StepForth SEO News Blog - by Ross Dunn and Scott Van Achte

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Friday, June 13, 2008

The LinkForth - Articles of Interest for Your Friday

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 3:48 PM

While cruising Google Reader I noted some great articles and tips that you shouldn't miss. Have a great read and an excellent weekend!

Google's Matt Cutts gives tips on what page extensions Google does not index. In summary, don't expect Google to index .exe extensions or URLs that end with a ".O" such as "www.xyzname.com/web2.0"; although Matt did note that the ".O" extension is being re-evaluated and tested for less troublesome indexing by Google.
Robert X. Cringely wrote a great article on a "Microsoft-killer" strategy that he believes Apple is putting into play based on the new MobileMe service coming soon. Here is an excerpt:

"Microsoft's success is based on two products and only two products -- Windows and Office. Microsoft is obsessed with the idea that Google will undermine one or both of those monopolies through Google Apps. This is all Steve Ballmer thinks about and is what made him so eager to spend $40+ billion for Yahoo. But what if the real threat isn't Google at all, but Apple?" ...

"Given the code Apple already has for its iWork applications, how much more effort would it take to webify those apps, too? Not much, I'd say. A year from now I guarantee you that MobileMe will offer a complete suite of web-based Office applications."
Yesterday Google announced "Fresher Related Search Suggestions" within search results. Google's press release is summed up below:

"Recently, we improved our algorithms to process new information faster, and the result is quite tangible -- you should now see fresher suggestions for queries on current topics of interest. "Because information on the web is constantly changing, we think this improvement will help you find relevant information faster. To give this a test drive, try searching for iphone. You should see related queries around the brand new 3G iPhone announced earlier this week."
On the Yahoo Anecdotal Blog Yahoo CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang announced the finalization of the company's agreement with Google to show Adsense advertisements alongside Yahoo search results in the USA and Canada. Here is the formal news release sent to Yahoo shareholders yesterday.

Jerry explained his reasoning for the Google partnership in 3 statements which I summarized below:

1) "First, it does not signal that Yahoo! plans to exit paid search. Quite the contrary. Through the financial benefits of better monetizing our search traffic, we’ll be investing in search services and ad platforms, including Panama. ..."

2) "Second, this deal is good for competition. ... as search and display continue their convergence, it puts Yahoo! in a better position to innovate and compete aggressively with Google and others for ad dollars. It also offers advertisers more choice and publishers gain better distribution and monetization to grow their business."

3) "Finally, this agreement is non-exclusive. We remain completely free to display any paid search listings across our properties — whether from Yahoo!, Google, or any other third parties."

In case you were wondering, here is what Google had to say about the partnership

Labels: Apple, Google, Link Forth, Microsoft, Ross Dunn, Yahoo

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 3:48 PM.

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View this Article Only: The LinkForth - Articles of Interest for Your Friday

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Friday, April 18, 2008

A Google LinkForth - Articles of Note this Friday

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 12:42 PM

In my travels today I came across a few articles I just had to share.

How Social Networking Could Kill Web Search as We Know It
Source: Popular Mechanics. April 16th, 2008.

Excerpt: Such a prediction probably seems ridiculous when Google has a market capitalization five times that of Ford and General Motors combined. After all, Google has developed a superfast, highly efficient method of making sense of the most overwhelming mass of data mankind has ever created. What’s more..." read on
20 (Rare) Questions for Google Search Guru Udi Manber
Source Popular Mechanics. April 16th, 2008.

This is an excellent interview and it even covers a response (as shown below) from Guru to the concept that social media will kill search.

Excerpt: (Interviewer) "While we’re talking on the subject of personalization, a colleague of mine said that search as you know it is falling to the wayside and changing dramatically as social networking comes into play—trending toward this MySpace-Facebook model where people look to their friends or their community as the take-off point. Do you see that as a bona fide trend? And, if so, does search become less important?" (Reponse from Guru) "Search has always been about people. It’s not an abstract thing. It’s not a formula. It’s about getting people what they need. The art of ranking is one of taking lots of signals and putting them together. Signals from..." read on

I hope you enjoy those two articles. It seems this week is a Google-fest over here at StepForth, what with our debut of "How to Optimize for Google, Part 1 of 3" just yesterday on our SEO blog and in our weekly web marketing newsletter. Oh well, the fact of the matter is Google is a monster company and the more light we can shed on the monster the less anyone has to fear it. Well, unless you taunt the monster... and I am recommending you don't.

