Google Search Engine Related Question
Hello Jill,
First off, thank you for your informative and straightforward newsletter.
I see Google in a different light than you. [Last week you said] “As long as Google is still around and still focused on relevancy…”
Google is more concerned with inbound links than relevancy and they are ripe for misrepresentation if you have the money. If you search for “gas scooters” on Google you will see that the same company owns 9 of the top 10 spots. The same company pays for their text links at a very large, PageRank 6 site then interlinks all of the sites. If this sounds like sour grapes, it’s because it is. You can’t compete against money and brute force if you are small.
Thanks again,
Mike
Jill’s Response
When I first read Mike’s email, I basically thought of it as just another complaint from someone looking for a scapegoat because he couldn’t get high rankings himself. However, I received several similar emails from other subscribers over the past week. They were all concerned about their own Web sites’ ability to be ranked highly when there were companies dominating the search engine results pages (SERPs) through apparently deceptive means.
So, are the bad guys really winning at Google? Unfortunately, for many keyword phrases, it appears that they are.
I looked at the results for the gas scooter phrase Mike mentioned and yes indeed, I was aghast at the tricks being used on many of the top sites. I found every trick in the book, in fact. After doing a bit of digging, I even found some subtle clues that makes me think that I know which “SEO firm” is helping them.
One of the things I found were high-PageRanked sites, cross-linked with other high-PageRanked sites of the same genre, with numerous keyword phrases in the hyperlinks. Checking backlinks on these sites was also interesting because I found pages that were cloaking, pages that were stuffing image alt attribute tags and other things that I thought were pass’ in Google. Apparently they’re not at all pass’.
Surfing the sites with a Lynx browser was very revealing because JavaScript doesn’t work with Lynx, so I saw lots of stuff I wasn’t supposed to see.
The bigger question that I have to ask, however, is how does the person looking for gas scooters feel about these results at Google? Are they getting what they want? Are they happy with the results? Are they relevant to their query?
At first glance it appears that they are.
This may certainly be all that Google cares about. I don’t know — I’m not Google. Perhaps Google really does only care that the results are relevant and the means used to place them there are of no consequence. We know that their first priority is the user. As long as they’re happy, Google is happy. I guess they are happy…?
The thing is, I’ve always kind of thought that they did care. Maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe they’re just a little bit mixed up right now. Or maybe there’s just no way for Google to spot these techniques and we should all just use them. Okay, I wouldn’t actually go that far! Many of the techniques being used on these sites have been penalized in the past. I’ve seen that sort of cross-linking thing get sites PR0’d (penalized) many times. Perhaps Google’s PR0 penalty thingamabob is just broken?
Come to think of it, I remember that I wrote something similar way back in April of this year regarding the SERP for the phrase “email marketing consultant.” If it was just a bug, surely it would be fixed by now — over 6 months later. A quick check shows that nope, Google is still full of sites using deceptive optimization techniques.
So what’s up, Google? Tell me it isn’t so. Tell me that you still believe in good vs. evil and that the ends don’t justify the means. Cuz right now, you’re telling me that it does, and that makes me sad.
As to Mike and the others who have to compete in this space, all I can say is keep at it. You can keep making your sites better and better. You can continue to build up high-quality backlinks to your site. I took a quick look at Mike’s site, and Google is not showing any backlinks. He does have links, but they’re not yet considered high-enough quality to count for much. I didn’t notice any high-quality directory links pointing to Mike’s site, which might make a difference. Keep at it. Build up a great resource site all about your gas scooters. Invite others to write articles about their gas-scootering experiences, and whatever else you can think of.
We have no control over Google’s rankings. If they choose to let deceptive sites win, eventually the overall quality of Google will deteriorate. I’m sure they don’t want that to happen. They have a very tough job having to fight spammers every single day. The thing is, when they err on the side of penalizing too many sites, then everyone is up in arms because they got caught up in spam filters by mistake.
I’m confident that eventually Google will find a happy middle ground and someday be able to automatically tell the difference between sites that got there because they are truly the most relevant, and sites that deceptively appear to be the most relevant. Could be a long wait though.
If you believe that another site is abusing Google’s quality guidelines, feel free to report it to them here. Don’t expect any miracles, however.
Author Bio:
Jill Whalen of High Rankings is an internationally recognized search engine marketing consultant and editor of the free weekly email newsletter, the High Rankings Advisor.
She specializes in search engine optimization, SEO consultations and seminars. Jill’s handbook, “The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines” teaches business owners how and where to place relevant keyword phrases on their Web sites so that they make sense to users and gain high rankings in the major search engines.
Introduction
ExactSeek.com has teamed up with Alexa to provide a brand new search engine ranking algorithm that ranks sites based on content relevancy and Alexa user popularity data.
This unique ranking system not only provides relevant search results, but it also enables website owners to increase their site’s ranking in ExactSeek simply by increasing their Alexa ranking.
ExactSeek.com, a Jayde Online company, is a search engine and directory that indexes over 25,000 websites each day. It currently indexes over 2 million websites and is
expected to exceed 5 million by the end of the year.
Alexa Internet, an Amazon.com company, provides the Alexa Toolbar — an invaluable tool for the Internet marketer. This little browser plug-in provides a wealth of information, including site statistics, traffic data and contact information for every site you visit. Best of all, it won’t cost you a dime.
You can download and install the Alexa toolbar here:
Alexa Toolbar
I recently had the opportunity to interview Jayde Online’s CEO, Mel Strocen. The Jayde Online Network includes ExactSeek.com, GoArticles.com, SiteProNews.com, AllBusinessNews.com, EzineHub.com and FreeWebSubmission.com. Jayde Online Inc. has been internet-focused from its inception in 1998 and primarily involved in the publication
of email newsletters and the development of niche and general search engines.
Here’s what Mel had to say about the new ExactSeek search engine ranking algorithm…
The Interview
Shelley: Mel, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with me.
Mel: Shelley, I appreciate the opportunity to provide some insight on recent developments at ExactSeek and our new site ranking algorithm.
Shelley: Now that ExactSeek has teamed up with Alexa, how exactly will websites be ranked?
