october 2008

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A vertical search engine for the SEO industry Not nearly as exciting as the IM Broadcast announcement is the fact I WASN’T at the conference and had some time to kill on the weekend. Idle hands and cabin fever left me wanting for something to amuse myself. To that end I looked at the variety of Google Custom Search Engines that I’d been mucking with of late and thought, ‘what about a SEO vertical search?’ Over the next ½ dozen hours engines were born and a framework created into a nifty little research toy for all you search geeks on a quest for knowledge - Search SEO Pros (http://www.searchseopros.com) 4 Search engines in 1 The basic concept is that there are four separate search engines for searching a variety of sources including; Search top SEO writers Search the Search Engine...

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Internet Marketing Videos For those of you that didn’t catch it already, late last week there came a new addition to the marketing landscape in the form of IM Broadcast – Multimedia for Internet Marketers (http://www.imbroadcast.com). Fellow trail riders (Spyder) Dave Snyder and Jordan Kasteler teamed up with Loren Baker on this little jem that yours truly has been playing with some over the last week. Dave and co were nice enough to let me play along and the live broadcast Friday was just like being there… except it’s a tad colder up here boys… theGypsy (http://www.imbroadcast.com/users/theGypsy) (of course) MyVid Favs; Gypsy’s videos (http://www.imbroadcast.com/users/theGypsy/videos/public) My Group; SEO Geeks (http://www.imbroadcast.com/group/SEO) So why not sign up and come hang out… conversations are slow at this point, hopefully that will pick up moving forward. Dubbed ‘the YouTube for Internet Marketers’ –...

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Myth Busting 101; don’t believe everything you read.Over the last while there have been those quick to write off the value of rankings as a metric. More often than not personalized search aspects are touted as one of the usual suspects in this mysterious development. That is to say, that personalization of search results means we can no longer trust ranking reports and must abandon it as a primary indicator.But is this the case? I wasn't entirely sure so I put out a call to arms for volunteers to ride along with some testing to see how much of an affect it may be having with; looking for Volunteers (/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/Looking-for-volunteers.html) – and now we have a few answers.The Google Personalized Search and SERP flux report (http://www.reliable-seo.com/reports/ps_report.php)…and be sure to sign up and take part in future research. We give all the raw data (not included in the report) to all...

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Here are some of the the answers Ol MC and the rest of the Google gang gave on some common questions during the webmaster chat session today (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/10/join-us-for-our-third-live-online.html). I went through the top 80 or so of the 350 questions and have listed those that seemed interesting; RankingsQ. Since Google is against using ranking software (ie:WebCeO) to monitor SERP rankings, is there any plans on Google creating an approved, in-house rank check application that webmasters can use? Matt Cutts (http://moderator.appspot.com/#e=agltb2RlcmF0b3JyDgsSBlNlcmllcxia9QEM+t=agltb2RlcmF0b3JyDwsSCERvcnlVc2VyGIkIDA+v=11); It's something that we've talked about. My concern is that sometimes people get too worried with paying attention to their trophy phrase and want to rank for that even if that's not the best phrase for them, or concentrating on one phrase to the exclusion of all the other stuff they rank for isn't the best idea. I think paying attention to server logs or analytics data...

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Finding relevance through Application Focus signalsSo do you think Google is watching what else you’re doing on your computer and seeking to personalize your search experience based on open document, emails or other desktop applications? It is a interesting question…. So let’s get out our tin-foil hats (/search-engines/algorithm-matters/taking-off-my-tin-foil-hat.html) once again and go for a ride. I have read about such mythical beasts in a few patents over the last while and thought it was an interesting idea, worth at least floating here. Basically, things you may be reading, writing or listening to on your computer (or Android phone?) are used as signals for customizing your search results. Sound like madness? Then you’ve come to the right place as we specialize in it around here.Consider I am listening to ‘Rock Lobster’ on my media player and decide to search ‘b52’ – by monitoring application focus the search would likely re-rank documents...

