May 07
Daily Search Forum Recap: May 7, 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.

May 07
My Relationship with Facebook: Can We Talk?
in Search Engine Guide
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by Karri Flatla

I’m probably going to lose a lot of Friends with this post, but I need to get some stuff off my chest about Facebook. If you’re a real Friend, you’ll listen without judgment. If not, it was nice Facebooking with you. I hope there are no hard feelings left in my wake.

Like most of us, my love affair with Facebook started out hot ‘n heavy. Almost daily (sometimes even hourly), I watched my Friend meter go up like an investor watches a stock ticker.
And the sheer voyeurism of it all was just so hard to resist. (Admit it, you’ve looked
up at least one ex just to see their profile picture or better yet, get
access to their photo album. And you couldn’t help but smile to yourself when you noticed their Freshman 15 had turned into the Desk Jockey 30.)

Now, the relationship is starting to bore
me and I don’t know what to do about it. In addition to the boredom
(I’m running out of people to spy on, er, I mean beFriend), I find
myself feeling rather annoyed. Often. Yet I don’t want to break up with Facebook either. I just want to keep Funny Face around for those Friday nights
when I want to be amused.

While I’m at it, know what annoys me the most about FF? The constant nattering when I don’t feel
like talking. Only a few of my Friends do it, but they’re kind of
ruining it for my BFFs. Specifically, it’s the constant influx of
emails that is making me want to start deFriending like a highschool cheerleader with PMS. I’m not talking
about FunWall notifications either. I turned those off when I became afraid my hard drive was going to crash from Fun
overload. But seriously, where does it say in the Facebook Terms of Use that it
may be used as a list management tool? Where and when did I give
permission to my Friends to use me this way?

In fact, Facebook’s Terms of Use say this:

“… you agree not to use the Service or the Site to: harvest or
collect email addresses or other contact information of other users
from the Service or the Site by electronic or other means for the
purposes of sending unsolicited emails or other unsolicited
communications …”

So, you can’t harvest emails from your Friends’ profiles to market to
them, but what about the Invite Your Friends feature? And how come it
allows you to “Import Email Addresses” from various sources? Seems that Funny Face has developed a split personality. Or an inflated ego.

This relationship is getting complicated. So many rules–written and unwritten–have been broken. I don’t want to sound like an ingrate. Funny Face has been good to me. We go back at least a few months. The tapestry of our affair is richly decorated.

Decorated with smileys. And hugs. And dirty video clips. And spam.

I just wanted to hook up with some old friends. Do a little B2B networking. And exchange some niceties now and then.

Facebook, you let me down. And I don’t know what to do about it.

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May 07
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 7, 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:


  • The Big List Of Major B2B Search Engines
    Most search marketers focus on Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. But B2B search marketers also have a growing number of vertical search options. Clicks and leads from these vertical search sites may not yield the same traffic as general search engines, but the percentage of qualified traffic and conversions can…

  • From My Inbox: Some Search Tools To Checkout
    After Yahoo-Microsoft madness, a bit of a lull. So I’m cleaning out my inbox and wanted to mention a few items that might be of interest. Below, a way to quickly search blogs & social media sites all at once, a new video search tool, a study into automatic search…

  • Developing In-House SEO Functionality
    My last Search Engine Land post, In-house SEO functionality resonated with many in-house SEOs. “Eletitor” commented on the necessity of getting the entire management team on board for in-house SEO success. Kevin Cheng mentioned the need for preparations prior to hiring any in-house SEO, as well as the bureaucratic…

  • Google, Sprint, Cable Companies Join Forces On Wireless Internet Initiative
    Sprint, the troubled, third largest US wireless carrier has been mulling a spin off or sale of Nextel and has been the subject of takeover rumors itself. It had ambitious plans to roll out a national WiMax network that had seemingly been placed on the back burner. However, today, the…

  • Essential SEO Spring Cleaning For Your Website
    It’s Red Sox season again in Boston. That means we’re at that meteorological intersection of winter and summer: it could very well be 80 degrees or it could snow. While most other parts of the country experience a season called spring, we get a small window of opportunity to…

  • The Elevator Pitch Is Dead. Introducing The Twitpitch
    The landscape of corporate public relations is changing fast. First the press release died and we told you how to write a press release for the social media audience. Now the elevator pitch is dead and here’s how to adapt….

