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Salute to All Veterans
2007-11-22 00:00:00
Whether you agree or disagree with what is going on in Iraq, Afghanistan or even if you protested Vietnam, don’t forget to respect the sacrifices that others have made and are still willing to make to allow each and every one of us a voice. Semper Fidelis!
More About: Veterans , Salute

Microsoft Webmaster Portal is Live in Beta
2007-11-22 00:00:00
MSN Webmaster Portal was announced in August and was to be released into beta in September and be fully accessible by the end of November, however very little has been released since the initial announcement. Until now. The first screenshots of the new platform have been released by Barry at Search Engine Roundtable. Along with screenshots, Barry has included basic setup for a domain and what information is available from the portal on the given domain. Here is what information that is provided by MSN Webmaster Portal: Add a website Validate a website When your domain has been added and verified you have access to additional aspects of your domain via Domain Tools. Domain tools offer six different sections about your domain: Summary Profile Keywords Top Links from Top Links to Sitemap Summary: This is a basic summary of the website: number of pages in the MSN index, last crawl date, blocked? and a new ranking factor called domain rank. Domain rank appears to go from 1 - 5. Along...
More About: Microsoft , Beta , Live

Do Not Track List?
2007-11-08 00:00:00
AdAge.com announced that privacy groups are proposing the creation of an Internet do-not-track list: In addition to the list, the proposal calls for a requirement that advertisers, as part of their online ads, instantaneously disclose details of what they intend to track. According to a media alert announcing the news conference, the groups behind the proposal include the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, among others. In the same article, interesting regarding online advertising: According to a Forrester report on consumer attitudes toward advertising from November 2006, there are three main sources of advertising irritation to consumers: ads are too numerous, disruptive and irrelevant. AOL has already preempted possible legislation by allowing users to opt out of behavioral tracking: AOL Will Let Consumers Opt Out of Targeted Ads from the Wall Street Journal reports that AOL will announce to...
More About: List , Track

DoFollow Plugin
2007-11-03 00:00:00
For all bloggers that appreciate their comments and building a community around their websites, the idea of not giving at least a little link love sounds preposterous. Even though WordPress is widely considered as the best blogging platform available, it comes with a few things that you might want more control over, like adding a “nofollow” relationship to all of your comments. Now you won’t have to worry… Greg Boser has been working on the DoFollow OPML project and is offering a WebGuerrilla Version (download) of a plugin called DoFollow for WordPress. This is a great plugin that gives you more control over your comments and trackbacks than ever before. We?ve had a lot of great response to our DoFollow OPML project. While we work on compiling the list, I thought I would go ahead and release a new DoFollow plugin. We have been playing with several different plugins lately. Of all the ones we could find, we like the original by Kimmo Souminen the best. However...
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Happy Halloween from SEOpittfall
2007-11-03 00:00:00
hApPy HaLlOwEeN! pittfall’s Jack-o-Lantern - Tiki Jack
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MSN Jumps on the Analytics Train - Project Gatineau in beta
2007-10-31 00:00:00
From the adCenter Blog: We are happy to announce that Project Gatineau , Microsoft?s new, free web analytics service, is ready for beta testing and the first invitations are now being sent to customers. To manage Project Gatineau?s growth and give customers the best web analytics service possible, the beta is by invitation for US advertisers only for the moment. All advertisers can request an invitation here: http://advertising.microsoft.com/microsof t-adcenter-gatineau Project Gatineau?s web analytics are useful to sites of all sizes ? from smaller sites that can?t afford an expensive web analytics solution to larger sites looking for a boost in their web analytics capabilities. So, what’s the big deal? Microsoft has been promoting the project for some time now, as noted by Tamar at 10e20 back in January, and again in March during a review of low cost analytics: With Gatineau around the corner (and we can still anticipate its launch), there are other free analytics applicat...
More About: Beta , Train , Analytics

