Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

Let's begin our post here with an update on Google PageRank. There is an update underway. Now, before any of you panic that your PR has just dropped, take a peek at your competitors.

During the last toolbar update I noticed a TON of sites making huge gains. While I'm always pleased to see my clients jump up a couple PR points, in the last update a lot of it didn't make sense. I had clients I would have predicted to jump to a PR4 from the 3 they were at but when they jumped straight to PR5, well it didn't make sense. At lost the current update hits and the client I'm thinking of dropped to a PR4 - right where they should be with my understanding of the way the world works. :)

If you noticed drops in your PageRank value it may well be due to the current corrections going on. Think back a few months, were you celebrating a little too hard with a huge jump? Now it's time for sobriety. :)

And BotNets ...

There's a great article that appears to support my 2007 prediction on Webmaster Radio regarding Google developing a diskless computer (or at least working with manufacturers to do so). Well in an article on the BBC website titled, Criminals 'may overwhelm the web', the first signs of it are appearing though you need to read between the lines.

Vint Cerf, Google employee and one of the developers of the TCP/IP protocol (if you don't know what TCP/IP is, it's the "language" that the web and most networks function on) referred to the proliferation of botnets as a pandemic and noted the following:

"Of the 600 million computers currently on the Internet, between 100 and 150 million were already part of these botnets."

That paints a pretty bleak picture. How can we combat this pandemic? Is there even a solution?
Fortunately Michael Dell (founder of Dell computers) offered the following:

"The future might bring "disposable virtual PCs", accessed through the Internet, that would minimise the threat of a persistent virus infection."

My prediction for 2007 (or perhaps 2008 but that we would at least hear confirmation this year) was that Google would develop a cheap home system that would connect to a network and network storage rather than a hard drive. Everything would happen online. It appears that's the "solution".

Am I the only one that finds it an odd coincidence that Google points out the significant threats that are present (and make no mistake, they are threats) and that Dell bring forth the solution of a dummy machine that is centrally administered and thus, more easily secured and managed? Oh, and need I remind you that in June of 2006 Dell and Google signed a distribution deal?

Hmmmmmmmmm. Methinks my predictions for 2007 might be in the makings. :)

With all this said, botnets are a HUGE security and web issue. While I like to point out that Google and Dell and likely positioning themselves for the launch of this new computer system that does not make the issue any less real. There is a quote, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." Just because major corporations may take advantage and seek gains from this issue doesn't mean it's not real and that it doesn't threaten the very nature and function of the Internet. The article is worth reading and, if you have the time, researching. You can read the article on the BBC website here. You can also listen to Jim Hedger and I speak with Ryan Sherstobitoff from Panda Technology on just this subject on Webmaster Radio here (this is from December 21st).

Labels: botnets, google, jim hedger, pagerank, webmaster radio

Well, it's Friday. I still have many hours of work ahead of me to get taken care of tonight and through the weekend and yet I can't help but be happy to see a couple days of reduced time frames arrive and perhaps an opportunity to help my eldest work on his website (he's 9 and will likely be taking over the business in a couple year ;) (I am kidding)

Note: when he realized that he was actually getting traffic to his site on Pokemon his first question was, "Can I make money from that?" My reply: "It's called Google AdSense and yes you can." He's now getting hundreds of visitors per day and makes more in AdSense revenue on his Pokemon site than Beanstalk does on it's blog. I'd be disgruntled if I wasn't so darn proud. :)

Unless there's some HUGE breaking news I try to leave our visitors with something fun to head into the weekend. Well this week's Dilbert comics provided just that opportunity.

For those of you who don't use secure passwords (and you know who you are) these are for you. And as a warning, hackers are even smarter than Dogbert. :)

Comics copyright United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND !!!

As it's Thursday I once again had the privilege of speaking with veteran SEO and all-round great guy Jim Hedger on Webmaster Radio. Today we had the opportunity to discuss some news including the reopening of DMOZ for submissions. A great piece of news for the SEO industry. We also discussed an interesting competition being held by Microsoft and AMD to "celebrate" the launch of Windows Vista. The competition is solving some puzzles (difficult) but more interesting than that is the top prize: a trip into space. How awesome is that?