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Search Engine Watch reports – Google’s algorithm is shiftingOM-friggen-G I am just stunned. Top resources in the SEO world simply SHOULD NOT be making bare-faced statements. They should not be publishing material that take suspicions and suppositions and state them as fact. Furthermore they should be careful what advice they give as a respected source.For starters, there are MANY algorithms… stating ‘the algorithm' is a DUH… and they are always being tweaked, but whatever, bigger fish to fry here…Now, I am the last guy that would be going off about peeps recognizing and discussing the evolution of search. (/Search-Engines/Learn-SEO/Evolution-and-the-art-of-SEO-.html) Certainly not when mention of behavioural factors (/search-engines/algorithm-matters/beware:-google-is-watching-you.html) are involved as it is a common theme around here. But to write things such as those which were published today over at Search Engine Watch (http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3631089) – it is simply bad form. At very least put a disclaimer or temper the language...

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Can Google solve the social monetization puzzle? Business Week had an article recently about; Making Social Networks Profitable (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_40/b4102050681705.htm) - which talks about Google’s (patent pending?) social user ranking system to identify influencers for more targeted Ad Delivery. It’s altogether unsure exactly which patent they are talking about, but some recent patent publications may shed some light on the matter. One such approach was from Google; a patent dubbed by some (http://www.socialtimes.com/2008/07/google-preparing-friendrank-technology/) as a ‘FriendRank’ which was released back in July of this year; Network Node Ad Targeting (http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=) - filed Dec 2006 / published July 3rd 2008 - Note; (FriendRank is apparently a patent pending (http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9974220-7.html) method from SocialMedia (http://www.socialmedia.com/)) Another related approach you can look at is Microsoft’s; Targeting social media influencers. (http://www.huomah.com/Internet-Marketing/Advertising/Targeting-Social-Media-Influencers.html) (filed Sept.2006/ published March 2008) - reviewed here on the trail. These essentially target top influencers by connections and related topics or groups for the...

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Follow the trail to da SR In case you missed it, posted a few more articles in the series on foundational link building - you know, the basics. This week was about article/content marketing.... at least my thoughts on the matter. If you'd like to know more about what makes this SEO brain groove... have a read; Getting the most from Article Marketing (http://seo.site-reference.com/article-marketing-is-about-more-than-mere-links/) Article marketing tips and resources (http://seo.site-reference.com/article-marketing-tips-and-resources/) And do't forget last weeks foundational link building tips; Using directories for SEO (http://seo.site-reference.com/how-to-get-the-most-from-web-directories/) Dave's list of directory resources (http://seo.site-reference.com/list-of-free-and-paid-directories/) Hopefully the weekly link roundup will get done tomorrow, for more reading see my FriendFeed rooms on SEO (http://friendfeed.com/rooms/learnseo) and SEM (http://friendfeed.com/rooms/sem) Peace - keep ya hands in da ayer!

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Google suggest and search history lead the way The fine folks at Google have released a video, (and blog post) on how they are integrating search into the G1 and Android phones. What does it mean for SEOs? Let's have a look... One of the ways they are looking to make things easier is by leaning on the newly revamped Google suggestions. Another area they were highlighting is the ability to merely click the phone number within search results to automatically dial. Kind of handy….There is also shortcuts to tie in other services such as Gmail, Reader and so forth. Given all of this I would imagine there is some personalization to be expected from mobile search as signals relating to geo-graphic and search history are sure to have a big role here. In the post they mention; “There are two types...

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Yet another patent on phrase based indexing and retrieval (YaPaIR) Unfortunately Cuil buzz (http://www.huomah.com/News/Latest/How-relevant-is-Cuil-.html)has cooled, but at least co-founder Anna Patterson is back on the radar. If only in name and memories of what used to be that is. And if that radar is for patent droolers and semantic simians... then it is a name of note. You see, things were different back in Oh4 when she was working with Google and toiled on computer learning model for understanding concepts and semantic relationships through phrasing. Ah yes, I remember it like it was yesterday…. That’s Cuil Oh, we were just talking about Phrase based indexing and retrieval (http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Algorithm-Matters/Phrase-Based-Indexing-and-Retrieval-one-more-time.html) last week? You say Bill wrote about it (http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=1120)as well? And we even managed to slip it into yesterday’s rant (http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Learn-SEO/Evolution-and-the-art-of-SEO-.html)? Wow… just doesn’t want to go away huh?