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

Labels: Google, Link Forth, Ross Dunn

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 12:42 PM.

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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Today's Social Media and SEO Linkforth

Written by Andrew Clough and published at 3:45 PM

AOL Time Warner had acquired Bebo, one of the largest social networks outside of North America. Bebo is huge in both the U.K. and New Zealand. It's the third biggest social network in the U.S. after Myspace and Facebook and for AOL it "positions us to offer advertisers even greater reach and marketers significant insights into the desires and needs of consumers." With 4.1 billion supposed to be spent on social network advertising by 2011 it's understandable why the major players want to secure a spot on these sites.

Myspace mobile has been officially launched and people using this social network can use this site to connect with one another on the go.

Mobile phone search is reaching large proportions and search engine's are well aware of this trend and are finding new ways of speeding up this process. This article has a good rundown of "a Google search plug-in that puts a search box on the "home screen" of the phone and reduces the time it takes to get there (to Google) and get results."

Searches on question and answer web sites have risen by almost 1000% compared with use on these sites two years ago. "The popularity of user-generated media has helped to establish a category for social knowledge." Helping on Q & A sites is also a web marketing strategy where sharing your knowledge of a particular subject can bring traffic and awareness to you because of your good answers.

Labels: Andrew Clough, Google, Link Forth, Online Statistics, Social Marketing, StepForth

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This SEO News was posted by Andrew Clough @ 3:45 PM.

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Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Today's Social Media Linkforth

Written by Andrew Clough and published at 12:48 PM

When building a new site you want to create a powerful and respected reputation on the web. A company or individual can do this by having a great homepage (lots of great content and a blog), finding the appropriate communities to share their expertise, creating publicity, and building their brands image (expanding community).

A structured social media campaign can provide lots of traffic to your site. Social media can be indexed in organic listings and provide links to your site. The important point brought out in this article is to not just make a few attempts at social media but to keep on trying. A business should be encouraged to consistently provide new content to social sites because its a great way for their content to be promoted.

Social media ideally helps to find the best (current, peer reviewed) information available on the web. To be seen as "highly important information" people must be able to find it, want to link to it, and it should be so good that people want to share it with people who have similar interests. The best way to do this is to provide informed, engaging, and unique content.

More and more people who grew up with the web are using it as a trusted space to find unbiased news. Surveys have shown that people are becoming frustrated with traditional news sources because they lack quality and are out of touch with today's generation.

Youtube will be allowing live video this year. That means that people can broadcast themselves and what they are up to 24/7 and promote it to an already large user base. It should make for some interesting content and provide an exciting new venue for people to interact.

Labels: Link Forth, Reputation Management, Social Marketing, YouTube

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This SEO News was posted by Andrew Clough @ 12:48 PM.

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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Today's Social Media Linkforth

Written by Andrew Clough and published at 11:03 AM

Yahoo Search is aiming to show more useful information on its results page. Yahoo state's it will eventually "enable 3rd parties to build and present the next generation of search results". This includes bringing data found within a website like ratings and other useful information into it's Yahoo search results page. Instead of just a website's URL and abstract on its results page Yahoo will include "ratings, images, deep links, and all kinds of other useful data". Although this is still in the works the plan is to let websites "regain some control over how their content is presented without allowing them to actually muck with search result ordering."

Great Q & A from people working with social media (Lee Odden, Shana Albert, Neil Patel, Jane Copland). Topics include good sites to promote content, attracting links, social media as a marketing strategy, and an insiders guide to Social Media.

Google Maps is now including a "refine by user rating and neighborhood system" to its search results of local services (hotels, restaurants). So whether you are downtown or uptown you can find more specific and user rated search results.

Yahoo is changing its minimum bid for PPC. Depending on what keywords you are targeting your minimum bid can now be under the previous .10 cent minimum. Although this will not affect any competitive keywords it will likely help to lower costs of targeting smaller niche markets.

