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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.

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

From Search Engine Land:

• You Can Search Techmeme
  You can now search for past Techmeme articles directly on the site or at http://techmeme.com/search/. Techmeme’s founder, Gabe Rivera, announced the new feature today at his blog. He explained that the Techmeme search engine only searches full headlines on Techmeme, in reverse chronological order but not “discussions” listed under the…
• Yahoo Search Marketing Console Updated With Minor Enhancements
  The Yahoo Search Marketing blog announced that they have released several minor updates to make the use of the search ad console easier for advertisers to work with. Here is a list of changes and enhancements made to the system:…
• Nielsen: Google Hits New Search Share High
  Another ratings service shows Google hitting an all-time high for search share in the United States. This is according to April 2008 search share stats from Nielsen Online that were released (PDF) today. Last week, Hitwise also reported Google hitting a new record. Microsoft also dips below the 10…
• Today’s MicroHoo Roundup: Google Considers Its Response, Google Says It Would “Hire” Yang, Icahn Might Be Thwarted By Slimmed-Down MicroHoo & MSN Reorgs
  Yesterday at Google HQ in Mountain View, during the Q&A session following the discussion of Google Health, a reporter sneaked in a question about Microsoft-Yahoo. Marissa Mayer declined to answer the question, as Google CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founders Brin and Page were mulling their collective response to the new…
• US Senator, Lieberman, Asks For Al-Qaeda Content To Be Removed From YouTube
  US Senator, Joe Lieberman, asked Google’s Eric Schmidt to remove terrorist videos, including those of Al-Qaeda, to be removed from YouTube. In response, Google has removed some of these videos. Lieberman, in his role as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs explained “Islamist terrorist…
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 19, 2008
  Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web….
• Screen Shots Of Google Health
  Greg Sterling is now at Google, for the Google Factory tour and the news is already buzzing about the US launch of Google Health. Greg may swing by and postscript with some of the details he learned from Google’s presentation, until then, let me share with you screen captures of…
• How to Solve Communication and Differentiation Problems
  Last week, Page Zero Media held a seminar in Toronto called Winning the Paid Search Game. In the intensive half day seminar, we focused on tactical PPC issues like ad copy generation, landing page optimization and the differences between the search engines. But strategy is possibly even more important…
• The “Google Factory Tour”: Display Ads Coming In Image Search, Google Health Live
  I’m at the “Google Factory Tour,” which is presenting bloggers and the press with an update on the state of search and search-related product development at Google. Apparently there are going to be some updates on Google Health later. The first announcement today, however, is about the integration of image…
• Bienvenido To Search Engine Land En Español!
  We’re very happy to announce Search Engine Land en Español, which is being produced by our SMX Madrid partners OME. It has launched to coincide with the opening of the first SMX Madrid show tomorrow. On the site, you’ll find selected articles from Search Engine Land which have been translated…
• Display Stumbles As Search Remains Strong
  The NY Times has a wide ranging article that discusses online ad trends and the apparent weakening of the display segment, which is roughly 21 percent of online ad spending. The article discusses how marketers are looking for measurable results and concrete audiences and in that context niche networks/sites are…
• MicroHoo Act III: Microsoft Looks For A Piece Of Yahoo, Yahoo Offers A Bland Response, Facebook Wants Its Independence
  Yahoo responded late last night to Microsoft’s statement that it had proposed a new deal but something less than a full acquisition. The Yahoo response was boilerplate and bland and betrayed nothing about Yahoo’s potential receptiveness to a scaled-back deal. The speculation and rumor is that Microsoft wants to buy…
• Google Aids Indian Government In Arrest Of Political Defamer
  TechCrunch reports that Google has aided in the arrest of an Indian man who wrote in an Orkut community, “I hate Sonia Gandhi.” Sonia Gandhi is a politician in India. Google reportedly handed over IP information to the Indian government, to help the government track down and arrest this individual….
• NearbyNow About To Make Local (Product) Search Widely Available
  There are a handful of companies that have been building local product inventory databases, many of them under the radar. They include Krillion, NearbyNow, Shopatron, Where2GetIt, Channel Intelligence and ShopLocal. Krillion was the first to start syndicating that data. But NearbyNow is now going to take its billion product database…
• Google Enables Third Party Tracking For Content Network
  Google has announced that they will now support the ability for advertisers to track their ads using third party advertising tags. This new feature is only available within Google’s content network (aka AdSense) and only available for North America based advertisers. In the past, the only way to track your…
• YouTube Adds Search Suggestions, Demographic Stats, Google Contacts Import & More
  Over the past week, YouTube has announced the addition of several features. In a recent YouTube blog post, YouTube announced the addition of search suggestions on YouTube.com, the import of your Google contacts and a new and improved notification system for video comments. Plus, the Google Blog announced the addition…
