Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
We've had incredible success not just with our own site, but with many clients'
sites. See our Internet
Marketing track record and testimonials. To achieve these high rankings
for competitive phrases we use a combination of what is known as On-Page Optimization
and Off-Page Optimization.
Both of these assist in what is known as "Natural" search engine
marketing - or search engine placement (Most of all, though, they help to drive
relevant traffic to your website!
Here's a thread started in August this year. It's just been revived by fathom thus making it worthy of including here as an active discussion. Check out this little gem from massa aka. Bob Massa of Search King fame:
#1. By far, of these three slick ways, this is the slickest.
Pissing people off using graphics and obscure phrases, (usually taken out of context), so that when the pisseee, (or their cronies), wants to discuss it, they have little choice but to link to the page. Do it correctly and the anchor text is built in.
There's tons of the good stuff in this thread, a genuine "must read" for link builders.
If like me, you've ever spent time searching for a good spiderable directory script you'll know it's total pain in the arse. You will have to wade through the chatter in this thread but there are some good links, good suggestions and decent commentary on the various scripts available to SEO's.
Member nandini starts out with these requirements:
1. Multi-level category system
2. Search engine friendly pages. Can generate plain HTML or atleast staic URL pages .
3. Apache search engine friendly URL rewriting. No .php extensions catgories should be like "directory.com/travel" like DMOZ listing.
4. Integration with Paypal or 2checkout. (although not a very important point)
5. A good control panel (This is one thing, on ething which is common in all scripts).
6. Cross-references.
7. No tracking of clicks on links. like which is done in Sezza.com . All link should be static in nature.
8. Not too expensive
I gave these guys a rough ride a few days ago for forum spamming. I've been taking a peek at the product and some of the threads and decided to give them a break ;-)
We all want links and finding link partners can be a harrowing task, once found we have to worry about neighborhoods, about reciprocal or three way, are we getting our money's worth etc etc...
There are and have been a few attempts at creating link exchanges and most just fade into obscurity. LinkitForward.com may very well go the same way but i've not seen anything cause this much forum activity in some time.
If you're not using RSS in your SEO efforts my question to you is: What is wrong with you?.
Member dlinger asks:
1.) How would I make an RSS from my site, so others could use my info.
2.) How do I set it up so I can have live feeds from select sites to mine.
3.) I am looking for good RSS feeds... for my site... outdoor sports news, and Christian news. I have not found any good RSS feed directories.
which are all answered and more...
There's no black magic voodoo to RSS, it's absolute childs play with all the tools and programs available these days. There are links to some truly fantastic resources in this thread so head on over and get yourself up to speed.
Despite G saying that they will not develop Gbrowser there is much debate going on over at cre8 as to whether this is just a pile of horse shit.
Maybe it is.
If it is, then member brandboerge raises a very good point:
Depending on the user agreement, they could report more data from each page. They would have enough data to implement statistical algorithms that could make it possible to distinguish between cloaking and ip-delivery for "honest reasons". And if the browser itself were faster than Internet Explorer, they could spend some milliseconds for uploading and comparing pages (not images though) without the user noticing.
Some tongue in cheek answers from some of the members over at WMW and some excellent queries to plug into Google to find places to submit.
This from martinibuster:
* Post something so dumb that bloggers will make derisive comments and link to you
* Post something funny (viral)
* Post hateful and venomous content that will make people hate you so much they will link to you and warn people not to visit
* Offer free downloads of sick videos and pics (one site
achieved a PR 9 doing this)
FINALLY! I get to post something serious from ihelpyou, thanks guys, you were getting me worried there for a bit..
As i understand it (and please correct me if im wrong) Aaron and Jill have been bidding on eachothers names for quite some time. Now the man my life would be so dull without, Doug Heil joins the fun...
Doug Heil (ihelpyou), after getting told to cool it over in this thread at SEW did what any sensible chap looking for a fight would do: Started it all up again on home turf. See the threadlink above.
Member jonathanleger posts the story over at Web Workshop and Gary Price writes a lengthy blog post about G's new SMS search service.
Haven't read either yet, but i'll be we wont be getting that in the UK for a little while yet...
Search Engine Roundtable
Filthy Linking Rich - Popular Sites Get More Popular (Friday, October 08, 08:08 PM UTC) Received this morning the e-marketing newsletter from Mike Grehan detailing a new article released today entitled "Filthy Linking Rich and Getting Richer". No, its not a synopsis for a MTV story on the a filthy rich spoiled celebrity, it's about...
Online Discovery & Analysis Of On Topic Terms (Friday, October 08, 06:24 PM UTC) We reported last September on a fasinating experiment underway named the "Online Discovery of Secondary Terms Associated to a Theme Experiment". The study was being conducted by Orion, a member at SEW forums, who released the details of the experiment...
