var ua = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
if(ua.indexOf('google web preview') == -1){
showContent();// whatever content you want to hide from Preview Bot
}


The above wont run showCntent() to Google’s PreviewBot. Why might you want to do this? Well I like to run surveys on some sites to gather qualitative feedback. I tend to use 4QSurvey.com for this (free, easy to set up, and gives great insight). The last thing you want is PreviewBot showing your website with the lightbox questionnaire, so it’s easy to block out. This is the code I use to load 4QSurvey asynchornously:


<script type="text/javascript">
(function(){
var UA = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
if(UA.indexOf('google web preview') == -1){
var survey=document.createElement('script');
survey.src = "http://4qinvite.4q.iperceptions.com/1.aspx?sdfc=[your code]&lID=1&loc=4Q-WEB2";
survey.type = 'text/javascript';
survey.async = true;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(survey, s);
}
})();
</script>


The above will not block loading, and ensure PreviewBot doesn’t show a site preview with pop-up. To learn more about PreviewBot see Google’s Web Preview docs. The UA used for PreviewBot is “Google Web Preview (Mozilla/5.0 (en-us) AppleWebKit/525.13 (KHTML, like Gecko; Google Web Preview) Version/3.1 Safari/525.13)”.

Want to read more?

1. Even The Big Guys Can Get It Wrong
2. Google Desktop Introduces Plus Box Previews
3. Gucci places faith in Scriptaculous over Flash

Advanced SEO Course

I’ll be instructing an Advanced SEO Course for the Digital Marketing Institute this coming week, on Wednesday and Thursday 7-8 of July. The course is the first of its kind here in Ireland (to the best of my knowledge, but I’ll be very happy to be corrected), in that it will cover advanced SEO and is targeted at established SEO folk. It will take place in the Radisson BLU, Golden Lane, Dublin 8.

What Will We Cover?

I’m working on the content, but I’ll likely focus on advanced on-site SEO, with some time set aside to look at Conversion Rate Optimisation. My co-instructor John Ring will take the reigns for the first morning, and I’ll be instructing for the first afternoon and all of the second day (I hope I wont bore the attendess to death mind…).

Small Group, Lots of Interaction

I expect the group to be no more than 8-10 students, so we should get tonnes of interaction, and be able to take time out to address issues and questions that the students have. With a small group like this you can never know where things might lead, but my overall focus will be on sending attendees away with knowledge they can apply to their own sites which will generate tangible returns.

Places Still Available

I haven’t checked-in in a few days, but there were still a couple of places available. I realise the course is not cheap, but I’m working on delivering value for the price. If you’re interested please call the DMI at 01 271 1888. You can also contact them via their website.

Finally

Given that I’ve written on my blog for the first time in many months, I’d like to keep going. If there are any topics of interest to you I’d love to hear from about them. I’ve been toying with writing a very in-depth post about geotargeting and localisation, as this is one area I’ve been working a lot, and there seems to be a vacuum online when it comes to finding reliable info about this topic. Anyhows, any and all ideas are welcome.

Want to read more?

1. Website Architecture – Digital Marketing Institute
2. Free SEO Course
3. Search Marketing World 2007, ShareIT Cork, and A Few Other Pieces of Irish SEO News

Irish Travel Agent Websites

Good CRM and Customer Reviews Should be Friends

Looking through many of the Irish travel sites I visited the first thing that struck me was the lack of any customer reviews. Reviews are a great way to internally measure business success, and are increasingly being used by buyers to help select destinations. Just look at the popularity of Tripadvisor.

So where does CRM enter the equation. When a customer returns from a holiday how many operators/agents follow up to ask the customer if they enjoyed the trip? Soliciting feedback is a great way to build relationships and continuously improve your business offering. Feedback can also be a great safety valve to identify issues early. Soliciting feedback can also reinforce the belief that the business cares about its customers.

I know that I’d appreciate a quick email follow-up from any travel agent asking me was I happy after consuming their service (and by service I include the consumption of the trip or holiday). Amazon has been successfully following up with every single purchase for as long as I’ve been a customer.

Feedback loops, including online reviews, can easily integrate with CRM systems. Integration can be loose or tight, but the point I hope I’m making is that travel sites could and should think beyond the sale. I recently installed a widget-based review system on an ecommerce site in about 5 minutes flat (excluding QA). While tight CRM integration could add a large overhead, Irish travel sites could offer user reviews without massive investment. (For reference: the review system was LouderVoice for Business)

OPPOTUNITY 1: Travel sites that embrace user reviews, UGC and feedback mechanisms will nurture stronger customer relationships and offer superior user experience to new visitors.

Top Rankings Still Doing Good Business?

I think everyone realises that the travel niche is suffering acutely from out current economic woes. But I imagine high ranking sites are faring better than others. The trends are clear – migration to online channels is only increasing as people search out higher value propositions to offset economic woes.

So I was really quite surprised by how the Irish travel sites were competing in the organic results. Being blunt (many people have told me I’d never make the diplomatic corps) what struck me was the lack of serious SEO. And this struck a particular cord, reminding me of an important lesson – in SEO everything is relative.

You Don’t Have to Beat Best Practice, You Just Need To Beat The Other Guys

I work with a fairly diverse set of clients, most of whom operate in more competitive niches. So I’m used to working on projects that require significant resources (and budget) to see returns. But looking at the online travel niche here in Ireland I’ve concluded that the lack of sophistication is far more prominent than significant competitive forces in the SEPRs.

One of the sites I noticed doing very well for many short-tail travel phrases was gohop.ie. I was interested to see how they achieved their success, and from what I could see this is down to article submissions. Generally I’d consider article submission to be low-level link building, but to GoHop’s credit they rank, and in reality the means are far less important than the ends.

Article Submissions – low level, but effective

OPPOTUNITY 2: SERPs are wide open to a more sophisticated SEO campaign, and I think even a newcomer who embraces high quality content and user interaction can quickly become the online organic leader.

Website Architecture Isn’t Brain Surgery

When designing a good website architecture for both users and search engines it’s important to promote your most important pages. That means building a navigation which tells users, both human and machine, what’s important. Your site-wide navigation tells users more than most other mechanisms, and I have to say that I’m really disappointed to see that one of Ireland’s leading travel agents have commissioned a new website which breaks many of the most basic architecture rules. No names, but it’s also terrible (but unsurprising TBH) to see large agencies churning out such poor websites, and doubly so given that said agency also tout their SEO services on their site. I always wince when I see things like:

<a href="javascript:__doPostBack([...]'')">[... ]</a>

or internal links with 490 character target urls. Things like that aren’t stupid, they’re incompetent.

OPPOTUNITY 3: Non-branded travel-related search terms wont be “owned” by brands as long as they pay huge sums to developers who don’t understand organic search. Small niche players can dominate SERPs while the large brands continue to haemorrhage cash to offline branded advertising.

Cycles Come, Cycles Go…

While current conditions are exceptionally bad for the travel industry, opportunities abound for the group of survivors that compete in the next up cycle. Embracing UGC and interactive feedback loops will increasingly differentiate market leaders from “also-rans”, while user-centric design and content will reduce new prospect acquisition costs and increase customer loyalty.

In my opinion there’s massive upside potential in this online niche, and I hope that the guys from the ITAA course will go on to dominate the online space in times to come. Lastly, thanks to last week’s students for all the great discussions and ideas.

Want to read more?

1. How Would You Let Them Know? Broken Website, and No Email Contact
2. Irish Media, News Websites to Readers – ‘Don’t Read Us’
3. Today I Will Mainly Be Wearing…

Broken Falcon Holidays Page

When I come across problems like this I try to report them to the site owner. It normally only takes a second or two, and I’ve always believed that one good turn begets another. But how do you deal with this when the site in question has no online contact methods:

Online travel agent with no online contact methods

I found this issue on Sunday evening, and given that I’m generally fairly busy during the week I’m unlikely to remember to call them subsequently.

There’s every chance this issue will linger until someone internally notices it. I appreciate that web teams are often under immense pressure, and they don’t want to deal with misdirected customer inquiries, but a simple website feedback email address or form would act as a simple safety valve.

I do also wonder how much other valuable customer feedback (and sales?) Falcon are missing out on by forcing their site visitors users onto the phone?

Want to read more?

