Apr 11
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 11, 2008
in Search Engine Roundtable
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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.

Apr 11
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 11, 2008
in Search Engine Roundtable
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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.

Apr 11
Spite is Not a Marketing Strategy
in Search Engine Guide
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by Jennifer Laycock

Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen multiple instances of companies using spite and or attacks to try and push themselves ahead of their competitors. I imagine in their minds, painting the competition in a poor light makes their own products and services look that much better. Unfortunately for them, they’ve missed a key lesson in both life and marketing. If you have to make someone else look bad in order to make yourself look or feel good, you’ve got a long way to go.

Now I’ll be the first to admit I’m a fan of responding to competitor failures. I think a well timed piece of PR can do an excellent job of showing your company in a positive light when a competitor has fallen on their face. In fact, offering a positive alternative when folks are upset with one company tends to be a great way to launch a positive viral campaign. That said, there’s a big difference between portraying yourself as a positive alternative and kicking someone in the ribs when they’re already on the ground.

Don’t Throw Stones, No Matter What Your House is Made Of

The idea of throwing stones at other kids in the school yard, other businesses in your town and competitors online is nothing new. I’d like to say it’s because we live in a world of political ploys and tabloid journalism, but I think the truth is it’s easy to take pot shots. We also happen to live in a world where it’s easier to eliminate the competition than to compete against them.

Case in point. A few weeks ago I got a call from a friend who was working with a new client. Original Company has been in business for two decades. Last year, New Competitor sprung up and suddenly received a ton of press and attention. In response, Original Company revamped their sales materials and updated their product to go head to head with New Competitor.

Suddenly, Original Company gets a C&D from New Competitor’s lawyer. The letter claims trademark infringement and demands Original Company cease operations. If Original Company doesn’t give in they face a long, protracted legal battle with New Competitor. It was fairly obvious to me that New Competitor simply wanted to shut Original Company down any way they could before the next sales season began.

In other words, New Competitor’s “marketing” strategy was to shut Original Company down rather than compete with them. This is NOT a marketing strategy. In fact, I predict word will get out about what happened and New Competitor will quickly tarnish their own reputation because they’ll be seen as picking on Original Company.

Attack Ads Are Nearly Impossible to Pull Off Well

We see this type of activity in the blogging world as well. Generally, there are no C&D’s flying around, but there are subtle digs, accusations and heated responses directed at competitive blogs. History has proven that when you go on the attack, you get noticed. In fact, attack posts are often one of the easiest ways to generate a slew of new links.

The problem with this style of marketing and/or blogging is that it’s nearly impossible to pull off an “attack” without looking like a jerk. Sure you’ll snag a lot of links, but how many of them are going to result in new readers, repeat visitors and sales? If social media has cemented anything in terms of traffic knowledge, it’s understanding the true value of visitors that convert and the overrated value of traffic for the sake of traffic.

mac.jpgIn fact, about the only attack style ad I can think of in recent history that has worked well is the “I’m a Mac” series from Apple. While the ads blatantly attack the Windows operating system, they do so with such charm and style that even the people being made fun of tend to walk away with a chuckle. Nonetheless, I always advise small businesses to avoid this style of campaign like the plague. It’s simply too hard to do properly.

Learn to Differentiate Yourself in a Positive Way

Instead, I encourage them to play up their positive features. In fact, I actively encourage companies to watch for the PR missteps of their competitors so they can step in with a well timed press release. That press release should never throw stones at the original company, it should simply promote something that promotes your company as a great alternative.

A couple of examples:

When Starbucks decided to cancel a free coffee promotion that had grown beyond their intentions, Caribou Coffee stepped up and said they’d honor the coupons at their stores.

When discount carrier Skybus went belly-up last week and left passengers stranded around the country, competing airlines like US Airway, AirTran and JetBlue stepped up to offer standby seats to ticket holders for a nominal fee.

Earlier this year, a Steak and Shake landed itself in a firestorm of negative press when it refused service to a deaf woman who was unable to order from the drive through speaker. Smaller chain Culver’s received some nice positive press for their innovative drive-thru accommodations for the hearing impaired.

