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SEOpittfall has moved.
2008-06-10 00:00:00
If you are seeing this post the DNS settings for SEOpittfall.com have not updated. This process began on June 8, 2008 and should be completed no later than June 12, 2008. Thank you for your patience and for visiting SEOpittfall.com! When the DNS changes are completed you will see SEOpittfall version 2.0. For a sneak peak, go here. Stephen Pitts Post from: SEOpittfall.com SEOpittfall has moved. Post from: SEOpittfall.com SEOpittfall has moved.

SEOpittfall is Moving
2008-06-04 00:00:00
SEOpittfall will be moving hosting over the next few days (up to a week). Please forgive me if there are any disruptions in accessibility during the DNS updates. Feel free to reach out to me if you need anything during the adjustments. Thanks, pittfall Post from: SEOpittfall.com SEOpittfall is Moving Post from: SEOpittfall.com SEOpittfall is Moving

Sharing Information With Google Reader
2008-05-27 00:00:00
Google Reader is a very valuable tool that I am sure many of you are aware of, however, it has offers more than just keeping up with your favorite XML and RSS feeds. It also gives you the ability to share posts from your subscriptions that you find valuable and would be useful to your friends. You can mark posts with a star, giving you the ability to come back to posts that you want to revisit. Along with the star option, you can label feeds with tags so you can organize all of your feeds within specific categories. Other valuable options for you to share information that you find via the feeds that you read is the ability to share the post in a couple of different ways: Email Shared Page Widget Email Sending feeds to people that you think will be able to use is a very efficient way of sharing posts from your feed reader. The Google Reader makes this rather easy to send and incorporates the post along with a message. Shared Page Google Reader also offers a great way of sharing inf...
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Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents
2008-05-26 00:00:00
This paper is being reproduced as a resource to my readers. The document was moved by the University of Toronto after the departure of one of it’s authors as an active professor at the institution. By no means am I trying to take credit from these individuals for the research and subsequent paper below. I have updated the references, as some of these have also been moved from their original locations. This research, theory and algorithm was very influential in my early research into ranking factors that search engines employ in the valuation of web pages in search engine results. It eludes to and assisted in my personal definition of a search engine algorithm: taking qualitative data, converting it into quantitative data, ranking it based upon a query and returning the qualitative data. Enjoy! - pittfall Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents Krishna Bharat George A. Mihaila Abstract: In response to a query a search engine returns a ranked list of documents. ...
More About: Search Engine

Google Pushing Local Search?
2008-05-09 00:00:00
Today while doing research for a client, I happened to notice something very interesting in Google ’s results. The given search was for “hampton inn” and further research on other geographically relevant, broad terms returned similar results like “restaurant” and “mcdonalds.” Entering a city, state or zip code returned the Google map and relevant results based on the given entry. This did not appear differently if you are logged into a Google account or not. Has anyone else seen this? Post from: SEOpittfall.com Google Pushing Local Search ? Post from: SEOpittfall.com Google Pushing Local Search?

RSS Day 2008
2008-05-03 00:00:00
What is RSS? RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format used to deliver information from websites and pages that get updated regularly. An RSS document (which is called feed) contains either a summary or the full content from a website. What are you planning for RSS Day? Post from: SEOpittfall.com RSS Day 2008

Meta Tags Constitute Trademark Infringement or Not?
2008-05-03 00:00:00
A couple of influential court cases in the US have been decided, however, they differ on the overall outcome when it comes to use of trademarked words in META data including keywords constitute trademark infringement. North American Medical Corp. v. Axiom Worldwide, Inc. But in this case, I do not think Axiom denied placing those terms in their meta tags. The question Goldman has is, did the meta tags influence the site to rank for those terms? Google has told us they ignore the keywords meta tag, but said they do use the meta description tag. But would the meta description tag alone be enough to rank a site for? Hard to say. But if you add some links to the equation, then it is a no brainer. Search Engine Land Although Axiom?s website never displayed NAM?s trademarked terms to visitors and never mentioned NAM or NAM?s products, Axiom nonetheless included the terms within its meta tags to influence Internet search engines. For instance, evidence in this case indicated that, before A...
More About: Infringement , Tags , Meta , Trademark