Fix Doorway Pages on Your Client's Site To Do No Harm (Friday, October 08, 12:22 AM UTC) So you have just taken over a new clients site, you have got all the details situated, and you know they have doorway pages infecting some area of the site. First step, is to get rid of those bad boys....
Targeting Personal Names in Adwords? (Thursday, October 07, 08:01 PM UTC) So if I bid on your name, will you bid on mine? What if I promote myself by biding on the name of a popular expert, is that ok? How about targeting Donald Trump to sell spray on hair? Cartoon...
Google SMS - Getting Mobile With Google (Thursday, October 07, 07:37 PM UTC) Now you can take Google everywhere your mobile phone can travel! This is pretty cool of Google to adapt in this way. The basis of this services lies in Google Short Message Service, that allows "you to easily get precise...
PR Update Continued Forum Coverage (Thursday, October 07, 07:12 PM UTC) As a follow up to Barry's post last night, wanted to post the forums covering the quarterly PR update. Seems DP forum broke it first from most indications. Some good threads going on, and of course some wild theories. SEOchat...
PageRank Update Taking Place (Wednesday, October 06, 10:12 PM UTC) There hasn't been one for four months or so and now its currently happening. DigitalPoint's forum is discussing this now in a thread titled Google toolbar Update. Proof, see the SEO Chat PR tool for a new page at DigitalPoint...
Content Thievery? How to Protect Copy & Allow Spiders Access (Wednesday, October 06, 08:42 PM UTC) Do content thieves keep you up at night, tossing and turning in your bed, worrying that someone evil person might steal you content and you may never know about it. This is a problem for some people, and especially those...
Last Time for a While: I Will Be Out Thursday & Friday (Wednesday, October 06, 08:14 PM UTC) Sorry, this is the last time for a while where I will be taking off from writing here. I have asked the guest authors to help out and I am sure Ben will do some writing over the next two...
Reporting Spam: Is It Ethical (Wednesday, October 06, 08:08 PM UTC) Interesting thread at SEW Forums named Ethics on Spam Reporting. This thread is interesting because it talks about ethics from the other side of the coin. Most of the time, threads discussing ethics are on the topic of using "black-hat...
Do Links From Sandboxed Sites Not Count? (Wednesday, October 06, 05:06 PM UTC) So have you bought, exchanged, or received any sandboxed links lately? Yesterday, I posed a question on SEOchat, relating to the value of links that come from sites supposedly in the sandbox. Do links placed from sites that appear to...
SEO Book.com
Link Building...Working Against the Man (Saturday, October 09, 11:39 AM UTC) Search engines heavily relying upon linkage data to rank sites high in search results provides a rich get richer feedback which has the ability to lock new competion out of the search results.
Increasing Price of SEO Book (Thursday, October 07, 08:30 AM UTC) Aaron Wall is to raise the price of SEO Book to $79 on October 15, 2004.
Google PageRank: Toolbar Update... (Wednesday, October 06, 10:23 PM UTC) Google updated the toolbar display PageRank for the first time in over 100 days.
Snap is Back... (Wednesday, October 06, 03:49 AM UTC) Bill Gross of Idealab brought back the SNAP name creating a new search engine.
Alexa Web Information, Yahoo! Personalized Search (Wednesday, October 06, 02:08 AM UTC) Yahoo! personalized search is in beta. Kanoodle created a contextual ad program. Evan Williams leaves Blogger. Alexa Web Services offers programmers access to their database.
What Would Bill Do? Social Local Search? (Tuesday, October 05, 05:47 AM UTC) Bill Gross (who founded Overture) will be talking at Web2.0 and unleashing a new search venture / business model later today. He also has his paws in a community local search product called Insider Pages. A few potential competitors in...
Local Search Wars...Beta (Monday, October 04, 10:18 AM UTC) Yahoo! took their local search out of beta. Google has also recently been promoting their local search a bit more.
Search Engine Guide Daily News
Getting Into Google Book Search - Google Print (Saturday, October 09, 12:08 AM UTC) Source: Search Engine Journal - ...the changes that have been made to the integration of this content (which makes it harder to isolate in a search) and the fact that theyre apparently concentrating on publishers first and not on existing...
Filthy Linking Rich And Getting Richer! (Saturday, October 09, 12:03 AM UTC) Source: e-marketing-news.co.uk - ...what I want to do with this feature article is to try and highlight how great the bias is for high ranking pages which are fundamentally ordered on link based algorithms, to attract more links....
Advanced Match Bidding on Overture (Friday, October 08, 11:49 PM UTC) Source: ClickZ - In Overture's system, standard match is always displayed first. Do your keyword expansion homework and use actual searches in your broad match to create new listings in Overture, and you can bid what you want, change creative,...
Yang tells Google founders to enjoy it (Friday, October 08, 10:16 PM UTC) Source: News.com - Despite their escalating search-engine war, the Yahoo co-founder tells Sergey Brin and Larry Page to relish their success....
