Danny Sullivan posted an interview of Jimmy Wales, in which they discuss Wikia's plan to launch a new search engine. Danny asks a lot of great questions, and provides some good analysis. Danny points out in detail how hard it will be for them to succeed in holding off spammers if they begin to get popular. One point of the … [Read more...]
Archives for 2006
7 tips on writing good content for the Search Engines
Brian Clark at Copyblogger recently put up a post about how to write for Google. In his post, Brian quotes the Google guidelines, including the well known: "Always focus on the users and not on search engines when developing your optimization strategy". Brian also promises to offer more on this exact topic within the next year. I … [Read more...]
Blogs that I read
I have now seen numerous people put out there their list of blogs that they read. I saw one excellent list from Brian Clark at Copyblogger, a blog that is on my list below. Here is my list: Bruce Clay (Lisa Barone) Cartoon Barry CopyBlogger Cre8pc David Naylor Eric Ward - Link Moses Google Blogoscoped Google Custom Search … [Read more...]
Stats About Blogs and Link Development
Blogs make for a great promotional tool. You have probably heard it many times. But does it really work? I think we can answer that question with a resounding yes! This post will provide you with some basic stats, showing the results achieved by SEOmoz in the last year, and our very own blog here at Stone Temple Consulting since … [Read more...]
Backing up your Blog
It was a very scary moment. I was looking at the home page of my blog, and there was nothing but a Wordpress database error of some sort. The irony of it was that I had just gone in, for the first time, to try and protect the history of the blog with the first backup I have ever done of it. And the process had somehow blown it … [Read more...]
Google Data Updates and Algorithm Updates
Matt Cutts takes a fresh cut at trying to explain Google algorithm updates and data refreshes. In a nutshell: Algorithm updates affect the methodology that Google ranks sites. These are very infrequent. Data refreshes involve changes in the data set which the algorithm processes. One example of a data refresh is an index … [Read more...]
Wikipedia Launching a New Search Engine – Wikiasari
Quick Pre-Christmas post - Frank Watson at Search Engine Watch reports that Wikipedia and Amazon are teaming up to launch a search engine early next year. The story originally broke in the London Times where Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was quoted as saying "Google is very good at many types of search, but in many instances it … [Read more...]
Using a Site Map to Increase Traffic
Building a good site map can be challenging (for clarity's sake, I need to point out that we are not talking about the Site Maps protocol here, but an on site, site map). But I find that there is a lot of confusion out there about what makes a good one. People are locked down on the notion that they need to have one page on their … [Read more...]
Weighing in on Link Buying (again!)
The debate continues to rage on about link buying. Rand posted yesterday that he disagrees with Danny and Google, and Jim Boykin adds his comments early this morning. Clearly there is a lot of confusion over this. So here we go again ... in this post, I will try to put forth what I believe the Google position is. Note that I am … [Read more...]
Adam Lasnik Clarifies Google Stance on Duplicate Content
Google's Adam Lasnik has offered up a post today on Dealing Deftly with Duplicate Content. In it, he offers up the official Google stance on the issue. In this post, he addresses the following key issues: What is duplicate content? What isn't duplicate content? Why does Google care about duplicate content? What does Google do … [Read more...]
Improve your Google web search box in 10 minutes or less
This post will give you an idea of how to use Google Custom Search Engines to improve the web search tool you offer on your site. It's really cool, and it's really simple. Follow the five steps list below, and you will have the same web search you already have on your site, except your site's rankings in that search engine will be … [Read more...]
Google’s Stance on Reciprocal Links
Search Engine Watch put up a post about Google saying No to Reciprocal Linking. In this post, Chris Boggs does a good review of the statement by Google in their Webmaster blog, and discusses the nature of the ambiguity in Google's policy, and suggests that Google clarify their stance. My bet is that there is no clarification … [Read more...]
List of PR9 and PR10 sites
Looking for a list of high page rank sites? Here is a site that lists Page Rank 10 and Page Rank 9 sites. The list is not comprehensive, but it represents a great starting place for those of you who want to research the highest page rank sites to get links from. As always, please keep in mind that relevance is king. But authority … [Read more...]