Labels: Google, Link Forth, PPC, Social Marketing, Yahoo

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This SEO News was posted by Andrew Clough @ 11:03 AM.

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Friday, February 22, 2008

Today's Social Media Linkforth

Written by Andrew Clough and published at 3:56 PM

Virtual gifts may be nice but Facebook is putting actual goodies behind the way to spread cheer on their social platform in the UK. A UK company is behind the application to allow easy purchasing and sharing of Mars related products on Facebook. Once being sent a real chocolate bar on Facebook you can redeem it at local UK grocers.

Business Week explains why Social Media is a great business and market research tool. Social media is essential for advertising and building your on-line presence. New technologies gather and analyse data on products and services from throughout the blogosphere, news media sources, and on-line communities. They stress the importance of monitoring your online presence and the influence of social networks. They point to Google's "growing ability to incorporate blog posts within Web search" to show the influence of social media content on the web.

Here are ten tools that should help any company keep track of whats going on within the social media world in relation to their business. These tools help you find out who's saying what about you and your company.

Google is cashing in on video popularity as it is testing adding video to their search results page. Google is trying to draw your eye towards video images and provide interactive advertising to their search results.

Ever wondered how social media helps already established individuals build their image. NBA all-star Steve Nash is trying his hand at LiveVideo.com, a social networking and video sharing site. It fun to watch celebs like Steve Nash and Will Ferrel build their audience through social media channels.

Labels: Andrew Clough, Google, Link Forth, Social Marketing, Video

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This SEO News was posted by Andrew Clough @ 3:56 PM.

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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Today's Social Media Linkforth

Written by Andrew Clough and published at 4:32 PM

Combining marketing with social networks can be a great way to spread your message through word of mouth and viral marketing campaigns. If they become popular they will drive exponential traffic to your website. In " What makes a Successful Marketing Campaign on Social Networks?" 9 key attributes are given that are shared by the social media campaigns.

I enjoyed this great interview of Jeff Quipp of Search Engine People as he gave his secrets of the SEO business. He placed SEO as part of your overall marketing strategy. He gave his views on linkbuilding, linkbaiting, an insiders guide for new bloggers,and how he became head of his own SEO company. He also looked into the crystal ball for the future of SEO and what search engines will be crawling some time soon.

Topix, a news site, will be providing discussion forums for NBC affiliates.

Yahoo has been making improvements on consumer satisfaction scores for Yahoo Search.

Labels: Andrew Clough, Link Forth, Social Marketing, Yahoo

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This SEO News was posted by Andrew Clough @ 4:32 PM.

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Monday, February 11, 2008

Today's Social Media Linkforth

Written by Andrew Clough and published at 3:48 PM

Things I found interesting while on the web today.....

Jeff Quipp's article on passive and aggressive approaches to attaining friend's within social media.

Andrew Goodman shows us the makeup of a good web site in relation to how the Google's "adsbot" views it.

Want to know why Social Media is so important to advertisers? It is because Social Networks have the information that allows "behavioral targeting" of us as the consumer. Being able to target the individual creates a "trusted environment for reaching high-value, frequent purchasers."

CBS and Facebook have created the NCAA Basketball Championship March Madness brackets application. Not only are they providing this service but they have free, live, online coverage of the whole tournament.

Ever wanted to know what it's like to work at Google? Here's your inside guide.

Labels: Andrew Clough, Google, Link Forth, Social Marketing

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This SEO News was posted by Andrew Clough @ 3:48 PM.

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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The Daily Link Forth - Interesting Marketing News & Articles

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 4:14 PM

Here are some of the interesting articles and posts I came across today... it is a bit of a content spread ;-)

If you use Twitter and you like it tell Shoemoney why!
Popular blogger Shoemoney is just not that sure why anyone wants to use Twitter. I put my two cents in, why not you?
Yahoo soft-launches lifecasting service
The scivvy on a new service leaked from Yahoo that will be based on personal live broadcasting of video.
2007 US Internet Year Stats Released by comScore
Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Jan 30, 2008
Jeremiah Owyang creates this nice overview of the social media landscape on a weekly basis.
Middle East and Asia Lose Internet Access After Cable Fails
Oh my... need I say more?

Labels: Link Forth, Ross Dunn

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 4:14 PM.

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