An interesting Forbes article discusses what its like to find your site in Google Hell. It also addresses what may be a growing issue, Google's ability to continuously index the billions of Web pages floating around the Internet.

In the case of Skyfacet.com, it appears they were penalized for having a mirror site or mirror pages, i.e., pages that have the same or similar content on them, which Google interprets as someone's attempt to game the system.

Skyfacet shouldn't throw in the towel. By retaining a search engine optimization company with SEO specialists who know what they are doing, a specialist could petition Google on behalf of Skyfacet and possibly resurrect their site to Google's regualr SERPS.

Was that too much of a Biblical analogy?  

 

I've been using Google Desktop since it first came out in a beta version a while back. It's great for finding files that you've long forgotten the names of but suddenly have a need to locate.

It's not perfect. I've gone in search of an item on more than one occasion only to come up empty. But it seems to be better than any of the alternatives.

I didn’t realize it, but Google Desktop has not been available to Mac users, a few of whom are friends of mine.

Well, Google has finally released a version for my Mac buddies.

You can learn more about it, as well as see what Mac-devotees have to say about, by visiting this article at Search Engine Land.

I think this is yet another example of Google staying ahead of the game, and offering products and services to as many Internet users as possible, thereby creating and maintaining a loyal customer base.

Is it any wonder Google stays ahead of all the other search engines when it comes to innovation and keeping customoers?

 

The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), has released it's annual industry survey, The State of Search Engine Marketing 2006, whose findings conclude that spending paid placement, paid inclusion, organic search engine optimization (SEO) and other forms of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) hit a record $9.6 Billion in 2006.

SEO remains the most popular form of SEM, although paid placement still gets the lion's share of online marketing budgets, with total spending of $8 billion.

Expect SEO spending to grow as a percentage of marketing budgets, as a growing number of advertisers continue to see the benefits of organic SEO as an important element, maybe the most important element, of their marketing.

Just a few days ago, February 7, 2007 to be exact, Yahoo! launched Pipes, a service designed to allow users to combine, or as more tech-savvy types might put it, "mashup", data from various Web sites.

What is Pipes?

Here's how it describes itself on it's Home Page: "Pipes is an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator. Using Pipes, you can create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant."

A further explanation on the same page says:

Pipes is a hosted service that lets you remix feeds and create new data mashups in a visual programming environment. The name of the service pays tribute to Unix pipes, which let programmers do astonishingly clever things by making it easy to chain simple utilities together on the command line.

What's that mean?

Well, for example, using Pipes, you can combine news feeds from both Google and Yahoo News on one site.

But maybe the best way to get an idea of what this mashup produces, is to visit their site.

And it seems Pipes is part of a broader initiative at Yahoo! that's been dubbed "Brickhouse." You can learn more about Brickhouse in this BusinessWeek article.

What it boils down to is Yahoo! is hoping Brickhouse will give it a way to develop new products, rather than finding itself buying up other companies who've already beaten it to the punch on developing next generation Web features, tools and platforms. Remember, Yahoo! and others had developed photo sharing sites, but Yahoo! found itself spending millions to buy Flickr because Flickr was seen a s both an innovation leader and, perhaps more importantly, cool.

There's a desperation among large companies to appear "cool," on the Internet, and thereby attract the millions of 18-to-34 year olds who advertisers and businesses alike crave as customers.

Of course, as we've seen time and again, even if you can somehow manufacture or buy cool, it eventually fades away. In fact, not to long ago, Yahoo! was cool, only to see itself supplanted by Google (we should note, even Google's cool cache is way down these days).

Whether Yahoo!'s Brickhouse proves to be a good idea remains to be seen. The brief history of the Internet is waist deep in similar ideas and operations that failed.

 

Outsell, Inc. has released its second annual report on U.S. ad spending and, based on their survey of 1,010 advertisers and media companies, spending on advertising on search engines is expected to grow 39 percent.

The press release, issued by Outsell,  indicates that overall online spending will grow 20 percent.

Interestingly, 49% of those surveyed indicated they plan to reduce their Pay Per Click (PPC) spending because of click fraud concerns.

The report demonstrates the growing confidence advertisers are gaining in marketing on the Internet, as online spendings share of ad budgets rises while more traditional media will see continuing declines in ad spending.

Also noteworthy in the report is the fact that advertisers rate online advertising as a very effective means of branding, wihch runs counter to the conventional wisdom that online is effective for generate leads, but poor for branding.

Expect to see an increased focus on search engine optimization (SEO), as these same advertisers continue to see the value of SEO in both attracting prospects and bolstering their branding efforts.