1. Irish Travel Websites Leaving Money On The Table
2. VHI.ie – 5 Simple Steps to Improve UX 100%
3. Yahoo Site Explorer – checking your backlinks

So yesterday I was delighted to receive 2 comments on my recent Google Local 7 Pack post. So what’s so odd about that? I’m generally very lucky that people do comment on my posts, but these comments were different:

Richard and everyone else,

Anyone have any ideas how this happened????

http://screencast.com/t/vLQFNIJn

Thanks,

Becky

and:

This might be the answer to my previous question. Do you think this is how it happened?

http://screencast.com/t/uh0iS5eOr

Thanks so much for your thoughts,

Becky

Becky had gone to the trouble of recording her comments as video, and think about this for a moment – how much more fidelity was added to Becky’s question and subsequent answer by using video:

And now Becky’s own response:

It really made my day, firstly becasue I was flattered that anyone would go to so much trouble, but secondly because it opened my eyes to the future – people will be leaving video comments on blogs just as they leave text comments today.

So How Might Google Use Phone Numbers?

Actually the issue Becky raises is very interesting in its own right – there’s a bionic over on the Google Webmaster Support Group called Phil Payne, and one of Phil’s favourite tricks is to look up phone numbers to see where else they’re published (gives some insight into businesses running multiple websites). I had never before considered the impact of phone numbers on local listings, and I think it’s entirely plausible that Becky’s hypothesis above is actually quite correct.

So thanks so much Becky for leaving those video comments – really made my day, and hopefully will help other users out in the future!

Want to read more?

1. Matt Cutts Video Blog
2. More Matt Cutts Video Blogs
3. Google Local Business Center & How to Rank for Local Search

Google SERP Back Button Error

And the text reads:

An error occurred. This page will be reloaded shortly. Or press the “reload” button now to reload it immediately.

Yep, a piece of useless trivia, but it’s been bugging me for ages to know what the message said. Now to figure out if it’s just me seeing a disproportionate number of these messages or is it more widespread?

Want to read more?

1. If You’re Going To Promote Your W3C Credentials…
2. SERP Click Through Rate of Google Search Results – AOL-data.tgz – Want to Know How Many Clicks The #1 Google Position Gets?
3. Golden Spiders are Back – What Should Be Done This Year?

Both John and I had a great time talking with Ralph, and while we really only touched on basic high level issues I think the discussion is useful for any SME considering Organic Search as a marketing channel.

You can listen to the Podcast by visiting this page: Enterprise Ireland SEO Podcast.

If you do listen I’d love to hear any feedback you have, both good and bad.

Want to read more?

1. Enterprise Ireland Podcast – eMarketing
2. Enterprise Ireland Doesn’t Look Too Good
3. Pibasure.ie Looking for a Google Slap?

You can check out the tool here: https://browserlab.adobe.com

Want to read more?

1. Google Global
2. Serious About Keywords? Wordze Coupon Inside
3. Check Website Layout in Multiple Browsers

This is why I’ve tried to tell people that rel=”canonical” is simply a bandaid, and the best solution is prevention not cure – publish content on one, and only one, URL.

Hopefully next year I’ll be in Ireland to attend the 2010 awards.

Want to read more?

1. Realex Irish Web Awards 2009
2. Golden Spider Awards – The Results
3. Irish Web Awards – Nominate Now

• WhoseView
• RTE Player
• myTown.ie
• Talk Irish
• Kildare Street
• Teamwork PM
• Qwitter
• Picomarks
• Short.ie
• Interleado
• AgTweet
• Next Bus
• Collab.ie

So best of luck guys, and enjoy the night. Well done Damien on this – another great night I’m sure it will be (sobs that wont be about to enjoy).

Want to read more?

1. Irish Web Awards (and hello Maryrose!)
2. Best Online Publication – The Irish Times
3. Well Done Kildare Street

Google Local 7 Pack Result Set

I wrote about the various Google local display types in my post How To Rank in Google Local, and I also looked at the result for [pizza dublin] at that time. Interesting to see that Apache have lost their #1 position to an inner page on Four Stars website. Funny, but that SERP is so diverse and full of inner pages that I’m surprised some of the pizza companies aren’t using SEO (if they are they probably should find a real SEO…).

Will be interesting to see if this new 7 Pack stays, and if this heralds the end of the 10 Pack.

Want to read more?

1. Google Local Business Center & How to Rank for Local Search
2. More Sitelink Variations from Google, #3 with Internal Related Forum Threads
3. Google Local One Box Listings Appear – Biggest Change to Irish Search?

Extended snippets beneath related forum sitelinks

This looks like it’s related to extended snippets which Google introduced back in March this year (see post on Extended Snippets). The search query consisted of 6 words, and the main results displayed extended snippets. Quite interesting, and I’m sure click-through rates are quite useful when you get these sitelinks (and the extended screen real estate).

Want to read more?

1. Extended Snippets in Google’s SERPs – Even More Clicks for Top 3?
2. More Sitelink Variations from Google, #3 with Internal Related Forum Threads
3. Google Testing Breadcrumb Navigation Within SERP Results

Want to read more?

1. Matt Cutts Video Blog
2. More Matt Cutts Video Blogs
3. Yet more Video Blogs from Matt Cutts

Yahoo!’s new Irish yahoo.ie homepage

But maybe they haven’t committed 100% yet to their Irish presence:

Yahoo! Ireland Property Section

Lots of Irish finance news (not):

Yahoo! Ireland finance section

But surely they’ll serve up Irish personals (dating)…

Yahoo! Ireland Personals (Dating)

Try entering Dublin as your city and see what they return…. *sigh*

So basically Yahoo! has given us a new Irish homepage to their UK portal. Maybe in another 2 years they may actually include some Irish content… Not holding breath

Want to read more?

1. St. Patrick’s Day Fun – Yahoo! Calls Irish Politicians ‘Snakes’
2. Yahoo! Comes to Ireland (properly)
3. Google News Finds HSE ‘Entertaining’

If you’re not Irish, and your nation ever gets itself into the same sort of mess Ireland now has on its hands it may still be a useful read…

Via Damien.

Want to read more?

1. Search Marketing World 2007, ShareIT Cork, and A Few Other Pieces of Irish SEO News
2. Irish Road Safety

It is a competitive niche, and there is a lot of money to be made over there, so I’m not entirely surprised. Apart from the fact that they could have moved a bit more quietly? I’ve written about conversion optimisation in the insurance niche and car insurance area a few times before.

But in fairness, we had a fantastic 2 threads over on EI board recently:
http://news.enterprise-ireland.com/read/messages?id=17184
http://news.enterprise-ireland.com/read/messages?id=17169

In that second John Ring made a very valid point about buying rankings. It does happen, but sites will also run the risk of doing so. Mick from Voodoo made some great points in the first thread. Both threads well worth reading, and some of the better discussions on EI I’ve seen in a long time.

BTW – I’ve been looking for new Irish blogs to read. Kieran Flanagan’s SearchBrat.com and Leo Fogarty are both worth adding to the reader IMO (Leo reminds me a whole lot of Dave). If anyone know’s of other new Irish guys in SEO/conversion who are blogging I’d love to hear about them.

Want to read more?

1. Google News Finds HSE ‘Entertaining’
2. Another Great Free Online Maketing Offer
3. €15k Conversion Rate Optimisation, Free, No Questions Asked

Want to read more?

1. Internet Video Eating Into TV Time
2. Matt Cutts Video Blog
3. SES London – When is a Link Farm NOT a Link Farm?

This new variation shows 4 sitelinks, together with post date, and most interestingly appears for results other than the #1 position:

4 Sitelinks from related forum posts with post dates for #3 ranked result

The above SERP showed an authoritative local OneBox (learn about local OneBox in my Google Local rankings post), followed by a site at #1 and again indented at #2, and then a thread from www.boards.ie holding #3. This is where it gets interesting – you can clearly see the 4 sitelinks containing links to other related threads with a date. The date is odd, and in some cases predates the original post date as per the forum.

Interesting all the same, and seems like Google are expanding the sitelinks program at this time.

Want to read more?

1. Google Publishing Extended Snippets on Related Forum Post Sitelinks
2. Google Introduces Local 7 Pack, 10 Pack Dead?
3. What is Google’s OneBox, and Will Local Search Ever Land in Ireland?

AA Ireland Car Insurance homepage – Nice, clear design with strong headline, hero shot, bulleted benefits and nice CTAs

Let’s get a quote. Nice strong CTA. Cant miss it. But:

Oops, I forgot to accept a T&Cs challenge, which rather oddly appears after rather than before the main CTA flow

Not a big deal, but I’d hazard quite a few people get that challenge as the checkbox appears after the flow from headline to bullets to main CTA. I should also mention that whenever I see a challenge like this the site I’m visiting always loses a little bit of my “visitor equity”. I’ve written before about a very similar type of negative assurance – negative point of action assurances – which coincidentally was also based on an Irish insurance website.

