http://www.oneboxer.com Knocking the competition down the results page. Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:30:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 en hourly 1 Freely Distributable under Creative Commons bamark@gmail.com (Brian Mark) bamark@gmail.com Google Onebox Optimization 1440 Google seo sem search engine marketing search engine optimization Google OneBox Optimization Strategies by oneboxer.com Google OneBox Optimization Strategies by oneboxer.com Brian Mark Brian Mark bamark@gmail.com No no http://www.oneboxer.com/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/powered_by_podpress.jpg http://www.oneboxer.com 144 144 Freely Distributable under Creative CommonsGoogle seo sem search engine marketing search engine optimizationBusiness/Management & Marketing http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/aiePJF2o9U8/ http://www.oneboxer.com/spamming/how-do-you-report-spam-in-google-products/#comments Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:30:31 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/spamming/how-do-you-report-spam-in-google-products/ http://www.oneboxer.com/spamming/how-do-you-report-spam-in-google-products/feed/ 1:10 It happens regularly. Someone finds out how easy it is to get listed in Google product search, they submit an affiliate feed or site, list ... It happens regularly. Someone finds out how easy it is to get listed in Google product search, they submit an affiliate feed or site, list products with misleading prices, or just generally spam for popular product types. There's got to be a way to kill those listings, right? Absolutely. They even make it easy. Just go to base.google.com, search for the product, find the listing and click the "Report Listing" link. You might have to do a pretty generic search, because once the attributes get triggered at the top of the page (keywords, product type, price, stores, brand, condition, mpn, tax percent, payment notes, price type, pickup, etc.) the link doesn't show up any more. The image below shows the attributes I'm talking about. � Reporting spam in base isn't hard, but doing a search that doesn't get attributes can be tricky. I usually have to go back to the homepage and do a fresh search once they've been triggered. Best of luck, and report some spam. Spamming,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/spamming/how-do-you-report-spam-in-google-products/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/60/0/how-do-you-report-spam-in-google-products.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/Mmhlx8GlJgQ/ http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/onebox-titles-that-get-results/#comments Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:53:51 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/onebox-titles-that-get-results/ http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/onebox-titles-that-get-results/feed/ 1:24 One of the simple changes you can make to your feed is the product name, which is similar to a title tag on a website. ... One of the simple changes you can make to your feed is the product name, which is similar to a title tag on a website. It ends up being the hypertext people click on, so it can affect clickthrough rates just like good ad titles for PPC or good page titles and snippets for organic results. But what exactly makes for a good title? Well, just like PPC and Organics, your results may vary. However, what I've found to work well is a combination of things. Start with the make and model number, letting people know right away what it is that they're clicking to. Follow that up with the actual name of the product. Finish with the category names you've chosen after keyword research. Don't cut the name short. The last tip almost seems counter-intuitive, but it has a neat side effect. You see, the longest name gets the most screen real estate and pushes the price out further, many times past the end of the other companies' names. By doing this, the other prices become lost in the mess of words and you're going to be more likely to get the important click. As I said before, your results may vary. But I'd encourage you to try something similar and see what you get for results. The ones I've done have been good. Competitive,Advantages,,Guidelines,,Strategies,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/onebox-titles-that-get-results/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/45/0/onebox-titles-that-get-results.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/A8LnO0H1Gd0/ http://www.oneboxer.com/competitive-advantages/how-does-universal-search-relate-to-onebox/#comments Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:04:27 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/competitive-advantages/how-does-universal-search-relate-to-onebox/ http://www.oneboxer.com/competitive-advantages/how-does-universal-search-relate-to-onebox/feed/ 0:55 I've been sort of wondering this for a while, but at SES I heard a response from a Google rep in a session that made ... I've been sort of wondering this for a while, but at SES I heard a response from a Google rep in a session that made a lot of sense. Since we know that onebox refers to the fact that there is just one search box, Universal is technically onebox results. He said to think of Universal as "Onebox Version 2". Universal, which has a lot of people really freaked out, is just an evolution of the onebox results that we've been seeing for years and really isn't something to fear, but rather something to learn, understand, love and dominate. Don't look at it as something getting in the way of the organic results... think of it as opportunities to do something different for once to end up on the same first page of search results. Changes,,Competitive,Advantages,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/competitive-advantages/how-does-universal-search-relate-to-onebox/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/59/0/how-does-universal-relate-to-onebox.