Of course there were other times when I wish someone would respond…

When Delta garnered national attention for kicking a nursing mother and child off one of their flights, competing airlines missed a golden opportunity. A targeted PR and ad campaign making it clear nursing mothers were welcome would have landed them tons of positive press amongst disgruntled mothers.

Be Excellent to Each Other

What it all boils down to is a simple little bit of advice I picked up during one of the many times my husband watched Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. There’s simply no need to run around hurling insults or launching attacks against your competitors. Instead, focus your efforts on what makes your company better than any other. If you can’t find something, then change the way you do business.

Photo credit Theowl84, via Creative Commons license.

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Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing you can afford.

Apr 11
Spite is Not a Marketing Strategy
in Search Engine Guide
Comments Off

by Jennifer Laycock

Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen multiple instances of companies using spite and or attacks to try and push themselves ahead of their competitors. I imagine in their minds, painting the competition in a poor light makes their own products and services look that much better. Unfortunately for them, they’ve missed a key lesson in both life and marketing. If you have to make someone else look bad in order to make yourself look or feel good, you’ve got a long way to go.

Now I’ll be the first to admit I’m a fan of responding to competitor failures. I think a well timed piece of PR can do an excellent job of showing your company in a positive light when a competitor has fallen on their face. In fact, offering a positive alternative when folks are upset with one company tends to be a great way to launch a positive viral campaign. That said, there’s a big difference between portraying yourself as a positive alternative and kicking someone in the ribs when they’re already on the ground.

Don’t Throw Stones, No Matter What Your House is Made Of

The idea of throwing stones at other kids in the school yard, other businesses in your town and competitors online is nothing new. I’d like to say it’s because we live in a world of political ploys and tabloid journalism, but I think the truth is it’s easy to take pot shots. We also happen to live in a world where it’s easier to eliminate the competition than to compete against them.

Case in point. A few weeks ago I got a call from a friend who was working with a new client. Original Company has been in business for two decades. Last year, New Competitor sprung up and suddenly received a ton of press and attention. In response, Original Company revamped their sales materials and updated their product to go head to head with New Competitor.

Suddenly, Original Company gets a C&D from New Competitor’s lawyer. The letter claims trademark infringement and demands Original Company cease operations. If Original Company doesn’t give in they face a long, protracted legal battle with New Competitor. It was fairly obvious to me that New Competitor simply wanted to shut Original Company down any way they could before the next sales season began.

In other words, New Competitor’s “marketing” strategy was to shut Original Company down rather than compete with them. This is NOT a marketing strategy. In fact, I predict word will get out about what happened and New Competitor will quickly tarnish their own reputation because they’ll be seen as picking on Original Company.

Attack Ads Are Nearly Impossible to Pull Off Well

We see this type of activity in the blogging world as well. Generally, there are no C&D’s flying around, but there are subtle digs, accusations and heated responses directed at competitive blogs. History has proven that when you go on the attack, you get noticed. In fact, attack posts are often one of the easiest ways to generate a slew of new links.

The problem with this style of marketing and/or blogging is that it’s nearly impossible to pull off an “attack” without looking like a jerk. Sure you’ll snag a lot of links, but how many of them are going to result in new readers, repeat visitors and sales? If social media has cemented anything in terms of traffic knowledge, it’s understanding the true value of visitors that convert and the overrated value of traffic for the sake of traffic.

mac.jpgIn fact, about the only attack style ad I can think of in recent history that has worked well is the “I’m a Mac” series from Apple. While the ads blatantly attack the Windows operating system, they do so with such charm and style that even the people being made fun of tend to walk away with a chuckle. Nonetheless, I always advise small businesses to avoid this style of campaign like the plague. It’s simply too hard to do properly.

Learn to Differentiate Yourself in a Positive Way

Instead, I encourage them to play up their positive features. In fact, I actively encourage companies to watch for the PR missteps of their competitors so they can step in with a well timed press release. That press release should never throw stones at the original company, it should simply promote something that promotes your company as a great alternative.

A couple of examples:

When Starbucks decided to cancel a free coffee promotion that had grown beyond their intentions, Caribou Coffee stepped up and said they’d honor the coupons at their stores.

When discount carrier Skybus went belly-up last week and left passengers stranded around the country, competing airlines like US Airway, AirTran and JetBlue stepped up to offer standby seats to ticket holders for a nominal fee.

