Written on October 31, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: Object
Today is Halloween and the search engines have logos up for the special day. Before I post the logos, here are some posts from others in the community on Halloween.
Matt Cutts of Google had a holy costume. Google Blogoscoped noticed Google added trick or treat to their robots.txt file. Bing has [...]
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Halloween ‘09 From Google, Yahoo, Bing & Others
Written on October 31, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: marketing
The other day I clicked a link on Twitter to a blog post everyone was talking about. I did like everyone else and read the post and then left a snarky comment. But then unlike most everyone else, I right clicked the margin and selected “view source”. Why did I do that? I am not really sure, I honestly did it without thinking. Looking at other people’s code has become something of a habit for me. I find myself sometimes getting more out of analyzing the blog’s HTML, than the post itself!
Anyways, on this particular site I was shocked when I saw the HTML. It was horrible. I mean it was really really bad. It looked like this site was coded by a drunk monkey in 1998! And, to be honest, it really got my angry. Angry? Yes, angry! You see this site isn’t just any site, this site happens to be the corporate web site for a very recognizable brand. This company is known for their excellence in their industry. Furthermore I know a few of the folks that work for this company, and they are all really awesome people that do good work and believe in what they do. And because of that, it mad me angry that their site is so haphazardly put together. It made me angry that a company that I believed in, wasn’t taking my profession seriously.
The folks that I know that work for this company deserve better, they deserve the best site money can buy, and trust me, this company can afford it. So I started asking myself, why? Why would a company that has earned so much respect, developed such a strong brand, and have such awesome employees, have such a horrible site?
I ask myself these types of questions a lot, because unfortunately the story above isn’t uncommon. There are many good companies with strong brands that don’t care enough to build a good web site. And, I will freely admit that I have extremely high standards when it comes to web development.
So why does this matter? Why should these companies care what a geeky code monkey thinks? They should care, because I am not alone! They should care because as leaders in their industries people look to them to set the standard. They should care because their competitors know they can do better and are prepared to prove it. But most importantly, they should care because their clients and customers expect the best in everything they do, and if they find out the truth, then they can find another company to do business with very quickly.
And no I am not naming names, but if you think this post is about your company, get in touch with me and I would be happy to give you a free site audit.
See more here:
Cup of Joe: You Aren’t a Drunk Monkey, So Don’t Act Like One!
Written on October 30, 2009 by admin
Via Hacker News we have this video out of the Stanford technology venture program.
****** Spoiler (also from hacker news) ******
She teaches a class at Stanford and offers each team $5 of ‘funding’ in an envelope. She tells them that once they open the envelope, they have 2 hours to make as much money as they can.
She cites three teams’ approaches:
1) First team opens a free stand that offers to check peoples bike tire pressure for free, then charges $1 to inflate if necessary. This team changes midstream to accepting donations instead of charging, and makes more money. Lauded for rapid iteration.
2) Second team makes lots of reservations at local restaurants, and then sells them to people waiting in line for same restaurant. Didn’t use the $5 at all. Lauded for realizing that the $5 constraint was artificial, and that using it constrained their thinking.
3) Third team skipped the exercise, and sold their 3 minute class presentation time as a advertisement to a local company. Made the most money. Instead of presenting, they recruited. Lauded for realizing that the 2 hours was also artificially hampering their thinking.
She hands out two artificial constraints, and then praises the teams who ignore the constraints. “Thinking outside the box” is a great skill and all, but basically all these teams are doing is finding creative ways of breaking the rules. It means the puzzle isn’t “make the most money in 2 hours with $5″, it means the puzzle is “find out how far you can stretch these rules without being disqualified”.
Ignore the rules that don’t matter. Is that something holding you back real? or is it just in your head?
What artificial constraints will you chose to ignore today?
Our only limits are in our minds.
See original here:
Here’s How You Make the Most Money With $5 and 2 Hours
Written on October 30, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: book, chat, marketing, searchengineguide, seo
by Manoj Jasra
SES Chicago is a little over a month away and will feature a very well respected online marketing veteran, Rand Fishkin. Rand is the CEO of SEO Moz and is a regular speaker in the international conference circuit. Earlier this week I caught up with Rand to get his insight on his sessions at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, read our chat below:
[Rand Fishkin]: I’ll be involved in two sessions - PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle and Black Hat, White Hat: Does it Really Matter Anymore?
I think both of these touch on relatively sensitive issues in the field of search marketing and the exchanges will contain a lot of substance and style between the panelists. The value of the debate should come in the form of the data presented and the arguments employed. I suspect that many practitioners face these same challenges in their day-to-day roles with clients and internal management, and can find a handful of good takeaways to help support their perspectives.
[Manoj]: Is SEO vs. PPC a cut and dry decision? - it’s really about your business and what your analytics tells you, correct?
[Rand Fishkin]: Yeah - definitely. PPC is so easy to get started with and simple to track that if you’re earning a positive ROI, there’s no reason not to make the investment. The only drawback is when PPC optimization takes up a great deal of time and attention that could be focused elsewhere. I’ve seen organizations that have multiple people devoted to PPC management on a full time basis, and if they could just take a couple weeks of their time and put them towards SEO, they’d likely generate massive amounts more traffic with an even higher positive return. SEO is an investment, but it’s almost always worthwhile.
[Manoj]: Are black hat tactics still employed by individuals/organizations. If so, can you give us some examples?
