Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

Labels: google, google docs, security

Well, it's been a long time since my last blog post. I apologize for this and will be working hard to try to be more active in the social world of the web. As you know - in this industry things move pretty fast and while I definitely can't recap the last couple weeks, I can start anew with the recent going's on - some interesting news going forward and an update on Google. First - let's talk about what's going on right now:

Today on Webcology (my radio show) Jim Hedger and I discussed privacy including an Italian's court's assertion that Google executive are responsible for the material uploaded to YouTube (yikes), an interview with the Ontario privacy commissioner, and a lengthy discussion on what should and shouldn't be private (and who's responsibility is it anyways - is Facebook REALLY responsible for your privacy or should YOU take a second to think about what you're adding to a social network (key word - social) and understand that once you add it - it's no longer private information). It was a great show and is the first in a series of interviews and information on privacy issues and concerns.

Yahoo! & Bing are finally sitting in a tree. :) The deal has been approved and Bing will soon (hopefully by the end of 2010) be feeding Yahoo! organic results and Yahoo! paid search will power Bing paid results (they hope by Q4 of 2010 but in my humble opinion it's more likely in Q1 of 2011). Can I hear a - FINALLY !

And for those of you who are as geeky as I am - there's a great webinar series this weekend. 30 webinars in one weekend on a wide array of topics. it's going to be a wild ride with tons of great info and PRIZES. With reps from the major engines and great presenters such as Shawna Fennell, Stoney deGeyter, Jennifer Laycock and many many more (including your truly on Saturday at 12PM) you just know it's going to be great. Hope to see you there and good luck winning one of the many great prized from netbooks to $5000 design packages. So get your Twitter account loaded, step in front of your favorite browser and buckle up. To register go to http://www.newlifeevent.com/.

Labels: bing, google, webcology, webinar, yahoo

I love Google. Before I head into my latest rant I wanted to get that out of the way as this is two posts in a row that involve me complaining about something Google is doing. Perhaps the flaw is in the way I viewed Google - as more than just a marketing company. I suppose that this means I wasn't really paying attention when the quarterly reports came out. :)

First, let's setup the situation ...

The year is 2004 and I've just registered the domain beanstalk-inc.com. I like sharing information and I like adding content to our site and so as soon as the site was fully operational and our core 100-or-so pages of content ere built I worked to get a blog started with the first post appearing on March 24 of 2005 (about the AskJeeves purchase). :) When I was choosing the blog system to use the choice was pretty obvious to me. The logic went something like,

• I want Google to crawl my blog
• Google owns Blogger
• Google creates the Blogger code
• Google will thus always be able to crawl Blogger blogs
• I think I'll go with Blogger

I wanted to content on our site so I chose Blogger and went with their FTP option. I chose Blogger because of the FTP option. I have setup clients in Blogger because it's run by Google and has an FTP options. Google has just announced that they will be discontinuing their FTP option. Insert expletive here.

Now, I can see their reasoning. By their count, only 0.5% of the Blogger blogs are uploaded via FTP and are responsible for a disproportionate amount of support resources HOWEVER I would counter with two point.

About 75% of all the blogs are spam and I'd bet that the ones hosted on actual domains are more likely to be legit. I may be wrong but I'd bet not. But still - if we assume that we are still left with only 2% of legit Blogger sites being uploaded via FTP. So what does that mean in numbers? I don't have access to the most current data but let's say - thousand upon thousands of users will feel the inconvenience and now I have to go back and appolgoize for recommending to my clients that they use Blogger and further - find a solution.

Now - I do like their sub-domain solution (they'll host blog.beanstalk-inc.com but let's be honest - it's still going to cost me to go this route via lost links to existing posts and the lost weight that seems to affect 301'd links (though I'm not sure why but it does appear to happen).

At any rate - that's my rant and stay tuned, once I figure out what we're going to do and test it - I'll blog about the results so if you too are caught in this mess - hopefully we'll be able to give you a solid solution. :)

And good luck. :)

And now on to the good news ...

Beanstalk has once again made the grade to be included in TopSEO's best of the best winning awards in the following areas:

• Optimization
• Content Creation
• Link Building
• Training
• PPC Management

A big thanks for TopSEOs and to our clients. :)

Labels: blog, blogger, google

I've got two topics to cover today - Google's keyword tool and Google's personalized results. Let's start with their keyword tool ...

Google's Keyword Tool (and my problems with it)

Today I'm not going to focus on the common question, "Is the data accurate?" It's a good question but one which is likely, "Yes if you know how to read it." It includes the search network so i you read it as "number of searches on Google.com" you're wrong but if you read it as "accessing Google's search results" you're right. Nonetheless, that isn't what I'm going to cover today - my issue today is what they're displaying and what they're not.

When one uses Google's keyword tool one expects that the resulting data shouldn't be tainted by Google's personal bias towards products and/or services. But alas - it appears that either the results are biased or people's search patterns are very different than what I would expect them to be and given that I've been working as an SEO for ten years - it's doubtful that the search patterns are THAT different. Here's an example of what I'm referring to so you can run your searches on this tool understanding that you might not see an accurate view of the world around you.

Top 20 results reported for "iphone developer" (I've trimmed some of the columns to make it fit this page):

Keywords related to term(s) entered
Keywords - Monthly
iphone developer - 74,000

Additional keywords to consider
Keywords - Monthly
developer - 3,350,000
resume developer - 40,500
programmer developer - 33,100
j2ee developer - 14,800
cv developer - 14,800
resumes developer - 4,400
technical developer - 4,400
developer engineer - 3,600
consultant developer - 2,900
unix developer - 2,400
developer experience - 1,600
ipone developer - 73
aple developer - 46
aplle developer - 36

Really? One of their top phrases is ipone developer and the are no additional searches at all that include the keywords iphone and developer? Oh wait - if I search "iphone app developer" it shows 3,600 estimated monthly searches so why didn't it appear in the above search?

Now let's look at the results for "android developer". In this case we don't even have to look at the "Additional keywords to consider" - there are plenty of results. They are:

android developer - 12,100
android development - 12,100
android developers - 3,600
android application development - 2,400
android developer challenge - 2,400
guide to android development - 1,900
android developer phone - 1,600
the busy coder's guide to android development - 1,600
professional android application development - 1,300
google android development - 480
android developer g1 - 390
android development phone - 390
android software development - 390
android game development - 320
android development download - 260
development for android - 260
android developer challenge ii - 210
android developer forum - 210
android developer forum - 210
android mobile development - 210

And the list goes on from there. Wow - the android sure is popular compared to the iPhone. ;)

Another "curiosity" here is that the numbers noted above are broad match. If we go to Exact for "iphone developer" the number drops from 74,000 to 14,800. So there definitely are other searches in there - they're just not being displayed. Hmmmmmmm.

I'll leave the reasoning there for others to work out.

Now onto Personalization ...

As many of you have noticed, Google is tracking you with cookies and providing personalized results - even when you're not logged in. I've got to commend Google on this one. From a user standpoint it's another slam dunk in that they're providing a better search experience however from and SEO's standpoint - it's a nightmare as we're always searching and augmenting our results and so we often don't see what other do. To avoid this you can block cookies from Google but you'll have issues with Google services such as Blogger and every their keywords tool.

I got an interesting email from the developers of a Firefox extension called Google Camo that stops personalized results but seems to allow other cookies so Google's various services work. I'm using it right now and the machine is working great so thanks to the developers. You can read more about it and download the add on at http://www.iexposure.com/googlecamo.

Happy searching. :)

Labels: google, keyword research, personalization

Back on November 30 I reported that with just a simple title change we had lost our sitelinks. I guessed at the time that Google was probably just trying to figure out which links to put there (perhaps guessing that a new title would attract different visitors and that the links would change). This guess turned out to be correct and today (2 weeks later) we have regained the sitelinks.

So if you have sitelinks and you're pondering changing your title - you'll likely lose them but don't panic, it doesn't last long.

Labels: google, sitelinks

Yesterday I touched on the Twitter rankings on the first page of Google for competitive phrases. Today I was tweeting while listening to an SEOmoz webinar and noticed that a friend of mine ranked on page one for "seo" via the Twitter feeds. My tweet about this then ranked me and my tweet about this irony then ranked. it appears that it's easy to now rank on page one which is precisely why this "feature" will soon die.

I had assumed that for this to work well you needed a strong twitter account but I've avoided it until recently so only have about 100 followers. Hardly a strong account thought I'd trying to build those number by providing periodic updates and good info (you can follow me at @beanstalkseo should you feel so inclined).

You can view the rankings I'm referring to at

Labels: google, seo, twitter

Alright, today is the first time I've seen this. Now we've all seen Twitter in the Google results. We've all seen articles in the Google results but never before have I seen a scroll box with a mix of articles and Twitter comments half way down the first page.

As quickly as it came it disappeared but fortunately I'd done a screen capture which you can view here:

As if things weren't complicated enough. :)

And for those of you thinking this is just for longtail - the search phrase was "car insurance". Obviously we're looking at a major phrase here.

Shortly thereafter it went back to News Results indicating this may be a Caffeine test reinforcing rumors that Twitter and other social media avenues will have a greater impact in a post-Caffeine world.

Labels: Caffeine, google, twitter

Today I learned something new. It's an interesting thing, SEO. How a small change in one are can impact others in ways that one wouldn't predict. Well such an event recently occurred in our own rankings.

it's been a while but I enjoy testing different title and description combinations on our site to see if we can increase our clickthroughs or target new phrases without impacting what we've got. I did just this thing last week when I changed our title from "Expert SEO Services by Beanstalk" ro "Organic SEO Services by Beanstalk". A small change but I thought the traffic might be more focused as we don't actually offer paid search services. The effect was interesting.

Admittedly - we increased a bit for a few phrases. "organic seo services" was one of them though we only went to page two for that one. The big effect, we lose the sitelinks that we've had for well over a year. Below our description we've had 3 or 4 sitelinks for ages. The second the new title got cached we lost them. I'm going to admit it - I had no idea that Google tied changes in site titles to sitelinks.

Will we get them back again? Probably (or is that hopefully?)

If I had to guess I'd assume that Google is now trying to figure out which pages and phrases are most relevant. We'll keep you posted on timeframes for them to come back and any actions we took to speed things up. :)

Labels: google, sitelinks

Well - I had sent to me a couple AdWords credits and haven't been able to use them. They expire today so better to give them away than waste them. :) We already have an AdWords account and they won't let us apply our credit to an existing account. Darn them. :)

The credits are only good until the end of the day and they're worth $75 Canadian. I'm not sure if the AdWords account has to be in Canada or not.

I don't normally allow for comments in our blog (mainly because I don't have time to moderate them) but if whoever uses the credit can post that they did (we're allowing comments on this post) then I'll post up the second. And please - don't be greedy. If you use one of them don't use the other - the spirit of the codes is to let people try out Google AdWords. So let them.

These credits are a GREAT way to test out Google PPC while minimizing up-front risk. You can also use AdWords to test keywords for your organic campaigns.

To redeem the code you'll have to go to www.google.ca/ads/offer.

The code is - 8MZC-BUQM-LEX9-PLJE-XR2

Enjoy. :)

Note: Code One used.

Labels: adwords, google

In preparation for today's show on Webmaster Radio I did my obligatory ransacking of the web for SEO news. Of course - I do this on a regular basis but on Thursdays I dedicate a solid couple hours to just this one task as opposed to the "when I get a chance" aspects of most other days.

Today I found a few interesting stories and so rather than report of something we've discovered or putting my spin on some news I'm going to simply list of a number of interesting news stories, perhaps a bit of a summary on why they're important (in my humble opinion) and a link to the radio show where I discussed them in more detail.

First - let's look at Google.

Didn't get to this on the show (week-after-week we run out of time) but they're pushing hard to get broadband into more regions of the world and get fast wireless access to cover more areas.

Of course they're only looking out for us right? Wrong. As Greg Sterling rightfully points out over at Search Engine Land in his post, "Google Wants The Web To Go Faster", Google's motives here are purely driven by self interest. That said, their self interest coincides nicely with the interests on most tech companies and with consumers so it seems that having the budget and interests on Google on our side just might get things rolling in our favor.

And for those of you who might have missed it the first 83 times they said it - here's a video from Matt Cutts (Google Guru) on quality directories vs paid links:


All right - now on to Bing.

Our regular readers will know that I'm getting sick-and-tired of reporting more positive news on Bing. Well today I get a mixed bag which is better than nothing.

On one hand - Bing's share of paid links has increased by 13% since it's launch. Let's remember - this is where search companies make their money so this statistic is HUGE. You can read more about this on WebProNews.

Now the fun part for me - SE Round Table has brought a discussion to light that Microsoft has increased the traffic they're sending in the form of bots looking for suspicious websites. Alright - that sounds good HOWEVER this traffic may well be skewing their referrer stats that all the previous good news is based on. The amount of traffic to some sites is up ten fold since the switch to Bing which is huge for traffic and could well amount to much of the search market share increases being reported.

I haven't looked far into this at this time and so I don't really have a side of the discussion however it's definitely a story to follow. You can read the article and follow a discussion on the subject over at SE Round Table here.

Obviously there's a lot of other news out there. Today I high recommend visiting Search Brains. They're always good but today I was especially impressed with the quality and diversity of news.

Labels: bing, direcory, google, market share, matt cutts

Alright - I'm actually starting to get tired of reporting on good news from Bing and there's now a part of my looking forward to slamming them for some stupid mistake they're making but today is not that day. For anyone who's followed the Beanstalk blog you'll know that thus far I've been very impressed with Bing and the first successful attempt Microsoft has made in challenging Google. It's been successful tot he point where Google is actually paying close attention and responding to what's going on.

Rumor has it (as reported in the New York Post article "Fear Grips Google") that "[Google] co-founder Sergey Brin is so rattled by the launch of Microsoft's rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service." Really? Do they fear Bing THAT much? Their sudden launch of their "Explore Google Search" page might indicate that they're playing catchup. As Danny Sullivan points out however - Google is constantly launching new features and tools so this *may* be a coincidence of timing. I agree that they were likely working on it previously however the timing sure is suspicious.

And to make matters "worse" for Google - The folks over at Microsoft earlier today announced the launch of new malware filters that go beyond their "Drive-By-Detection" systems and adds additional detection that Doug Caverly of WebProNews.com refers to as "Ahead-Of-The-Curve" filtering. As security and safety are (and should be) huge concerns and as Google battled this very issue just a few month's back.

To top things off, our friends over at Ask.com (remember them?) is now indexing over 300 million questions and answers from numerous sources to provide what they consider to be a great database that sorts through the generic clutter of the web and get people the answers they need if only they "Ask" (my pun - not theirs so you can blame me for the cheese). I know my eldest son will just love this as he's always using Yahoo! Answers for video game tips (yes - we're all geeks in my house) but he prefers using Ask.com as an engine so I know he'll be happy when I get home and tell him about this launch.

And on the note of clutter on the web, I'm going to end this post with what I consider to be a very humorous ad by none other than Bing (them again?). It plays on this very thing.
(ironically I'll be drawing the video from YouTube - a Google property)

Labels: ask, bing, brin, google, malware

I just found out about this one earlier today and I have to say - that the big three got together on this one is a great step for their respective indexes and a great way to control duplicate content issues.

I can't possibly outline what the new tag is an does any better than Matt Cutts.

And to make matters worse (in the form of making the sources I reference appear VERY small) I've got another video for you. So that's two posts in one day, both referencing Matt Cutts and both with interviews from WebProNews. There are more resources below. :) But first - the video:


Here some additional followups and resources related to the new Canonical tag:

Joost comes up with some great plugins for common content systems. Click here for more information and perhaps to contact Joost directly and find out when he sleeps.

Jim Hedger writes about this over on the Webmaster Radio blog (Note: link removed as the post has been removed in a redesign).

Labels: canonical tag, google, matt cutts, msn, webpronews, yahoo

Matt Cutts did a great interview with Mike MacDonald from WebPronews. The discussed Google in 2009 and answered a lot of questions that I know I've heard from a number of clients and confirmed a few things I believed to be true (mainly Matt's comments on sub-domains near the end).

The video covers personalization (will it kill search results and SEO). The future of SEO and how we need to expand into other areas including usability and conversion optimization, Flash and video ranking and sub-domain and how they can be used and black hat SEO. Matt answers the often-asked question: do sub-domains work better than files in a site and when?

I won't repeat everything from the video - that would be redundant. It's a 10 minute video and worth every minute of your time. Enjoy ...

Labels: black hat, google, matt cutts, personalization

I know a lot of our blog readers are new to SEO and coming here through searches for SEO blog or SEO news. For you this post will be most helpful - for those of you who have been performing SEO for a while now - well, hopefully this will be a good refresher.

The post won't be long - in fact it's going to only be about another sentence or two and a link. Google has recently posted an SEO Starter Guide to help those just getting involved in SEO understand the good from the bad (according to Google). I won't both outlining what's in it - I'll just link to it and let you read it for yourself. You'll find the information at http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/11/googles-seo-starter-guide.html.

Enjoy. :)

Labels: google, seo

For some time now I've bitten my tongue on an issue that's driven me nuts for some time - the ego involved in the SEO industry. I have WAY too often heard some of the more noted SEO's referred to as "rock stars". And who makes the reference? Other SEO's.

Let's face facts shall we ... If I ask my neighbor, my dad or my banker who even Matt Cutts is I'm going to get a blank stare. Even the most recognized person in our industry is, to those outside the industry and related industries, an unknown. Rock star? I think not.

Now this isn't to say that Matt isn't a good guy and important in the grand scheme of search. He's a great spokesperson for Google and obviously a brilliant engineer but a rock star?

If we want to take a peek at brilliance in engineering perhaps I could ask a simple question, "The Large Hadron Collider successfully completed it's first test today - who was the chief architect?" A development in technology that could well affect the way we view our universe and our understanding about how the building blocks of matter and existence function. But they're not rock stars - no no, to be a rock star you have to optimize web pages and attend conferences.

How about Norman Borlaug? Norman who? That's alright, he's not a rock star - he's only credited with saving over a billion people and won the Congressional Gold Medal, the Nobel Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. You can read more about him on my blog post from July 25, 2007 if you're interested but remember - he's not a rock star. He didn't get a site onto the first page of Google to flog a new acne medication.

As I'm sure you've all gathered - the term rock star itself is a bit of a point of contention to me. Let's take for example Mick Jagger. Now, I'm not a big Rolling Stones fan but I know who Mick Jagger is. I'll bet you do too. My dad does, my neighbor does and I'll bet my banker does too. Why? Because he's a rock star.

So what exactly got my blood boiling on this one (I could deal with the term rock star but ...). San Jose. Now don't get me wrong - SES San Jose was an awesome event, Kevin Ryan did an excellent job, and it was great to see Danny Sullivan there but one night after one of the many parties (if memory serves me correctly it was after Search Bash) a group of intoxicated SEO's were heard staggering down the street shouting, "We control the Internet!"

* Sigh *

Alright, now it's time for another lesson on how all those "tubes" work. We don't control the Internet. The Internet is controlled by the guys that got picked on in high school. The Internet is controlled by engineers, caffeine and is held together with duct tape. True, we do have some influence over which specific websites appear in the results and thus do influence some decisions and consumer experiences HOWEVER do we control the Internet? Not a chance.

And so my friends it's time for some of us (not all - there are some very normal down-to-Earth SEO/SEM's out there) to find a hat big enough for their heads, a truck big enough to pack their egos in and come to terms with the fact that we play a role in Internet commerce and information exchange but we are NOT rock stars and we are not the end-all-be-all of the Internet.

But That's Not To Say ...

Now I can already predict that someone somewhere is going to twist this post into some smack on SEO/SEM (remember now - I'm an SEO), some rant about not being included in the rock star lists (I've made a couple) or some wish that I controlled the Internet (OK - you'd catch me on this one, it would be pretty sweet to actually control the Internet). The truth is, SEO is a solid job among many, it has some great rewards, and some excellent people but we're not better than others and we're not more notable than others. We don't need the egos - we've got a good enough thing going as it is. SEO/SEM is a valuable service - let's just be realistic about our roll in the world shall we?

And that's my rant for the day.

Labels: google, rock star, seo, ses sj 2008

For those of you who have popped by Google today (read: for all of you on our blog) you'll may have noticed that their logo has a large ring around it. This isn't a halo, it's a celebration of the success of the first test of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) the worlds most powerful particle accelerator.

Now I've got to admit that my explanation of what it does would probably raise more questions than answers - I'll provide links at the bottom of this post for those of you who want to read more.

In short however, the purpose of this collider is to find new particles and answer fundamental questions about how matter works, where antimatter is, and in fact - answer many questions about the very nature of the universe.

Based on some of the stuff Google's been doing lately - I'm surprised there isn't a bi colorful G on the side of it. :)

The test launches us into a new era of discovery and exploration. Hopefully we will get some new answers to age-old questions. The problem though is that every time we do, we seem to end up with twice as many new questions. How long until we need an XLHC? ;)

For more information check out:

• http://www.crn.com/networking/210600905
• http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080910-collider-success.html
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/09/10/scicern710.xml

Or for those of you too busy to read (and you know who you are) - here's a surprisingly well done rap video:

Labels: google, large hadron collider, lhc

I wanted to have time to write this blog post yesterday but wouldn't you know it - work and clients had to come first. :)

Two interesting events occurred recently over at chez Google. The first, the good news - Google rockets into space. The second, the bad news - Google is involved with investors in United Air losing millions of dollars. As I said, the good with the bad.

Google Rockets Into Space

Google has exclusive access to the highest resolutions images of the Earth thanks to a deal that gives them exclusive access to the commercial used of images from the GeoEye-1 satellite launched last Saturday.

The satellite takes images at 5.5 feet resolution in color and 16 inches resolution in black and white. That said, due to government regulations only 1.64 feet resolution images can be made available to the general public.

I have to say, I'm honestly impressed. I've personally never used Google maps and thought, "darn - I just with I had 5.5 foot resolution," but having your name on a satellite is just cool.

Add to this recent event the following:

• Google's Brin heading into space
• Google $30 million XPRIZE

And I (biased to be sure by my love of science fiction) am sure that Google not only wants to control all the information on Earth but will likely be setting up a base soon on the moon as they have previously indicated interest in.

A huge congratulations to Google on the successful launch.

And Now The Bad

But all was not rosy for Google on Monday though the bad news isn't really their fault - they just happened to get caught in the middle.

An article on the 2002 Chapter 11 filing by United Air got picked up and published in the Florida Sun Sentinel. How the article got picked up when everything about it pretty clearly indicated that it was from 2002 is beyond me. That said, how investors could react as they did to a story that they should have read (and if they had - could have saved themselves millions of dollars).

At any rate, where it wen horribly wrong was when a reporter looking for information to post on Bloomberg Googled "bankruptcy 2008" and found the Sentinel article as the #1 result. He took it for what it said and posted a link to it on Bloomberg. That was at 10:55am. At 10:56am the stock was trading at $11.51 and then plunged over a couple minutes down to $3/share before trading was halted. Trading resumed at 11:01am and had virtually recovered by 12:29pm when the stock sat at $11.30/share.

So Google was not at fault, but certainly involved and this incident if nothing else shows us the fragile nature of our information sources. We trust what we see based on a habit of finding reliable information on Google but unfortunately, when the wrong information ranks highly - we still trust it. In this case, millions of dollar were lost (though on the other side - millions of dollars were made).

Labels: bloomberg, brin, geoeye-1, google, lunar x-prize, satellite, united air

Alright, maybe not life entirely without Google but let's face facts (and I'm sure even the folks over at Google would agree) there are lots of great minds out there and not all of them work at the Googleplex (shocking I know). I've recently been giving quite a bit of thought to all the different ways I search for things and decided to finally cover a couple of my favorite “Google Alternatives” in a blog post. The purpose is not to get you to stop using Google which would be:

a. pointless, and
b. hypocritical. I use Google as my primary engine but there is a time and a place for other choices.

So let's get to it and hopefully you'll end this article with a few new ways to search for information and perhaps even pass back a few of your own tips. :)

Genie Knows

When I first heard about the launch of GenieKnows soon-to-be-announced map embedding for webmasters back at SES San Jose it flooded back to me how great innovations are occurring among many of the lesser-known engines and unfortunately a lot of these great features are lost to all but those “in the know” (read: immersed enough in the Internet community to even hear about alternative and vertical search engines). Jim Hedger wrote a great piece on the new product launch by Genie Knows over on the Metamend blog so I won't cover that here. What I will cover is the usefulness and innovation of this engine.

I suppose I should note, it's their map functionality that completely won me over. If you haven't checked it out yet I highly recommend doing so. Here's an example of how I've used a non-Google function from another engines to make my life dramatically easier:

I go to a lot of conferences. The fact of the matter is, I spend VERY little time at the hotel and thus, can rarely justify the cost of staying at a hotel like the Hilton. Now I'm not a cheap person but seriously – If I can save $100/night that's an extra $100 I have to either leave in the company or spend while I'm at the conference on more entertaining or useful endeavors. So the predicament becomes, how do I find a hotel that's less expensive and yet still within an easy walking distance of the conference?

Once upon a time I would use Google maps and Expedia. I'd look up the various hotels on Expedia and map them out with directions on Google maps and one-by-one enter them in and see what I could get and for how much. And then I discovered GenieKnows. The joy of this engine is I enter a phrase such as “seattle hotel” and it shows me a map with a grid. In the middle of each cell is a number – that is the number of hotels in that area so all I have to do is find the conference area on the map and click that square and now I know the location of all the nearest hotels and can much more easily look them up without having to lookup hotels only to find out they're 15 miles from where I need to be. A huge time saver every time I travel and it's not restricted to hotels, it works for restaurants, etc. I can't recommend enough testing it out next time you're traveling or looking for something when location is an issue (and when isn't it?) If you'll take my advice you can head over to GenieKnows.com. You won't regret it.

Yahoo! Answers

I know I know – from one major engine to another. The point of listing Yahoo! Answers though isn't specifically to tout this feature of Yahoo! though it is a good one. Rather, it's to point out that within the major engines there are specific search capabilities and sources of information that you likely don't know about.

I'm sure many of you, the readers here, have used Yahoo! Answers at some time or another or at the very least, a similar service – but most people haven't. I have found answers in the search results on Google and I've even taken the time to answer a few questions but it was when I saw my 10-year-old boy looking up game clues and tips for Pokemon version 18-billion Red (in case you don't know – this isn't an actual game of Pokemon but with the number coming out, it probably will be soon) that it really hit home how useful this was for the average searcher. He got frustrated looking for information on Google and found that he could ask questions or often find others who had and get the answers quickly on Yahoo! Answers. The message was clear, when your query is really a question that requires an expert answer (even if that expert is just some kid who plays too many video games) then Google may well not be the first place to go for a fast and accurate answer.

As another plus (and this is as a parent) – if you've ever seen the ads on the gaming sites you too will be happy to find your son on Yahoo! Answers.

Take this as advice to check out the specific offerings of your favorite engine(s). Blog search, news search, advanced search options and MUCH MUCH more await and once you explore them you'll find searching a far faster, more accurate and enjoyable experience. Even if it is on Google but you'll have to forget I wrote that or the title loses some of it's life. ;)

Cuil

Alright, I had to show that I do have a sense of humor. I'm not even going to make this one a link as it's not worth it. Cuil had a lot of promise with ex-Googlers on the dev team and money behind it but it didn't live up to even half of what it attempted to be. Google-killer? Heck, it's not even a Dogpile killer.

And A Few Good Lists

In the end what I'm hoping you'll take from this is a solid belief that there is more out there than just Google or whatever your favorite engine is. Each job has the right tool and different engines offer different opportunities.

I can't possibly list off all the great engines out there and what they do but here are a few useful lists of some of the better alternative engines out there so you don't have to weed through the horrible ones to get to the good:

• Spock.com – Top Vertical Search Engines (page no longer exists - link removed)


• SmashingApps.com – 13 Most Unusual Search Engines You Should Remember


• Vertical Search – A search engine of vertical search sites. A good place to go if you don't know where you're going.

In Short

In short and I think I've made it pretty clear, while about 95% of all my searching is done on Google – there's a place and a time for alternatives. Knowing those alternatives can make your online experience infinitely more enjoyable. Explore, investigate and enjoy. There's probably a lot more out there than you think, or at least - easier ways to find it.

Labels: Cuil, genieknows, google, vertical search, yahoo answers

As a lot of people have heard the ex-Googlers at Cuil have launch their "Efficient Google Killer", which seems to have become the laughing stock of the SEO Community for terrible results and matching up images with search results that don't belong to the same website. Today out of curiosity I thought I would "Cuil" my own name and see what kind of results came up, and apparently I resemble a younger Ben Stiller from the 70s with a perm like mullet.


And if you haven't guessed Dave is the taller less intimidating one. Here is a close up showing my better side and the Beanstalk URL, if you visit this page there aren't any actual images in the content.


On a side note Cuil however does return 1,898 results vs Google's 923 results for the term "Daryl Quenet".

Update:
One of our Older Readers has told me that this is Hall and Oats, and after Googling for them I found the image is actually the CD Cover from their "The Very Best Of Hall & Oates"

Labels: beanstalk, Cuil, google, SERPs

Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz takes some time to explain PageRank as it was when it first came about vs how it is today. Admittedly, it's greatly simplified in this video BUT it's probably the most easy-to-understand explanation I've heard to date and covers the changes in the system well. For those of us watch the PageRank on our homepage and internal pages it we've likely witnessed a lot of what he's taking about.

To candy-coat it even more, Rand covered the explanation as part of his Whiteboard Friday series so you don't even have to read. :) Here's the video:

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday-Has Pagerank Changed? (visit for the comments) from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Labels: google, pagerank, rand fishkin, seomoz

Inspired by a combination of an excellent research paper from Richard Stokes of AdGooroo, Google's Q2 earnings report and the recent happenings in the now getting tiring story of Yahoo! and Microsoft - the most recent article by Beanstalk's Dave Davies is out today. Titled, "The Search Landscape Reflected In Paid Results" it discussed some of the recent changes, how they're affecting the search engines themselves and what we can expect to see in the paid and organic results because of this.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Labels: adsense, adwords, google, msn, ppc, seo article, yahoo

Google Keywords

Google has just started showing the estimated monthly search numbers in their keyword suggestion tool. For the first time in a long while we're now able to see the estimated search numbers on the engine who's results we most want to see the results of.

As a word of warning, after using it and comparing the numbers with the click through volume for a number of phrases, the number appear to be a bit high - that's because it defaults to Broad Match but you can select Exact Match from the drop-down and get the the numbers you're looking for.

You'll find this new feature added to the Google tool here.

A Test Of Links

Also, there was an interesting test run by Johannes Beusand published on the MarketingFan.com site regarding the value of multiple links to a single page on residing on a single page of a website. He basically strives to answer the question, if there are two or more links on a single page of a site and they point to a single page on another site - how are they treated?

I'm not going to be mean and note everything from the site here and steal their traffic. :) You'll find the link to this interesting test here.

Webmaster Radio

And today on Webmaster Radio Jim Hedger and I had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Ryan - the man behind SES. Kevin discussed the show, the organizing of it, and some of the great sessions that'll be held in San Jose.

After that (and some ranting by both Jim and myself about the stupid fees we Canadians are charged for cell phones and specifically web usage on them) we had on Dave Szetela from Clix Marketing discussing the recent changes Google has made to the quality scores for it's AdWords advertisers.

Again, I could repeat the discussion but it was based on a couple posts covered elsewhere here and here.

Labels: adwords, google, jim hedger, keyword activity tool, link building, webmaster radio

Sometimes it takes a few days before I can test new features the engines offer. Such is the case with Google's new benchmarking tool. I got my notification of it's launch back on the 9th but unfortunately it was last night before I could actually do anything about it (darn those "pesky" clients for keep us so busy here :) Then - when I went to look into what other's thought of it I discovered that there are those out there (likely the same ones who use Google Analytics as their primary analytics tool) who've know about it for about a month.

So there we go, that'll teach me for using ClickTracks and relying on notifications from Google about new products. :)

Once I finally had a chance to login, let Google use my anonymous stats, and peek at the benchmarking data I have to say that while the date they are accessing is still VERY limited - you can definitely tell how powerful this information will be when more website data is included.

Basically what they're doing is allowing users to specify their industries, share their data anonymously with Google who will gather together people from the same industry, combine their data and present it to you as the benchmark average for your industry. VERY kewl.

I was going to put up some screenshots and then I thought, gee - do I really want my competitors coming to my blog and peeking on my traffic stats? Heck, it took enough thought just to decide to check that box that allowed Google to share my stats in a non-individualized way. :) So instead I'll send you to Andy Beal's blog where he shares some if you'd like a peek.

OR

You could just login to your Google Analytics account and see it for yourself. It's definitely worth the time - or at least, when more people start sharing, it will be.

Labels: andy beal, google, google analytics, google benchmarking

In today's episode of Webcology on WebmasterRadio.fm Jim Hedger and I discusses a couple recent events at Google. Namely the release of their Q1 earnings (SURPRISE - they're up over last quarter) and Yahoo! using Google's paid ads instead of their own. Rather than re-hash "old news" (OK - it was earlier today but you can listen to it all by downloading the podcast here) I'm going to cover a new issues - Google's latest update.

Recently there's been much news about a massive shift on Google named the "Dewey Update". The update itself caused much chaos as SEO's around the world reported huge swings in rankings. The forums have been abuzz and the update, unlike most, took place over weeks with some sites changing positions wildly 3 and even 4 times in a day. The update appeared to have settled late last week with only minor tremors affecting the rankings in what one might conclude to be a new way of adjusting rankings on Google's end - a more fluid approach to rankings.

Tonight however there's been another significant shift however there's a pretty major difference - this one is much more in tune with the updates prior to Dewey which took place on an almost weekly basis,usually starting on Thursday or Friday evening.

A major difference between what we're seeing now and what we saw with Dewey in that the effects and changes appear far more logical whew one can look at the results across numerous sites. The changes seem to take into account adjustments made to the sites and increases in backlinks rather than massive adjustments to the ranking system affecting what can only be described as almost random factors (I'm sure they weren't actually random however it was impossible to get a lock on what was being tested with the changes occurring too often for any proper analysis).

Obviously as an SEO I'm very happy to see this return to stability and as a searcher I appreciate that what I see today is likely going to be similar to what I will see tomorrow. Helps instill in me faith that the results I'm being presented with are actually relevant. Or maybe I prefer it as it reduces the frantic calls from clients asking why they dropped positions from where they were 2 hours earlier and my only reply being, "well - check it again in a couple hours". ;)

Labels: google, google update, jim hedger, webmaster radio

In what can only be considered a devastating leak of information from Google HQ in Mountain View, a confirmed but as yet publicly anonymous executive from Google has leaked papers detailing some of the key fundamentals to Google's link value calculation system. The announcement by Google earlier today details some of the contents of this information as they work hard to minimize the effect that this will have on their algorithm as SEO's around the world scramble get their hands on it. The news, first leaked by SEO-guru Danny Sullivan on Search Engine Land, comes as a shock of sorts and leaves SEO's scratching their heads figuring out what to do. There has been startled reaction from the community but first - let's cover a few of the key points (we'll provide a link to more thorough information below).

The leaked information confirmed and illuminated the following information:

• The PageRank we see in the green bar has no bearing on how a site will rank. This information is generated internally based on user expectations and not as a ranking factor.
• The weighing of factors occurs in the following order: Google's internal PageRank, position on page, number of links on the page, anchor text, relevancy. I found it VERY interesting that trust is not yet a calculation on link worth though this may be an omission in the information provided.
• Reciprocal linking is detectable and while it is not penalized, no value is given for the links. A limitation outlined in this is the Google apparently has little ability to to detect legitimate linking sites that happen to link to each other.
• Paid links are not detectable. There is currently no architecture for the automatic detection of paid links. Google relies on reporting by SEO's and webmasters.
• There's a lot more in there - this is just what I've gleaned at the time of this writing. There's a link below to the documents themselves.
  

I had a chance to have a very brief chat with Matt Cutts (quality control guru from Google) who has told us he will be responding on his blog once more information on the leak becomes available (and I'm sure when he's given the OK by the Gods of Google to talk). His response to this leak was, "... this is obviously an issue we are going to have to deal with quickly. We expect SEO's to take quick advantage of this information and a strategy is being developed to deal with this and make adjustments to the algorithm shortly." You can monitor Matt's comments on his blog and a big thanks to him for taking a moment out of his understandably hectic schedule to answer a couple questions for me.

On the other side of the coin sit the SEO's. While we're all obviously reading all the information we can on the leak - we do so with some concern. In an email from Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz he noted, "You might think this is a great opportunity for SEO's but it's not - in fact this is one of the worst things that could happen. All the information we're all reading will be invalid by the time we could employ the tactics and we're about to head into a period of significant instability in regards to Google's rankings . Not only do we have to fear for the rankings we've worked hard to attain over the years - we also have to deal with rankings that will be in a constant state of flux over the next few months. Clients are NOT going to be happy." Good call Rand and you can monitor his comments on the subject on their blog at http://www.seomoz.org/blog.

This is obviously an issue you're going to want to research this issue - there's a lot more about this and links to the documents on the cnet site at http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9907571-36.html. Well, the article is actually about Google's April Fool's Day joke but we think ours was fun too. :) Enjoy the day. ;)

Labels: april fools day, danny sullivan, google, google update, link building, rand fishkin, seomoz

Yesterday while talking to a potential client I noticed a new feature that Google had implemented into the SERPs in the US (If your outside of the US add &gl=us to the search URL, or &gl=ca to see how it doesn't work out side of the US). The search term the client was interested in was Used Cars Utah, and various other permutations and themed terms. If you Google the term Used Cars Utah, you get an input box and two select boxes for "Location", "Make", and "Model". Having searched for Used Cars Utah "Make" was selected as all with a "Model" of "Utah", okay so its definitely beta point taken.


So next I Googled the root phrase "Used Cars", up popped 1 input and 2 selects but with different names "Location", "Make", "Condition" with Used selected as the condition so now we have two different forms based on the search phrase. Playing around I next Googled Cars Victoria (my home city), and go the results with the Model select box and Victoria selected, with Ford the Make (Okay so I'm assuming Google recognized a Ford Crown Victoria).

Lastly I was curious where the exceptions are if you Google terms like "Cars Acura", "Cars Lexus", "Cars BMW" or other makes you don't get any results with the manufacturers being #1 respectively for their terms. Now if you change it up a bit and add the term Used Cars Manufacturer, you get the search box for Lexus + Acura, but not BMW. Once again definitely beta, but I'm sure they'll be making adjustments as time goes by.

If you own a dealership and your interested in getting your vehicles listed you'll want to know that it is powered by the Google Base API. Once you start searching through the results you can quickly find vehicles in your region. Currently there are 79,666 used Acura's on Google Base Vehicle Search. Now thats a bit of a selection!

Labels: google, Google Base, SERPs

The fine folks over at SaveTheInternet.com are at it again. Thanks to Rep. Ed Markey the Net Neutrality issue is back on the table. For those of you who don't know the net neutrality issue, you can ignore this unless you have a website or an Internet connection.

I'm not going to get into a lesson on net neutrality - it's a huge topic that's been better covered by others. Here are some links to important information on it:

• Wikipedia
• Google
• Webmaster Radio

If you agree that net neutrality is an important issue and show be the law (read: if your website and/or Internet access are important to you) then please sign the petition on the SaveTheInternet.com site here.

Labels: google, net neutrality, savetheinternet, webmaster radio, wikipedia

I received an email the other day from someone who needed help. Now, this happens on a daily basis in regards to sites we see that aren't ranking well ("they could sure use our help") but every now and then I see something I just have to get my hands into.

The issue started when the gentleman received an email from Google. The email informed him that he had malware on his site and that he was potentially infecting his visitors. This not-coincidentally matched pretty well to the timing of his site losing all it's PageRank and rankings. He wasn't sure what to do and then I got an email.

The gentleman forwarded me the email (I'll be honest - I didn't even know Google sent those). It included the page in question and a method for requesting reconsideration (basically, go into webmaster tools an request re-inclusion).

So why do I mention all this? Well, I've personally never seen it and I assume many of you are in a similar situation. I'm helping this gentleman free of charge in exchange to the right to document it (without names) here on our blog.

As of today I have scanned through the site, removed all the offending code (it was on a LOT more than one page), uploaded the clean files and submitted the re-inclusion request. I'll be monitoring the site carefully and documenting the changes.

As it stands today, the site has all it's pages still in the index (site:www.domain.com) and a search for a phrase from a page that wasn't affected produces the domain as a result. A search for a phrase from the affected pages does include the affected page however it appears VERY low in the results of hat once was a strong site.

I'll post updates in the blog as the development progresses. I'm personally very interested in tracking the timelines involved with this type of re-inclusion request.

Labels: google

Well the fine folks over at Google have come up with a response to Friday's bid by Microsoft for Yahoo! Now, believe me - I understand that business is business and that Google has to respond with a negative spin against their competitors but the blog post and press release they put out made me smirk more than think. The official line, put forth by David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer for Google, was:

"So Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation."

Ummmmm, OK - you've got to be kidding me. Now I mean no offense to Google - love them to bits and use them daily but seriously, the two properties search market share combined still only account for slightly over half of Google's so exactly what is the threat to competition? Google will still have the overwhelming majority of search so really - they can decide how much innovation goes into it. And please - openness !!! When I get my weekly email updating me on the algorithm or when the numbers get put out on searches/day even - THEN that argument might stand. :) He then writes:

"Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.

Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft -- despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses -- to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet? In addition, Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services? Policymakers around the world need to ask these questions -- and consumers deserve satisfying answers."

Ouch.

Now, they raise decent points regarding the past practices of Microsoft but again - what competition? If anything the deal will raise the bar on competition in the industry - but Google knows that. Whenever Google's doing something or buying someone everyone makes a big to-do about it. Well now the shoe is on the other foot and Google gets their chance to point the finger.

In the end the likelihood of Google getting their way and the deal being blocked is low. Heck, the fact that Google's against it probably has some FTC people thinking it's a pretty good thing and heck - it might be good for Google as well. Let's consider this - who is the master of search? (hint - it's Google).

People will choose MSN/Live because it's easy (part of their browser, etc.) people will chose Yahoo! because it's part of other services they use or because it's not Google. Well the former will see their services changed dramatically when Microsoft takes over and the later won't like being part of Microsoft any more than Google and so they'll either give up and go to Google or, the company that I view as the true likely winner in this - Ask (come on - give them a chance :)

Of course only time will tell but I'm looking forward to the journey. This is going to be a very VERY interesting story to follow.

Labels: ask, google, market share, microsoft, msn, yahoo

In a move that oddly seemed to surprise many, Microsoft made an unsolicited bid for Yahoo! today. How much? - only $44.6 billion dollars. This would pay investors $31/share - a 62% premium over the previous day's close.

Steve Ballmer is confident that this is the right move for Microsoft. He's also confident that it's the right move for Yahoo! But is he right?

Based on the discussed layoff of a thousand employees from Yahoo! (as well as their current financial slump) combined with Microsoft's huge wallet, inability to get any solid foothold on the search market and control of the desktop and OS makes this an interesting notion. And it comes an an ironic time ...

A couple days ago I completed a survey for SEOmoz (you can too at http://www.seomoz.org/seo-survey) and one of the questions was, "how (if anyone) can challenge Google". My response was Microsoft based on 2 things; their control of the desktop and their ability to simply purchase Yahoo! which they pitched for last year. And it appears that it just *might* happen.

The combined exposure of these two engines would be roughly 33%, still only slightly past half of Google's and there are other considerations. Yahoo! has a large hold on a variety of other properties that Microsoft would obviously leverage to increase their exposure and work to further monetize. Sites such as Flickr, MyBlogLog, etc. (these are my two favorites so that's why they're the ones listed :)

The down side, many people use Yahoo! as "the Google alternative". If Yahoo! is combined with Microsoft it loses the appeal of being an alternative and becomes a cog in a bigger machine. Will users who've been loyal to Yahoo! leave? Also in my questions list: which algorithm will they lean towards? Will they keep all the Yahoo! properties or spin them off. What will happen to Yahoo!'s staff? (not that they have a ton of security right now anyways)

I have a different take than a lot of people I suppose, I like it and hope it goes through. As much as I like Google and appreciate their excellence - I'd like to see at least some kind of quasi-competition for search dominance. Heck, with a third of the market share when combined maybe I'll here something other than (I don't care about anyone else - I just want to rank on Google) from clients. ;) If the deal goes through then my job gets a bit more interesting and to me, that's a good thing. :)

Now I'm not an economist, nor can I predict the future. I've given a quick summary here of what it a HUGE issue and could change the search landscape dramatically. I highly recommend reading up on this further and keeping up with it as it progresses. To get you started, here are some great resources on the story thus far:

• CNN on the bid
• PC World writes about web users' concerns over the deal
• CNET provides a great walk through on why Microsoft made the bid public this time rather than privately as they did last time (very interesting to learn a little bit about the tactics behind the offers and what we can expect to come)
  

And as a final note, I find it very funny that this deal is going to be reviewed by the anti-trust folks. How's THAT for a waste of the tax payers dollars? Two companies merging so they can together be half of what the leader is. This is building competition not eliminating it. But it'll probably cost a few million dollars for them to sort that out and come to the same conclusion. ;)

Labels: google, microsoft, yahoo

Today on Webmaster Radio I had to host the show solo. Our sympathies go out to Jim Hedger who had the unenviable task of heading to Toronto for a funeral. Our hearts go out to Jim and his family.

Todays show however was a great one. We launched our 10-show series on SEO with a show dedicated entirely to keyword research. We're also supplementing each show in the series with an article on the subject at hand. You can find the article here.

Speaking with me on the show was Ken McGaffin from WordTracker, Richard Stokes from AdGooroo.com and Curtis Dueck from Epiar. Each lent an interesting angle to the keyword research discussion and I thank all of them. You can visit the Webmaster Radio site and download the podcast if you missed it.

And from Google ...

While all SEO seems to involve Google, some news came from them today specifically in the form of their 2007 Q4 earnings. Here's the summary:

Revenue of $4.83 billion
51% increase over Q4 2006
14% increase over Q3 of 2007
Google owned sites $3.12 billion
AdSense sites brought in $1.64 billion (up 30% over Q4 2006)

Revenue from outside the US totaled $2.32 billion (48% of revenue - up 4%)

Now here's where I saw something a bit unexpected. Traffic acquisition costs paid to partners increased from $1.22 billion last quarter to $1.44 billion in Q4. Compare this with $1.45 billion generated last quarter vs $1.64 billion in Q4. That means that the amount paid to partners increased by about 18% while the amount earned only increased by 12%. So Google is paying out as a % of revenue more than they were in Q3. That's assuming we all trust stats. :)

Congrats to Google on yet another great quarter. And ya gotta love investors. With a bunch of positive press out prior to the Q4 earning announcement the stock dropped to a low of $534.29 per share at 10am this morning and then rose to a high of $573.00. Basically, someone made 7% ROI in about 6 hours. More than I get in my saving account that's for sure. :)

Labels: adgooroo, epiar, google, jim hedger, webmaster radio, wordtracker

I realized upon setting up to write this post that I need to apologize to you, our valued blog visitor. In logging into Bl0gger I noticed that it was in fact a week ago that I wrote last. Unacceptable. To remedy these delays between posting I'm going to try to post more often AND within the next couple weeks you'll start reading from some new voices over here at Beanstalk including those of Daryl Quenet and Ken Nichol. This will also provide some different perspectives and topic than just my one lone voice can provide. So stay tunes and don't forget to Bookmark us (and if you use Google bookmarks or one of the other great social bookmarking sites ... all the better :).

But now onto the real post:

Today, being Thursday - I did my weekly show on Webmaster Radio. It was a great show with a great guest and, as always, I was joined by Jim Hedger. As we usually do, Jim and I spent the first 15 minutes discussing some of the major goings-on in the search engine world. Today this included:

• Jim Lanzone leaving Ask - The Internet Marketing community mourns the loss of Jim Lanzone from Ask. Jim revitalized Ask.com and under his leadership turned the engine into a world leader (if not in market share then in technology). He will be missed but at the same time we're all excited to see what his successor Jim Safka can do.
• Microsoft To Buy Fast Search Engine - Microsoft has made an offer of $1.2 billion for the Fast search engine. This move stands to shake up Enterprise search considerably and will be a "need to watch" issue after the sale completes (likely in Q2 of this year).
• Google hits 66% market share - Hitwise has releases their stats for December in regards to search market share. It appears Google is up yet again. The stats are:
  
  Google - 65.98%
  Yahoo! - 20.88%
  MSN - 7.04%
  Ask - 4.14%
  
  
• Aaron Wall PPC v SEO Debate - Aaron Wall yesterday posted a blog on the SEO vs. PPC debate. Jim and I quickly discussed how one affects the other and how it's difficult to track what campaign is providing what result when the combination may be increasing overall conversions. We skipped through this section and when we came back we were able to discuss it with ...

Andrew Goodman from PageZero.com. Page Zero just launched into organic SEO - a jump from pure PPC Management they have provided thus far. Jim and I pelted Andrew with questions and got some great info. I'm going to be a jerk though and make you visit the Webmaster Radio site and download the podcast or read the transcripts on the Webmaster radio site. They should be available in the next 24 hours (at least the podcast - the transcripts can take a bit longer).

Labels: aaron wall, andrew goodman, ask, google, market share, microsoft

Today on Webmaster Radio Jim Hedger and I had the opportunity to discuss a number of topics. You can download the podcast of the show (recommended) in the next couple days from the Webmaster Radio site. It's also a good idea to visit it as there are many great shows and information for all levels of listener.

In every show Jim and I take some time to discuss the latest goings-on in the search engine world. Here's what we had for our listeners this week:

• ComScore metrics - ComScore released it's totals for the holiday season of 2007 with a 19% increase in sales over 2006 reaching over $28 billion in online sales. On boxing day the total crossed $545 million doubling boxing day sales from last year.
• Danny Sullivan Article - Jim and I discussed one of the best pieced of predictive writing I've ever seen. Danny Sullivan wrote a great piece as a time traveling reporter from 2010 discussing the breakup of Google. While I doubt it'll come true it's an awesome piece that helps give us a small glimpse and one possible future we SEO's and search marketers have in store for us.
  
• Traffic Power and Matt Marlon - Sometimes bad things happen to good people and that's always a sad day. Sometimes bad things happen to bad people and that's ... well ... karma. Matt Marlon, ex-CEO of Traffic Power (an SEO firm that got all their clients banned by Google) was arrested for ... you'll never guess ... fraud. Just like those website owners that he helped scam and get banned with Traffic Power, Matt seems to like kicking people when their down and has taken advantage of a horrible situation and (pardon my French) screwed people out of their homes during the forclosure issues. Personally I'm happy with the outcome and this time I don't think he can try to sue Aaron Wall for reporting on it. ;)
• Aaron Wall's rants - and speaking of Aaron Wall, he's been ranting over the last few days about the state of SEO. I can't do justice to his comments save-to-say ... I agree. THe lines of Walmart coming into the arena devalues the service. Fortunately (unfortunately for clients) they're sure to realize that this isn't the kind of service that can be bulk packages and whipped out at discount prices and still have some reasonable amount of quality control.
  

After a brief commercial break Jim and I came back with WeBuildPages' own Jim Boykin (who I had the pleasure of meeting at SES San Jose last year. Jim has just launched InternetMarketing Ninjas.com where he provides videos from some of the SEO greats and many free tools (if you're willing to pay the $2,995 per year for the videos). I haven't had a chance to view the videos and, as Jim notes, the service is offered more to do-it-yourselfers than SEO's so I likely won't however the names and topics covered are definitely spot-on. Maybe Jim will give me a free sneak-peek (hint hint Jim ;) and I can report on it more thoroughly.

Good luck to Jim and the ninjas !!!

And in other news:

The latest article by Beanstalk is out. I wrote and article that changed considerable from idea to finished product (meaning there's another coming out soon). The article is on finding a good SEO-friendly web designer and can be found on the Beanstalk site here.

Labels: aaron wall, comscore, danny sullivan, google, jim boykin, jim hedger, traffic power, webmaster radio

Today is a good day. As we all look towards a weekend that extends for a couple extra days, as many of us share the opportunity to get together with friends and family and as we ponder all the resolutions we're going to break in the new year. But for none of us is today as special as it is for the folks at Google - well - perhaps even happier are the folks at DoubleClick.

Today Google, "... welcomed the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's clearance of its planned acquisition of DoubleClick Inc." This opens the door for Google to purchase the provider of display advertising technology earlier this year (on the last day of SES NY in fact).

Now all that stands between Google and the deal is the European Commission. Eric Schmidt obviously " ... hopes that will soon reach the same conclusion."

But what does this mean for us? Not a whole heck of a lot really - it means that Google get to get better at targeting ads. Yeah, not something they'd do anyways right?

In this SEO's opinion, the deal in no way compromises the right or ability of other companies to compete with Google. In fact, it appears to be the companies themselves that are helping Google take more and more market share. Yahoo! focuses too much on communities, Microsoft got in the race too late, Ask dropped Jeeves, etc. etc. Google has yet to make a major misstep and has enough trust and market share at this point to live through one.

I would also argue that the purpose of insuring competition is to protect consumers and to insure that better products get a shot rather than being crushed by larger properties. That fact of the matter is, the product (search) is free to consumers - the advertising side isn't free but is fixed in it's cost by what the market will bear (which is the same as it would be if Google did have a monopoly) and let's face facts - while I'm not happy with every algorithmic shift, Google has the best and most comprehensive search utility ever created. They aren't crushing their competition unfairly - they're just producing a better user experience.

Now I'm not trying to say that they're completely following their "Don't be evil" motto to the letter each and every day. They're definitely done some questionable things but overall they're providing the service they promise and they're providing it well. And to their favor, when something they do screws up, they can shift the algorithm again a couple days later. If only Microsoft had that same ability when they put out Vista. ;)

If you'd like more information on this purchase you can find a great overview on the Business Week site.

Labels: ask, doubleclick, google, market share, microsoft, yahoo

I've gotta admit, I can't confirm whether this is true or not and I found this info at TheInquirer.net so it's worth noting that it's likely true - but not 100% guaranteed (you know - like our SEO services ;).

Microsoft has been subpoenaed by Grisoft, developers of the AVG anti-virus software (great software - I use it at home) for allowing the website www.avg-soft.com to appear in the SERPs.

Well, at least it did. A search as of a few moments ago for the domain by URL produced 0 results - on MSN/Live at least though it can still be found on both Google and Yahoo! engines but not in what any of us would consider to be "prominent positions". :)

And if you decide to visit the site in Firefox you get the friendly warning "Suspected Web Forgery". You can see an image of it above. You know, in case any of you might want to go there to download the AVG anti virus software.

So it appears supoenas work - at least, if the story is true. :) And to give credit where it's due - you can read the full story on the Inquirer website here.

Labels: firefox, google, microsoft, msn, yahoo

Alright, I just realized that I've been missing some press releases from comScore over the past week (caught in filter) and of course - that's when all the news comes in. Here's a summary of what the stats are saying this week:

December 13, 2007:
Between the dates of November 1 to December 11, more than $20 billion was spent online showing a whopping 19% increase over last year. eBay has coined the second Monday of December as Green Monday (it is the heaviest online spending day of the season) and this year showed retailers $881 million in love, up 33% over last year and setting the record as the heaviest online spending day in history.

December 16, 2007:
The week of the 9th to the 15th marks the heaviest spending date of the season (likely) with $4.7 billion in sales showing a 22% increase over last year.

Today (December 19, 2007):
Top 50 Websites released. Comscore's report of the top 50 website rankings is released. And here are the results:

1. Yahoo! sites: 136,180,000 uniques
2. Google sites - 131,538,000 uniques
3. Microsoft Sites - 119,194,000 uniques
4. Time Warner Network - 119,084,000 uniques
5. Fox Interactive Media - 81,325,000 uniques
6. eBay - 80,510,000 uniques
7. Amazon Sites - 59,058,000 uniques
8. Wikipedia sites - 55,157,000 uniques
9. Ask Network - 51,636,000 uniques
10. New York Times Digital - 47,997,000 uniques

And for the rest of the list you'll just have to read their press release ont he topic (there's lots of other interesting figures in there as well) at http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1974.

You can view their other press releases at http://www.comscore.com/press/pr.asp.

Labels: ask, comscore, google, microsoft, time warner, yahoo

Well here we are, days later and no posts. I still have dozens of emails sitting in my Inbox waiting to be answered from my week in Chicago (last) but I felt the need to post today. I'm not going to get a chance to get into great detail on the personalization session in Chicago which I was really hoping to but that will take far more time than I have (hours) and so all I will say on that tangent is that I recommend visiting www.seobythesea.com. Great info on patents. You'll also want to review my past article on the subject here.

Alright, now on to other news. Let's begin with today's radio show on Webmaster Radio. Jim and I discussed the Net Neutrality issues that Roger's (a Canadian ISP). Rogers is injecting their own content into pages (such as usage warnings) and was caught doing so on the Google homepage. The content they injected mentions Yahoo! Here's how it looks:

Not cool. Now, who owns the content? Is it Rogers for allowing the data to pass to the user or is it Google for creating the content to begin with? I have a hunch we'll soon find out.

Jim and I also went on to discuss Google DoubleClick and some of their more recent issues. Ahhhhh, will it never end (I hope not - it gives me something to chat about on the radio). :)

One of the points of interest is the filing by liberal consumer parties objecting to Deborah Majoras (Chair of FTC) being involved with the voting on the issue given that her husband (John Majoras) works for the Jones Day law firm which represents Google/Doubleclick.

While the defense of this would be that John is no part of the deal (perhaps but would likely having influence nonetheless) and that Jones Day only appeared before the EU in that battle and that they have nothing to do with the FTC. That could be but I'm not sure why their site would read that Jones Day is representing Google/DoubleClick on, "international and US antitrust and competition law aspects."

Now all this said, I think it's all silly. Google has every right to the acquisition in my opinion. The reason competition laws were made was to protect the consumer. Google product is free so really, what are we being protected from. Yes yes, if Google has too large a hold on the marketshare they will control the advertising and then they can charge advertisers what they want right? Wrong. Advertisers will pay whatever it takes as long as the money made is higher than the cost paid to provide a product or service. Whether Google controls 55% of the marketshare or 80% this won't change. They could control 100% of the market - I'm still not going to pay them more than I make to advertise my product. And have you seen what the bids are? This isn't about cost per click, it's about scale (they want more clicks) so the consumer won't really be affected and the advertisers will just have more clicks to choose from which may, I would argue, lower the cost they need to pay.

But moving on ...

We had Li Evans on the show to discuss social media and all that it isn't. She was an awesome guest and a joy to chat with in Chicago as well. I couldn't do it justice and so I'll just direct you to read her latest article (it's what the interview was about). You'll find it on her site here. Great post, recommended reading.

So that was the show. I'll give some advanced warning that I'm pretty sure we're in for a bit of a shuffle on Google this weekend. I'm not sure if we'll see one on Yahoo! but we likely should within the next week or two. Both engines have had updates recently and not all the effects were beneficial for the searcher (though in some cases the results improved - I'd have to say that overall they declined which means they will be corrected).

And to take us into the weekend and has nothing to do with Chicago or SES ...

A hilarious video. Sung to the tune of "We Didn't Start The Fire" it suggests that there's a new bubble about to burst. A good way to start your weekend (unless you work as a geek I suppose in which case it's basically poking fun at you ... ummmmmm ... HEY !!!)

Enjoy. :)

Labels: bill slawski, doubleclick, google, jim hedger, li evans, personalization, ses ch 2007, social media, webmaster radio