FindWhat.Com and Verizon Information Services Expand Online Services Relationship (Thursday, October 07, 09:32 PM UTC) Source: Yahoo! Finance - Under the terms of the extended agreement, SuperPages.com local and national pay-per-click ads are to be distributed throughout the FindWhat.com Network and are available as added advertising content for other FindWhat.com private label partner programs....
Ask Jeeves on Search, the Butler and Google (Thursday, October 07, 09:27 PM UTC) Source: Search Engine Lowdown - The personalization offered by MyJeeves is just the start of a long list of upgrades and developments they hope to roll out over the next few months (and years). They've already hinted that a new...
Clustering from Google (Thursday, October 07, 09:14 PM UTC) Source: Search Engine Lowdown - Peter Norvig, Ph.D., Director of Search Quality for Google revealed that the search engine is using the largest database of clustering in the world....
Do you know about Overtures Auto Settlement Policy? (Thursday, October 07, 09:10 PM UTC) Source: SageRock.com - "Overage charges," as they are being called, are accrued when an advertisers fixed budget runs out, but Overture still takes anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to pull the listings off its site and...
Google Launches Beta of SMS Search Queries (Thursday, October 07, 08:41 PM UTC) Source: ClickZ - Google has launched a beta test to let U.S. mobile phone and handheld device users tap into its search results via the short message service (SMS) platform. Users send queries to universal short code GOOGL or 46645...
Contextual Ads: Vital to a Search Marketing Campaign? (Thursday, October 07, 08:39 PM UTC) Source: SearchDay - Are you bidding on keywords through Overture's Precision Match, Google's AdWords or another pay-for-placement service? If so, you're eligible to participate in their contextual advertising programs....
Thanks For Your Horrible Link Request (Thursday, October 07, 08:32 PM UTC) Source: Search Engine Watch - Key tip? Understand the site you are making the request from. What's it about? What's the best place for a link? How can you make this easy?...
Search Engine News Journal
Getting Into Google Book Search - Google Print (Friday, October 08, 01:22 PM UTC) Getting Into Google Book Search - Google Print
Google Print, Google Print, Argh Argh Argh! Since I got back from Web Search University I have been buried in sites and resources to review. I despair of catching up. And they keep piling on, as evidenced by the launch of Google Print. ...
GMail Notifier Enhanced (Friday, October 08, 01:08 PM UTC) GMail Notifier Enhanced
Google enhanced their GMail Notifier client some days back. Unfortunately, the client did not auto-upgrade as I had originally expected it to. So, I installed the new version manually. It is a minor update with few feature enhancements, thus a minor update in the version number with no ...
Blog Search Engines (Thursday, October 07, 10:48 PM UTC) Blog Search Engines
When searching for blogs or marketing your own blog, one must always take blog search engines and directories into account. Some blog search engines search databases of thousands of blogs, while some search through their own directory listings. If you own a blog, you're going to want to ...
MSN’s Search Engine Preview is Back (Thursday, October 07, 09:13 PM UTC) MSN's Search Engine Preview is Back
At the end of July I reviewed MSN's first tech preview for their new search engine. I wasn't impressed. (Man, I'm getting crabby. Hey you kids, get off my lawn! Where's my Geritol?!) Now there's another preview available at http://techpreview.search.msn.com/ and the relevancy is much ...
IceRocket Adds Blog Search to New Features (Thursday, October 07, 08:50 PM UTC) IceRocket Adds Blog Search to New Features
IceRocket, the search engine that has been hailed by many for their approach to "pioneering commercial search by putting the interests of wants and consumers before advertisers" has recently added some new features which are sure to increase their buzz - but not as ...
Anti-Spyware Bill Passed by House (Thursday, October 07, 08:04 PM UTC) Anti-Spyware Bill Passed by House
Legislation prohibiting spyware practices was passed Tuesday by the United States House of Representatives in a 399-1 vote. Termed the Spy Act, this bill not only prevents all things associated with spyware, but it also requires that opt-ins, notices and consents accompany any legal software that ...
New Trojan Targets Adware (Thursday, October 07, 05:24 PM UTC) New Trojan Targets Adware
Antivirus maker Symantec has reported the arrival of a spooky Trojan Horse online, which does something unique. Codenamed Downloader.Lunii, it attacks and even removes advertisement enabled softwares, which are generally considered harmful for the system. On execution of the code, it tries to kill the processes associated ...
My Yahoo Embraces RSS Feeds (Thursday, October 07, 01:30 PM UTC) My Yahoo Embraces RSS Feeds
I started using RSS in January 2000 after Blake Carver sent me a exasperated e-mail asking why, for heaven's sake, I wasn't using it. Surely, he noted, I could see that RSS was the greatest thing since sliced soap. (He may have used slightly different words.) ...