Mel: The main factors in determining website ranking will be page content relevancy and the site traffic data provided by Alexa Internet with the emphasis being on the former
versus the latter. It will be several weeks, or possibly even longer, before we finalize the exact weight we give Alexa data. What this means is that for the short term webmasters might find their website ranking changing fairly frequently. Think of it as ExactSeek’s version of the “Google Dance” 🙂
Shelley: Prior to the new partnership, ExactSeek ranked sites according to keywords displayed within the Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords tags. Will these tags still play a role in ranking a website? Or, will sites be strictly ranked according to content and their Alexa ranking?
Mel: Yes, Title and Meta tags will continue to play a role, but not to the extent they did previously. The information from these tags will be shown in the actual search result
listings and will also be compared to page content as an additional check of overall relevancy.
Shelley: As I’m sure you’re aware, some “experts” may make a case that Alexa rankings can be manipulated. How would you respond to this analysis?
Mel: As mentioned, Alexa traffic data will be an integral part of the ExactSeek ranking algorithm but not the dominant factor, that being page content. Essentially, we’ve opted to emphasize user popularity over link popularity. Either one can be manipulated by savvy webmasters or SEO experts but, in our view, user popularity is less subject to manipulation over the long term because it is more difficult to manipulate the surfing public than it is to manipulate SE crawlers. The bottom line is that people will always be able to better evaluate content than search engine spiders.
Shelley: Will an increase in traffic from other sources affect how a site ranks in ExactSeek?
Mel: Yes, the good news for webmasters is that regardless of what they do to promote their websites, their efforts will result in a better ranking on ExactSeek. So, increased
traffic from any source, be it ezine advertising, PPC campaigns, search engine marketing, etc., will help boost site ranking in our search engine.
With other search engines, webmasters have been forced to learn what is important to each engine and tailor their sites accordingly. The beauty of ExactSeek is that webmasters can focus on making their sites relevant to people, not our search engine.
Shelley: How does ExactSeek’s new ranking algorithm compare with other search engines?
Mel: With the exception of Google, the major search engines have offered little in the way of innovation. Factoring user popularity into a ranking algorithm is ground-breaking. User popularity is a far more reliable indicator of where websites should rank and gives the surfing public some input on the search results they see.
Shelley: How will this new ranking system benefit website owners?
Mel: I’ve already mentioned the most obvious ways that webmasters will benefit as a result of our use of Alexa traffic stats. Indirectly, they will also benefit as searchers recognize the importance of user popularity in delivering quality search results. More search traffic for us will translate into more traffic for webmasters who have listed their websites in ExactSeek. In addition, we will be introducing other ranking factors specifically geared to webmasters which will give them an opportunity to boost site ranking in some very unique ways never before employed by any search engine.
Shelley: Is ExactSeek.com the only search engine that will be utilizing this new ranking system?
Mel: No, the new ranking system will be implemented on 6 search engines, those being ExactSeek, Aesop.com, OnSeek.com, SitesOnDisplay.com, MaxPromo.com and Best-SearchEngine.com. Four of these are using the new ranking algorithm now and the remaining two will be within a week or two.
Shelley: What are your submission policies? Should a webmaster submit just their main page or can they submit additional pages? How often should they submit and how?
Mel: We prefer that webmasters submit primary URLs, but additional pages can be submitted if they have unique content and title and meta tags that reflect that unique
content. Once a URL has been incorporated into the ExactSeek database, follow-up submissions are unnecessary. All URLs in our database are recrawled monthly. We also provide webmasters the option of scheduling their own recrawls with our recrawl tool (http://web.archive.org/web/20040605184955/http://www.exactseek.com/srank.html). Using this tool, a webmaster can have sites recrawled on a weekly basis.
Site submissions to ExactSeek can be made at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605184955/http://www.exactseek.com/add.html
Shelley: It’s been a pleasure talking with you, Mel. Thank you for allowing me to interview you.
Mel: My pleasure, Shelley. Thank you.
Conclusion
Since Alexa site rankings will play a major role in determining how well your site ranks in ExactSeek, I highly recommend that you download the Alexa toolbar — not only to
track your site’s status, but also to locate quality sites for joint ventures and link partners. It’s a win-win proposition no matter how you look at it.
Author Bio:
Shelley Lowery is the publisher of Etips — Web Design, Internet Marketing and Ecommerce Solutions. Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a free subscription and receive a free copy of Shelley’s highly acclaimed ebook, “Killer Internet Marketing Strategies”.
Introduction
By now, virtually every webmaster has heard or read that the major search engines are responsible for 80% or more of the traffic received by most web sites and that most searchers never look beyond the first 20 – 50 search results. Not surprisingly, an entire industry devoted to search engine ranking and search engine optimization (SEO) has sprung up to capitalize on these well known facts.
Tens of thousands of web sites compete to achieve top ranking for their chosen keywords and keyword phrases. We’ve published numerous articles by various SEO experts on linking strategies, optimizing meta tags and page content, and relevant page content. And, undoubtedly, we’ll publish many more. Achieving a top ranking for a particular keyword or phrase is a major accomplishment, but the sad fact is that most web sites will never come close to reaching a top 10, a top 30, or even a top 100, listing in any major search engine.
Is it possible to be listed in the top 10 – 30 search results of a major search engine? Yes, possible, just not very likely for the average web site. It’s a lot like playing the lottery and with the same appeal. Get your site in the top 10 search results and the payoffs are big – you just need to knock out a few million competitors.
The Rise Of Pay-Per-Click
The difficulty in achieving a top ranking for a free site listing has in recent years given rise to the pay-per-click search engine phenomena. Overture’s singular success with this model has resulted in hundreds of search engines jumping on the pay-per-click bandwagon. Pay-per-click is a great idea and taps right into the frustrated webmaster/site owner market. Many site owners simply do not want to be bothered with checking keyword density, tweaking their page content, fiddling with their meta tags and undertaking linking campaigns.
With pay-per-click, you get the site ranking you can afford. A simple, understandable concept. If money isn’t a problem, the PPC system is hard to beat.
