Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

In a recent report by comScore Networks, Inc. (a major authority on consumer behavior) their studies revealed that of all the search engine users, MSN searchers we the most likely to purchase products and services online. And not just by a bit, MSN searchers were 48% more likely to make a purchase online than the average surfer.

An additional point of interest is that only 15% of all searchers purchased the first time the did the search and found what they were looking for. 85% of the purchases were made off line 5 to 12 weeks later.

Another very interesting point in the report was that 61% of all purchases began with generic phrases making generic phrases an important part of a websites keyword strategy, according to James Lamberti, vice president of search solutions, at comScore Networks Inc.

Beanstalk's has just published an interesting article on the evolution of search engines using two new "alternative engines" and the innovations they are making in the area of search technologies as the examples.

This article will help give readers an understanding of some of the recent advancements/enhancements available from some of the less popular search engines and also give a grasp of where the major players are likely to move as these technologies evolve.

You can read the article on the Beanstalk site at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/search-engine-positioning/evolution.htm.

Believe It Or Not ... Good content matters.

In a very good article by SEO Joel Walsh on the SiteProNews website he makes note of the common thread of high ranking sites ... good content. He even gives a few tips on writing it.

Now I'm the first to admit that writing good content isn't the only key to high rankings and I wouldn't even say it's the most important, however as Google becomes better able to assess content quality, how sentences are strung together, and as it can pick up on misspellings these factors are sure to become, if anything, more important over time.

An additional point can be scored for good content when we think about the main reason you have a website ... the visitors. SEO is not about traffic and bragging rights, it's about business. The better your content is written, the higher it will convert and the more trust your visitors will have in your abilities (even is your services have nothing to do with writing).

Joel's article definitely makes our recommended reading list and can be found on the SitePro site at http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2005/july/27.html.

As it's become apparent from our stats, more an more of our SEO blog readers are SEO's and other marketers we've decided to post this humerous blog based on a forum thread on Search Engine Watch. for those of you who aren't SEO's out there, if you are or have ever been involved in a business where you offer a service I'm sure you'll be able to relate. :)

As an SEO firm we're contacted by businesses around the world. While the vast majority are legitimate requests for information or quotes we're not immune to those either seeking our services free of charge or who haven't disclosed everything accurately regarding their website. When we were alerted to this post on the Search Engine Watch forums we had to chuckle and decided to post it and pass it on. Hopefully you too will get a chuckle out of it.

So here they are. The faorite SEO client lies:

• I'm new to SEO (on third SEO company)
• I don't have any other domains (well only 17)
• I don't interlink my sites (well only 23 of 'em)
• I have a great business idea (but no money)
• I've never signed any guestbooks (only 4k blog comments)
• I'll help write content (twice a year)
• I have a good informational site (about viagra)
• I have a great business model (selling MLM loans)
• My design company will work with you (to overwrite your changes)
• I'll pay for consulting (but not when I'm telling you about my great business ideas)
• I don't cloak (well only to the 3 majors)
• My CMS system is SEO friendly (except for the session ID's and 10 versions of every page)
• We have good programmers (who know frontpage)
• It's not an affiliate site (it's a "reseller site")
• I've had good luck with 2nd tier PPC (really, it converts!)
• My site runs itself

Admittedly we've heard a few of these ourselves. More are sure to be posted on the Search Engine Watch forums so if you're up for a chuckle feel free to visit this thread at http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?p=55935.

On July 25th, 2005 registration for Google's Code Jam begins.

Code Jam is an annual competition wherein programmers of virtually any language can pit their skills against a set of extremely difficult problems, the best coders winning up to $10,000. This competition gives Google the opportunity to put forth problems and let others try to solve them and gives programmers the opportunity to:

1. win money, and
2. get the attention of Google

You can find out more details on the Google website at http://www.google.com/codejam/. Good luck to all who enter. If you win, just remember where you heard it (that's on the Beanstalk website) and when you're working at Google perhaps, out of appreciation, you could "accidentally" forward their newest algorithms to your favorite SEO ("accidentally" of course ;)

Google announced the launch of Google moon on the 20th (two days ago) on the anniversary of the first manned moon landing but we decided that it was fun enough (and not critical to the news we give priority on our SEO blog) that we should save our post on the launch of this very fun little tool for Friday when we like to post a fun website or tid-bit of information for our weekend visitors to enjoy. :)

The project was created based on the birthday wish of Google software engineer Larry Schwimmer who shares a birthday with this historic day. Larry had written this desire on a Post It only a week earlier.