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:

May 07
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 7, 2008
in Search Engine Land
Comments Off

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on
Search Engine Land and from other
places across the web

From Search Engine Land:


  • The Big List Of Major B2B Search Engines
    Most search marketers focus on Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. But B2B search marketers also have a growing number of vertical search options. Clicks and leads from these vertical search sites may not yield the same traffic as general search engines, but the percentage of qualified traffic and conversions can…

  • From My Inbox: Some Search Tools To Checkout
    After Yahoo-Microsoft madness, a bit of a lull. So I’m cleaning out my inbox and wanted to mention a few items that might be of interest. Below, a way to quickly search blogs & social media sites all at once, a new video search tool, a study into automatic search…

  • Developing In-House SEO Functionality
    My last Search Engine Land post, In-house SEO functionality resonated with many in-house SEOs. “Eletitor” commented on the necessity of getting the entire management team on board for in-house SEO success. Kevin Cheng mentioned the need for preparations prior to hiring any in-house SEO, as well as the bureaucratic…

  • Google, Sprint, Cable Companies Join Forces On Wireless Internet Initiative
    Sprint, the troubled, third largest US wireless carrier has been mulling a spin off or sale of Nextel and has been the subject of takeover rumors itself. It had ambitious plans to roll out a national WiMax network that had seemingly been placed on the back burner. However, today, the…

  • Essential SEO Spring Cleaning For Your Website
    It’s Red Sox season again in Boston. That means we’re at that meteorological intersection of winter and summer: it could very well be 80 degrees or it could snow. While most other parts of the country experience a season called spring, we get a small window of opportunity to…

  • The Elevator Pitch Is Dead. Introducing The Twitpitch
    The landscape of corporate public relations is changing fast. First the press release died and we told you how to write a press release for the social media audience. Now the elevator pitch is dead and here’s how to adapt….

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:

May 07
So How Do You Find People on Twitter?
in Search Engine Guide
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by Mack Collier

One of the benefits to spending time on Twitter is that it’s a great
way to network.  But if you are new to Twitter, it can seem difficult
to find people that are in your industry or that share your interests. 
Here’s some tips to help get you started meeting new friends on Twitter!

Al left a comment to my post on Monday that I’m sure many of you that are new to Twitter can sympathize with:

“Okay, I got an account on Twitter and I’ve hit a blank wall,
literally. I can’t seem to get out of my little box. Perhaps Direct is
having the same problem.

There doesn’t seem to be any way to “find” anyone unless you already
know them from somewhere else. How do you make new acquaintances with
similar interests? What’s the point in marketing via Twitter if you
can’t figure out how to get heard?”

This is a real concern, but thankfully there’s several resources that can help you expand your network of friends on Twitter.

First, start on Twitter itself.  At the top right of your Twitter homepage you will see a search box that lets you not only search for people, but also by location or any other term that might be in their Twitter profile.  If you are looking for other Twitter members in Ohio, search for Ohio, and Twitter will give you a listing of all the members that have their location identified as being ‘Ohio’.  Or you can search for anyone with ’search marketing’ in their profile, or ’social media’, or any other term you can think of.

TwitterSearch.jpg

Another great way to find people that share your interests is with the Twitter Packs wiki.  Here you can find Twitter users by subject matter, you can find companies that have a presence on Twitter, and even locate people by region.  If you are interested in meeting other Twitter members that focus on ‘Technology‘, for example, you can view the list, and even add yourself to this same list so that other members can find you!

