Aloa’s News Blogs

Rankings are in everflux more than ever…hey that sounds weird. Meaning the ranking constantly seem to be moving around for many 2-3 keyword phrases. So when some SEO’s run these ranking reports it really just takes a “picture” of where the website currently ranks. I would like to explain how Google can easily Photoshop that picture (ranking) into something else:

1. Google uses tens of thousands of datacenters. At anytime you could be accessing a different one because of load balancing. So what you check today could be different than tomorrow. What your mom in California checks the same you check in Texas can also be different because you are both using different datacenters. Google is also known to test different algorithms on different datacenters at anytime during the month. This makes the change even harder to pin down because you never know when or why they are doing it.

2. Geo-location also makes a difference. Even if your mom in California is using the same datacenter as you in Texas you can see different results because Google is trying to further “personalize” the search results to your location. They feel this is best for queries that are possibly effected by localization. Take searching for “plumbers” for instance. If you search for a plumber in California you probably don’t want to see plumbers from Texas in your SERPs. Google is becoming more transparent about this of late testing a new feature in the SERPs that you can read about here: http://searchengineland.com/080730-163351.php

3. Google Personalization can affect your SERPs when you are logged into your Google account. They can take any number of demographic items from your personal data to make the SERPs more customized to who you are.

4. Lastly Google Universal Search has probably changed the SERP landscape the most. With the addition of Related Searches, Google News, Images, Video, Blog Posts in the SERP landscape one would wonder how much room is left for those 10 spots per page.

Their has been much talk in the blogosphere lately of Google banning rank checking software Web CEO and Web Position, so beware ladies and gents.

From: webpronews.com by Jaan Kanellis

When prospective entrepreneurs ask small-business consultant John Maynard whether they should develop a Web site for their planned enterprises, Maynard responds with a question of his own.

“When … they ask me that, I (ask) them if they would consider operating a business without a telephone,” said Maynard, who serves as the director of program development with the Small Business Development Center in Athens.

Sarah Van Ophuijsen, a Web services project manager for Digital Insight in Athens, reinforced Maynard’s observation.

“There is an entire generation of people that will never pick up the Yellow Pages,” she said. “When I sit at my desk to make plans for lunch, I use instant messaging with my friends about where to go, and I need to be able to go online to pick a restaurant’s menu and link my friends to that.” Setting up a Web site for a small business, whether for a restaurant, retailer or service company, is a crucial aspect of promotion for a small venture, Maynard said.

“In my opinion, a Web site is part of the marketing mix today, if not one of the most important parts,” he said.

A Web site, or collection of images, information and other pertinent data pertaining to a business, is available on the Internet, where millions of people around the world can access it. The technology can serve as a business card, advertising medium, 24-hour sales agent, information center, answering service and more.

The thought of operating a business without a Web site in 2008 seems unfathomable to Kathryn Lookofsky, director of the Athens Downtown Development Authority.

“I’m amazed when I hear someone doesn’t have a Web site,” she said. “I can’t imagine running a business without a Web site in this day and age.” The ADDA launched a Web site, www.downtownathensga.com, in February 2007, and the service has been invaluable, Lookofsky said. Since launching the Web site, the ADDA has averaged about 25,000 hits a day, meaning that people using their computers to surf the Internet have accessed the site that many times.

The site has boosted sales of the downtown organization’s gift card sales, and the ADDA site offers links or Internet connections to all other downtown businesses that have their own Web sites.

Web sites offer convenience to consumers and provides them with a way to shop and research without leaving their home or office, Maynard said. Web sites also are critical because they can help companies communicate with customers less obtrusively and in helpful ways, he said.

“A woman’s dress shop can use the Web site to track a customer’s preferred brands, colors and styles based on purchases and when they prefer to shop,” Maynard said. “You can direct target customers where it’s in their interest and not spam.”

Airlines can offer deals on destinations to which a consumer has traveled in the past or restaurants can show daily specials. Setting up databases on the Web site enables a business to track customer histories and collect info on purchasing behaviors to help better market products and services people actually want and need, Maynard said.

A Web site can serve at least two roles for businesses these days, said Stephanie Sharp president of Plexus Web Creations, a Web design and marketing business in Athens.

“A Web site can educate potential customers as to what you do, and it’s a service for current customers who do business with you,” said Sharp.

Small businesses can get along without a Web site until their competition gets one; then they can’t survive without it, Sharp said.

