WebProNews - Andy Beal

Google Ditches PageRank in Webmaster Tools

Chris Crum — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:23:03 +0000

Google has quietly gotten rid of PageRank in Webmaster Tools. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points to a thread featuring an explanation from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa.

"We've been telling people for a long time that they shouldn't focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it's the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true," says Moskwa. "We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it."

Search marketers are wondering why Google tells people not to focus on PageRank and removes it from Webmaster Tools, but still keeps it in the Google Toolbar. "Back in 2007, Google wanted feedback on removing PageRank from the Toolbar," says Schwartz. "I felt it was a good idea but the idea died out. Google cannot remove PageRank from the Toolbar, it is too much of their branding. No matter how much Matt Cutts and the Google search quality and webmaster trends team want it removed, I cannot see Google's executives allowing it."

Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim says the role of PageRank has been reduced to nothing more than a "comfort blanket for SEO Noobs." He adds, "I say this, with a high degree of confidence that most experienced SEOs pour over the data in Google Webmaster Tools, whereas those new to the industry likely let the toolbar be their only guiding light."

He also notes, however, that PageRank data can still be useful. For example, it can be a good indicator of a site's behavior in Google's index. "Any green means 'go.' No green, means there's something to investigate," says Beal.

Despite this usefulness though, Moskwa pretty much closes the case on Google's position on it. In fact, she even points to a FAQ page about crawling, indexing, and ranking, which says that webmasters shouldn't even bother thinking about it. It also says that PageRank is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed, and ranked.

What are your thoughts on PageRank? Discuss below.

Online Reputation Management in the Future

Chris Crum — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:31:34 +0000

There is no question that people are putting a lot more of themselves out there online these days with the rise of social media. At this point, it seems that generations will be born into this lifestyle. Who knows what other tools/services will be popular in the future?

Right now, online reputation management is critical, and social media has certainly made this both easier to manage, but also easier to dismantle at the same time. A question that has bounced around in my mind on occasion for quite some time has been - will we ever get to a point when reputation management actually becomes less of an issue, simply because the web is so saturated with everybody's dealings (many of which are bound to be negative by today's standards)?

I'm thinking about this more from the perspective of the individual rather than the brand. I think about kids in particular that don't necessarily consider the potential consequences of posting questionable things online. At what point (if any) will employers, schools, etc. accept the fact that questionable material is simply the norm, and let it have less of an impact on decisions like hiring and admission? What is more likely - this kind of tolerance, or an increased sense of responsibility among people (especially the young)?

I thought it would be interesting to find out what some of the experts in the field think about the subject, so I got in touch with Andy Beal, creator of one of the most popular online reputation management tools - Trackur, as well as Greg Jarboe from SEO-PR, Lee Odden from TopRank Online Marketing, and search marketer Dave Naylor.

Following are some thoughts they shared with me, some of which are actually pretty amusing.

Andy Beal: While I continue to see evidence that any negative Google result can hurt your career prospects, at some point employers may find that every candidate has some kind of skeleton in their closet. If this starts to happen, then we'll likely see employers shrugging-off minor infractions and instead only worrying about those negative events that provide a significant reflection on the candidate's suitability.

Greg Jarboe: We are all living in a digital fish bowl. Anybody and everybody can see what we're doing, or they can find out with a little bit of searching. So, we're had better be doing things that we can explain to our family and friends. It's like living in a small community, where everyone knows who you are. If you rent a video at Blockbuster, your neighbor's kid is working behind the counter and the town gossip is standing behind you in line. So, I'd recommend watching a comedy.

On Kids:

Yes, but they learn about the dangers of that just as quickly as the other dangers that we had to learn about growing up. I'm more concerned with the business executives who don't know what is being said about their company online. Just because they don't know about it doesn't mean it isn't hurting their business.

On Employers/schools/etc.

Maybe a generation from now they [will] be more forgiving, but for the next 20 years, the first thing someone will do is Google you.

It may take a generation before those who are making hiring or admissions decisions remember what was posted about them on Facebook or YouTube when they were younger. In the meantime, imagine that your mother is reading every post you write and watching every move you make. By the way, she already is.

Lee Odden: On the one hand, I do think some of what we consider gray area behavior documented in photos, status updates and even video will not be seen as so controversial as far as personal content on the social web. It makes me think of the contrast of how bands like the Clash or even Elvis seemed so controversial long ago and are quite tame by today's standards.

That is not to say people won't need to mind their social Ps and Qs. Blatant, overt and inappropriate behavior is timeless when there's context. Sticking a French fry in your nose and farting on pepperoni before serving them to a customer, for example, is inappropriate in a timeless sort of way. Holding a drink at a party or mentioning generalities about a wild weekend are not as much of an issue.