Anatomy of Organic Listing Snippets in the SERPs and Outlining Best Practic
2008-04-04 00:00:00
When returning results to a user, search engines use various resources based upon the particular search or query. The basic information published on a Web page may not be visible to a user, even when the page is displayed in an Internet browser, such as Internet Explorer or FireFox. Some of this information is used by the search engines to determine the topic (content) of a particular Web page. Search engines use many specific characteristics to evaluate a Web page for a particular query string or keyword search. Many of these characteristics differ from one search engine to another and may even vary based upon the query string itself. Because of this, this user help focuses only on the ?snippets? or information regarding a particular page, published in organic listings. These are the natural or non-sponsored listings, on search engine results pages, referred to as SERPs. Traditionally, search engines provide three specific bits of information that make up the snippet in the SERPs....
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Google Turns Black To Go Green
2008-04-02 00:00:00
Google users in the United States will notice today that we “turned the lights out” on the Google.com homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour. As to why we don’t do this permanently - it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display. However, you can do something to reduce the energy consumption of your home PC by joining the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Earth Hour Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. Great idea and for a great cause, however, I was disappointed when looking at this further and EarthHourUS.org offered up ideas of things to do while in the dark and it linked to this. Not what I was hoping for, but at least it’s for a good cause. Cheers! Post from: SEOpittfall.com Google Turns Black To Go Green
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SEO Standards - To Be or Not To Be?
2008-04-02 00:00:00
Background There has always been a lot of mystery surrounding the online marketing industry especially Search Engine Optimization. There are even some that consider the efforts of SEO as selling “snake oil” and even some discredit the industry as a whole because of perceived SEO practices that will get your website blacklisted. Chris Boggs at Search Engine Watch wrote on the topic, called for standards to be adopted and outlined steps to build these standards based upon 1. definition, 2. risk and 3. education. I think that these are all valid and could be a useful tool for accountability for marketers. The Heat of the Game Recently, Jill Whalen sited her own feelings regarding the topic in an editorial at Search Engine Land and Lisa Barone from Bruce Clay fired back. Based upon the voting on Sphinn about each of these posts at the time of writing this post here are the breakdowns: No - 56 Sphinns Yes - 51 Sphinns If you break this down a bit further, a realistic look ...
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The Future of Search is 24 Hours in Advance
2008-04-02 00:00:00
So, April Fools 2008 Begins - 1st Up Google Australia Google Australia offers gDay with MATE: About gDay technology The core technology that powers gDay is MATE (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation). Using MATE?s machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques developed in Google?s Sydney offices, we can construct elements of the future. From the gDay Press Release: gDay was developed in Google’s Sydney engineering centre and can accurately predict future events and internet content. It does this by using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques from a system called MATE (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation). Using Google’s index of historic, cached web content and a mashup of numerous factors including recurrence plots and fuzzy measure analysis, gDay creates a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from now - including share price movements, sports results and news events. Plus, using language regression anal...
More About: Future , Search , The Future , Hours

April Fools 2008
2008-04-02 00:00:00
Here is a quick breakdown of April tomfoolery this year: Search Engine Roundtable becomes - Search Engine Squaretable MyBlogLog goes… Plaid! Google Introduces FrankRank, an ad ranking algorithm Google AdSense announce the launch of AdSense for conversations New for gMail - Gmail Custom Time And, of course - Google Announces Project Virgle Thanks for the laughs! Post from: SEOpittfall.com April Fools 2008 Post from: SEOpittfall.com April Fools 2008

