Internet Marketing and Digital Strategy Blog
Posts tagged Google
Paid Links – Don’t do it… Again
Feb 13th
So the first high profile paid link hit has occurred in JC Penney. Just maybe not as we expected, the NY times had to do an expose on paid links for something to happen. Mat Cutts of Google also admitted some manual adjustment to search results. Bruce Clay himself has also been talking about why you should not buy links.
Link buying or media spend, conveniently forgetting the rel=nofollow is common in Australia and we have this discussion on a weekly basis with clients, as to why we do not buy links and that this is against Google’s terms of service. When everyone is doing it and it seems getting away with it, it is tempting to join the so called club. After far too long, maybe there will be some change.
What will be interesting to me is the following:
- Whether clients are aware their agencies back linking practices?
- If they are, and they are buying links, are they going to stop? Roll back these links?
- More rigour into SEO firm selection given the potential reputation risk involved?
- Insist on a code of ethics
So if you are a large corporate and are uncertain about the practices of your SEO company, I would suggest the following:
- Find out what linking protocols and policies are in place for your website
- Get your SEO agency to confirm they are not breaching Google’s terms of service
- Understand your SEO agencies link building strategies in detail
- Analyse your back link profile and anchor text, Yahoo Site Explorer is a good place to start
Don’t forget Bruce Clay 1 day SEO training on the 23rd Feb in Sydney and 2nd March in Melbourne. We will be covering this…
Brower performance
May 18th
Wondering which browser is best, given the large amount of time we use them these days. Thanks to sixrevisions.com/infographs/browser-performance/ (See original) for this simple test. Interesting to see how Chrome performed, given it has also been unhackable to date. Now we just nee more add on’s.
Sidewicki-Reputation Management
Nov 16th
New business models for social marketers. Managing your brand on the web just got interesting. Sidewicki, the tool in your Google Toolbar allowing you to see comments made next to websites has been upgraded to allow you to view these for an entire domain, per the Google blog. You are pretty quickly going to get a view on what a business/ restaurant/ website is about using this feature.
On the upside, to comment users need a Google profile and also need some “trust” or “authority”, lets call it PageRank for profiles before they are published. As more people comment so this bar will rise. So you spam the sidewicki, as with search you will become invisible. But comment wisely and responsibly and you build an ability to influence an extremely important part of todays marketing mix.
Granted:
- Low use and understanding of Google profiles
- Not that hard to set up a profile
- Low use or understanding of Sidewicki, let alone having the toolbar installed
But
- Gmail, Local Business Centre and so on will continually enhance our understanding
- Google social will encourage all to set up profiles, also just to claim your own space
- Online profiles will continue to grow in importance and need to be managed
So this has the opportunity to bring power to the people. You want to book a flight and have some adventure, search for “air tickets to Iraq” and find the #1 ranking site, but low and behold there are numerous sidewicki entires about how that airline runs late, loses your lugage, are rude to customers etc. You still going to book with them?
In the future of search, if there were enough of these and the quality was good, why would they not More >
Blind search engine comparison – Bing, Yahoo and Google
Jun 8th
This is interesting. Michael Kordahi, a Microsoft employee built the blind search engine I think to sell more Tweetshirts. The search engine comparisons exclude any blended search compnents such as News, Blogs etc.
Go check it out at http://blindsearch.fejus.com/
Brands Search and SEO
Mar 7th
Google has finally come out and confirmed the “Vince change” which favours big brands.
Outrage, arms thrown in air, search engine optimisation (SEO) has changed for ever…
So what does this mean? Firstly Google admits making a number of changes continually, so this is 1 of 3-400 annually which occur annually, and it is a change, not an update. So put your arms down and read further.
Matt Cutts at Google has tried to explain it, we think it goes further. According to Google, the dial has been turned up from brands and thus related generic keywords, searchineland gives great examples around “air tickets” and airlines.
What Google has said, via the Matt Cutts video:
Trusted sites, potentially brands will rank, as they are trusted. Trusted essentially means:
- PageRank
- Legacy (Age)
- Quality and unique content
- Technical soundness of the site
- No spam
- Good linking structure and outbound links to other quality sites
- Good inbound links from other quality/ expert site
COMMENT: If you give users high quality search results, they will keep on using your search engine. So whats new?
Given the average length of a query is 3-5 words and 25% of all searches each year are new, this only impacts a small number of search terms. Matt Cutts has confirmed this as well.
ISSUE:The change may only affect a small number of search terms, but… most brands are related to products, and if they are a big brand these products are generally popular. Take air tickets for example, which has significant search volumes behind the term. I believe that if you looked at the affected seach volumes as a % of total search volumes this may tell a different story. Effectively, this means that most of the generic terms related to large brands are searched on a lot, they are generally highly competitive terms. Saying the long tail is not affected is fine, but who targets long tail search terms, other than SEO’s who guarantee # 1 rankings.