Competition to get into a great school or a great job should motivate active social web participants to manage their online reputation in whatever way that will give them an advantage. Those that don't pay attention may find themselves in a timeless search for something better despite loosening standards or more liberal perspectives about what's ok and what crosses the line.

Dave Naylor: I think it could be an issue. I had a parent call me once to see if I could help get her son's comments removed from a public forum. In the heat of a flame war, he left a very out of character comment, which in turn ended up ranking for his name. The kid was about to start looking at which university he was going to apply for, when he had some quite major panic attacks and came clean to his mum.

When I spoke to the kid's mum it was only too evident that both where mortified by one heat of the moment. We all make mistakes in real life but on the net they can stick around forever. Of course these comments didn't after a few emails backwards and forwards.

I tell my kids and other younger family member that once you hit that send button or that picture gets online it's damn hard to remove, so just don't do it. The last thing you need if you are a 16 year girl is appearing on exgfs.com (nsfw) or another site like that. Kids are kids and will make many mistakes! The Internet is not designed to protect them.

It took me weeks to clean up the naked bull riding I did in New Orleans at a conference :)

Wrapping up

There you have it. While nobody can be certain of how the future will go, all we can do is pretty much be careful and educate our children on how to handle themselves online. As for those looking to be the next generation's Elvis, you can probably let the times dictate just how far you can appropriately push the envelope.

I'd like to thank Beal, Jarboe, Odden, and Naylor for their contributions to this article. What do you think about the matter? Do you think employers and schools will become more open-minded about what is considered tolerable online behavior in the future? Discuss this here.

Fighting a Bad Online Reputation & Keeping a Good One

Chris Crum — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:17:55 +0000

In this age of fast-moving information and technologies, it is extremely important for businesses to protect online reputations. Currently, that means getting involved with social media and real-time search.

Real-time search is what it sounds like - searching for what people are saying now. People are talking at places like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. "For corporations (or agencies that work with large clients), such real-time search is growing in importance," Jeremy Pepper who writes for the blog Pop! PR Jots tells WebProNews.

"It gives companies the opportunity to see trends, and potential issues, in a way that is faster than ever before," he explains. "One of the key things, though, is how to judge the "noise" on such venues like Twitter. While everyone is equal on social networks, the amount of followers and following has a great impact on whether one person's complaints will bubble up and become an issue, or if it just someone bitching." (Agree or Disagree?)

It's not just about listening for what others are saying though. If your business doesn't have some kind of presence of its own, it's going to be hard to counter any negative attention it may be receiving. If your business is not actively involved in the conversation, your reputation will be left up to what others say about it.

"Quite literally, 'You ARE what you publish,'" says David M. Scott, author of the books World Wide Rave and the best-selling The New Rules of Marketing and PR. "What I mean by that is whatever your company publishes online (and what others publish about you) IS your reputation. So if you are not in the social media sites, you don't exist. But others are talking about you."

"Real time search is essential for businesses to understand. People are talking about you, your products, and your people right now and you need to know what they are saying," says Scott. "When something is being discussed about your company on Twitter, or blogs, or forums and a big customer calls you or the Wall Street Journal calls the CEO, 'Huh?' is not a savvy answer."

Real-time search is only lately starting to get a massive amount of attention as people realize that the web has turned much more into a web of conversation. What is being said right now is important because more and more people are engaging in these conversations when they sign up for social networks like Facebook or Twitter.

Google and other search engines are certainly still important factors as well. Google will crawl some sites and blogs as often as every 30 minutes, give or take. These are generally the sites that are updated frequently. That's not exactly real-time, but close enough to not ignore. Just because you Googled your business last month and everything looked fine does not mean the same could be said today.

Another thing to take into consideration is that any blogger or journalist that has a negative opinion about your product or your business in general can easily end up ranking high in search engines (particularly news search) based on the authority that the search engines have deemed them worthy of holding. Even if their information is inaccurate, they can have large readerships and lots of links, and your reputation can quickly spiral out of control.

So what are some ways to deal with this?

- Luckily blog posts/articles often have comments sections where you can attempt to clear your name

- Good old-fashioned SEO tactics - you can try to optimize your own positive stuff for what your negative attention is ranking for. The good news about this is that unless someone has a personal vendetta against you, they will probably not dwell on your business like you would, so in time negative results can possibly be overcome.

- Depending on the case, you can try contacting webmasters or bloggers about removing things if you think you can give them good reason to do so. Don't bother asking Google. They will not remove content.

It's best to nip these things in the bud though, before they get too out of control. This is a very good reason why real-time search will come in handy.

Twitter has recently brought its search feature to the home page, making it more accessible not only for you to monitor what people are saying, but for other people (like potential customers) to see what others are saying about you. It's best to catch things before they do (obviously).