Most experts would probably recommend combining search engine optimization with PPC for maximizing traffic. And, there you have it – the two dominant methods for driving targeted visitors to your web site. Dominant, but probably irrelevant to the vast
majority of site owners and webmasters who don’t have the time to learn the ever-changing art of SEO or the budget for PPC’s and SEO firms.
What should be relevant is how to get traffic to your site without breaking the bank or having to earn a degree in SEO techniques. Where it comes from should be secondary. Don’t limit your traffic building efforts to just a few of the majors like Google, Yahoo, Inktomi and Overture. The top 8 or 10 search engines may be popular but that doesn’t mean that your site will reap the benefits.
Here Are Several Reasons Why:
1. Sometimes the numbers work against you. Another billion pages added to Google or AlltheWeb are NOT going to help the average site owner – they are just going to bury the needle – your website – deeper in the haystack. And search traffic is only important, if your website can be found.
2. The major search engines cater primarily to searchers not webmasters. Why? Because more search traffic means more revenue and there are far more searchers than webmasters.
3. Even PPC engines deliver more than top 50 search results. That means unless you’re a high bidder, your website may still not be seen by many.
From a webmaster’s perspective what you should be looking for in a search engine is the right balance of search traffic and understandable site listing/ranking options. Engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Ask Jeeves have massive traffic, but you need to evaluate your chances for having your web site added and then ranked well. You also need to determine if a search engine is more focused on revenue generation through ads, paid inclusion and Sponsored listings than they are in catering to your concerns about where your web site appears.
More specifically, when evaluating any engine regardless of size or traffic, you should consider the following factors:
1. Free Site Listings
A few years ago, you could submit your site to almost any search engine, small or large, for free. But times have changed. Today, even many second tier engines have PPC or paid inclusion programs, and free submissions, where offered, are often given little attention. This ties right into the second feature you should be looking for in a search engine.
2. Indexing Speed
The usual pitch is that free listings can take a month or more to be added (with some SE’s, never is more likely), but a paid listing will be added within 48 hours to a week. Does this make sense? Most search engines don’t manually review site submissions so whether a submission is free or paid shouldn’t affect indexing speed. Slow indexing for free site submissions is most often nothing more than a deliberate ploy to get your
money.
3. Ranking Options
Look for a search engine that offers some clues on how to improve your site ranking, short of emptying your wallet. Few engines reveal all the factors they use in ranking sites but knowing where the emphasis is (content, link popularity, meta tags, etc.) can be enough to point you in the right direction. There are also a handful of engines and directories that offer innovative listing options that give your website a much better chance of being seen.
4. Quality Searches
Important to site owners and searchers alike. When quality sites are buried in a sea of second rate listings, no one benefits.
5. Traffic
If you want your website seen, the traffic a search engine attracts is important, but don’t be too quick to write off smaller, up and coming engines. Not too long ago both Google and Overture were considered long shots in the search engine wars. Also, keep in mind that top ranking in an engine that receives a few million searches per month may be more important to you than no ranking in an engine that receives millions of searches per day.
6. Paid Listing Options:
Look for paid listing options that offer more than fast inclusion in a database. With PPC, you get what you pay for, but with paid inclusion, you should receive more than
you would with a free listing.
If you’re not familiar with any search engines other than the big players, check out FreeWebSubmission.com (http://www.freewebsubmission.com) where you can find a list
of the 50 top search engines that still offer free site listings. Engines are ranked by their Alexa rating which indicates their user popularity. Here’s a list of the top 10 from FWS with current Alexa rankings:
1. Google – 5
2. Lycos – 44
3. AltaVista – 64
4. About – 86
5. Open Directory – 157
6. AlltheWeb – 215
7. ExactSeek – 1,999
8. ScrubTheWeb – 2,483
9. What U Seek – 2,868
10. SearchHippo – 2,905
Some other engines and directories worth considering in your promotion efforts are Gimpsy (http://www.gimpsy.com/), RoList (http://www.rolist.com), SitesOnDisplay (http://www.sitesondisplay.com) and National Directory (http://www.nationaldirectory.com).
Author Bio:
Mel Strocen is CEO of the Jayde Online Network of websites. The Jayde network currently consists of 12 websites, including ExactSeek.com (http://www.exactseek.com) and SiteProNews.com (http://www.sitepronews.com).
Google Drives 70% Of All Web Traffic! Wake Up MSN, YAHOO!
A recent post in a discussion list suggested that Google is becoming the Microsoft of search (dominating web search as Microsoft dominates PC operating systems). So I decided to research a theory – one I’d developed about search engine traffic. I dug into the traffic stats on three of my own sites and those of several clients that I monitor traffic for.
While this case study is tiny and certainly NOT conclusive, I’ll wager it has strong parallels across small business web sites. The conclusions drawn are admittedly opinion, based on very limited statistics, but those are all that matter to those of us seeing tiny search engine traffic from supposedly monstrous portals.
The participating clients from this case study ALL submit their sites to paid inclusion programs from AltaVista, Inktomi and AskJeeves/Teoma. Two use LookSmart LookListings and all but one are listed in YAHOO! Directory. All are listed in the Open Directory Project and all submit to smaller industry specific directories and smaller search engines. One uses Overture PPC on a limited basis, while none use Google Adwords. All were optimized by yours truly and each represent varied industries in retail, professional services and one is an information site only, is non-commercial and sells nothing. Each of them ranks well at most search engines, but see little traffic from those good rankings.
The research I did confirmed what I’d only assumed before by backing it up with solid numbers. On my own sites and those of clients that I reviewed, Google sends over 70% of all search traffic to every one of those domains in every case. This includes Google foreign variants, Google Directory and Google image search (image search numbers are tiny). The foreign Googles send tiny numbers of visitors from non-English speaking countries, but English speaking Google traffic from the UK, Canada and Australia drives more traffic than either Yahoo or MSN according to traffic statistics of those sites reviewed for this case study.
With the highest difference between compared search engine traffic of 8 percent variation between studied domains, I’ve compiled a list of average traffic delivered by search engines for those sites to which I have access to traffic logs. The Google percentages are inclusive of those portals that use Google results such as iWon.com and Yahoo web results. Direct Yahoo results are for sites listed in their directory.
