Mar 13
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
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- Search Engine Guide (237)
- Search Engine Land (872)
- Search Engine Roundtable (776)
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Mar 13
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on
Search Engine Land and from other
places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
-
Nine Essential Tactics For Reputation Management In Social Media
On Monday I had the distinct pleasure of speaking to a crowd of about 250 local search marketers at SEMpdx Searchfest in Portland. The audience reaction to my session, entitled “The Dark Side of Reputation Management,” highlighted a stark reality out there in the corporate trenches. While nearly every hand… -
More Yahoo Search Monkey Details: Creating a “Developer Ecosystem for Search”
Two weeks ago at SMX West, Yahoo! announced a new project code named "Search Monkey" that would enable content owners (and in some cases searchers) to add rich content to search results. Today, Yahoo has released additional details about the program, which has not yet launched. Today’s announcement describes how… -
Reputation Monitoring Made Easy, And Free!
A wide array of paid and free tools make it both cheap and easy to track your online reputation. The first point of contact is typically via customer emails, comments on your own site or web analytics data. But not everyone who complains about you brings the complaints directly… -
In Unexpected Move AOL Buys Social Network Bebo For $850 Million
In a somewhat surprising move, given the speculation surrounding AOL and its future, the comany has acquired number three social network Bebo for $850 million in cash. Bebo has a reported 40 million unique users on a global basis. AOL says in its press release, “Together with its AIM and… -
Tagging 10,000 Videos: Science Or Sweat?
In the last SEL video search column, Eric Papczun described the dilemma faced by content producers that are striving to keep-up with the insatiable demand for new video content. Producers are looking for efficient methods of discovering what online viewers are interested in, and then packaging their content to… -
A Small Business Marketing Success Story: Pink Cake Box
Ready for something different? Typically in this space each month, I write a “How To” or “Why To” article with ideas and tips for helping small businesses succeed online. I’d like to go in a different direction: profiles of small businesses that are succeeding online. I’m a big believer… -
Google Ad Manager Targets Medium-Sized Publishers, Seeks Broader AdSense Distribution
Google’s new Ad Manager (currently in a limited beta) is a free, ad serving platform directed toward small and medium-sized publishers that don’t need a complex, customizable solution such as DoubleClick’s DART platform (which Google just acquired). It’s a product for the broad, middle market intended to bring both greater…
Search News From Around The Web:
Business Issues
- "Innovation at Google" 2008 Event Notes, beu blog
- Ex-Googler vents: "Google recruiters are out of touch", Valleywag
- Briefs: AOL and Kroger Partner to Provide New Shopping Search Shortcuts and Coupons, ResourceShelf
- Google rejects adoption of ACAP standard, Journalism.co.uk
- Google, seeking to diversify, looks to government contracts, MarketWatch
- IAC’s Diller says rejected Liberty swap proposals, Reuters
- Liberty, IAC Are in Settlement Talks, Wall Street Journal
- Microsoft Exec Sprints Over to Spot Runner, AllThingsD
- Q&A: Google exec touts company’s fledgling SaaS efforts, ComputerWorld
Local, Maps & Mobile
- UK’s Trusted Places Quietly Enters US, Screenwerk
Link Building
- The Link Building Rap : Hip Hop Meets SEO, Search Engine Journal
- Find Hidden Links On Your Site? Where Did It Come From?, Search Engine Roundtable
Microhoo
- Partial List: Microsoft’s Nominees For The Yahoo Board, TechCrunch
- Source: Yahoo in informal talks with Microsoft, News.com
Paid Search & Contextual
- Helpful tips on our new content network tools, Inside AdWords
- Google AdSense’s Alternative Fill Color Ad Feature Issue, Search Engine Roundtable
- Microsoft adLab Tools Review Part 2 - Keywords , adCenter Blog
- Once Again, Submit Your AdSense Wish List, Search Engine Roundtable
- What Would You Do With Your Google AdSense Account Manager?, Search Engine Roundtable