"Twitter is one of the most important channels for any business to monitor," says Andy Beal, creator of the Trackur online reputation management tool and co-author of the book Radically Transparent. "With Twitter Search businesses can listen for almost real-time discussions of their brand and take swift action. As Motrin discovered, Twitter is the place where angst (and complaints) rears its ugly head, develops into a movement, and quickly migrates to blogs and other social media."

Tools

There are plenty of tools around that can be used by companies to help manage their online reputations. There is Beal's own Trackur, which keeps track of blogs, news sites, images, and videos. There is a nice list of tools in this article from John Jantsch.

Search is going to be your best friend though. For users of Mozilla's Firefox browser, there is a great extension that lets you add any search engine you like to your search box in the top right-hand corner of your browser. You can add Twitter, Facebook, WhosTalkin.com, etc. and have a nice list of search engines to monitor at any given time. WhosTalkin.com by the way is another useful real-time search tool worth taking a look at.

The Wrap-Up

Online reputation management is often focused on from the perspective of the individual. There is good reason for that too, as plenty of jobs have been lost (or never gotten in the first place) based on what managers have found online about individuals. Mahalo certainly could've been spared a big PR disaster had it known the online reputation of one of its employees. Fortunately for that employee (unfortunately for Mahalo), they didn't search for his name on Google.

But PR disaster is much more likely to strike when the business itself does not monitor its reputation. Tools are there for you to use. Don't ignore them. Otherwise, it might be your company somebody tweets about having a poor product, leading to all of their followers seeing the negativity and possibly blogging about it which can then be linked to, and so on and so forth. I don't think you want to go down that road. Just watch yourself.

>>> Got more tips for keeping your online reputation positive?

Share them with the rest of us.

... Attention WebProNews Readers:

- Tell us about your bad experiences.
- Has your reputation been tarnished unfairly?

Comment here...

What Will Google SERP Changes Mean for Reputation Management?

Chris Crum — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:21:20 +0000

Some say ranking is dead. Google's going though changes that may turn SEO on its ear. Google's Matt Cutts talked about some of these changes with WebProNews not too long ago. "I'm not sure I would say ranking is dead but it's not as important as it used to be," he said.

Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) are going to get a lot more personalized moving into the future. It's already started, but will continue to become increasingly noticeable. This raises some questions not only about SEO and ranking, but how one manages their online reputation. The fact that different people will be seeing different results in a search for your name or your company's name is going to throw a few forks in the spokes of the online reputation management process.

SearchWiki

Google recently launched SearchWiki, a way for Google users to rearrange their own search results and vote specific results up or down, leave comments, etc. This is one element of personalized search that has some industry professionals a little worried.

"I'd say that the most significant thing to happen in the search industry in 2008 was the advent of more personalized search, and even more so, the new addition of SearchWiki showing up in Google," High Rankings CEO Jill Whalen recently told me. "It's too soon to really know what will happen with that, but my guess is that it will cause some reputation management nightmares for many companies."

It's going to affect how marketers help their own clients maintain positive reputations as well. WebProNews Blog Partner Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim, who created the online reputation-monitoring tool Trackur, talked a little about this with me.

"It's certainly something to be concerned about--especially when you consider that Google hasn't placed much constraint on its use," he explains. "For example, what's to stop a competitor's employees from littering SearchWiki with negative 'reviews' about your business? How will that be policed? Google has indicated that SearchWiki data may be included in the regular algorithm in the future, but has been somewhat vague about how companies can address falsely posted comments."

The future isn't necessarily all bad for reputation management though.

"On the other side of the coin, we have Google's plans to further personalize search results based upon an individuals preferences and search history," Beal tells me. "I'm intrigued by a number of possibilities here, not all of which are negative."

"First, one web site's 'vote down' is another's 'vote up,'" he explains. "Think about it. OK, so a user could vote down your web listing, but they could just as easily vote down your competitor. Now, instead of spending endless nights worrying about how to move from #2 on Google to #1, your target customer just did the job for you--albeit confined to their search browser only."

"Secondly, let's go with the worst case scenario and assume that a user voted down your listing in Google," Beal continues. "They would have done that anyway! OK, so now they have the option to actually vote you off the Google 'island' but prior to this feature, they were mentally excluding you anyway--so you've not lost much."

As has become popular opinion of where Internet marketing will go as a result of Google's changes, people are going to have to start worrying less about where their site is ranked in Google, and more about analytics, and how their site is presented.

"Businesses will finally realize the vital importance of not just 'ranking' but also displaying a compelling TITLE and description/snippet," Beal says. "If a searcher's finger is hovering over the voting buttons, you want to make sure that your listing is enticing and engaging. A TITLE stuffed with keywords might get you to #3 in Google, but if the guy at #8 has a really engaging offer in his TITLE--you get voted down, he gets voted up."