Happy Easter
2008-03-27 00:00:00
It has been a long time since I have posted, but as far as moving to Cleveland and getting acclimated to the area (and the weather), we are almost done! Happy Easter everyone, and there will be more from pittfall in the near future! Post from: SEOpittfall.com Happy Easter

Google Search within Search - User Assistance or Retailer Handicap?
2008-03-27 00:00:00
Google recently began experimenting with a new site search box within results: Through experimentation, we found that presenting users with a search box as part of the result increases their likelihood of finding the exact page they are looking for. So over the past few days we have been testing, and today we have fully rolled out, a search box that appears within some of the search results themselves. This feature will now occur when we detect a high probability that a user wants more refined search results within a specific site. Like the rest of our snippets, the sites that display the site search box are chosen algorithmically based on metrics that measure how useful the search box is to users. We hope that you will make use of the site search box in order to get the information you’re looking for as quickly and easily as possible. Here is what this looks like in the SERPs: This is what appears on the right sidebar for a simple site search: As you can see by this query f...
More About: Google , Search , Google Search , User , Retailer

Getting Settled in Cleveland
2008-03-05 00:00:00
It has been some time since I posted… I have been without a connection for almost a week, aside from my new office here in Cleveland . It has been an amazing experience so far and it looks to be an unbelievable opportunity. I will be posting more when we get more settled. Thanks! Post from: SEOpittfall.com Getting Settled in Cleveland Post from: SEOpittfall.com Getting Settled in Cleveland

New Horizons?
2008-02-17 00:00:00
I would like to take this moment to thank everyone that has been supportive of this blog and me personally in my growth and development in the Search Engine Optimization industry. I am also extremely happy to announce that I will be furthering my career and moving from an in-house SEO to an agency. I will be working with the SEO team as part of Brulant in March. This means a lot to me and has very dramatic implications on my family. We are uprooting from our beach-side cottage/apartment in Florida to brave the cold winters and four actual seasons in Cleveland, OH. Which just so happens to be the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (pictured above). It’s a brave new world that we are jumping into and very exciting for me, my family and my career. Other changes might also occur as I may be moving the hosting of SEOpittfall to a new provider, so you might not hear too much from me on SEOpittfall.com until my family and I get settled in our new home. Again, I want to thank ev...
More About: Horizons

The Great Search War or Search War I?
2008-02-10 00:00:00
Whether the outcome would be Micro-hoo or Ya-soft the outcome would be the same, a new combined power that may be able to put some heat on Google to maintain their control on search and online advertising. This is not new speculation, actually last year Microsoft was in the same role as they have assumed recently: Competition is the thing that Microsoft has not had to directly face for some time, and Yahoo knows what it feels like to be on top, but both have not been able to touch Google in the department of search and search driven revenue. As Google looks to other areas, like radio, television and newspapers, to generate additional revenue streams, this might be the optimal time for these two tech giants to seize an opportunity (that may or may not exist). The only thing that I can see, outside looking in, is that Google has never really been tested in their core competency, search. This could expose weaknesses that might be there, but I don?t see that either Yahoo or MSN could ac...
More About: Search , Great

Oops, an Error has Occurred - Yahoo! Says No to Microsoft
2008-02-10 00:00:00
Via the Wall Street Journal: Yahoo Board to Reject Microsoft Bid Yahoo Inc.’s board plans to reject Microsoft Corp.’s unsolicited $44.6 billion offer to acquire the Web giant, a person familiar with the situation says. After a series of meetings over the past week, Yahoo’s board determined that the $31 per share offer “massively undervalues” Yahoo, the person said. It also doesn’t account for the risks Yahoo would be taking by entering into an agreement that might be overturned by regulators. The board plans to send a letter to Microsoft on Monday, spelling out its position. Yahoo has taken “poison pill” provisions to prevent an unwanted takeover. Microsoft would likely have to oust the board in order to overturn them. Will Microsoft and Steven Ballmer attempt a takeover? Does this mean the end to the Search Wars… I don’t think so, but we will see! This would equate to the second failed attempt in as many years! Post from: ...
More About: Error , Yahoo!

