There are a few ways to view the search results you are looking for, as well as some really neat ways to check the rankings of clients with localized business in different countries.

Customized Google Search

Here is an example of how Customized Search works. Say I have a client who sells indoor chairs to the US and Canada. A search for “indoor chair” on google.com from my computer yielded these results:

PICTURE GOES HERE

However, a search for “indoor chair” on google.com from the US would yield these results:

PICTURE GOES HERE

To get these second results, simply use this URL: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=ca&q=indoor+chairs&btnG=Search and replace the “ca” with “us”, “uk”, “de”...etc. depending on which country your client is trying to rank for.

Google Global

The second really neat way to view search results from a location where you are not is called “Google Global”. This tool allows you to create custom settings to view search results. So, if you have a client advertising locally in New York, NY, you can see the search results as if you were searching from that IP:

PICTURE GOES HERE

Google Global is available as a Firefox plugin available here

With this new feature, if someone searched for the term “Zoo” and lived in Seattle, they would be shown customized search results for the Seattle area and be shown results for the Seattle Zoo instead of possibly seeing results for the San Diego Zoo. But what happens if you’re looking for local information but outside the area you’re interested in? Override Google’s customized search and you’re able to see regular search results.

In the movement towards being more “transparent”, Google hopes releasing this information will give a more in-depth “behind the scenes” look at the way they customize search...Read more.

This is carried out algorithmically by a specially designed Google bot which scours the web looking for duplicate content, and then trying to figure out which is the original version.  Those documents deemed to be unoriginal duplicates are de-indexed from Google. 

As the SEO business is especially prone to rumors, there are a number of people who will tell you that having duplicate content on your site will cause Google to penalize you.  This is not technically true - when Google finds duplicate content it removes it from the Google index.  Some may argue that this is a penalty in itself, it does not directly harm search engine rankings like a real Google penalty. 

Although this is an effective way to fight webspam artists who scrape wikipedia and other sites for content, it can often cause problems for webmasters and here’s how:

Assume you make an awesome blog post on your site www.example.com and it gets a lot of attention.  Great job!  Now lots of people are noticing example.com and even linking to you in their blogs.  But there is trouble brewing… your blog post is located at http://www.example.com/blog/greatpost/ but your blogging system keeps another copy at http://www.example.com/blog/archive/greatpost/

Google’s duplicate content bot determines that the location at http://www.example.com/blog/archive/greatpost/ is the original and indexes that, nixing the main version from the Google index.  This is a BIG PROBLEM because nobody has linked to the version in the archive, and it therefore has no PageRank, and can’t rank well in Search Engine Result Placements - despite the fact that it is the only version of your post visible in Google search results.

So here you have created a great blog post, had a lot of attention, and now you don’t get any SEO benefit because of duplicate content rules - Talk about frustrating!



How could this have been prevented?

Perhaps the quickest and easiest way to avoid duplicate content issues is with the Robots.TXT file

by adding the line:

Disallow: /blog/archive/

to the site’s robots.txt file, search engines will know immediately not to index any files in the /blog/archive/ directory.  Not only will this solve the issue above, but will prevent this from ever happening again.

It is important when building a site, especially when it contains a CMS system like a blog, to consider all places where content may be duplicated.  A decision should be made at that point of whether to block those pages from being indexed in the robots.txt file.

Currently Facebook provides search for its users so that they may seek out profiles and find friends through its current search function, however; does not offer web-wide search capabilities.

Compared to its main search competitor, Google, who does about 500 billion search queries a year, Microsoft has recently described its search business as “mission critical”. Presumably, Facebook would help bolster search query volume for Microsoft by “up to 40 percent year on year” and increase Microsoft’s search revenue by getting more search queries and attracting more advertisers...Read full story

The deal is reportedly set at the $200 million dollar range and would be a huge competitive blow to Microsoft, who has an advertising deal with Digg. This is the third time the “Google Digg” rumor has surfaced; however Digg has yet to publicly comment or “digg” this rumor.