• 10 Fundamental Tips To Improve Your SEO
  In my colleague Matt Lester’s recent Search Engine Land column he discussed ten tips for a more effective paid search campaign. For this article, I’ll follow up Matt’s advice with ten tips to help you develop a more effective Search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. But before we dive into…
• Microsoft And Yahoo Apparently Back At The Bargaining Table
  What would Sunday afternoon/evening be lately without more intrigue in the MicroHoo drama? Today was no exception as Redmond issued a cryptic statement that says it’s offering to join forces with or acquire some of Yahoo — potentially the search business — in a deal short of the total acquisition…
• Google Celebrates Bauhaus B’Day With “Broken” Logo
  I love Google’s special holiday logos, which typically honor unique individuals or special holidays. Today Google has a special logo recognizing the birthday of Bauhaus (”house of building”) founder Walter Gropius. But it’s a weird tribute: In some respects, the logo can be seen as a rendition of the Googleplex…
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 16, 2008
  Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web….
• Search Biz: Guerilla Artists Protest Google, Search Tops Online Spending Categories, Google Potentially Moving Mini To The Cloud, Predictions About Google Consumer Marketing
  Other than discussion of online advertising revenues, it’s an all-Google day for Search Biz: rumors of Google Mini being replaced by a hosted solution, a “public art” protest about Google doing business with the Chinese government and speculation about the future of consumer marketing at Google….
• Creating An Enhanced Listing With Yahoo!’s SearchMonkey Application Development Platform
  I’ve been playing around with Yahoo!’s slick new SearchMonkey Application Platform which was first introduced by Amit Kumar, Director of Product Management at Yahoo! Search, at the SMX West conference earlier this spring. Yahoo! hosted a Developer Launch Party yesterday in Sunnyvale top open the platform up to all…
• Search In Pictures: Disposable Cups, Google’s Great Firewall, & Yahoo’s Bird Problems
  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….
• Google Adds Real Estate Pull-Down Filter To Maps
  Google has offered the capacity to search real estate listings for a long time. For example, when entering queries such as “homes for sale in San Francisco,” a “one box” result used to show pull-down menus for “location” and “listing type.” Activating these boxes would then lead into a specialized…
• Google Feeling Green: Testing Green Color Scheme
  iCrossing reported noticing that Google is showing a green user interface within the Google Directory search results and also, in some occasions, for main Google web search results. The most shocking green interface is when you look compare the typical blue bar to a green bar, when Google is showing…
• Google Logo: First Laser Logo
  Google has a special logo up on the home page today, a laser logo. The logo links to a search results for first laser, which shows image results at the top, followed by search results from University of Chicago, Wikipedia and then Propeller.com. Why does Google have a laser logo…
• Search Engine Accreditation Programs, Google Tools, Part 2, & Visual Map Of Website Links
  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: Search engine accreditation programs, today’s in-depth look, “Google Tools, Part 2″ and this week’s free tips and tools….
• Human Hardware: The Illusion of Conscious Searching
  You know what you’re doing, right? We are all rational beings. We are all blessed with huge neocortexes and use them on a regular basis. This is especially so when we do something as thoughtful as use a search engine. Our rational loop is kicked into high gear. Right?…
• Yahoo To Icahn’s Takeover Letter: We’re Just Fine, Thank You Very Much
  Dear Carl. We here at Yahoo got your letter telling us how much we suck. We think you suck more And let us tell you why. That’s the short summary of Yahoo’s response to Carl Icahn’s letter yesterday telling Yahoo he will fight to oust their board and do a…
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 15, 2008
  Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web….
• Carl Icahn Makes His Move To Oust Yahoo Board, Which Has “Completely Botched” Microsoft Merger Talks
  As Danny reported earlier, Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is making a proxy move to oust the Yahoo board in an effort to reignite takeover talks with Microsoft. Just a few minutes ago a press release was issued by Icahn explaining his intentions and rationale….
• Yahoo! SearchMonkey Now Open For Everyone
  Today, Yahoo! is making its SearchMonkey developer platform publicly available and is kicking things off with a launch party and a developer challenge. As we noted a few weeks ago when SearchMonkey launched in private beta, Yahoo! is encouraging the use of microformats and semantic web standards by providing an…
• How Search Engine Redirect Users To Country-Specific Sites
  Yahoo just started redirecting people in the UK who are trying to reach Yahoo.com instead to its Yahoo UK web site, something that Google has done for a long time. With the change, this seemed a good time to revisit how all the major search engines may intercept people trying…
• Google Maps Adds “More” Button For Displaying Videos, Pictures, Wikipedia & More Content
  Google’s LatLong Blog announced new ways of finding more content on Google Maps, including geo-tagged YouTube videos, pictures from Panoramio and localized Wikipedia content. We already covered the Google Maps Explore feature, but let me take you through similar content by way of the new “More” button. Lets travel to…