SEOpittfall is Welcomed into The AdAge Power 150
2008-01-30 00:00:00
I know that it has been a long time since posting anything… no worries! I will be visiting the lovely city of Cleveland in the next few days. I have not been and I say lovely because that is what I am being told, I will let you know after I get back. I am sure that I am in for a bit of a shock, Florida has been in the 60’s and Cleveland plays with the low 30’s regularly this time of year. I would like to announce that SEOpittfall has been added to the AdAge Power 150 (even though I don’t rank in the top 150). What is the Power 150? The Power 150 is a ranking of the top English-language media and marketing blogs in the world, as developed by marketing executive and blogger, Todd Andrlik. It’s really as simple as that, except that the name isn’t strictly accurate: It currently ranks more than 500 blogs written about all types of media and pretty much every imaginable marketing discipline. Looks really interesting, certainly an honor to get noticed...

MyBlogLog Steps Up Authority for Blog Communities
2008-01-21 00:00:00
Today, MyBlog Log added a new feature to the online blog communities… to put it simply, a validation process to verify that you are the owner of the website and have authority over the community. Why verify? As an owner of community on MyBlogLog, the Verified check mark is like a “seal of approval.” This shows anyone who looks at your MyBlogLog community page that the owner of the site has an active hand in the management of the community page. How it works When a site owner begins the verification process, we give them a bit of code to put onto their site that only someone with edit rights to the site can put into the page. Verification happens by putting the code on your site, re-publishing, and clicking the “Authenticate” button on the verification page. MyBlogLog then goes out to the site to check for the code. If it finds it, verification is complete! Once you complete verification, you can remove the code from your site. What it means The verified ...
More About: Authority , Communities , Steps

Marketing and Learning - Division and Contrast
2008-01-21 00:00:00
The smallest remarks can sometimes spur the greatest conversations. Case in point, yesterday on a blog by Professor Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University made a very simple interaction with his students that many of us might remember during our time in college, regarding school and learning, and posted it on the Digital Ethnography blog: First day of class ? I took an informal ?raise your hand? survey of my 200 Intro students. Me: ?How many of you do not actually *like* school?? ? just over half(!) raise their hands Me: ?How many of you do not like learning?? ? no hands You may remember their video post Digital R/evolution. I left a comment regarding the post citing similarities with educators and marketers: As a professional marketer, it is my job to reach an audience and make a lasting impression regarding a product or service. In that same respect, as an educator you are trying to reach your audience and make a lasting impressi...
More About: Marketing , Contrast , Learning , Division

Bill Gates Retires from Daily Activities at Microsoft
2008-01-15 00:00:00
This video was too funny not to share (thanks Adam)! Post from: SEOpittfall.com Bill Gates Retires from Daily Activities at Microsoft Post from: SEOpittfall.com Bill Gates Retires from Daily Activities at Microsoft

Technology is not Suited for Small Business - Business Week
2008-01-15 00:00:00
Tech ‘Solutions’ Your Small Biz Can’t Use A lot of highfalutin software and gadgets aim to help you run your company, but too little of it is suited for a small business environment - Gene Marks Business Week Recently, Business Week offered up a reason to be concerned. In an article (title and subtitle above), by Gene Marks, warns small business owners away from “overhyped and underwhelming technology.” The article isn’t about usability, as I first expected, rather turned into a rant against products and services that can help small business owners manage their time more efficiently and even help them improve their business in the short and long run. Gene highlighted 10 products/services “that don’t work.” Now, I will warn you, SEO is on the list, but rather than taking offense to his opinions, I want to highlight some of these and how they can help you improve your business. Here they are (numbers are based upon order in origina...
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Yahoo?s Online Social Universe
2008-01-15 00:00:00
Yahoo! has been a very influential provider of social services online for quite some time. Over the last few years they have either created or purchased online social sites, here is a quick breakdown of some of the major start-ups and acquisitions: —————— ;—————̵ 2;—————R 12;————— 212;—————&# 8212;—— 2005 —————— ;—————̵ 2;—————R 12;————— 212;—————&# 8212;—— name: flickr acquired purpose: photo sharing similar to: DropShots status: Top photo and image sharing website online. When acquired by Yahoo!, flickr was a top online property and it still is. name: Yahoo! 360° created purpose: Personal Pages similar to: Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle s...
More About: Social , Yahoo , Universe , Online , Yahoo!

