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Yahoo! Annual Year In Review: 2009

Written on November 30, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object

It’s official, the annual release of the Yahoo! Year in Review for 2009 has arrived! Perhaps bigger and better than ever, this year’s Yahoo! roundup includes in-depth pictorials and a slew of popular topics to sort through, as well as some bonus features  – such as the decade in sports, Yahoo Answers highlights, and a [...]



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Yahoo! Annual Year In Review: 2009

Of Climategate, Googlegate & When Stories Get Too Long

Written on November 30, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object, book

Daily Telegraph writer James Delingpole got worked up yesterday because his colleague Christopher Booker’s story on the “Climategate” scandal mysteriously disappeared from Google. Skullduggery, he pondered? Nothing so dramatic, says Google. The article simply grew too big in length to stay in Google News.
Let’s do the breakdown. Booker’s story of November 28 covered the controversy [...]



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Of Climategate, Googlegate & When Stories Get Too Long

Google’s Indexation Cap

Written on November 30, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing, seo

Posted by randfish

Over the past 2 years, SEOmoz has worked with quite a number of websites whose primary goal (or primary problem) in SEO has been indexation - getting more of their pages included in Google’s index so they have the opportunity to rank well. These are, obviously, long tail focused sites that earn the vast majority of their visits from queries that bring in 5 or fewer searches each day. In this post, I’m going to tackle the question of how Google determines the quantity of pages to index on a site and how sites can go about improving these metric.

First, a quick introduction to a truth that I’m not sure Google’s shared very publicly (though they may have discussed it on panels or formally on the web somewhere I haven’t seen) - that is - the concept that there’s an “indexation cap” on the number of URLs from a website that Google will maintain in their main index. I was skeptical about this until I heard it firsthand from a Googler being described to a webmaster. Even then, I didn’t feel like the principle was “confirmed,” but after talking to a lot of SEOs working at very large companies, some of whom have more direct interactions with the search quality team, this is, apparently, a common point of discussion and something Google’s been more open about recently.

The “indexation cap” makes sense, particularly as the web is growing exponentially in size every few years, often due to the production of spam and more legitimate, but no less index-worthy content on sites of all sizes and shapes. I believe that many site owners started noticing that the more pages they produced, even with very little “unique” content, the more traffic Google would send and thus, abuse was born. As an example, try searching using Google’s “last 24 hours” function:

Seriously, go have a look; the quantity of “junk” you wouldn’t want in your search engine’s index is remarkable

Since Tom published the post on Xenu’s Link Sleuth last night, Google’s already discovered more than 250 pages around the web that include that content or mentions of it. If, according to Technorati, the blogosphere is still producing 1.5 million+ posts each week, that’s conservatively

Search Month European Edition, November 2009

Written on November 30, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object

In Search Month European Edition we bring you a monthly update of European search news, with related links to full coverage. Here’s what happened in November.
Germany says Google Analytics is illegal. According to an article in Zeit Online, German federal and state government officials are convinced that Google Analytics is against the law in Germany. [...]



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Search Month European Edition, November 2009

Bid Management Automation Basics: No Excuses!

Written on November 30, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object

Here, in the Paid Search column, there’s been a lot of talk of bid management tools and strategies for using them. Some of the uses of these tools can get pretty advanced. But in the real world you can do better with pretty basic bid automation strategies.
Many people are afraid or skeptical of campaign automation [...]



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Bid Management Automation Basics: No Excuses!

2010: The Year Information Pollution Takes Off

Written on November 30, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing, seo

Google’s relevancy algorithms have largely been driven by taking the “authority” shortcut. Have lots of other domains linking to your site? It must be good. Here is a golden ticket…your site ranks for everything.

That curbed some types of spam (by increasing the sunk cost needed to rank a new site), but it has taken brands only a few years to adjust to that hole in the algorithm. Witness the rise of answer spam, scraper re-purposing spam, social media recycling tools, freelance articles for a nickel spam, machine spun articles that are textually unique, etc etc etc

Increasingly, the biggest role of brand in search publishing is to legitimize stuff which might otherwise seem illegitimate and give them enough scale that it hopefully kicks off enough AdSense revenue that it matters to Google.

Demand Media recently highlighted their business model in Wired magazine:

To appreciate the impact Demand is poised to have on the Web, imagine a classroom where one kid raises his hand after every question and screams out the answer. He may not be smart or even right, but he makes it difficult to hear anybody else.