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/OV87Lf1fR9o/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/where-does-the-name-onebox-come-from/#comments Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:43:28 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/general/where-does-the-name-onebox-come-from/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/where-does-the-name-onebox-come-from/feed/ 1:03 There's been some confusion over this name, not only from newbies, but also among some experienced SEO's and marketers. You see, Onebox results have nothing ... There's been some confusion over this name, not only from newbies, but also among some experienced SEO's and marketers. You see, Onebox results have nothing to do with the little "Box" drawn around them (imaginary or otherwise). In fact, the name isn't from those results at all. It all goes back to the page before your results - the search page. These results come about from a single search box (one box) on the Google homepage, presenting you with options without having to search in any different manner than you're accustomed to. What does this mean for onebox optimization? I guess that really means onebox optimization is a holistic approach to optimizing, not overlooking any opportunities. I like to call that "Smart Marketing". You can call it whatever you like. General,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/where-does-the-name-onebox-come-from/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/58/0/where-does-the-name-come-from.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/smlGpRPdhY0/ http://www.oneboxer.com/general/webpronews-interview-posted/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:57:50 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/general/webpronews-interview-posted/ http://www.oneboxer.com/general/webpronews-interview-posted/feed/ 00:01:01 David and I were interviewed in New York by WebProNews. You can view it here. David and I were interviewed in New York by WebProNews. You can view it here. General Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/general/webpronews-interview-posted/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/57/0/sesnytoolbarn07.mp4 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/W6KNBroJXog/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/rip-froogle-long-live-gps/#comments Sat, 21 Apr 2007 03:00:26 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/changes/rip-froogle-long-live-gps/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/rip-froogle-long-live-gps/feed/ 5:47 As has been covered elsewhere in the blogosphere, Froogle is no more. Rising up from the ashes is Google Product Search. While more descriptive, one ... As has been covered elsewhere in the blogosphere, Froogle is no more. Rising up from the ashes is Google Product Search. While more descriptive, one has to wonder what this really means to those of us optimizing for Base. First off, the attributes used for narrowing the search have moved to the bottom of the page. This means more people are likely to click on something optimized generally than something optimized for attributes. A favorite trick of some feed optimizers has been including attributes your competitors don't, then hoping that attribute gets featured. This may be less effective now, so paying more attention to the overall ranking is important. Secondly, with a better name and some press around the change, we should start seeing more product searches. For those of us with optimized feeds, that's great news. For everyone else, that's ho-hum at best, and possibly scary. In short, if you haven't already started optimizing your Base feeds for maximum exposure on the best search terms, now is the perfect time to start. Also mentioned in the podcast, Google Categories Prototype. Changes,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/rip-froogle-long-live-gps/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/56/0/20-rip-froogle-hello-gps.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/BtGELNSR11s/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/announcements-coming-soon/#comments Sat, 07 Apr 2007 01:04:30 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/announcements-coming-soon/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/announcements-coming-soon/feed/ 0:34 I've been busy developing some stuff on the backend of BaseOp, so I haven't had a post here in a bit. I'm hoping to make ... I've been busy developing some stuff on the backend of BaseOp, so I haven't had a post here in a bit. I'm hoping to make several major announcements after I return from SES. Stay tuned... I should have 2 - 3 pretty big announcements over the next several weeks. For all my readers / listeners, I apologize for the lack of activity lately. It will get better shortly. General,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/announcements-coming-soon/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/54/0/06-announcements-coming-soon.