New Look for SEOpittfall in 2008
2008-01-07 00:00:00
After a while you have a tendency to want a change, so for the new year, I have changed themes and after an afternoon of work… Tada! It has a few features that were in the old theme and is based upon Gluttony from WPdesigner. I must stress that I am not a programmer, so, if you should happen to find errors or something not working right, please let me know by either commenting here or sending me an email. Don’t like it? Let me know!
More About: 2008

?Don?t Be Evil? - Philosophy, Corporate Culture or Inventive Perception?
2008-01-06 00:00:00
Whether it’s a mantra, an “informal corporate motto” or just a slogan, Google’s statement: “Don’t Be Evil ” has lost it’s shine with many users and publishers that make up the Internet. This post has been a long time coming. This is a topic that I have been intending on writing about, however, every time that I sit at my keyboard and look for direction, it always seems to get lost. What I am trying to say, it is hard to be negative (not that this is intended to be negative) about long standing resources that have redefined a market that is as diverse as the Internet. But, as with most things, they age and sometimes go away. The Netscape browser will be discontinued the first of February, AOL has shifted to an advertisement based business that may be cut up and sold off to the highest bidders and Google is no longer just a search engine built on advertising. When looking into what Google is really about, it is hard not to look at their o...
More About: Philosophy , Culture , Corporate , Corporate Culture

Happy New Year 2008 - SEOpittfall 2007 in Review
2008-01-02 00:00:00
I’m not one for new year’s resolutions, but I do want to learn more of my craft and connect with others in my field. 2007 was a wonderful year loaded with excitement for me and my family. Here are a couple of things that happened this year (no particular order): Build a Better Website was retired SEOpittfall.com launched Finished my Bachelor’s Degree at UCF Attended SES Travel in Seattle I became a father - my daughter, Sophia Noelle Pitts was born Thinking back, there are so many that have been helpful and insightful throughout the year, I want to thank my readers, friends and constituents for a successful 2007 and wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2008. Here are the most popular posts from SEOpittfall that you may have missed: Google Wants YOU to Report Paid Links! Google Wants You to Be Social and Share Your Stuff PeekYou.com - Online Reputation Management Google?s Attempt at Ruling Media (ALL MEDIA) Cuill - Have We Found a Google Killer? MSN Live...
More About: New Year , Review , Happy , Happy New Year , Year

Happy Holidays
2007-12-26 00:00:00
Happy Holidays to you and yours. May this be a joyous and happy occasion that you can share with others.
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Christmas Remembrance
2007-12-26 00:00:00
A Different Christmas Poem The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light, I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight. My wife was asleep, her head on my chest, My daughter beside me, angelic in rest. Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white, Transforming the yard to a winter delight. The sparkling lights in the tree I believe, Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve. My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep, Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep. In perfect contentment, or so it would seem, So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream. The sound wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t too near, But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear. Perhaps just a cough, I didn’t quite know, Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow. My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear, And I crept to the door just to see who was near. Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night, A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight. A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty...
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Killing Two Birds with One Stone - Knol Tackles Wikipedia and Squidoo
2007-12-17 00:00:00
“Knol” stands for a unit of knowledge, according to the Official Google Blog. Here are some highlights on Google’s new project: The challenge posed to us was to find a way to help people share their knowledge. This is our main goal. The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word “knol” as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting o...
More About: Wikipedia , Stone , Squidoo , Birds , Killing