• Supercharge Your URLs For Maximum SEO Impact
  When optimizing URLs for high rankings, little attention is given to optimizing the URL for maximum clickthrough. Yet the URL undeniably affects searcher clickthrough rates in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), as demonstrated by MarketingSherpa in their eyetracking study published in the 2008 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide. Specifically,…
• Ask.com Buying Lexico, Owner Of Dictionary.com
  In a move that is interesting and perhaps even surprising for several reasons, IAC/Ask is buying Lexico Publishing Group, which owns and operates “iconic” domains Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com. These sites get most of their traffic through direct navigation and will increase Ask’s reach by 145 million unduplicated users (or…
• What Are Your Search Questions For Microsoft President Kevin Johnson?
  In about three weeks, I’ll be asking Microsoft president Kevin Johnson, who oversees the Windows and Online Services division, questions relating to search as part of his keynote at our SMX Advanced search marketing conference in Seattle, June 3-4. I want your help! What questions would you like to see…
• Icahn To Make Yahoo Move; Google Worries Yahoo Will Learn From Ad Deal
  More rumors about yesterday’s news that Carl Icahn may want to take control of Yahoo. He apparently plans to nominate 10 directors to replace Yahoo’s board later today, reports the Wall Street Journal, using an unnamed source. But Microsoft might no longer be interested in Yahoo. Plus, that Google-Yahoo ad…
• Eight Keyword Research Mistakes That Are Costing You Money
  One of the reasons search marketing is so effective is that it delivers information on products and services to people who are actively seeking them out. People enter search terms into a search engine and the engine provides sites and ads that are relevant to the terms. This arrangement…
• All New SMX Local & Mobile Agenda Now Up
  This year’s SMX Local & Mobile conference features two jam-packed days of cutting edge sessions, enlightening keynotes and stimulating networking opportunities. See the agenda here for this event, which will be held July 24-25 in San Francisco. SMX Local & Mobile is the only event 100% dedicated to getting internet…
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 14, 2008
  Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web…
• Google & Other Search Engines Dominate Traffic Drivers To Wikipedia
  When writing about Powerset this week, I covered how its hopes to gain Wikipedia users was complicated by the fact that Wikipedia itself gets so many people from search, rather than direct navigation. New stats (PDF) from Nielsen Online reaffirm this — four of the five top referring sites to…
• Hitwise: Google Again Hits New High; Microsoft & Yahoo Again New Lows
  Hitwise released the latest statistics for search engine share in the United States for April 2008. Google has again hit a new high, jumping up 0.65% from the prior month’s high, to 68% of the US search market. Microsoft and Yahoo hit all-time lows — though Yahoo, at least,…
• Summize Gains “Local” Twitter Search Option
  Summize has already turned into my preferred tool to search for what people are saying on Twitter. Now it’s gained a way to see what people are twittering about near a local area. Say I want to see what’s been happening in Newport Beach, California, in terms of Twitter activity….
• Travel Search Engine Kango Relaunches As UpTake
  Does the world need more travel sites and search engines? UpTake (formerly Kango) thinks so. Travel is one of the most developed and “mature” vertical online. It’s also one of the most competitive segments. However, there’s still considerable frustration in doing online travel planning notwithstanding the plethora of tools and…
• Google Updates Earth Imagery & Begins To Blur Faces
  Google has announced a new earth imagery update has been pushed out to their mapping product. With that update, Google has updated their Manhattan images, which includes higher quality images, better naming of specific buildings and areas, plus Google has begun blurring the faces of people in their street view…
• Increase Online Registrations By Improving Downloadable Assets
  Many B2B search marketing programs are designed to generate online registrations, inquiries and leads. Typically, something of value (such as a white paper, product demo, or presentation) is offered in exchange for personal contact information. Today I’ll offer three tips to enhance the value of these downloadable assets and…
• Are We In-House SEO Experts? Not Really… And Here’s Why
  When you hear the phrase “in-house SEO expert” or “in-house SEO,” certain things immediately flash to mind. There’s the glamour bits built around the perceptions fostered from hearing of six-figure salaries, or direct involvement in big projects and depth of contact many in-house search marketers seem to have within…
• Can Icahn Or Microsoft Stop Google’s “Natural Monopoly”
  Reports are that Carl Icahn has acquired about 3 percent of Yahoo’s shares, apparently in hopes of taking over the company. And then? Well, you know — maybe go back to Microsoft. Except Microsoft may no longer want to talk, plus that poison pill of a Google-Yahoo ad deal still…
• Searching for “Kitten Videos?” Me Neither
  A new survey from ClipBlast! about how people find video content has started a discussion about search and how it relates to entertainment content. In the survey, ClipBlast! asked 1000 online consumers if they had a preferred method for finding video content on the Web. Of those surveyed, almost…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• AOL gives out $100,000 in prizes to AIM plugin coders, Download Squad
• FeedBurner FeedFlare for Blogger Comments, Google Operating System