Google 74%
Yahoo 14%
MSN 9%
Ask 2%
All other SE’s 1%
I’m concerned, not that Google is too big, but that the other search engines just don’t get it, don’t deliver it and don’t want to give it up. What is IT? Traffic!
I attribute this to one thing. Those search engines don’t want to give up visitors to FREE search results. They are happy to send visitors off if they gain income from that traffic in either PPC ads or advertisements of ANY sort. Knowing that those free results will lose the “eyeballs” of searchers, they struggle to deliver both PPC ads and sponsor ads that most closely approximate the search phrase entered by the searcher. Thankfully, all have dropped banner ads from the SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages).
They cannot stand the idea they will lose the visitor and seek to entice them to click on something, anything that’ll earn them income. Even if it means delivering NON-relevant results to entice the searcher to use a different search phrase seeking to gain more relevant results, thereby viewing more ads and additional PPC ads the visitor may click on to deliver income to the portal.
I believe these search engine traffic percentages are a direct reflection of relevance delivered by those search engines. The more relevant the results, the more likely they’ll send a higher percentage of traffic to your site.
74% of search traffic referred:
Google offers their own PPC results, offers no outside banners, Amazon links or effluvia related to the search. They deliver relevant results and visitors love that, then leave freely to return next time they want relevant results.
14% of search traffic referred:
Yahoo offers Overture PPC results (which they’ll soon own), Amazon links and sponsorship links, along with that “Also search in: Yahoo! Shopping” link at the bottom of every result page, hoping you’d rather shop than to actually find what you were searching for!
9% of search traffic referred:
MSN offers Overture PPC results, “Broaden your Search” (LookSmart) links, “Shopping Results on MSN” links and a sponsor text link at the bottom of every page as though you didn’t really want to find anything but their ads.
2% of search traffic referred:
Ask offers more paid results than any other search property with 5 sponsor links at the top of every search result page and TEN links to further paid sponsor results in a “Related Searches” footer to every result page. Ask sponsors provide search ads. Doesn’t Ask understand that most searchers see right through this?
Relevance at each of these search engines declines further with progress down the list of traffic referred. Is it any wonder Google is the leader? They lead in relevance, therefore in search engine referred traffic. All any engine need do is provide relevant results with limited sponsors and no excessive “shopping” or multiple source PPC links and book links. If they do that, they’ll compete effectively with Google. More relevant search engines deliver the traffic to web sites, NOT to their advertisers.
I have a bold suggestion to make to MSN as they develop their new in-house search engine. Drop the ads, sponsors, book links, shopping links and resist the temptation to bring back banner ads. Searchers want to find what they are looking for and easily see through transparent attempts to sell stuff to them and keep them from leaving. Let go of searchers by delivering highly relevant search results while clearly labeling limited numbers of sponsor or PPC ads! The result will be devastating to Google by giving searchers a real alternative that they may prefer using!
YAHOO! has a huge task ahead of them – to integrate the recently acquired Inktomi, Overture (and Overture’s recent acquisitions Altavista and Fast/AlltheWeb) search technology into their search mix. Clearly they’ve plenty of technology now and won’t need Google when they add all these ingredients to the search soup they are cooking up. Yahoo will possess all the best technology and must only decide to provide relevant search results WITHOUT shopping links, excessive sponsor links, book links and other clutter to the SERP’s. I suggest that if they show only limited Overture PPC ads and clearly labeled sponsor ads along with the relevant results – that they can also threaten Google’s lead.
If the re-born, re-cooked and massively complex YAHOO! or the “new” MSN resist the temptation to send searchers to advertisers rather than sending them to relevant results, then we will have three very strong competitors in the search market. The numbers of search referrals will level off at about 30% per competitor and Google will have to fight to gain back their current dominance. If YAHOO! or MSN seek to favor advertisers over searchers, Google will maintain dominance – clear and simple.
I encourage all webmasters to do their own comparisons of traffic referrals now and then again when YAHOO! and MSN weigh in over the next year with their “new” offerings. It could get very interesting if there were some true competition in search, so referred traffic from YAHOO! and MSN starts to deliver to webmasters rather than advertisers.
Author Bio:
Mike Banks Valentine is a Search Engine Optimization specialist practicing ethical small business SEO Search Engine Placement, Optimization, Marketing
Day One
Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Strategies rolled into San Jose this week, bringing an unprecedented four days of search engine marketing advice (SEM) and news to more than 1700 attendees. If you still had reservations about the legitimacy of search engine marketing, one look at the impressive roster of exhibitors, sponsors and attendees would quickly dispel any doubts.
More than 48 companies, including Google and Yahoo, decided to exhibit at the event (the highest number of exhibitors ever for SES) and speakers included representatives from all of the main search engines as well as the top SEM companies.
At the immensely busy registration desk, a buzz was developing with attendees enthused about recent developments in the search engine industry. With Overture, Google and Lycos, just a few of the search engines expected to make some big announcements during the proceedings, the conference was expected to provide a lot more than just ‘how-to’ information.
Day One of the conference had been designated as a ‘pre-conference’ day with the sessions taking on two distinct tracts. Danny had decided to move all the beginners SEM sessions to this day and additionally take the opportunity to provide an annual update on the economics of the search engine industry.
As part of this exclusive insight to the world’s largest SEO conference, I decided to take a seat in many of the search engine economic sessions. A notable exception being my own presentation on ‘Search Term Research’ (which I provided as part of the beginners itinerary).
One of the most interesting sessions of the day was unquestionably the Search Monetization Strategies. While none of the panelists could agree on what ‘monetization’ meant, they all had some interesting information to share.
Sheryl Sandberg, VP of Global Online Sales & Operations for Google was the first to speak on the topic. Discussing the growth of Google, she shared with us that Google is not only the largest search engine property, but is also the fastest growing. Focusing on the ‘how do make money’ side of Google’s operations, she offered that with more than one hundred thousand advertisers, eight-eight different interfaces and products in 11 languages, Google had taken great steps to secure its position.