Blog Tag in action
Hoo boy, looks like I have been tagged as well. I know I am going to get a headache finding anyone at all to tag. I will do my best. But first for the 5 things you did not know about me: 1. I am an oenophile (wine lover). I have a first class wine cellar in my basement, and I regularly by bottles of wine that I put in there to … [Read more...]
Yahoo! Answers Turns One
Yahoo! Answers is having it's first birthday today. They note that a Harris Interactive survey found that fully 1/3 of all online adults have used an online Q & A service at some point. You can see more information on the survey in the Yahoo! press relesae. The survey further showed that 52% of the people using these products were … [Read more...]
Google Image Search Labeller
Vanessa Fox posted yesterday about using images on your site. The post includes a variety of basic tips for getting the best impact on your search results. The really good stuff though, is a pointer to a cool new feature in Google Webmaster Central. You can read a basic description of the service here. Basically, if you enable … [Read more...]
5 Principles for SEO Success
There was a great post by Andy Beal about Five Secret Strategies to Add $1M in Revenue to your Interactive Marketing Agency in 2007. Rand later supplements this with some great additional suggestions on how to grow your business. I really like what these guys have put out there, but I like to break things down a bit differently. … [Read more...]
Google’s Cloaking Policies
Google Blogoscoped has a post today titled Does Google Allow Cloaking When They Like the Site?. There is not really any doubt in my mind that the answer to this question is yes. I have known for years that CD Universe does cloaking. You can see it quite simply. Search on "metallica CDs" in Google, and click through to the page … [Read more...]
Vertical Search Engine Market to Reach $1B in 2009
Somewhere during the days reading I came across this report on the Emerging Opportunity in Vertical Search. The report pulls stats and data from a report called Vertical Search Delivers What Big Search Engines Miss by Outsell, Inc. What is fascination is that the Outsell's data suggests that the B2B vertical search market will … [Read more...]
The Value of Search Engine Trade Shows
Finally, I get to sit down and contemplate a week without a trade show, or some other major disruption to my schedule. I have recently completed trips to PubCon in Las Vegas, and Search Engine Strategies in Chicago. In reflecting on these trips, I started to think about what the value was of going to these shows. At this point, I … [Read more...]
Rand Fishkin’s 7 tips for Link Bait Success
The following is a summary of Rand Fishkin's list of 7 steps for Success in Link baiting. For those of you don't know, Rand is the President of SEOmoz, one of the most successful link baiting companies in the business. So without further ado, here is a short rendition of the 7 steps to link bait success (aka "Link Baiting according … [Read more...]
Flash disabled in IE 7 by Default
Quick SES Tidbit of the day. Internet Explorer 7 is disabling Flash by default. This means the user needs to take an action in their browser to see Flash movies on your site. This strengthens the arguments for minimizing the use of Flash on your site. This surprising tidbit came out of one of the sessions I was in at SES Chicago … [Read more...]
Search Marketing Expo Announced
And finally, the other pieces fall into place. The team at SearchEngineLand.com has announced their Search Marketing Expo conference and Search Marketing Now webcast series. The list of non-surprises continues! The grand master of search engine conferences, Danny Sullivan, has announced a new series of conferences, known as Search … [Read more...]
The Virtual World of Second Life
Sometimes you feel like you are living under a rock. That happened to me on Monday at SES Chicago. I walked into a ClickZ sponsored session on Social Media Advertising, and in it I saw a presentation by Marc Schiller, CEO and Founder of Electric Artists, about Second Life. For those of you who don't know about it, Second Life is … [Read more...]
Interview of Yahoo’s Tim Mayer
The following is the transcript of an interview of Tim Mayer, who is responsible for the product direction of Yahoo! Search Technology. Tim brings over 10 years of search experience to Yahoo! with previous roles at Overture, FAST Search & Transfer, Inktomi and Thomson Corp. Tim was previously Vice President of Web Search … [Read more...]