If you'd like to know more about how you can leverage SEO to both develop your brand and attract prospects, why not give us a shout today? One of our Zunch account executives will be happy to discuss what SEO can do for you. 

And if PPC is part of your online marketing efforts, don't forget that we also specialize in click fraud detection, and can help you both identify and recover ad dollars lost to fraud.

 

 

Following on the heals of the earlier release of  search share numbers by Compete  and comScore, comes word, courtesy of SearchEngineWatch.com, that Hitwise and Nielsen/NetRatings rankings are out.

Nielsen’s numbers were similar to those reported by comScore, with Google remaining on top of the search pile with 50.8% of all searches in December 2006. Yahoo was second with 23.6% followed by Windows Live Search (MSN) with 8.4%.

Hitwise gives Google an even larger share, while also providing early figures for January 2006, pinning Google’s share at 63.1% and Yahoo at 21.6% for December 2006, with Google having the same figure for January, while Yahoo slipped to 21.4%.

No matter how you add it up, Google remains the dominant search engine.  And if Hitwise's numbers are correct, Google is garnering nearly two-thirds of all searches. Even with numbers hovering around the fifty percent margin, as reported by comScore and Nielsen, Google's numbers are envious.

Charles E. Wilson, former CEO of General Motors and the Secretary of Defense from 1953-1957, once was famously misquoted as saying, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." At that time GM had over 50% of the auto market.

Is the day coming when we'll say, "What's good for Google, is good for the country?"

Okay, not the best of analogies, but Google's continued dominance of the search market remains incredibly impressive, and you have to wonder how much of the economy and commerce is tied to seraches completed on Google.

The Zunch Communications, Inc. (http://www.zunch.com) team arrived in Chicago today to participate as a Premier Plus sponsor of JupiterMedia’s Search Engine Strategies conference. As a sponsor and exhibitor, the Zunch team will be available in booth 305 for consulting and information regarding agency services. Jeff Martin, Director of PPC Auditing and Fraud Detection Services for Zunch will be serving on Thursday’s panel entitled, “Auditing Paid Listings and Click Fraud Issues.” MORE

I'm unashamed to pronounce Firefox as a superior browser, and with over 100 million downloads and market share now over 10%, it seems many are in agreement. As Firefox grows, it's been fascinating to watch the alliances and maneuvers of Mozilla. Yesterday, the final version of Firefox 1.5 launched, and with it another strong alliance. Yahoo has partnered with Mozilla to distribute Firefox 1.5 in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

I believe its fair to say that Internet Explorer has a strong hold on the browser market in those countries. Our own analytics show over 12% of visitors to zunch.com use the Firefox browser, but only 4% of our zunch.cn visitors. Can Yahoo! and Alibaba make waves in the Asian browser market? My guess is yes. As the number two search provider in blosoming China, they seem to have quite the opportunity before them.

I'll follow up in a couple of months to see if our browser stats change significantly...

This time next week we will be in the "windy city" for SES Chicago 2005 ~ December 5th - December 8th.

Always a great time and a great event! Work hard in the day time and play hard in the evening. I had the opportunity to attend last years event and was surprised at how far the conference has come along. Last SES I attended, prior to joing Zunch, was SES Dallas back in 2001.

Feel free to stop by our booth (305) and visit with John Sanchez and other Zunchers!

AD:Tech 05 in Shanghai ended on November 17th. Terrence Ou, Zunch APAC Directory of Business Development, has informed us back at the "mother ship" that the conference went very well and that Chinese businesses are in need of Zunch's interactive search marketing solutions...

With all kinds of applause, respect and glory, AD:TECH marks Zunch's being recognized as the technology guru in China. Chinese major Internet players are desperate to team with Zunch to offer search marketing solutions in this huge market. Certainly, individual clients are also seeking SEO solutions for their web marketing. more

Google's most recent update is still being rolled out. Yahoo! updated their algo less than a month ago and MSN just a little before that.

What drastic changes have we needed to make to stay on top? None.

Besides a few tweaks here and there, our recipe for good rankings is basically the same:

• A domain with some age on it.
• The right keywords on the the right page in the right priority.
• Fresh content that supports targeted keywords.
• Eliminating technological hurdles to proper search inclusion (complex dynamic URLs, links embedded in JavaScript or Flash, canonical issues, etc.)
• Proper internal link architecture.
• Relative links to the site's pages (plural) that gradually increase with time.

There is still no silver bullet. At the core of our SEO program is years of experience in best practices, ongoing research & analysis & testing and a tried and tested methodical approach to naturally and correctly obtaining the best possible rankings.