Sandberg also shared with the audience the great success they had seen with their Google Search Appliance product, allowing any business to purchase an easy and effective search tool for their own website. With companies on board that include Boeing, Cisco and Xerox she confirmed that this is a growing market for Google. She also took the time to showcase the recently launched AdSense service, which allows the average website to display Google’s AdWords campaigns and receive commission on the click-thrus. The success of AdSense is in part due to the fact that Google is able to spider the website of the proposed partner and use an algorithm to determine which ads would be most relevant to the page being displayed. This format was far more accurate than simply asking the website owner which terms they thought were relevant to the page.
Finishing, Sandberg offered answers to audience questions which confirmed the following:
1. Google has no plans to introduce a ‘paid inclusion’ or trusted feed service at anytime in the future.
2. While Google’s AdWords campaign does track the click-thru rates of an ad, they do not track how long a visitor remains on the advertiser’s website.
3. Commenting on eBay’s request to remove any ads that infringe on their copyright, Sandberg confirmed that these requests could be made by any company concerned about trademark or copyright infringement.
While Google is still the darling of the search engine industry, Yahoo has caused quite a stir with their recent acquisitions. Tim Cadogan, VP of Search for Yahoo explained some of the initiatives Yahoo had taken to improve their search offerings. One of the most interesting Yahoo developments has to be their new Product search. While still in beta-testing, this service strikes an uncanny resemblance to Google’s new Froogle service. Perhaps its no surprise that the new service from Yahoo will also include sponsored listings from Overture.
Cadogan also describe some other steps Yahoo has taken to improve user access to search. These included:
1. Showing Yahoo Yellow Pages listings in search results for products or services that also include a zip code. E.g. Pizza delivery 95110
2. Search for Weather or Maps for a location will bring up relevant information not just search results.
3. Including a search box in Yahoo Mail accounts so that a user receiving an email on a product or service can search without leaving their mailbox,
With the addition of Tony Mamone of LookSmart and Jim Diaz from Ask Jeeves, a lot of information was shared. Look for more details in a future round-up of the session.
Another session of interest was the Advertiser Roundtable. This was an opportunity for respected experts in the search engine marketing industry to discuss future developments of the search engine technology, in particular PPC and Paid Inclusion.
Most of the panelists agreed that there needed to be a lot of improvements made to PPC or paid inclusion if the search engines wish to see marketers continue to use these mediums. Dana Todd of SiteLab International made a valid point when she complained that with all PPC solutions an advertiser must pay the same click-thru rate whether their ad was shown on one of the top search engine partners or on some lowly unknown search engine. She suggested that a model would need to be developed which would provide for different costs per click depending on the quality of traffic.
Kevin Lee of Did-It.com offered that there are two types of company that place high bids for search terms. Those that are very smart and those that are incredibly dumb. The smart bidders are the ones that track traffic and understand the value of their visitors, while the dumb ones simply keep increasing their bids without knowing if the high bid brings a ROI.
Asked whether PPC and paid inclusion would overtake Organic SEM, Frederick Markini of iProspect suggested that there would always be a need for a balance in online marketing. With PPC there is always a risk that a company will run out of money or no longer be able to keep up with escalating bids, he argued that organic SEM did not suffer from these factors.
The Industry Analyst Roundtable session brought together some of the industry’s best know analysts. Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman of Search Engine Watch were joined by Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld.com and Greg Notess of Search Engine Showdown.
This open forum took on a simple format with audience members interacting with the panelists. Some topics discussed, of which I will bring further details of after the conference, included:
1. Anecdotal evidence that simple paid inclusions did offer some assistance with obtaining better search engine ranking despite claims to the contrary by the search engines themselves.
2. The limitations of PPC; advertisers are limited to only being displayed for search requests that they have identified and bid on. Many search terms have no PPC bids on them.
3. The constant evolution of search engines. Google replaced AltaVista, will Nutch replace Google?
4. Should XML Trusted feeds be labeled as such, clearly identifying their placement in search results?
Day Two of the conference will revert to the normal format expected from SES and with three distinct tracts being offered, there should be lots of varied information to report back. In the meantime, please excuse me while I prepare for tonight’s ‘Google Dance’ a soiree taken place at the Googleplex where I hope to track down a Google employee and find out exactly what is happening with their PageRank these days.
Day Two
Day Two of Search Engine Strategies, San Jose promised to step up the pace with the offering of three separate itineraries for search engine marketers to choose from. While many attendees were recovering from the Google Dance the night before (which should probably be re-named ‘Googlepalooza’ as the open air event offered a soundstage with DJs, marquee tents, Segway rides and massage chairs all designed to sweep attendees up in further Google hysteria), they soon got down to business when Danny Sullivan took to the podium to give an unprecedented keynote address on the state of the Search Engine Industry.
While Danny started off his address with a comical look at the recent acquisition upon acquisition, he soon got down to the nitty-gritty of the future of search. With over 5 billion searches conducted in the month of June, he confirmed there is no doubt that the search engines are here to stay. Danny decided to look into his ‘crystal ball’ and made some predictions of what is to come. Some important observations included:
• Yahoo will launch its new search engine sometime in 2004 with a combination of Inktomi, AltaVista and AllTheWeb technologies.
• MSN should also be ready to launch their own crawler in 2004, with the possibility of purchasing any of Ask Jeeves, FindWhat, LookSmart or even Google, to help speed up the implementation.
• AOL is likely to continue its partnership with Google as this remains a non-competitive relationship for them.
Moving on to audience reach of the search engines, Danny explained how Google’s current reach of 76% of all searches would be diminished in 2004. He predicted that Google’s total audience would reduce to around 51% with Yahoo at 25%, MSN at 15% and the other engines making up the remainder.
Discussing the future popularity of the search engines he suggested that Google might become a victim of its own popularity with both reporters and users experiencing ‘burn-out’. With tongue-in-cheek he predicted that Ask Jeeves would make valiant attempts to become the ‘Avis of search engines’ by positioning itself as the #2 preferred search engine. He also believed that LookSmart would position itself as the most popular supplement to primary search results, continuing its current trend of being a provider to other search engines.