Implementing Custom Meta Descriptions in WordPress
Recently, we did a post about Google's snippets stating that out site will soon be the most read site in the SEO World. Not many people can claim that Google says that about their site. As I pointed out in the discussion, this results from the way that Google builds it's snippets. Google first looks to find text on your page that … [Read more...]
Microsoft bCentral not accepting new submissions
Barry Schwartz picked up that Microsoft bCentral is no longer accepting new registrations. This is definitely a shame, as it has always been a good directory to get listed in. Microsoft is now referring all small business customers to the Microsoft Live.com site. As Barry points out, Microsoft is allowing all existing customers to … [Read more...]
“The most read site in the SEO World”
We are truly grateful to Google for declaring that our site "will soon be the most read site in the SEO world". What am I smoking you say? Well check it out here: Thanks Google! OK, so more seriously, how did this happen? Clearly it has something to do with the way that Google assembles it's snippets. The link that comes up … [Read more...]
Interview with Vertical Search Engine Pioneer Grant Ryan
Recently, we had the chance to speak with Eurekster’s Grant Ryan. One of the most interesting topics of our discussion was Grant's description of the innovative contextual advertising model implemented by Eurekster. This model is designed to take advantage of the context information that is inherent in the design of each Swicki … [Read more...]
Using the NoScript Tag
While I was at WebmasterWorld, I had a webmaster come up to me and ask me about the NOSCRIPT tag. Where this tag gets used is for those sites that have Javscript menus, and that don't provide an alternate text based navigation scheme. These sites end up cutting off search engines from portions of those sites. In addition, users … [Read more...]
MSN Punishing Reciprocal Links
A fresh report from Barry Schwartz reveals that Microsoft is now actively banning sites for engaging in link exchanges with non-relevant sites. Fascinating. As Barry also indicates, Google simply discounts these links, making them a waste of your time and effort. In addition, we learned during the BigDaddy update, that Google also … [Read more...]
Danny Sullivan’s Future
So the news is finally out. Danny Sullivan, Barry Schwartz, and Chris Sherman are going to operate a new web site that provides search news, known as Search Engine Land. Congratulations to the three of you. This will soon be the most read web site in the SEO world. In addition, Danny will continue to manage and operate the SES … [Read more...]
Search Engines unite on Site Maps Protocol
Donna Fontenot at SEO Scoop picked up the announcement that Yahoo and MSN are now supporting the Google Sitemap protocol. In the official announcement on the Google Webmaster blog, it's stated that Google, Yahoo, and MSN are going to collaborate on future changes and enhancements to the protocol. This is great stuff. When the … [Read more...]
Tidbits from Webmaster World, Day 2
1. I finally got to meet Donna Fontenot of SEO Scoop. She has an excellent blog, and today made a point that ties in nicely to the current gambling environment here in Las Vegas. Manage your risk dudes and dudettes. Don't put more on the line than you can afford to lose. 2. I stopped by the duplicate content sessions because I … [Read more...]
WebmasterWorld Day 1
Brutal trip out here. No problems really, everything ran on time. But getting up at 4:30 am ET to come out here is hard no matter how you slice it. But anyway, I have made it our to WebmasterWorld in Las Vegas. And as always, it's an entertaining show. Since I flew early this morning, I made only the two last sessions. The most … [Read more...]
Interview of Eurekster’s Grant Ryan
The following is the transcript of an interview of Dr. Grant Ryan, co-founder and Chief Scientist, of Eurekster, conducted in several sessions in November, 2006. Grant and Eurekster have a rich pedigree in social search, going back to GlobalBrain, a company that Grant spearheaded in the late 90's. GlobalBrain was all about "Learning … [Read more...]
Google Custom Search Engines and Core Search
Gary Price put up a post on Wednesday where he speculated that Google's plan to focus on core search were just stories. Gary cites the move into radio ads, the Custom Search Engine announcement, and the YouTube acquisition as being divergent from this plan. Lisa Barone at BruceClay.com speculates further on this topic. Lisa's take … [Read more...]