The article (unlike most eHow articles) is well worth a read, but a quick summary…

• buy up some aged well linked to sites (that were perhaps linked to when it was easier to get links with watered down content and before the web graph was as corrupted by $ as it is today)
• create algorithms to mine their analytics data and Google’s tools to estimate the earnings potential of any piece of content
• pay freelancers crumbs to write write write based on whatever the algorithm spits out
• run the content through a tool like Copyscape to verify it is unique
• pay a reviewer ~ $1 to verify the article is (nearly) legible
• keep refining and optimizing the above components based on feedback from earlier tests
• create sister websites that are heavily cross-linked which host a second page about the highest earning topics

And in opening up their playbook to Wired, Demand Media likely created dozens of additional competitors who will aim to monetize the longtail of search via freelance articles of varying quality. Aol, headed by former Google executive Tim Armstrong, has been talking up a revolutionary media model to the media, which reads exactly like the Demand Media playbook:

The predictions, it says, are based on a wide swath of data AOL collects, from the Web searches people make on its site to the sites visited by subscribers to its Internet services.

The system is designed to track breaking news and trends and identify the best times to write about seasonal events, such as Halloween or Monday Night Football.

Based on these recommendations, the company’s editorial staff, which totals about 500, will assign articles to a network of free-lancers across the country via a new Web site called Seed.com. AOL says it now works with about 3,000 free-lancers, but it is hoping to sharply increase that number through the Web site, which is open to anyone looking to submit a story. To cut costs ahead of its spinoff, AOL recently said it was cutting about a third of its total staff, or 2,500 employees.

If authors are going to get paid for performance on a freelance basis to churn out junk then they may as well spend a few months learning internet marketing, blogging, and Wordpress…if publishing is algorithm driven you don’t really need to work for someone else to make a few Dollars per article. It is VERY easy to beat that, so long as you are willing to wait 3 to 6 months for your payout.

And the process of scaling automated low quality content generation is only going to make existing media channels reliant on search feel more pain. Dollars become dimes. Dimes become pennies. As traditional media companies go bankrupt companies like Demand Media and AOL will buy up the brands and fill the sites with more good content.

This not only will further harm traditional media models, but it will also pollute up the search results so much that…

• it makes it hard to find quality information via search
• private membership sites and paid niche content will become more popular
• Google will either be forced to change their relevancy algorithms or make an example of a big company in the search (g)arbitrage game, or else searchers are going to have an awful experience over the next half-decade or so

I wish there was an Exchange Traded Fund which allowed me to place a bet on information pollution…until Google stops it, the profit potential will be too great for opportunistic “publishers” to ignore. It is a rare sure bet. And it is entirely up to Google to decide how big they want to let the bubble get before they deflate it.

Here is what the content revolution Tim Armstrong speaks of looks like:

Imagine 8 of the top 10 search results for every longtail query looking like THAT. And yet, it is about to become reality.

Those who know the least yell loudest. And Google is colluding with the likes of Demand Media and Aol to ENSURE every idiot has a megaphone. Ignorance is powerful.

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2010: The Year Information Pollution Takes Off

Social Networks – More ‘She Said’ Than ‘He Said’

Written on November 30, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing

We are all aware that social networks, social marketing, social media and just plan old being social are the new wave regarding the Internet and its magical powers to make the world a better place for all. As we move further along in the life cycle of this still relatively new phenomenon (OK, all of you folks who have ‘been doing this for years’ can huff and puff at this point) there will be more opportunity to slice and dice the nature of the social network and the networkers that inhabit them. The folks over at Pingdom have taken a stab at looking at the gender breakdown of this group and found that women rule. Kinda.

84% (16 out of 19) of the sites have more female than male users.

The social news sites Digg, Reddit and Slashdot have significantly more male users than female. The standout here is Slashdot which takes male geekdom to new heights with 82% male users.

If we hadn’t included the three social news sites, all of the sites would have had more females than males.

Twitter and Facebook have almost the same male-female ratio; Twitter with 59% female users and Facebook with 57%.

Now we need to apply the classic question that all marketers must eventually apply to statistics and sales presentations: So what?

But before we go there we can’t waste the very nice chart that the Pingdom folks put together for you to look at.

I suspect that these ratios may always hold true to some degree but as there are more an more business applications of social media they may balance out a bit depending on the situation. Easy for me to say, sure. Honestly, social media is just like a very other tool that is used to reach people for a specific reason. Knowing how many is neat but the more important question is why someone is there. Certain networks may attract more of one gender over another for reasons that will then truly tell a marketer what the value of that network may be to them. And of course, just because it is that way now is no assurance that it will remain that way.

So Pilgrims, as you awake from your tryptophan induced haze what is your take on the various guys and girls clubs in the social networking space?

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Social Networks – More ‘She Said’ Than ‘He Said’

Does Bing’s Trending Search Terms List Reveal Its Weakness?

Written on November 30, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

When I first perused Bing’s top trending search terms of 2009, I started to scratch my head.