Turning to paid placement and paid inclusion, Danny expected to see growth and development in this side of the industry as search engines look to increase their Advertising revenue from their search results. Citing results from an IAB survey, Danny didn’t believe that search engine users would object to paid advertising as 64% of them are already aware that it exists and 52% of those do not care, so long as the paid advertising is relevant to their search. Drawing from his previous journalism experience, he estimated that in the coming years search engines would increase the amount of paid advertising shown on a search results page from an average of 25% to around 70%.
Danny wrapped up his keynote address by answering a question on everyone’s mind; ‘Will SEO still be important?’ He strongly believed that search engine optimization (SEO) would still be a dominant part of the industry as there will need to be a balance between paid ads and organic listings.
While the Search Engines & Trademarks session concentrated on information that would be of interest to those involved with the legal aspects of a company’s campaign, there were some interesting comments that stood out.
The recent incident where eBay asked Google to remove any sponsored ads that included their trademarked name, drew claims of hypocrisy from the panelists. They pointed out that while eBay did not want companies to bid on the word ‘eBay’, one could go to Google and search for trademarked names such as ‘Barbie’ and instantly see paid ads for the product on sale at eBay.com. The panelists also touched on cases that are currently working their way thru the legal system. They suggested that, while it is fair for a company to use trademarked names in comparative examples, the waters become very murky when simply bidding on a competitor’s brand name. The best advice from all of the panelists was to seek legal advice before bidding on the trademarks of any company.
A new topic to SES was ‘Cleaning up the Mess’; a look at how to clean-up spam that had been left by another SEO company. Many of the panelists discussed techniques for identifying spam including viewing Google’s cache of the site and the source code. In addition, Matthew Bailey of The Karcher Group offered an assortment of techniques for spotting spam and rectifying it. Some of these tips included:
• With Google’s PageRank fluctuating wildly over the past couple of months, he urged SEOs to not automatically assume that a low or zero PageRank meant a penalty on the website.
• However, if you do determine that a site has been banned by Google, fixing the problem and then sending an apology email to Google outlining the problems fixed and promising not to do them again, was the best approach to getting a ban lifted.
• Bailey also suggested viewing the website with a text viewer such as the one located at http://lynx.browser.org to determine how a spider might be viewing the site.
Shari Thurow of GrantasticDesigns.com also suggested some things to keep an eye out for when reviewing a website. She pointed out that a site might not be banned, but may be using techniques that were preventing it from getting listed. These included:
• A recently redesigned site that had switched from static content to dynamic.
• A newly implemented Robots.txt file might also have an adverse effect on a site’s ranking if not correctly formatted.
• The new use of cookies or session IDs might also be to blame for a websites sudden drop in ranking.
All of the panelists suggested that businesses should review the contract of any SEO firm being considered to ensure that they would not be taking any risks. A clearly outlined ‘anti-spam’ policy was considered to be among the top things to look for when choosing an SEO. With the use of doorway pages being viewed one of the worst things an SEO could implement in an ‘organic’ optimization campaign. However, as Danny Sullivan pointed out, using doorway pages for PPC was totally fine and acceptable. Although, he confirmed that using them for ‘crawler’ listings would be bad for anyone’s website.
It seems that a new search engine statistic or survey is released every week. The Search Engine Ratings session promised to shed some light on exactly where all of this data is coming from. Up first was James Lamberti of comScore Networks to provide details on how his company collects information and what they know about search engine use. Lamberti explained that comScore uses data collected from more than 1.5 million online consumers who agree to have their Internet activity monitored passively. Unlike some consumer rating companies, comScore is able to track various types of Internet activity including searches, click-rates and conversions.
They are unique in that they are able to track online activity in addition to asking the normal consumer survey questions. The benefits of this were apparent when Lamberti offered two stunning statistics.
1. 15% of Google visitors do not actually go there to search. He gave an example that many people have Google set as their homepage when they launch their browser. This registers a visitor for Google even though no actual search was carried out.
2. 20% of consumers surveyed attributed their searches to the wrong search engine. For example, they may have said they went to AOL, but the data tracked by comScore showed they actually used MSN.
The remainder of the panel was made up of experts from Nielsen/NetRatings, Hitwise and Statmarket. While none of them could agree on percentage share of search engine users, between them they offered some very interesting statistics:
• While Google may be dominant in the US, in Japan, Yahoo receives 74.19% of all searches.
• There were 5.5 billion searches carried out worldwide in June 2003, up 28% compared to the previous year.
• In 2002, more than 25% of all online product purchases originated from a search engine.
• While 96.9% of US searches are carried out on US search engines, only 56.6% of UK searches were done on a UK search engine. In fact, the US Google is more often used in the UK than Google.co.uk.
The end of the ratings session also marked the end of the second day of Search Engine Strategies, San Jose. Day Three brings Google co-founder Sergey Brin to the Keynote address podium and advanced topics of search engine marketing and search engine technology are also introduced.
Day Three: A Chat With Sergey Brin
Day 3 of Search Engine Strategies, San Jose included a wide range of sessions covering broad topics such as ‘Meet the Crawlers’ and the more targeted ‘Google API’. However, there was not an empty seat available when Danny Sullivan sat down with Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, on the eve of his 30th birthday, to chat about the past and future of the world’s most famous search engine.
Sitting in two elegant arm-chairs with a large plasma screen providing a back-drop of a roaring log fire, the setting suggested that we were ease-dropping on too old friends who were reminiscing about the past.
Google’s growth
It has been five years since Google entered the search engine arena and in that time the then unknown challenger to AltaVista has grown from 15 million pages indexed to a colossal 3+ billion, serving 76% of US searches. Danny Sullivan recalled how Brin had attended one of the earlier conferences and had asked the audience who had heard of Google. Back then, few hands went up. Laughter circulated today’s audience when Danny gave Sergey the opportunity to ask the same question; ‘Who here has heard of Google?’
Danny then proceeded to real off the developments that Google had made this year alone; AdSense, Toolbars, buying Blogger, launching Google News Alerts etc. Asked if Sergey was proud of these accomplishments, he replied modestly, that despite the list sounding impressive, he believed they were ‘not doing enough’ in his mind. Sergey wanted his company to expand even further and provide searchers with even more technological developments and enhancements that would expand the use and enjoyment of Google.