As a tip, if you visit Google moon at http://moon.google.com/ try scrolling all the way in. You'll discover that what you learned when you were 6 turns out to be true. :)

Happy surfing and have a great weekend !

Google has announced a major investment into Hearst Corp. and Goldman Sachs, a company that provides high speed Internet access over electrical power lines. According to the Wall Street Journal this investment reportedly approached $100 million.

What this means, if we may be given the liberty to speculate, is that Google will effectively be able to provide free high speed Internet access for anyone near a power source (and I assume that you're computer is plugged in correct?)

While Microsoft focuses on integrating their search into the newest browser slated to come out in the fall of 2005, Google is obviously focusing on providing yet another great service free and further enhancing their hold over not just where you search, but how you access the Internet.

As their popularity among searchers diminished slightly Google is obviously looking forward and positioning themselves to "monopolize" not just search but the Internet as a whole.

Based on the Q2 report yesterday and their projected slowing during Q3 due to seasonal considerations Google stock has dropped today. If any of those investors had taken the time to actually research all that's going on over at Google HQ they might just have held on a bit longer and absorbed the slight decline in stock value for Q3 in exchange for the increased they are sure to see in Q4 ('tis the season after all) and the long term value increases sure to come as Google diversifies it's revenue streams and enhances their hold over the Internet in general.

Labels: google, quarterly report

On a webcast with Google regarding Q2 earnings ...

Ms Byer is on the line with an assortment of Google Executives including none only than Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google's co-founders for those of you not yet aware). They will be discussing a number of areas including AnWords and, more importantly to many of you, Click Fraud.

The press release just put out at http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/revenues_q205.html shows record earnings of $1.384 billion. This is up 24% over the same period last year.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt discusses the financials ...

30% of revenue was generated from non-US endevors and, according to Google, stands to increase further. this matches with their press release on the 19th of July, 2005 at http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/rd_china.html noting the launch of an R&D center in China.

Revenues are expected to be lower than Q2 than Q3, this is based on past Internet traffic and search statistics and not a reflection of any diminishing of Google's own influence (I'm just telling like I'm hearing it from Google). ;)

Larry Page is now on the line to discuss innovation ...

Larry is mentioning:

Google Maps and Google Earth. Well worth checking out at http://earth.google.com/.
Personalized search which I wasn't astounded with but which you can check out at https://www.google.com/psearch/login?prev=/psearch.
Google video which we covered on our blog here.
Desktop search enhancements which you can look into here. Call me paranoid but I don't like that Microsoft already pretty much owns my computer and the data on it (have you actually read their license agrements) ... I'm not about to voluntarily let a company scan my hard drive voluntarily. Sorry Google ...
Google mobile which provides a search engine for those on mobile devices. You can access it at http://mobile.google.com/.

Discussing advertising is Sergey Brin ...

After discussing how they are excellent at preventing click fraud (I have a couple clients who would love to chat with them about THAT claim) they move on to say that their revenue from Advertising is up 115% over the same quarter last year.

Question Period:

Taking questions from the listeners Mary Meeker asks about video search and where it's going.

Googles answer revolved around copyright and their desire to respect the owners and if possible provide a way to purchase their product (video) right off Google (and thus we await Google Wallet ... coming soon to a website near you).

JP Morgan asked about the minimum-bid drop for high priced search phrases on AdWords.

Google answers that this is done by sector and in response to what they determine as sectors where the most relevant results are the highest bidding and other sectors where the most relevant appear to be the lowest bidders.

Jordan Rohan asks about growth in smaller markets and regional trends in Europe over the US>

Google answers that there had been no specific research done on this however it's definitely a major factor in revenue to Google though it appears to be a factor in both regions and not specific to one area specifically.

Mark Mang asked about the % of revenue generated from GMail, maps, etc.

Google answers that the details haven't been broken out but somehow they know that after a couple years the products tend to become more profitable. Which leads me to ask, how would they know this if they didn't break out revenue by property? ;)

Keith Terry asked about the developments in China and the challenges that that specific market poses and distribution with government filtering.