You can register at http://www.vanishingpointgame.com/. Since it costs absolutely nothing to make this request I will: When you do so I'd like to ask that you fill in dave@beanstalk-inc.com in the referrer field. I'll get an extra 20 points if you do (to a maximum of 200 points). This doesn't reduce your chances of winning, it just increases mine. :) I'd really like a trip into space (how cool would my kids think I am then ... might even make up for working on a computer all day ;)


Even better than the contest were our guests today though. On the show we had Jeffrey Rohrs, author of The Sausage Manifesto. I first discussed this work back on January 4th when I found an article about it on the SearchEngineWatch.com website. Today I had the privilege of speaking with it's author and what a great discussion it was. He discussed the hurdles the engines are up against in combating click fraud, how one of the biggest areas they need to address is customer service, and a number of other great point. The link to the episode will follow at the bottom of the post so you can give it a listen. Before doing so I highly recommend reading it at http://www.sausagemanifesto.com/.

We also had on Becky Ryan speaking about MyBlogLog.com. A great service and networking resource to help professional meet and exchange information quickly and easily. I've recently become a member (December 13th) but have really only started using it over the past couple days. If any of you join feel free to add user "beanstalk" to your community. :) Hope to see you there.

And for those of you interested in listening to the full news and interviews, today's episode should be up on the WebmasterRadio site tomorrow.

Labels: dmoz, jim hedger, sausage manifesto, vanishing point game, webmaster radio

I received a call recently with a most perculiar point. The caller wanted to take me up on an offer we had for web designers to do one of their client's sites free in hopes of securing additional work down the road. While I'm always happy to work with designers the message was still odd, I never approved such a promotion and as we're basically running at full capacity and having to turn down clients to insure our guarantees and current client obligations are met - I was certain that in some 16 hours-of-work daze I wouldn't put out or OK such an email.

After discussing the issue with the caller a little more I discovered that the email came from our domain. The email address? noreply@beanstalk-inc.com. Hmmmmmmm.

The gentleman was kind enough to forward me the message he received. Note: this did not come from Beanstalk. It is simply being posted to put out there what it already apparently being published in our name. This email is in no way associated with Beanstalk and we cannot honor the content of it. Here is the email:

Good day,

My name is Steve Wilson. I am a SEO analyst at Beanstalk-Inc.com. We are
excited to offer you a FREE website SEO analysis and optimization package.
There is no cost whatsoever to you. We do ask that if you are satisified
with our service that you write a short review about Beanstalk-Inc.com.

If you're not familiar with the term, SEO is short for search engine
optimization, the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web
site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web
site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that that
site will be visited by a user. It is common practice for Internet users to not
click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in
a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site.

SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and
improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine.

At the end of our analysis and optimization service, your website is
guaranteed to start receiving more traffic from the most popular search
engines.
More traffic equals more dollars.

If you are interested in this free offer, feel free to contact me via
Email or MSN(preferred). Thanks for reading and take care.

Regards,

Steve Wilson
SEO Analyst
Beanstalk-Inc.com
P: (250) 370-9750
F: (800) 979-3215

Email: steve.wilson@gmail.com
MSN: steve.wilson@gmail.com

Ugh.

So there you have it, Steve Wilson is a sp@mmer and a thief - trying to profit off the reputation we have spent years developing. We will be taking actions against him shortly of course but thought it wise to post this here just to make sure our site visitors aren't confused.

Labels: beanstalk, steve wilson, thief

The Open Directory Project (DMOZ) is once again open for business. The site was effectively down for months. You could view it but you couldn't submit sites and even editors couldn't go in to add, remove or edit entries. This situation was caused by a server crash at AOL that eliminated all submissions and basically caused havoc with the sytem.

