Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

Earlier today I made mention of the fact that on our weekly Webmaster Radio show Jim and I would be interviewing Neil Patel, Presellpageman and Eric Ward. Unfortunately Eric had to cancel at the last minute due to a prior engagement. Fortunately Rebecca Kelly from SEOMoz came to our rescue and more than filled the shoes left empty.

A huge thanks to Rebecca and the SEOMoz team for coming to our rescue on such short notice (5 minutes to be specific). And what's more - she was great and added huge value to a show dedicated to link building.

Rebecca, next SES I owe you a beer (at least). :)

Oh, and to top off our show Presellpageman held a contest for 3 months of hosted content (that's a page dedicated to your content complete with a backlink to your site) on one of his 20+ year old .edu domains. And he did this for 3 lucky winners. Just another reason to listen to The Alternatives on Thursday at 5 EST. ;)

Labels: eric ward, neil patel, presellpageman, rebecca kelly, seomoz, webmaster radio

No, this blog post isn't about how to get a link on Webmaster Radio. The show today is on link building and we've got ourselves a lineup of some of the best-of-the-best in the industry to discuss how it's done.

We'll be starting off with none other than Eric Ward. Eric is one of the worlds top link builders. We'll of course have MUCH to discuss there.

After Eric we'll be chatting with presellpageman on hosted content, paid links and more.

After presellpageman we'll be chatting with our good friend Neil Patel about the future of link building, social media and more.

It's going to be an excellent show so be sure to listen in at 5PM PST or download the show tomorrow from here.

Labels: eric ward, link building, neil patel, presellpageman, webmaster radio

Beanstalk is pleased to welcome Kennith Nichol to our team. Kennith brings with him a background in web design including HTML, CSS, SSI, XHTML Strict and an assortment of other important skills required to be a valuable member of our team.

Kennith will be starting out in advanced link building, where he ends up - only time will tell.

We are very pleased to have him with us and look forward to working with him for a long time.

Welcome aboard Kennith !

Labels: beanstalk, kennith nichol

On today's Webmaster Radio show I had the pleasure of chatting with Frederick Townes of W3 EDGE Web Design (they're the folks who designed our site for us) as well as Jeff Quipp from Search Engine People. Jim and I had out usual banter for the first 20 minutes however rather than bouncing through a few topics we discussed Google Universal quite extensively. The show is definitely worth a listen if only to get a better understanding of this interesting twist on search and the challenges it presents for search marketers.

But that's not what the title's about now is it?

While he was on our show Jeff discussed an interesting SEO competition that they have running. Top rankings for an interesting phrase? Nope. Who can get a site into the top 10 fastest for a competitive phrase? Not even close. No, the fine folks at Search Engine People got a bit creative and are having a "write the best SEO song" competition. That's right, if you can write the best song about SEO you win their $1000 prize.

An interesting notion and I wish them luck. I assume the primary purpose of the contest is as link bait and I wish them the best of luck. it seems to be working well 'cuz here's a link to the contest. :)

Labels: jim hedger, link bait, search engine people, seo contest, w3 edge, webmaster radio

Today is Victoria Day up here in the Great White North. Victoria Day is the day that we here celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria as well as the birth of the current reigning monarch (Queen Elizabeth II). Why we do this I'm not 100% certain save-to-say that it's good to have an extra day off. Oh wait, what am I doing sitting in the office typing up a blog, downloading a site if it's a day off? OK then, it's nice for staff to have a day off - it doesn't seem to work out all that well if you're a business owner. ;) No tears shed, I've always been in the habit of taking US holidays off so it all works out. :)

But for those Canadians who are taking today off to spend with family and friends (oh, and celebrating the birth of our Queen of course) I have to ask, "what the heck are you doing reading an SEO blog - you're supposed to be taking the day off !!!"

Happy Victoria Day Canada !!!

Labels: victoria day

Today of Webmaster Radio Jim Hedger and I discussed (for the entire show) the topic of Net Neutrality and why we need to keep equal access to the Internet available for all. We interviewed Timothy Carr, Campaign Director for SaveTheInternet.com. Tim helped us cover why Net Neutrality is an important issue and he provides us all with methods to be heard and make sure the Telcos don't have their way. Following Tim was Senator Dorgan who introduced the 'Internet Freedom Preservation Act' into congress.

It was likely our best show to date and covers an extremely important topic. Anyone with a website should give it a listen and then get their voices heard. You can download the show on the Webmaster Radio site here.

Labels: net neutrality, savetheinternet, senator dorgan, timothy carr, webmaster radio

I had the great pleasure of chatting with Senator Dorgan yesterday for a few minutes. The content of the interview will be aired tomorrow on my weekly Webmaster Radio radio show with co-host Jim Hedger. Mr. Dorgan introduced the 'Internet Freedom Preservation Act' into congress to help preserve net neutrality.

