Your Claim on the Mobile Web."
  

• Web Site Analytics: Understanding and managing the behaviour of web site visitors is crucial to repeated online success and I expect this fact will finally become common knowledge throughout 2007. Consequently, enterprising new technologies like ClickTale will emerge and ClickTracks (an analytics leader) will see record sales beyond their expectations. For some introductory information on analytics see "Did You Know You Had Stats?"
  
  
• Competitor Analysis: In an effort to shorten the path to online success, it is important to start any online marketing with a clear understanding of what it takes to attain rankings and deconstructing the tactics that led to a competitor’s success is an important first step. StepForth has been performing advanced competitor analysis services for over 3 years now and every year we see the demand for such intelligence mounting. I expect the need to grow significantly over 2007 and it will become an accepted first step for all online campaigns within the next 2 years. For more information see our SEO Research page.
  
  
• Search Engine Friendly Web Design: The importance of search engine visibility to online success is now common knowledge and this year more and more informed design clients will be demanding their web designers create search engine friendly web sites vs. websites that pose significant, if not fundamental barriers to rankings. "Is Your Website Search Engine Friendly?"
  
  
• Professional Copy Writing: Does your content sell your site? In other words, are you converting your visitors? Professional copy writing is a must because it allows you, the site owner, to make more money from the traffic that you attain. Consequently, a higher conversion ratio means you have more money to reinvest in your online success and it is entirely reasonable to expect you may be making more money in the #10 position in rankings than a website in the #1 position that has poorly written sales copy. There is absolutely no question in my mind that professional copy writing services is going to be a growth market in 2007. If you haven’t had your sales copy professionally written then drop me a note because I know of an excellent copywriting company that may radically increase your bottom line.
  

• Google will finally show they care about their neighbours to the North and allow Canadian companies to become Adwords Certified; this will ultimately extend Canadians the benefit of participating in all beta programs.
  
  
• A lesser search engine such as Baidu or a newcomer will take a significant (10% +) of the global search market share; we really need a new presence in the list of major search engines to keep life interesting.
  
  
• Search engines will work together on an unprecedented scale to eradicate the majority of pay-per-click fraud.
  
  
• StepForth will be sent loads of cool bling from search engines from around the world. We particularly want banners from the major search engines that we can hang on our wall - bling call!
  

Labels: Analytics, Ask, Baidu, Google, Jim Hedger, Mobile, MSN, Other Engines, PPC, Ross Dunn, Scott Van Achte, SEO, SEO Tips, Yahoo

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: StepForth’s Predictions for 2007

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Labels: Ask, Local Search, Scott Van Achte

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Ask Goes Local

Friday, August 22, 2003

Labels: Ask, Google, MSN, Other Engines, Ross Dunn, Yahoo

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: More Scivy on Microsoft's Search Plans