In what appears to be a new web portal, www.live.com appeared today. Although far from a finished product, Live is already featuring some improvements of start.com. For one, the Live search interface is much cleaner and natural feeling than the hovering layer used on start.com. Two, I can see my hotmail with Live, right next to my RRS feeds, stocks and weather. Very nice, Bill! My one complaint so far is the light blue color that is used on the SERP page for the links. They don't seem to provide enough contrast to make the links pop out.

More to come on this exciting development...

For most of 2005 now, it seems we cannot get through a work week without a new offering from Google. From GoogleMaps to GoogleTalk, Schmidt and his team are stretching further than ever before. And with its new partnership with Sun, there's little doubt Google wants to cast a colorful shadow across the world.

But I've heard many over the past year complain, saying Google should stick to search and just dominate the market. Some say Google should stick to its roots and let retail software companies worry about the consumer market.

I say that is a very near-sighted opinion. The problem is this: Average web searchers don't use an engine primarily because of its relevancy, but because of its simplicity. They simply take the path of less resistance. Google designed a simple, easy-to-use interface that was straightforward and effective, and people came.

Now, Google realizes that Microsoft has every opportunity in the world to make a search interface that is quick and easy (we're already seeing some of this in Windows Vista and Office 12). Currently, Google relies on the browser; people opening IE or Firefox and navigating. But what if the browser, as we know it, disappears?

Google has to get in front of your nose in a proactive way if they want to survive. They have no other option.

Finally...Google rolls out Google Local integrated with Google Maps.

Not much to rave about over the launch of Google local or MSN local for that matter. If I had to choose which search engines local search features I like best it would have to be Yahoo! local IMO...much cleaner user interface, results are more organized, and easier to navigate. Elements that create a positive user experience.

Opinions?

At the beginning of the week, Yahoo announced that they are going to be launching their biggest marketing campaign in years. This no doubt comes in response to the influx of Ask.com advertisements that have been strategically interspersed throughout your favorite television programming.

According to this article found on CNET News, Yahoo will advertise heavily on tv, radio, online and yes, even in movie theaters.

So what will come of Yahoo's latest marketing push? We'll have to wait and see.

What we can expect is shiny new ads that incorporate the old "Do you Yahoo" tagline, as well as a bit of humor about the world without Yahoo.

In the meantime, it will be interesting to watch the advertisements and see what Yahoo has come up with in their massive push to remind everyone that they are still relevant and cool.

The long time commercial browser Opera is now free of charge and free of ads, giving users yet another option in the expanding browser market. Although Opera's market share is small, the browser is widely regarded as a very mature and intuitive product. The big news in my mind, however, is what makes it free...

Opera software, following the path of Mozilla's Firefox, has levereged deals with internet giants like Google, eBay and Amazon to receive kickbacks from users who purchase using the built-in search bar.

So after years and years of rumors regarding gBrowser, Google is apparently satisfied to strike deals with current browser makers. Ofcourse we all know of one company who will not be signing papers with Google. To that end, check out this screenshot:

If you haven't heard about AJAX yet, you at least have used it. In just a year or two, AJAX has become the talk of the town thanks to snazzy new web implementations by folks like Google, Oddpost and Microsoft. For the non-techies among us, AJAX is a method of displaying dynamic content on-the-fly, that is, without a page refresh.

Obviously the emergence of this type of technology has huge implications for search engine marketers everywhere. So far, AJAX is mainly limited to specialty applications (mapping and email, most notably), which do not present a problem. As this technology continues to inspire and grow popular, though, how long until Mike's Electronics website wants an AJAXed navigation? While we would like to offer users an interface that is more "desktop" like, the thought of not having content crawled an indexed just doesn't fly.

This brings me to my point. With Google, Microsoft and others playing a large role in the escalation of this technology, shouldn't we expect them to support it from a search standpoint? I'm looking for one of these companies to step up and pioneer a method for new technologies like AJAX to be search compatible. I don't know if that's a new markup tag with special instructions for spiders, a new document similar to the sitemap.xml file, or something completely different.

With the contiguous maturation of the Internet and Search, I think it would be a shame if either one was held back unnecessarily. I see that happening with AJAX...but I hope I'm wrong.

Earlier this week, MSN Search official rebranded as Live Search.  Live.com and search.live.com have been in beta for most of the year now.  In March I posted about live.search.com not including search phrases in the referring URL.  It appears that once again, Live Search is proving to be problematic.  This morning Barry posted at SERoundtable and SEW about Live.com not passing any referer information at all.