Google Books and GMail Plans (Thursday, October 07, 01:10 PM UTC) Google Books and GMail Plans
Google has not had anything big for us since it went public some time ago. Now, it is back with some news that could worry biggies like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It has decided to get into book selling business. The service is called Google ...
User-Guided Search Refining in Google (Thursday, October 07, 01:00 PM UTC) User-Guided Search Refining in Google
Despite the fact that the Google API hasn't been updated in over two years, people keep doing Cool Things with it. The latest Cool Thing I've seen is the very nice MyGoogleSearch ( http://www.mygooglesearch.com ). The idea behind this hack is that you can take the ...
real SEO .com (SEO News)
Paid search exploding in the legal field (Monday, October 04, 06:35 PM UTC) Paid search is really driving new business in certain areas, such as the legal profession....
ABAKUS Search Engine Marketing SEO Blog
Google Investor Relations (Saturday, October 09, 09:12 AM UTC) This Corporate Profile page seems pretty new to me (PR 0).
If you ever wondered how much Google made last quarter or what Googles Code of Conduct is ? (Don't be evil) you get the detailed answers at investor.google.com
Denic reports eight millionth .de registration (Friday, October 08, 09:25 AM UTC) The registrar of the German Top Level Domain (TLD), .de Denic received the eight millionth application for the registration of a domain. This means it is the second most used domain behind .com even ahead of .org and .net. .uk for comparison has only 3.7 million.
Google PageRank finally updated (Thursday, October 07, 07:45 AM UTC) Well I have to confess I thought we'd seen the end of at least a visible PageRank update. Not so it seems. PageRank has been updated with many claiming a one point drop mostly unexpected. I believe the reason is that there are new filters in place which are ...
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (Sunday, October 03, 10:43 AM UTC) The reason why this blog hasn't been updated in a while is because i am having the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome which prevents me from writing. I should be fully recovered by end of this week, so hold thumbs!
On a side note: Thanks to the blog spammers out there, we ...
John Battelle's Web 2.0 A Huge Success (Saturday, October 09, 12:18 AM UTC) It's good to be back home in NC.
I'm going to take a few days off from blogging, simply because I burned out a little over the last few days.
I did want to make this post simply to congratulate John Battelle for putting together a fantastic conferen
Is the New SEMPO Campaign Benefiting Only the Chosen Few? (Thursday, October 07, 09:52 PM UTC) So, if you are a member of SEMPO, you're probably glad that they are finally creating campaigns to drive awareness to the industry. However, if you are not one the the select "Circle Members", you may never see any direct benefit.
SEW's forums are buzz
Web 2.0 - Exclusive Demonstration of Clustering from Google (Thursday, October 07, 05:53 PM UTC) You may think that the new book service and SMS tools from Google were the latest news from the Mountain View search engine. You'd be wrong!
At today's Web 2.0 (Web2con.com) "From the Labs" session, Peter Norvig, Ph.D., Director of Search Quality for G
Google Launches "Google SMS" Search Engine for your Cell Phone (Thursday, October 07, 05:30 PM UTC) John Battelle has the scoop on a new search engine service from Google for your cell phone.
Greetings...
Today, Google announced the beta release of Google SMS, a new offering that enables people who are away from their computers to quickly and easi
More Web 2.0 Coverage (Thursday, October 07, 03:12 AM UTC) Jeff Jarvis does a comprehensive job of blogging Web 2.0. If you want the complete picture, he and Jeremy should fill in any blanks.
Web 2.0 - Search Engine Execs Chat (Thursday, October 07, 12:54 AM UTC) I guess "Search is a Platform. Where is it Going?" had to be the session that I looked forward to the most. Apart from the absence of Google, the panel was made up of some of the top people in the search industry:
Steve Berkowitz - Ask Jeeves
Udi Manb
Exclusive - Ask Jeeves on Search, the Butler and Google (Wednesday, October 06, 08:41 PM UTC) I had a chance to get out to Emeryville, CA and meet-up with Jim Lanzone, Senior Vice President, Search Properties at Ask Jeeves. We had a chance to chat about Ask's recent MyJeeves launch and how they see future products developing.
The personalizatio
Web 2.0 - Blogs Continue to Grow (Wednesday, October 06, 07:07 PM UTC) According to Technorati founder David Silfry there are currently 4.1 million blogs around the world with a new blog created every 7.4 seconds. He told the Web 2.0 audience that Technorati is able to track all of these blogs and most new blog posts appear
Web 2.0 - Safa Rashtchy on Search (Wednesday, October 06, 05:01 PM UTC) The panel of internet analysts and investors had a lot of views to share about the future of the internet. We focussed on Safa Rashtchy's comments.
Safa Rashtchy said that search is the first application on the web where traffic can be directly correla
No Google Browser? (Wednesday, October 06, 02:15 PM UTC) Stephanie Olsen re-caps some details from the first day of Web 2.0 including...