I won't bother getting into a full discussion on why they were down. That's been covered in plenty of other places however the first light at the end of the tunnel was spotted on December 18, 2006 when editors were allowed back in to do their job and now it appears that you can submit again. :)

I make note of this as I'm gathering that not everyone is aware of this yet so the lineup in the queues is likely lower than average and so it's a good time to get in there and get your site(s) submitted. :)

It's Friday afternoon and I'm already anxious to get to the weekend. With the potential of going out with the wife WITHOUT THE KIDS for the first time in months I'm highly looking forward to at least one day off in a row (not planning on getting much done tomorrow ;). Thus we'll be getting throught this blog post fairly quickly but there are a few things worth noting to take you through the weekend.

Google Hiccup:

I notice this on a partner website and it seems to have been more wide spread. I got an email, a phone call and somehow they manged to track me down at home. Last Tuesday night the homepage of a well-established website disappeared from the Google index. (note: this was not a client, just a partner :)

And so I got to work analyzing the situation and trying to establish a few action items to get them back from this odd odd scenario. Here are the facts as they were:

• only the homepage disappeared
• the PageRank held (not a decisive point to be sure)
• the site didn't employ any blackhat tactics but did use some fairly comman SEO practices such as proper page interlinking, keyword density optimization, etc.

So what was up?

I ransacked their log files and saw that Google was visiting regularly but was getting a 304 code (not modified). So we knew that Google was visiting regularly which is not common for a banned site. We ran a thorough backlink analysis on the site and determined that the backlinks and anchor text variations were well within the norm with a solid growth in links but no spikes that woudl set off any alarms.

So what did we do?

After determining that this was likely just a hiccup and not a real penalization we made some changes to the homepage so Google wouldn't get a "not modified" code. We also adjusted the XML sitemap and made a couple tweaks "just for good measure". Today the index page reappeared with the ranking they had had a couple weeks earlier.

It appears as though Google had to hit the "last known good" button. if I had to guess I'd say they had a few issues as the rankings the site counced back with were those they had a couple weeks ago but not what they'd had on the Monday before they dropped off the face of the earth.

I mention this as it is thus likely that we will see some updates coming from Google over the next 7 days. If my guess is correct and Google did hit a "wayback" button they will likely bring in whatever updates they had tried to employ with some tweaks in the near future. So keep your eyes open.

In Other Google News

There's a great article on Google advancing into outdoor advertising (electronic billboards, radio, etc.) on the NDNet site. The article, written by Donna Bogatin is well worth reading by any Internet Marketers or those interested in Google (which is likely you ;) and can be read on the ZDNet website here.


And now I'm off to finish up the last few tasks I have before I *hopefully* head out with my wife for a lovely dinner, a few drinks and (oh my) maybe some kidless chat. :)

As our regular readers will know, I host a show every Thursday with Jim Hedger on Webmaster Radio. Today we discussed a few alternative engines that I like including:

• Everyclick.com - they give 50% of all their prifits to charity and are the fastest growing engine in the UK.
• WhoToTalkTo.com - an interesting take on job search engines that require people looking for job to post one they know about before they can search.
• Wize.com - a very interesting shopping engine with a great product ranking system.
• Cranky.com - A search engine for people 50-100. This is the only engine where you'll find "jobs after retirement" as the #2 most searched phrase and "sex" at #10.

We then discussed the new proposed Internet Freedom Preservation Act which helps protect net neutrality. This is important news for anyone with a website. This cross-party act seeks to protect us from having the major Telcos offer competitive advantages to those with bigger wallets regarding how all those 1's and 0's move around the 'net.

And Then Mark Joyner

It was after our news segment that Jim and I had the privalege of chatting with Mark Joyner, Internet Marketing guru and, as we found out, all-round good guy.

While I expected and prepped for an interview based more on the functional aspects of Internet Marketing and his rise to the top, we spent more time discussing how to better your life and the lives of those around you, him military past and some new offering he's providing to help him fund his philanthropic endeavors.

His new course (free) offers a variety of tips on how to be more effective. As I discovered in watching the first couple lessons: a lot of it istuff you do or should know - you've just learned to ignore the obvious (I know, I do too).