Google Says Boo! and SEOs Run to Hide
2007-10-30 00:00:00
OK, this week has been a rocky one in the social arenas surrounding the SEO communities. Why? Google has made a BIG statement by updating the PageRank visible from the Google Toolbar. It all started on Wednesday when many notable websites dropped 2 to 3 points in the little green bar. Much speculation ensued and alarm around the blogosphere trying to figure out what it all meant. It was paid links became the consensus. A couple of weeks ago, Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land announced that buying or selling links may negatively affect your PageRank and/or rankings in Google. Here are a couple of posts that put things into perspective: Toolbar Hysteria 8 Things We Learned About Google PageRank Google Scares the Search Crowd So, as everything started settling down, all of the Sphinns started getting hot, carrying the PageRank debate into the conversations into Thursday and still on Friday. Now, rather yesterday, I noticed that the PageRank (that to this point had remained unchange...
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The Day the Music Died
2007-10-30 00:00:00
Well, the music didn’t die, but the music industry, as we currently know it, might just be giving up the ghost. Strike One - Radiohead released their most recent album “In Rainbows” via a band controlled download and an interesting marketing maneuver by allowing everyone to name their own price (even $0.00). Strike Two - Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails announced on the band blog that they are free agents: Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. Strike Three - Madonna, along...
More About: Music , Died , The Music

BlogRush Keeps on Creating a Buzz
2007-10-23 00:00:00
Since the launch of BlogRush (still in beta) just over a month ago, there has been buzz all over the blogosphere touting, questioning and now cursing it’s purpose. Even a simple search for BlogRush at Sphinn returns 2 pages of results with 8 posts that have “gone hot” regarding the topic. Now that there has been so much buzz, that was a bit unfounded, as there have been many holes in the service. Now they have offended many bloggers by automatically dismissing them. I can understand if they have guidelines, but they seem to be using this with the same reckless abandonment that they did when accepting all of the blogs in the initial launch. Here is some of the most recent news (this is from an email announcing the updates for those blogs that “passed“): Congratulations! You are receiving this update because your blog has passed our strict Quality Guidelines and criteria — we believe you have a high-quality blog and we are happy you’re a membe...
More About: Buzz , Creating

Information R/evolution
2007-10-23 00:00:00
Digital Ethnography has another thought provoking video post called Information R/evolution This video explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively. The ways in which we access information has been dramatically adjusted with the advent of the world wide web, but the glue that binds it and the fuel that maintains it is you, me and everyone else that chooses to interact, react and basically be involved with information online. It is easily visible that the way of the web is not just commercial in nature, it is becoming everything that we want/need it to be: information interaction entertainment shopping religion voice purpose The Internet has become the platform for those without a voice throughout the world! That is why i...
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Google?s Sitelinks Become More Transparent
2007-10-19 00:00:00
Today, over at Google Webmaster Central, Search Quality made an announcement about webmasters providing feedback about what sitelinks they provide to users for your website and which links you may want to remove. Now, Webmaster Tools lets you view potential sitelinks for your site and block the ones you don’t want to appear in Google search results. Because sitelinks are extremely useful in helping users navigate your site, we don’t typically recommend blocking them. However, occasionally you might want to exclude a page from your sitelinks, for example: a page that has become outdated or unavailable, or a page that contains information you don’t want emphasized to users. Once you block a page, it won’t appear as a sitelink for 90 days unless you choose to unblock it sooner. It may take a week or so to remove a page from your sitelinks, but we are working on making this process faster. If you log into your account for sitemaps, you can now see if Google SERPs...
More About: Transparent , Spar , Elinks , Parent

What Does College Football have in Common with SERPs?
2007-10-19 00:00:00
It is college football season, if you haven’t noticed. Everyone is wearing their Alma Mater colors’ and talking up their team?s successes and being quiet after losses. There have been some real differences this season as opposed to many from the last 10+ years. Namely, the teams that were expected to be dominating on the field have come up short in the win column. The playing field seems to be more level and we all have heard the old adage “any given Sunday” (or Saturday for college football). What this means is that any team on any given day can show up to play and dominate or squeak out a victory over any other team. So, what does this have to do with search engine results (SERPs)? Here is a breakdown of the top 5 polls that are used in college football rankings: BCS AP USA Today Harris Poll Master Coaches Poll Unique Teams 1. Ohio State 1. Ohio State 1. Ohio State 1. Ohio State 1. Ohio State 1 2. South Florida 2. South Florida 2. Boston Coll ege 2....
More About: Football , College Football , Common