Business Issues

• Google Health, privacy, and HIPAA, Google Public Policy Blog
• Terry Semel: A Man Of Few Words (On Yahoo), TechCrunch
• A Gamble, but What if He Wins?, New York Times
• Another hedge fund backing Icahn on Yahoo, Reuters
• Baidu Catches Yahoo as Microsoft Bid Wobbles: Chart of the Day , Bloomberg
• Google co-founder targets Russian homeland, Reuters
• IAC buys virtual fashion site GirlSense.com, Reuters
• ImageShack Rumored To Raise Money From Sequoia, TechCrunch
• Yandex To Raise Up To $2 Billion at IPO In Fall 2008, Quintura blog
• Yet Another Microsoft Memo. Satya Nadella, VP of Search Writes, GigaOM

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google News Layer Available for Google Earth, Google Earth Blog
• Google’s Local Ad Targeting Strategies, Screenwerk
• Yell Launches Facebook Application, Screenwerk

Link Building

• Home Builder Links - "DoFollow" Tuesday, Link Building Best Practices
• Link Buys & Link Exchanges: Should You Compete in a Google World?, Search Engine Roundtable

Paid Search & Contextual

• V5 Reporting Sample in Java Now Available on MSDN - adCenter API, adcentercommunity.com
• adCenter API Live Meeting Tomorrow — - adCenter API, adcentercommunity.com
• Better? You Bet, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
• Big News for Publishers: Google AdSense Now Supports Third-Party Ad Serving Technology, Search Engine Roundtable
• Constructing an Effective Call to Action for Your Ad Copy - adCenter Advertiser, adcentercommunity.com
• Web monitoring for ads? It may be illegal, News.com

Searching

• A German search engine for cheap flight tickets, altsearchengines.com
• RSS Feed ranking, reading, ignoring and locating the right waterfall, The Social Networker
• Firefox addon summarizes Google search results, Pandia

SEM Industry

• Matt Cutts Electrocuted By Solar Panels [Video], Solar Dave
• New Googler Spotted, JLH Design Blog