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/1njYkPw5Piw/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/google-onebox-rumormill/#comments Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:00:36 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/google-onebox-rumormill/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/google-onebox-rumormill/feed/ 6:01 For those that haven't noticed, Google Onebox has been on vacation at some datacenters. This has led to my inbox getting rumors into it. To ... For those that haven't noticed, Google Onebox has been on vacation at some datacenters. This has led to my inbox getting rumors into it. To discuss this, I have David with me on the podcast, but his comments won't be on the blog post. So, here are some of the rumors that have been going around and a few of my thoughts. 1) More Onebox Options There are plenty of options already, but I could see more content being highlighted being a good thing. 2) Onebox Showing More Often It'd be nice to get them showing more often, for more general phrases. The specific phrases are nice, but they seem so useful that broadening them to show more seems like it could be a great experiment at the minimum. 3) Images on Product Onebox Results I think it goes without saying that images get more attention and sell products better, so this would be a huge improvement. 4) ... and larger oneboxes for all. The larger Local Onebox has really sparked a lot of interest in having the rest of them made larger, and I'd personally like to see this. I'm sure some people wouldn't care and others don't want it at all, but we're doing well with them so I'd like to see them bigger. 5) No more SERPs Danny Sullivan has talked about this before, but the recent comments from Matt Cutts about SERPs in SERPs really made this start seeming like it could be coming sooner than we think. I can't confirm any of these rumors, but the smart marketers will be prepared for any changes coming up, and that means considering all the "What ifs". You'll have to evaluate them for yourself, but know that there could be some changes coming soon. Rumors,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/google-onebox-rumormill/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/53/0/20070321.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/NNgNgeVWm8o/ http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/what-all-can-you-post-in-base/#comments Tue, 13 Mar 2007 14:00:26 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/what-all-can-you-post-in-base/ http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/what-all-can-you-post-in-base/feed/ 1:39 Google seems to think you can post just about anything into Google base. They list the following on their site: Examples of popular item types: Events and ... Google seems to think you can post just about anything into Google base. They list the following on their site: Examples of popular item types: Events and activities Hotels Housing Jobs Personals People profiles Products Reviews Recipes Services Vacation rentals Vehicles Examples of other interesting item types: Reference articles Business for sale Wine and food Book descriptions Company profiles Jewelry Software Games While I have the most experience with products, the same basic techniques apply to any type of optimization you're looking to do. Use your keywords in every field that makes sense, provide useful content, and generally optimize it like you would have optimized a site back in '99. No links, just the on-page stuff, or rather on-form submission and on-feed stuff. It just really takes a lot different approach than the typical build a bunch of links with the right anchor text and align that with your content. There's a lot of opportunity here... it'll just take some creativity to monetize it. So, who's up to the task? I've heard several "creative" ideas lately. Beginner,,General,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/what-all-can-you-post-in-base/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/49/0/070312.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/b_O0Q4bvjiM/ http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/new-video-demo/#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:34:01 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/new-video-demo/ http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/new-video-demo/feed/ http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/new-video-demo/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/T1gDPB4EZDw/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/baseop-service-currently-in-alpha/#comments Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:30:11 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/baseop/baseop-service-currently-in-alpha/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/baseop-service-currently-in-alpha/feed/ 2:00 A few of you know that I'm rolling out a service. For those of you that don't, let me tell you a little about it. First, ... A few of you know that I'm rolling out a service. For those of you that don't, let me tell you a little about it. First, it's tentatively called BaseOp. Secondly, since my time during the day is very limited (yes, I have a full time job), David Brown of Neo1SEO.com is going to take care of all the customer service aspects and setup contact. Once you've talked to David (at 509-218-3200), he'll have an idea of what products you're looking to list. Those which we see the most potential with will be first in the queue (all products can sell through Base optimization, but only some will sell in mass quantities). We'll have you place a bit of code on your product pages and on your checkout page. We will be maintaining the feed, taking care of the scheduling the uploads, and doing all the optimization work. Your end of th deal will be logging in and validating orders which were placed from visitors through the feed. Canceled orders won't be billed, but all others will be a percentage of the sale. What does it mean we're in Alpha testing? Simple : I'm testing it via a