Google Joins the Market Elite and Will Fold Because of Weaknesses
2007-10-10 00:00:00
Tonight from Market Place was a great story about Google ’s movement into the top 6 stocks on the NYSE. Prior to today, there were only five stocks on the New York Stock Exchange that were above $600 per share, Google has joined to make it six. Instead of focusing on the upswing on the stock, Kai Ryssdal (host pictured above) and Brian Cooley (from CNet) looked at what Google’s strengths and weaknesses are. Here are some juicy tidbits from the story: Brian Cooley Search is the core business, they do it really well and they really revolutionized it. And secondly… they sold against it really well. There is nothing in their revenue picture that I know of that casts a dark cloud. Google… finding what I want and then interacting with it is their whole base. Right now, they are the taste maker for the sector they occupy. Kai Ryssdal Let’s get to the down side though, and elaborate on that for me, for a minute. What’s it going to be that’s going to ...
More About: Elite , The Mark , Fold

Will RSS Go the Way of Reciprocal Linking? SEO Laziness 101
2007-10-07 00:00:00
Today a well known blogger propositioned a new “link scheme” calling it Link Exchange 2.0. The idea came from CopyBlogger back in 2006 when writing about effective ways to get more subscribers to your feeds: Find a blogger that publishes related, but non-competitive content. Work out a deal where you both promote each other in your RSS feeds, using Feedvertising. If one blog has way more subscribers than the other, work out a ratio deal. Since Feedvertising allows you to create up to six rotating links, the smaller blog would promote the other blog continuously, while the larger blog would reserve one slot for the smaller blog, and use the other slots for other cross-promotion deals, affiliate links, or sponsor ads. Similar to the BlogRush widgets that have been appearing in the blogosphere, it is another tactic to simplify the hard work of building a reputation and getting a chance to gain exposure to a new audience. All of this after Google adjusted their webmaster gu...
More About: Linking , Linkin , Reci , Reciprocal

The New MSN Live Search is Ready
2007-10-07 00:00:00
MSN has launched the “new” Live Search portal to address four main areas of concern: Relevance (why you use the search product) Speed (patience is a virtue, but not what users really want in search query results) Streamlining Concept (better usability) High-Interest Content (universal search product anyone?) The MSN team claim that this is the biggest update since the launch of Live Search in 2005: This week we?re excited to launch a major update to Live Search that?s relevant, faster and easier to use. Hundreds of us rolled up our sleeves and dug deep. We pored over your feedback, analyzed the data and talked to thousands of users. How major is this? It’s our biggest update since our debut in January 2005. What have they done that will really affect your experience with Live Search: Sitelinks-like addition to the first result for major search terms (see more about Sitelinks here, here and here) Related Searches in the right sidebar, above Sponsored Sites St...
More About: Ready

Wired Magazine?s Geekipedia Explores SEO
2007-10-07 00:00:00
Wow! I thought, pulling an additional insert in my recent Wired Magazine called “Geekipedia” and thought that it might come in handy. I spend most of my time at work with my marketing and SEO hats fully fixed on my head and much of my free time researching the aspects of the latter that keep me sharp and inspired. In other words, “I don’t get out much!” So, leafing through and trying to keep my geekdom in check (testing myself along the way), I noticed SEO as an entry (just below Robert Scoble), and thought it would be interesting to see what other “geeks” think of the art, dare I say craft, that is search engine optimization. To my dismay I found what I would consider a Jason Calacanis inspired observation of SEO: SEO Search engine optimization services are the Wile E. Coyotes of the Internet economy: doomed to stalk prey that repeatedly slips away just as it’s captured. SEO consulting ? fine-tuning client pages to land them atop sear...