The truth of the matter is, nobody really knows for sure what new online reputation management strategies are going to have be implemented when things like intent-based search and personalization become the everyday norm. I would venture to say however, that Internet marketers are going to need to be savvy in the reputation management area. Perhaps more so than traditional SEO. We'll see where it goes.

Internet Summit '08

Jim Tobin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:07:02 +0000

If you live in the Southeastern United States, you’re going to want to pencil in Internet Summit ‘08 in Chapel Hill, NC on November 19, 2008.

Tech Journal South is putting it on the event, and they’ve attracted quite the list of speakers, including the founders of ConnectU (the guys that sued Facebook, saying it was their idea), people from Microsoft, Lenovo, Citrix, Lulu, Weblogs, Lending Tree, Batanga and more.

Some social media types are speaking, including our friend Andy Beal over at Marketing Pilgrim. I’ll be moderating the panel on “Marketing in a 2.0. World,” but heck I’m really just excited to be going to the event. Seems like a really solid one. In fact, when I saw the agenda, I knew that Ignite Social Media had to become a platinum sponsor.

Head over to Internet Summit 08 to learn more, or click here to register. If you register before October 10th, you’ll save $100 off the walk-up fee.

Hope to see you there. If you’re interested, here’s the complete list of speakers so far:
– Bob Young - Founder & CEO, Lulu.com; Co-founder, Red Hat
– Divya Narendra, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss - Founders ofConnectU.com, the idea behind Facebook
– David Churbuck - VP of Global Web Marketing, Lenovo
– Cliff Reeves - Emerging Business Team, Microsoft
– Andy Beal - Founder, Trackur/Internet Marketing Pilgrim Blog
– Brad Hill - Director, Weblogs - A division of AOL
– Jordan Glogau - Search Marketing Director, 1-800-Flowers.com
– Mark Rostick - Managing Director, Intel Capital
– Scot Wingo - President & CEO, ChannelAdvisor
– Reggie Bradford - Founder & CEO, Vitrue
– Jud Bowman - President & CEO, PocketGear
– Stephen Wiehe - President and CEO, SciQuest
– Brian Handly - Sr VP, Atlas/Microsoft Advertising
– Michael Cristinziano - VP Strategic Development, Citrix Systems
– Duke Chung - CEO & President, Parature
– Ryan Allis - CEO & Co-founder, iContact
– Jason Caplain - General Partner, Southern Capitol Ventures
– Ben Weinberger - CEO, Digitalsmiths Corporation
– Igor Jablokov - CEO & Co-founder, Yap
– Troy McConnell - President & COO, Batanga
– Joan Siefert Rose - President, Council for EntrepreneurialDevelopment
– Greg Foster - Noro-Moseley Partners
– Lee Prevost - President & Founder, SchoolDude.com
– Travis Janovich - CEO, eTix
– Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. - President and CEO, RushmoreDrive
– Mike Doernberg - CEO, Reverb Nation
– Jason Trevisan - Polaris Ventures
– Scott W. Devitt - Managing Director, Stifel Nicolaus
– Brooks Bell - President, Brooks Bell Interactive
– Jim Tobin - President, Ignite Social Media
– Keith Moore - VP and General Manager, LendingTree

Comments

Managing Your Google Reputation

Andy Beal — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:57:54 +0000

More signs that online reputation management is becoming mainstream? Mainstream media, namely ABC News, decides to take a look at the importance of managing your Google reputation.

I was excited to appear on the nationally broadcast America This Morning show. You can view the edited video online at the ABC News web site.

Comments

SMX West: Managing Your Online Rep

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:35:47 +0000

Managing your organization's online reputation is no easy feat. It takes a lot of organization and keen eye for strategy. There are lots of people, in-house and out, that are talking. Marketing Pilgrim's Andy Beal has some tips for knowing who's saying what about you.

(Coverage of the SMX West Conference continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Beal was up first at the Reputation Monitoring & Management Through Search track at the SMX West Conference. First order of business: tell them about trackur.com, Beal's online reputation management tool released this week. “The online reputation management space is still in it's infancy," he said.

Beal then got down to stats and pointers. He said 52% of individuals put their trust in what others say about your brand, and 83% of companies will face a reputation crisis that can impact their share value by 20-30%. Besides protecting your company from negative developments, reputation management has other benefits. Monitoring can keep you abreast of industry trends, and can help with new product development.

Andy says there are two very important sources to watch out there on the Web: competitor's blogs and employee blogs. This can be done via trackur, of course, but also with Moreover, Yahoo News and Google News. He says mainstream news like Google News will give you a good overview of 70-75% of discussions about your business.