Earlier this year, a Steak and Shake landed itself in a firestorm of negative press when it refused service to a deaf woman who was unable to order from the drive through speaker. Smaller chain Culver’s received some nice positive press for their innovative drive-thru accommodations for the hearing impaired.

Of course there were other times when I wish someone would respond…

When Delta garnered national attention for kicking a nursing mother and child off one of their flights, competing airlines missed a golden opportunity. A targeted PR and ad campaign making it clear nursing mothers were welcome would have landed them tons of positive press amongst disgruntled mothers.

Be Excellent to Each Other

What it all boils down to is a simple little bit of advice I picked up during one of the many times my husband watched Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. There’s simply no need to run around hurling insults or launching attacks against your competitors. Instead, focus your efforts on what makes your company better than any other. If you can’t find something, then change the way you do business.

Photo credit Theowl84, via Creative Commons license.

Want more from your web site?
Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing you can afford.

Apr 11
SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 11, 2008
in Search Engine Land
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Below is what happened in search today, as reported on
Search Engine Land and from other
places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:


  • Google Now Fills Out Forms & Crawls Results
    One of the biggest search challenges has long been that the major search engines like Google cannot crawl material that can only be retrieved through the use of forms. Now Google is filling out those form to obtain the information previously hidden, the company has announced….

  • Yahoo Adds Much More Imagery To Maps
    Yahoo has largely opted out of the mapping arms race between Microsoft and Google that has seen both invest millions in their mapping platforms. While it was the early pioneer of dynamic mapping and use of maps as a local search tool, the company decided to focus on more “practical”…

  • Yahoo’s Minimum Bid Change Happening Next Week
    As expected Yahoo told me that you can expect some of your minimum bids to change as soon as early next week. So if you are running ad campaigns on Yahoo Search Marketing, and your quality is not up to Yahoo’s level, then your minimum bid may spike up. Yahoo…

  • Microsoft Proposes Comprehensive Framework To Protect Consumer Privacy
    Microsoft has added its input to that of a host of other stakeholders in the growing debate over consumer privacy, online ad targeting and potential US (and local) government regulation. (Here’s a related WSJ story on search engine effort to block a proposed anti-tracking law in the New York state…

  • Search In Pictures: Yahoo’s Yoshi Fight, Google Mapping Chicago, Yahoo’s Purple Ball
    In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more….

  • Speculating About The Visual Future Of Search Results
    Danny has written extensively about the past and potential future of search. And this past year we saw the introduction of “blended” or “universal” search. Among other developments, search results became much more “multi-media” and visual. In particular video became part of organic and, most recently, paid search results. Accordingly,…

  • How Flash Can Be Search Engine Friendly
    For a long time there has been a tug of war between developers and designers who love to use Flash and SEOs who know how bad Flash can be from a search engine crawler perspective. The designer wants the beauty of an all Flash site. The SEO wants to bring…

  • New Microsoft Live Maps Rolls Out With Boatload Of Upgrades
    A new version of Microsoft’s Live Search Maps has rolled out (after yesterday’s major traffic and routing upgrade). There’s an enormous range of feature and functionality upgrades, which are explained in some detail on the Virtual Earth blog. There’s also a discussion at CNET. At a crude level, what it…

  • Microsoft Still Favored To Win Yahoo, Madison Avenue Contemplates The Consolidated Online Ad Future And Congress Gets Involved
    Just in case you hadn’t gotten enough news and speculation about the various, potential deals surrounding MicroHoo, AOL and News Corp. there are a flurry of articles (as one might expect) today about all this. The most interesting is probably the one in the Wall Street Journal that interviews ad…

  • The Trouble With All-In-Zero Video Players
    Although YouTube hit pop-culture status just a couple years ago, online video has been a staple of corporate and content websites for quite a bit longer. In that time, web designers have tried many approaches to viewing experience, trying to combine compelling content with a user-friendly interface. After many…

  • In The Trenches, April 11, 2008
    In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today’s in-depth look, “Two Tools That You May Not Have Added To The Toolbox…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

Business Issues

Local, Maps & Mobile

Link Building

Microhoo

Paid Search & Contextual

Searching

SEM Industry

SEO & SEM

Social Media

Video, Music & Image Search

Other Items

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

Apr 11
Google Now Fills Out Forms & Crawls Results
in Search Engine Land
Comments Off

One of the biggest search challenges has long been that the major search
engines like Google cannot crawl material that can only be retrieved through the
use of forms. Now Google is filling out those form to obtain the information
previously hidden, the company has announced.

