From: typepad.com

Read Original: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/12/if-you-could-ch.html

Permalink /// Comments (2)

From: feedburner.com

Hot on the heels of their SEO guide, Google have released a new round of tips aimed at bloggers. They’ve created a one page document in their help area under the category “creating a Google friendly site” to specifically help bloggers.

Whether you’re an existing blog owner, or looking to start, the guide will give you advice straight from the horse’s mouth on how to improve your site. I’ve included most of the key points below:

Create interesting and compelling content

• Write well and often. A frequently updated blog encourages people to return
• Follow Google’s webmaster guidelines, just like any site owner
• Add labels and tags to your content to make it easier to find
• Make it easy to find. Consider hosting it on your regular site, eg: www.example.com/blog
• Limit comment spam
• If you are promoting affiliate programs, make sure to add lots of valuable content
  

Make it easy for search engine users and spiders to find your blog

• Use descriptive titles with relevant keywords as this will help to provide search engines information about the content on your page
• Visit related blogs and participate in the discussion. Contribute to communities etc. This will also help to provide targeted backlinks to your site
• Publish a feed for your content to inform readers when its updated
  

Webmaster tools

• Add your blog to Google webmaster tools and verify it
• Submit a sitemap for your blog. If you publish an Atom or RSS feed, you can submit this URL as the sitemap.
  

There you have it! Some of these points might seem simple to more advanced bloggers, but in any case it’s great to have SEO advice directly from Google!

If you have any more advanced blogging advice, share it below!

Comments



Tag: Google, Bloggers, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/471340768/sn-4-20081201GoogleFriendlyBloggerSiteGuide.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

Google
October: 61.2%
September: 59.7%
Change: +1.5

January 2008: 56.9%
Change: +4.3

Yahoo
October: 16.9%
September: 18.1%
Change: -1.2

January 2008: 19.0%
Change: -2.1

MSN
October: 11.4%
September: 11.8%
Change: -0.4

January 2008: 12.1%
Change: -0.7

ASK
October: 2.3%
September: 2.2%
Change: +0.1

January 2008: 2.4%
Change: -0.1

AOL
October: 4.3%
September: 4.1%
Change: +0.2

January 2008: 4.7%
Change: -0.4

Data scoring techniques tend to change over time making past data inaccurate. As always, information here is for entertainment purposes only.

Comments



Tag: Google, Nielsen, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/466237144/sn-4-20081126NielsenOnlineOctoberSearchEngineMarketShare.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

Omniture SiteCatalyst customers will now be able to access their data from their Google Android phone, according to Manoj Jasra of Web Analytics World. SiteCatalyst becomes the first analytics application available on the Android Market.

In an interview with Matthew Langie, Senior Director of Product Marketing for Omniture, Matthew said:

Our goal is to provide marketers with the leading web analytics found in SiteCatalyst on their mobile devices such as the Google Android phone so they can make decisions on the go to remain competitive.

Omniture customers will be able to access their dashboards, bookmarks and SiteCatalyst reports up-to-the-minute with this Android application. The announcement comes after Omniture provided a similar application for the iPhone in October.

Having this type of information on your mobile phone will be extremely beneficial to all of us who are frequently traveling, and need to be able to make critical business decisions wherever we are. It will be interesting to see if other analytics vendors offer a similar service.

Comments



Tag: Google, Omniture, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/465070385/sn-4-20081125OmnitureAnalyticsAndroidPhonesOhMy.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

Google has now made one big step forward in its initiative to have out-of-print books online. Tuesday, Judge John Sprizzo approved a lawsuit settlement between Google and numerous authors and publishers to the tune of $125 million. This money will be placed in a fund to go to copyright holders and will allow Google the rights to placing out-of-print material online.

This lawsuit has been going on now for a few years and Google is undoubtedly glad to see an end to it. This could see Google becoming one of the biggest out of print book retailers around. Any revenue received by Google from its print services will be split 37 / 63 between Google and its publishers “ the publishers getting the lions share.

Once fully operational, Google print will make it easy for users world wide to access a vast amount of difficult to find information “ as Sergey Brin noted, “It’s a real win-win for all of us, the real victors are the readers.”

More information on the settlement can be found over at Google.

Comments



Tag: Google, Book, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/463930544/sn-4-20081124SettlementonGoogleBookSearch.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

Google’s initial November changes had everyone worried to say the least. At the start of the month there were many scary changes in Google’s SERPs and, as was acknowledged by Matt Cutts of Google on a thread at WebmasterWorld, this was caused by a bug of some form. Fortunately, Google soon made the requisite updates and the problem was settled for the time being.