Anyhow, back on track to get my AA car insurance quote. Step 1:

This is just Step 1? And I don’t even get my quote until Step 4.

What strikes you when you look at the form? What strikes me very quickly is that the AA expects me to invest a lot of time, and a whole lot of commitment, without indicating my benefit from this transaction. The progress indicator tells me I wont see a quote until Step 4, and I’m getting very cold feet at step 1.

Here’s where the negative point of action assurance really kills the deal. My mind turns back to that challenge – Please accept the data protection & privacy policy before getting a quote – which invokes negative apprehensions about my privacy. I’m no longer even considering whether the quote will be good or not. My thoughts have moved from “what if I dont get a good quote?” to “will they spam me for all eternity?“. This increased apprehension is only further aggravated when I go back and actually make the effort to read those T&Cs:

The incredible T&Cs that you must accept before the AA asks you to commit God-knows how much time and energy to see a potentially crap quote.

Smothering Your Prospects Before They Become Leads

When confronted with the AA’s long (unnecessary?) form I managed just 2 fields before bailing. Yep it took just 2 fields to decide that the perceived benefits of this interaction fell massively short of the commitment required. The AA doesn’t need all this data to price the premium, and my “visitor’s mind” now wonders how trustworthy this transaction actually is. Do you trust a company that insists on capturing everything about you without explicitly offering something in return? Will you commit to a transaction before you know what benefit you’ll derive from the transaction? Probably not.

The final nail in the coffin is the onerous legal T&Cs that users must accept before they can even view Step 1. This is what I “hear” – this transaction is all about us, about our terms and conditions, about our lead system, and about us pushing a sale on you later.

That perception might be misplaced, but since there’s no way in hell I’m going to read those T&Cs my next interaction will likely be with a competitor who thinks about me the customer. After all he’s only a click away.

Or Maybe 2 Clicks…

Quinn Direct wont get me either, even though they have 2 steps less than AA:

Quinn Direct are also a little too hot on commitment, and are likely to be spurned

So How Do You Nurture Your Insurance Leads?

In my opinion FBD do a great job of showing the quote without a large upfront commitment from users. They only collect the data required to generate the premium quote, without a requirement that you tell your life story. This one really hit the sweet spot for me:

FBD hit the sweet spot with low commitment, high return

Will FBD get my custom? Maybe, but one thing is for sure – The AA smothered me long before I came close to becoming a lead.

Want to read more?

1. Negative Point Of Action Assurances
2. Can Third Party Cookies Kill Your Sales?
3. IXQuick.com Private Meta Search – a good thing for SEO?

Irish Web Awards Nominations

Quite possibly Ireland’s only real web awards, so don’t miss the opportunity to nominate your favourite websites now!

Want to read more?

1. Irish Web Awards – Nominate Now
2. Irish Blog Awards *cough* *cough*
3. Golden Spiders Awards 2007

Safe Browsing

Google has been directly protecting users from malware since 2006. Their Safe Browsing API is probably best known to Firefox users, and is used by numerous other applications to protect users from malicious websites.

Not Just Sites – Networks Too

Many people don’t realise that Google’s malware detection infrastructure measures infection at network as well as website level. So you can check out how much malware each host’s webservers have been found to host over the past 90 days. Here’s some data for a number of well-known Irish web hosting companies:

Key:
# Tested Number of tested sites
# Infected Number of sites serving malicious software
% % sites serving malicious software
Intermediary Number of sites on network acting as intermediaries for further malware distribution
Distribution Number of sites on network actually distributing malware
Link Link to Safe Browsing Diagnostic page

Some Notes

It’s worth noting that most hacked websites do not host malware, but instead inject code that results in visitors downloading malware from other servers. A significant proportion of the increased malware seen in recent months is likely a result of the gumblar hack.

I had better mention that all I’ve done above is show the stats reported by Google – these figures may be inaccurate, and I’m not inferring anything about the security of the above mentioned hosts. I was unable to find stats for a number of other well known Irish hosters.

Has your site been hacked?

If you’re concerned you can use this URL:
http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=mysite.com
[change mysite.com to your domain without www].

Want to read more?

1. Serious SQL Injection Vulnerability
2. Irish Property Sites Keeping an Eye on Each Other?
3. Irish Sluts – Spammers Knock Mulley Off Number #1

Nominate Here

Red Cardinal is sponsoring the Best New Web Application/Service category, and hopefully we’ll get some great apps nominated.

Yes – I just hotlinked the awards logo

Want to read more?

1. Last Chance Saloon – Web Awards Nominations Close Today
2. Irish Blog Awards *cough* *cough*
3. Irish Web Awards (and hello Maryrose!)

1. Using Chrome head to bing.ie and then select country prefs (click on “Ireland”):
   
   Go to bing.ie (it redirects)
2. Now select “Netherlands”:
   
   Click Netherlands to set your prefs to Holland
3. Now go back to bing.ie via the address bar – your interface should now be localised to Dutch:
   
   bing.ie homepage shows Irish filters localised to Dutch (as expected)
4. Now try any search, and then check out the results page:
   
   Check out the filters – they’re all for Holland, and the results appear to be Dutch

It appears that bing’s cookie handling is a bit wonky with Chrome. When I try the above with other languages the same behaviour is replicated. Trying this in FIrefox produces the desired/expected behaviour – you can view Irish SERP in Dutch-localised interface, unlike above.

Weird bug that probably isn’t affecting too many users, and hopefully the Bing guys will fix this.

Want to read more?

1. Bing.ie Doesn’t Do Google Chrome
2. Sky Handling Partner – Please, Please Lose My Baggage
3. Sky Handling Partner – It just gets better and better (and better)

Not sure of all the ccTLDs added yet, but it does appear that .me was added recently, adding to .tv and a handful of other “vanity” ccTLDs that webmasters can now geotarget away from their origin country.

.ie is still hardwired to Ireland though. More info hopefully direct from the horse’s mouth.

Want to read more?

1. The Future of Google Geotargeting and ‘pages from’ Searches
2. Google Global
3. Overture Keyword Tool Dead, but Wordtracker Saves The Day (and now Trillain jumps on board)

Virgin Atlantic No Cookies Warning

Online Privacy Is A Growing Concern

There’s no doubting that people have become far more conscious of their privacy online. It seems not a day goes by without some news story about how technology often infringes on privacy, and most people take more action these days to protect themselves.

I’ve changed my cookie settings in Google Chrome. I explicitly restrict how third part cookies can be used. I did so after reading Google’s own guidelines on how to opt out of Doubleclick’s tracking cookie:

Third Party Cookie Options In Google Chrome

Virgin Atlantic Sniffing The Wrong Cookie

I assume Virgin Atlantic are sniffing out the Doubleclick Cookie, and because I’ve restricted 3rd party cookies, they seem to think I cant use their website. Of course this would be a reasonable response if I didn’t accept any cookies, but my browser should have no problems using their site to purchase my flight (I doubt the DoubleClick cookie is a show-stopper).

If virgin-atlantic.com checked their own cookies they’d see them alive and well, but right now they’re potential turning customers away, and I imagine losing valuable sales, all because of Doubleclick.

For reference here’s what I get in FF (where Doubleclick still follows me around):

Virgin Atlantic homepage with 3rd party cookies

No better way to kill sales and conversions than by blocking users from accessing your site. Hopefully Virgin-Atlantic.com will fix this ASAP.

Want to read more?

1. When User Agent Sniffing Goes Horribly Wrong
2. Does Google Know Your MSN & Y! Searches?
3. Bing.ie Doesn’t Do Google Chrome

Bing Ireland Homepage in Chrome Browser

But try searching for something using either “Show all” or “Only from Ireland”. Here’s what happens to me:

Bing Ireland redirects to UK

I get redirected onto what looks like UK results. Seems to be a Chrome-specific bug, and it behaves as expected in FF. Interesting all the same, and hopefully Bing will fix this.

bing.com resized window

Hadn’t noticed before, but while on bing.com homepage try resizing the window. Really neat the way they resize the main image area.

Want to read more?

1. Bing.com’s Language/Country Handling Bug Explained
2. Google.ie showing UK Results?
3. Honest-To-God Product Names

If you have received a letter from the “good” people at Waldberg & Hirsch Global Collections here’s a what you should do:

1. DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

Yep, you heard me right. Sit back, relax, don’t worry one bit, and get on with running your business. And feel safe that nothing more will come of this. Why? Because this company, and the people behind it, rely on fear in order to make their corrupt living. Don’t be afraid, and don’t even acknowledge these people. Simply ignore them at every turn, and soon they will have no more victims to prey on.