[Rand Fishkin]: Certainly it is, but no I can’t share examples 
There’s a small but vocal minority in the SEO field who feels it is far more immoral to reveal those employing black hat tactics than to perform spam, so let’s talk in generalities instead. There are plenty of firms, large and small, who engage in link buying, cloaking, keyword stuffing, link injection, etc. In my opinion, the vast majority of these are doing nothing illegal, immoral, unethical or wrong, they’re simply operating outside the boundaries of what the search engines recommend. Although we don’t use these tactics at SEOmoz and don’t recommend them to our clients, I see no problem with those who choose a different path, so long as they’re honest with themselves about the risks and open with their clients/mangagers. Personally, I just feel that there’s (almost) always a better white hat solution to any problem you’re trying to solve with black hat SEO (exceptions might be in highly aggressive fields like gaming, porn & pharmaceuticals).
[Manoj]: If you were to pinpont a couple SEO tactics which are more important to consider now vs. a few years ago - what would they be?
[Rand Fishkin]: There’s quite a number of tactics that have gained in prominence and value over the last few years, some of which hardly existed in the early days of Google SEO. A few that fit that category include creation and optimization of XML sitemaps, canonicalization of duplicate URLs, social media marketing via social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), viral content creation and promotion via social media, social media profile adoption/linkbuilding and optimization for popular search verticals like Google Local/Maps and Google News. A few of these have been around as long as 5-6 years, but many are new (or gaining prominence) even in the last 2-3.
[Manoj]: In a scenario where you are given 25K to spend for a client who has a brand new business/website, how would you spend it (in regards to Online Marketing)?
[Rand Fishkin]: I’d probably recommend they engage with a talented in-house marketer for 4-6 months (depending on their rate). Getting someone internal working full time on projects, having responsibility to the bottom line and being able to see the company metrics with a incented stake is, in my opinion, the best way to go. As for their tasks, I’d go in this order:
Written on October 30, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: Object
Here’s a post for a relatively slow Friday afternoon: two ads for Bing that vaguely tie in with Halloween. Halloween is generally speaking a children’s holiday. So first comes a “Bing Goes the Internet” video featuring elementary school children. Years from now this may qualify as a pop-culture nostalgia moment:
And then a more sophisticated and [...]
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I Vant To Suck Your Bing
Written on October 30, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: marketing
I. Am. Hilarious. Anchor Intelligence has just released its Q3 09 click fraud data—and it’s down, contrary to what Click Forensics reported for the same period. Anchor saw worldwide click fraud drop almost four percentage points from Q2, to 23.2% of all clicks in Q3.
Interestingly, Anchor found that malicious, “attempted” click fraud had fallen off in this period—dropping from 22.9% of all clicks in Q2 to only 18.6% of all clicks in Q3. Accidental, “innocuous” click fraud rose slightly (0.4 percentage points) to 4.6%. (Anchor measure all attempts at click fraud, not just charged clicks. The labels they use reflect the motivation behind the attempts.) They also noted some geographic shifts in click fraud:
Search Engine Watch says that Anchor also observed click fraudsters getting more creative:
Anchor Intelligence says it did observe more sophisticated click fraud schemes in the third quarter, such as browser hijacking. They also saw an increase in the threats of malicious advertisements in paid search and ads on publisher websites.
Although Anchor’s findings contradict Click Forensics’, CF finds a lower rate of click fraud on the rise (12.7% in Q2 to 14.1% in Q3).
What do you think? Is Click Forensics’ more pessimistic report right, or does Anchor Networks more accurately reflect the state of the industry?
Read more:
Anchor Weighs in on Click Fraud
Written on October 30, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: Object
Bing has announced a couple additions to its mobile browser today: expanded NFL information and airline flight status reports.
The NFL feature works by typing in a team or player’s name, and provides stats, scores, and schedule details. Bing also says you’ll get “eal-time updates on the plays” while a game is being played.
The flight status [...]
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Bing Adds NFL, Flight Information To Mobile Browser
Written on October 30, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: Object
Fifteen-days ago, Google dropped PageRank values from Webmaster Tools and the search community took that as a bold statement. The statement was clear, webmasters “shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much,” said Google.
Last night, Google pushed out a Google Toolbar PageRank update, despite making that bold statement just a couple weeks ago. [...]
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Despite PageRank Dropping In Webmaster Tools, Google Pushes Toolbar PageRank Update
Written on October 30, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: Object
While real-time search gets all the attention these days, there’s also increased interest in hyperlocal search. Where real-time search answers What’s happening right now?, hyperlocal search answers the question, What’s happening right here? It’s like local search on steroids, you could say.
Outside.in has, for several years, been somewhat like a clearinghouse of hyperlocal information and [...]
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Read more here:
Outside.in Expands Its Hyperlocal Search Capabilities
Written on October 30, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: book, marketing, seo
The TopRank team loves to have fun – for holidays, on team outings, at conferences, etc. Because tomorrow is Halloween, a few members of the TopRank team decided to dress up for a costume contest. And it’s up to you to decide the winner! Winning includes at least $50 worth of coffee, so be sure to share this post and get your friends to vote too. 
Please vote on your favorite costume below.
Safari Thomas
Dana as Minnesota Strawberry Shortcake
Bad Angel Julie
Michelle the Football Star
Monkey Audrey and Veterinary Nurse Amie
Mike as Zombie Soupy Sales
Sue After Being Attacked by Scooby Doo
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
![[StumbleUpon]](http://www.toprankblog.com/wp-content/themes/TopRank06/images/stumble-big.png)
![[Google]](http://www.toprankblog.com/wp-content/themes/TopRank06/images/google-bookmark-big.png)
![[Facebook]](http://www.toprankblog.com/wp-content/themes/TopRank06/images/facebook-icon.gif){kind=icon}
![[Twitter]](http://www.toprankblog.com/wp-content/themes/TopRank06/images/twitter.png)
Tags: a-poll-embedded ,angel-julie ,book ,facebook ,football ,google ,halloween ,marketing ,nurse-amie ,post ,sales ,seo ,toprank news ,zombie
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