To tap into the technology, business owners can develop their own Web sites or hire professional designers to help them, Maynard said. Web sites like homestead.com offer quick, easy and inexpensive — sometimes free — programs to design a Web site.

“Getting a site up and running is no longer an ordeal,” Maynard said. “My recommendation, based on your level of sophistication, is start off small and get your feet wet, and you can get more later.” Free, or low-cost Web design options can help a company’s bottom line, but in the long run might not provide the business with a site that is easy to navigate or is appealing to users.

“You can find an independent developer who will do everything, and they will sell it to you for $500, but a lot of those clients come back to us after a year, ” said Jeremy Minnick, development director for J House Media, an Athens Web design company.

Free services can be very useful as a first step, though, said Mark Magnarella, CEO and president of EO Studios, another Web design firm in Athens.

“The only value with a free service is to use it as a way to draft and think through setting up their site,” Magnarella said.

If an owner wants to invest in developing a Web site, there are dozens of professional Web designing services in Athens and thousands beyond. The cost for professional help in developing a Web site can range from $1,500 to $50,000.

What any professional Web developer will tell a business owner, though, is to plan well and devise a purpose for the technology tool.

“The biggest problem we have is that clients want a Web site and don’t know why,” said Sharp. “Don’t do it just to have one; you have to have a goal of more sales, more calls or more traffic.

“You can’t figure out success unless you have goals, and goals will drive what you want the Web site to be,” she said.

Looking at the Web site as another employee that will provide sales, customer service, human resources and more represents a good approach, Minnick said.

“What role is it going to fill, how will it fill it and how will you invest in it?” he said.

Van Ophuijsen recommends conducting a small survey to see what customers really want on a Web site.

“What we think the users want and what they really want may be two very different things,” Van Ophuijsen said.

In planning the ADDA Web site, Lookofsky had no idea how to do it, so she turned to J House Media, whose team not only designed the site but also provided a system where ADDA staff can easily update the information and graphics on the Web pages.

“We built our own programs and tools to help people update their Web sites,” Minnick said. “If it doesn’t work and you don’t know how to use it, it’s kind of useless, and it’s done for people who don’t know how to use computers.”

Before starting, however, Lookofsky and other members of the downtown business community brainstormed about downtown Athens and its characteristics, and how they wanted the Web site to appeal to both young and older users. The ADDA also looked at other city Web sites and selected 10 to 20 they liked, which they showed to the J House design team.

Setting up a Web site also means selecting and buying a domain name for the site, getting a service to host the site and registering the site with a search engine such as Google or Yahoo on the Internet.

It can cost $10 to $35 for a new domain every year, but the service can be purchased more cheaply by paying up front for multiple years.

Most domain registrars have automatic e-mail notification to let the domain owner know when the registration is about to expire, Minnick said.

“What is important is keeping the e-mail from the service that the domain is registered with,” Minnick said. “That’s how they will contact you and notify you, and that has all the file info on getting it set up in the first place.” J House uses a company called godaddy.com for registering clients’ domains, Minnick said.

Many people don’t realize, or they forget, that each Web site must be hosted and maintained, which if done on a single personal computer can lead to problems from inadequate processing speeds, hackers, bad data or huge amounts of traffic on their e-mail, Minnick said.

Internet services like Charter or NEGIA provide hosting services, and there are thousands of other hosting companies available.

J House contracts with a hosting company for its clients’ Web sites and charges a monthly fee for maintenance service.

Getting your Web site noticed on the Internet occurs through getting on board a search engine. One option is to submit the site to the Dmoz central site at www.dmoz.org. The way certain Web sites pop up on major search engines like Google and Yahoo, depends on the rules set by those companies.

“Every search engine offers a way to do it,” Minnick said.

Businesses naturally compete to be the top ranked site that appears when someone searches for a particular subject. Usually a Web site will appear at the top of a search list if it’s the one most frequented by users, but there are no hard and fast rules, Minnick said.

It can depend on what is being sold, or how your site compares to other in terms of content, or the age of the site, or the “search engine optimization” coding and keywords put into the Web site.

Sites can have keywords embedded in their programs or links that will direct other sites to it. The more sites that link to your site, the more “relevance” the site has to the corresponding search phrase and the more likely it will move higher up in the search results.

The rules of ranking started out simply, but as more people began using the Internet and many began abusing the rules to get rankings, the rankings don’t necessarily determine higher relevance, Minnick said.