Google answers that they have a significant market share in China and solid distribution. they look forward to further enhancing their exposure and access to the market and it's revenue.

Richard Keisler asked them to speak about their mobile efforts to deal with SMS and further advancements in mobile services.

Google answers that they're getting significant increases in use of their mobile services and that maps, etc. will increase in use.

Mark Rowlan asked what percent of Google's searches are local in nature and the use of national advertisiers appearing in the sponsored listings and the challenges of getting small businesses into AdWords.

Google answers that there's a good percentage of local searches on their main site and that which there are national advertisers they're working to get them to get them to point their ads to their local sites.

Ben Shactor asked how map and Earth usage patterns differ from initial estimates.

Google answers that usage is much higher than initially planned.

Kristina Falls asked what about advertisers and the growth of the search from Google over the slower growth from the network and what exactly will be launched with Google wallet.

Google answers that the slower increases from the network has not negatively impacted revenue. it was a slower increase as opposed to a decrease.

Additionally regarding Google wallet, they responded that they want to handle the advertising network to help merchants but note that they're not going head to head with PayPal right now.

? Asked (sorry, didn't catch the name) about hiring and the seasonal natural of it with 700 people being hired recently.

Google answered that they have decided to step up hiring to further provide cutting edge products and services and consistenly provide leading edge techonology.

And that's where it ended.

For more details on how Google's doing check our their press release (above) or, if you read this blog post before August 1st you can listen to the webcast i just did by calling l 888-203-1112 from within the U.S. (719-457-0820 from outside the U.S.) and entering confirmation code 4665218.

At first we thought that perhaps we were seeing a minor shift in the Yahoo! results when we noticed a few of our client's site shifting in the rankings. Then we looked a little deeper.

It appears that over the past few days Yahoo! has undergone a fairly major change in algorithms. For those of you who "play fair" and avoid black-hat tactics the only effect you probably felt was positive, however the reduction in the number of sp@m sites in the top 10 indicates that Yahoo! has come up with a new filter for weeding them out.

While we haven't had a chance to go through all the results we need to to make a firm conclusion , it appears that Yahoo! is on to something good and has found a pretty solid way of filtering spam without accidentally penalizing legitimate sites.

Well done Yahoo! I suppose that's why you're Alexa's #1 website.

An article published today by veteran SEO Jim Hedger (wow ... that's twice in one week he's been mentioned in Beanstalk's SEO blog :) covers well a topic of interest to all SEO's and which should be of interest to all business owners and those who manage websites - the statistics behind current search engine trends.

The article is a great compilation of links to some of the best and most revealing search engine and search usage trends reports to date as well as providing a solid analysis of what they mean.

For those of you interested in getting a better idea of not just where we are today in the search engine world but where we're potentially heading and how to better position your website both in rankings and in usability, then this article, published on the ISEDB website is a must-read. And I'm assuming from the fact that you're visiting our SEO blog that these issues are important to you.

You can read the full article at http://www.isedb.com/news/article/1219.

Beanstalk's is currently doing and interview with relevancy search engine Claria.com about their new relevancy search feature for his upcoming article "The Evolution Of Search".

Special thanks to Claria VP And Chief Marketing Officer Scott Eagle for taking the time to speak with us during this busy time for Claria.

Watch for this exciting article coming out later this week from Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning (we will of course post it's publication in our SEO blog to give our loyal readers a head's up before it gets published accross the net).

In a recent article by fellow SEO Jim Hedger, he points out that now is the time to get started on your Christmas-related terms and to start working on your rankings for the Christmas season.

Too often those of us in the SEO world are called in November with the request, "I'd like to rank for "christmas gifts" and of course, I'll need to be on the first page by the end of the month to take advantage of the holiday buying spree." Unfortunately for them, they'll have to leave disappointed unless their coming to us with a well established site that just needs some onsite optimization and is already ranking for "gifts".

If you want your website ranking well for the Christmas holidays then now's the time to start. Your competitors may have already begun and every day is an advantage in the SEO world.

The latest edition of "Climbing The Beanstalk", Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning's bi-weekely newsletter was just published. For those of you who have not subscribed to our newsletter (which is free and can be signed up for by entering your email on the form box to the top right) you can find the latest edition at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/newsletters/15jul05.htm.

