Blog the lastest Google and search engine marketing news. Topics include anything about Google and search engine marketing.
Google Search Engine Marketing Blog
Friday, October 31, 2003
A fish by any other name... Gator chagnes to Claria
Though there is no less reason to hate them, Gator has finally dumped their name and changed it to a happier sounding Claria. Internet Marketing E-mail Tip of the Week
AD:TECH 2003 is comming to NYC
November 3 - 5 is AD TECH in New York City. Some of the top marketers in the world will be there teaching about different marketing techniques. AD:TECH official site
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines
It just makes sense. While I have not read this yet - I am sure I will. With most websites having fatal flaws all over them this book aims to end the pain. Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines
Monday, October 27, 2003
Getting ugly over at GoGuides
I went to log in to my GoGuides category to see if there were any sites to edit over the weekend. The server was down was the message. Evidently, 3 of the 5 GoGuide members voted to leave GoGuides and reproduce the data at www.skaffe.com. Those remaining at GoGuides have stated that the data was stolen and are filing for copyright infringement. This could be the inevitable end to one of the best directories on the web. DMOZ frequently has problems listing sites, but GoGuides was rather good at this and now I am confused... The fact that those three left like that without giving any notice to people like me (who were working free for the joy of it) is exceptionally crappy. :( GoGuides.Org Directory & Search
Sunday, October 26, 2003
How Movable Type is affecting search engines
Movable Type is a blog code which can be used to power semi complex websites easily. The below links explain how to do so. Movable Type - a wholelottanothin Brad Choate: Doing your whole site with MT In addition I figured I would cover the search engine marketing side of Movable Type. Many blogs have a comments feature which enables people to leave comments about the topic at hand. When Six Apart created Movable Type they though everything should be integrated into one location. To do so each article or post to the blog has its own page. On each page it posts reader comments and trackbacks. Trackbacks are inbound links to the article. The benifit of placing all of this content together is that it allows further discussion and promotes the community aspect of the internet. This type of activity extremely helps search engines based on clustering technology (such as Teoma). This technology does prevent a problem to other search engines (such as Google). Many weblogs have the comments feature only available through a cgi interface or java script redirect. This prevents search engine spiders from being able to follow and evaluate these links. In Movable Type, search engine spiders have easy access to these links. Many people want to sell viagra and whatnot. They leave posts such as "great site" and in the from category they leave a hyperlink to their site witht the word "viagra". This comment spam has gotten to be so annoying that people have been actively seeking solutions to it. Recently a free download product called MT blacklist has hit the market which easily scans backlinks and removes spam as specified by url or string. As search engines work to better cluster the web this type of spam will no longer be effective. With the amount of people out there already upset about the spam it is sure that the search engines will not be the only people fighting it. MT Blacklist (blog antispam download) While the viagra people are blatently spamming, there are ways to benifit from the Movable Type feature without being a spammer. There is something in the world you are interested in. If you find a Movable Type blog that covers that topic you can post your comment on it and link back to your web site with it. Now if you link back with "your keywords here" it may be frowned upon. If you use your name it would not be seen in a negative light. In fact, I believe this is probably the best free way to submit a site to search engines. With little to no hastle you get to 1.) learn what others are saying about something you are interested in 2.) leave your opinion on the topic 3.) give search engines a link to follow to your site Since I am interesting in learning, web developement, and am highly opinionated I get to kill 3 birds with one stone.
Friday, October 24, 2003
Google Buys Sprinks
Google Buys Sprinks and enters 4 year agreement with About to provide their paid ads. For all of those who hate the super loaded popunder festival that made the About network so annoying - the popunders are departing. Silicon Valley Biz Ink :: The voice of the valley economy
Google Adwords: Regional Targeting
Google has announced that AdWords are now able to be targeted to select states and metro areas. This will enhance relevancy and click through rate for all (or at least all who know how to do it right!) Google Adwords: Regional Targeting FAQ
Google Offers 7 tips to make your online holiday campaign take off
7 tips to make your online holiday campaign take off
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Amazon.com offers full text search of all its books
Amazon announced full search capabilities of text inside its books! Try Amazon's new search
Google up for Auction?
Google may be exploring the issue of an IPO starting early next year. One interesting thing they are trying to do is to allow the initial shares to be distributed via an electronic auction, which would give individual investors a fair shake at them. Google reportedly exploring IPO | CNET News.com
Ah ha to raise PPC minimum to 3 cents on 1 DEC 2003.