Google and Yahoo stay on top of the gimmicks some programmers use to try and trick the ranking system, said Neil Summerour, a partner in Athens marketing agency Sliced Bread.

He urges people with new Web sites to be patient and not expect their site to hit the top quickly.

“Years ago you put your site up on the Web and put in a keyword and registered with lots of search engines and you’d have a top ranking, but now there are millions of Web sites being introduced every day,” Summerour said.

“Everyone is competing for the top page rank. Most engines, especially Google, are smart, and they can determine a new ploy to drive traffic, and they stop that,” he said.

Summerour recommends establishing effective search engine optimization coding, as well as using search engine options such as Google Adwords to help increase a Web site’s ranking. Traditional media such as newspaper and radio advertising and nontraditional media can help promote the site as well, he said.

“As a Web site gets out there and has relevant content, and it’s easy to navigate, the search engines pick up on it and start ranking it,” he said.

From a marketing standpoint, the Internet can be a leveling force for small businesses, Summerour said.

“A lot of small businesses are realizing that a lot of their potential market share is going to larger businesses because they have embraced the Internet,” Summerour said. “If you have a product or service and want people to learn about it, this is a great way to do it.”"A Web site is a separate salesperson who can work for you 24 hours,” Summerour added. “You can’t make near as many cold calls in a day as you can having an effective Web site.”

From: redorbit.com by Don Nelson, Athens Banner-Herald, Ga.

Like all Web marketing, the greatest aspect of link building is the trackability. This helps you quantify your progress and prove your worth to your superiors and clients.

However, there hasn’t really been a standardized tool that the industry accepted as “the” link monitoring tool. In fact, there are more tools that will tell you wrong information than there are tools that will tell you right information.

Most of the major search engines have link identifying queries that you can do. The standard search query is: link:www.example.com.

If you do that search, you’ll get a list of pages linking to that page. Because I can get you the complete set of data, I’ll do this for SageRock.com.

Doing this query on Google returns about 30 pages linking to that URL. Doing this query on Yahoo returns 2,113 pages linking to that URL.

That’s a major difference! This is because Google intentionally doesn’t want to disclose all of the links it knows about a domain, which explains 30 links versus 2,113 inlinks. Google only gives a small sampling.

The more realistic number is 2,113. Yahoo is more open when it comes to link disclosure. Virtually every link analysis tool you use (such as SEOQuake) relies quite heavily on Yahoo’s link data.

Incidentally, you can do those searches for specific pages to see how many links point to that particular page on your site. That information can be telling of how a particular story or link bait tactic is fairing in gathering links.

However, the link reporting trail doesn’t end there. There’s one final way of getting a much more comprehensive tally of the links pointing to you. The most comprehensive, detailed list of links pointing into your site is found at Google’s Webmaster Central.

If you haven’t setup your site in the Webmaster Tools section, I strongly encourage you to do so. All you need is a Google login. Then they ask you to either upload a page with a strange custom URL they give you or add some meta code to the <head> of your site. Doing that verifies you own the site.

This gives you complete access to a ton of great information about your site. Not the least of which is your link information. If you recall, the total number of links Google showed on their front-end search query for SageRock.com was about 30 links pointing into that URL. Yahoo had 2,113. Google Webmaster Central has 2,471.

This data is a much better comprehensive list. In this case, the difference between 2,113 and 2,471 isn’t earth shattering. However, I have seen client data that is shockingly different.

Additionally, Webmaster tools nicely lays out how many links are pointing to each page of your site. Here are some of the results for pages on my site:

• http://www.sagerock.com/ – 670
• /articles.html – 47
• /search-engine-relationship-chart.html – 1
• /about/psychic-source-case-studies.html – 2
• /about/staff.html – 4
• /institute/ – 14
• /ohiowebmarketing/cleveland-seo.html – 1
• /weblog/ – 1709

This information is interesting because I can instantly see that our blog gets nearly three times the number of links than that of our home page. This tells me that people are more interested in linking to the blog than the home page. So, as I move forward in asking for links I probably would want to suggest people link to our blog.

I also see that our Institute has 14 links. This is new for us in 2008. We’ve done no link building campaigns for the Institute. So, I’m encouraged to see that people are already linking to it with no suggestion on our part.

Finally, I would be able to take this data to a client or superior every month and track the progress of any link initiatives taking place. I would easily be able to chart link growth on a page-by-page level.

One caveat, however.

Google discusses their link reporting here. At the bottom of that page, they write, “Note: While the External links page provides a larger sampling of links to your site, not all links to your site may be listed. This is normal.”