Why would Digg be worth $200 million to Google? The auction for the social search engine would have strategic value for Google. Google would be able to build a superior Digg voting algorithm, Digg apparently can’t. Ask Google execs what the near-term future of search looks like and they’ll answer “social search.”...read more on the value of Digg for Google

What it is: Ad Planner is a free media planning tool which shows 30 days worth of data which is frequently updated (at least once per month) so you can easily build media plans for yourself and your clients.

Why is this tool useful?

Google Ad Planner allows you to:

• Research sites by demographic (age, sex, education, income) and online behavior
• View detailed site data such as user demographics, other sites users visited, keywords searched to arrive at site.
• Compare selected sites and show aggregated data as to how many UV’s & Page Views you will reach as well as aggregated demographic data for users.
• Find the niche sites that fit well with your target demographic
• Find sites relevant to your audience if you have little understanding of where they surf online
• View sites on an international scale, millions of sites providing greater visibility over and above the top sites in your area
• Undertake site discovery & research within minutes
• Create an entire online media plan in minutes

The focus of Google Ad Planner is purely on media planning. It takes a multi data approach using both internal and external data sources including demographic data from a leading audience measurement provider. It provides data from any website on the web that people spend time on - not just on the Google content or search networks.

Currently, Google Ad Planner is still in Beta testing. To register for the Beta, visit the Google Ad Planner sign up page.

In November of 2000, 6S Marketing Co-Founders and Directors Chris Breikss and John Blown left their full-time jobs to pursue their dream of owning their own business. At a time when the rest of North America was skeptic of the Dot.Com industry, Chris and John were determined to form 6S Marketing to provide companies with a solution for marketing themselves on the web. “Our philosophy from the start was to offer excellent customer service and internet marketing solutions to our clients,” explains Chris.

Having recently doubled in size, 6S has grown from 2 employees to over 20 full time employees in under 8 years and shows no signs of stopping. Focusing purely on internet marketing over the years has allowed 6S to carve out a position as industry experts and is now one of the largest internet marketing firms of its kind in North America...Read Full Story

The report also covers why right now is the perfect time for U.S companies to start marketing to their Northern neighbours. “The economy is strong and Canadians feel comfortable buying luxury items, whereas there’s been a real pullback in the U.S.,” says Chris Breikss, President of 6S Marketing in Vancouver.

With the Canadian dollar on par with the U.S. dollar, now is the time for marketers to reap the rewards of Canada’s new-found spending power - and its’ under-served online advertising market which usually means better rates for advertisers...Read full story.

The other day, Amit Singhal, an Information Retrieval (IR) researcher and Google Fellow opened up and began explaining some of their search ranking techniques. While none of this is going to blow the doors of the Search Marketing world, the intended transparency is nice.

After stating that Google intends to “delve deeper into the technology behind [their search service] in a later post”, this one dealt mainly with Google’s philosophy.

The three main ideas in that search philosophy are as follows:

1) Best locally relevant results served globally.
2) Keep it simple.
3) No manual intervention.

But, I can hear you asking, if there is no manual intervention by Google, how are site’s getting banned, penalized, punk’d, sandboxed, and otherwise pushed into the search oblivion? Google, through Amit, provides the answer for that one by stating that the subjective human element that goes into the search-o-sphere is done through the creation and linking of pages. The intervention comes from algorithmic refinements that counteract imperfect search results.

As this is really just a delicious taste from Google’s secret recipe, any search geek certainly welcomes the scraps from algorithmic table.

From the post, we can see more of Google’s desire for quality in listings, and the importance of the content, linking and user-directed results in order to rank well. As search advances, it’s getting harder and harder to “game” the system, so long-term results are best based on the guidelines and philosophies of the most important rule-maker.

As usual, to check this out in full, head over to the Official Google Blog.

In this webinar, Avinash will cover three specific areas you need to focus on to get the highest possible ROI from you Web Analytics investment, including:

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