Why Would You
Nov 24th
So Google has just anounced, if you are logged in you can manipulate your search results, and would not rule out these manipulations being included into the algorithm in the future at some stage, bringing a human power element into the mix and potentially giving Google an edge over purely software driven search results. Google Searchwiki, you can read more at Searchengineland.
The Google folks are all very smart people, at least the ones I have met appear to be. But, I have the following question?
If search results are mainly about discovery and the answering of questions. Why would you manipulate them, so you know the answer or potential answers before you search. I can see the fun side, like me ranking this blog #1 for the term “search engine optimisation” on our office gmail login and seeing who realizes first. Also potentially very niche searches who want to see very specific results only for a group of people. But why would I edit search results when I am looking for answers.
It will also be interesting to see how the comments get handled and whether they are spammed out of existence or not. Maybe the community will rule on this one.
Anyway, watch this space, and my blog going to #1
Search Based Keywords Tool
Nov 20th
I don’t usually review tools, but Google have just released their new search based keywords tool. Now you can make sure you don’t miss any of those additional keywords you maybe meant to include, but didn’t buy.
The cynics might think extra keywords = extra revenue, if everyone has the keywords = more competitive bidding = higher cost per click and more profits to the big G. Google also gives the disclaimer that using the tool will not necessarily improve your campaign performance. But this tool is a help to those consulting and doing keyword research. At a glance you can see the keywords, suggested bids, search volumes and other information, as well as being able to sort by field for the website or an entire category.
You can also create a search on the term and view the search term with Google Insights to get additional information.
Putting the new search based keyword tool to the test:
Using Belldirect, a newish share trading entrant to Australia with a clean website. Share trading and online share trading is the key search term for sites like these.
The tool produced a list of 190 keywords with search volumes of 25 to 23,000 for the term “share trading” and split these between those relevant to your site and then keywords related to your search term. First thing to notice is the Google AdWords tool gives the search volume on “phrase match” at 27,100 for October and 18,100 average and 130 closely related and 70 broadly related terms. That’s a difference in excess of 20% both ways on search volumes. The outcome was similar for other popular sites and keywords. Google does however say the data is updated every couple of weeks, so no doubt this is due to timing differences in the cut off of the data and also to keep webmasters guessing as to search volumes.
But, the real value is this tool telling what keywords your Adwords campaigns is missing, so no opportunities are missed to appear for more keywords or pay Google more cash.
Questions for Google
- Thanks Google for an extremely useful tool, but please tell us which search volume number more accurate
- You get limited keyword ideas if your Adwords billing address is outside of the US or UK. Does this More >
Why local and behavioral search must keep Google successful
Nov 11th
We know the number of web pages is growing exponentially, more and more content is out there.
We know that around 75% of small businesses do not even have a web presence, try searching for a butcher in your local suburb. This will grow over the next 3 years.
We know that large companies can afford good web design and search engine optimisation (SEO) firms to help them build their rankings in search engines.
We know that Google is largely dependent on search related revenue and continued growth, and it is thus critically important for them to keep users engaged with search results.
We know that human beings are creatures of habit and that most will not act more than around 30% of the accepted norm.
Finally, we know search is a set of software based rules, search engines cannot see the patterns or form opinions, it is rule based.
So what? I hear you think?
Well, if most established sites and companies can afford large websites and the best SEO advice money can buy, the chances of a smaller company ranking for a highly searched on term does not look so good from the start, and we know search users will use similar key terms to find things. In fact Google helps with the suggest feature. So other than for obscure, long tail items, pretty much, you are going to see the same culprits ranking for certain keywords, being branded, well known large organisations. Right? In fact search users get comfort they have used the right search terms when they see brands they recognise in the results who provide the product or service they are after.
So if 20% of all keywords provide 80% of the traffic and there is big dollars behind these search terms, how will Google keep users engaged in search results which have the potential to become increasingly similar for similar terms, other than to encourage them to click past the first page of results.
Search Reach Update
Aug 7th
Interesting data available this week after my last post. Per a recent Pew report, (US based ofcourse) in fact as recent as today Pew found the average search user, according top their survey of 2,251 US adults was:
- A college graduate (66%)
- Earned income of over US$75,000 (62%)
- Had broadband at home (58%)
- Was predominantly 18-49 years old
Probably not that much in that, other than the fact that well educated wealthy people who can afford broadband at home use search engines more than the rest of us.
But then in another interesting article at Search Engine Land, based on Forbes.com and Gartner Research found the Internet was the most influential and important source of information to CXO or C level executives where 67% are using the Internet and 86% are using search to research competitors and trends dailly.
It would make sense that C level executives fall into the demographic above. Very convenient.
The key point however is that search is the start of these people’s online research, search is their doorway to information. This information maybe anywhere on your website, not just your homepage. Prepare your site with numerous landing pages and give those that land on them direction.