Want to read more?

1. Google Global
2. Serious SQL Injection Vulnerability
3. Euro Business Guide Spam and Scam Warning

Google testing breadcrumbs beneath title

And here’s another variation where the breadcrumb is placed beneath the snippet:

Google testing breadcrumbs beneath snippet

Some other reports of this test, with screenshots, over here. Interesting test, and I wonder how where the breadcrumbs are coming from?

Want to read more?

1. More Sitelink Variations from Google, #3 with Internal Related Forum Threads
2. Google Publishing Extended Snippets on Related Forum Post Sitelinks
3. Google Introduces Local 7 Pack, 10 Pack Dead?

Haven’t figured out what big changes there are yet, but there are definitely differences.

Try appending &gl=ie on the URLs to see what Irish results might look like.

Source

Sending automated queries to Google?

I suppose it’s a whole lot more useful than the old “your computer may be infected” screen, but I wonder if maybe this uses a new detection method? I’m sitting in an airport lounge using wifi, and I’m not sending any automated requests.

Want to read more?

1. Airport Digital Advertising – Does The Media Match the Medium?

Back To 2007 – Helping Global Websites Workaround ccTLD

Well that subheading explains why Google introduced GWT Geotargeting. Major global websites often encountered major difficulties running sites on multiple ccTLDs, and global brands therefore had great difficulty taking advantage of Google’s geotargeted search results. In late 2007 Google introduced a new tool that allows owners of gTLD (.com, .net, .org etc.) to geotarget different subdomains or subfolders of their sites to specific countries. This tool effectively allowed global sites to appear ‘local’ in Google country-level SERPs. I first wrote about the Geotargeting tool back in January 2008.

GWT Geotargeting Tool back in 2008

Forward To July 2009 – Where Did Goetargeted Sites Disappear To?

The Geotargeting tool within GWT stopped working sometime around the end of June. Or to be more exact, the effects of the tool were no longer visible, and sites using the tool no longer appeared in ‘Pages from’ searches in Google’s ccTLD properties (google.ie, google.co.uk etc.).

As of the past few days geotargeted sites are once again ranking as they did previously, and it appears the tool is once again working as advertised. I initially believed GWT Geotargeting was broken, but now I’m more convinced that this was in fact a test. Why do I think this was a test? Well I’ll let you know shortly, so please stay with me as I work through some more background details.

The ‘Pages from’ Interface Test

In late June reports of Google testing the ‘pages from’ control on their search front-end started doing the rounds in the UK and SA and NZ. I also wrote about Google testing ‘pages from Ireland’, and managed to see that particular test myself on 3 different computers (different accounts).

Google tests 'Pages from Ireland' control on google.ie

Google confirmed that this was indeed a user-acceptance test for the removal of the ‘Pages from’ control option (see Jem’s response in this thread). But was Google running other associated tests?

The Google Black Box

Google is obsessively secretive. Many would say excessively secret. When I first noticed country-restricted results no longer included GWT geotargeted sites I shot an email to Google. I received a fairly normal response – “Thanks. We’ll look into it”. As a contributor over on Google Webmaster Support Group I often ping issues I notice (very often these turn out to be non-issues – Google ‘features’, not Google ‘bugs’). Not unusually perhaps, none of the subsequent responses I received referenced the “bug” as a known issue. During this period the web also seemed bereft of discussion about the geotargeting tool not working (there were a few isolated threads on Google’s Support Group). Hush online, and silence from Google.

Google rarely makes public details of snafus with its index. But they have, on occasion, come out publicly and said “this is an issue, and we’re working on it”. They didn’t in this particular case, even privately. Up until recently I still considered the geotargeting issue to be a bug, but some more pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place that made me consider the possibility this was actually a test. One particular response from Google I sawe struck me as odd.

“From Time To Time Our Algorithms Change”

Some other inquiries about this were made. The canned response received merely stated that the affected site in question was correctly set up in the GWT Geotargeting Tool, and that “Google’s algorithm may change from time to time”. Something in this message didn’t quite add up. What I read (and I paraphrase here) was ‘you’re doing everything right – don’t change anything’, and ‘we [Google] may change how this works from time to time’. That response came from a less-direct support-type channel at Google, and again no mention was made that this might be a known issue. Being perfectly honest, the idea of a test hadn’t even entered my mind at this stage. Before I tell you what the final piece in the puzzle is I’m going to speculate on the possible tests Google might want to run, and why.

Removing Geotargeting Tools – Who Would You Test?

We know at least one test occurred – the removal of the country-restrict control – and we must assume Google is considering taking this out of their search interface. In order to conduct proper user-acceptance testing you need to test a sample of constituent groups affected by the change. So who would be affected by the removal of ‘Pages from’? Google’s search users obviously – and they were indeed tested. But who else might be indirectly impacted by removing ‘Pages from’ option?

There’s actually only one other major group apart from searchers – users of the GWT Geotargeting Tool. And with this group there’s a catch – you cant easily run acceptance tests on them.

Did Google Test GWT Geotargeting Tool Removal?

The first thing I should state is that this is merely speculation on my part. I’ll state the “facts” as I saw them and let others draw their own conclusions.

• Around June 27: Google stopped including global websites geotargeted web content in ‘Pages from’ searches. It took a few days before everything fell out of the indices, but this may be normal across DC infrastructure. The change removed everything – even brand names no longer showed up. I started watching a number of very large global sites I knew used the Geotargeting feature. All were gone from searches using ‘Pages from’. I figured this was a bug.
• Late June: First mentions about testing ‘pages from’ control.
• First weeks of July: I made a number of inquiries about GWT Geotargeting Tool which led me nowhere, and I also saw the canned response about Google algo updates mentioned above.
• End July: Geotargeted sites reappear in country-restricted searches on Google ccTLD properties.

Let’s return to the speculation again. Google wants to test the removal of the Geotargeting Tool in GWT. They can either test removing the tool from the GWT interface (and this may also have occurred) or they can test of the main outcomes of such a change – remove the results from country-restricted SERPs. Let’s take each of those in turn.

Possible Test 1: Test Removing Geotargeting From GWT

I have a sneaky suspicion there are some serious problems with acceptance-testing the removal of Geotargeting Tool within GWT. I assume most users of this tool rarely check it once they save their settings, so the only test responses you’d likely get are from new users. That’s not ideal given that many large enterprises have already implemented the tool, and therefore a test would likely miss their response. That said Google may have tested this, and it may also be a valid test.

Possible Test 2: Test Pulling All GWT Geotargeted Sites From Country-Restricted SERPs

Now this one I’m pretty sure happened, but removing the geotargeted sites from the SERPs also has some inherent problems:

1. Removal of their sites from country-restricted searches is likely to go unnoticed by many site owners. How many SEO teams regularly monitor country-restricted searches in depth, and what analytics tool lets you drill down by country-restricted search referrals?
2. The population of GWT Geotargeting users is minuscule next to the population of searchers, so a sampling action may not gather enough data to be significant.

One thing we can be sure of – removing the geotargeted sites from country-restricted searches was not designed to test search users. The ‘Pages from’ interface test would cover most hypotheses around searcher response to removing GWT Geotargeted websites, and if Google was testing search users they would only need to sample a tiny fraction of searchers to yield statistically relevant results, so why make change for entire population?.

So Just Who Was Google Testing Then?

The removal of all GWT Geotargeted results from ‘Pages from’ searches (which is what I initially thought was a bug) wasn’t designed to test searchers. I believe it was designed to test site owner reactions to the removal of the Geotargeting capabilities within GWT. But, just as with the interface test, removing all GWT geotargeted sites from country-restricted search results as a test also has problems:

1. There’s an assumption that site owners will notice the change during the test period, and therefore removing GWT Geotargeted sites from SERPs might still not yield valid results. You see, you’re basically testing the reactions of the target group (site owners) based on the changes that they may or may not see (of course maybe that’s what the test was all about?).

The fact that the complete population was tested (all GWT Geotargeted sites appear to have been removed for all users in restricted-country searches), and not a sample, also reinforces my belief that this was indeed a test, and that the test subjects were site owners not searchers.

How Long Would Google Run A Test For?

I mentioned that I initially thought the GWT Geotargeting results issue was a bug. I now believe this was a test. The ultimate confirmation for me was the dates – almost exactly 1 month passed between first reports and a reversion to the original states. That’s give or take the time it may have taken for me to see it at my various locations during the test period. Google likes to test for 30 days/1 month, and this combined with various responses I’ve received and seen justifies, in my mind anyway, the possibility that Google was also testing GWT Geotargeting Tool removal.