Click to continue reading…

Apr 11
Google Now Fills Out Forms & Crawls Results
in Search Engine Land
Comments Off

One of the biggest search challenges has long been that the major search
engines like Google cannot crawl material that can only be retrieved through the
use of forms. Now Google is filling out those form to obtain the information
previously hidden, the company has announced.

Click to continue reading…

Apr 11
Yahoo Adds Much More Imagery To Maps
in Search Engine Land
Comments Off

Yahoo has largely opted out of the mapping arms race between Microsoft and Google that has seen both invest millions in their mapping platforms. While it was the early pioneer of dynamic mapping and use of maps as a local search tool, the company decided to focus on more “practical” tools and functionality rather than features such as street-level photography or 3D modeling. However it has continued to do interesting things with maps in a more incremental fashion. But today the Yahoo Local & Maps Blog has details on a big new infusion of aerial and satellite imagery for the US market.

Click to continue reading…

Apr 11
Yahoo’s Minimum Bid Change Happening Next Week
in Search Engine Land
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As expected Yahoo told me that you can expect some of your minimum bids to change as soon as early next week. So if you are running ad campaigns on Yahoo Search Marketing, and your quality is not up to Yahoo’s level, then your minimum bid may spike up.

Yahoo informed us of this change back in late February. For more details on the specifics, please see my write up from then. I will report back on how much this has impacted the average Yahoo advertiser after it goes live.

Apr 11
Microsoft Proposes Comprehensive Framework To Protect Consumer Privacy
in Search Engine Land
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Microsoft has added its input to that of a host of other stakeholders in the growing debate over consumer privacy, online ad targeting and potential US (and local) government regulation. (Here’s a related WSJ story on search engine effort to block a proposed anti-tracking law in the New York state legislature.) In a filing today with the US Federal Trade Commission, Microsoft proposed a “comprehensive framework to protect consumer privacy.”

Click to continue reading…

Apr 11
The Evolution of Social Networks
in Search Engine Watch
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Social networks have grown from small, local offline groups of people with common interests, to larger online groups spread across the world. Even the ease of communicating via the Internet can’t remove the limit on people’s time and attention to maintain multiple networks, though. What’s next?

Apr 11
Search In Pictures: Yahoo’s Yoshi Fight, Google Mapping Chicago, Yahoo’s Purple Ball
in Search Engine Land
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Search In Pictures
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Click to continue reading…

Apr 11
Search In Pictures: Yahoo’s Yoshi Fight, Google Mapping Chicago, Yahoo’s Purple Ball
in Search Engine Land
Comments Off


Search In Pictures
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Click to continue reading…

Apr 11
Weekly Search Buzz Roundup - 04/11/08: Rapid Yahoo Changes, Google Local Algorithm Shift & Google Sued for Private House Images
in Search Engine Roundtable
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search-buzz-roundup.gifBig news this week. Barry loved my weekly roundups so much that he now has a video podcast. And we’re giving away prizes for people who watch the videos. As part of promoting the project, if you spot a piece of schwag in the video, you have to comment on the post and if Barry selects you, you’ll be getting some schwag in the mail. As a heads up, if you want to give away schwag for the event, contact us, and don’t forget about me since this idea would not exist if not for the fact that I love schwag. (Well, maybe not.)

Flickr Videos Are Now Here

Want to watch some video on Flickr? Now you can, since Flickr now supports videos of up to 90 seconds in length. That size is perfect for me. You know, if Barry would just recap the Search Buzz Roundup in 90 seconds, I may actually watch them.

Yahoo Acquires IndexTools

Congratulations to both Yahoo and Indextools for their recent acquisition. Here’s to hoping that the service becomes free. Yippee!

Yahoo Confuses Us

But besides that good news, there’s some confusing news. Barry reports that Yahoo is wowing us with all this interesting news about a possible merger with AOL, a partnership with Google for AdSense ads, a breakup with Microsoft on paid search partnerships, and that News Corp may also try to bid for Yahoo. Whatever it is, please stop. That’s way too much drama for us little people to handle.

