Online Marketing

SEO is Both Science and Art

2011-12-06T14:38:00.002+05:30

For many people who aren’t involved in search engine optimization (SEO) on a regular basis, it’s easy (or so they think). You simply create a website, write some content, and then get links from as many sources as you can.

Perhaps that works. Sometimes.

More often than not, the craft of SEO is truly a unique practice. It’s is often misunderstood and can be painfully difficult to staff for. Here’s why.

SEO is Science

By definition, “Science” is:

a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.

systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.

any of the branches of natural or physical science.

systematized knowledge in general.

knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study.

Anyone who has performed professional SEO services for any length of time will tell you that at any given time we have definitely practiced each of the above. In some cases, changes in our industry are so rapid that we crowdsource the science experiments among peers (via WebmasterWorld forums or Search Engine Watch forums).

Unfortunately, Google doesn’t provide step-by-step instruction for optimization of every single website. Every website is unique. Every optimization process/project is unique.

Every website represents new and interesting optimization challenges. All require at least some experimentation. Most SEOs follow strict methods of testing/monitoring/measuring so that we know what works and what doesn’t.

We have a few guidelines along the way:

Our “branch of knowledge” is well formed in what Google provides in their Webmaster Guidelines and SEO Starter Guide.

Our unique experience. Just like you might “learn” marketing by getting your bachelor’s degree in marketing, you really aren’t very good at it until you’ve worked in your field and gained real-world experience. There are so many things that you can read in the blogosphere regarding SEO that are complete crap. But, if you didn’t know any better, you’d buy off on it because “it sounds reasonable, so it must be true!” So, be careful to claim something is 100 percent “true” unless you have enough “scientific” evidence to back up the claim. Otherwise, it’s called “hypothesis”:

A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.

A proposition made as a basis for reasoning, without any assumption of its truth.

SEO is Also Art

By definition, art is:

the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects

I've worked with and befriended many incredibly bright SEOs in my years in this business. It is those who manage to blend the scientific skills with the creative thoughts on how to experiment/improve programs are the gems.

Getting creative with SEO is thinking of how a marketing program can encompass social, graphic design, link building, content generation, and PR to drive toward a common goal.

Getting creative with SEO is also about reworking a website’s design/code so that usability and accessibility improve, while maintaining brand guidelines and keeping with “look and feel” requirements, yet improving SEO.

Every day, we must get creative in determining how to best target keywords by determining which method of content generation gives us the best chance at gaining a presence in the search engines and – most importantly – engaging our audience.

Should we write a blog post? Should this be best handled in a press release? How about a video? Infographic? New “corporate” page on the site? There are a multitude of ways that we might determine to target a keyword via content.

The Perfect SEO

Today’s SEO is so much more involved than SEO of years past. When I hear people saying that they’re trying to determine if they should hire an in-house SEO or an agency, I will give them the pros and cons of each (and there sincerely are pros and cons of each).

But one factor which I believe leans toward the strength of an agency is that there’s typically going to be a team of individuals, each with a unique skill set. And, these individuals can share examples of what works and what doesn’t, with each other (scientific experiments often occur), they can bounce creative thoughts off of one another and collectively provide more value than any one person might.

Our industry needs more of these highly-skilled “freaks of nature” who blend both the scienctific skills and artistic creativity of SEO.

Google Flight Information Gains Prominence in Search Results

2011-12-06T14:36:00.001+05:30

Since giving us an early look in September, Google has continued working on their Flight Search service. Their most recent development displays the Flight Search table on the results page when triggered by flight-related queries, as opposed to requiring a click on Flights in the left-hand navigation bar.

As we described the feature when the first look was revealed, the big benefit to users is that results come back instantly... goodbye, endless page loading! Google searches multiple major airlines and displays the results in a table located just below the paid search ads, above organic results.

The new look can be attributed to the technology gained via Google's acquisition of airline data software company ITA, finalized in April this year after a Department of Justice investigation. Google’s earlier iteration of flight data in search results was decidedly clunky and text-heavy; this latest version is much cleaner, organized, and malleable.

Users can change the end and return dates on the SERP Flights table, or click on the flight information to go to the detailed list at Google.com/flights. Three bars appear at the top of the listing, each with a dropdown option.

The top bar controls destinations and opens to display a Google map. The selected route appears, with other destinations showing flight prices, as well. Some are listed, while others pop up on hovering over the dots.