As an example, when you go to Google or Yahoo or ASK and search for Callaway Golf Clubs, that phrase is embeded in the referring URL that is passed through the server headers.  A line would be passed to the browser such as this:

Referer: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=callaway+golf+clubs&btnG=Google+Search

Web analytics programs like zWebTulz and others use this referring URL to determine which search engine the user came from and what their specific query was.  This is a basic function of web analytics, performed by even the most basic packages like Analog or Statcounter.  I'm almost certain that this will be corrected in the near future by Microsoft. 

Has anyone else noticed the indented subcategory links that have a tendency to appear under the first listing in Google? For example, if you search for “Kodak” in Google you can see that the first result is immediately followed by another set of indented links for specific pages within the Kodak site.

So what are these links?

According to a post by Danny Sullivan on Search Engine Watch, Google is now calling them “sitelinks”. Apparently they are a permanent addition to Google search. While they only appear for the first result in Google, they do not necessarily show up for every search. However, I did notice them appearing more often when searching for brand or company names.

Sitelinks. So now we know.

Jason Burby wrote a nice piece for ClickZ about the changing nature of web bahavior and analytics as tabbed browsers like Firefox (and soon to be released IE7) become the norm.  Jason identifies several aspects of analytics which are affected because of tabbed browsing, including the use of cookies, path analysis and time spent on site. 

While I'm not ashamed of being a Firefox-freak, I'm quite sure that I have wreaked havoc on web analytics specialists all around the world.  I typically open links in new tabs, and it's not uncommon for me to have 10-20 tabs open at a time.  Of course I also have to explain that type of behavior almost weekly when asked, "What's a good bounce rate?". 

Oddly enough I've been seeing more and more whacky things with Google and with various hosting companies out there.

Here are some of my favorites:

I implemented a canonical url fix on an apache server using mod_rewrite. In the rewriterule flag I declared the redirect to be a 301 ([R=301]). After checking the headers it redirected but the header returned only a 200 ok... Nice...


Here is a good one from Google:

A clients home page listing is showing up in Google as https://www.somedomain.com/

In Google's Help center http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35302 they recommend you deny the bots from the ssl by using the robots.txt file.

Since some hosts map the non ssl and ssl protocols to the same folder on the server you could literally tell Goolge to deny both....Not good....

Here is my favorite:

I built a site a while back and had 2 forms of navigation. The first for the user, it was a drop down form for ease of use, it would send the user to the correct page and the url was dynamic. The second form of navigation was text links and static urls via mod_rewrite to the exact same pages as the form.

This would allow search engines to completely see everything a user would see. No links went to the dynamic versions. All linking was done to the static mod rewrite version.

After doing a site:www.domain.com for the url I discovered Google had a cache on both dynamic and version.

Since when did Google put together the variables in a form and crawl the urls??? Go figure...

Our very own SEO expert Tyson Kirksey wrote a great article on risky SEO techniques in the fall issue of Search Marketing Standard Magazine.  Check it out!

The Internet's leading search engines are teaming up with an advertising trade group to find a better way to identify and measure "click fraud," a scam that has raised doubts about the Web's trustworthiness as a marketing vehicle.

The initiative, announced Wednesday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, will draw upon the expertise of Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., the owners of the top online search engines, to attack a problem threatening to erode their profits. Combined, the three companies control 86 percent of the lucrative U.S. search engine market, according to comScore Media Metrix.

Two smaller search engines, InterActiveCorp.'s Ask.com and LookSmart Ltd., also have joined the alliance along with the Media Rating Council, a nonprofit group formed 42 years ago at the urging of Congress to help track and validate the sizes of advertising audiences.

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articleArchive/aug2006/clickfraudteam.php

So maybe the law suits and, more importantly, advertiser's voice frustrations have actually had an impact on click fraud. This is probably a good move, especially if it moves towards 3rd party auditing. However, one has to question the reasoning in leaving advertisers out of this 'team'. Time will tell if the engines can work together and if they can be productive.

This is the first time I've seen this.  Funny thing is, I got distracted and forgot to click on the Learn More link.  Haven't been able to reproduce the message either.  Oh well...

You must have already seen the array of blogs and news articles today about Google's new online spreadsheet program.  I personally haven't used it yet, so I have no opinions on the functionality of the tool.  I'm speaking more to the general consensus I'm seeing on the blogosphere, which can basically be summed up like this:  "Google is trying to really tick Bill Gates off, and they just might have done it, but what does this have to do with Search?  Has Google really lost focus?"