One of the top half dozen price per click companies is raising its minimum bid from 1 cent to 3 cents effective Dec 1. Listings which are registered before that date are not subject to this price and will be grandfathered in at the current price. Sign up for an Ah Ha account today Ah ha review information - Search Marketing Info
This has absolutely nothing to do with Search Engine Marketing - but its cool
I look at this image and I think ... intense... its as if I am snapping into a slim jim. This image is created using nothing but CSS! Amazing artwork 3D Border Demo 2 by Chris Hester
Fast rollovers, no preload needed
Another way for fast CSS rollovers. Useful for images. Fast rollovers, no preload needed
Crap
This is the type of crap that gives search engine marketers a bad name. Until I linked into his crappy website he had a pagerank of 0. Who the hell is he to be selling a membership to the high pr link club. crap
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
The internet will go mobile
Recently the metasearch giant InfoSpace purchased the leading mobil media company InfoSpace purchases Moviso from USA networks - Telecom Paper
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Google Adds Define feature to search
If you type define bla- then Google will give you the definintion of bla at the top of search results for bla. If you only seek the definition and do not want any search results you can type define:bla. Google
Monday, October 20, 2003
How to do marketing wrong: even a twelve year old knows.
I went to the Purple Cow meeting with Seth Godin and must admit his information seems very convincing. I like when he points out simple concepts that a 12 year old can easily understand. Seth's Blog: My friend Miller
Acronym Finder: Find out what over 317,000 acronyms & abbreviations stand for
This link was in the latest search day. Ever hate when people speak code that you have no idea about? Well now you can learn what they are saying. Acronym Finder: Find out what over 317,000 acronyms & abbreviations stand for
Saturday, October 18, 2003
MSN stays with Overture
Many people have speculated that Yahoo buying Overture would cause MSN to dump Overture services. MSN threw a curve ball friday when they anounced that they were extending their relationship with Overture through 2005. MSN sticks with Overture - Yahoo News
Monday, October 13, 2003
Find broken links on your site with Xenu's Link Sleuth (TM)
Broken links are like bad press. They erode user confidence in your site and company. Find broken links on your site with Xenu's Link Sleuth (TM)
Where did google come from?
Here is a web based copy of the original Stanford document titled"The Anatomy of a Search Engine" by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page
ValueClick buys out Commission Junction
To those who know much about affiliate programs this is big news. The advent of programs such as Google AdSense are helping customer make money on general content specific ads on their web pages. Not all sites qualify for such programs. Many people make their revenue off of affiliate links selling products from other web sites. These are two of the top 4-5 players in the affiliate marketplace. Commission Junction is to be added to the Be Free suite Other notable commission programs include: CLICKBANK.COM: Performics LinkShare Amazon and a few smaller ones such as QuinStreet shareasale.com My Affiliate Program MediaDailyNews 10-13-03
Friday, October 10, 2003
Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2
When the web was created the concept was to keep content and display independant of one another to allow forward functionality of a website. Using external cascading style sheets allows you to 1.)make quick site wide changes 2.)improve page download time (subsiquent pages referencing the same style sheet do not need to re download that sheet) 3.)quickly change the look of a site by changing a single page, versus hundreds at a time One of the biggest usability tips you will hear is to let the user control their display. To do this it is important to keep text out of pictures, and to reference text size in relative values versus absolute. font-size: 40px; would not allow the same user display flexability as font-size: 150%; Dive Into Accessibility or learn about Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Google Adwords: Conversion Tracking
Google adds conversion tracking to its AdWords program. This tool is similar to that offered by Overture, with one difference. Google is smart enough to include this service free with AdWords accounts Google Adwords: Conversion Tracking
Noise in Google PageRank
Here is the list of refering sites to the Oxford Math Group...with a pagerank of 4. Simply by having a link to their site and clicking it every day you will show up on this list. Some site could get a PR3 simply by doing this, and even have the feature done automatically. When people say pagerank is broken...this is the perfect example. People can do things like this, leave comments in weblogs, and post jobs on certain sites...all these do the same thing that guestbooks did in the past...create false link popularity. Stochastic Analysis Group
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Ask Jeeves Offers Client Boxes on cetain search terms
Ask Jeeves has began a program called Branded Response which aims at selling banner type keyword driven ads in its search results. Within these banners the owner can include a variety of features such as a logo, a content image, text links...and other goodies such as a Q&A, title and body. Ask Jeeves Client Opportunities: Advertising
BuisnessWeek survey says paid inclusion listings are given a boost