SEO & SEM

• Don’t Hire a Butcher to do a Baker’s Job - Part 2 , Search Engine Watch
• How to Fail at Social Marketing, Search Engine Guide
• How to Use Your WWW. to Prevent Duplicate Content, Search Engine Guide
• Image Hotlinking and SEO : Are There Any Benefits?, Search Engine Journal
• Players With Money - Devastating The SERPS, Andy Beard
• Possible Ask.com Search Update?, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEO & Checking Your Page Size, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• Blogging 2.0 and Professional Blogging, Inquisitr
• Destroy Enemies Using Social Media Tools, AIM Clear Blog
• Adopting Social Media in the Enterprise, Online Marketing Blog
• Bubble Alert: Facebook Traffic Declines 10% in April, mashable.com
• How Many Social Networking Friends do you Have?, Marketing Pilgrim
• How to Make Facebook Useful Again, Read/Write Web
• Power-Tweeting: 101 Everyday Uses for Twitter, Inside CRM
• Social Media Marketing in an Enterprise Environment, Search Engine Watch
• Twitter as the canary in the news coalmine, BuzzMachine

Video, Music & Image Search

• BBC’s Sound Index is good, but we won’t get the data, TechCrunch
• Hulu Shares Usage Stats, Expands Distribution Network, TechCrunch
• Videos Taken Down From YouTube, Google Operating System

Web Analytics

• Google Restores Google Analytics Data, Search Engine Roundtable

Other Items

• Can You Win Back A Scorned Evangelist?, BruceClay.com
• Google China’s Homepage in Mourning, Google Operating System
• Steve Ballmer egged at Hungarian University, CNet

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

• Image Hotlinking and SEO : Are There Any Benefits?
• Enhanced Image Search - What Is It Like?
• Register Country Specific Domains To Help With Local SEO
• Is Your Grasp of Search Engine Optimization Optimized?
• Does My CEO Really Need a Facebook Profile?
• Image Alt Text Vs. Image Title
• 7 Tips for Keeping Your SEM Consulting Clients Happy
• How to Go from Nothing to 550,000 Social Media Visitors in One Month
• White Hat Cloaking anyone? Hamlet Batista accepted to speak about it at SMX
• SERP Clickthrough Experiment Update
• Digg Users Revolt, The Digg Controversy, and The Responses
• What’s the ROI on SEO? (Hint: SEO Experts Are Underpaid, Opportunity Abounds !)
• Site Going Down for Maintenance? Avoid One Large Brand’s SEO Blunder
• How Search Engines May Substitute Other Search Terms for Yours
• Digg Gets Vulgar, But Only Once They Know You

You can now search for past Techmeme articles directly on the site or at http://techmeme.com/search/.

Techmeme’s founder, Gabe Rivera, announced the new feature today at his blog. He explained that the Techmeme search engine only searches full headlines on Techmeme, in reverse chronological order but not “discussions” listed under the headlines.

Click to continue reading…

The Yahoo Search Marketing blog announced that they have released several minor updates to make the use of the search ad console easier for advertisers to work with. Here is a list of changes and enhancements made to the system:

Click to continue reading…

The Yahoo Search Marketing blog announced that they have released several minor updates to make the use of the search ad console easier for advertisers to work with. Here is a list of changes and enhancements made to the system:

Click to continue reading…

Today’s search engine marketing news and opinion: Conducting a Redirect Audit on Your Web Site; CEO Tells Wall St. Why He Invests in SEO; Convincing the Executive Team to Invest in SEO; and more.

Another ratings service shows Google hitting an all-time high for search
share in the United States. This is according to April 2008 search share stats
from Nielsen Online that were
released (PDF)
today. Last week, Hitwise also reported Google hitting a new record. Microsoft
also dips below the 10 percent mark for the first time.

Click to continue reading…

by Jennifer Laycock

Yesterday I spent the day at a small conference here in Columbus put on by Ohio Web Leaders. They’d asked me to come and speak about blogging for business and blog marketing to a mix of small business, PR types and in-house marketers. Now I always try to break things down into every day life examples, but thanks to an off handed comment about Nutella, I had a chance for a great object lesson.