My favorite search tool for Twitter is Tweetscan.  With Tweetscan, you can search for topics, people, places, anything.  You can also search and make sure that you have seen all the replies to you that other Twitter members have left.  Just search for ‘@YourTwitterName’.  Sometimes the web version of Twitter as well as Twhirl will miss some of your replies.

But perhaps the best way to meet new people on Twitter is to follow the people that your friends are following.  Watch the conversations unfolding, and if you see that one of your friends is having an interesting conversation and replying to someone that you aren’t following, then click on that person’s name and check out their Twitter page.  It could be that they are someone that you would like to follow. 

With these tools, you should be able to expand your Twitter network significantly.  And the best part is, your Twitter experience becomes much richer and more rewarding as you follow more people.

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

May 07
Barack Obama is Rocking the Youth Vote
in Search Engine Watch
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Search and online marketing are playing a significant role in energizing the youth vote. But the way each candidate is using social media is very different.

May 07
The Big List Of Major B2B Search Engines
in Search Engine Land
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Strictly Business - A Column From Search Engine Land Most search marketers focus on Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. But B2B search marketers also have a growing number of vertical search options. Clicks and leads from these vertical search sites may not yield the same traffic as general search engines, but the percentage of qualified traffic and conversions can increase dramatically with leads from these specialized and vertical business-oriented engines. Here’s a roundup of the most important search sites and resources B2B search marketers should be targeting.

Click to continue reading…

May 07
SEM Boot Camp - Paid Search Advertising Roadmap
in Search Engine Guide
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by Diana Adams

I recently had the opportunity to participate in some speed networking at Small Business Marketing: Unleashed. When I told the second person I networked with that I am a PPC manager, she gave me a blank stare and said “I have no idea what PPC is.” She’s not alone.

Many people do know what PPC advertising is, and where paid advertising is displayed, but my experience at SBMU reminds me that this isn’t always the case. So I decided a great first entry for me at Search Engine Guide would be a Boot Camp Style article explaining exactly what paid search advertising looks like.

I tend to talk with my hands, demonstrating what my minds eye is seeing - on the internet, I rely on pictures. So we’re all starting from the same place, I’ll throw out some screen shots of where paid advertising are displayed on the three major search networks and explain some of the not so obvious details. Then, just to keep things interesting, I’ll show you where paid advertising displays in a couple of other search engines.

Google

As Google receives the lion’s share of searches we’ll start with them. There isn’t quite a “hard rule” that is always followed, so I’ll give a brief description of where paid ads, or “sponsored links” typically appear. As a general rule, they always appear to the right of the natural results, and quite often (but not always) as the top three results on the page, above the natural listings. When they do display above the natural results, Google shades the background to make it obvious that they are different results than those below. (even though that shading may mean nothing to someone not knowing what paid advertising looks like.)

Google AdWords

Occasionally, if your search term is very, very obscure, you’ll see only a very few ads, but the most ads that Google will display on any results page is ten. Sometimes there are only one or two ads at the top of the page, and never more than three. But sponsored links always display on the right hand side of the natural results. Google will only ’serve’ ten ads per page; if there are more than ten advertisers, Google pushes them to the next page. If all you want to view are sponsored links, then you can click the “more” displayed just below the sponsored links. But you’ll still see only ten at a time.

Yahoo

Yahoo seems to get the second number of search volume, so they’re second in this discussion. The same general rules that applied to Google, apply to Yahoo as well, but instead of labeling their paid ads as “sponsored links” they’re labeled as “sponsored results.” Above the top sponsored results, Yahoo will display a list of related searches, labeled as “Also try:..” To further muck things up, you might find Google ads displaying amongst the Yahoo ads because they’re currently running a beta test.