So, even in the Webmaster Tools section, we still may not know everything Google knows. But in the words of a former defense secretary, “You go to war with the army you have.”

From: searchenginewatch by Sage Lewis

Merchants know how to rank high in paid search results. But the power of popular informational sites means they have to adjust their goals when it comes to natural search rankings.

Given the billions of dollars web retailers spend on paid search each year and their growing investment in site optimization, retailers by now should have a pretty firm grasp of search engine marketing. But a new nine-week study by Internet Retailer for the just-released Top 500 Guide of more than 300 keywords in 20 merchandising categories on Google reveals that retail web sites have a split approach to search engine marketing. While they understand how to manage and bid on pay-per-click keywords, they fall behind informational and other non-retail sites when it comes to natural search results.

In fact, in natural search results, retailers occupied fewer than half of the three top spots in the 20 categories—29 out of a possible 60 positions. Amazon.com Inc., the largest online retailer, led the industry, appearing 11 times in the 60 spots. In six of those, Amazon was No. 1. The next most frequently appearing retailer was Overstock.com Inc., a prime competitor to Amazon and No. 30 among Internet retailers, with three. No other retailer showed up more than once in the 60 possible spots.

Appearing in natural search results is key to a web site’s success. Several studies have shown that consumers’ eyes jump over paid results and go direct to natural. For instance, on Google, one study showed consumers preferring natural results 3 to 1.

Though to retailers, search ranking is a complex, unpredictable process, Google and other search engines work hard to rank what they deem to be the correct sites. If they view a query to be 60% informational, for example, six of the top ten results will be informational, some experts say. If they believe a query to be largely transactional, most of the results will be retailers or comparison sites.

Informational sites stand to outrank retailers in natural search in almost every case, especially for relatively general keywords like the ones used for this research, because they have the capacity for seemingly unlimited content and they can overwhelm retailers in terms of link popularity. While it’s correct to assume that user-driven sites like Wikipedia might not be the most credible in terms of information accuracy, the credibility they have generated comes from the extreme popularity they have achieved. “I don’t think retailers can ever surpass Wikipedia because of the two key pillars in search engine optimization—relevant content and sites linking to you, both of which Wikipedia dominates,” says Suzy Sandberg, president of PM Digital, a search engine marketing company.

But while retailers may never be able to top Wikipedia and other informational sites in all categories of keywords, they can take steps to boost their sites higher in search engine listings.

“Whenever a retailer sees a Wikipedia listing appear in search results, that retailer should immediately ask: ‘Are there pages on my web site that meet the searchers’ informational needs?’” says Shari Thurow, founder and search optimization director at consultants Omni Marketing Interactive. “Many retail web sites contain informational pages, but many retailers might not realize it.”

There are several types of informational pages that can assist in search engine recognition for informational queries: buyer’s guides, blogs and how-to pages are all good examples, Thurow says. An appliance retailer, for instance, might add a how-to page describing the selecting of a proper dishwasher, or a home furnishings retail site could insert a page describing the assembly of a shelving unit.

Creating long-lasting content

Creating such informational pages addresses one of the biggest problems of landing high in natural-language search results: long-lasting, static content. With their ever-changing inventories, retailers rarely have content on their sites long enough to make search engines believe that they should rank high in search results for a long time. “Retailers sell inventory, and inventory fluctuates,” says Robert J. Murray, president of search engine marketing company iProspect.com Inc.

Apart from such content, a further challenge retailers face is that of links. Search engines give higher credibility to sites that have a lot of links, something that is tough for most retailers to accomplish. Retailers can address that issue, in part, by using so-called “bread crumbs,” Murray says. Bread crumbs, or the trail that usually appears at the top of a page that indicates where a shopper is in a site’s hierarchy, create a navigational outline that shows a shopper who has entered a product page from a search engine how to take steps backwards in the site’s hierarchy to a category page. This type of navigational tree creates interlinking and goes a long way, Murray says, in terms of search engine recognition.

Another important tip for retailers is to optimize category pages to accommodate the plural form of their targeted keywords because searchers are looking for a list when a query is plural, and category/channel pages often contain product lists, Thurow says.

Apart from particular steps that retailers can take, they should also look closely at their own site optimization efforts. A three-year study by search engine optimization company Oneupweb of Top 100 retailers’ optimization efforts confirms that they’re not very good at it. The most recent study reports that only 40% operated well or moderately optimized sites. The study looked at site architecture, meta tags, keywords, content and other factors affecting the site’s ability to be indexed by search engine spiders and to be well-positioned in natural search results.