Google board member and investor John Doerr said that despite speculation, the search giant would not enter the web browser market, but he predicted others would.
Kanoodle Launches Ad Partnering; Distinguishes Itself from AdSense (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) Kanoodle has taken a directly competitive stance against Google AdSense in its launch of BrightAds, and syndicated partnering program that invites Web publishers of all sizes to run Kanoodle contextual ads. (Kanoodle's corporate partners include CBS MarketWatch and USA Today.) BrightAds distinguishes itself by remedying what some observers think are drawbacks in the AdSense program: Ads are chosen for distribution based on topics, not keyword mining. In this respect, BrightAds is similar
Legendary Value Fund Manager Owns 20 Percent of GOOG (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) Bill Miller, whose Legg Mason value fund has beaten the SP500 for an unprecedented 13 years, disclosed that his fund own 12 percent og GOOG's Class A shares. Legg Mason had a team of people looking at Google for a month, he said. Like other investors, Legg Mason was scaled back and eventually received only 80 per cent of its allocation. Mr Miller, who bought companies such as IBM and Dell in the early 1990s, said: "This is a business that we believe will grow. We have a strong idea
Google Ramps Up Book-Scanning Program (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) Google has issued requests for books to dozens of publishers, as it ramps up its Google Print program. Google Print seeks to include millions of scanned books in a searchable database. Scanned content will not be incorporated in the main Web index, but Web search results will include booko content above the Web listings--similarly to Google News or Froogle results thast sometimes appear above listings now. Eventually, Google might spin off the book database to its own engine, but that particular
"Can't Find on Google": A Resource When Google Is Stumped (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) Google doesn't always come through with difficult search tasks. That's when Can't Find on Google comes in: the site lets users describe unsuccessful searches, and invites suggestions and solutions from readers.
Web 2.0 Search Panel (MP3 files uploaded!!!) (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) I'm taking some notes on the search panel at Web 2.0 conference, but I thought I would give you the MP3 file and some photos first. Here is part one in MP3 format, and here is part two. This page will be updated with the second MP3 file and some more notes. Search is a Platform. Where is it Going? Steve Berkowitz , Udi Manber , Louis Monier , Christopher Payne , Jeff Weiner
Google vs. Yahoo!: Local Search (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) Yahoo! has moved its Yahoo! Local engine out of beta, and has launched a nationwide ad campaign to establish its competitive place against Google's still-beta local search engine. (Historically, Google keeps services in beta nearly forever--long past their turning points as legitimate, even essential, destinations. Google News and Froogle are both still lingering in beta.) Analysts believe Google must respond to Yahoo! challenge. The question is: Which local engine is better? My personal
New Gmail Features (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) Gmail has been updated with significant new features: Auto-forwarding of received mail Saved drafts of letters in progress Contact information can now include on-email information wuch as phone numbers An Atom feed for the Inbox Interestingly, not every account has been upgraded. My main Gmail address, bestowed on the first day, does not show the new features. It still displays ads on the right side, too, not on the bottom--a change that was introduced about two weeks ago. But my
Yahoo spiders more than Google on individual HTML pages? (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) Ever wonder which one of the two search giants spiders more of an individual HTML page? According to ResearchBuzz, it's Yahoo. If you search Yahoo for aardvark apple zither zephyr originurlextension:html...you'll find that filesizes are listed with search results, and the filesizes listed are well over 150K -- I see page sizes of over 800K listed here! At least one of the pages listed, at 173K, appears from its cache to be fully indexed.. Searching Google for the same query,
Potential Google Employee Problems (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) A Reuters article explores the difficulty of holding on to stock-rich employees. One analyst estimates that about 1,000 Google employees hold shares worth $1M, and 400 to 500 employees are worth $5M on paper. Leaving the company to spark their own start-ups, or even to retire, is one danger. Raiding the company to staff those startups is another problem. Google needs to keep a strong sense of mission flowing within the plex, not to mention the comfy perks.
BW: Google Needs a Browser (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) While many spread rumors of Google's browser development, Business Week weighs in with a stronger opinion: Google must develop a browser to cultivate more revenue-bearing traffic and forestall the eclipsing effect of Microsoft's imminent awakening to the search field. "Consider that in the past two weeks people downloaded 2.5 million copies of an open-source browser built by a little-known outfit called the Mozilla Foundation. That shows how much demand there is for an
The new Clusty metasearch engine (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) Vivisimo is testing a new metasearch engine with clustering.
Google launches Froogle UK (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) A British version of Google's shopping search engine.
Google censors sites in China (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) Pandia argues that Google has an obligation to help the democratic forces in China by including censored sites.
Looksmart buys Furl (Saturday, October 09, 07:55 PM UTC) On the bookmark and article management tool.
Getting Backwards (Thursday, October 07, 07:51 PM UTC) Many companies have decided to use the web and automated phone systems to decrease their costs. What an incredibly stupid idea. How many clicks is it from your company's website to your phone number? At Sprint: Welcome to the Sprint...