One Last Question – Is There Something Bigger?

Here’s the real question I’m interested in answering – Google appears to be testing geotargeting in the grander sense, not just the interface and GWT Geotargeting tool, so what’s likely to come down the road? In my Future of Geotargeting post I alluded to a possibility that the GWT Geotargeting Tool may be retired soon. I still feel this may happen. The country-restriction control on Goole’s search interface may also soon go away. But I now think that these multiple tests are part of something bigger, something that may involve a sea-change in how Google handles organic geotargeting. The worst case scenario is that ccTLD will play a greater role, but my gut tells me Google is far too clever to go backwards, and that something very new might be about to enter the mix.

Could I be wrong? Absolutely. Should you be concerned about this? In my opinion, YES. If I’m right these forthcoming changes will impact a huge number of websites and site owners.

And My Conclusion

I’m afraid we’ll all just have to wait and see what happens. If you think this post might be useful to others I’d really appreciate if you could help spread the word – twitter or blog about it to let others know.

I’ll be watching this carefully so subscribe to my feed or follow me on Twitter (yep, I might actually start posting there) if you want to be the first to find out about future Geotargeting changes.

Want to read more?

1. The Future of Google Geotargeting and ‘pages from’ Searches
2. Google Opens More ccTLDs to GWT Geotargeting Tool
3. More Evidence of Google Geotargeting Gone Bad

We Cant find Your Site On Google.ie

A client received this yesterday from a

—–Original Message—–
From: John Hartley [mailto:traffic@persimmonpublishing.com]
Sent: 28 July 2009 09:03
To: info@somesite.ie
Subject: I visited your website and had a question

Hello,

I was looking at websites under the keyword ‘widget services’ and came
across your site http://www.somesite.ie. I see that you’re ranked
first, but on page 7 in google.ie.

I’m not sure if you’re aware of why you’re ranked this low but more
importantly how easily this can be corrected.

There’s no reason you can’t have a top three ranking for this keyword
based on your site structure and content. You have a very nice site.

You need significantly more one way anchor text backlinks. If you’re
interested I can help you with this…

I’m talking about getting you ranked for ALL your keywords. Adding new
backlinks on a steady and consistent basis from high PR quality websites
is what produces the rankings you are looking for.

The right kind of links are very critical in getting top ranking….and
I can hand deliver these quality links to you.

My partners and I own 1000′s websites and offer private linking to
hundreds of website owners just like yourself.

I didn’t send this email out to thousands of people but I am currently
reaching out to a list of your ‘keyword competitors’ as well. But you’re
my favourite and you are the one I really favour and the one I see I can
monetize the targeted website traffic our linking can deliver.

I have your contact info as: phone no: 01 xxx xxxx. Is it ok if I give
you a call?

I have a very simple way to prove that what I do works and it’s risk
free for you to try. Nothing beats seeing the results with your own eyes.

Is it ok if I give you a call? I would love to pursue this further over
the phone with you or should I go somewhere else?

Sincerely,

John Hartley
Tel: 0845 301 7737
Director, Persimmon Publishing Ltd

Persimmon Publishing Ltd is Registered in England Reg. No. 05078726, VAT
No 723 369236.
Registered Office: 311 Shoreham Street, Sheffield S2 4FA, UK

I’ve redacted some info to protect the innocent. So let’s deal with all the “facts” offered by John.

Site Ranks #1 on Page 7 of Google.ie

“I see that you’re ranked first, but on page 7 in google.ie.”

For the keyword given by John (but redacted above) the site in question has ranked #1 pretty much constantly for a few years now. That’s #1 ‘web search’ on page #1 of google.ie.

Persimmon Publishing and Partners Run Domain and Link Farms

“The right kind of links are very critical in getting top ranking….and
I can hand deliver these quality links to you.

My partners and I own 1000′s websites and offer private linking to
hundreds of website owners just like yourself.”

So let’s be clear here – John and his ‘partners’ over at Persimmon Publishing own large networks of sites, and they can give you links that will help you rank just like that. Apart from being a somewhat shady SEO tactic, these guys can also turn off those links at any time. So what’s the difference between this and Adwords? Both are chronic, but you’re a lot less likely to get banned from Adwords.

The Inferred Blackmail Threat – Buy Our Service Or We’ll Help Your Competitors

“I didn’t send this email out to thousands of people but I am currently
reaching out to a list of your ‘keyword competitors’ as well. But you’re
my favourite and you are the one I really favour and the one I see I can
monetize the targeted website traffic our linking can deliver.”

Actually I’m willing to bet that John Hartley of Persimmon Publishing Ltd probably did send this out to thousands of people. It’s most likely automated, although it has been written in a way to look fairly genuine.

But the blackmailing reference to contacting direct competitors is disturbing also. For hard-pressed business owners the possibility that this guy will go and point his link network onto a competitors site must be worrying. But you know – if you’re a sucker now what’s to stop the highly ethical Persimmon Publishing from raising your prices later to avoid them defecting to your competition?

If It Sounds Too Good To Be True…

For anyone worried about this – DONT. What these guys are offering (if it’s even real) might work for a few sites in the short term, but I guarantee it wont last in the long run. If you’re concerned about possible scams involving Google or SEO I’d recommend you read this. If you do receive an email from the same company I’d love to hear about it.

Want to read more?

1. Yahoo Site Explorer – checking your backlinks
2. Links Form The Fabric Of The Internet
3. Who Said META Tag Optimization Was Dead?

Well today I see yet more evidence that something is terribly wrong with geotargeting:

Yahoo France appears in ‘pages from Ireland’ searches on google.ie

Here’s the query I used.

I suppose there’s some small chance that Yahoo! have geotarget their FR content to Ireland, but the servers appear to be in the UK. But also returning French results when my browser language is set to EN also smacks to me of serious problems.

Hopefully this and other problems will be fixed, but as I mentioned in the future of google geotargeting post I have a feeling big changes may be on the cards…

Want to read more?

1. Yahoo! Comes to Ireland (properly)
2. Google Opens More ccTLDs to GWT Geotargeting Tool
3. The Future of Google Geotargeting and ‘pages from’ Searches

First thought – the server was redirecting different UAs to different pages. But no, the redirect was exactly the same regardless of UA.

So how come different browsers ended up in different locations? In fact the Location was the problem:


HTTP/1.1 301·Moved·Permanently
Date:·Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:33:14 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-mhN: 4
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Location: http://www.example.com/pagename.html
Location: /
Content-Length: 0
Content-Type: text/html
Cache-control: private


The problem was that the redirect header had two Location attributes. Firefox 3.5 followed the last Location value, while Chrome followed the first. In 2 different browsers the client ended up in different locations.

The answer: Each redirect header should have only 1 Location attribute, and the value should be a fully formed URL (a value of “/” is technically incorrect).

Hopefully this might help someone else debug a redirect which sends different browsers to different pages/locations.

Want to read more?

1. Even The Big Guys Can Get It Wrong
2. Irish Times Where Art Thou?
3. Irish Times Website – irishtimes.com

PC World Sell Sat Navs

Well why wouldn’t they says you? They’re one of the biggest consumer electronics suppliers in Ireland after all. I happened across this Google Adwords ad today – check out the first ad:

This ad looks like it’s for PC World doesn’t it?

So you couldn’t really be blamed for thinking that PC World are selling Sat Navs, could you? I mean here’s the ad copy:
Headline: PC World Sat Navs
Copy: Want a new GPS or sat nav? Enter to win a €500 voucher for PC World.
Display URL: PCWorld.prizeclub.ie/Sat-Nav

Here’s the landing page:

Landing page for apparent PC World ad.

Hello premium rate competitionsubscription. Here are the small print details:

PrizeClub.ie – One free entry per mobile. One Gadget, Travel and Voucher winner every month. Winners choose from all offers advertised. Special draws also held throughout year. Next draw closes July 31st 18s+.FIRST PLAY FREE. Thereafter you can increase your chances of winning by answering the question sent every 4 days, cost €2/msg received. Subscription service. To unsubscribe send stop to 50150. Ts&Cs apply. SP InkRed PO Box 7761, Blackrock, Dublin. 01 4888 999. You may receive free promotional msgs unless you opt out, text OUT to 57052.

OK. They’re up front I suppose, if you understand what a subscription service is. It looks like a free draw, but it’s really a subscription to receive SMS messages at €2 per message. I hate this kind of stuff, but I wonder how PC World feel about their brand being used here in what some may opine is a deceptive nature?

Here’s the website of the Premium provider behind this, InkRed.ie:

Not much to see on inkred.ie – what could they be hiding from?