A lot of what he says makes a lot of sense and while every person's opinion is just that (their opinion) the free courses are definitely worth the time to watch (and hey, at that price all you stand to lose is an hour of your life and that's if you watch them all).

Here are some links from My. Joyner:

• Mark's blog
• Simplocity 101
  (note, there are some paid options but you get some good courses on the free ones)

So it was a big show. I would highly recommend giving it a listen (it will be posted on the Webmaster Radio site sometime tomorrow).

As an aside:

And in other news, there has been a Google update for existing sites (sites with PR0 will not find increases). This appears to be an updating of internal pages more than a full-blown update. We have not noticed much in the way of ranking changes.

Labels: cranky, everyclick, internet freedom preservation act, jim hedger, mark joyner, net neutrality, simpleology, simplology 101, whototalkto, wize

As we head into the new year it's difficult to determine what might be a most appropriate topic to cover. What search engine events stand to define 2007 enough to warrant being covered here. This was a question I'd asked over the last couple days: days with little going on at the Big Three. Well fortunately in doing my usual preparations for my segment on Webmaster Radio and while doing my daily rounds of some of the top SEO resources I landed on a few interesting tid-bits which fit the bill nicely.

And so let's begin ...

Google get a new patent:

Google was awarded a new patent titled, "Methods and apparatus for estimating similarity". This patent basically outlines a new method for determining duplicate content. The downside is that if there are enough similar traits on a site (according to Bruce Clay this could go so far as to cover breadcrumb navigation, templates and dynamic sites) then your pages may trigger the similarity engine and be penalized. There's some interesting coverage on the WPN website here.

Google gets spanked:

Mathew Ingram wrote and article in Canada's national newspaper "The Globe And Mail" criticizing Google's stepping away from their initial "Don't Be Evil" philosophy. While I've definitely criticized Google on a number of occasions, many of which were legitimate while others were just ranting, some of the recent attacks on Google are simply absurd. The biggest one noted in the article and which was voiced also by Search Engine Watch's Greg Jarboe in an article where he refers to Google's cross-promotions as "shameless self promotion" referring to Google's using of one their services to promote another. An example given was Google's placement of a link to the blog search service from their news pages. All I have to say about that is,


Microsoft promotes MSN on their site, Yahoo! promotes a wide array of services, heck - on the Beanstalk site (dedicated to promoting our SEO services) we link to our blog and articles on every page. As a company adds new services, offerings, or just info it's in their corporate best interest to cross promote those services when applicable. I often use their news search and I often use their blog search. When you do a search on either you'll find a link to set a Google Alert for the query. THIS MAKES SENSE! Cross promoting products is a fine and corporately responsible thing to do. They have shareholders to which they have legal obligations. One of the points brought forward by Greg was that traffic to their blog search service doubled over two weeks when the link was added to the news section. I don't hear the shareholders complaining and the services were obviously compatible or none of the traffic would have moved over. And that's all the ranting I'll do in Google's defence today. :)

Google does China:

And here's where I take a chance to criticize Google but I have to say (as Jim brought up in the show) some of the criticism is misdirected. Google has partnered with China Mobile to bring Google search to the cell phone. As North Americans we have to face the reality that we're behind Asia and the UK regarding our use of cell phones and this is no small thing as, in other parts of the world, there are MANY people use their phones for surfing, paying bills, etc.

What I don't like is that if one does a search for "tiananmen square" in China they will only find smiling tourists. At the same time, while the propaganda machine rolls across China we have to ask ourselves if it's better to have some influence or should we boycott doing business there. Any change is sure to come through communication and discussion. I don't like what I see but what better choice is there?

It's Time To See What's In The PPC Sausage:

There's a very good article by Kevin Newcomb on the SEW website on PPC engines and click fraud. It's about a 5 minute read and well worth it for anyone who's investing in PPC or manages it for others. You can read the article here.


And that's it for today. We'll have more coming soon as we're analyzing a couple slight shifts over at Google and Yahoo! in their ranking algorithms. So stay tuned. :)

Labels: bruce clay, china mobile, google, similarity patent