Utilize RSS feeds to monitor news buzz and company-related mentions on sites like Digg.com, Technorati, and boardtracker.com for online forums. Keep track of bookmark sites like del.icio.us, search on Flickr, and Google Video.

Monitor tags with keotags.com, and track other social sites like Wikipedia, Amazon reviews. Sign up for Google News alerts with the keywords you want to keep tabs on. Terraminds.com help keep track of Twitters.

7 Questions About Professional Blogging

WebProNews Staff — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:09:38 +0000

At PubCon in Las Vegas, the Search and Blogging Reporters Forum fielded questions about an array of topics, from blogging to SEO, to videos and RSS feeds.

Blogger Reporter Panel

The expert panel consisted of SEOMoz's Rand Fishkin, Marketing Pilgrim's Andy Beal, TopRankResults' Lee Odden, and WebProNews Managing Editor Mike McDonald.

On Blogging vs. Journalism:

The panel saw little difference between blogging and journalism. Even if journalists criticize bloggers for not always getting the story right, members of the panel were quick to point out that the mainstream media often makes mistakes as well. For a newspaper, this is handled via a correction box.

On Starting an SEO Blog to Promote Yourself:

Rand and Lee agreed that people trying to break into the SEO industry tend to get a little too open with their blogs. Though the idea of a blog is to showcase your skills, you don't want to give away the cow. Andy disagrees. "Personally, I don't hold anything back," he said.

On Whether a Blog Should Mix Business and Personal Elements

Andy uses Robert Scoble as an example, who blogs about both personal and business topics. "I don't think there is a certain rule you have to follow. But I would recommend separating them." Beal says to be consistent; if you start out as business only, stay business only.

Lee recommends having multiple RSS feeds, one for personal posts and one for business posts.

Corporate blogs done right can get more links and traffic than personal ones, but nothing says people within the company can't have personal blogs linked to from the main page.

On Using Full or Partial RSS Feeds

The panel was split on this subject. On the one hand, a full RSS feed can help more people to be aware of you and your content without them having to visit the site. But a partial feed helps ensure more people visit your site, so it may depend on what your goals are.

On Videos:

Rand says people aren't consuming as much video as they are text, as it's more difficult to access video from a mobile phone or without headphones at work. The interaction video provides, however, is good for branding.

Lee says videos are very good at drawing attention and creating relationships with other people.

Mike says that video can be complicated or simple. It depends on the amount of time and effort you want to put into it. Editing is the hardest part, with the audio, rendering, etc. He agrees video also helps the branding aspect, as long as your icon or logo are there to remind people where the video came from.

On the Pitfalls of Bloggers Taking on Advertisers:

Rand said, "I felt like taking on the advertising was hurting my ability to write about those companies. It is very effective to monetize blogs, but you have to have the audience first.

Andy advises that bloggers have a disclosure policy for readers, and that they should let advertisers know there is a line between editorials and advertisers. He recommends charging on a flat-rate basis. There are no expectations of set numbers of impressions or click-throughs.

On How Many Social Media Buttons Are Needed:

The panel recommends beginning with an array of social media buttons, measuring to see which ones are most popular and then narrowing them down. People will become blind to them after a while, so one tactic to combat them is to put them up only every so often so that people will pay more attention. Or, you could add a button when traffic starts to pick up for a specific article.

Insiders Say Market Is Bullish, Not Bubbly

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:48:05 +0000

Maybe it's not best to ask online players if online properties are overvalued. But the general consensus, save for an occasional cautious voice, seems to be that the market is bullish, not bubbled. Rational, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter.

Insiders Say Market Is Bullish, Not Bubbly

When I was in Japan, I was told not to translate yen into dollars – it would only make me angry at the price of everything. Maybe that's the type of rationality we need here, as comparing company valuations and revenues will drive you batty.

Don't, for example, look at these numbers and balk:

Facebook, if moderately bubbly, is worth $15 billion, roughly half the value of Yahoo, with 32 times less revenue. If out-of-your-mind bubbly, Facebook is worth $100 billion, half the value of Google (and possibly a Google killer – if such a thing could exist), which is worth more than IBM, which pulls in eight times the revenue of Google.

And that makes MySpace, with a large nation's worth of membership and soon-to-be open platform, worth how much? More than $580 million, for sure…as much as Google?

It's hard to argue that Google isn't worth it – well, maybe not the $14 trillion suggested in some circles. Google is in position to bust more than a few lucrative blocks, encroaching on the turfs of the AT&Ts and Verizons of the world.

But a website with questionable revenue and no immediate plans to file an IPO, much less the ability to take over the known world like Google is doing?