However, Google has again made some changes to it’s Search in the middle of the month. The following are some of the changes noticed and reported at Webmaster World lately:

• The yo-yo effect or at least symptoms of the same is being experienced by some
• Google is apparently giving more weight to the meta-description tags and H2 tags
• The site command is apparently showing a higher number of pages then they had been showing in the past.
• Some have reported pages being dropped out of Google
• Google is apparently mixing up caches
• A reasonable increase in the 404 errors in the Webmaster tools

Comments



Tag: Google, SERP, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/460798293/sn-4-20081121GoogleSERPUpdate.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

The Shanghaiist reports:

With political arrows still being shot back and forth between Beijing and Dharamsala -home of the exiled current Dalai Lama-, China has been panning out its efforts to win the propaganda battle over Tibet (...)

Lately weve been observing lots of Google ads pointing to the China Tibet Information Center appearing in places like Youtube ... and even our Google Reader. Given the massive reach of Googles self-serve contextual ads, this means anytime youre viewing something related to China or more specifically Tibet anywhere on the web, that ad may appear, pointing you to http://eng.tibet.cn/ where Chinas version of the Tibet story is presented. Youd think these state behemoths are totally clueless when it comes to the Internet, but clearly these guys know their stuffComments



Tag: Google, Advertising, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/459620271/sn-4-20081120GoogleAdvertisingViewsonTibet.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

As we had notified you earlier, Google has added the option of voice search to Google Mobile Applications for the iPhone. It’s extremely easy to use and ideal for emergency situations. Once the application is running, all you have to do is hold the iPhone to your ear, wait till you hear a beep and then say out loud whatever you are looking for. As quoted by Google, you will get results ranging from ‘official arm wrestling rules’ to ‘fennel bulbs.’ The voice search is enabled by default only for the U.S English users.

The following addition is clearly in tune with Google’s major advancements in making search faster and easier. Moreover, when you are on local searches, the application automatically uses your location to make the results even more relevant to you.

The application enhancement is ideal for urgent scenarios, say you are in an unknown location and looking for something like a local pharmacy, then this application can help you a long way.

This Youtube video is likely to clear out a thing or two:

<iframe class="embeddedvideo" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uZapF6fqz8M&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="344"></p>

In order to obtain the latest Google Mobile Application for iPhone one has to go to the ‘Application Store’ option on the iPhone and search for ‘Google Mobile Application.’ You could go Google’s Mobile Blog section to obtain more information on the latest developments in Google Mobile.

Comments



Tag: Google, iPhone, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/458430737/sn-4-20081119VoiceSearchforiPhone.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

Recently on 10th Of November, Googler Matt Cutt twittered that he now has Sitelinks under his domain for a search on -Matt Cutts-.

But I am thinking that why did it take him so long to get Sitelinks for his domain when it is such an authoritative source? May be his content was placed on a sub-directory. Currently, much of his content is on www.mattcutts.com/blog/, rather than www.mattcutts.com. It seems that Google is showing Sitelinks for some Sub-Directories.

A lot of discussions has been going on at the Webmaster World Thread. People are noticing that the above mentioned one is not the only query returning a sub directory listed with Sitelinks, shown by Google.

I’ll show you that others work, such as:

iphone:

Apple:

MacBook Pro:

The whole thing points to one direction: That you can have different Sitelinks for different queries, if your site is authoritative enough.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Comments



Tag: Google, Directories, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/457223344/sn-4-20081118GoogleSomeSubDirectorieswithSitelinks.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

A lot was talked about at PubCon .

One of the most important things that was discussed at the event was that the search engines will not defend ylou much, if your trademark utilizes a generic term.

Microsoft provides a very good insight on the trademark policies on the AdCenter blog.

Have a look:

Is the term in question a dictionary term?
For example, if I own a window washing company and Im bidding on terms having to do with windows, doing so does not put me in violation of Microsofts trademark for their operating systems.

If youve gone through this checklist and still believe that your competitor is violating your trademark rights, there are steps you can take to let us know about it and have your concerns addressed. Start by visiting the Trademark Concern Page and review the Notes section for additional information on steps you should take before taking action. On that page you will find links to submit your trademark concern either online or by mail.

Comments



Tag: Google, AdCenter, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/456039220/sn-4-20081117HintsofCompetitiveBiddingwithAdCenter.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

Enquisite, Inc., announced today the signing of agency partnership agreements with two of the nation’s most respected marketing agencies.

The agencies now in partnership with Enquisite include ZAAZ, a full-service interactive agency, and Netconcepts, the leading provider of natural search marketing solutions. The alliances will allow Enquisite’s solutions, including search analytics platform Enquisite Pro and click auditing solution PPC Assurance, to be offered to each agency’s clients.