You could also be excused for thinking maybe they have something to hide
Hopefully this type of approach will become a thing of the past, and hopefully someone over at PC World might object to the use of the mark in a fashion that might confuse their customers.

Want to read more?

1. Euro Business Guide Spam and Scam Warning
2. Euro Business Guide Scamming Again
3. Access To Keyword Discovery For $1

We may choose to replace titles which are repeated on a number of pages or which otherwise appear to be suboptimal – that’s probably what’s happening here. To resolve that, it would be a good idea to make sure that the titles are unique, compelling and relevant to every page and that the important parts are visible in the first part of the title text. You can get some help with finding duplicated titles in Webmaster Tools under Diagnostics / HTML suggestions.

Source

So if your site has the same title on every page (which happens a lot here in Ireland), Google may choose to override these titles with other more relevant titles. How they generate these is unclear, but what is clear is the need to control your own titles by ensuring they aren’t duplicates. After all, titles are one of the strongest signals you can give to Google.

There are a number of other times Google will change your title, but you’ll have to wait for the official announcement to find out about these I’m afraid. Keep your eyes peeled to the official Google Webmaster blog for the full skinny on this change.

Want to read more?

1. VisitBritain.com Robbing Irish Tourists?
2. Link Sellers, Duplicate Content & AdSense Guidelines – Google Pronouncements
3. Google Webmaster Tools Geo Targeting – Great Idea, But…

Abu Dhabi Advertising System

Here it is from another part of the airport:

Abu Dhabi Advertising System

I have to say it was really eye-catching. Nothing new with carrying the same advert on all spaces, but in a very long corridor such as an airport terminal it looked really well.

Did I remember a single ad?

Nope, not one. Classic case of the medium being more interesting than the media I suppose.

Gratuitous BSOD

You have to throw one of these in. Saw this in BKK:

Bangkok Airport Blue-Screen-Of-Death

And here it is in all it’s gory-glory:

BKK Blue-Screen-Of-Death

It had never dawned on me that there would be a PC behind each of those screens you see in airports, and the fact that this BSOD was isolated to this screen group got me thinking about just how many PCs there were here. BKK Is a BIG airport. Here’s the screen 2-to-the-left sporting it’s Virtual Memory error:

BKK Screen Out Of Virtual Memory

Do Hong Kong Use Apple?

When I saw this the very first thing that came into my mind was Apple:

Hong Kong Announcement Clock

Looks very Appley to me anyway. Of course when it comes to electronic billboards those Hong Kong folk have it down to a fine art:

Hong Kong at night from Kowloon side

Each of those small light blurs is actually a massive electronic billboard atop a skyscraper. Really cool, and if you get a chance to visit this part of the globe it’s a journey well worth making.

All of the above images were taken on a Nokia E71 phone, and if you’re using that model you should definitely grab the V3 firmware. It improves the camera image quality greatly, and fixes a lot of the graininess you can see in my images (which were taken while still using V2 Firmware).

Want to read more?

1. Never Seen This Before

Google.ie testing search without pages from Ireland selector

Over the following week or two I actually saw this test running myself on two separate machines. It does seem like this test may have been a little more widespread. Some people were curious why Google would remove the radio selectors and simply add a small text link near the foot of the SERP result set. I’d hazard a further conjecture – maybe Google is going to remove this option altogether. Perhaps they’re moving towards more localised results being the default? The biggest problem I can see with this would be determining intent – sometimes I want to see global results rather than local, and I don’t always get them.

In Constant Flux

If you watch organic search, and Google in particular, you’ll know that the one constant is change. SERPs are in regular flux, but of late I’ve noticed a heightened level of flux. All I can do is guess what’s around the corner, but it does seem like anchor text weight has been lowered, or perhaps better to say that the source of the anchor text may impact the weight of that anchor text – somehow relevance weighting seems to have increased considerably. But back to geotargeting. What might be changing?

Google Webmaster Tools Geotargeting Broken?

In the very recent past Google either broke the GWT Geotargeting tool or changed considerably how that tool works. Previously when you used that tool to geotarget gTLDs you’d be able to find yourself in ‘pages from [country]‘ searches relevant to the settings you saved in GWT. And in some cases I saw that you could get the non-geotargeted root domain returned in ‘pages from [country]‘ searches, something I had put down to navigational queries. To give an example:

• I set www.mydomain.com/fr/ geotargeting to FR.
  
• Now when I search google.fr ‘Pages : France’ the pages under www.mydomain.com/fr/ may be returned.
• If you search for [mydomain.com] on google.fr ‘Pages : France’ then Google might also return www.mydomain.com. This seemed new to me, and likely indicated a navigational query.

So that’s how things used to work.

Fast-forward to Today

For about 2 weeks now I’ve noticed that geotargeted websites are no longer being returned in ‘pages from [country]‘ searches. I’m not sure if this is across the board or isolated to sites I cover (which includes sites I work with plus a few global sites I know have used the tool). Now searching even for brand name with ‘pages from [country]‘ only returns mentions of the brand, and not the geotargeted folder of the brand’d site. Hardly relevant. So is this a ‘feature’ or a ‘bug’? And could this be related to the testing mentioned above?

The Future of Geotargeting?

Based on how Google operates, the decision to remove or retain the ‘pages from [country]‘ searches will be based on hard quantitative data. But I’m going to stick my neck out and gamble that the changes to GWT Geotargeting may be related to the testing of ‘pages from [country]‘ selector. I’m going a bit further and hazard that changes in the pipeline for Google’s search interface and the GWT Geotargeting tool.

And here’s the kicker – if the changes I suspect are going to happen multinationals and global brands are going to need those relevant ccTLDs that had made somewhat redundant by the GWT Geotargeting tool.

All of the above with the usual caveat that it’s all IMHO, and I’ll probably end up being wrong about this. I’d love to hear from anyone else who’s seen this, or has any thoughts on where geotargeting is going.

Want to read more?

1. Is Google Introducing Major Changes To Organic Geotargeting?
2. Google Opens More ccTLDs to GWT Geotargeting Tool
3. More Evidence of Google Geotargeting Gone Bad

Want to read more?

1. How to lose half your subscribers in 15 minutes…
2. Euro Business Guide Spam and Scam Warning
3. Bad Technology Day

Hopefully tonight I’ll meet some more interesting folk, and have some great discussions around Online Marketing in Ireland.

Next week I’ll be down to the Rebel Republic as the trainer of the Cork course.

Want to read more?

1. Website Architecture – Digital Marketing Institute
2. Search Marketing World 2007, ShareIT Cork, and A Few Other Pieces of Irish SEO News
3. I Blame It On The Lego

The Brown Corporation Homepage – The Home of the Amazing Shit Box

It’s a risky marketing strategy for sure. It does look like an interesting product, and certainly a very honest marketing approach. I wonder what Paul Dervan would think of this?

Want to read more?

1. When You Get Exposure Leverage It
2. Website Architecture – Digital Marketing Institute

Some really great thoughts in there, although I’d never underestimate the value of cleaning up forms and funnels to improve conversion rates.

Want to read more?

1. Google.ie showing UK Results?
2. Interesting Look at How To Recruit Top SEOs In-house
3. Free CRO Offer – Only 3 Days Remaining

Table of Contents

Google adds Ireland to Local Business Center
Local Results Arrive on Google.ie
Variations of “One-Box” in Google Local
Google OneBox “10 Pack”
The “3 Pack” OneBox Entry
The Holy Grail – Authoritative OneBox Entry
Google Local Ranking Factors
How To Get Into Google Local
Some Local Experts’ Opinions
Do Links Affect Local Rankings?
Summary

A Brief Recap – History Of Google Local in Ireland

In November 2007 I first noticed that Google had added Ireland to it’s Local Business Center. At the time I thought this was big news as it seemed to indicate the imminent release of Google Local listings in Irish SERPs. As per Google’s online docs:

You can check if it’s available for your country by looking through the drop-down menu in the Local Business Center.

Forward to today – Google.ie Showing Local Results

Well imminent is certainly wasn’t, but last week we started seeing the first Google Local business listings for Irish searches.

It’s certainly early days, and Google will need to iron out plenty of teething issues, but I decided to take a look into some of the features of local listings, and some of the potential signals Google uses to rank the local businesses listed. I had some very good help from Michael Wall based on his experience with Google Local in Northern Ireland. Michael runs a web design company up North. I’ll come back to Michael’s observations a little later, but for now look focus on a little more background to how Local listings work.

3 Flavours of One Box

First thing I noticed was that there is some variety of One Box Local displays – 3 that I’ve seen – and the type your business is displayed in can make quite a difference. (The “One Box” is a general purpose area directly above the organic listings in Google’s SERPs.)