Take a look at the list:

1. Michael Jackson
2. Twitter
3. Swine Flu
4. Stock Market
5. Farrah Fawcett
6. Patrick Swayze
7. Cash for Clunkers
8. Jon and Kate Gosselin
9. Billy Mays
10. Jaycee Dugard

Where was “iPhone” “Obama” or “Twilight?” As a nation, do we really have an unhealthy fascination with learning everything we can about deceased personalities?

Then I remembered this:

Around 45% of all searches to Bing originate from MSN.com.

Ahh, that explains it. When the ~600 million monthly visitors hit the MSN.com homepage, they are inevitably presented with the big news story of the day. No news stories where bigger than the deaths of Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Patrick Swayze, Billy Mays–and you could argue the Cash for Clunkers program. After that, the Bing list includes other news-driven events–with Twitter the lone search term not apparently news driven.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder Microsoft recently gave MSN.com a facelift. It also reveals perhaps a weakness in Bing’s attempts to challenge Google. Google is the place we go to for ALL kinds of information. Bing’s traffic–at least half of it–is the result of some prompting by MSN.com.

The challenge for Bing is to increase its share of non-news-driven searches. Next year’s list will reveal whether Bing has been able to achieve that or not.

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Does Bing’s Trending Search Terms List Reveal Its Weakness?

Online Spending Up Year Over Year for Black Friday

Written on November 30, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing

Let’s face it this holiday season is a pivotal one for all of us from a macro point of view. While many retailers will be focused on their individual bottom lines it will be important to look at how this whole ‘first weekend’ of the holiday shopping season plays out from start to finish with the latest entry, Cyber Monday, happening as you read this.

First the good news. Online sales for Black Friday were up 11% over last year according to comScore and the rest of November was an improvement over the prior year. Let’s remember, though, that last year’s holiday season was on the heels of “Bailout 1” and waiting for a new president to be inaugurated. In other words, last year sucked so any improvement over those numbers needs to be tempered.

Overall, meaning the performance of the Black Friday weekend in total, was less heartening in that it appears that people are intent on spending less and there was virtually no increase in spending overall from last year. Yahoo News reports

Consumers spent significantly less per person at the start of the holiday season this weekend, dimming hopes for a retail comeback that would help propel the economy early in 2010.

Consumers said they will have spent nearly 8 percent less on average, or about $343 per person, over the weekend that includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday and runs through Sunday, according to the NRF (National Federation of Retailers).

Traffic to stores and websites rose to 195 million people from 172 million in 2008, but shoppers were focused on buying low-priced items, like $10 toys and $9 books, the NRF said.

Total spending for the holiday weekend rose to an estimated $41.2 billion, up 0.5 percent from a year earlier, NRF said.

Since I am not a prognosticator I am not going to offer some thoughts on where this will all go. What I will say is that this will not be the time for irrational exuberance over numbers that look nice in a silo. This season is about online and offline together and if there is little or no increase (or even a decrease) in spending then we are looking at some interesting times ahead.

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Online Spending Up Year Over Year for Black Friday

Are you just following your competitors?

Written on November 30, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing, searchengineguide

by Mike Moran

I know that it’s hard to be creative. I know that it’s hard to be unique. Get over it. On the Internet, merely copying your competitors works far less well than it does in offline marketing. Unfortunately, Google bares all. If you do the same stuff as everyone else, count on the ones who did it before you to reap the benefits, with your results bringing up the rear.

Why do I say that? Because many small businesses don’t like to admit it to themselves, but their biggest edge over the years is that they were local. They were close to where the customers were. There wasn’t anything about their business that customers would miss if they moved 50 miles away, because there is another business just like theirs in that town.

I’ve been talking to a small auto repair shop owner who fixes any kind of car and has a great reputation locally, but on the Internet, he can’t break through the clutter. He has always skated by with his local business, but now he needs to realize that specializing is what wins on the Web.

So, if you just see what others do, and say “Ditto,” it is unlikely to make you the destination site for your customers on the Web. Because on the Web everyone is equally close, so you need some other to way to be unique besides geography.

Time for you to stare at your navel and decide exactly what is it that you do better than everyone else. The one thing. It’s likely to be just one of the dozens of things that you do in your business. It’s fine to keep selling all that other stuff, but online, you need to specialize in something. You might even need a separate site.

Our auto repair shop owner is realizing that, online, he needs to trumpet his work on restoring classic cars. It’s not the biggest part of his business, but it is the thing that will make people drive an hour to see him, because they won’t do that for an oil change on their 2007 Taurus. He might even want to put together a separate Web site just for his vintage car restoration business, to get the best search results.

So what about you? Do you have a “Ditto business”? If you do, you’ll never get credit for what you do if someone else is known for having done it first. And Google won’t have any reason to single you out. Instead, pick something you really do in a unique way, and bring that to the fore of your Internet marketing. Specializing will break your business out of the mass of clutter and give Google and your customers a reason to separate you from the pack.

Check out our small business news site.

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Are you just following your competitors?