Searching
- 10 Reasons Why Librarians Should Use Exalead, Alt Search Engines
- 12 Search Engines Which Can Replace Ask.com, Search Engine Journal
- Book info where you need it, when you need it, Official Google Blog
- What does hakia want to become?, Hakia Blog
SEM Industry
- SES NYC - 3 Women Spotlighted at Search Engine Strategies, Search Marketing Gurus
SEO & SEM
- Disgruntled Students: A Reputation Management Nightmare, endlessplain.com
- Redefining Navigational Queries to Find Perfect Sites, SEO By The Sea
- The Holy Grail of Long Tail Information Finally Trackable, SEOmoz
Social Media
- who says librarians (and teachers) don’t like tags, delicious blog
- Fake presidential candidate spam comes to Twitter, VentureBeat
- MySpace Opens Up The OpenSocial Spigot, TechCrunch
Video, Music & Image Search
- Fast facts about YouTube, Mercury News
- Google News Gave FT.com a 75 Percent Traffic Boost, Media Info
Other Items
- The Lost Features of Google, Google Blogoscoped
Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:
- Interview With Social Media Expert Shana Albert
- 12 Search Engines Which Can Replace Ask.com
- The Link Building Rap : Hip Hop Meets SEO
- Spying on Google: What is Spam? What is Relevant? Read This to Find Out
- Increase Your Popularity: How to Choose the Perfect Avatar
- Building Referral Links While You Sleep
- How to Lose Your Clients: Account Management
- Risk Related to SEO
- 10 Good Links You Can Get in the Next 50 Minutes
- Mixx Gets Credibility Boost From NYTimes
- 17 Tips For Getting Bloggers To Write About You
- 8 Tips For Successful B2B Blogs
- Matt Cutts: SEO Advice - Getting Links!
- Ten Things I Learned at SEMpdx SearchFest ‘08
- How to Promote Your Blog through Networking
Mar 13
On Monday I had the distinct pleasure of speaking to a crowd of about 250 local search marketers at SEMpdx Searchfest in Portland. The audience reaction to my session, entitled “The Dark Side of Reputation Management,” highlighted a stark reality out there in the corporate trenches. While nearly every hand in the room enthusiastically shot straight up when asked if they “believed their company should be leveraging social channels,” fewer than 10 were actually engaged in social media marketing—let alone proactive reputation management.
Many were concerned with potentially negative results and cited fear of user-generated negativity as a primary factor limiting willingness to venture forth into social media channels. Some had horror stories to tell. Here are key takeaways which emerged from the session—valuable lessons for any search marketer thinking about using social media as a lever for reputation management.
Mar 13
Third-party publishers will soon be able to create plug-ins that will change the appearance of their listing on a search results page.
Mar 13
Comments Off
Two weeks ago at SMX West,
Yahoo! announced a new
project code named "Search Monkey" that would enable content owners (and in
some cases searchers) to add rich content to search results. Today, Yahoo has
released additional details about the program, which has not yet launched.
Today’s announcement describes how developers can provide Yahoo with this rich
content about their sites by either including structured markup in their pages
or by submitting structured feeds. In addition, Yahoo! is announcing a
"developer ecosystem for search" so third-party developers can create "Enhanced
Results" applications for the Yahoo! Search platform. (Developers can
sign up for the
program here.)
These applications can take advantage of structured data available in public
APIs and the Yahoo! index. Yahoo will provide more details on this program at a
developer launch party they’ll be holding in a few weeks.
Mar 13
by Manoj Jasra
Paid search is much more than bid management and click-throughs, it’s about devising a strategy that compliments your overall online marketing program and providing ROI based on performance which has been quantified at the keyword level. Below are 25 paid search resources ranging from the basics, to best practices, to advanced strategies to measurement.
Learn something from this post?
Come and experience Search Engine Guide style teaching in person! Join us for our first ever Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference in Houston, Texas on April 21st and 22nd.