The “10 Pack”

The 10 Pack is a Google Map with 10 adjacent business listings. This type of one box takes up the most space, and ads quite a number of additional links for searchers to hit prior to getting to the organic SERP results. Here’s an example of some 10-pack results:

[hotel dublin] with 10 Pack local listing

The interesting thing about that particular SERP is that it is giving power back to the individual hotels over the aggregators that generally rule the organics. I wonder will the hotels cop onto this and push their local listings now? I’d say there’s quite a lot of fee revenue that the hotels can reclaim from affiliates/aggregators if they can crack Local Search. Here’s another example of local listings pushing power back to individual sites from another form of aggregator – the review site:

[restaurants dublin] with 10 Pack Local listing.

Now in this case MenuPages.ie has been pushed down by a local listing containing 10 Dublin restaurants. Here’s another interesting feature of Local listings – the inclusion of structured data, in this case reviews. It’s difficult to see in the small image, but beside each restaurant local listing there’s a link to reviews. The reviews are coming from a number of very large and trusted seed sites, such as TripAdvisor.com, and I don’t believe that Irish review sites data is used by Google. If you run a restaurant maybe you should prompt your clientelle to go create reviews if they are happy with your service?

Finally here’s a more regular example – without aggregator sites – of a local listing that’s going to hurt the previous king of the castle:

[pizza dublin] with 10 Pack local listing

This one is a good example of how previous dominance of the SERPs for your top keyword can really get hurt if you’re not in Local. Apache Pizza were sitting golden with their sitelinks. Those sitelinks are a pretty good indicator that the site is seen as authoritative for the generic search term [pizza dublin]. But now 10 of Apache’s competitors are sitting sweet above them, with both phone numbers and visual indication of location. This particualr local listing is going to hurt Apache, of that I’m sure.

The 3 Pack Local Listing

In some cases Google will only show 3 local results, with extended listings. Seems most likely to occur when they either don’t know of enough local sites or no one site is seen as authoritative. Here’s a topical example for me personally:

[seo dublin] with 3 Pack local listing

In this case each local listing takes up 3 lines – the business name and URL, address and link to more info. I registered for Google Local back when it was launched. I did so to see how the system worked so that I could write my blog post all those months ago, and not particularly for any ranking advantage (I travel a lot, so I added my Dublin home address to my listing back then).

When local listings went live last week I wasn’t in the top 3 local sites. So I ‘tweaked’ my company name and categories to see what would happen (take care the guidelines though – I might be breaking them). Lo-and-behold there I am now, so there’s a small tip to one of the factors used to rank sites for local. Also note the the distance from the median point in Dublin city seems less relevant than my business name and categories. There’s a very interesting post by Bill Slawski over at seobythesea.com discussing location sensitivity – basically some queries may respond with a larger geographical spread of businesses then others.

Authoritative One Box Local Listing – The Holy Grail

Now if I were Apache Pizza (or their SEO) right now this is what I’d be aiming for. This is a local One Box listing where only one business is listed – otherwise referred to as the Authority Listing. I’m still digging into this to find out how difficult it is to achieve, and what factors trigger it’s appearance, but regardless of how you get the Authoritative Local One Box it certainly looks nice, and I imagine works very well:

[sat nav dublin] with Authoritative One Box Local Listing

The One Box, the #1 in organic with site links, plus number #2 in organic for deep page. Augmented with an Adwords ad and you have a SERP dominated in every way by a single website. It’s important to note that many SERPs are going to be far more competitive making this difficult if not impossible to achieve, but there’s no harm in setting your goals high.

Ranking Factors for Google Local Search

If you’re still reading this now then it’s about time I mentioned some of the signals I’ve found that can help to get your site ranked in Local Search…

Inclusion – Creating your Local Business Lisiting

Obviously the first step is to get yourself listed – you need to sign up at www.google.com/localbusinesscenter, and then:

1. Click “Add new listing” and start by adding your basic business details – business name, website URL, address, phone numbers etc. All listings have to be verified, and the fastest way to do so is via SMS, so you might want to include your mobile number at this stage.
2. The next step is to write a business description. I’m not sure if the content of this is used for ranking, but I’d try to make this short, descriptive and searcher friendly. Not unlike an extended META description.
3. You’ll then have to fix the map pin to point at your location before you can get to the next step.
4. Next you’ll be requested to enter the business categories appropriate to you. This seems to be very important, and something that Michael Wall also found made a big difference. When you enter a category Google might make suggestions. The experience I’ve had to date is that your categories should match primary keywords, rather than what Google suggests. So check out your site stats to see what makes you money and use those keywords to create your category list. You can add up to 5 categories, and you don’t need to include geographic qualifiers into these.
5. You can enter opening times, payment options, and an interesting feature – photos and video from YouTube. None of these will impact your ranking (AFAIK), but rich media is never going to hurt when people click through to your business listing.
6. The last data you can add are custom key-value pairs. Can be useful for any data that fits well into a definition list, and as of this writing I have no indication that it affects ranking.
7. The final step is to verify your listing, and I’ve found this can be troublesome. SMS seems like the easiest way, but just today I found bugs in the system that prevented me from doing so. You can also have Google call your listed number and their automated system will read your PIN number to you.

Ranking in Local Search

Here’s the bit most people will be interested in. It seems that ranking signals include many of the primary signals used for organic ranking – links seem to have a large impact (especially in the case of Authoritative Listings). But the actual listing and business location are strong factors also. An interesting survey compiled by David Mihn that I came across lists the following factors as most important (score out of 5 in brackets):

1. Local Business Listing (LBL) address in city being searched (4.13)
2. Proper categorization of LBL (4.00)
3. Product / service keyword in LBL title (3.78)
4. Proximity of business address to city centroid (3.59)
5. Validation of business information with third-party providers (3.57)

I doubt number 5 above is used for Irish listings, or maybe I should say that I hope Google wont use GoldenPages.ie or similar, as I feel that their (GP) business practices are sharp to say the least. Number 4 above may also be query-dependent as per the Bill Slawski reference previously. But certainly 1-3 are very much in your own control, and as such you should consider these items carefully when creating your Local Business Listing.

In a separate blog post titled “10 Likely Elements of Google’s Local Search Algorithm” Mike Magee mentions amongst others [my notes in square brackets]:

• Availability/Trust of other business data [note: Google may use third party data, but as of writing I'm not sure they have providers here in Ireland]
• Listings in 2nd-tier Local Directories [note: again in Ireland Google may have nothing to work with]
• Listings in Vertical Directories [note: this one is something I like also for organic ranking boosts]
• References from other Web sites [note: Dmoz local listings unfortuantely come to mind, and both Dmoz and Yahoo were mentioned by Matt Magee]

Matt has some other interesting items in his post also, and it’s worth a read.

Another good post I found was titled “Extreme Local Search Optimization Tactics” by Chris Silver Smith of KeyRelevance. One or two of the more interesting tactics he mentions [again my notes in square brackets]:

• Change your business name so that the first characters will be earliest in the alphabet for your locality.
• Move your business so that you can have presence closer to your city’s center.
• Get a separate directory listing for every city in your area for which you provide services. [Note: you'll need PO boxes or separate physical addresses for this one]
• Customize your address by having your street renamed to include beneficial keywords. [Note: I'm constantly amazed by the US ]
• Lightly influence user ratings to your benefit. [Note: not sure that this might now be illegal in the EU?]

Back Link Impact on Local Search Results

I do think that links will be a strong signal for local results, and it might be useful to research the backlinks of sites listed in local search with a view to replicating their strategy. This has long been one of the more useful tactics for organic SEO, and I feel it will also be useful for local rankings. I’d also imagine that anchor text may be the primary factor in achieving the Authority One Box Local listing mentioned above.

Lastly – A Quick Summary

Wow. If you’re still here then well done. This was a rather mammoth post, but I feel Local Search is the biggest change to happen to Irish SEO in a long time.

To summarise:
You need to get your business listed asap, giving due consideration to the profile you create as it will impact how you rank. Then you need to consider citations (links) to your site – they need to include references to your address and location where possible. Anchor text may also be very useful for ranking and getting that Authority Listing.

The very last thing I’ll mention is that Google have a pretty good Local Business Center User Guide. It’s buried in Google’s help center (which is fast becoming a mess IMO), but very well worth a read/watch.

I’d love to hear any experience people are having with Google Local Search here in Ireland, so don’t be afraid to leave a comment below!

Want to read more?