During a morning session on social media and social networks, Bill Balderaz of The Buzz Saw shared some information about different companies that had collected followers on Facebook. One of the companies he mentioned was Nutella, which currently has just under 140,000 fans on Facebook. What’s interesting is that Bill made an offhanded comment about not even knowing what Nutella was, which sparked a conversation among the attendees. We explained that it was a dreamy chocolate-hazelnut spread. Then he asked what you did with it, and I told him I eat it with animal crackers, but in Europe, they melt it and put it on crepes and ice cream. The conversation lasted about three minutes, and made for an interesting little aside.

As he continued in his talk, I had an idea of how to introduce an “object lesson” to my talk. So I snuck out the back door and drove down the street to a grocery store. Once I got there, I picked out two boxes of animal crackers and three jars of Nutella. (I couldn’t buy two for the talk and not buy one for myself!)

We went to lunch and sat through a panel discussion on how companies are handling online marketing in-house. By the time I got up to give my talk on blogging, nearly everyone in the room had forgotten about our little Nutella conversation.

During the course of my talk, I shared some insight into pitching bloggers. I talked about the need to research the blogger, to read their blog, to follow them on social networks and to get a feel for who they are. I talked about how to put pitches together and the differences in pitching men and women. I explained the concept of women as “gatekeepers” of their relationship and the need to equip them to spread the word instead of asking them to share their contacts with you.

Then I moved on to tracking the conversation about your company online. I shared a little bit of insight into free tools like Technorati and Google Alerts and how you can set them up to trigger emails to you whenever someone mentions your company or your product. Then the object lesson began.

Here’s a recap of what I shared…

Let’s say this conference we’re attending was taking place online and the conversation was happening via a blog or a social network. That would leave a text record of everything we’d talked about so far today. If I worked for, say…Nutella and I had this type of tracking setup, I would have gotten an email notice about Bill’s talk this morning. I would have been able to go to his blog and read his comment about how Nutella had a ton of followers online and I would have learned that Bill had never had Nutella.

If I’d had time to take the example further, I might have brought out a case of Nutella and a family size bag of animal crackers and explained that if I wanted to reach Twitter users or “geeks” I’d suggest they throw a party and let me provide the Nutella and cookies.

The example made for some laughs (and gave me an excuse to buy some Nutella) but it also drives home a solid point. Most of the people in the room listened to Bill’s little aside about Nutella that morning and thought nothing more of it. As a marketer, my brain immediately said “well geeze, Nutella needs to get in touch with Bill and have him try the product.”

Of course it’s important to note that this type of marketing isn’t just about scoring blog mentions these days. Twitter has created a conversational environment free of the “I need a topic” constraints of blogging. That means even if Bill didn’t blog about how much he loved the Nutella, there was as chance he might Twitter about it.

Considering I’ve already headed off to Etsy this morning to purchase some “Fat Daddy” Cupcakes simply because I saw someone Twitter about how fantastic they are, I can see the power of the potential cross-over conversation. In fact, if you go and look on Tweetscan to see who has mentioned Nutella in twitter posts in the last few days, you’ll see a wide range of conversation. You’ll also see how the conversation spreads among users.

It’s easy enough to write off those passing conversations as something that doesn’t matter. It’s easy enough to focus only on the negative or positive comments and to try and follow-up with them. In reality, each and every mention of your company online is a chance to make an impact. Taking a few minutes to find out the context of the conversation and the reach of the writer can go a long way toward helping you find an opportunity to gently plug your product online.

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

by Diane Aull

There’s a lot of buzz lately about “social media.”

People are saying effective participation in sites such as StumbleUpon, Facebook and del.icio.us can lead to increased traffic, more customers and a stronger online reputation for you.

But what if you don’t want these things? Here are a few tips guaranteed to help you alienate potential customers, damage your online reputation and annoy community members at any site you join.

• Join as many social bookmarking sites as you can find. StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Digg, Mixx, Sphinn, Fetch, Propeller, etc. Once there, invite everyone you can find to “connect.” You probably won’t know very many of these people and they probably won’t know you. Don’t let that hold you back. You’re counting on the law of averages. If you invite enough people to connect, eventually at least some of them will connect back, even though they don’t know you from Adam’s housecat. And you’ll need to have a big enough audience to make it worth your while when you start submitting content to these sites. Quantity is the important concept. The quality of these so-called “friendships” is really not a concern, because you’re not going to be wasting time with all that “interaction” stuff anyway.