couple of websites that I have a bit more control over already, making sure the technology is working. The next stage will be a limited beta, with about 20 sites being selected. We're still building a list of potential candidates, but we have most of the spots selected. If you'd like to be considered, call David. The final phase will be a roll-out to more websites. We have a few people that will be learning the optimization techniques from me during the beta phase, and that will help with scaling this when the full program is released. I should have a link next week for people to sign up to be considered as well, but for now the phone is the only option. Any questions or suggestions, let David know or email me at advertising [at] oneboxer.com. BaseOp,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/baseop-service-currently-in-alpha/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/50/0/070302.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/wMyB1_r6W5E/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-is-the-difference-between-organic-optimization-and-onebox-optimization-1000-miles/#comments Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:00:23 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-is-the-difference-between-organic-optimization-and-onebox-optimization-1000-miles/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-is-the-difference-between-organic-optimization-and-onebox-optimization-1000-miles/feed/ 2:37 I got this question last week, and it actually made me stop and think. The difference between optimizing for SERPs and optimizing for OneBox is ... I got this question last week, and it actually made me stop and think. The difference between optimizing for SERPs and optimizing for OneBox is actually quite a bit, but how do you really put that into words? First, organic optimization is much more work. You not only need to get your content, title, headings, meta tags, site structure, and page cross-linking done correctly, but you've also got to worry about getting IBL's with the proper anchor text pointed to the right page. By comparison, optimizing to get into the OneBox is pretty simple. You're just doing things, as it was described by NeO a while back, as if it's the SEO of 1997. Use your keywords everywhere that makes sense a few times, then add those words to some places that don't really make sense and add them a few more times. No linkbuilding, no big barrier to entry, just a little time spent filling out a form or doing some work in Excel. The other difference that I'd say is HUGE is that there's no waiting game to play. With "Traditional" SEO (is SEO old enough to say that yet?), the changes you make today may take weeks to show what effect, if any, they had. With Base, you make your changes, and within hours you can see what those changes did for you. For anyone that likes instant gratification, this will be appreciated, I'm sure. Finally, the other big difference is the amount of competition. Organic optimization means competing with 100's of 1000's of listings or more. For niche items, it may only be a few thousand. Base means competing with 100's for really popular items. Even something crazy like ipod nano, which has 30M listings on Google is around 100k in Froogle, and that's including a ton of accessories. Clicking to narrow it to the 2GB model leaves you with less than 2k listings. What's the difference? 1000 miles... General,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-is-the-difference-between-organic-optimization-and-onebox-optimization-1000-miles/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/43/0/070226.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/1Y6tvLe1xvU/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/oneboxercom-weekly-recap-for-feb-19th-23rd-2007/#comments Sat, 24 Feb 2007 14:22:40 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/oneboxercom-weekly-recap-for-feb-19th-23rd-2007/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/oneboxercom-weekly-recap-for-feb-19th-23rd-2007/feed/ 4:16 The weekly oneboxer.com podcast for the following topics: Base podcast listings Google checkout One blog post could cost Yahoo their $20M / the MBL controversy Shoemoney's new "Most Viewed ... The weekly oneboxer.com podcast for the following topics: Base podcast listings Google checkout One blog post could cost Yahoo their $20M / the MBL controversy Shoemoney's new "Most Viewed Photo" - are they kidding? The OneBoxer.com podcast got listed in iTunes The site skin - coming soon Podcast advertising - podcasts [at] oneboxer.com Comments / Suggestions also to podcasts [at] oneboxer.com General,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/oneboxercom-weekly-recap-for-feb-19th-23rd-2007/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/48/0/070224.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/3PE5Fw7J0s0/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-is-google-getting-out-of-checkout/#comments Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:00:26 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-is-google-getting-out-of-checkout/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-is-google-getting-out-of-checkout/feed/ 2:00 Obviously, Google Checkout transactions are costing Google money. Regardless of volume, they can't process credit cards for free. Their initial percentage of ad spend towards ... Obviously, Google Checkout transactions are costing Google money. Regardless of volume, they can't process credit cards for free. Their initial percentage of ad spend towards processing fees seemed like it'd make sense as a motivation, but when they changed to free transactions for the rest of 2006 and then through 2007, I