The process may be more difficult, but spending to optimize a web site pays off in the end, Murray says. His clients that have had the most success at optimization and tracking results are those who understand the concept of creating flat, static content.

Who’s where?

So who’s occupying those spaces that retailers are not? Wikipedia.org, the online collaborative encyclopedia, held 17 of the spots, including 11 No. 1 spots. Other information providers, comparison shopping sites or shopping portals occupied 12 spots, with About Inc. holding three of those. The two remaining spots not occupied by retailers were held by Microsoft Corp. and the U.S. Department of Energy, both in the Home Improvements category.

The Internet Retailer study analyzed the results of 14 to 18 keywords for each merchandising category. Informational and other sites dominated some categories that seem natural for retailers to appear high in. In appliances, for instance, Wikipedia, epinions.com and ConsumerSearch.com occupy the top three listings. Sears Holdings Corp.’s Sears.com ranked sixth. Best Buy Co. Inc.’s BestBuy.com, which offers an online kitchen and laundry design center that helps shoppers determine which appliances they want, ranked No. 17, even behind NASA.

In consumer electronics, Circuit City Stores Inc.’s CircuitCity.com, Overstock.com and Crutchfield Corp. ranked fifth, seventh and eighth, respectively, behind Wikipedia, CNET Networks Inc., Amazon and HowStuffWorks.com. But BestBuy.com ranked No. 24 right behind TigerDirect.com, an e-commerce site operated by Systemax Inc., at 23.

In pay-per-click search marketing, the story is just the opposite. Retailers occupied all but 11 of the top 60 spots. In paid search categories, Sears and Target Corp. each held four of the top spots, Amazon, Circuit City, J.C. Penney Co. Inc., Lowe’s Cos. Inc. and Staples Inc. each held two. No other retailer was represented more than once.

A measure of how well retailers have nailed down paid search marketing is reflected in how Internet Retailer scored retailers when they appeared in paid rankings. To rank web sites within their merchandising segment and by keyword, Internet Retailer assigned point values every time a retailer appeared in the first five paid and natural results in each category. For instance, that total gave Sears.com in the appliance category 384 points and No. 2 Lowes 179 points. The corresponding scores for natural search results in appliances were 90 for Sears (223 for Wikipedia) and 26 for Lowe’s, which ranked No. 22.

More measurability

Retailers are more comfortable spending their money advertising in paid search listings because results are easier to track, Sandberg says. It is much simpler to advertise on a pay-per-click basis and see the return for every dollar spent than to sink a substantial amount into re-tooling a web site to make it more search-engine friendly, with longer-term results.

The fact some retailers are submitting winning bids for multiple terms within a category—in some cases as many as 50% of words in that category—tells search engine marketing analysts that online merchants are using a broader mix of paid keywords and phrases to drive traffic and sales, build brand awareness, and prevent competitors from bidding on certain words.

The research turned up some interesting anecdotes of retailers bidding on both very diverse and similar sounding paid keywords. For example, Victoria’s Secret, a multi-channel retailer of underwear and intimate apparel, was the top bidder over nine weeks for the keyword “outerwear” in the apparel category.

Another good example was “couch purse,” a paid listing by Coach Inc., the handbag and leather goods company. The company explains that “couch purse” is an intentional buy that assumes that shoppers sometimes misspell what they’re looking for. In this case, shoppers inadvertently type “couch” when they mean “coach.” Coach never displays links showing “couch” alone—it’s always with “purse” or “handbag” or other Coach products. And the link takes shoppers to the Coach page that displays the appropriate product. The gambit pays off, Coach says: The conversion rate on those terms is about the same as the conversion rates on legitimate Coach terms.

The research shows retailers are using bid management tools and keyword vocabularies to bid on terms in their core merchandising category. But appearing high up in the paid listings on Google isn’t the only way retailers can generate a better return on pay-per-click marketing. They can also do a better job of testing keywords and scrutinizing the economics of their keyword spending, says Alan Rimm-Kaufman, president and chief technology officer of direct marketing services at consulting firm The Rimm-Kaufman Group.

The importance of testing

Retailers should build up and test a keyword inventory that relates to every SKU and product in their online inventory, he says. “Retailers test their campaigns and measure the results, but they should also compile five to 10 keywords for each of their SKUs and test those,” Rimm-Kaufman says. “The additional testing will produce better keyword combinations and more focused campaigns.”

