Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

Back at SES Chicago 2007 I had the great fortune of attending a Blackhawks vs Canucks hockey game with one Mr. David Dalka. It was a great game and given that I'm from Canada about 20 miles from Vancouver - it was made better by witnessing the Canucks walk all over Chicago (though admittedly, I didn't want to cheer too much in hostile territory :)

Well I got an email from David a couple weeks back basically taunting me with the crushing I was about to receive as they went head-to-head in the playoffs. Of course I had to respond back with my own challenge and taunt given that the Canucks had done so very well right before my eyes in front of a visitor audience. And alas - I was wrong and so here I publicly note that David, you were right and I was wrong. The Blackhawks are a better team than the Canucks (as a note - I don't really believe it - I just have to say this as he would have had to if the Canucks had won). :)

Anyways David, thank you for making the series more entertaining than it would have been had I not feared your taunts. Even though I now have to hate you until the Canucks show what a real Canadian hockey team can do I wish you every luck in your executive search marketing management consulting business and hope to sit next to you as the Canucks crush your team again in the future. ;)

Labels: david dalka, ses ch 2007

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

Today's post is a rushed hodge-podge of topics. A lot is going on and yet - time is short. I'm rushing through last-minute stuff to make sure I'm ready to head to Chicago tomorrow morning for SES. SES Chicago is already underway but I only get to be there for the two days I'm speaking. Fly in Tuesday, fly out after Jim and I host our radio show on Thursday afternoon (it's going to be a great show so be sure to listen to WebmasterRadio.fm). :)

If you want to keep posted on my sessions, the session I attend, eta. you can do so on our website at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/ses/sesch07/.

Blogger has now stripped links from comments. It appears that Blogger-run blogs no longer accept you to post a link to your site as a comment. As a move to combat blog sp@m this is going to be highly effective. An incidental victim of the move are people who use blogs heavily and comment legitimately. They will lose some of their links and they likely deserve some of them however I'd say that those spanked with just cause will outweight the innocent bystanders.

And putting their money where their mouth is, Google has dropped paid listings for text link ads. My question to them would be however, why are you advertising them on my site?

If you look at the add that appears just today on our site:

Now I'll admit that I'm not particularly offended by displaying the ads. We don't buy text links but I don't have any special vendetta against people that do (Google seems to be taking care of that themselves) but if the folks at Google feel it is unethical to advertise paid links on their own site, why are they OK with pushing the ads onto mine?

Labels: blogger, google, paid links, ses ch 2007