Many search engines were loosing money. To offset the costs of building and running these expensive tools the search engines began to sell advertising and many offered paid inclusion programs. BuisnessWeek asked 20 marketing professionals if using paid inclusion improved pages listings. The answer was yes, but this is biased for many reasons. 1.) those paying for inclusion frequently have optimized pages submitted - it only makes sense right? 2.) these optimized pages have a rapid refresh rate which allows frequent tweaking in 3.) those who are complaining do not necissarily benifit from these advantages and want to complain that the logical reason for their drop is due to this bias Here is the catch though, no search engine would intentionally bias their search engine in this manner. All of the search engines are fighting for relevancy. While it is true that AltaVista was having a period of time where it was struggling to properly mix its results, they were not intentionally biased. I wonder if the people in the article are performing self promotion when they submitted comments. 'Says James Taylor, CEO of AICompany.com, a search-marketing company, "Paid inclusion dilutes the accuracy and relevance of a search engine." ' When you look at the AICompany.com website they only have a PR of 4. I already have a PR of 6 on my home page and my site is still not even formatted correctly, and the copy is not yet written to the standards I would like. The question or relevancy still comes up in many heads though, and that is why the worlds most popular search engine is not considering going to paid inclusion. Google believes that there should be a clear seperation between ads and results - I think I have said this before, but this is a large part of their success. How much exposure can you buy? Plenty, concludes a BusinessWeek pro
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Overture shareholders approve Yahoo sale | CNET News.com
Overture shareholders approve Yahoo sale | CNET News.com
AOL expands Google search pact
AOL extends its releationship with Google for an unspecified number of years. AOL expands Google search pact
Monday, October 06, 2003
UPDATE - LookSmart says losing key Microsoft MSN deal
This hurts looksmart BIG. they are going to loose microsoft (~2/3 of their revenue) in January 2004 UPDATE - LookSmart says losing key Microsoft MSN deal
Google now uses stemming
Most major search engines have used stemming in their search engines. Until recently google has avoided this tactic. Basically what stemming does is allow a near match to improve page relevancy. For example, a page ranking ok for the word "cheese" will rank better for the search term "cheese" if they have the term "cheeses" on their page many times
Google Tests
Jill Whalen is one of the original SEO experts. She has recently created a few tests with her woeblog @ Jill Whalen Exposed: "It appears that Google does not index words in the link title attribute. It appears that Google does index the alt attribute keywords in a clickable link, and will pull up the page that the graphic and alt attribute are on, in a search for those keywords. It appears that Google will index a text link faster than an image link. It appears as if Google does not index the alt attribute keywords in a non-clickable image."
VeriSign removes Site Finder service
ICANN basically acnowledged the complaints of thousands who believed that VeriSign overstepped its boundaries when it launched the Site Finder service. VeriSign has removed the service. VeriSign removes Site Finder service
Friday, October 03, 2003
What does your site look like to a search engine?
See what your site looks like to a spider using a Lynx Viewer
Thursday, October 02, 2003
Google AdWords: Expanded Broad Keyword Matching
Google to expand reach of broad matching terms in AdWords. " If your keyword is 'Honolulu hotels' your ads may be seen for 'Honolulu hotel,' 'Hawaii hotels,' or 'Honolulu inns' as well as the traditional broad-matched variations, such as 'Honolulu hotels and resorts'. " Google AdWords: Expanded Broad Keyword Matching
Angry AdSense Users Arise
Google has kept the AdSense program details entirely secret so that it may keep their competitive advantage and flexability. Recently some people have had questions as to the suspension of their accounts without details. Google shafts blogger, adds gagging clause to Adsense - The Register
LookSmart changes revenue model...AGAIN
LookSmart has found it necessary to reprint its way of thinking many times to survive the dot com bust. A few years back LookSmart went from a one time paid inclusion price to a price per click model. While the price was cheap relative to the prices offered by Overture, many people started to call LookSmart L$, which showed the webmaster frustration of the greedy company. Until the last 3 quarters LookSmart was loosing tons of money. Not too long ago LookSmart increased the price per click based on categories. Now LookSmart has announced it is moving away from the set price per click model. Now LookSmart is charging by the click in a pay for placement auction model, the same model Overture pioneered a few years back. In all honesty there are only 4 search companies with major distribution doing this right now. With Yahoo swallowing Overture, and Google branding itself in its listings... FindWhat and LookSmart are the only independent cost per click advertisers with a large distribution network. While LookSmart may improve its bottom line, the real gain will be in further distribution. While this news seems important to me, the stock market has yet to react. LOOK: Summary for LOOKSMART LTD - Yahoo! Finance LookSmart Looking to Trump Yahoo! Move - AP
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
Google to power Terra Lycos U.S. ads | CNET News.com
Google to power Terra Lycos U.S. ads | CNET News.com
Google AdSense now multilingual
Google AdSense now available in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. What's New at AdWords?
Google buys Stanford Startup Kaltix Corp
Kaltix is a three month old three member project working on search personalization. Due to things like blogs, link analysis has been viewed critically by many sets of eyes. Google aims to mesh this personalization software with its search engine so that it can have subject specific pagerank. This is similar to how Teoma organizes the web. Google buys search engine - IT Analysis.com