MicroHoo Confusion

Microsoft wants to finalize their deal with Yahoo. Yahoo wants more money. This isn’t a story that looks like it can end well. It must be very stressful.

Google Analytics Adds Beta Graph View

Want to see weekly and monthly graphs on your Google Analytics accounts? You can with beta graph view for Google Analytics. Perhaps this is, as commenter Carlos points out, a way to narrow your scope of the new benchmarking tools.

Google isn’t Enforcing the AdWords URL Policy

We’ve been expecting a new Google AdWords URL policy for quite some time. Now that it’s April, the policy is supposed to be in effect. But is it? My sources say no. However, commenters may have observed different behavior. I guess Google will be going through every AdWords account one-by-one to verify the destination URL.

Slimy SEO

Some guy in California (or is he really in CA?) is trying to trademark the acronym SEO. Does he realize how many people he’s angering? If you’re upset by this news, tell the United States Patent and Trademark office about the ramifications of such an action. You wouldn’t want to be charged for using the phrase, would you?

Slimeballs Continued

Speaking of sliminess, if you wanted to penalize your competition in Google, you apparently can. Get some bad inbound links, generated hundreds of links from one IP address, build duplicate content, and apply 301/302 redirects. Google, are you safeguarding against these deceptive practices?

Does a DMOZ Listing Help You Rank?

We polled our readers about the inherent value of a link in DMOZ. The answer was relatively unclear. About half of you thought that the link is powerful, while the other half of you thought it wasn’t.

Block Shady Advertisers in the Google AdSense Ad Review Center

If you’re not liking the advertisers you get in the Ad Review Center, you can block their ad. This only works for placement-targeted ads, though, and not contextually targeted ads. In any event, it’s a cool feature, and here’s a screenshot if you want to see how to do it.

Initial Feedback on Google Ad Manager Reports

Barry showed us Google Ad Manager Reports complete with screenshots that look like they’ve been painted on by a two year old. Nothing personal, Barry. :) In terms of feedback, so far, reaction is mixed. Some love it and others hate it. Will the haters get used to it? They’ll have to.

Your Boring House is on the Internet

If your last name is Boring and you live on a “private road” in Pennsylvania, you’ve been in the news lately because your house has appeared in Google Street View and you’ve decided to sue Google. I believe it’s a little far-fetched to take such an extreme stance. Other readers disagree with me. But the point is that this is America, that’s public property, and photography is not illegal in public areas. Here, you can read the photography bill of rights for more information.

Google Code in Google Universal Search

More and more pages are being added to Google Universal Search. Now, it’s Google Code snippets. This may be completely not helpful, but for some, it may actually teach you how to code. I’d love to hear from programmers themselves. Do you find that the results are just random snippets that have nothing to do with what you’re searching for, or do they help you get past a hump?

Google Suggest Test Expands

More and more people are seeing that Google is offering Google Suggest to their searches. Helpful? What do you say?

Yahoooooooooooooooooo!

Barry has a video of the Yahoo yodeler — an easter egg that you encounter when you click on the exclamation point in the “Yahoo!” logo. Like it? I think it’s fun. :)

Advertise on Google TV

Google is trying to get more advertisers to advertise on TV, according to reports. Are you ready for that?

Google’s Local Algorithm Changes

Barry illustrates how Google’s Local Algorithm has changed and believes it has something to do, perhaps, with new factors, such as ratings and PageRank. What do you think is contributing to the new shift?

Webmaster’s Wish List: Link Unbuilding

Sometimes webmasters don’t like their links. They feel that it can affect them in negative ways. The idea now is to perform link unbuilding — that is, to ask webmasters to take those links down to your site. But wouldn’t it be easier if you can remove icky quality links in Google Webmaster Central? I think this will be in heavy demand in the near future.

May 2nd is SphinnCon North Carolina

Rob Kerry wants you to know that he is an evil green monkey SphinnCon North Carolina is on May 2nd. In fact, that means that the bloke will be on this side of the pond to help organize the event. I believe my friend Jay Young will be helping out as well. I know both of those guys and can tell you that you’re in good hands.