At Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization we know that knowledge is power. That's the reason we started this SEO blog. We know that the better informed our visitors are, the better the decisions they will make for their websites and their online businesses. We hope you enjoy your stay and find the SEO news contained within this blog useful.
For those of you who have noticed significant fluctuations in your rankings – you’re not alone. Across the web people have reported significant changes in their rankings. We at Beanstalk were fortunate on this one in that we had ranking reports running for the past few days and got to watch the changes over the course off the report. A happy coincidence.
Unfortunately the algorithm shift isn’t particularly favorable to solid site optimization. There was an odd connection is what we’re seeing. Site that had link building that focused on high relevancy and high trustability lost ground and sites who’s links building was focused on volume in recent months have gained ground. This indicated a shift to volume over quality. For obvious reason we’re convinced that this shift won’t last.
This shift in quality isn’t just apparent in the sites we’re working on but as we analyze various sites across the web we’re noticing a larger degree of lower quality backlinked sites ranking.
Now – to be sure we’re always in favor of diversified link building strategies and that includes strategies that focus more on volume and other strategies that focus on trust and relevancy but from everything we can see indicates that this update puts a disproportionate emphasis on volume. I expect to see the rankings shift again – likely over the weekend.
I should note that this isn’t just something we’re noticing but that has been noticed by a wide array of SEO’s. My advice? Don’t react too quickly – corrections are coming and you don’t want to adjust the wrong way.
And in other news …
And also noticeable in the current ranking report we’re running for our clients is the merging of Yahoo! and Bing search results. A couple days ago Yahoo! announced that their organic results in North America were being fed by Bing. This is of course the first set of ranking reports though that have refected this. This is (in my opinion) very exciting news and you can read more about it on Search Engine Journal here.
And stay tuned – I’ll be posting more as the Google update continues.
For the past week the Internet world has been abuzz with the Google/Verizon deal and how it will affect Net Neutrality. For those of you who have heard me speak at conferences or listened to my radio show you’ll know that I’m not the biggest supporter of Net Neutrality legislation. I tend to take a pretty hard line in a debate (almost always against Jim Hedger) but so does he and it makes for an entertaining debate with him referring to me as a closed minded hater of equality and me accusing him of communist tendencies and wanting to implement policies and laws that counter the entire spirit of capitalism. It’s a fun debate.
But today we saw eye-to-eye Jim and I. While we may argue the reasons we agree – we both object to the way that Google is handling the current issue with their Verizon deal that would give their 1′s and 0′s a bit of preferential treatment. More on that in just a bit. First – let’s get some basic history on Google’s stand on net neutrality, the arguments of those who oppose net neutrality and go from there. But first -
What Is Net Neutrality?
Net Neutrality is, at it’s core, the idea that the Internet is a mandatory service and that complete equality is required in the way packets are treated as they flow across it. The idea that the Telco’s should have the ability to charge more for preferential treatment of certain packages (say … YouTube videos if Google slipped them a few extra bucks) violates this idea. Well who can argue that? Don’t I have the same rights to the Internet as everyone else?
The problem arises in that the Telco’s need to pay for the infrastructure and access to that network. They argue (and let’s remember – we’re all capitalists here) that they have the right to monetize their services in a way that maximized profits. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has opposed Net Neutrality legislation noting that there are consumer protection laws in place that provide the protection in productive ways and that bloating the law books with more jargon isn’t going to make the issue simpler, or solve any problems that aren’t being solved with current legislation as has been witnessed many times – including a decision again Comcast when they tried to restrict access to torrents on their network and were order to stop doing so. Basically – Net Neutrality is protected even for a file type that is used primarily for exchanging illegal material (yes torrents are used for legitimate purposes but …)
Initially there were two camps, those who opposed net neutrality and those who supported it. The line was drawn basically based on profit like so:
Against Legislation – the “greedy” Telcos who just want to make a buck. For Legislation – a bunch of people who stand to profit from it such as Google, Microsoft and others who claim that this will hinder innovation and growth in the technology industry. To ask them – it has nothing to do with the fact that it would cost them more.