HELLO, my name is Scott (Tuesday, October 05, 10:15 PM UTC) HELLO, my name is Scott Scott has been wearing a nametag for almost five years. It's fascinating to see how this simple act of engaging with the world has fundamentally changed his life....
the disposable restaurant (Tuesday, October 05, 05:25 PM UTC) Courtesy of my friend Elizabeth: About Foodie NYC. One more thing that changes when you can communicate with people who want to hear from you (and when the word is easy to spread). It's a restaurant that's only open 6...
Why is this surprising? (Monday, October 04, 01:56 PM UTC) Bush, Kerry Underfund Online Ads · MarketingVOX No one builds a jingle or a slogan or even a brand identity using web advertising. It's never been done to my knowledge and it's hard to see how it could be done....
Quality is not a given (Monday, October 04, 01:38 PM UTC) In just about all of my writing, I assume that the stuff you're making is world class. In a world where everything is good enough, meeting that standard isn't enough. But it's worth a reminder every once in a while...
The edge beyond Geranimals (Sunday, October 03, 04:33 PM UTC) I love this. The web site (LIttleMissMatched) is totally lame, but the idea goes straight to the edge. Mismatched socks for 11 year old girls. Hundreds of varieties. Four categories so you don't clash. Only sold in odd lots....
Online Marketing Blog
Gmail Notifier (Friday, October 08, 02:35 AM UTC) Gmail Notifier
Gblog (Tuesday, October 05, 02:41 AM UTC) GBlog: This is a new, free blogging app that is available. I have not downloaded and installed to a web server yet. If anyone has experience with this blogging app, post or email me. I am curious about what experience you've had with it. Not that I'm looking for an alternative to blogger.com, but it's good to see what else is out there.
He's got an interview with Gideon Greenspan, the founder of Copyscape.com right now, which is a fantastic tool for tracking online copyright theft (you'll be amazed by the screen scraped sites, dmoz clones, etc. etc.)
Check out MB's blog for some great information and reporting on SEO. This guy's on top of things.
Fortune Small Business - More SEO Success Stories and Search Marketing Statistics (Monday, October 04, 03:26 AM UTC) I couldn't find a date on this article, but thought it was another great testament to how important SEO is. It contains some great statistics on search engine marketing, and a few SEO success stories. Good read.
All links directory (Wednesday, October 06, 09:29 AM UTC) All Links Directory shows its results on a ranking system, so if I send them a lot of traffic, my site ends up on top of the results. I submitted my Giants site a while back, and they say I've...
I received a letter from Google saying that since my site is so supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, they have decided to award it a PR of 15. But, since the toolbar can only go up to 10, they have no choice but to wrap it around to 5 ha ha ha.
Now, line up with your $ 1 million per text link :-)
In this round of PR update, here is the broad consensus:
1) Sites that have existed for some time now have commonly seen their home page PR reduce (new sites are the exception as they have commonly shot up. My SEO blog went from PR0 to PR5)
2) There seems to be a somewhat different way in which PR is being calculated.
There are of course many more points being speculated, but these are the 2 that seem quite widely believed and I personally do buy them.
After waiting for over 100 days webmasters and site administrators were finally treated to a new PageRank on the toolbar. Naturally, there were several who went down in PageRank.
SEO forums have caught fire with this news and there is a generally positive buzz in the air. Naturally, this is pretty silly as it is an open secret that the displayed PageRank (i.e. the one on the toolbar) is not the one that is used internally too. So, do not expect any serious shuffling of rankings.
Of course, there are those whose PageRank went down) happened to me on one of my pages too). In the overall jubilation, such examples seem extra-poignant.
Incidentally, this blog that you are reading went up from PR0 to PR5. So, please send me the millions of dollars that are naturally due to me after I place your text links!
With search engines, algorithms are always changing. For most search engine optimization experts it is almost unreal to imagine that there was actually a point of time when META Keywords spam or Free For All pages were effective tools for search engine ranking.
So, the lesson is to think ahead and plan for a holistic search engine optimization strategy that will work despite the changes that are definitely coming.
If you agree with my world view of search engine optimization, here is an article by Bob Wakfer that will help you crystallize your thoughts further.
Here's another interesting article from Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School. In this article, Marc Epstein talks about putting metrics to work in the area of ecommerce. "After a long period of treating the topic of e-commerce with awe and confusion, we can now discuss the subject more objectively."
Marc Epstein is Visiting Professor and Wyss Visiting Scholar in Social Enterprise at Harvard Business School.
In the latest issue of Working Knowledge by Harvard Business School, you can read Yahoo CEO talking about deal making.
Of most interest to readers would be the mentions of Overture and Inktomi.
According to Semel (CEO, Yahoo), "A deal has to be a game-changer because it takes so much attention away from managing." Also, take special note of the Yellow notepad approach to deal making.