Expanding content on the web
Danny wanted to know from Sergey which of the past year’s accomplishments he was particularly pleased with. After giving the question some thought, Sergey offered that the recent launch of their ‘AdSense’ service was his proudest moment. The affiliate type service allowed small businesses an opportunity to display Google’s AdWords sponsors on their own website, providing a means for many companies to increase income from their website by sharing in the revenue these sponsorships generated. Sergey expressed his desire for AdSense to ‘spur the next generation of content on the web’.
An IPO for Google?
Turning to the question on everyone’s lips, Danny asked Sergey if an IPO was on the horizon and when might Google make a public offering. Giving his answer, you could tell that Sergey was a man that had envisioned building a better search engine to assist the world, with the last thing on his mind being answering to Wall Street. ‘We debate [going public] periodically at board meetings’ said Brin and it ‘would be nice to have currency to do acquisitions, [however] there are significant management distractions with being public’. While his statements seemed to signal that Google does not intend to become a public company, Brin did admit that there is a ‘good chance eventually’ that they would issue an IPO but that it is ‘not the most pressing thing.’
Google acquiring MSN?
If issuing an IPO was not in the future of Google, was an acquisition strategy likely to be developed? Danny couldn’t resist putting a twist on a recurring question, ‘Any chance Google would buy Microsoft?’ Sergey joined the audience in raucous laughter as everyone dismissed this as being a possibility, although with Google’s reputation and dominance, you would be forgiven for thinking that this impossible scenario could just happen. On a more serious note, Danny did ask Sergey whether Google would entertain any advances made by a rival company such as MSN. ‘We have always said ‘no’ thus far’ explained Brin, but he went to on elaborate that they ‘can’t discount any approach’. This statement created more questions than it answered, suggesting that rumors of an approach by MSN and Yahoo had an element of truth.
Preventing misuse
Turning to the technology developments that Google had planned for the future, Danny asked Sergey to elaborate on the work that goes into the constant development of the famed Google PageRank. Sergey explained that it was still very much an important part of Google’s ranking system and that more than half a dozen new ranking technologies are tested each month with roughly half of these being integrated into Google’s PageRank algorithm. He went to on discuss the issues Google faces with spam and indicated that Google is aware of the ‘corrupt’ uses of some companies in an attempt to manipulate the PageRank but he made it quite clear that they have technologies to deal with any misuse.
Paid inclusion not likely at Google
A request that is often made to Google is that they introduce a paid inclusion option so that those interested in obtaining faster inclusion into the index, have a means to do so, at a premium. While many representatives of Google have expressed in the passed that this is unlikely to happen, Sergey made a point of clarifying his dislike of introducing paid inclusion. ‘I don’t really believe in it’ said Brin, adding that he wanted to ‘keep any kind of payment from objective search results’. ‘Objective search’ the very thing that has made Google popular, hence his reluctance to tinker with its formula for success. In the second part of the question, Danny asked whether Google had given any thought to offering some form of ‘paid support’ to allow webmasters a faster and easier way of communicating a problem with Google engineers. This was also a ‘no go’ as far as Sergey was concerned as he believed that by offering this type of premium support it would sap resources and ‘slow down [Google’s] pace of development.’
As the ‘virtual fire-place’ started to die down, Danny asked Sergey what was the worst thing about being at the helm of the worlds most popular and most analyzed search engine. After taken a few seconds to consider the question, Sergey offered a simple answer, ‘coping with the growth’. While many of us might think that we would love to be involved with a company growing as rapidly as Google, being in control of behemoth such as Google can be a daunting task for someone who has yet to celebrate his 30th birthday.
Day Four
While many attendees had decided to forego day four of Search Engine Strategies, San Jose in order to catch a flight, those that did stay, were offered some very diverse and interesting sessions to choose from.
The most important topic of the day for any search engine marketer had to be Converting Visitors into Buyers. While some marketers concentrate on simply obtaining top rankings in Google, Yahoo and other search engines, those more experienced SEM’s know the importance of actually converting that valuable traffic. An impressive panel of speakers provided the audience with ideas and solutions to increase a website’s conversion ratio.
While iProspect is known for its expensive service, their pricing does allow for extensive work in the area of visitor conversion. Conversion Product Manager, Larry Kerstein, shared with the attendees different factors that help ensure a website encourages conversions. While the natural thought process might lead a website owner to write text that screams ‘buy it now’, Kerstein suggested that in some instances your visitor may not yet know that they need your product or service. He suggested that the copy on a website should inform and educate a visitor so that they can ultimately decide what meets their needs. Once they know what it is you offer and why it is better than your competitor’s product, you can then encourage them to order. Talking to the buyer in the language of the buyer and using benefit statements rather than product specifications, were all conducive to increasing client conversion, according to Kerstein.
Michael Sack, Chief Product Officer for Inceptor offered similar advice but suggested that you ‘do not have to take apart your website to increase conversions’. Citing an example taken from Dell’s website he backed-up his theory by demonstrating that the computer manufacturer had increased conversion rates by 6% simply by enhancing the category structure of certain areas of their website. Sack provided research from Shop.org that suggested that the average conversion rate for the retail sector was just 1.8%.
Sack also gave attendees examples of questions a visitor may ask themselves when at your website:
• Why should I buy from you?
• Should I trust you?
• What is special about your company?
The most important part of Sack’s message was that website owners should simply ‘expose their content on the Internet’. By this he was suggesting that too few websites offer enough information about a product or service and with many people using the search engines to research a purchase, marketers needed to provide this valuable information. Finally, Sack told attendees to constantly ‘test, analyze and adjust’, giving a great example of how different types of pages tested on MSN yielded conversion rates from 1.75% to more than 3%.
Repeat speaker Heather Lloyd Martin took the conversion process to a different level when she challenged that the conversion begins with enticing a search user to actually click on your listing. She implored marketers to ensure that Title tags and Descriptions were compelling to humans and not just search engine friendly. She explained that a site ranked lower on a search results page, could have higher click-thrus than the number one listed site, if it’s listing were more enticing and targeted.
Of course, in order to accurately track all of these conversions, a website owner would need to ensure accurate reporting and tracking of visitors. The Measuring Tool Vendors session brought together different web analytics companies together in one room to tout the benefits of each of their respective products.