In 2007 Google as on record as saying:
“The nation’s spectrum airwaves are not the birthright of any one company. They are a unique and valuable public resource that belong to all Americans. The FCC’s auction rules are designed to allow U.S. consumers — for the first time — to use their handsets with any network they desire, and download and use the lawful software applications of their choice.”
At the time they were bashing Verizon from taking the stand that the decision by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), “that would require the eventual winner of the spectrum to offer open devices and applications.” claiming such a decision was, “arbitrary and capricious, unsupported by substantial evidence and otherwise contrary to law.” You can read more about this on Google’s Policy Blog here.
So Here We Are 3 Years Later …
So here we stand 3 years later and Google and Verizon are in bed together working out a deal to prioritize some traffic over others, basically pulling a reference from George Orwell’s Animal Farm that, “some animals are more equal than others.” They use the example of medical applications but left the door open to gaming, 3D, entertainment, and more. I’m sure none of us would have a problem with a heart monitor connected to a doctor’s office over the Internet getting a priority over an MSN chat but we all know that’s not where this is going or it wouldn’t even be a debate.
Now on the table is that mobile devices should be included in the list of exempt platforms and services. Alrighty – now we’re getting warmed up. So they’re OK with the standard old Internet getting Net Neutrality imposed (except for special applications and services as yet to be defined of course)…but mobile, the up-and-comer and largely increasing area of bandwidth consumption and connectivity – that area should be excluded from the legislation? Here’s where you lost me but not because I think it’s wrong to give preferential treatment but because I don’t like when people are trying to be sly.
Here’s the thing … “not all animals are equal”. I can’t tell Google that all the can change for a PPC click is $0.40 just to make sure that everyone can afford it. It’s just not that kind of a world (and I would argue further that it shouldn’t be).
What They Should Have Done …
Verizon has done exactly what they should have. The way the message was delivered puts any backlash squarely on Google. I have no advice for them, masterfully executed.
Google should have come forward and said:
“The world has changed in 3 years and we have a lot of great ideas about the direction of mobile that’s going to require that Net Neutrality legislation doesn’t apply. We need to be able to pay more for preferential bandwidth to insure that we can provide you with the services we know you’ll love at a price you’ll enjoy even more. We want to pay extra so you don’t have to.
We would have called them on going against the policies of earlier but really – there would have been a lot less rumors and conjecture about what was going on. They should have stood up for their actions, admitted they were contrary to their former statements and basically outlined what we all know, the Internet world moves fast and the rules have changed.
Sometimes it’s refreshing to just hear a spade called a spade. I don’t believe that Google has any huge secret plans to bring down the Internet – I think they just want to be more equal. At the end of the day I don’t even disagree with their right to be more equal – they just should have come out and said so. They should have stood up for themselves.
And Now For Some Fun…
And now that you’ve made it to the end of a post on Net Neutrality here’s a video done by “Ask A Ninja” on net Neutrality:
Have you ever wanted to use a font on your website and weren’t able to simply because it wasn’t a web-safe font? Perhaps you wanted a beautiful scrolling heading but knew that doing so would require creating an image heading and really – that’s just not good SEO is it?
Last week the solution to this issue was brought to my attention by Jacob Gube over on the Mashable site in his article on the implementation of Google’s New Google Font API. Basically this is a standardized mechanism for pulling in external font definitions into IE, Firefox, Safari, etc. allowing designers and website owners to finally use the fonts they feel would best work with their design.
The first thing I’m going to discuss today is the discount being offered by my favorite paid directory Best Of The Web. They always offer good value for the money in regards to both trust enhancement AND just plain old traffic but for the month of May they’re offering a $25 discount on submissions of both your site and your blog. Both the Beanstalk site and blog are in there so I’m not recommending anything I wouldn’t put my own money behind.