Google Analytics 101 from O?Reilly
2007-10-07 00:00:00
Have you ever wondered how to adjust analytics to be fully functional without having to sell the farm to get what you need to be able to improve your websites? Google Anal ytics is the answer, right? Google Analytics has long been the thrifty marketers answered prayers when it comes to a robust analytics package that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. The only problem with this free service from Google is that it can be extremely difficult to implement this with all of the bells and whistles you hear about, unless you are a true web developer. Don’t get me wrong, as a SEO, I have a great understanding for all of the capabilities for web development, but I don’t code websites. I am fortunate to work hand in hand with a seasoned web developer with an understanding of SEO. This is our advantage. OK, back on topic. So, I have been researching the benefits of different analytics packages for a few months and have been astounded by the cost associated with the mainstream pro...
More About: Reilly

More Information from Microsoft on Webmaster Portal Beta
2007-10-07 00:00:00
Today I received more information about the new Webmaster Portal Beta coming soon: Live Search Webmaster Portal Beta Thank you for filling out the survey for the Live Search Webmaster Portal Beta program! In order to provide the highest level of service to our Beta Partners, we have started off the beta program with our first group of participants. As the program is rolled out in phases, we will incrementally increase the number of participants until all applicants have been accepted by late November. The information you provided us thru the registration survey will help us determine when the right timeframe is to bring you into the beta program and ensure that our participants represent the widest range of industries and company sizes. Live Search Webmaster Tools Team I will have to be honest, I am ready to get this underway and see what offerings they will be bringing to fellow webmasters. If you want to know more about MSN Webmaster Portal Beta you can find it in previous post...
More About: Information , Microsoft

The DMOZ Blog Opens
2007-09-26 00:00:00
Can the Open Directory be back? Just yesterday I posted on the fact that the index page of the open directory, also known as DMOZ, had fallen from Google search results and I mused about the idea that the directory may have died or at least in the eyes of Google. No dice! It reminds me of the baseball season that is coming to a close this week and as it comes down to the wire, my beloved Chicago Cubs have an opportunity to keep playing into October. The Cubs have been fighting under new management this season and have been on the move against what seemed like an insurmountable lead by the Brewers, but they have their post season hopes in their hands. Similarly, the Open Directory that has appeared by many as being past it’s prime has it’s own future in the palm of the editor’s hands. Well, if there haven’t been many indications (which there really hasn’t been any in a long, long time), there may be a glimmer of hope on the horizon as DMOZ opens a blog t...
More About: Blog , Dmoz , The D

Did Google Drop the Open Directory
2007-09-26 00:00:00
Just about four weeks ago I posted about the plight of a fellow blogger named Shoemoney and an alleged extortion attempt by a proclaimed editor of the directory. Now, I have not been exactly defending the open directory in its value with the major search engines like Ask, Googl e , MSN and Yahoo (in alphabetical order as not to offend anyone who prefers one over another). Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land noted that DMOZ.com was not listed in Google for the query “DMOZ” The Open Directory ’s home page appears to have gone missing from Google’s search results. For example, a search on dmoz (the Open Directory’s nickname) does not return the home page in the search results. This fact was also covered by David Naylor and Marketing Pilgrim. I too have verified that the index page is not listed in Google for any query. Can this remain? I have been very vocal about my disappointment in the Open Directory Project, however, I still do admire the intention and s...
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Google Wants You to Be Social and Share Your Stuff
2007-09-22 00:00:00
Google has launched a social bookmarking service aptly named Share d Stuff quietly. But the news is out: Google Shared Stuff - Google Blogscoped Google Launches Google Shared Stuff - Search Engine Land Google Shared Stuff is Delicious - Marketing Pilgrim Google Wants You To Share Stuff - TechCrunch Google and Being Social - John Battelle’s Searchblog Here is the best description of the new product (from TechCrunch): Shared Stuff is simple enough; users drag a ?email/ share? button into their browser, and click it when they want to add pages to their Shared Stuff profile. Links can include an image, text extract, and/ or a user comment. The results can then be viewed directly, via iGoogle or RSS. An interesting addition is the option to use Shared Stuff to post links to other social booking sites as well, including Facebook Furl, Delicious, Reddit and Digg. Friend can be invited by email, and bookmarks made by Gmail contacts using the service can be viewed as well. Other aspect...
More About: Google , Googl

