| SEO Newsletter| Volume 64 | February 17, 2009 |
BruceClay.co.za
|
|
|
SEOToolSet® Training Comes to You
|
|
| |
|
We're very pleased to present Bruce Clay, Inc.'s famous SEO training course now with East Coast style. That's right, we will now be holding our SEOToolSet Training in New York! All of Bruce Clay, Inc.'s normal SEO goodness, now with tastier bagels!
Going to SES New York? Stick around an extra day and participate in the SEO workshop. This is a one-day seminar built off the SEOToolSet Training course and is a perfect supplement to four days of search engine marketing sessions. Small business owners will find this course especially helpful.
And as always, there is Bruce Clay, Inc.'s SoCal SEO training sessions. You can also register for the standard SEOToolSet Training here in sunny Southern California. Our next class takes place March 16-18, so make sure you sign up soon as space is limited.
|
FEATURE: Dear C-Suite, Wondering About the Value of SEO?
|
|
| |
In conversations with potential clients, I have often heard bottom-line, just-the-facts questions such as these:
In order to explain the true scope of the questions being asked and why such questions about the value of search engine optimization are so complicated to answer, I will draw parallels between a typical executive's traditional work experiences and the new online business environment.
|
|
BACK TO BASICS: Web Spam Tactics for Search Marketers to Avoid
|
You might have experienced this during the holiday season: a perfectly innocent meat and cheese tray is sitting, beautifully arranged on a doily, waiting for guests to come and sample its wares. But upon closer inspection, there is one corner which features an incongruous-looking deli meat, hiding next to the pepper jack cheese. When you sample it, you know that this is no gourmet deli treat. This mystery meat is spam. Suddenly, the deli tray is no longer appetizing, so you move on to the veggie tray.
Search engine spam has the same effect on Web sites that those slices of dressed-up meat spam had on that deli tray. No matter what else is on there, spam is automatically going to be frowned upon by the other SEOs in the room, and the search engines are going to come after it to make sure the entire platter stays in the kitchen and away from the other guests. Spam isn't search engine optimization but it certainly tries to pass itself off that way.
|
|
|
Hot
Topics
At SMX West last week, Google, Yahoo and Live Search announced a collaborative effort to clean up the clutter of duplicate URLs on the Web. A new tag, called the canonical tag, will be recognized by the three major search engines, allowing site owners to indicate the preferred URL of a page.
The Problem with Non-Canonical URLs
As Vanessa Fox pointed out on Search Engine Land, multiple URLs which all point to the same Web page cause a duplicate content issue within the search engine indexes. There are several negative consequences of duplicate URLs. When a search engine recognizes a duplicated page it may choose to filter the result from SERPs, leaving the decision of which URL is preferred to the search engine rather than the site owner. Link popularity may also suffer due to duplicate URLs if the link popularity intended for a single page is split among multiple URLs. Furthermore, the ability to crawl a site may be diminished if the limited bandwidth dedicated to spider the site is used on duplicate pages.
The New Canonical Tag
The canonical tag works by telling the search engine where the preferred URL is located so that appropriate indexing can occur and link popularity can be properly attributed. Along with the official announcements which can be found on each search engine's blog, Matt Cutts has gathered several resources to help webmasters learn more about the new tag. WordPress wizard Joost de Valk has made canonical URL plugins/extensions available for WordPress, Magento and Drupal.
The Tag is a Precaution, Not a Solution
While hailed as a time and effort saver by SEOs, search engine representatives have been careful to warn against using the canonical tag as the only solution for duplicate URLs. Because the canonical tag is a recommendation and not a directive, each search engine has reserved the right to select which URL it provides to users. Therefore, it is important that webmasters continue to manage duplicate URLs as recommended before the creation of the canonical tag: 301 redirect non-canonical URLs to preferred URLs, specify preferred URLs in Webmaster Tools, submit preferred URLs via XML Sitemap, normalize URLs within your CMS, and link consistently to preferred URLs within your site.
Shuffles
On January 26, the nation was rocked by a slew of layoff announcements as more than 60,000 jobs were cut on a single day. That day has since been dubbed Bloody Monday, and the tech industry did not escape the event unscathed. For a look at how the tech sector has fared in the down-trending economy, TechCrunch is tracking tech layoffs.
Despite job losses occurring across the board, several industry heavyweights defied conventional thinking to pursue new ventures. A big BCI congratulations goes out to SEO super blogger Lisa Barone, former voice of the Bruce Clay, Inc. blog. Lisa parted ways with We Build Pages to form Outspoken Media with partners Rhea Drysdale and Rae Hoffman.