Representatives of all the major analytics tools were in attendance, each offering the benefits of their product and how it worked. The companies included:
• Urchin.com ‘ software based analytics starting at $895 with additional modules priced at $695. A 15 day trial is available at their website.
• ConversionRuler.com ‘ for the minimalist looking for a cheap alternative. Focused on reporting PPC data the service is priced ‘per click thru’ analyzed with a free trial available.
• WebTrends.com ‘ the most well known web analytics service and most popular. Comprehensive stats can even show you which stage of a website’s checkout process causes the most abortive sales.
• ClickTracks.com ‘ the newest, but arguably the most original web analytics package around. ClickTracks displays website visitor behavior directly on the pages of your website. Different demos can be downloaded from the website.
John Marshall of ClickTracks was particularly entertaining when he decided to skip thru his entire presentation in about 30 seconds so that he could discuss a book that he felt would provide great insight for marketers looking to collect and present data. Marshall suggested that each attendee purchase Edward Tufte’s ‘The Visual Display of Quantitative Information’ as it would assist them in analyzing website data. While the unique abandonment of his own product to discuss a book may have seemed crazy, I suspect that Marshall knew that the findings of the book would lead marketers to conclude that ClickTracks unique display of website analytics was the perfect solution to their needs.
As the last day of the conference wound down, a wave of satisfaction appeared to be felt by all of those involved. The attendees, staff, exhibitors, speakers (and those of us who had agreed to write daily articles when they should have been relaxing) all agreed that the event had been the most successful and well received search engine conference yet. The industry is growing at a rapid rate. Not only is there change in the landscape for the search engines, but search engine marketers are also changing and adapting. With the successful launch of SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization), marketers even have a ‘trade union’ in an industry that is expected to grow by billions of dollars each year.
If you were not able to attend the conference in San Jose, I hope this series has given you an insight into the developments taking place and maybe even encouraged you to attend the next conference in Chicago in December. If you were able to make it, I’m sure you will agree that the event was an outstanding success.
Author Bio:
Andy Beal is Vice President of Search Marketing for WebSourced, Inc and KeywordRanking.com, global leaders in professional search engine marketing. Highly respected as a source of search engine marketing advice, Andy has had articles published around the world and is a repeat speaker at Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Strategies conferences. Clients include Real.com, Alaska Air, Peopleclick, Monica Lewinsky and NBC. You can reach Andy at andy@keywordranking.com and view his daily SEO blog at www.searchenginelowdown.com.
The Google Dance
Just how does Google update its whole index? This is a rather broad question, but we will explain each and every step that Google takes every month to ensure its database is the most relevant and of the highest quality.
Quite a good number of people and companies realize that, in order to obtain the best Google rankings early in their search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns, it is important to take all the necessary steps before and carefully plan ahead. In respect to non-fee search engine submissions, Google happens to be one of the very few left. It’s also one of the earliest to include it in its database. As/of July 10th, 2003, it is widely estimated that the worldwide Google database consists of over 3.4 Billion pages! And that is only a fraction of all available web sites, as some of them are not open to Google, ie: those sites are not to be visited by a search crawler or spider. (more…)
Way Back
Alexa started out as a project to archive the Internet; to keep a history of the then nascent World Wide Web as it developed. While that certainly was an interesting concept, it probably never would have paid the bills. Remnants of that project still exist: Alexa has a “Way back machine” that lets you see older versions of some pages on some sites. You can see some of my old pages at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.aplawrence.com/ for an example.
Alexa now also offers a search engine (Google powered, of course). Their added value is to offer additional site ranking and related site information that Goggle doesn’t provide. Alexa compiles that part of its data from users of its Alexa Toolbar. Unlike Google’s Page Rank, which is a simple 1 to 10 scale, Alexa ranks position: first most popular and on up, presently seeming to end somewhere close to the four million mark. (more…)
Introduction To Google
What is the Googles Search Engine, and why are they important in the world of Search Engines and Directories? Brief History. In early 1998 at Stanford University Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page wrote a paper called The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. Back then there were about 20 major search engines and portals, with Yahoo leading the way.
Yahoo has always had about 1/3 of all search traffic, and in 2002 Google surpassed Yahoo in percent of searches on the web.
Then Google contracted with AOL to provide the results to AOL searches….and then the biggie…in October 2002 Yahoo defaulted to showing Google Result. To explain that simply…do a search on Google, then go to Yahoo and perform that same search, and you’ll see they’re the same results. Same goes for searching on AOL and Netscape. (more…)
Just a few years ago, when asked “How do you drive traffic to your website”, many companies would name banner ads as their main marketing medium for increasing online revenues. In an effort to increase brand awareness, companies spent thousands of dollars on obnoxious banner advertisements on high profile websites in an effort to cement their reputation as the number one company or product in their industry. It didn’t seem to matter that very few people actually clicked on these flashing, animated billboards. What did matter was Internet users saw these ads wherever they went on the web; there was a sense of pride and vanity from having your company’s banner appear more often than your competitors.
Fast-forward to the present day and banner ads have fallen from grace with few companies buying banner ads purely for the sake of one-upmanship on the competition. In their stead, search engine marketing has become the medium of choice for companies looking to increase website exposure. With the steady growth of search engine use, thanks in part to the technology and reliability offered by Google, companies already know that obtaining top positioning on the search engines will result in qualified traffic to their website and increased online revenues. However, there is a new phenomenon rising up to replace the battle once seen with banner advertising; Search Engine Vanity. (more…)
Monday, July 14 may very well go down in history as the day that the search engine industry grew up and finally gained the respect it so deserved. It was this day that Yahoo! announced that in a deal, comprising of $1.63 billion in cash and stock, it had acquired the popular pay-per-click company, Overture.
With rumors circulating for some months that Yahoo! had built a “war-chest” and was preparing to make a significant acquisition, investors have been watching and waiting for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company to make its move. With Google increasing its audience reach and MSN announcing that it had recently started spidering the web with the intent of launching a revamped search engine, Yahoo! knew that in order to compete in the search engine industry it would have to make a move to increase its arsenal and improve investor confidence. (more…)