“The fact that the industry’s top agencies have acknowledged the need for a search-focused analytics application"and adopted Enquisite as their search analytics solution of choice"is a testament to the timeliness and validity of our offerings,” said Sylvie Moreau, Vice President of Sales at Enquisite. “We feel confident that these agencies and their world-renowned clients will benefit from the heightened sense of visitor understanding, increased conversions, and time/cost savings that Enquisite provides.”

ZAAZ Calls Enquisite An Important Partner

As the largest web analytics consultancy in the world, we are focused on helping clients select the best analytics solutions to match their specific business needs, said Rich Devine, Director of Search at ZAAZ. Enquisite is an important partner because search is such a critical driver of qualified traffic and site performance.

While we remain vendor agnostic, we see Enquisite solutions offering a unique and deep level of actionable insight into search performance and opportunities for optimization. We anticipate that clients would find value from Enquisite as a supplemental, search analytics overlay to their existing web analytics platform, Devine concluded.

“At Netconcepts we’re all about data-driven decision-making as it relates to SEO, and with Enquisite we gain additional insight into each client’s natural search marketing channel,” said Stephan Spencer, Netconcepts’ President. “We selected Enquisite because it exposes opportunities in the search/buy cycle that we can then tap through optimizations applied via our GravityStream natural search technology platform.”

Comments



Tag: Google, Enquisite, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/452950151/sn-4-20081114EnquisiteZaazandNetconcepts.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

Google has launched an entirely new version of Google for the users of iPhone 2.x.

This new version seems to be an astounding one and the search results are fitting within the iPhones mobile Safari browser. The search results are are also equipped with the Get Directions link to the Maps app. and a clickable phone number.

Results are formatted to be neatly displayed on the mobile screen, so there’s no need to scroll side to side. Local search results now include easier-to-press “Get Directions” and click-to-call links. Maps are shown by default in the case of a single listing or accessible by the “Show map” link for multiple listings. For those of you wanting to access the classic desktop search results format, it’s only a click away, with the “Classic” link near the bottom of each page. -Google

Here is a video from Google on the topic

<iframe class="embeddedvideo" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ARiwhbeyXFM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="344"></p>

Comments



Tag: Google, iPhone, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/451983634/sn-4-20081113iPhoneHasNewGoogleResultsPages.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

Posted by randfish

There’s no two ways about it - SEO is hot again. In the last 6 weeks, SEOmoz has received a higher than normal volume of requests for consulting. Alongside that, we’ve been getting calls from venture capital firms out of the blue - seven to date - asking either about investments they’re considering in the SEO sphere (and requesting insight) or literally asking whether SEOmoz would like to take more capital to grow (post about that coming soon). And it’s not just us. The jobs and contracts section of the Marketplace has been humming in November, and anecdotal conversations with other SEO firms tell me there’s quite a bit of business to be had for both in-house and external SEOs. Online sales, according to Paypal, were up 34% this year over last - another sign that web commerce is a safe haven for those in need of ROI.

Why? What makes SEO more attractive in a down market? While I can’t say for certain, I’ll ennumerate the most common explanations and motivations I’ve heard and perceived:

1. The Web Outperforms Other Sales Channel
   When organizations look at the paths leading to sales and income (a critical analysis whenever budgets are under scrutiny), the web almost always comes out with one of two assessments. Either, it’s a leading sales channel (especially from an ROI perspective) or it’s deemed to be an area with the greatest opportunity for growth. In both scenarios, web marketing and, in correlation, SEO, takes center stage.
2. It’s the Right Time to Re-Tool
   Established companies frequently use down cycles as a chance to focus attention inward and analyze themselves. Consequently, there’s a spike in website redesigns and SEO along with it.
3. Paid Search Drives Interest in SEO
   Paid search spending is still reaching all-time highs, and when companies evaluate the cost and value, there’s a nagging little voice saying “70%+ of the clicks don’t even happen in the ads; use SEO.”
4. SEO is Losing its Stigma
   Google is releasing SEO guides, Microsoft and Yahoo! both have in-house SEO departments and the “SEO is BS” crowd have lost a little of their swagger and a lot of their arguments. No surprise - solid evidence trumps wishful thinking, especially when times are tough.
5. Marketing Departments are in a Brainstorming Cycle
   A high percentage of companies are asking the big questions - “how do we get new customers?” and “what avenues still offer opportunity?” Whenever that happens, SEO is bound to show up near the top of the “to be investigated” pile.
6. Search Traffic Will Be Relatively Unscathed by the Market
   Sales might drop, conversion rates might falter a bit but raw search traffic isn’t going anywhere. A recession doesn’t mean that people stop searching the web, and with broadband adoption rates, Internet penetration and searches per users consistently rising, search is no fad - it’s here for the long haul.
7. Web Budgets are Being Re-Assesed
   We’ve all seen the news about display advertising falling considerably - that can only happen when managers meet to discuss how to address budget concerns. Get 10 Internet marketing managers into rooms with their teams and at least 4 or 5 are bound to discuss SEO and how they can grab that “free” traffic. 
8. Someone Finally Looked at the Web Analytics
   It’s sad, but true. When a downturn arrives or panic sets in, someone, maybe the first someone in a long time, checks the web analytics to see where revenue is still coming in. Not surprisingly, search engine referrals with their exceptional targeting and intent-matching are ranking high on the list.