Yahoo Search Marketing

MSN

MSN gets the lowest search volume of the three major engines, and again, the rules are very much the same as with Google. Paid ads appear to the right of the natural search results, where they’re identified as “sponsored sites.” As with Google, depending on the search phrase, you may or may not see sponsored sites displayed above the natural results. MSN displays Related Searches above the sponsored sites on the right; be aware that those results are not advertisements.

Microsoft adCenter

So those are the major three players, yet there are dozens of other search engines that people use. Solely for demonstrative purposes, let’s take a look at Ask.com and Dogpile.com.

Ask

Ask has their own search engine and their own paid advertising. In years past they used to display search results from their own database along with results from others, including Google. Now they stick to their own database for natural results. They do however participate as part of Goggle’s search network, and you will find Google ads displayed along with the Ask ads. Ask highlights their ads above the natural results, never along the right side of the page and they label them as “sponsored results“. Along the left side of their search results, they display options that allow you to narrow your search results.

Ask.com

Dogpile

Dogpile is a meta search engine, displaying results from multiple search engines, including Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. The way they display their ads though, is somewhat deceiving. Their “sponsored ads” are a collection from Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask, but the secret is that they are mixed up with the natural results. Unless you read the tag that labels listings as <sponsored by:, you may never recognize that you’re looking at a paid ad.

DogPile.com

So there you have it, your first introduction to what Paid Advertising looks like. Now you’ll never look at a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) the same, and you’ll recognize those hidden advertisements at DogPile. In future posts I’ll cover more of the basics, including the limitations of ad text, the importance of relevance and landing pages, discuss CPC, CTR, and you’ll get familiar with all the alphabet soup of PPC (Pay Per Click) industry. Don’t worry if you don’t know what CPC is, or CTR, you will! If at anytime you have specific questions, by all means, post them as a comment and I’ll try to answer as best I can!

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May 07
Preventing Secure & Non-Secure Site Duplication
in Search Engine Guide
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by Stoney deGeyter

Search engine spiders can be very forgiving with a lot of types duplicate content. I’ve found that, given enough time, the engines can learn when two websites or web pages are complete duplicates of the other. Once they figure this out then they basically understand that a link to one is a link to the other, etc. One version will ultimately be dropped from the index in favor of the other.

There are two basic problems with this. First, it takes time. Until the search engines figure out which dupes should be “merged” you’re essentially splitting link flow between pages. Two inbound links split between each of the duplicate pages produces only half the power than two links both pointing to a single page. So until that merging occurs in the the search index, you’re losing valuable link power.

The second problem is that you leave it to the search engines to decide which of the duplicate pages (or sites) should be dropped from the index. When you let the search engines decide, you lose essential control over your marketing plan.

The less you make the search engines think the better. It’s not only OK, but it’s essential to tell the search engines what to think, especially when it comes to which pages of your site should or should not be included in the index. If you have duplicate pages and don’t keep the search engines from finding and indexing all of them, then you’re forcing them to make the decision for you. Instead, you need to be proactive, let them know which version is the “correct” version.

One issue we’ve come across, especially with e-commerce sites is when products can be accessed via both secure and non-secure URLs.

Secure and non-secure images

This issue is typically caused by poorly implemented site navigation and linking. What happens is that the shopper adds a product to the shopping cart. At that point they enter into the secure pages. But when the shopper continues shopping, instead of proceeding to checkout, they navigate back into the site keeping the https: in the browser URL. This opens up the entire site to be indexed using secure URLs, creating duplicates of the non-secure URLs

There are a couple fixes to this. The first is to not allow your visitors to enter the secure areas of the site until they are ready to check out.

Shop, Cart, Checkout

There is no reason to pass your visitors into the secure part of your site when they add products to their cart. The place to go secure is when they hit the checkout button. But–and this is important–if they enter the secure check out process but want to leave it to continue shopping, they need to be placed back into non-secure pages.

This leads us to our second fix: Use absolute URLs in all site navigation and shopping cart pages.