Don't answer that. Too speculative.

The valuations, some say, are based more on low overhead and valuable audiences rather than revenue. Reaching those audiences, especially younger ones, at little cost, is what drives the inflation…er, not inflation…value.

"From an advertising perspective, brand budgets are increasing every year and new platforms are rapidly emerging to reach the young demographic that can't be reached through conventional channels," said Chris Redlitz, vice president of sales and marketing for Skyrider, a P2P monetization startup.

"Blogs, social networks, mobile, gaming, video and peer to peer networks are new channels that reach the Gen Y demographic, and this is generating a significant amount of investment."

Redlitz joins a rather loud chorus of people saying this isn't 1999 all over again, that this time it's different. A critic is quick to note that this like when an addict denies his denial, or a teenager swears it's a love that lasts forever. Nevertheless, the players move ahead.

"I don't think this is a bubble," agrees Andy Beal, editor of Marketing Pilgrim. "In 1999, companies were throwing around money they didn't really have. Likewise, IPOs seemed to happen every day, with some wild valuations. This time around, there are solid companies making the deals, giving us a solid platform for continued increased value."

Both assessments are matched even by the mayor of Mountain View, Laura Macias, who presides over the heart of the madness where hundreds of tech startups have opened up shop just down the road from the Googleplex. On Tuesday, Macias confirmed that the climate is different this time around, saying there's "more substance to [these companies'] products."

And maybe so. Maybe 1999 really was the teenage romance that went kaput as soon as college began and the real world settled around us. Maybe (though it's hard not to doubt) this is the mature romance we learn to have later (shh, no cracks about the divorce rate, ok?).

The only thing that settles it is time – or a harsh morning sobriety – but until then, Silicon Valley parties on.

If It Looks Like An Ad They Ignore It

WebProNews Staff — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:15:25 +0000

If you were specifically looking for the population of the United States, you'd notice the big red numbers in the upper right corner of the US Census Bureau homepage right? Not so fast. A recent eye-tracking study suggests you've been trained to ignore things like that.

If It Looks Like An Ad They Ignore It

Editor's Note: Studies are great and all, but sometimes real-world examples are more powerful. Have you recently redesigned your site and seen drastic results? Let us know how you did that in the comments section.

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen, who's been studying how people interact with webpages since there were webpages to interact with, follows up on previous explorations to show once again that people not only ignore content that looks like advertising, but need things plainly spelled out for them.

The task was simple enough: find the country's current population. Nielsen even gave them the website to use. But 86 percent of users failed to find the answer even though it was displayed in large red letters in plain sight.

"Users tend to ignore heavily formatted areas because they look like advertisements. Thus, about 1/3 of users never even saw the Population Clock. However, most people did fixate on this area because it's not as overly formatted as most promotional features. So, most users saw the Population Clock; they just didn't use it, even though it contained the exact information they were looking for."

Okay, so a third doesn't exactly make up 86 percent. Why did the others fail when, in my grandmother's language, if it was a snake it woulda bit them? There are many reasons, but a large chunk of it, says Nielsen, lies in the language.

Most users scanned the big red number U.S. 302, 781, 150, as of today, but only made it to 302 before skipping off to the search box labeled "Population Finder" or some other area. (Or in one case, a man after my own heart, frustrated with poor site search, said "forget it, I'm going to Google.")

The big red number was labeled "Population Clocks," which isn't exactly an intuitive label. It sounds more related to time than it does to number of people. It's a classic case of leveraging core competencies rather than using your strengths. As users didn't automatically grasp what a population clock was, they skipped it.

The suggestion here then is that a simpler label of "Current US Population" would have worked much better, giving the user what the user expects, which is the end goal.

Andy Beal, editor and Internet marketing consultant for MarketingPilgrim.com has another take on it, which might make sense to you. Users may have taught themselves not just the look and feel of advertising, but also the location of advertising.

"The study demonstrates that it's not just paid ads users are filtering from web sites, but areas that might contain ads. Web users are conditioned to focus on the main area of a web site, when looking for meaningful information.

"They've been taught that the areas to the left or right are typically reserved for navigation or advertisements. As Neilsen suggests, it's important to make sure important information is located in the area of the web page users expect to find it."

Yahoo Maps Gets Upgraded

Doug Caverly — Wed, 16 May 2007 16:24:18 +0000

Ah . . . the wonderful world of maps. Only Yahoo’s making it more of “a world” (as opposed to just “an America”), and is also making some other improvements - 34 European countries, a pinch of accuracy, and a dash of speed have been added to Yahoo Maps.

Those last two changes are due to a new software platform, developed in-house at the search engine company, according to InfoWorld’s Juan Carlos Perez. “Yahoo has been using mapping technology from deCarta for over five years,” his report states, but the fresh technology “will perform better, offer more precise results and make backend upgrades easier to implement.”