I’d love to hear your experiences - have you seen an uptick in buzz about SEO? Has your agency, consulting practice or company taken a renewed interest in the subject? Why?

p.s. For a dose of delicious irony, check out this list of the Top 100 blogs for software development managers. Notice how there are no SEO or SEO-related blogs? And yet, they’re using SEO metrics alongside the list! I’d complain, but then again, as long as web developers aren’t paying attention to or learning SEO, consultants, agencies and in-house SEOs will always have a job.

Do you like this post? Yes No

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/seomoz/~3/471100119/why-companies-are-investing-in-seo-during-the-economic-downturn

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: google.com

In 2000, I invented a gadget called RadaR. Fred Wilson told me that I was ahead of my time, and he was right.

RadaR.com was a hardware/internet hybrid that could eliminate boatloads of traffic (and frustration). The idea is this: traffic reports are useless, because they tell you about places where you don’t want to go and because they don’t help you make smart choices. Have you ever once been on the Father Baker Bridge? Me either. I don’t care if it’s closed.

When I go to the airport, I have a choice of three bridges. Which one should I take? If a smart friend was in a helicopter, she could call me and say, “don’t take the Triboro (RFK)! Take the Whitestone...”

They never say that on the radio. “Hey Seth, don’t go that way!”

Well, with GPS and a little spectrum, we could fix this problem in a clever way.

You get a box a little bigger than a pack of Altoids. There are four big red buttons on top and a serial number on the bottom. Type your serial number into radar.com then put in addresses for the four buttons (the airport, work, your grandma’s house and Philadelphia, say). Then, whenever you get in the car, hit the button for where you want to go. The device speaks to you and tells you which route to take.

Here’s the killer part: the way it knows which way to go is that everyone driving along with a RadaR device is consistently uploading two pieces of data: where they’re going and how long it is taking to get there.

Since RadaR central has thousands of cars in every city, it knows which routes are fast and which ones are slow. Crunching some numbers, it realizes that the Whitestone is totally jammed and can send people over the Throgs instead.

I was going to seed the market by giving RadaR devices to taxi drivers, so we’d have plenty of data points from the beginning.

The challenge is that getting this much hardware to so many people is expensive. Not to mention the bandwidth.

You probably already guessed the punchline: Do it with an iPhone.

Have the iPhone use the gps data… upload where I was a minute ago and where I am now. Figure out my speed and route. Use the data to tell other RadaR users which route is best. It’s worth $20 a month if you live in a place with traffic jams. It’s a natural monopoly--once someone figures it out, why wouldn’t everyone want to use the market leader?

I minimize the difficulty of technology implementation (and I’m usually right). So don’t tell me why it’s impossible to do this, just build it and I’ll buy one. If you build it, let me know.

BONUS! Here’s an easier one that you could probably sell as well. I type in a phone number and enter a time. Record a message and press go. I can cue up a bunch of messages that are based on time. I can have groups get the message I record, at the time I want them to get it. I can make announcements… For example, if the sign in at the gym starts at 6 am, I can set my phone and it will call ahead and sign me in. Or you could ping your exec team every morning at 8 on their way into work…

Read Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/sEA0HYEqCU4/an-iphone-app-t.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

From: feedburner.com

Google
October: 61.2%
September: 59.7%
Change: +1.5

January 2008: 56.9%
Change: +4.3

Yahoo
October: 16.9%
September: 18.1%
Change: -1.2

January 2008: 19.0%
Change: -2.1

MSN
October: 11.4%
September: 11.8%
Change: -0.4

January 2008: 12.1%
Change: -0.7

ASK
October: 2.3%
September: 2.2%
Change: +0.1

January 2008: 2.4%
Change: -0.1

AOL
October: 4.3%
September: 4.1%
Change: +0.2

January 2008: 4.7%
Change: -0.4

Data scoring techniques tend to change over time making past data inaccurate. As always, information here is for entertainment purposes only.

Comments



Tag: Google, Nielsen, SEO





Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Have a bookmark! -

Read Original: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/searchnewzlatestnews/~3/466237144/sn-4-20081126NielsenOnlineOctoberSearchEngineMarketShare.html

Permalink /// Comments (0)

Page 1 of 42 pages  1 2 3 >  Last »