Notwithstanding the Forbes report this week, I think Google is right on course.  I wrote this post last fall which talked about the underlying reasons why people use one engine over another.  I maintain my position that people use an engine for its convenience and ease-of-use moreso that it's relevancy.  I think this will be particularly true in 12-24 months, around the time Windows Vista launches.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, Google has to become a mainstay in multiple areas of computing or they will become irrelevant.

P.S.  I also think Google likes you to be logged in with your Google account as much as possible, so this aids that goal as well.  Between GMail, Analytics, Adwords, Notebook and Adsense, I'm having trouble staying logged out while I search, which I'm sure is exactly the goal.

I'm quite impressed with the folks over at Yahoo Search after using the new Livesearch on AlltheWeb.  It's similar to Google Suggest or some of the other tools that Danny mentions, but surpasses all of them because it actually returns results as your type.  That's right, forget about pressing enter or clicking a search button; results come back automatically, on-the-fly.  Talk about fast searching...I love it! 

Via the Google Analytics Blog, Microsoft will reportedly announce the acquisition of DeepMetrix, a long-time player in the web analytics market.  In a move remanicent of Google's purchase of Urchin one year ago, Microsoft will integrate analytics into their AdCenter engine.  This just reinforces the fact that if you're running a PPC campaign, you MUST have an analytics suite to track success.  Viewing the bounce rate, visit paths and conversion rate of your PPC is impossible without analytics. 

Plug:  The Zunch PPC team uses zWebTulz extensively to track our clients PPC spend from every engine. 

IAC Bows New Ad Campaign For Ask.com

I think it's really cool to see TV advertisements for search engines and even more so for Ask.com.  I have used Ask.com for quite some time now and feel that it's newly added features create a more unique search experience than the other primary engines.

It's like a play-ground fight over who is THE king of the monkey bars only in this case the future of information technology and billions of dollars are at stake. 

This is going to get really good in the coming months!

Microsoft and Google Set to Wage Arms Race

Scott blogged on the IE7 Beta, which was released last week to the public.  Now Google is belly-aching about the search bar and which engine is set to default.  Without question, no one expected Microsoft to do anything but set MSN as the default search provider on its own browser.  But Google and everyone else knows these few hundred square pixels on the toolbar could mean big swings in search engine market share toward the end of this year and into 2007.  With IE still at 85% market share, and Firefox losing steam, Google might be getting desperate. 

Incidently, you didn't hear a peep from Google when Firefox and Opera, both Google allies, set Google as the default search engine in their browser.  But now, Google would be happy to open those up if MSN will reciprocate.  Yeah, right...

This goes back to something I wrote about last fall.  In order to Google to survive, they cannot count on users typing in google.com in the web browser.  This will be an archaic practice in a matter of months.  Since most users will take the path of least resistance, Google must get in front of your face proactively.  They seem to be doing well on some fronts, but the browser / operating system battle could pose problems.  

The collection and storage of personal information, both with regard to statistical demographic data and with regard to search history, has been of concern to privacy advocates for some time – but was brought into sharp focus when the government asked for URLs and search data this January. Here is an article on the initial subpoena

This request was part of an attempt to begin enforcement of the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, but sets a precedent which could be applied to the enforcement of other laws. In this case, the government did not request personal data, nothing that could link a particular search to a particular individual - but there is nothing really preventing them from doing so, or from search data being requested in a criminal court case. And as tools like Google Desktop, toolbars, and MSN’s Open Platform become more widely used, the degree to which search engines are integrated into people’s personal lives will increase.

Before you dismiss this as irrelevant to you - don’t be so sure pornography laws don’t apply to you – the recent case with photographer Barbara Nitke established that the most conservative communities in the US can determine the standards by which your Website is judged. Are you sure that your online maternity clothing store won’t be considered obscene by a community in Utah, even though you are in New York? But search information could easily be collected in other types of cases by the government – such as national security. Such a possible use was specifically mentioned by the government. Do you sell anything which might be used by terrorists? That’s pretty broad – anything from books to box cutters could qualify.

But in regard to SEO specifically:
The demographic information that helps you find your customers and clients, can also be used against them. As people become increasingly aware of this, they will become more cautious about actively protecting their privacy. They may become more hesitant to reveal personal information or sign up for memberships, wary of efforts to collect information about them, however harmless the intentions. They will clean off cookies and clear caches more often – making data collection and statistical analysis more difficult, The most sophisticated and wealthiest visitors to your site will be the most difficult to track.

In short, being aware of how the law effects search engines can help you understand and keep in touch with the concerns of your customers and clients. You will need to establish yourself as trustworthy, and secure – while at the same time being open enough that search engines can find you. It’s a balancing act.

A lot of people see the ruling regarding the subpoena as a victory for privacy. Google was only required to comply with it partially. However, the judge pointed out, information collected by search engines with regard to web surfing and search behavior is not protected, private information. What he did determine, is that Google’s users had enough of an expectation of privacy that to demand search data would risk their reputation in the eyes of users, so that it placed an undue burden on the company to provide info that was available to the government through other means. This was not a right that was upheld, but a commercial interest. Which is still a good thing, but not quite the same.

A .pdf of the actual ruling is here.

Cedric Beust, an engineer at Google, said: "I think all the pieces are there on the server side. But I think we'll get a whole new ecosystem around AJAX [Asynchronous JavaScript and XML]. It's like a bad cold. More and more people are coming to this thing and we have a whole new excitement for Web sites we never had before, with things like mashups." Source >>

Like flash however AJAX is invisible to the search engine's eyes. MSN's Live uses AJAX to display search results. GMAIL uses it to give you real time email updates while you are logged into the system.

Hopefully Blogs and CMS developers won't use AJAX as a way to feed content to their pages! They'll look cool but they won't rank for squat!

Thursday afternoon the Zunch crew gathered around in the conference room, beamed Eric Ward's Linking Webinar up on the Screen, dimmed the lights and popped open the soda. An hour and a half later we shut down and chatted about what we knew already, what we didn't know and what if anything was wrong.

Let me state at first that we thought this would be an advanced linking strategy webinar and that it was marketed to other firms/professionals in the SEO/SEM industry as such.

The webinar covered all the basics and gave useful information for those that are just starting out and trying to understand what linking and link popularity is all about. For the seasoned SEO however you may pick up a one or two things there that you may not of seen in the popular SEO forums.

Here are the things I found helpful:

• Sources for free one way links from authoritative sites
• Email subject and body copy suggestions that keep you out of the deleted folder
  
• Link Software Screen shots and personal analysis
  
• How to use blogs to further empower your core site's links

Here are a few things that I thought that may have been confusing to the attendees:

• It was stated that buying links could penalize your site, then later in the webinar strategy for buying links was discussed. Eric stated that he had clients that he had bought links for and no clarification was giving between buying links & and how they may penalize a site so it sounded a like a contradiction.
• Someone asked what an RSS feed was. I thought the answer was drawn out and confusing and probably should have been addressed after the Webinar in the Q&A time.

Here are some things that I know were stated and are actually wrong:

• It was stated that Spiders (specifically Googlebot) will not crawl deep folder structures. Therefore don't waist time getting links to a file burried in your site. His analogy was if the page is in a hundred foot deep lake and the link is only 50 feet of rope then you can't reach the page. This is wrong. IF the PageRank of the page that is linking has high enough PageRank to justify a crawl to a file that is being linked to then the spider WILL index the page and it CAN be reached.
• It was stated that "Undiscovered Links" or pages behind forms are unreachable by Spiders. In Googles case this is wrong. I recently built a site that had a simple 1 variable form containing 50 values. Google used the url in the action="" and then for each of the 50 values added the forms name to form a query"?state_id=" to the action url thus completing the url then crawled all 50 variations of the landing page. I posted this over in spider-food.net.
  
  Currently you cannot see the results of this in Google but I think the forum post and the responces to the post indicate proof that Google did infact index those pages and that there were NO links to those variable pages because the mod rewrite implemented in the bottom links were for the bots/users that wanted to click and link to a static version of the form page. The form was there for convenience/usability and was NOT suppost to be crawled YET it was.

I've tried to give a fair evaluation for both new and experienced webmasters. If you are just getting into links I recommend this seminar. If you are experienced with linking the price of the webinar for the little tidbits of new information may not be worth your time.

Eric has had a lot of success with his current clients I think he did a good job explaining linking and showed great examples of success and how powerful links can be to an SEO campaign. He is one that thinks outside of the box and has done his linking home work I would definitely heed any free advice you may find on his website.

Eric Ward's Website >>

To add to Google Earth and Google Moon, Google has launched the Google Mars page to show you a detailed view of the Marsian surface.

Google Mars >>

Funny when you try and sign up for a service and you have to jump through a few technical hoops just to get it done. Like when Tyson (SEO Specialist) this morning was trying to create an MSN Adcenter account using IE 7. Adcenter kept spitting out an incompatible web browser error.

Looks like you have to revert back to IE 6 if you want to get anything done in MSN Adcenter. I would suggest not to switch your user agent header to IE 6 using the FF UA switcher either, the styles on all the forms break and you get a lot of form layer overlap issues.

Short list of browsers that Adcenter doesn't support:

• Anything != IE 6

I thought the days of "you must conform" were past us...