Mar 13
A wide array of paid and free tools make it both cheap and easy to track your online reputation. The first point of contact is typically via customer emails, comments on your own site or web analytics data. But not everyone who complains about you brings the complaints directly to you or links to your site, instead posting comments on blogs, forums or elsewhere on the web. So how do you track the rest of the conversation going on online? Here’s a set of tools and services that are easy to use, and best of all, many are free.
Mar 13
In a somewhat surprising move, given the speculation surrounding AOL and its future, the comany has acquired number three social network Bebo for $850 million in cash. Bebo has a reported 40 million unique users on a global basis. AOL says in its press release, “Together with its AIM and ICQ personal communications network, the acquisition will give AOL a premier position in the fast growing world of social media with a network of approximately 80 million unique users.”
Mar 13
Ann Smarty poses an interesting question on Search Engine Journal. As blogs are communities, it’s useful to comment and leave your thoughts. But what if you add your link to the comment? Is it spam?
There are numerous tools that can check to see whether the comment is spammy and it depends on your blog installation (MovableType versus WordPress versus any other platform). But Annie notices that search engines are smart enough to factor in whether the comments are spam and also check for relevancy, comment content length, similar content on other blogs, blacklist terms, and other elements to determine whether it’s spam or not. She concludes that if you add relevancy and ensure that you don’t violate these rules, you’re not spamming at all and you’re adding value instead.
In the Sphinn forum discussion, bloggers acknowledge that it’s important to put all comments through moderation (if you care about your blog). Apparently, some people actually do rank well after spamming blogs with their comments. If your blog is your baby, don’t let those comments through.
Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.
Mar 13
A Hitwise post digs into the behavior of searchers and sees whether they prefer searching in the singular or plural. Using the term “laptop” versus “laptops,” it is clear that “laptops” is the winner in search. When investigating nine other terms, the following was discovered:
…[W]hile the results are not conclusive, it does seem that plural terms are better at sending traffic to retailers than singular terms. Two thirds of the products tested performed better as plurals, with technology products in particular skewing in favour of an added ‘s’.
Of course, as one member on Sphinn notices, this is specific to traffic, not necessarily conversions. However, it’s a good first stop. Now can someone compile a report on the conversions? 
Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.
Mar 13
In the last SEL video search column, Eric Papczun described the dilemma faced by content producers that are striving to keep-up with the insatiable demand for new video content. Producers are looking for efficient methods of discovering what online viewers are interested in, and then packaging their content to maximize exposure.
The example used was a television network, one that is mostly concerned with ongoing generation of new content. What’s interesting to note is that, of all the content producers vying for attention on YouTube, television networks are the ones with the most preexisting content to offer.
Mar 13
Three recent link building articles have appeared on Sphinn that are worthwhile for link builders. I’ll walk through each of them and explain why they are important.
In Squeezing the [Link] Juice out of Low Hanging Fruit, Bob Massa talks about how hard work pays off. He emphasizes many points but stresses that you should carefully select quality directories to submit to and submit properly. This way, you don’t have to pay for links.
Matt Cutts wrote a post with SEO advice on links in 2005 and published it on the 11th. He suggests that you should become a resource, provide an ongoing service, be valuable, and keep your product open. Quality content breeds links naturally. If you think about it, has much really changed?
Another post is Loren Baker’s explosive organic and paid link building tips. In this post, Loren says that you should aim for relevancy, selective anchor text, and says that you should not be concerned about nofollow. Sometimes, he acknowledges that you may have to pay for those links and you may want to take advantage of new sites to build your links on. It doesn’t hurt and they will eventually age.
Do you have anything to add? Forum discussion continues at Sphinn (Bob Massa), Sphinn (Matt Cutts), and Sphinn (Loren Baker).
Mar 13
Ready for something different? Typically in this space each month, I write a “How To” or “Why To” article with ideas and tips for helping small businesses succeed online. I’d like to go in a different direction: profiles of small businesses that are succeeding online. I’m a big believer that learning from the successful examples of others is often the best way to grow a small business, and hopefully you’ll agree. Today, I’ll introduce you to a small business that’s baking up a storm via its web site, a blog, public relations, and social media.