• Save time and energy when you submit content! Submit the exact same pages, with the exact same description, to all the social bookmarking and social news sites. Cut-and-paste is your friend here. Your time is valuable, there are a ton of these sites, and (if you’re doing it right) you’re a member of pretty much all of them. There’s no point wasting time figuring out what sort of content is appropriate for each site. If the other members at a particular site don’t like some of your submissions, that’s not your problem. The point is, in order to not like it, they must have seen it to start with. And that’s the whole idea — to be seen.

• Crucial: only submit your own stuff, never anyone else’s. Consistency is important, and you don’t want to confuse anyone. Besides, your content is more important than theirs, anyway.

• Submit every blog post, every article, every product page you create. Don’t concern yourself with quality — once more, quantity should be your watchword. After all, you never know which specific item will interest people, and you want to make sure they’re exposed to as much of your content as possible. It’s that “being seen” thing again.

• Every time you submit new content to social bookmarking sites, IM or email every one you know and ask them to “vote up” your submission. Don’t waste time trying to figure out whether the article or post would be of interest to them, or even if they’re a member of the particular social bookmarking site you’re asking about. Let them sort it out for themselves. They won’t mind, even if you end up pitching them several times for the same submission. In fact, they’ll probably be flattered you’ve thought of them. (At least, that’s what you can tell yourself.) If anyone complains, they’re probably just jealous of how prolific you are.

• As with the social bookmarking sites above, join every social networking site you can find (Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Naymz, etc.) and immediately start “friending” everyone you can. Do the same on Twitter. It’s that law of averages thing again. Remember, the goal is simply to have as many “friends” as possible. Don’t fret over how much time it might take to keep up with all these “friends.” You’re not going to actually try to engage any of them in conversation. You simply want to make sure you have a looooong list of people to whom you can forward all your new product announcements, blog posts and other pearls of wisdom. If you automate your site updates properly, you may never need to log in to the networking site at all, except when you want to track down more victims “friends.”

• Every time you write and post anything, also use Twitter to announce the update. Don’t use Twitter for anything else (especially actual conversation) though. You don’t want to dilute the impact of your new content announcements. Bonus hint: save time! There are “bots” or blog plugins you can install that will do this automatically for you, so you don’t have to spend any time on it, or even log in to Twitter yourself, at all. Everybody knows Twitter is simply a waste of time anyway, so no point in using it in person and risking getting sucked in.

• Use your “friend” lists on all those networking sites as secondary channels to incessantly pitch your content and beg for votes on the social bookmarking and social news sites. Because, of course, not everyone uses Twitter (yet), email can be unreliable and IM is inefficient (as you can only IM one person at a time — how lame is that?). This way, you can be sure your message will reach all your contacts, no matter what. People will appreciate your thoroughness.

Just follow these few simple steps, and you may never have to worry about the problems of overloading your server with excessive traffic from your social media marketing efforts or having “too many followers” on social networking sites.

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

by Stoney deGeyter

Over the past several weeks I’ve been writing about duplicate content. Today’s post wraps up the series that started with my theories on duplicate content penalties, where I explained the different types of duplicate content that the search engines find. Over the course of the series (see links to all posts at the end) I discussed various aspects of duplicate content, how it happens (sometimes inadvertently) and how it can be corrected.

In this installment I’ll provide one of the best permanent fixes to inadvertent duplicate content that is common with business websites. The implications of this can be pretty significant depending on the size of your site. I’ve held off this last post for several weeks for no reason other than Scott Allen beat me to the punch with his own article detailing how 3 lines of code can improve your rankings. So if this article sounds familiar, you know why. Just know that I wrote mine first!

www. vs. no www.

Real quick, go to your browser and type in yoursite.com. Does the URL in the browsers address bar change to a) http://yoursite.com or b) http://www.yoursite.com?

Now type in www.yoursite.com. Does the URL in your browser change to a) http://www.yoursite.com or b) http://yoursite.com?

In both of those instances, if you answered A then you have potential duplication issues. Here is an example of one of my articles on Gooruze.com which shows the potential duplication:

Take away the www. from the URL and lo-and behold you see the exact same article: