Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

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

Well big apologies for not getting a chance to blog about Chicago before now and even this post will be short. I'll save all the details until I'm back and can put up some resources for those who attended my session.

After many delays I arrived in Chicago on Tuesday at 9:30PM and the fun began there. After a couple hours of chatting and chumming with those SEO's that chose Chicago in December rather than Vegas (we call ourselves - the ones who weren't thinking straight :) it was time for rest to be fresh for my speaking on the Personalization panel at 10:15 after which I had the opportunity to host Webcology (a radio show I co-host on Webmaster Radio) . A great show and big thanks to the WMR crew.

After that it was a Blackhawks game (big thanks to David Dalka - an expert in local and mobile search marketing than I had the good fortune of meeting in Chicago) where they were beaten by the Canucks (being from Canada I love hockey and the Canucks so it was a good night) and off for some blues with assorted SEO's and show organizers.

Today, exhausted, I got the pleasure of speaking on the "So You Want To Be A Search Marketer" panel. It's not a panel that's going to drive a lot of business but it's great to help out up-and-comers in the industry avoid some of the mistakes and hurdles we've gone through over the years. Goodness knows we got our share of assistance and advice from those who came before us. :)

And now, with only a few hours before my flight out I'm off to the Art Intitute. My only exposure to it thus far has been in watching Ferris Beuller's Day Off (great movie BTW).

Upon my return I'll be uploading photos, and posting some resources that will supplements my session on personalization. If not before it'll be up by Monday so be sure to check back - there's some interesting stuff coming. :)

Labels: jim hedger, personalization, ses ch 2007, webmaster radio

For anyone who's read my blog posts for a while or who saw me speak in San Jose earlier this year you'll know that I'm particularly interested in personalization and specifically, Google's patents on the subject. It's because of this that the launch of 23andme yesterday was particularly interesting though I have to say, I haven't seen anything in any of the patents on how this ties together.

For those that haven't heard yet, 23andme is a DNA testing facility of sorts. For $999 they'll send you a saliva kit which you mail back and a few weeks later you can logon to their site and see how your DNA looks as far as a few conditions and diseases go (heart attacks, strokes, etc.). Now the real curiosity to me is that this company is funded by Google. Why?

Well one reason could be that one of the founders is Anne Wojcicki, who has a background in health-care investing and is married to Google Inc co-founder Sergey Brin. Good reason HOWEVER Sergey can't just hand over millions of gBucks whenever he likes so there has to be a benefit for Google.

There is the chance that the folks over at Google simply believe that this is an interesting project and lucrative in it's own right and thought to diversify their funding sources. Of course! Advertising is sooooo yesterday. Time to move on. ;)

Or there is some data that the gPeople are hoping to get? Is this the first step in a larger project to get our DNA. What personalization options will Google have if they know you're going to die at 45? You'll know you're in trouble when funeral home ads start popping up when you're partner is surfing the web.

It's definitely WAY too early to come to any conclusive idea as to what the folks at Google are really hoping to accomplish but it'll be interesting to watch them and how they use the data they collect.

The issue I find more immediately concerning is the privacy issues. While the 23andme website claims high levels of security (and I have no doubt they're telling the truth there) the government can step in and demand the files. I'm not saying they're going to do it, but they could. And to me, that's a bit frightening [ i don't know what my DNA says about me but I don't know if I want my government and, worse yet, my insurance companies to know.

Some other sources of info on this launch:

• Reuters


• SFGate

Labels: google, personalization, privacy

I'm sitting in my hotel room in beautiful (and incredibly warm) San Jose. I decided to take a moment away from going over my presentation on Personalization to write a quick blog post with a big thank you to all those that made the first night in San Jose a fun one.

Today's lineup of sessions looks to be entertaining and informative. Unfortunately I won't be attending any from the morning as I'm much more comfortable speaking on the phone, in person and on the radio and I expect that for the next few hours I'm going to feel ill in preparation for my speaking session later this afternoon. I am however looking forward to the Search Behavior session which follows after the one I'm doing and I'll probably feel a lot more relaxed at that point. :)

Watch for another post later this afternoon and updates on our SES San Jose 2007 page with details on my session, some jewels from the session after and some resources to accompany my presentation (it's hard to cover something as vast as Google personalization patents in 12 minutes).

Labels: personalization, ses sj 2007

Once again I will be off to San Jose to speak at the Search Engine Strategies Conference which runs from August 20 to 23, 2007. This time I'll be speaking on two panels.

Personalization, User Data & Search
I can tell you in advance that this is going to be my favorite session to speak at as the topic is incredibly interesting to me. I'll be covering how user search data will be combined with the patterns of other similar users to generate the results and how to help insure your site takes advantage of this upcoming technology.

So You Want To Be A Search Marketer!
In this session I'll be helping upcoming SEO's avoid some of the pitfalls of starting a new business on the Internet.

I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to speak at the conference once more and to meeting any of you readers who may be attending.

Labels: personalization, ses sj 2007

The most recent article by Beanstalk staff was published today. Titled, "Personalization And The Death Of SEO" it covers some of the changes that the SEO industry is about to experience, how the industry/efforts need to be adjusted and details some of the main areas indicated in the patents as critical to help you as the website owner/SEO adapt to those changes and, if done right, profit from these changes before your competitors even know they're happening.

You can read the article on the Beanstalk website here.

Labels: google, personalization, seo article

I love RSS and I love the Firefox Extension RSS Ticker. Firefox is an excellent browser and combined, these two make it easy to keep updated on the latest going-on effortlessly by scrolling my favorite RSS feeds across the bottom of my browser window. And that's how I found this latest tid-bit of info on the Marketing Pilgrim blog.

For those who have blogs through Blogger (like this one) and who have converted to the new system recently, take a look at your code. It appears that there are some *minor* issues. Actually, just one but wow - is it a doozy.

Blogger blogs, by default, include the following generic code: <$BlogMetaData$>

Well this doesn't look so bad. It tells Blogger to insert the meta data specified for the site through the Blogger control panel, how helpful. The control panel allows you to set your blog as listed or unlisted. If it's listed then it will be crawlable, if it's unlisted then it will not be. Unfortunately for some unfortunates who have recently switched, this tag is producing the following:

<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true">
<meta name="generator" content="Blogger">
<link rel="service.feed" type="application/atom+xml" title="DanoTestMule" href="http://testmule.blogspot.com/atom.xml">
<link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml" title="DanoTestMule" href="http://www.blogger.com/atom/6602135">
<link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="http://www.blogger.com/rsd.pyra?blogID=6602135">
<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW">

Hmmm, looks OK, looks OK, WAIT!!! <meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW"> Huston, we have a problem.

So, if you've recently converted to the new version of Blogger, be sure to check your code. You might find something a bit, well, let's use the word "hindering" shall we?

As an additional note, and on an unrelated topic, please accept my apologies for the lack of posts of late. I've been busy ransacking and preparing to write about Google Personalization which involves tearing through 6 patents (now THAT's fun reading) and then taking the time to understand what they actually mean. SiteProNews editor Jim Hedger and I will be publishing a white paper in the next couple weeks on the subject. I will be posting some patent info in the next couple days on this blog so keep watching.