Prior to launching the company Rhea had also resigned from We Build Pages, as did Google Guidelines expert Patrick Sexton. Patrick has since launched GetListed.org with partner David Mihm.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt took on a new position as an international business advisor to Britain's Conservative Party. Co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, became the chief scientist of Salt Lake City-based tech start-up Fusion-io. Kevin Ryan, well known for his role at the Search Engine Strategies conference series, was named chief marketing officer of WebVisible. Veteran marketer Eric Lander resigned from his position as organic search manager of ADP to work as an SEO and project management consultant.
A number of tech companies saw a shake up in share values and profits over the last month. Ask.com's parent company IAC performed worse than expected in the fourth quarter. Apple reported a 3.5 percent drop in shares following CEO Steve Jobs's announcement of medical leave. Logitech reported a 70 percent drop in third-quarter profit compared to last year. Intel Corp.'s Q4 profit plummeted 90 percent year over year. And IBM resisted the trend with a 12 percent increase in fourth-quarter profit. Start-ups were hard off as venture capital funding in the U.S. was down 71 percent in the fourth quarter.
In news of broad corporate layoffs, Forrester Research was rumored to have initiated a 2 percent cut of analyst positions. Microsoft confirmed that up to 5,000 jobs would be cut in the next 18 months. Digg announced a restructuring effort that would eliminate 10 percent of their workforce.
According to a report by Efficient Frontier, search marketing spend declined 8 percent in the final quarter of 2008, with ad prices dropping 50 percent year over year.
Sound Bytes
If you like what you read in the SEO Newsletter, there's more Internet marketing expertise where that came from. Check out SEM Synergy every Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. Eastern and Noon Pacific on WebmasterRadio.fm. Bruce Clay and the other hosts discuss industry news, SEO tactics and marketing trends, while expert guests share their insights on methods, best practices and upcoming events. Check out the show schedule below for a look at recent shows and upcoming topics.
February 4
(Listen Now)
| Analytics: Finding Trends | Richard Zwicky | Long Tail Optimization |
February 11
(Listen Now)
| Small Business SEO | Patrick Sexton | Hyperlocal SEO |
February 18
(Coming Soon) | Analytics + CMS | Bill Leake & Alissa Ruehl | CMS Considerations |
February 25 | Video and Image Search | Mark Robertson | Book, News & Blog Search |
Got something to say? Contact the SEM Synergy team and share your thoughts, comments and questions. You might even hear your question answered on the show.
Shindigs
Up next on the industry conference plate is Search Engine Strategies, with conferences in London taking place February 17-20 and New York on March 23-26.
On top of the standard conference offerings of SES New York, Bruce Clay, Inc. is presenting a one-day version of our SEOToolSet Training course.
If you can't make it out east or across the pond, fear not, there is a Search Engine Strategies Training Workshop on March 10 in San Francisco.
Also fast approaching is Ignite Phoenix 3 in Tempe, Arizona being held on February 25. Make sure you RSVP ASAP!
For people in the great Northwest, there's always SearchFest 09, put on by the folks at SEMpdx, taking place March 10th, 2009 at the Oregon Zoo.
Attaboys
Google debuted a new feature for Google Map called Google Latitude. The service lets people show their location to friends and family by tracking them through mobile devices or wireless computers. Google Earth now explores new territories: the depths of the ocean and the surface of Mars. And Google updated Ad Planner to include a new cookie-based metric, additional country demographics and predefined audience groups, among other changes and additions.
Google's Tim Armstrong showed his support of traditional media by backing local community news site start-up Patch. Net neutrality advocates praised the FCC's continued scrutiny of Comcast's VOIP congestion management. And according to comScore, a record 14.3 billion online videos were viewed by U.S. Internet users in December.
Word on the
Wire
Google appeared to be testing Ajax-powered SERPs this month, raising flags for SEOs concerned that Ajax SERPs would mask referring traffic. In another move that would complicate SEO efforts if implemented, Google is experimenting with Preferred Sites, a feature that lets users personalize their results.
The search giant also announced that it would be pulling the plug on its programs to sell print and radio advertising.
Google has reportedly requested that Time Warner either pay back Google's 5 percent stake in AOL or turn AOL into a separate company. In an interesting security breach, a Google Group thread in which grievances against the search company are aired by ex-employees appears to have been leaked.
TechCruch started the optimistic rumor that the worst period of slumping online ad revenues may have passed. While TechCrunch data reported an upswing in online ad revenue after three quarters of down-trending, Online Media Daily proposed that the rise in paid search revenue may reflect its status as a lagging indicator.
Popular analytics platform Omniture has reportedly been providing spotty service for more than a month. Google-owned RSS manager Feedburner has also proven unreliable in the last several months.
Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman announced her bid for governor of California on the Republican ticket. Annual mobile revenues are expected to reach $1 trillion by 2012, according to a report by Informa Telecoms & Media. And the number of Internet users across the globe has hit a new high with comScore reporting that more than one billion people regularly go online. A previous estimate by Internet World Stats shows the number as closer to 1.5 billion people worldwide.
|
|
|
FEATURE: Dear C-Suite, Wondering About the Value of SEO?
by Christopher Hart, February 17, 2009
In conversations with potential clients, I have often heard bottom-line, just-the-facts questions such as these:
- How long will it take before I see results?
- What is the ROI of search engine optimisation?
- What is the business value of SEO?
In order to explain the true scope of the questions being asked and why such questions about the value of search engine optimisation are so complicated to answer, I will draw parallels between a typical executive's traditional work experiences and the new online business environment.
How Long Will It Take Before I See Results?
The Traditional Business Experience
Think back to the first days of your first job, or for that matter, your first days at any new job. Remember how overwhelmed you may have been, not knowing where anything was in your office or who to go to for each issue. Then, just as soon as you thought you had the hang of things, you discovered that seemingly simple decisions were made more complicated by office politics. Choices that appeared obvious turned out to be misaligned with the company environment, market conditions or an executive's point of view. Eventually, through the course of conversations and trial and error, you slowly got into the flow of things. You became more prepared as you adjusted to the new environmental conditions. These adjustments allowed you to make quicker, more informed decisions.
The Online Business Experience
The standard answer for how long an SEO campaign will last is "forever". Search engine optimisation is something that must be done as long as you're doing business online. But, to answer the more pressing question of how long an SEO campaign must be in place before results occur, an executive must ask a number of questions of themselves and their organization:
- Has every member of executive management gotten behind the SEO initiative and told the rest of the organization of SEO's importance and of your commitment?
- Does the executive management understand that each individual's commitment is required (and expected) for online success?
- How long will it take all employees to learn and embrace this new business model?
- Do all employees understand the consequences of SEO failure and commit to this new initiative? Are they a part of the solution, or will they be a problem?
- Will executives support the alignment of the offline production process so it is properly aligned with the online business process?
The length of time an SEO campaign lasts is not absolute — SEO must become part of the online way of life. However, a company's executives are able to accelerate the organization into a position where planning, development and reaction to environmental changes are easily done. How long it takes is in great part dependant upon the ability of the executive team to hold true to this initiative. If it is unimportant to you, then it is unimportant to the company. An important point is that if you can lead the entire organization to support search engine marketing and SEO in all that they do, the synergistic effect is a rapid acceleration of your online presence beyond that of your competition.
What is the ROI of Search Engine Optimisation?
The Traditional Business Experience
Currently you have collected data points from your offline business and built them into a business formula. This formula has been developed over time and is relative to the marketplace you currently reach through your current distribution methods. On top of this formula you apply your education, on the job knowledge and intuition. These are all things you have taken time to learn, absorb and turn into decision making qualifications. So in the end, return and ROI are based largely on your ability to make decisions from knowledge of topic and historical data from said business line.
The Online Business Experience
Just as you need well established data points to develop an estimate of an offline business return, so too do you need such data points to estimate the return of an online business initiative. In many cases, until we have begun a project with you, we are not exposed to such data points. It is also usually the case that most new online businesses are not collecting and tracking the proper data points required for any online return estimates to be made. On top of that there is the unknown variable of how long it will take to educate your staff so they are able to make proper decisions once the online data is presented to them. As you can see, without data or an educated staff, there is no way to provide an exact number.
What Is the Business Value of SEO?
The Traditional Business Experience
In your traditional offline business, value is recognized over time and is largely based on the return you receive. The value of traditional marketing is assessed by collecting data from a number of points that somehow reflect your business's success.
The Online Business Experience
If at this point in time you and your competition are not engaging in SEO, you will see that as soon as you integrate the new media business mentality into your business model, the value of search engine optimisation will be obviously clear. If your competition has already started down the SEO path, then you are late to the game. You will likely need to expend at least twice as much energy to catch up. Whether you are looking to jump ahead of the pack or trying to close the gap on a competitor that is pulling away, the value of SEO should not be overlooked.
In the end, it is YOU — the business executive, the person in the finance department, the director of marketing, the IT manager — who has to embrace the difference in doing business online. And it is your commitment to a successful online business model that will make or break the value of SEO within your company.
Internet and search engine marketing is not a fad or a short term project; it is a cultural business evolution!
My best advice is to stop clinging to the traditional business model and embrace a new and different way of thinking. If you take the time to let your SEO consultant teach you, to energize and set vision for your organization, and to maintain momentum, then the answers to your questions will become self evident in short order. SEO will change your corporate life.
But the commitment is required on your end first.
For permission to reprint or reuse any materials, please contact us. To learn more about our authors, please visit the Bruce Clay Authors page. Copyright 2009 Bruce Clay, Inc.
BACK TO BASICS: Web Spam Tactics for Search Marketers to Avoid
By Katie Wertz, February 17, 2009
You might have experienced this during the holiday season: a perfectly innocent meat and cheese tray is sitting, beautifully arranged on a doily, waiting for guests to come and sample its wares. But upon closer inspection, there is one corner which features an incongruous-looking deli meat, hiding next to the pepper jack cheese. When you sample it, you know that this is no gourmet deli treat. This mystery meat is spam. Suddenly, the deli tray is no longer appetizing, so you move on to the veggie tray.
Search engine spam has the same effect on Web sites that those slices of dressed-up meat spam had on that deli tray. No matter what else is on there, spam is automatically going to be frowned upon by the other SEOs in the room, and the search engines are going to come after it to make sure the entire platter stays in the kitchen and away from the other guests. Spam isn't search engine optimisation (SEO) but it certainly tries to pass itself off that way.
Don’t be That Guy
You know That Guy at parties. The one that shows up at a party and tries to pass off someone else’s casserole as his own. Basically, he don’t want to go out of his way or spend the money to do it himself. He wants to ride someone else’s coattails or hide just how cheap he is. In SEO, such behavior is akin to spam. Search engine optimisation is serving your guests a deli tray and clearly labeling what each and every slice of meat or cheese is on there. Spam is mislabeling everything and then feigning innocence. Don’t be That Guy.
It Comes in All Shapes and Sizes
Search engine spam is different than email spam. Email spam asks you to send money to help out deposed Nigerian princes or to invest in questionable pharmaceuticals. The spam in search engines is there to deliberately manipulate the search engine into ranking their pages as relevant content by using unethical methods.
Hidden Text and Links
One of the most obvious tricks of spamming is hiding text and links in the site itself. This includes putting white text and links on a white background so that renders it invisible to the user. Another trick is using CSS to hide text, links or content by covering it with a layer so that they’re not visible. You can also hide text by positioning content off the page's view altogether.
Doorway Pages
A doorway page is a Web page designed to trick a search engine into ranking a page on a site which doesn’t have anything to do with that keyword. Doorway pages are there to spam the search engine index by cramming it full of relevant keywords and phrases so that it appears high on the results page for a particular keyword, but when the user clicks on it they are automatically redirected to another site that doesn’t have any relevance.
Deceptive Redirection
Deceptive redirection is a type of coded command that redirects the user to a different location than what was intended via the link that was clicked upon. Spammers will create shadow page/domains that have content that ranks for a particular search query, yet when you attempt to access the content on the domain you are then redirected to a different site that contains something like porn or gambling. Often used in conjunction with doorway pages, this bait and switch usually leads to users blaming the search engine instead of the spammer.
Cloaking
Cloaking is a technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different to that presented to the user's browser. When a user is identified as a search engine spider, a server-side script delivers a different version of the web page, one that contains content not present on the visible page. The purpose of cloaking is to deceive search engines so they display the page when it would not otherwise be displayed.
Unrelated Keywords
A form of spam that involves using a keyword that is not related to the image, video, or other content that it is supposed to be describing in the hopes of driving up traffic. Examples include: putting unrelated keywords into the ALT attribute text of an image, placing them in the Meta data of a video or in the Meta tags of a page, and any time an unrelated keyword is used. Ever done a search on YouTube and found videos that have nothing to do with the keywords? Welcome to unrelated keyword spamming 101.
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing happens with the over-use of keywords on a page in the hopes of bettering the page's search engine ranking through increased keyword density. This can happen in the Meta data, ALT attribute text, and within the content of the page itself. It’s basically going to your ALT attribute text for an image of gouda and typing nothing but "cheese" over and over again. Here's a hint, saying something a hundred times doesn't make it more relevant if you've stopped making sense.
Link Farms
A link farm is any group of Web sites that hyperlink to all the other sites in the group. Most link farms are created through automated programs and services. Search engines have combated link farms by identifying specific attributes that link farms use and filtering them from the index and search results, including removing entire domains to keep them from influencing the results page.
Let the Party Know!
The search engines want you to report spam, especially Google. Google has very stringent SEO guidelines when it comes to spam. To quote their Web page on reporting search engine spam:
"We work hard to return the most relevant results for every search we conduct. To that end, we encourage site managers to make their content straightforward and easily understood by users and search engines alike…Violating our Webmaster Guidelines by means such as hidden text, deceptive cloaking or doorway pages compromises the quality of our results and degrades the search experience for everyone."
Reporting a spam site is easy. The search engines have all have either sites or email addresses where you can report search engine optimisation spam techniques:
- Google through spamreport@google.com or at the above linked page
- Yahoo! through http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_reportsearchspam
- Microsoft Live Search through http://feedback.search.msn.com
- Ask through information@ask.com
If you do run across a site that contains any of the things talked about in this article, you can file a report with any of the search engines.
For permission to reprint or reuse any materials, please contact us. To learn more about our authors, please visit the Bruce Clay Authors page. Copyright 2009 Bruce Clay, Inc.
| | |