Webmaster World Next Week
Like many others in the search engine industry, I am preparing for the trip to Las Vegas for WebmasterWorld. There are lots of things to look forward to. Catching up with the many people in this industry that I have to know. Just hanging out in some place warmer than Boston. Then there are the many great sessions and meetings I … [Read more...]
Free SEO Site Review
We are pleased to announce a new series of articles on our site. Over the coming months we plan to do a series of "This Old Web Site" articles, in which we document SEO projects that we have participated in, and their results. We are also pleased to be able to show you the results of the first of the sites being covered in this … [Read more...]
Building Multi-Million $ Web Sites from Scratch (Part 5 of …)
Code Architecture When building a large web site from scratch, it's critical that you have the right code architecture. A weak code architecture can torpedo your entire plan, or can leave you in a position where you can't scale your site. Given the type of content we have been talking about in this series, you may needs tens of … [Read more...]
Can Google Drop You from Your Own Custom Search Engine?
Has your mother created a Google Custom Search Engine yet? Yes, I'm being facetious. But I want to make a point. Custom Search Engines are drop-dead easy to create. According to Google's new Custom Search Blog, "tens of thousands of people have already started contributing". The volume of posts on the Google Co-op Group, which I … [Read more...]
A Link Request Email I Liked!
A while back I wrote a post about the funniest link exchange request I ever got. So I thought I would in all fairness present the best (seriously) link exchange e-mail I ever received. Here it is: Hi, We're interested in exchanging links with you. Please let us know if you're interested. Regards, I love this e-mail! Why you … [Read more...]
Flash Sites and the Google Index
Mark Cook of ZoomZoom Ltd in the UK wrote in to let us know that Google is indexing flash pages. Mark references this article about the topic. Based on this e-mail, I ran some tests, and the results are illuminating. Query: cooking schools filetype:swf Query: red wine filetype:swf As you can see, Google is indexing flash. … [Read more...]
Building Multi-Million $ Web Sites from Scratch (Part 4 of …)
Content Development Finally we get back to our series on building multi-million dollar web sites from scratch. We will continue to weave in regular postings about the Google Custom Search Engine developments, but we will begin to write about this topic regularly as well. Basically, this series is a high level blueprint about how to … [Read more...]
One Basic Problem with Algorithmic Search
A short while back, we had the opportunity to interview Google’s Shashi Seth. This interview started with a fascinating look at basic flaws in algorithmic search. In fact, it is these limitations that has led Google to implement the Google Co-Op program.Basically, this boils down to two major issues: Most user queries to not fully … [Read more...]
Google Custom Search Engines – Who will be the Winners?
One of the more interesting things to consider in light of the Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) announcement is who will be the winners, and who will be the losers. We do view Google as one of the winners, but this post will focus more on the winners and losers among those who implement CSEs. As always, the ability to generate an … [Read more...]
Google Custom Search Engines and Social Media
When Google Co-op was launched in May, I saw this as Google's move into the Social Media space. The announcement on October 24th of it's Custom Search Engine (CSE) initiative continues this trend. As with the other parts of Google Co-op, CSEs are intended to encourage social participation in improving the quality of search. CSEs … [Read more...]
Strategic Value of Google Custom Search Engines For Site Owners
The new custom search engine (CSE) program announced by Google offers significant possibilities for web site owners. Implementing a CSE allows site owners to develop a new asset for their business, and provides a new revenue stream for their business as well. Site owners can have a subject matter expert (SME) in their business … [Read more...]
Strategic Implications of Google’s Custom Search Engines
Google's custom search engine (CSE) announcement has significant implications for the search engine industry and Google. This blog post will discuss some of these, but I am sure we will be learing about it for some time to come. Here are the major implications: Combining Human Editing with Algorithmic Search 1. Google has … [Read more...]
Interview of Google’s Shashi Seth
The following is the transcript of an interview of Shashi Seth, Product Lead, Search, of Google. Shashi is responsible for putting together the new Custom Search Engine strategy just announced by Google. Read our analysis of the interview with Shashi Seth, where we discuss the implications of what we learned during our discussion … [Read more...]