Beyond measuring the average conversion rate and traffic generated by a pay-per-click campaign, retailers should measure other metrics such as results by concept, phrase, ad copy, landing page, specific search engines and even time of day.

“Retailers can see who their competition is by viewing the rankings on a Google page,” Rimm-Kaufman says. “But they shouldn’t weigh the total outcome of a paid campaign simply on where they rank on a page. They should focus on whether the campaign generated the best return on investment by looking at all of the relevant points.”

With so many relevant points in search optimization and paid search campaigns, retailers have a lot of analyzing to do.

From: internetretailer.com

Reports out of the Googleplex are purporting that Google’s search database has hit a significant mark…it’s finally tipped over the 1 trillion URL (web pages/files) mark.

Jesse Alpert and Nissan Hajaj, two Google software engineers from the web search infrastructure team, made the unexpected discovery. In an awe filled statement on the Google blog, the engineers shared:

“We’ve known it for a long time: the web is big…Our systems that process links on the web to find new content hit a milestone: 1,000,000,000,000 unique URLs on the web at once!”

Google doesn’t index “every” page and file on the web (to maintain relevance and avoid duplicate content), so the actual web is significantly larger. However, Google’s database does represent the biggest index of all the search engines.

As the team point out: “…we’re proud to have the most comprehensive index of any search engine, and our goal always has been to index all the world’s data.”

While impressive stats about Google’s index and the size of the web are great to marvel at, it should also set off some alarm bells for website owners.

As Google’s index continues to grow at unprecedented levels (remember it was only 1 billion URLs in 2000), it also becomes harder to stand out in the “sea of information”.

It’s a simple equation. More web pages mean more search engine competition, which increases the pressure on site owners relying on the web to drive their business.

So a burgeoning Google index, reinforces the need for you to have a strong ongoing SEO and search marketing campaign in place. Google’s index milestone is no reason for celebration for site owners - it just raises the pressure!

From: searchnewz.com by Rene LeMerle

Some people noticed Knol articles are already sometimes ranking very well in Google results, even though Google promised Knol articles wouldn’t get any artificial boost. Until further evidence comes in I don’t think we’ve much reason to distrust Google’s statement, and yet, the site does get a major boost all the same simply because it’s in the vicinity of the superbly ranking network of Google websites (not yet on the PageRank 10 homepage, but for instance on the PageRank 8 – recently 9, AFAIK – blog, on PageRank 9 Google Scholar, and perhaps now or soon on other Google properties… not to mention all the other press backlinks Knol gets as it’s a Google project). But don’t expect any guaranteed high rankings; an article I started on the competitive subject of search engine optimization did not jump into the top 10 for that phrase.

At the same time, Google can’t be neutral ranking its own properties even if they don’t directly, manually mess with individual rankings – that’s because they hire the testers which evaluate their search result algorithms, and we have reason to believe these tests in turn can shape which directions Google’s algorithms take. It would be hard for any search company to not be trapped in this conflict. But in the future, what could be a more direct skewing with results would be when Google tries to format Knol results differently from the rest; like by adding eye-catching star icons near the snippet to show how well an article rates. Or just imagine a special “onebox” listing Knol articles amidst organic results; Google already does this with Google News content, for instance, but they don’t host all that content themselves (though they do host news from some agencies).

Additionally, Google is already somewhat messing with link juice by counting most of the incoming links to Knol articles, but completely disregarding the outgoing links (on the articles I checked, at least), thanks to the use of nofollow. (Not that they’re alone in that; Wikipedia does the same.)

Incidentally, before Knol’s release a common attack against Google was that Wikipedia articles rank way to high way too often. This was something I never found to be true, which is of course a matter of web site taste and preference. Often when I want to find a good introduction to a given topic I look at nothing but the Wikipedia article at first, and then go from there to perhaps find comparative sources. Entering search query wikipedia or similar yields Wikipedia often enough, and even entering just search query does, quite frequently. In a way, that might be because often a given Wikipedia article is the closest thing to a “mass consensus” kind of article you will find online today. We’ll see how Knol compares with this, because many or perhaps most of the Knol articles are anything but mass consensus… Knol is very much single-author-driven, and even if you pick the default publishing mode (which allows revisions from others, but each will be moderated before a potential go-live) the name of the original author will still appear visibly on top, in the URL.