Just about everyone (who uses Yahoo Maps, that is) should benefit from those changes. A rather smaller percentage of people will use the driving directions tailored to the 34 European countries.

Still, as a bigmouthmedia article explains, Yahoo is implementing its mapping services wherever it can, “having most recently updated Yahoo! Maps India, in order to gain back market share that has been lost to AOL’s MapQuest service and Google Maps.” Europe was a logical next step.

Well . . . logical to some. Marketing Pilgrim’s Andy Beal panned all of the upgrades, joking, “How dare they, I know exactly how to drive around Europe.” Beal’s steps included:

1. Get in car.
2. Point car west.
3. Keep driving until you find German beer.
4. Stop.

Actually, as long as your point of origin isn’t Nantes, France, I think those directions’ll do just fine.

Bloggers Doubt Proposed Code of Conduct

WebProNews Staff — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:57:30 +0000

Blogging was never really a genteel medium. It's raw, uncensored, no posts barred. Until the chaotic nebula condensed and started emitting death threats, nobody, except lawyers, really had a problem with it.

The Kathy Sierra saga made its way to CNN and to the New York Times. Celebrity blogger Robert Scoble boycotted blogging for a week. And Tim O'Reilly had a Jerry Maguire moment and drafted the first unofficial Blogging Code of Conduct.

Let the debate begin. After it has begun, begin to wonder who's going to enforce this. Assertions that there can be any sort of policing of the blogosphere is Pollyanna at best. And even if it could be accomplished, we ask again: "Who watches the watchmen?"

Just like in Monty Python and The Holy Grail, the sound of coconut hooves sally up to the Gallic watchmen who warn of twice-taunting. Would a Blogger Code of Conduct really amount to anything more than that?

In our WebProNews Video, Nicole chats with bloggers Andy Steggles, Robert Scoble, and Andy Beal, all of whom seem to have their doubts about O'Reilly's proposal. A Code of Conduct is "not going to be any use," "too limiting," and "will stifle the growth" of the blogosphere.

What To Look For In An SEO

Dave Davies — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 15:57:51 +0000

It's been about two years now that I have wanted to write this article. Why haven't I until now?

Conflict of interest. Until recently I'd have been motivated by that necessary evil … getting business. Each time I started writing this article I subconsciously asked myself, "How can I spin this towards Beanstalk?" You can't really begrudge me this. Such is the "curse" of living in a capitalist society. Recently however we have put a hold on taking in new SEO clients. The result: consistent questions regarding who people should choose and what they should look for. And so to kill two birds with one stone, I write this now. The first bird killed is my frustration at not being able to properly write a useful article on what to look for in an SEO without bias. The second bird killed is my wasted time outlining over-and-over what people should seek out. Now I can simply point them to this article.

You've read this far so you're obviously interested in finding out what you should look for in an SEO and what you might want to avoid. So let's get right to it shall we?

Can They Rank Their Own Site?

The first thing you should look for when hiring an SEO is whether or not they can rank their own website. This may seem obvious enough but I can't count the number of times I have heard from people attracted to Beanstalk's guarantee because they wasted both time and money on an SEO firm that couldn't (or didn't) get the job done. Too often when I take a look at the SEO's website and research their targeted phrases (usually pretty obvious when you look at the title and heading tags) I find that they don't even rank for their own phrases.

This is clearly a big strike three (in this case I wouldn't even give the SEO firm a strike one or two). The only exception to this rule is if they are running a new company or website and have a proven track record from the past which can be used as their reference. In this case any consideration would require research into the individual, company, and circumstances. A good example would be Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim. Prior to starting Marketing Pilgrim he had been involved with two other SEO firms. When MarketingPilgrim.com started it didn't rank well. He was still a great SEO consultant with a solid track record of success.

What Do They Promise?

If you have a new site or a site in a high competition area and you are told that the company can get you great rankings on Google in 60 days they're either just telling you what they think will make you sign on the dotted line or they have no idea what they're doing. In either event you're in for disappointment.

An honest and straight-forward SEO will give you realistic expectations which will generally span over many months and sometimes over years depending on the scope and competition levels involved. If you have a new site competing for moderately competitive phrases, any claims from a company that they will have you ranking on Google in anything less than 5 or 6 months (and even this may be optimistic) are likely untrue.

What Do They Include?

Asking your prospective SEO company what they'll be including with their services is a perfectly fair question. You don't need a full breakdown of each and every specific (nor are you likely paying your SEO for this) however understanding what areas of the site will be changed, how the link building will be undertaken and the over-riding philosophy or approach your prospective SEO company will be taking are good questions to have answered.