Visit any search engine optimization site or forum, and you will find several mentions of keeping content fresh for higher search engine ranking. I know that there are far bigger gods of search engine optimization, but I must pronounce that this seems like nonsense to me.
Think about it, why would search engines rank pages higher because they are frequently updated? What about those pages makes them more relevant to searchers?
If you are an expert in search engine optimization and claim that fresher content causes the search engine spiders to visit more frequently, I can buy that. Search engines do not want to be obsolete, so they visit frequently to get the latest info.
But fresh content as a search engine optimization strategy seems weird to me. What make all this crazy is the advent of search engine optimization tools that automatically update every page a little bit; change the date etc; so as to fool search engines that they have fresh content.
As has repeatedly been proven if you go out to fool search engines, you usually end up fooling yourself.
So, I guess the search engine optimization strategy for today is: Don't try to fool search engines.
There are so many programs out there that are trying to stake their claim as an AdSense alternative. None have so far risen up to the mark. But, for the sake of web publishers, I hope that some AdSense alternatives do emerge. For now, here is a recently announced program from FindWhat.
I welcome comments from readers about any other interesting programs or methods they are using to monetize their content and websites. AdSense alternative anyone?
As we hear about MSN going in for a Google beater search engine, here is a nice little table-turning. Rumor has it that Google is looking at getting into the web browser business. There are many interesting tidbits about Google and it browser. For one, look up the WhoIs information for the website gbrowser.com (or gbrowser.whatever) and you will find that google has registered that name. Makes you go Hmmm! Additionally, Google is rumored to be hiring some people who were involved with the creation of IE.
I for one would welcome a Google browser. But, only if the Google browser was Google-like. Plain, simple, reliable, no frills. Just like the Google we have all come to love.
The Art of Persuasion Architecture (Wednesday, October 06, 11:06 PM UTC) I always enjoy reading articles by Bryan Eisenberg, of Future Now, and one of his latest articles on the Clickz site is no exception. Points of Resolution discusses how you should try and anticipate your visitor's questions, through the use...
Search Engine Marketing Web Log
Alexa Web Services (Tuesday, October 05, 12:15 AM UTC) Alexa has started a beta program for web services.
The URL Information operation gives developers direct access to information pertaining to Web pages and sites on the Web that Alexa Internet has gathered through its extensive Web crawl and Web usage analysis. Examples of information that can be accessed are site popularity, related sites, detailed usage/traffic stats, supported character-set/locales, and site contact information. This is most of the data that can be found on the Alexa Web site and in the Alexa toolbar, plus additional information that is being made available for the first time with this release.
Browse Category
The Browse Category operation returns Web pages and sub-categories within a specified category. The returned URLs are filtered through the Alexa traffic data and then ordered by popularity. Using this service a developer can access all the information available at the Open Directory (www.dmoz.org), without the need to download or host the directory database on their own systems.
Web Search
The Web Search operation is a brand new search index based on Alexa’s extensive Web Crawl. The search query format is similar to a Google query and allows up to 1,000 results per page. This service allows developers or researchers to create innovative new search applications.
Crawl Meta Data
The Crawl Meta Data operation gives developers access to metadata collected in Alexa’s Web Crawl. For example, a developer can get page size, checksum, total links, link text, images, frames, and any Javascript-embedded URLs for any page in the crawl.
Web Map
The Web Map operation gives developers access to links-in and links-out information for all pages in the crawl. For example, given an URL as an input, the service returns a list of all links-in and links-out to or from that URL. This Web map information can be used as inputs to search-engine ranking algorithms such as PageRank and HITS, and for Internet research.
Search Engine Positioning and Web Marketing News
Yahoo! to Google: Enjoy it.... (Friday, October 08, 12:11 PM UTC) Jerry Young co-founder of Yahoo! had some advice for the Google guys Brin and Page: Enjoy it. Speaking during the Web 2.0 conference, the Yahoo co-founder said he told Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to relish their success....
Google SMS (Thursday, October 07, 07:00 PM UTC) John Battelle brings in the news of a mobile serach facility launched by Google in beta form. Here is the announcement from his weblog: Greetings... Today, Google announced the beta release of Google SMS, a new offering that enables people...
Google Book Search (Thursday, October 07, 02:01 PM UTC) Google has quitely launched a 'Book search' service. Publishers can send their books to Google, where they will be scanned and added to Google's search index for free. Google Print gives publishers a new promotion tool, the company said in...
My Yahoo! Search Preview (Tuesday, October 05, 01:54 PM UTC) Busy days for Yahoo! as they have just launched a beta previw of their Personal Search. According to the announcement on their weblog: The shift from analog to digital technology is reshaping much of the world around us, perhaps most...