The second bar opens to allow users to change the departure and return dates and change between one-way and return. Users can change the dates using the directional arrows at the top of the bar, or with the sliding highlight bar on the calendar. Hovering over specific days on the calendar shows their place in the bar graph on the right, which indicates the lowest available fare in and around the date range.

google-flights-duration-and-max-price

The third dropdown box displays a graph with two sliders, to filter results by max flight duration and price. Text listings appear below, categorized by airline.

Have you had a chance to try out Google Flights? What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

Google Secures Admeld Purchase

2011-12-06T14:27:00.000+05:30

Google announced Friday that they have secured the purchase of Admeld. The New-York based business that was founded in 2008 assists Internet publishers to realize larger revenues by managing display ads from hundreds of sources and ad networks. Admeld carries an impressive client list including Fox News, and the Weather Channel.

After a five-month investigation, the $400 million acquisition of Admeld was cleared once antitrust concerns arising from the purchase were alleviated.

The acquisition was granted once a detailed analysis was completed that was able to show that Admeld’s competitors were secure enough to offer companies alternative methods in advertise, Bloomberg reported. The U.S. Department of Justice sanctioned the deal allowing Google to close the acquisition within the next few days.

The purchase of Admeld by Google follows a string of recent acquisitions in an effort by the search giant to diversify new services and advertising sources. Bloomberg noted that Google has made 57 acquisitions of intangible assets during the first three quarters of this year.

This move will further strengthen Google’s display advertising ambitions. Accounting for 9.3 percent of online display spending (up from 8.3 percent in 2010), Google trails market share leader Facebook (16 percent) and Yahoo (13 percent), according to eMarketer.

online-advertising-spending-2011-pie-chart

Google generates almost all of its income from online advertising. The purchase of Admeld will most certainly allow Google to realize a continued increase in revenues. Google’s sales (excluding partners) rose to $7.51 billion during the third quarter of this year.

"The key synergy will involve the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Many supply side platforms, including ... Admeld, have begun acting like exchanges - pooling display inventory in marketplaces and supporting the sale of that ad space to the highest bidder, often with the help of third-party data. By integrating Admeld's platform with DoubleClick's DART for Publishers product, Google stands to introduce more volume into that exchange," ClickZ noted.

Ask's Top Question in 2011: Was Kim Kardashian's Wedding Fake?

2011-12-06T14:25:00.000+05:30

Each year here at Search Engine Watch, we wait with bated breath for the top searched lists to come out. Sometimes insightful and often hilarious, the lists give an overview of the topics and terms on the minds of millions in the U.S. and beyond. We've already looked at the top searches on Bing and AOL in 2011.

Ask.com’s top questions lists reveal the most commonly searched terms and corresponding questions about celebrities, news, and politics. The format this year is slightly different from last; in 2010, they offered the most popular questions overall, with answers. For 2011, they’ve paired search terms with questions.

This year, they’ve also released their predictions for the top headlines in 2012. Without further ado, here are the top search terms and questions of 2011, according to Ask.com.

Top Celebrity Search Terms and Questions

kim-kardashian-weddingFrom Kim Kardashian’s fairy-tale-wedding-72-day-marriage-ugly-split whirlwind romance to Lady Gaga’s facial implants, here are the celebrity questions most on the minds of Americans this year:

Kim Kardashian: Was Kim Kardashian's wedding fake?

Justin Bieber: Is Justin Bieber going to be a dad?

Lady Gaga: Are Lady Gaga's face implants real?

Beyonce: Did Beyonce fake a baby bump?

Kate Middleton: Who made Kate Middleton's wedding dress?

Ashton Kutcher: Did Ashton cheat?

Michael Jackson: Was Michael Jackson murdered?

Selena Gomez: Is Selena Gomez pregnant?

Lindsay Lohan: Is Lindsay Lohan going to jail?

Charlie Sheen: What happened to Charlie Sheen's teeth?

Twitter Finally Tests Self-Serve Advertising Platform

2011-12-06T14:23:00.000+05:30

Fourteen months after CEO Dick Costolo proclaimed his company would launch a self-service advertiser platform during 2011, Twitter has confirmed that select marketers began testing such a platform in November.

"Earlier [in November], Twitter began testing self-service advertising with a handful of existing advertisers," a spokesperson for the San Francisco-based Internet firm wrote in an e-mailed statement. "These advertisers can now set up and run their own Promoted Products campaigns and pay via a credit card, without working with our in-house staff…As with all of our advertising efforts, we're starting small, testing carefully and making improvements on [it] as we learn what works. We will slowly roll this capability out to more advertisers in the coming weeks and months."