From: WebProNews by Philipp Lenssen

Social media is meant to break the news, but of late has been making the news instead. Hot on the heels of Google apparently walking away from a potential $200 million acquisition of Digg, comes the news that one of the old men of social media might be heading back into the spotlight with the launch of del.icio.us 2.0

As reported here at iTWire just a few days ago, Google has been interested in adding Digg to the Google collective. In fact, we are led to understand that the two companies had got to the point of the all important due diligence stage of the possible $200 million deal.

According to some reports Google decided to walk away from the negotiations, informing Digg on Thursday or Friday. The TechCrunch reporter states that “Two sources close to the companies suggested that some issue that came up during technical due diligence was to blame. One source said that the issue was more personality driven, and that Google decided after spending more time with Digg’s top team that there just wasn’t a fit.”

Which leaves Digg without a buyer, again. Back in 2006 there were reports that Digg was possibly being acquired by print media giant News Corporation with a $150 million price tag. But that came to nothing.

The following year, Valleywag was suggesting a $300 million deal was close to completion, with more print media names squarely in the frame: the New York Times or Washington Post being red hot favourites.

Earlier this year speculation was rife that UK newspaper owners the Guardian Media Group were interested in Digg, although the price had dropped to around $125 million by now.

TechCrunch, however, now suspect that it will be back to the grind of raising finance the good old fashioned way, as the company which helped both Ning and Slide with recent $500 million financing rounds had been hired by Digg to represent them in the Google sale.

Of course, all that any of this proves is that Digg is the subject of constant media speculation regarding its ownership and finances. It is actually hard to recall when Digg was not rumoured to be up for sale, or close to completing a deal for that matter.

So where does del.icio.us fit into the social media landscape, and are we finally on the verge of seeing the almost fabled del.icio.us 2.0 service launching at long last? Read on for more…

From: ITwire.com by Davey Winder

SEO has always been seen as a cross between an art and science, but recently Google has been opening up more and more of its web data to the masses, helping SEO’s across the globe base their campaigns on solid, quantitative data. For years, web developers, internet marketers and SEO’s have been walking blind when trying to figure out the amount of searches for specific keywords on Google. While there were alternatives such as Overture’s keyword tool and Wordtracker, you didn’t have to be a savvy SEO professional to know that the results were not exact. So for the following article, I will explain the new features of Google’s External Keyword Tool and for those newbies wondering what all the fuss is about explain why this is a major event for most SEO’s.

What is a Keyword Tool?

One of the most important tools for an SEO is the keyword tool. A keyword tool is necessary for two reasons, first, a keyword tool can help you come up with suggestions of similar keywords and keyword phrases for your website. Secondly, a keyword tool can be an important tool to determine how popular a specific keyword or keyword phrase is. Whether you are an SEO, web developer or internet marketer knowing which keywords are most popular can give you a distinct advantage for ranking higher in the SERPS.

Tools Commonly Used by SEO Professionals

While there are many keyword tools available, two tools have been more popular and reliable than others. They include Wordtracker and Overture’s Keyword Tool. Wordtracker is a subscription based product that has historically been helpful in suggesting keywords and giving data, however its inaccuracies are legendary and many SEO’s have always complained that the data being reported was off base. The other tool Overture which is owned by Yahoo is now off line and many say (although there hasn’t been an official statement) that is being discontinued. It is not sure whether this tool in its present incarnation or updated version will ever see the light of day.

The Old AdWords Keyword Tool

While Wordtracker and Overture were relied upon by millions, Google always offered its own AdWords keyword tool, but it always had serious performance issues. One would expect the king of the web and pay per click to give its users the tools and services it needed to analyze keywords proficiently. While it offered a basic keyword tool, a big complaint by SEO’s, internet marketers and web developers was that instead of giving quantitative data, it gave green bars ranging from 1 -5. While helpful in a very general sense, for professionals it definitely didn’t satisfy the need for more information. After all this is Google we are talking about, they can share the wealth and offer their customers hard data.

The New Google External Keyword Tool

Well, it seems that Google has been listening to our industry and finally put together the External Keyword Tool. This tool no longer gives professionals data regarding search volume in green bar graphs; instead it offers approximate numbers of search volume. An obvious huge step in the right direction. Some of the features that you should be aware of include:

Approximate Search Volume for the Previous Month

Instead of the green bars, Google now has approximate numbers of search queries matching the keywords for the previous calendar month. It states that these numbers are country specific, language specific and based upon the selections you have made from the Match Type drop down menu.