So if you’re looking for a good quality link from a solid and respected site, BOTW is a good place to head and I’d recommend doing so before the end of the month. Submission is typical of an advanced directory (find your category, click “Submit”). They charge both annual and one-time fees depending on your short vs long term goals. You can visit their site at http://botw.org/.
Google’s New Face
Some of you may have already noticed that Google is displaying their results differently with a left hand navigation allowing for some advanced tailoring of the search results. I’ve actually been seeing it on my work computer for a couple weeks now on and off. Basically the default results set is the same as always but with a click you can tailor your results by time, type (blog, regular, news, etc.) and they even offer suggestion additional searches to consider.
As an SEO I of course have to consider that this is yet another factor in clickthroughs that I have to consider and that will likely put more work on my plate BUT on the plus side – t also may reduce the bounce rate of sites by allowing people to tailor their results more specifically. Oh – and as a searcher I do like it which (I suppose) is what Google’s trying to do. You can read Google’s post on the new face on their blog at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/spring-metamorphosis-googles-new-look.html.
Once again Google, you’ve made my life a little more complicated but I have to commend you on a job well done.
We’ve all been there, you start doing something when you have time and then – as other things creep up (let’s call them clients and staffing obligations) suddenly anything that isn’t hammering at your door tends to slip through the cracks. This blog has fallen victim to just that and for this – I am sorry. You come here for reliable and up-to-date information from the SEO realm and find a post 2 weeks old. Well that’s about to change.
Not only am I personally recommitting myself to posting more frequently (at least 3 times per week) – you’re going to see a lot more posts coming in from other Beanstalkers (or should I write … Beans talkers). But for today – you’ll have to put up with me.
So for today I’m going to discuss the newish face of Google’s keyword tool which is right now in beta. The data’s the same so what’s different. A lot if you know where to look.
My quick feedback is that I like it. I think it’s a big step forward to the lay-person and is far more intuitive. Here’s what I like:
I like that the trending data is shown by default. To me it’s a huge help to not just see if a phrase was highly search last month but what it’s volume has been like for the past year. This data is already available in the keyword tool but it’s displayed by default in the new version. Very helpful information. You’d be surprised at how many phrase have a 1 or 2 month spike that augments their importance. Personally – I want phrases that show steady traffic over all months.
I like the new “Contains” option that allows you to further filter down your results based on what keywords you want in and what you don’t ant included (words like “free” for example).
The Match Type has moved to the left. I’m neither here nor there about location but thought I’d let you know where it is.
If you’re looking for suggestions – they also have a category selection so you can choose similar keywords by the category or filter by category if your keywords would span multiple industries (let’s use a phrase like “windows installation” for example).
Google Insights link – I also like the link to Google Insights which gives the user more information on a phrase-by-phrase basis. With regional data, trend data, etc.
Now Google added the beta back in September but I’ve only recently really started digging into it as I can already pull all this data from the classic tool but it was when I was chatting with a client who was at the new version that I realized that for the layman – it’s WAY better.
So head over to the tool at https://adwords.google.com/ – at the top left client over to the beta tool and see what’s available. While you’re at it – schedule regular checks to do this every couple months … it’s just a good idea.
Today is April 1st. Apart from Google changing their name to Topeka and my kids running off with dreams of changing teacher’s pen colors – it’s a lot like most days before except that we get the honor of again making Top SEO’s list of the best firms in a variety of categories. This month we made the grade in the following categories:
SEO
Link Building
Content Creation
SEO Training
PPC Management
Of course we’ve very pleased to be including in this list and proud that our dedication to our clients and ethical SEO techniques is recognized. Thanks to Top SEO’s for once again including us.
Okay – that that was the good news of the day – now the bad news. Those who use Blogger’s FTP function (including your truly) have one month to find a new solution. Google will not be supporting FTP for Blogger after May 1st.