I think the best way to describe this service is Froogle combined with Yahoo Store & Paypal. It's not opened to the public yet, but there are some vendors beta testing.

We're starting with a very small number of sellers and we expect to include more over the next several months. If you're a seller and you're interested in getting an announcement when this feature is generally available, let us know. And if you want to know how this functionality relates to Google's broader work in payments, read this update. We hope this feature will make it even easier for people to use Google Base to post and distribute a wide range of content, whether information for sharing or goods for sale.

You can read the official blog post here.

Google SiteMaps Update

(1) Your average position by your top search queries. This is basically a site ranking report for the your top keywords, the keywords people search to find you on.

(2) If you have mobile enabled site, you will also now see your top search queries on mobile devices.

(3) You can now download "details, stats, and errors" to a SV file that you can then do what you like with it.

More details at Google Sitemaps Blog. Source SEW Blog >>

Barry Schwartz posts an update about the Google Sitemaps program over on the SEW Blog.

Webmasters should note that this service is free and easy to use. Support on the other hand is still the well known Google Blackhole. If you can find the email address to be able to send a question don't be surprised if you get anything back :)

I just spent a half-hour listening to Barry Diller from Ask.com give his keynote at SES (thanks to www.webmasterradio.fm). I've got to tell you, I'm really impressed with the upgrades Ask.com received last night. I'm sure other Zunchers will go into more detail throughout the week, but here's a quick list of changes:

- Simple homepage
- AJAXed toolbox bar
- Web-based desktop search
- Less PPC ads (Organic above the fold!)
- Nice mapping at http://maps.ask.com, complete with driving/walking directions and aerial fly-by photographs (not satellite)

Read Chris Sherman's complete SearchDay write-up of Ask.com here.

What a wild ride! Late last week MSN rolled out a new index that included major changes across the board. Initial reaction was mixed, but it didn't take long for folks across the 'Net to voice their disappointment (WMW, SEW). Two days later, MSN sucked it back in and reverted to the older, more accepted index.

From MSN:

We rolled back to the old net after only about 48 hours. The new one might have been up considerably longer if you guys hadn’t been so vocal so quickly.

So...we've spent the morning emailing some clients and explaining why their MSN traffic plumetted at the end of last week, why blogs, subdomains and press releases were overtaking the rankings, and how everything should be status quo again.

Interesting to note that the MSN quality testers apparently missed this one.

Search engine optimization guru Mike Waltman - aka "SEO Mike" has joined our ever growing SEO team as account executive --> MORE

I remember mentioning to some co-workers about 18 months ago about how I think an SEM / SEO magazine would do pretty well. Well...say hello to Search Marketing Standard.

From the press release:

"Search Marketing Standard will cover pay per click advertising, search engine optimization, web analytics, click fraud, local and contextual search, and other search-related topics. Each publication will feature articles and advice from leading experts in the field, interviews with the who’s-who of the industry, reviews of the most popular tools and services, latest news and trends, and much more."

Just another sign of the growth of our industry. Go get 'em!

AOL sure knows how to throw a party. Whereas MSN’s recent lunch looked like something that was planned the day before (sorry MSN, but it’s true) – AOL had a premier venue, first rate gourmet food, and a polished, exciting multimedia presentation that was on topic.

Zunch, along with other major online advertising firms in Dallas, was invited to a lunch with AOL last week, where they were rolling out the new programming, talking about advertising opportunities, and oh, sure, addressing that Google thing.

Yes, we were mostly interested in that Google thing. And addressing it was something like this: “We know there’s an elephant in the room, and everyone wants to talk about it – so before we get to the meat of the program, we will. Yes. It’s an elephant. Next topic.” All they did was acknowledge that there is indeed a partnership. But the presentation wasn’t about search – it was about programming.

I haven’t paid much attention to AOL in a few years. Now, however, it looks like AOL has grown up. It’s opening up programming to non-subscribers, and embracing interactive media in exciting ways. The concept of marketing fully integrated into programming has never been closer to being realized. And well, it’s hard to argue with numbers like 112 million new uniques a month on the network

For example: you go to an AOL channel, like fashion. On that channel, they have programming that is determined in part by user feedback and preferences. They run user commentary. The page has spots for advertising on the top, on the screen playing the video program, within the video program… you can skin the whole thing… taking over the design of the page for a limited time while the program runs –putting your brand name in the face of the viewer… and they even have the ability to click on the image in the program and be led to sources to buy that product. Yes, this latter is limited right now, but has tremendous possibility.

Other opportunities include blog marketing and product reviews.