Since Twitter launched Promoted Tweets in April 2010, marketers wanting to buy the ad units - or Promoted Trends or Promoted Accounts - have had to fill out an online form and wait for the site's sales team to contact them. A self-service platform - first mentioned by Costolo in September 2010 - would seem to be a boon to both marketers and Twitter itself.

Research firm eMarketer predicts Twitter's ad revenue will hit nearly $140 million in 2011, which is up from $45 million last year. The New York researcher forecasts that Twitter ads sales will reach $400 million in 2013.

Facebook’s 40 Most Shared Articles of 2011: Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Tops List

2011-12-06T14:19:00.001+05:30

Facebook’s Most Shared Articles on Facebook 2011 post lists which articles were shared most amongst users in the U.S. in 2011. Surprisingly, the top 40 articles came from just six online news sources, largely led by Yahoo! and CNN.

The most shared article of the year wasn’t really an article at all, but a series of sliding before-and-after satellite pictures of the devastation caused by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, posted by CNN.com. Ten of the top 40 most shared articles were from CNN, second only to Yahoo, with 12.

The Complete List of Facebook’s Most Shared Articles of 2011

Satellite Photos of Japan, Before and After the Quake and Tsunami (New York Times)
What teachers really want to tell parents (CNN)
No, your zodiac sign hasn't changed (CNN)
Parents, don't dress your girls like tramps (CNN)
(video) - Father Daughter Dance Medley (Yahoo)
At funeral, dog mourns the death of Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan (Yahoo)
You'll freak when you see the new Facebook (CNN)
Dog in Japan stays by the side of ailing friend in the rubble (Yahoo)
Giant crocodile captured alive in Philippines (Yahoo)
New Zodiac Sign Dates: Ophiuchus The 13th Sign? (The Huffington Post)
Parents keep child’s gender under wraps (Yahoo)
How to Talk to Little Girls (The Huffington Post)
Stop Coddling the Super-Rich (New York Times)
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior (Wall Street Journal)
(video) - Twin Baby Boys Have A Conversation! (Yahoo)
Man robs bank to get medical care in jail (Yahoo)
Why You're Not Married (The Huffington Post)
A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs (New York Times)
Ryan Dunn Dead: 'Jackass' Star Dies In Car Crash (The Huffington Post)
Scientists warn California could be struck by winter ‘superstorm’ (Yahoo)
Notes From a Dragon Mom (New York Times)
A Message to Women From a Man: You Are Not "Crazy" (The Huffington Post)
Obama’s and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph (Washington Post)
Penn State, my final loss of faith (Washington Post)
Golden-Voiced Homeless Man Captivates Internet (Yahoo)
The most typical face on the planet (Yahoo)
Widespread destruction from Japan earthquake, tsunamis (CNN)
Permissive parents: Curb your brats (CNN)
A father's day wish: Dads, wake the hell up! (CNN)
(video) - Laughing Baby Loves Ripping Paper! (Yahoo)
Epic Cover Letter: How To Get Hired For Your Dream Job (PICTURE) (The Huffington Post)
New Zodiac sign dates: Don't switch horoscopes yet (Washington Post)
Things Babies Born in 2011 Will Never Know (Yahoo: Money Talk News)
The Psychology of Revenge: Why We Should Stop Celebrating Osama Bin Laden's Death (The Huffington Post)
(photo gallery) - ‘Where Children Sleep’ (New York Times)
Quake moved Japan coast 8 feet, shifted Earth's axis (CNN)
Steve Jobs, Apple founder, dies (CNN)
China's latest craze: dyeing pets to look like other wild animals (CNN)
Grant Hill’s Response to Jalen Rose (New York Times)
Steve Jobs’s Patents (New York Times)

Social News

Facebook has been working on expanding sharing and, with the implementation of Open Graph and their “new class” of apps, making Facebook the place users go to curate everything in their lives: what they are cooking, watching, listening to, or is this case, reading.

Yahoo News and The Washington Post were among the first five publications involved in Open Graph social news apps in beta, as announced at the f8 developer conference. The Huffington Post and Wall Street Journal have since joined their ranks, while CNN.com and NYTimes.com have opted out... for now.