BlogRush - MLM for Traffic
2007-09-18 00:00:00
BlogRush is a new portal with a widget to drive traffic from to your blog from other blogs that are in the same vertical as yours. BlogRush (still in beta) is a free service that was created to help bloggers solve their #1 need: More Readers For Their Blog. By adding the BlogRush Widget to a blog, a blogger can get instant distribution for their latest blog post titles across a network of related blogs. here is a look at the widget Basically, for every impression you provide the widget, your posts will be added to other blogs within the same related subject. Get a referral (someone signs up from your prompting) then you get a “credit” for all of their impressions and yours too. You will get referral points for up to 10 referrals that you bring to the service. Just a viral, or multi-level, marketing technique to draw more and more to their database service. There are many who are commenting about the new service: ShoeMoney - Great New System to Get Free Traffic Build ...

Can a Marketing Message be Social?
2007-09-17 00:00:00
I got into a very engaging conversation yesterday with a web developer at work on the topic of social aspects of the web. So, what does social really mean? According to Answers.com it is defined as: Living together in organized groups or similar close aggregates. So what does social mean on the Internet (also known as a social network)? According to Wikipedia it is defined as: A map of the relationships between individuals, indicating the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds. The discussion started with an assumption that blogs are social entities on the Internet, whereas other (traditional) websites are not. So, this led to a very specific question, are blogs inherently social? I think not. A blog is actually short for web log as know as an online journal. This is not anything that implies social. in fact a journal is not a conversation, rather a form of communication that has a single path....
More About: Marketing , Social , Message , Mess

Mash - Yahoo!?s Answer to MySpace and Facebook
2007-09-17 00:00:00
Yahoo has released an online social portal into beta, Yahoo! Mash. As you can see from the photo of my profile (above), it has some of the same look and feel of MySpace, without all of the advertisements (for now at least). Here are the basic components of a Yahoo Mash profile page: Basic info - Photo - Name - Quote - Profile Revision History About Me - simple standardized questions My Stuff - area to add links (opportunity) Blurt - area to add a “blurt” (removable) Guestbook - Sorry, I’m not available, leave a message in the box for everyone to see. (removable) Style this Profile - adjust the look of your profile - five easy adjustments - advanced css available Customize by adding modules - this includes widgets like flickr, rss feeds and more Friends Tags Can this give Yahoo an edge in the social market that many consider they have owned since taking it from AOL until MySpace and Facebook came showed on the scene a few years back? If you would like to experien...
More About: Yahoo , Myspace , Answer

Cuill - Have We Found a Google Killer?
2007-09-13 00:00:00
Cuill Inc. (pronounced [kool]) is a startup company that is pioneering a new approach to Search. What’s so special? Cuill, the secretive search start-up ? This is the latest start-up, started by two Googl e folks and two Stanford folks. Co-founders include Tom Costello, of Stanford, and Anna Patterson, formerly at Stanford and now at Google (described as a search wizard). They?re raising a VC round for the company. We?re told they claim they can crawl the Web at a tenth of the cost Google can. We?ve contacted Costello to find out more. We?re open to tips if you hear of anything. from Venture Beat, Feb 12, 2007 The company?s main claim is that it can index web pages significantly faster and cheaper than Google can - Cuill has told potential investors that their indexing costs will be 1/10th of Google?s, based on new search architectures and relevance methods. In some ways Cuill is the polar opposite of Powerset, which has huge indexing costs because it does a deep contextual an...
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Funding Interests in Cuill
2007-09-13 00:00:00
From TechCrunch: We got (at least) one thing wrong when we wrote about super-stealth search startup Cuill last week. We said we believed the company self funded after searching for venture capital. But we now have it from two solid sources that they actually raised a $4 million Series A round from Greylock Partners, with partner David Strohm taking a board seat. Greylock is behind some of the biggest success stories of the new Internet, including Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn and others. Most of those investments are led by David Sze, however. Strohm only rarely seems to invest in the consumer sector. This is very interesting since most of the research that I have found have stated that this is a “stealth” project. While much of the information being written around the company being relatively the same, it will be interesting to see what will come of this. Is this another piece of monetary fodder for Google to gobble up from ex-Googlers like a prodigal son? If you missed the...
More About: Funding , Interests , Eres