started to wonder. Especially when they added the $10 incentive. What is Google really up to? On my way home from Nebraska People Making Money Online (it was cool - thanks Jeremy), it suddenly struck me. Google knows who you are if you have a Google account, which not everyone has, but not much more. As they're pushing towards personalization of the search results, which thankfully hasn't affected base optimization too much yet, they need more people with Google accounts. Offering free processing, which gets online sellers excited to use it, also allows online retailers to get users signing up for accounts for them. But wait - there's more. Not only can they now get more people signed up with accounts, but they actually know where those people live. That's right, your credit card billing address gets verified when you add it as a payment option. So now they know where you live, which helps them better target local search results and really tailor personalized search for you. I think Google Checkout, which obviously affects OneBox results with the extra link for items available through checkout, is going to help them roll out personalization in a big way. It was partly a smokescreen, and the discounts were part of the fuel for the fire. Who ever said Google's not a brilliant marketing machine? General,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-is-google-getting-out-of-checkout/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/47/0/070223.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/6A7FN0Uqze4/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/base-podcasts/#comments Fri, 23 Feb 2007 05:00:13 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/base-podcasts/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/base-podcasts/feed/ 2:08 For those of you that publish podcasts, did you know you can list them in Google Base? You can list each episode individually, giving each ... For those of you that publish podcasts, did you know you can list them in Google Base? You can list each episode individually, giving each one optimized descriptions and a link to the file itself. I stumbled across this a while back and thought to myself, "Self, will this really work?" I didn't know if anyone would actually be interested in a podcast that was searching in base or not, so I submitted one of them and decided to see what the results were. Since I'm talking about podcasts, it doesn't seem right sharing the results here. You'll have to listen to the podcast to find out what the results actually were. Sorry, no dice for those of you reading this through your feed reader. You'll have to click the "Play" button on the site to hear what's going on. But for those of you listening through iTunes (Yay, I got listed!), you're in luck. Non-Product,Optimization,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/base-podcasts/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/46/0/070222.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/ZNOoTpeOMdI/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/weekly-recap-feb-6th-16th/#comments Mon, 19 Feb 2007 03:57:10 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/weekly-recap-feb-6th-16th/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/weekly-recap-feb-6th-16th/feed/ 11:37 I missed last week, so this week's is longer. Special guest: Robert Garcia (rumblepup). Links discussed: enefem.com, rumblepup.com, his interview of me. I missed last week, so this week's is longer. Special guest: Robert Garcia (rumblepup). Links discussed: enefem.com, rumblepup.com, his interview of me. General,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/weekly-recap-feb-6th-16th/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/41/0/070218.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/mPnINAPbQlU/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-did-google-do-right-when-starting-froogle/#comments Wed, 14 Feb 2007 14:00:18 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-did-google-do-right-when-starting-froogle/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-did-google-do-right-when-starting-froogle/feed/ 1:22 As most of you know, Froogle is what started the products portion of Google Base. Starting something like this from scratch and getting it to ... As most of you know, Froogle is what started the products portion of Google Base. Starting something like this from scratch and getting it to catch on isn't an easy task, so they must have done something right. But what was it that they did right? For starters, Google used their crawlers to pre-populate their new service. This showed some immediate value to the user, and it wasn't awful. If you want an example of awful, MSN's new product service is a good example. Next, they started accepting feeds - free of charge - and placing those above the crawled listings. Of course, there is more confidence that the information is correct when the data is form a feed rather than from a crawl, so it made a lot of sense to place those higher. This got people excited about creating feeds. Along the way, they started grabbing and aggregating store reviews from other sources, then coming up with their own ratings based on what they were finding. This has undoubtedly created some sense of trust within the listings. Finally, they started incorporating the results into their heavily used organic listings when it made sense. That is what I call a recipe for success. General,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/what-did-google-do-right-when-starting-froogle/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/39/0/070214.