Mar 13
As some of you know, we have a new AdSenseAdvisor and this new AdSenseAdvisor is now taking publisher’s feature requests, aka their wish lists for what they would like to see on Google AdSense.
Some items on the wish list include:
- Better Reporting
- Improved Banner Tools
- Let Publisher Pick a Minimum Bid
- Referral Ad Changes
- Clear Up Privacy Policy Rules
- Graphs to Reports
- More Channels
AdSenseAdvisor is taking notes, but also says you can submit your feature requests via this form if you are too shy to share them in the thread.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Mar 13
A Google Groups thread has several smart webmasters aiding a webmaster who found links on his site via the Google cache. In short, the links are not visible when viewing the page in the browser, but they are visible when viewing the page via the Google Cache. He asks how can this be.
One of the cool parts of this thread is that the webmaster won’t give up the URL of his site. So we have smart webmasters and even Googler’s offering ideas on how a link can end up on a site without knowing about it or seeing it.
JLH tells the webmaster to try changing their useragent to see if it is a cloaking thing. The main thing is to first find the problem, then find the source, and then get rid of it. Googler comes in and adds:
JLH beat me to the punch. Thanks for the quick, thorough response, John! I’m sorry to hear about your site–but I agree with his diagnosis. I still wish we had a URL to look at to confirm our suspicions, though.
To fix the problem, I’d look for any scripts (asp, aspx, etc.) that you didn’t write, delete them, and update any CMS you are running, since CMS’s are the most frequent targets of hacks. Usually security holes are used to upload scripts that create and hide the text.
In this case, what was the issue? One of the pages had some bad “code in some user controls (.ascx).” The webmaster added:
One of the files had this script in the page. I deleted/cleaned the page and pasted in to the production environment. We have Front Page Server Extensions and Web DAV.
This is not uncommon at all.
Forum discussion at Google Groups.
Mar 13
Comments Off
AdSenseAdvisor asks in a WebmasterWorld thread, if you had an account manager or advisor to aid you with your Google AdSense account, what would you use the advisor or manager for?
Here are some Google AdSense Account Manager tasks mentioned in this thread:
- Ad optimization
- Better ad targeting
- Increased earning tips
- A way to vent to Google
- Answer policy questions
Do you have ideas? I have an account manager but I personally rarely ever use him.
You can chime in on the thread and have your voice heard.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Mar 13
Google AdSense users who use the “alternate ads or colors” feature and try using the “fill space with solid color” option have been experiencing issues recently. In this case, when a publisher tries to adjust the color of that space to a new color, it simply won’t save.
A Google Groups thread has been tracking this issue since Monday and it still appears to be an issue, even though AdSensePro Ashley, an official Google representative, has confirmed the issue and said it was fixed already.
On the afternoon of March 11th, Ashley said, “our tech team have informed me that this issue has been resolved.” However, additional reports have come in to say otherwise. AdSensePro Ashley has confirmed the new reports and has once again submitted the issue to the tech team.
Forum discussion at Google Groups.
Mar 13
Comments Off
Google’s new Ad Manager (currently in a limited beta) is a free, ad serving platform directed toward small and medium-sized publishers that don’t need a complex, customizable solution such as DoubleClick’s DART platform (which Google just acquired). It’s a product for the broad, middle market intended to bring both greater simplicity but also more control to smaller publishers. It can also be used in combination with other ad serving platforms because Google isn’t asking for exclusivity.
Mar 13
Comments Off
Google’s new Ad Manager (currently in a limited beta) is a free, ad serving platform directed toward small and medium-sized publishers that don’t need a complex, customizable solution such as DoubleClick’s DART platform (which Google just acquired). It’s a product for the broad, middle market intended to bring both greater simplicity but also more control to smaller publishers. It can also be used in combination with other ad serving platforms because Google isn’t asking for exclusivity.