Google Searches Your Subscriptions - Finally!
2007-09-08 00:00:00
Today, Googl e announced a new feature for their reader service: That’s right, search is finally in Google Reader. Now you can find that that apricot recipe you came across a few months ago and now have a craving for. Or perhaps you’d like to search for “ipod” so that you can read at once all the posts in your subscriptions that mention today’s announcements. More information from the Official Google Blog: The fundamental problem with information is that there’s too much of it, and this is probably why we all go to our trusted sources to learn what we really need to know. Your sources filter out the noise and present the most interesting bits to you in a useful way. For many of us, these sources include newspapers, magazines, and of course blogs. We built Google Reader as a way for you to see all of your online sources in one place. They have also done some minor tweaks to other aspects of Reader: Along for the ride in the search release are a few ...
More About: Finally , Fina , Ally

SquidWhat? - Squidoo Builds People Search SquidWho
2007-09-06 00:00:00
Squidoo has launched a new portal called SquidWho “A people-powered Who’s Who on the Web.” Here is the basic info: SquidWho is the first people-built who’s who. It’s an easy way to find out what’s what (and where) about famous (and not so famous) people around the world. If you’re a fan of someone, build a page about them. Point to their books, their blog, their wikipedia entry and their videos. Share your opinions but most of all, make it easy for people to discover the really good stuff. Unlike traditional Who’s Who directories, SquidWho is open. Everyone gets a chance to share her opinion without worrying about what some committee of anonymous people have to say. So, if you like Norah Jones, built a page about her. Hate Mick Jagger? Go for it. It’s up to you. So, what is it really? Just another way to repackage content already online including: online poll at a glance (aka Wikipedia article) flickr photos Amazon products You...
More About: People , Search , Squidoo , Builds

Insight into MSN Webmaster Portal
2007-09-06 00:00:00
Last week MSN announced Webmaster Portal should be available in late fall and offered a chance to apply to test out the beta and provide feedback. I am not aware that the beta has actually started, however, I was sent an email to register for the beta. It was a simple form requesting information about me, the websites that I would include in the beta and some interesting questions about the tools and information that I would like to see. This included some insight into what they are planning to offer (they even categorized them): Troubleshooting - Site crawling Sitemaps - Ping Stats - Inbound links to other sites Troubleshooting - Site Indexing Stats - Top search terms for your domain Stats - Outbound links from your site Troubleshooting - Robots.txt Stats - Top search terms for other domains Stats - Outbound links from other sites Troubleshooting - Sitemaps Stats - Top keywords on your site Stats - Perceived site quality score Sitemaps - Creation Stats - Inbound links to your site...
More About: Insight , Mast , Aster

Labor Day 2007
2007-09-06 00:00:00
Happy Labor Day Everyone! Wow, what a wild weekend this has been! I got a chance to catch up with some reading over the past few days, visited with my wife’s parents, my blog went down (the first time I didn’t have my laptop to get everything rolling)… OK, I am ready for the weekend to end (not really). If you are like me, in-house marketing director, including online (SEO, SEM, SMO, mobile and others) and offline (print and others) to drive conversions across the Internet and over the phone, then you probably have some of the same aggravation of tracking metrics in these very different medias. I would like to encourage you to read “Offline Maneuvers: Improving ROI by Tracking Offline Conversions” by Natalia Vinokhodova in the Fall issue of Search Marketing Standard. If you don’t currently have a subscription to this publication, I highly recommend it! I am not going to say that I subscribe to all that has been covered in the magazine, but the app...