If something doesn't seem right in what you're being told, ask in one of the many great SEO forums (see below).

How Are They Backing Their Services?

In one way or another, any good SEO company will be able to back up what they're offering. When we first started Beanstalk we decided that we were going to do this with a guarantee. Not all companies go this route and there are many excellent SEO's and firms that provide great services without a guarantee but all such companies will be able to back their work.

To be clear, I know of many good SEO firms that don't offer guarantees and I also know some that do offer guarantees but don't do a very good job. My purpose here however is not to point fingers but rather to point out what you should look for and how to be able to tell the good from the bad. If the company offers a guarantee, what is it? I've seen a few "we guarantee you'll be satisfied" statements out there with no qualification as to what "satisfied" means and what will happen if you're not. If the person or company doesn't have a guarantee then what do they have under their belt in the way of reputation? If a company isn't putting their money where their mouth is they should have a very good reputation if they want your consideration. Are they well published or active in the SEO forums? Are they active in the SEO community in a public fashion such as speaking roles or SEO community memberships? If they are then they have a reputation to protect and they will be backing every contract with their reputation. This won't help you recover the money you've spent if you don't get the results you're looking for but what it will do is insure that you're hiring an SEO who is motivated towards your success.

What Are Some Major Warning Signs That You're On The Wrong Track?

This term "warning signs" might be better put "red flags" as the tactics noted here are ones that should send you immediately looking for a new SEO. Prepare to say, "Thank you but no." if you hear any of the following among their list of recommendations (and note: there are more than those listed – but these are some of the more common that I've seen and heard lately):

Say goodbye if you hear an SEO recommend that you build multiple website either as a linking tool by linking them together, or because it's easier to optimize a different site for a different engine. Unless you have two-or-more incompatible topics (a work site and a personal blog for example) you have no need for more than one site. And as a link building tactic it hasn't worked in a good number of years.

If your SEO is using any kind of tool to automatically generate content of any kind it's time to shake hands and be done.

If your SEO is not doing link building of some type and yet is telling you they can get you rankings for anything but the lowest competition phrases you might not need to run but you definitely need them to justify what they're saying. If you have a 6 year old site with a lot of good links already but there are some onsite issues that keep it from ranking then they may be telling the truth. If you have a new site and/or low link counts then they are not.

It seems obvious but I have to mention it anyways, if they're recommending the use of any black-hat tactics then you're in trouble. I can't possibly list off everything that fits this category but a quick read of Google's webmaster guidelines should help. If you read these guidelines and some of the tactics seems amiss, questioning your SEO is completely justified. You can find some great examples and information on black hat SEO on the Wikipedia site at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-hat_SEO.

Advertises that they will "Submit your website to 18 billion search engines for just $x" or mention top rankings on engines you have barely heard of is a clear issue. There are a lot of search engine out there and in fact, there are a lot of pretty unique engines with some great offerings however when it comes down to brass tacks – there are four engines that matter when it comes to traffic (at least from a universally-applicable standpoint). If an SEO is promising you great rankings on an engine like Dogpile with their whopping 0.5% of the search engine market share you may want to ask what they can do about the 91.8% of the search engine market share that's controlled by the top 4 search engines (47.9% Google, 28.1% Yahoo!, 10.6% Microsoft and 5.2% Ask).

The Conclusion

I've tried to Coles-notes above some of the main issues that I see and hear complaints about and/or get questions on regularly. Of course there are many more. The best advice I can give is don't rush into a decision when you're choosing your SEO firm. Listen to what they're saying, ask questions and if you don't know what questions to ask take a few hours to find out on one of the many great SEO forums out there. As I don't want to leave anyone out by listing off some of the ones I visit (and I couldn't possibly include them all) I'll just recommend to search for "seo forum" and "seo blog" and visit some of the sites and ask what you should be asking. A company called Medium Blue, who's owner I had the pleasure of chatting with on Webmaster Radio a couple weeks prior to this article's publication, wrote a 3-part series of questions to ask your potential SEO firm. You can find the first part here (and find the others from there).

And one final note, it isn't always about the fees they charge. We've had a number of clients come back to us after first opting to sign with a cheaper SEO firm. In the end it cost them the lower fees and lost sales due to not ranking sooner. This is not to say that the most expensive firm will necessarily do the best job – just that you need to be aware that sometimes things can be "too good to be true". An SEO firm charging $500 will almost always be putting in different efforts than one charging $5,000. Find out what the differences are and do what's right for your business. And if you're really in doubt and don't know what to do, contact us. Even when we're not taking on clients I try to answer questions about choosing an SEO firm though it might take a couple days. Please specify in the title, "Need help choosing an SEO firm".

And good luck with your online promotions.

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