We’ve been looking into various solutions and will let you know when we lock down the one we’ll be implementing. And one last time – I’m not impressed Google. While only the minority of us use the FTP function I’ll bet that if we only count legitimate blogs (as opposed to splogs) that percentage is much higher. But alas – our hands are tied and our blog will be pulled out of Blogger – I just haven’t figured out where it’s going to go yet.
But did I mention that we won an award? (wanted to end this post on a high note)
Recently we’ve been looking into using google docs to remove some of the headache of read only and lock file issues that are a frequent occurrence on network drive shares. While Google Docs is for the most part quite promising we ran into an interesting and somewhat frightening snag that we’ve since reported to Google. As with any service this large there are bound to be some oversights that turn up only in widespread use. I’ve been unable to find if this issue has already been posted elsewhere. So here’s what we found.
Security scenario:
A user creates a new Google docs document,
then sends an invitation to share this document with several email addresses via the share option,
the email containing a link to the shared document invitation is received via company email,
recipient clicks the link in the email within their mail client,
next typically you’re either prompted to log in to google docs and accept or reject the invitation to view the document, or if you’re already logged into your Gmail account it takes you straight to the accept or reject invitation screen.
You press accept and view the document.
Stop and think about that… the invitation was sent to a company email address, not a Gmail address. Shouldn’t that invitation be only for that email address? Or at least limited to the set of emails that were invited when the bulk invite was sent out?
Yet if I can get a hold of that link and put it in a browser you can log into say your personal Gmail account and get access to the same document. What we found in testing was that anyone who got a hold of the link could log into their Gmail account and still view the document.
With the amount of schools and businesses already migrated over to Google docs I’m surprised this hasn’t been resolved yet.
How big a deal is this? It really depends what’s in the document you’re sharing however anyone who can sniff out that link and sign up for a Gmail account can gain access to the document.
Whether by sniffing your network traffic packets , sniffing your mail server or mail relays, snooping via compromised machine or email account, email being forwarded to an insecure or unintended address, or a shady client even being able to take a quick photo of your screen while the URL is in view – so long as they can get that doc share invitation link and type it in their browser they can now access it via any Google docs or Gmail account they have access to even though the invite may have only been intended for joe@joesplace.com
Current workarounds:
Only send share invitations to other Gmail accounts. Google docs to Gmail communication should stay on internal Googles internal network and never go out on the web. Post the link only in secured locations.
Or instead of sending out share invitations send an email with a URL straight to the Google docs URL for the document. The user clicking the link will first have to log in to their Gmail/Google docs then will have to request access to that document before they can view it. This can be approved or denied at your discretion.
Possible Solutions?
If Google were to allow users to encrypt their email via PGP or some other means before sending the link could not be sniffed in plain text.
However the above does not really address the simpler underlying security issue that an invitation to share a document should (unless otherwise stated in bold red) only be usable by the address the invitation was sent to.
It may seem convenient that if someone sends a Google docs invite to your @business.com account you can click on the link and sign in with your personal Gmail since you don’t have Google docs tied to your @business address however that means that it’s convenient for anyone else to do so too if they can find a way to capture that link.
Yes – often these invitations are read only however imagine the bounty of company and school documents that could be quite harmful in the wrong hands – read only or not. Personal and proprietary data, exam questions, you name it. If a business has migrated to Google docs it’s all there if you can sleuth out the link.
Note: Another solution has been brought to our attention from the Google help forums:
Use Share->See who has access… Go to the Advanced permissions tab and untick both Allow editors to invite others to edit or view and Allow invitations to be forwarded , then click Save&Close.;
se Share->See who has access… and on thePeople with accesstab make sure the general setting isSign-in is required to view this item. Again click Save&Close.;
A quick test of these settings seems to plug the hole. However the scare remains that the default settings are quite insecure and few Google docs users are likely to be aware of the security implications of those settings.
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/.
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:
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
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.
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 