Quick refresher: an absolute link uses the full domain name in the link:

http://www.site.com/category/product.html

A relative link only uses the path from current location to the destination:

../product.html

When using relative links, if the shopper is already on an secure (https:) URL then they’ll stay on secure URLs. When you use absolute links then you are forcing the visitor to go http: instead of https:.

When shoppers can access secure and non secure versions of the same page, then likely the search engines can as well. This creates almost a complete duplicate of your site, one secure and one non-secure version. Using absolute links will ensure that at no point can a regular page be accessed in secure mode, thus preventing the duplication.

This article is a continuation in my series on duplicate content. Follow the links below to read more:

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

May 07
Preventing Secure & Non-Secure Site Duplication
in Search Engine Guide
Comments Off

by Stoney deGeyter

Search engine spiders can be very forgiving with a lot of types duplicate content. I’ve found that, given enough time, the engines can learn when two websites or web pages are complete duplicates of the other. Once they figure this out then they basically understand that a link to one is a link to the other, etc. One version will ultimately be dropped from the index in favor of the other.

There are two basic problems with this. First, it takes time. Until the search engines figure out which dupes should be “merged” you’re essentially splitting link flow between pages. Two inbound links split between each of the duplicate pages produces only half the power than two links both pointing to a single page. So until that merging occurs in the the search index, you’re losing valuable link power.

The second problem is that you leave it to the search engines to decide which of the duplicate pages (or sites) should be dropped from the index. When you let the search engines decide, you lose essential control over your marketing plan.

The less you make the search engines think the better. It’s not only OK, but it’s essential to tell the search engines what to think, especially when it comes to which pages of your site should or should not be included in the index. If you have duplicate pages and don’t keep the search engines from finding and indexing all of them, then you’re forcing them to make the decision for you. Instead, you need to be proactive, let them know which version is the “correct” version.

One issue we’ve come across, especially with e-commerce sites is when products can be accessed via both secure and non-secure URLs.

Secure and non-secure images

This issue is typically caused by poorly implemented site navigation and linking. What happens is that the shopper adds a product to the shopping cart. At that point they enter into the secure pages. But when the shopper continues shopping, instead of proceeding to checkout, they navigate back into the site keeping the https: in the browser URL. This opens up the entire site to be indexed using secure URLs, creating duplicates of the non-secure URLs

There are a couple fixes to this. The first is to not allow your visitors to enter the secure areas of the site until they are ready to check out.

Shop, Cart, Checkout

There is no reason to pass your visitors into the secure part of your site when they add products to their cart. The place to go secure is when they hit the checkout button. But–and this is important–if they enter the secure check out process but want to leave it to continue shopping, they need to be placed back into non-secure pages.

This leads us to our second fix: Use absolute URLs in all site navigation and shopping cart pages.

Quick refresher: an absolute link uses the full domain name in the link:

http://www.site.com/category/product.html

A relative link only uses the path from current location to the destination:

../product.html

When using relative links, if the shopper is already on an secure (https:) URL then they’ll stay on secure URLs. When you use absolute links then you are forcing the visitor to go http: instead of https:.

When shoppers can access secure and non secure versions of the same page, then likely the search engines can as well. This creates almost a complete duplicate of your site, one secure and one non-secure version. Using absolute links will ensure that at no point can a regular page be accessed in secure mode, thus preventing the duplication.

This article is a continuation in my series on duplicate content. Follow the links below to read more:

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

May 07
From My Inbox: Some Search Tools To Checkout
in Search Engine Land
Comments Off

After Yahoo-Microsoft madness, a bit of a lull. So I’m cleaning out my inbox
and wanted to mention a few items that might be of interest. Below, a way to
quickly search blogs & social media sites all at once, a new video search tool,
a study into automatic search queries, an awesome Twitter search tool, a way to
track search rankings over time and a compilation of Google help info for site
owners, from Google, in PDF form.

Click to continue reading…