New Gmail Features (Tuesday, October 05, 01:49 PM UTC) Nathan Weinberg reports on a set of new Gmail features that have appeared in his account. These inlclude: Drafts Contacts. They have now moved to the main screen and there is a frequently used contacts list Atom feed The Atom...
Gmail Invitations (Tuesday, October 05, 01:42 PM UTC) We have more Gmail invitations for anyone interested. Just drop us a line......
He says he believes the society is changing very quickly, and he says that the people there have a tremendous amount
of hope and confidence that didn’t exist there ten years ago. As a society he thinks they have started down a one-way
street, in that they have to give people more education, technology and a free market. He thinks those things will
drive freedom of speech.
He asks all the time if he is helping a good or bad regime and that he doesn’t always believe in, and that they have
that issue in Germany too.
He believes that by being there and providing infrastructure that they are going to have a positive influence. He says
that is what he is investing in, creating a dialogue now.
I’m taking some notes on the search panel at Web 2.0 conference, but I thought I would give you the MP3 file and
some photos first. Here is part one in
MP3 format, and here is part
two. This page will be updated with the second MP3 file and some more notes.
Yahoo CEO Terry
Semel told folks at an investment confernce today Yahoo is not looking to merge with traditional media
companies at this time,
according to Reuters.
When asked the question, Semel instead said he feels Yahoo would make a good “parnter” which could help those not
fully in the digital age.
”Let us be your Internet company. We can bring a whole new audience to your show,” said Semel, who used as an
example Yahoo’s collaboration with NBC’s “The Apprentice” television show starring real estate mogul Donald Trump.
Next time you are in San Francisco you might be able to surf the Net from a Yahoo branded
kiosk if you find yourself at a bus stop,
according
to Kosk Marketplace Research. Developed by D2 Sales, these Yahoo! Local kiosks
feature 42-inch plasma screens, stainless steel keyboards and thermal printers housed in a weather-resistant,
secure steel and plastic enclosure. The unit also features a lighted overhead sign, scrolling ticker, local map
graphics and a doorbell that plays the Yahoo! yodel when pressed.
New York and Los Angeles kiosks are also in the works.
Yahoo took one step further today into personalized search by unveiling My Yahoo! Search,
Beta. Kevin Akira Lee, Yahoo Search Product Manager,
blogged about it over at the Yahoo Search Blog. Calling
it “Personal Search”, Lee essentially described the new service as being geared more towards the Internet users of
today.
Today, the Web is a read-only source of information for most users; our vision is of a very individual Web — a “My
Web”, if you will — which each user creates by searching, browsing, navigating, and generally doing the things they
always do. My Yahoo! Search is our first step in that direction.
My Yahoo Search allows you to save specific search results for later viewing, block sites you don’t want to see in
your search results and share with others what you’ve found. Via a button you can install to your “Links” toolbar, you
can also save any webpage link you are on for later. All the things you save are accessible via a “My Web” section,
which can be sorted by date, search keywords and URL.
Ever wonder which one of the two search giants spiders more of an individual HTML page?
According to ResearchBuzz, it’s Yahoo.
If you search Yahoo for
aardvark apple zither zephyr originurlextension:html...you’ll find that filesizes are listed with search results,
and the filesizes listed are well over 150K — I see page sizes of over 800K listed here! At least one of the pages
listed, at 173K, appears from its cache to be fully indexed..
Searching
Google for the same query, according to ResearchBuzz, produces a maximum of 101K from an individual HTML page.
ResearchBuzz recommends using Yahoo over Google when “running searches which might tend to focus on large pages.”
Yahoo CFO Susan Decker is
making big bucks these days, and drawing some flack for it,
according to the San Jose Mercury News.
After cashing in a huge block of stock options for a second time this year, Decker has pulled in a whopping $27.6
million thus far in 2004.
While her option cash outs are potentially making her one of the top paid female executives in the Valley, according
to the Mercury News, it has also raised the issue of how grants are given to executives during periods of low stock
value. As pay critic Graef Crystal put
it,
Doling out more options as the stock price falls sets up executives to make windfalls if the stock later rebounds,
Crystal said. ``That’s an incentive for cherry-picking the stock price. That’s basically what she has done.’’
I have to ask a question here - what’s the big deal, Crystal? I mean, stock options are a way of life in tech
companies. It’s not like executives are making bad decisions (or good ones) because they want to get the best value on
their options for the dollar.
The much-improved Yahoo! Local is out of
beta and promoted at the Yahoo! home page. Still no
Overture ads in the local search results pages. And Yahoo! has let Google slip past it with one usability feature at
Google Local (still in beta)—Google displays the results on a map right on the
search results page; Yahoo! makes you click to see the map.
I can hardly contain the excitement.
Nick W: sorry for the edit, thought you might like a little friday fun though ;-)
Yahoo CEO 
Next time you are in San Francisco you might be able to surf the Net from a Yahoo branded
kiosk if you find yourself at a bus stop,
Yahoo CFO 