With so much programming, you have channels to reach several specific demographics. They focused on the following, but there are many more:

• Music (with unique concerts and unplugged shows as well as videos, mp3s and artist information – much like Yahoo Launch) – with more live music programming than any other site, they have the potential to draw a lot of repeat visitors
• Celebrities – entertainment news and gossip, the kind content that gets people talking
• Television – the closest thing to true TV on demand that exists. Choose which programs you want to watch, when, from Warner Bros. inventory – with interactive features like information about the actors and the episodes
• Gaming – reviews and clips of video games and platforms, a great place to reach young males with disposable income
• AOL news – where people spend a remarkable 28 minutes per visit on average. A good potential venue for more sophisticated advertising, perhaps – messages that are more complex than the usual eye-blink a user spends taking in a page
• Movies – not only the basic movie information look-up, but fun programs like “Unscripted” where celebs interview one another using a combination of viewer’s and their own questions
• Life Coaches – aimed largely at a slightly older and mostly female demographic, a group that is known to have powerful brand loyalty once you win them over
• Professional Blogs – not just the personal blogs they have on their main site, but some of the most well-respected and often visited blogs out there. Blog marketing is just beginning to develop – and there is a lot of potential for businesses to utilize this type of venue
• Fashion – some of the best usage of interactive marketing here. Those shoes the model is wearing? They cost $346 at Nordstrom.com
• Kids programming – get ‘em while they’re young! Advertise on websites with content parents trust and kids enjoy

While much of the type of advertising they offer is currently outside of our scope, I certainly see the possibility for Zunch to grow in this direction – especially as the difference between in-programming spots, skins, blog marketing, and search marketing continue to be blurred.

PROMOTION WORLD Rates Zunch Communications the Best SEO Company

The Top 10 SEO Company Awards are based on the offered services, package diversity, value, customer service, feedback and website popularity of the selected companies. More

Way to go Zunch SEO Team!

According to a story on ClickZ, Google is working on methods to deliver ads to audiences searching with mobile phones. The "call-on-select" functionality would initiate a phone call when selected as opposed to opening a landing page. A scoring algorithm would determine whether to offer the click-to-call link or a traditional web page link based on factors including limitations of the device, relevance, price, user preference and other parameters.

Fun stuff I say. I could have used this a month or two ago when I was out searching for a Donut shop to be open on a Holiday. I was using the Google SMS service, but had to call each store to see if they were open or closed. It would have been easier to do a web search, view the local results and click-to-call.

Yahoo announced last night a decision to trim down the size of its paid listings beginning January 18. Paid ads will be "automatically shortened" for the change, but advertisers are encouraged to optimize ads by bringing inportant information inside of the 70 character count. See the full announcement from YahooSarah at the SEW forums.

Yahoo says to expect an increase in click-thrus, but I'm not so sure. For many users who browse with an 800x600 resolution, sponsored listings currently make up the majority (if not all) of the real estate. Smaller sponsored listings would obviously provide more impressions for organic listings, unless Yahoo decided to increase the number of paid listings at the top of the SERPs. But surely they wouldn't...

At least that's the latest report from the Wall Street Journal. I think Microsoft really missed an opportunity here. All year we've heard how they are pumping money into search. First it was the huge ad campaign, then the API, and this and that...but the market share has remained stable, if not dropped a bit. I really hope Microsoft is not just banking on IE7 and Vista alone.

Danny Sullivan blogged on this topic yesterday on the SEW blog --> Google Tests New Local Ads On Maps so I thought I would check it out for myself.

My keyword query of choice -- hotels in Dallas

I quickly spotted the textual paid sponsor links in the top left-hand corner...but like Danny and many others who have blogged on this topic...I too don't see the mysterious blue push pins like David Galbraith originally spotted!

IMO...I believe placing some sort of graphical identifier (blue pins work fine) on the map that is associated with the textual paid sponsor links would generate a much great CTR than having just the textual paid sponsor links in the top left-hand corner.

Laura and I had the honor of attending a luncheon at the Microsoft offices in Las Colinas with David Jakubowski (the General Manager of MSN Search) and a few select agencies and coporations from the DFW area.

The main topic of discussion...the future of the MSN AdCenter paid advertising program.

Some very cool things on the horizon for MSN Search and AdCenter is a big part of that!

More to come in the near future!

Just for the holidays...WINDOWS LIVE LOCAL!

May give it a spin but doubt that I will use it much. Still like Google for information gathering and Yahoo! for shopping...that's just me though.

Zunch Communications: Top 5 Most Requested Consultants Profiles for 2005 December

That makes 11 out of 12 months in 2005!