1. Google Local Business Center Now Includes Ireland
2. Google Introduces Local 7 Pack, 10 Pack Dead?
3. Google Local One Box Listings Appear – Biggest Change to Irish Search?

Cork Web Design Local One Box Listing

Earlier this morning I received an email from Simon at Cork Web Design telling me about this:

Google.ie [web design cork]

I’m seeing one box local results appearing for both ‘Web search’ and ‘pages from Ireland’. Now this really is a big deal – if you previously held onto a #1 position prepare to see search referrals take a nose dive, at least initially as the novelty factor gets people clicking on local results. Here’s a search for [web design wicklow]:

Google.ie (Web search) [web design wicklow]

The Impact of Local Listings in One Box?

So imagine for a moment that the exact match domain webdesignwicklow.ie has probably sat pretty at #1 for ever, receiving targeted referrals from Google. All of a sudden today three of their competitors now sit above them with a very strong piece of collateral (the map) to draw attention. It looks like maltron.ie, who are sitting at #4 in organic now has both the top local listing and their #4 position. Not only have the previous #1 lost relative position in the SERP, but some of their competitors now effectively have multiple listings, one of which sits atop the SERP.

How to get included?

If you read my post about Google Local Business Listings you can find out how to get your site onto the One Box local results map. I’ll actually have to do some digging to find out again how listings are ranked – I remember reading up about this, but it was almost 1.5 years back now.

What other SERPs are showing One Box Local Listings?

I only had a quick look around, so if you’ve seen the one box on your travels please let me know what keywords are triggering the maps. For now I’m confident that only lcoal search queries with a geographic modifier will bring up the local results (due to Ireland’s crappy IP address management).

Happy hunting on Local Search!

[Update] Obviously this still has a few kinks to be ironed out:

Clicking on the “More” link brings you to “web design near Wicklow, NB, Canada”

That’s surely a crappy user experience, and might mean that these local listings disappear quite soon… (hat tip to Jason)

Want to read more?

1. Google Introduces Local 7 Pack, 10 Pack Dead?
2. What is Google’s OneBox, and Will Local Search Ever Land in Ireland?
3. Google Local Business Center & How to Rank for Local Search

Like many bloggers I get hit with lot’s of comment spam. You know the stuff you can buy for $10 from India.

Occasionally I get this crap from “commenters” trying to promote SEO companies, like the comment spam I received promoting thehoustonseo.com who apparently offer Houston Search Engine Optimization and SEO Houston services. Obviously I cant say that thehoustonseo.com, or their agents, actually left the comment spam, and I’ll leave readers to decide for themselves.

Here’s a comment I received:

Author : Guaranteed Houston SEO (IP: 59.95.172.82 , 59.95.172.82)
E-mail : annuity3@googlemail.co
URL : http://www.thehoustonseo.com/guaranteedhoustonseo.html
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=59.95.172.82
Comment:
Awesome Information about SEO! I liked this blog and do not have any reason for post my comment here.

So I wandered over to the Houston Search Engine Optimization website being promoted and sent them a message via their contact form letting them know how I felt about this comment spam. Contrary to the reply from the form I didn’t receive a response within 2 business days. Not that I was expecting it… but leave it at that methinks.

And then I get this:

Author : Houston search engine optimization (IP: 59.95.163.7 , 59.95.163.7)
E-mail : annuity3@googlemail.com
URL : http://www.thehoustonseo.com
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=59.95.163.7
Comment:
These information are remarkable and looking so informative and helpful to me as concern to SEO business.

So to anyone considering the Houston Search Engine Optimization services on offer from the various Houston SEOs maybe you want to think twice about whether they’ll do your site more harm than good.

The real shame of this is that Google will likely start ignoring blog comments altogether (if they haven’t already done so as I predicted) as more and more spammers muck up the blog segment of the web.

So again if you’re looking for Houston Search Engine Optimization take care that the the Houston SEO you choose does not use comment spam (like the comments above that were left to promote thehoustonseo.com) and other blackhat techniques to promote your site. Spamming for SEO is not a good long-term strategy.

Want to read more?

1. Who Said META Tag Optimization Was Dead?
2. A Dose Full of Comment Spam, Long Copy Referrer Pages & SEO Tools – What Do YOU Think?
3. Happy Birthday Red Cardinal

I’d really rate Tom and 2bscene, so if you’re in the market for some free online marketing help (and let’s face it, in this economy who isn’t?) head on over to get details of how to apply.

Great offer Tom.

Want to read more?

1. Free CRO Offer – Only 3 Days Remaining
2. A New Year, Some New Ideas, and My Time for Free!
3. €15k Conversion Rate Optimisation, Free, No Questions Asked

[gocompare] google.com
[gocompare] google.co.uk
[gocompare] google.ie

Looks like they no longer rank for their own brand. Still indexed though.
I’d feel guilty for outing them if it wasn’t for the way they tried to get free dodgy links from my clients…

Want to read more?

1. Link Building In Ultra Competitive Niches
2. What’s Up with Google and Thinkhouse PR?
3. Need WebStats? Google Analytics goes free for all!

Irish Insurance Niche

The Irish insurance niche is no where near as competitive as the UK. That said, there obviously is value to the competitors in that niche, and I was recently doing some competitive research for a project. Here are the top 10 sites ranked for [insurance] on Google.ie:

Top 10 sites on Google.ie for [insurance]

PageRank Sculpting

In the above table figures in brackets (“(NF)”) represent the nofollow links a page. Both fbd.ei and quinn-direct.com are NoFollowing internal links, but a quick browse shows that FBD are far more aggressive. I believe FBD do their SEO in-house, and I have to say that their online marketing activities seem to be very impressive (check out their use of SM, twitter and responses to bloggers etc.). But this post isn’t about SEO, or about NoFollow.

Negative Point of Action Assurances

I work a lot now with conversion measurement and optimisation. I’m seriously fascinated by what people do and why they do it, and in an online context this area is truly mesmerising. (Should I worry about myself?)

Here’s a page that is an excellent example of what is likely a highly negative Point of Action reassurance:

Axa.ie Homepage

Now I quite like this page. It’s strong and instantly draws my attention to the main promo area (although I’m not convinced the hero should look directly at the viewer):

Axa Main Promo Area

There’s a good headline and strap:

Axa Promo Headline and Strap

The main CTA is a bit weak in my opinion, and likely a great candidate for testing:

Axa Promo Call To Action (CTA)

But here’s where it really falls down:

Axa Conditions Error

In order to get to the quote page you have to accept the Terms and Conditions:

Axa Negative Point Of Action Assurance

Point of Action Assurances

POA assurances are usually published in order to assure users and induce desired behaviour. Good examples would be customer testimonials, satisfaction guarantees or free shipping details placed close to order or action buttons. In the Axa case I think the T&Cs are a negative POA assurance – they make me want to bail rather than go further.

A Question of Commitment

This really boils down to commitment. Right after I’ve landed on the Axa site I have limited commitment to this funnel. I have not spent any time filling forms or entering details. Think about it – if you’ve filled in all your car details you’ve committed time and energy. So why would Axa require me to agree to the following (which opens in the same window BTW):

Axa Terms & Conditions

I’ve shrunk that down to fit better on the page, and I’ve also cheated somewhat – the actual T&C text is hidden behind a show/hide JS function. But aside from this consider the following:

1. T&Cs page opens in same window
2. There is no obvious scent returning me to the homepage promo
3. There’s no obvious path to continue along the funnel (this is part of the funnel IMO)

After viewing the T&Cs I’m honestly afraid. I think most people do not read terms and conditions, but I also understand that companies have legal obligations to ensure that customers agree to terms. So, as with most things in life, the solution is to find a good balance.

Possible Solutions?

I think this would make an excellent test. There are quite obvious page elements to test in the main promo. One element that could have a very large impact on conversions in my opinion is the T&Cs checkbox. Site analytics will give good insight to allow proper analysis of my hypothesis: Obligation to accept T&Cs with little or no commitment yet made will have a large negative impact on overall conversion rate of this promo.

To test this I’d consider a multi-page A/B test:

1. Control Homepage (with T&C) and Control Form leading to Conversion Goal
2. Test Homepage (no T&C) and Test Form (with T&C) leading to Conversion Goal

Then users can tell which version works best for them, and is therefore worth more to Axa. Quite an easy test to set up and run, and given this is likely the highest value online promo run by Axa quite likely to have high value to their lead pipeline.

If you agree or disagree with my hypothesis I’d be very interested to hear why in the comments.

Want to read more?

1. How To Smother Your Prospects and Kill Your Leads
2. Pibasure.ie Looking for a Google Slap?
3. Conversion Rate Optimisation Testing Introduction