And to be fair to the source of the Blogger info, here's your link Andy. :)

Labels: blog, blogger, google, jim hedger, nofollow, noindex, personalization, white paper

After yesterday's post on Google launching their personalization feature I received plenty of emails regarding the patents this feature is based on. I will soon be publishing an article covering the subject so I won't fine-tooth the details here (you'll just have to come back regularly for the article :) however I'd like to include a few links you're likely interested in. And they are:

The Patents
These are the patents this new feature is based on

• Systems and methods for analyzing a user's web history
• Systems and methods for modifying search results based on a user's history
• Systems and methods for providing a graphical display of search activity
• Systems and methods for managing multiple user accounts
• Systems and methods for combining sets of favorites
• Systems and methods for providing subscription-based personalization

The Feedback
Here are links to some great articles, blog posts and feedback on the subject (there's a lot more out there than this - I've just picked what I believe to be the best of the info

• Google Ramps Up Personalized Search - Danny Sullivan on Search Engine Land.com
  
• Personally speaking - The announcement of the launch of personalization on Google's official blog
• Google's Personalized Results - Jim Hedger on SiteProNews.com (it's on their homepage - I'll try to remember to change the link when it goes to a permanent location)

And just a reminder - keep watching our blog. We'll be posting an announcement of one of the most researched articles I've ever done on what is arguably the biggest change in search in years.

Labels: danny sullivan, google, jim hedger, patents, personalization, sitepronews

Thanks Google - Now I Can See My Backlinks !!!

Only a couple hours later and there's already an update below.

Well today appears to have been an even bigger day than I first thought. First there was the launch of Yahoo!'s Panama and now I'm reading in Google's press center that there are some great enhancements over there too. :)

At 2:44PM Google announced on their blog that they are providing even more information in their Webmaster Tools than previously. We've all done the backlink checks with link:www.domain.com only to be disappointed with the resulting list. Google hasn't shown a full list of backlinks in ages so how were we to know where are backlinks were from and where they were going. Well now we know. :)

In their Webmaster Tools the fine folks at Google are now showing a full list of the backlinks they know about that point to your domain and even better, they list off all the pages in your site so with a simple click of a button you can see the backlinks to any given page. The reason Google stopped showing the backlinks in full was that this list was too easily manipulated by SEO's (those crafty buggers ;) but not knowing the status of one's own site worked against website owners favor. This is a great addition to their tools and wins a BIG THUMBS UP from this SEO. Don't give my backlink data to my competitors, but thanks for letting me see it. :) Oh, but if you like you can give theirs to me. ;)

If you haven't already, create an account at Google's Webmaster Central. You'll be glad you did.

And Now, Personalization ...

And today I had brought to my attention an interesting page on the Google Search Results help area. A big thanks to Jim Hedger (co-host on Webmaster Radio) for pointing this out to me. The post reads:

When you're signed in to Google Accounts, you'll now get more relevant, useful search results, recommendations and other personalized features. For example, if you use Google Bookmarks or Google Search History, you'll get more targeted web search results and recommendations for videos or gadgets. You can easily access these recommendations by adding the "Interesting Items" gadget directly to your personalized homepage.

And so the lives of SEO's everywhere gets just a little more complex. Truly personalized results? Now, if you see different results than I do, how exactly is a company like Beanstalk supposed to honor guarantees when what we're seeing may be different?

Alas, that is our problem to sort out and not yours (how happy are you about that?) but one this is sure, with better, more personalized results being fed, users are sure to win and SEO's will need to adapt. As I noted to Jim when he asked how it would affect SEO's, I replied:

"In the long run it will force SEO to do what they SHOULD do. Write compelling content for the target market, push into social media and establish links from industry hubs."

It might take more to rank sites when the exact variables are so specific to the end user however in the end the big winner is the client (oh, and the searcher). It might make my life a bit more difficult but it makes the industry and search engine stronger, and that can only be a good thing. Unless you're concerned about Big Brother. ;)

I refound a blog post from none other than Google patent guru Bill Slawski on the subject of personalization. I love patents as much as the next guy ;) but noone can do their analysis justice like Bill so rather than try in vain to capture what he has to say on the subject I'll just link to his post below. In his work you'll find great analysis and links to a number of related Google patents that will open your eyes as to what this all means. Thanks Bill and keep up the great work.

You'll find Bill Slawski's blog post titled, "Google Personalization Methods" here.

Labels: backlinks, google, personalization, webmaster tools