On the show tomorrow we will also be speaking with Craig Aaron from SaveTheInternet.com, a website and coalition dedicated to preserving net neutrality. It'll be a great show.

Now I'm going to admit my bias, I support net neutrality but with that I have to give fair time to each side so here we have clips of Senator Dorgan (supports net neutrality) and Senator Stevens (against). You be the judge:

Senator Dorgan speaking in support of net neutrality:


Senator Stevens speaking against net neutrality:


See ... I might be biased but I feel it's only fair to give time for each side to voice their opinions. ;)

Labels: net neutrality, senator dorgan, ted stevens

For those of you who didn't notice, there was an update late last week. For those of you interested in future update, watch for another in the near future: the last one was anything but effective if the goal is to provide relevant results that aid the searcher.

I haven't had the opportunity to fully analyze everything that changed in this recent update and from what I've seen of the results, unless I end up with a spare day or two with nothing to do I'm not likely to even bother - a correction is sure to follow in the next week-or-so.

To give an example of what I'm seeing that is so ineffective in this update I'll give an example (not the only one I found but certainly one of the more dramatic. I ran a search for "car insurance quotes" on Google. Here are the top three results I got:

1. www.zurichinsurance.co.uk - reasonable. No real complaints here.


2. www.motorinsurance.co.uk/car/ - A pretty obvious landing page tactic from a relatively weak site. Not impressed but this isn't what shocked me to find.


3. www.isop.ucla.edu/africa/africanarts/car-insurance-quotes.html - A redirect from an .edu to a PR0 http://mypages.in/search.php?q=car%20insurance%20quotes. Basically, from one irrelevant result to another. The .edu is not relevant for the phrase and the target is a weak site.

There already seems to be some adjusting going on but there is certainly much more to come. Anyone who lost position in this update, don't panic and don't race into changes. Wait a week or two and watch this blog for more updates.

For those of you who gained in this update - if you're surprised to see yourself jump as far as you did, don't celebrate yet. If you're not sure why you got such a good position, chances are you won't have it for long so keep working.

Update from a couple hours later:

And so it begins ...

The top three for the phrase noted is now:

1. www.progressive.com - publically trades strong insurance company website.
   


2. www.confused.com - strong site that has been in the top 10 for quite a while.
   


3. www.q4.com - reasonably good site that has been in the top 10 for a good chuck of time.
   

Looks like Google had the same feelings as I did about it. :)

Labels: google, update

Well it was quite a wait and took some negotiating but Beanstalk is very pleased to welcome Daryl Quenet to the team. Daryl brings with him an exceptional background in PHP, MySQL, web server administration, SEO, CSS, SSI and a variety of other useful skills and technologies.

We are extremely please to see Daryl join our forces here and we know that our clients and visitors will benefit from an expanded support capability, another extremely friendly member of the Beanstalk team and some great tools and services.

Welcome aboard Daryl !!!

Labels: beanstalk, daryl quenet

Yahoo! has recently launched the robots-nocontent tag. What this tag allows webmasters to do is specify portions of their pages that are not relevant to the content on that specific page. The biggest effect will likely be in the area of paid links and advertising. At least, I'm guessing that's what Yahoo! is hoping.

In their blog post on the subject they note many possible uses for the robots-nocontent tag including using it for universal navigation that may contain terms and links unrelated to the topic of the page, headers (for similar reasons), legal disclaimers, and - of course - advertising.

As with their launch of the noodp tag I find myself wanting to pat Yahoo! on the back for another good tag developed. This tag allows webmasters to further control how content is read by the search engine without penalizing them for the need to tailor to the human visitor (universal navigation for example). It also allows for webmasters to remove advertising from the calculations thus further increasing the control we have over what types on content are calculated in our onsite factors.

A note however, Yahoo! has noted that links contained within these sectors that don't have the rel="nofollow" tag on them will still be counted so this isn't a ticket to slap up some poker link ads on your site thinking Yahoo! won't see them. They will and unless you have a gaming site of your own, it's not going to end well.

Down the road I'm betting we'll see this go further with links within these areas that aren't pointing to other resources within the same site being devalued. They're not related to the page content remember?

Labels: nocontent tag, nofollow tag, paid links, yahoo

Tomorrow on Webmaster Radio Jim Hedger and I will be speaking to a couple of great guests. Dan Thies will be joining us to discuss a new project that will include a free offering for you (and me :). I won't get into more details but the free offering is worth the listen.

Also on the show tomorrow is Aaron Wall. We'll discuss paid links, the trends in SEO and probably a bunch of other topics I can't even predict (the great interviews always end up WAY off topic).

Be sure to join us at 5PM EST at WebmasterRadio.fm. You won't be disappointed.

Labels: aaron wall, dan thies, jim hedger, webmaster radio