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/bDt1zKuXuDM/ http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/why-would-i-need-to-resubmit-a-feed/#comments Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:00:17 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/why-would-i-need-to-resubmit-a-feed/ http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/why-would-i-need-to-resubmit-a-feed/feed/ 1:12 A question I recently received via instant messaging: I noticed that Google Base lets you change listing right in the interface. If that's the case, why ... A question I recently received via instant messaging: I noticed that Google Base lets you change listing right in the interface. If that's the case, why would someone need to resend their feed? While it's true that you can keep editing products and keep them on the site, I don't personally have time to edit our 9,000 listings by hand to keep them active. Why did I say KEEP them active? Because of the following statement on base: Most types of items (including products, events and activities, services, housing, vehicles, wanted ads, jobs, travel packages, and people profiles) automatically expire after 30 days. I don't have time to log in and edit 9,000 (and growing) listings every 30 days or less. Sure, you could make some edits, see what happens, and schedule uploads every few weeks. But it's going to be a real pain if you want to keep products active for a long time to get in there and edit products. If you're going to be serious about Base optimization, keep sending those feeds on a regular basis. Beginner,,General,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/beginner/why-would-i-need-to-resubmit-a-feed/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/40/0/070212.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/e1_f_qhMsrc/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/how-do-i-track-sales-through-onebox-vs-frooglegooglecom/#comments Thu, 08 Feb 2007 14:00:05 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/how-do-i-track-sales-through-onebox-vs-frooglegooglecom/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/how-do-i-track-sales-through-onebox-vs-frooglegooglecom/feed/ 1:56 While this seems initially like it'll be a simple task, OneBox ends up being very difficult to really track down the sales from. The same ... While this seems initially like it'll be a simple task, OneBox ends up being very difficult to really track down the sales from. The same feed, which many times has a parameter of ref=base or xsrc=base, ends up feeding Google Base, Froogle, and OneBox results. What this means is you can't totally trust your analytics. They'll easily find those that arrived at a page with that parameter and track the sales, but they don't typically break things down the way you're going to want to here. The easy answer is to not worry about it. After all, it's all the same feed and isn't really that different, regardless of the true source. But, being a data junky, I couldn't possibly live with that answer. That's just not the best way to go about optimizing in my opinion. I want to know what's actually working and what isn't. The primary sources that you're going to look for are base.google.com, froogle.google.com, and www.google.com. By breaking things down by source after finding those visitors with the parameter added, you're going to find the actual visitors from each source. Using a very simple logfile analysis tool won't cut it here, so if you're using the free stuff I think you'll be out of luck. Most Enterprise level analytics packages will handle this fine, though. Basically, base.google.com means a Base user, froogle.google.com means a froogle user, and www.google.com means a OnBox referral. So there you have it - it's really not that tough, but it's also not that easy to pull out of your analytics. Analytics,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/how-do-i-track-sales-through-onebox-vs-frooglegooglecom/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/28/0/20070208.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/qvQOIi5ZerE/ http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/how-long-has-feed-optimization-been-around/#comments Tue, 06 Feb 2007 14:00:55 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/how-long-has-feed-optimization-been-around/ http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/how-long-has-feed-optimization-been-around/feed/ http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/how-long-has-feed-optimization-been-around/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/oH1mT1GTg7I/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/weekly-podcast-jan-29th-feb-2nd-2007-recap/#comments Sat, 03 Feb 2007 20:16:27 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/weekly-podcast-jan-29th-feb-2nd-2007-recap/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/weekly-podcast-jan-29th-feb-2nd-2007-recap/feed/ 21:44 A weekly recap and some other news. As you can tell by the length of the file, we rambled about stuff that wasn't covered earlier ... A weekly recap and some other news. As you can tell by the length of the file, we rambled about stuff that wasn't covered earlier in the week. Phone number listed in the podcast: 509-218-3200 Email for comments / feedback: podcasts [at] oneboxer.com General,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/weekly-podcast-jan-29th-feb-2nd-2007-recap/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/38/0/3.