You can also read past newsletter on our article page at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/index.htm.

We at Beanstalk generally try to give our SEO blog readers and newsletter subscribers a heads-up on the latest search engine news and information prior to releasing it to the general public in the form of articles. We feel this is only fair for our loyal visitors. :)

Last night's PageRank and backlink update was one of the bigger we have seen in recent history. The article we published on it covered many of the changes but we kept a couple of the key factors out of it and saved them just for our blog and newsletter readers until early next week when we will publish a more thorough article on the PageRank update and the new additions.

The sandox effect and the Google patent of the aging delay technology has been added into the PageRank calculation. This will not stop your site from attain PageRank during your time in the sandbox however an aging delay has been placed on the value of the links to your site and sites with mainly new links will have noticed a drop in their PageRank while sites with links that are many months old will have noticed an increase in PageRank or at least will have maintained their current rank.

What this basically means is don't panick if you've dropped slightly while working hard to increase your backlink counts. if the majority of these links are new then they are not being given full credit in regards to your PageRank however as the links age the value of them will too and your PageRank will increase.

An additional note in regards to this update is that it only appears to be affecting older sites. Many sites that had a PageRank of 0 prior to the update continue to do so after. This is not uncommon during mild shifts but it's the first time we have seen this during a major update such as this one. Our feel is that this further reinforces our belief that history is playing a stronger role in the PageRank calculations.

As there is a fairly large update in PageRank going on with decreases seen on many sites while the same sites show an increase in backlinks, we have published an article on it which you can view online at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/search-engine-positioning/pagerank-update.htm.

For those of you who follow PageRank, it is currently being updated along with backlink counts.

Early indications are that Google is either raising the bar quite high on PageRank or has come up with some new way of calulating it with some webmasters reporting very significant increases in their backlink counts while finding their PageRank dropping.

If you see your PageRank drop don't panic, take a peek at your competitors. PageRank changes are universal so a drop in yours probably means theirs dropped too assuming an equal level of effort put in since the last update and over the past 6 months.

If you don't have the Google toolbar installed with advance featured or a Firefox extension that shows pageRank you can check yours online along with your backlinks using a very cool tool at http://www.mcdar.net/q-check/datatool.asp.

Jayde Online, the company that runs ExactSeek and SiteProNews, launched a new search engine and directory network earlier this week at ISEDN.org.

This network is essentially a directory of independant search engines and directories making it a great resource during your link building efforts. They will be adding in a forum in the near future and if it's anything like the resources Jayde Online has created in the past it's definitely one to watch.

This site is brand new (reflected in it's PR0 status) but we've already added it to our bookmarks as it's sure to be a solid resource that provides a great forum and a good network of directories and search engines to submit your site too for extra exposure and links.

You can visit this newly launched resource at http://www.isedn.org/. I would recommend adding it to your favorites. While it's useful now, in a couple months once the forum is up and populated and the directory grows it's sure to become even more powerful than it is today.

A great article by Chris Sherman of Search Engine Watch was published today entitled "How Americans Search". This article, based on research by Harris Interactive, helps us understand the way people use search engines and what they're looking for.

I can't do it better justice that Chris did in an excellent article and so if you're interested in getting a deeper understnading of the way people search you can read the article on the Search Engine Watch website at http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3519361.

Alternatively you can read the press release and request a full copy of the report (which we have done but not yet received) from http://icrossing.com/get_to_know_us/press_releases/search_report.htm.

I was reading the blog of Patrick Gavins and Andy Hagans today and realized that we've never mentioned to our readers how useful the insights they give on SEO and more specifically link building, can be.

An entire blog written by very knowledgeable gentleman on the single topic of link building.

Todays post on the importance of PageRank in determining the value of a link is very good and definitely worth the read if you do any kind of link building.

Combine one part "link building blog" and another part TopNet Solution's PR Prowler and you've got the recipe for success in you link building efforts.

Visit their Link Building Blog at http://www.linkbuildingblog.com/.
Read Beanstalk's review of PR Prowler at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/resources/recommended/pr-prowler.htm.

For any of you that have followed our blog, newsletters, etc. you'll remember that Total Optimizer Pro, which has recently launched the significantly enhanced version 2 is the most highly touted SEO tool Beanstalk has in its arsenal.