Approximate Average Search Volume for the Last 12 Month Period

Besides giving you an approximate number for the last calendar month, Google also has a column that shows you the approximate monthly number of search queries matching keywords for the last 12 months. Again, these numbers are country specific, language specific and based upon the selections you have made from the Match Type drop down menu.

Besides the above two columns, the new tool continues to give you a bar graph of advertiser competition which can be helpful in determining how competitive ad placement is for a keyword or keyword phrase and of course the suggested keywords and keyword phrases.

It should be noted that Google has a help center for this tool and there are explanations regarding some of the features. They do a decent job of explaining many of the terms which can be helpful for all. You can visit this page at the following link: https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=96571&hl=en_US

How Google’s External Keyword Tool Ultimately Helps SEO

Even approximate numbers are better than basic bar graphs, with this new feature, SEO’s, internet marketers and web developers can accomplish three important tasks. The first is picking the best keywords. As we all know, our results start and end with high quality keywords that deliver results. Secondly, this tool is extremely helpful with budget planning. By understanding the amount of traffic certain keywords and keyword phrases receive, we can now budget accordingly. This is not only great for our budgetary needs, but this is ultimately helpful for our customers as well. Third, this tool will be incredibly valuable for analysis. As more and more SEO’s look for cold, hard data to help us achieve our goals, Google offering up more of their data can only be beneficial.

Obviously, this tool has only been live since the first week of July 2008, so it is still too early to tell just what kind of effect it will have on our industry. However, if early buzz is correct, this can be one of the biggest gifts Google has given the SEO community in a long time.

From: PromotionWorld by Roger Janik

Nothing says “recession” like a bit of a dip in the rate of growth of Google’s profits, which is what we saw this week. The search engine company has built up such a mythical presence in the minds of the old media, most spend their evenings behind the sofa shivering with primal fear, waiting to be disaggregated by the jolly primary coloured beast. But there are a couple of things to remember - Google’s results this quarter represented a slowing in the rate of growth rather than a full-throttle reversal of fortune, and it were slightly impaired by the effect of interest payments on its purchase of DoubleClick’s online advertising business. At more or less the same time as spotty youths on Wall Street were signalling sell on Google, Microsoft (which also took a bit of a market battering last week) was waving the worried flag over Google’s potential dominance of a search advertising market. The irony of the situation is acute.

And if proof were needed that Google is not in trouble, it came last Friday when the US research company Efficient Frontier put out a report saying that Google took 77.4% of all search ad spending in the second quarter (April-June). In fact Efficient Frontier did the maths and came to the conclusion that Google actually now takes $1.10 for every dollar spent in search advertising. This is not some wonky Sats marking, it means that both Microsoft and Yahoo! were losing search advertising money in that quarter - to Google.

Online advertising is projected to grow overall by something like 6% for the financial year - although this doesn’t reflect the explosive growth in some very new areas of activity, such as the mobile internet and online video, or the fact that search advertising is going up by about 14%.

In the UK alone there were 3.6bn videos watched over the internet in May 2008 - more than a 56% increase on the previous year. The online market for video advertising was recently estimated by eMarketer as being worth around £700m a year. And the fact is that while the recession lasts, online media, because of its lower distribution and fixed costs, will continue to be some of the cheapest advertising. One of the areas that is likely to be hit by a steeper drop will be online display advertising - which, of course, is where most companies with more “traditional” web products are most exposed (the idea of a traditional web product is akin to the idea of an innovative wheel).

It doesn’t mean, however, that a genuine recession will claim only old media casualties. There is still a really significant number of new media companies that are barely breaking even and still seeking investment, and one has to worry for some of them given the gathering advertising storm. But it is much easier to keep an online media brand going than an offline one because it is much more scaleable - no trucks have to take it to the four corners of the country and no transmitter bills have to be paid. Studios do not have to be kept open and no dead airtime has to be filled.

Where the recession could have a sharper impact is where there is very rapidly declining advertising revenue in an offline part of a business that can’t absorb falling revenues in digital at the same time. Under this category one would have to worry about elements of the regional press, radio, the national press that might not have prioritised digital quickly or completely enough, and broadcasters who are similarly exposed. Just about everybody really.

Apart perhaps from Google. Search guru John Battelle was noting on his blog on Friday that the game was up: “If I were at Google, I’d be more than a bit worried. Why? Because once you’ve vanquished your competition then what?” Back behind the sofa then.

From: guardian.co.uk by Emily Bell