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/eG8FI-IKRrI/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/how-do-i-find-out-what-my-google-base-ctr-is/#comments Fri, 02 Feb 2007 14:00:05 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/how-do-i-find-out-what-my-google-base-ctr-is/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/how-do-i-find-out-what-my-google-base-ctr-is/feed/ http://www.oneboxer.com/podcasts/how-do-i-find-out-what-my-google-base-ctr-is/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/OQGmT86Fdag/ http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/is-google-checkout-a-help/#comments Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:00:29 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/is-google-checkout-a-help/ http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/is-google-checkout-a-help/feed/ http://www.oneboxer.com/strategies/is-google-checkout-a-help/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/A8dh6AHNNSU/ http://www.oneboxer.com/spamming/why-cant-i-add-my-affiliate-links/#comments Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:00:19 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/spamming/why-cant-i-add-my-affiliate-links/ http://www.oneboxer.com/spamming/why-cant-i-add-my-affiliate-links/feed/ 2:20 Affiliates Posting is not permitted for the promotion of affiliate sites or products sold through an affiliate marketing relationship. This includes item pages that are made ... Affiliates Posting is not permitted for the promotion of affiliate sites or products sold through an affiliate marketing relationship. This includes item pages that are made up primarily of advertisements, or pages where advisements obstruct the view of the item. Source Well, that makes it pretty clear that affiliate links are not allowed. But it doesn't go into the reasoning. For that, you need to rewind your SEO memory about 3 years. For those that have been doing SEO for products, there was a time that we remember all too well that Amazon and their affiliates covered pretty much the top 2 - 3 pages of the SERPs for virtually any product. This led to a poor user experience and ended up causing some distrust of the SERPs. After all, having most of the top 10 showing exactly the same offer doesn't tend to give the variety that a searcher is really looking for. If I want to buy from Amazon, I know how to search their site and don't need Google to do the same thing. Now, when we're talking about Base, Google took the stance that only the sellers can actually list things. This leads to the widest variety of offerings from the largest selection of merchants. How wide? I couldn't personally tell you, but Brian Smith says this: I estimate that there are currently about 30,000 merchants actively submitting feeds to Google Base. Source Think of things this way : If Amazon has 30,000 affiliates (probably conservative) that all gave Google Base feeds, then they've got potentially 30,001 identical listings for every one of Amazon's products. Google could quickly double the number of feeds by allowing affiliates, but the duplicate content would be a huge problem and would lessen the value in a hurry. This certainly isn't going to increase the use of the service, and without users its not worth the load on their servers. Google seems to have the end user in mind on this one for sure. Guidelines,,Spamming,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/spamming/why-cant-i-add-my-affiliate-links/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/24/0/jan_31_2007.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheOneboxer/~3/79U8fxqE1kI/ http://www.oneboxer.com/excuses/is-feed-optimization-really-seo/#comments Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:10:24 +0000 Brian Mark http://www.oneboxer.com/excuses/is-feed-optimization-really-seo/ http://www.oneboxer.com/excuses/is-feed-optimization-really-seo/feed/ 1:52 A lot has been made recently on various forums and on various radio programs about how feed optimization isn't SEO and it's not going to ... A lot has been made recently on various forums and on various radio programs about how feed optimization isn't SEO and it's not going to get you a lot of sales. I disagree with both of those personally, and I'll tell you why. I believe that anything that falls into the "Optimizing for organic traffic" falls into the SEO bucket. It shouldn't matter if that's a feed or if that's a page, you're optimizing for that "Free" traffic from Google, which is a Search Engine that you're Optimizing for. Additionally, when Danny's prediction comes true and people actually do get served the Froogle results for Google queries, we're going to be seeing those optimizing for the web search wondering what they've got to do to get listed now. Feed optimization is the future of many very specific queries. It's not going to affect everyone or every phrase, but anyone selling lots of products online is going to need to look at this sooner or later. Now, as for a comment I heard on a radio program that people are skipping onebox results and going straight to web search results, you're talking about something similar to Google's ads. Experienced users, such as webmasters, tend to ignore those. But anyone doing PPC knows that other people click on them. Same is true for there being a group of users that really like OneBox, as well as novice users that don't even know that's not normal. Hey, even those that know what's normal see something different and give it an extra look. I've also got the sales numbers to prove the comments I've heard wrong. Who can argue with $1M? We've optimized to show up on a search engine and the sales results are fantastic. Excuses,,General,,podcasts Brian Mark no No http://www.oneboxer.com/excuses/is-feed-optimization-really-seo/http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.oneboxer.com/podpress_trac/feed/29/0/jan_30_2007.mp3 Brian MarknonadultGoogle OneBox Optimization Strategies by oneboxer.com