Allowing users to analyze completely the links of their main competitors (from numbers to PageRank to anchor text) it has been enhanced to include full analysis of onsite factors such as titles and keyword densities.

Regularly selling at $347 (and well worth the price) we've just noticed that they've dropped their price for July to $197 (how they come up with these numbers I have no idea :)

For those of you who are SEOs or simply trying to get your own website to the top of the rankings I can't recommend this product enough. And at $197 it's worth every single penny you'd spend and more, even if it's only for a single site.

We haven't had a chance to update of review page on this product since it's release but you can get an idea of the basics at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/resources/recommended/top.htm. this doesn't include the information on the newly added onsite analysis but it should give you a good idea of the power of this tool. the page also contains a link directly to their site when you can find more information on the enhancements.

As of today the Google Toolbar which previously has been available to IE exclusively, is now available for the open source Firefox browser with a few fancy features such as;

Spellcheck- check your spelling whenever you type in web forms.
Autolink(US only)- Turn street addresses into links to online maps.
AutoFill- Automatically fill out forms for faster shopping online.
Wordtranslator- Translate English words into other languages.

This new beta release just goes to show that Google is closely observing the rapid spread of the Firefox browser which if you have visited this blog previously, you are probably aware that we at Beanstalk are very fond of this open source browser.
Google toolbar is a registered trademark of Google, Inc.

In a partnership between the Web Analytics Association (WAA) and the University of British Columbia the very first in-depth university-level web analytics program has began development. The program is called the Web Analytics Award of Achievement and will be delivered 100% online.

Opinions and Case studies is what the learning units will be divided between. Course content will be covering three essential areas:

1. Web Site Optimization - Usability, Search Engine Optimization, Navigation, Checkout Funnels, Visitor Paths

2. Measuring / Managing Marketing Campaigns - Creative Testing, Pay-Per-Click, E-mail Marketing, Banners / other Display ad units, Rich Media

3. Analytical Business Culture - "People issues" including organizational buy-in for analytics usage and data-driven decision making, choosing and deploying the right solutions to meet business needs, staffing and training the organization properly, and communicating information to diverse constituents.

From the first information offered by WAA and UBC, the course looks like a fantastic chance for anyone involved with marketing or web site development to improve site sales performance. At this time the program is just starting to be developed, so it's very early. When more information becomes available, rates, etc we will be sure to post.

I hope most of you remember five years ago yesterday (July 4th) when Google replaced Inktomi to serve secondary search results at Yahoo!. How many of us predicted then that Google would be as huge today, and paving the landscape of search? It is incredible what can happen in just five years.

I did some clicking and found the press release on Google's site; Yahoo Selects Google as its Default Search Engine Provider The press release was dated on June 26, 2000. I assume that the results switched over on this date, July 4th, 2000.

A thread found at WebmasterWorld states just that. A member with 177 total posts says;

"I just blocked all Asian countries and some countries in Europe, then I saw a spike after a couple of hours. Then it stayed there on top since then."

He further tried to clarify, "I am talking about those pages with Google Ads." But I still do not clearly understand if its advertising campaigns or the readers he is blocking. It makes more sense that it is the campaigns.

This comment startled many. As another member said, "Block all those countries and your bottom-line revenue will go down, not up. Your CPM may go up, but who cares?"

Ian Turner has been found in Atlanta without his passport. It is truly amazing the effort the whole SEO community put through to try to track him down. It shows you something about this group of people.

Nick Wilson of ThreadWatch was instrumental in getting this going. He created the official Ian Turner Missing Facts Page which helped keep everyone worried about Ian in the loop, as well as bridge the communication of Ian's whereabouts. At about 5:30, ThreadWatch received a post by DaveN (who was in contact with Ian' wife throughout the time) which sprung the new post named Ian Turner Found.

Glad he is back and safe! Have a terrific July 4th!

Ask Jeeves is the one major search engine engine to post a special logo for Canada Day.

Ask's Smart Answer for Canada Day is as follows for all of you non-Canadians out there:

"On June 20, 1868, a proclamation signed by the Governor General, Lord Monck, called upon all Her Majesty's loving subjects throughout Canada to join in the celebration of the anniversary of the formation of the union of the British North America provinces in a federation under the name of Canada on July 1st."

May those of you residing in Canada have a terrific long weekend :)