In September, former NYTimes.com developer Michael Donohoe explained why, at least in part, the New York Times decided to forgo frictionless sharing via a social reader app. From his blog:

The Washington Post has an Editor’s Note. Its says many things including: “All you have to do is read, just as you normally do. No “recommending,” “liking” or “sharing” — just read and we’ll do the rest of the work. The app gets better the more friends you have using it.”

Thats a very nice spin on it.

Earlier this year when I was still at the Times we talked to Facebook about a news app. Facebook had a whole set of new features in the pipeline (presumably just launched) and this passive reading action was one of them and they were looking for us to use it. It came up in conference calls and on-site meetings. I believe Facebook is very eager to catch-up or even displace Twitter as a go-to place for news, and this is how they think they can do that.

To their credit the newsroom shelved the idea. The consensus was that this was intrusive and potentially an invasion of privacy. I think after that was repeatedly communicated that Facebook lost interest in doing anything at all.

Are you using social reader apps on Facebook to share news articles, or to keep up with the interests of friends? Let us know about your experience in the comments!

Google & NORAD Track Santa; Bing Unveils 'Magical' Holiday Calendar

2011-12-06T14:17:00.000+05:30

Search engines are participating in holiday-oriented activities this year: Google is helping to track Santa yet again with the help of NORAD, while Bing has launched a "Magical Holiday Calendar" featuring deals and prizes.

Google and NORAD Tail Santa

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking Santa's position since 1955, when a misprinted ad led to children calling the airspace defense director of operations when they'd meant to call Old Saint Nick. That director of operations, Colonel Harry Shoup, decided to play along – and the organization has played along ever since.

Google has been helping NORAD's efforts for several years now, and 2011 is certainly no exception. Santa enthusiasts can use Google Maps, Google Earth, and even Google Maps for mobile to keep on top of Santa's locale. This year sees the addition of NORAD Tracks Santa on Google+.

In conjunction with the standard tracking efforts, Google contributes to the NORAD site and its Countdown Village, which features activities for children. New activities are launched every day of December prior to the 25th.

Bing's Magical Holiday Calendar

Bing has announced a countdown of its own: a Bing calendar that opens up a new holiday icon each day in December. Those icons take users to downloadable goodies, holiday-oriented sites, special deals, and even contests and giveaways. Giveaways include "a chance to win a trip around the world, free concerts for a year, new cars or the ultimate fashion experience."

To commemorate the launch of the new site, the Bing blog invited Kelly Osbourne to share her holiday memories and ideas. She recounted memories of how Ozzy used to dress up as Santa, told how the Osbournes used greeting cards as holiday decor, and says that this year she is making her Christmas tree out of recyclable materials.

Holiday traditions are certainly important. What traditions do you have with search this time of the year? How about for SEO? What about other, random traditions for the holiday season? Let us know in the comments.

European Commission Readies 400+ Page Document on Google's Abuse of Dominance

2011-12-06T14:13:00.000+05:30

The European Commission (EC) will issue a 400-page document outlining its concerns with Google's alleged anti-competitive practices, according to sources at the EC.

Sources in the organization revealed that the EC will issue its statement of objections in the new year listing a number of concerns with Google's search practices, according to a report in The Financial Times, sourced via dealReporter.

The firm is accused of using its dominance in the search market to favor Google services such as Product Search and YouTube at the expense of other companies in these sectors.

Furthermore, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is expected to visit Joaquín Almunia, vice president of the EC and the commissioner responsible for competition, to discuss the document and Google's acquisition of Motorola, according to the sources.

Google will be looking to reassure the EC that it can address any concerns the document raises, and to avoid a fine which could be as high as 10 percent of annual turnover.

Several firms have issued complaints against Google as part of the EC's investigation, including key rival Microsoft, which was itself the subject of an investigation by the EC over the lack of an alternative to Internet Explorer in the Windows operating system.

Meanwhile, Google is also being investigated by the US Congress, and in a first round of hearings Schmidt was forced to deny that Google has ever "cooked" its search algorithms to promote its own services over those of its rivals.

Google to Appeal Italian Privacy Ruling and Jail-Time Sentence

2011-12-06T14:10:00.002+05:30

Google is set to appeal the conviction of three Google execs. The conviction, which includes jail time, is for privacy violations involved in allowing Google Video content to be posted. Google will appeal the ruling as soon as January.

Google's Appeal

Peter Fleischer, who acts as Google's global privacy counsel and who is also a defendant in this case, confirmed the company's intentions to appeal. That appeal will happen in early 2012, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

The other two defendants in this case are David Drummond, Google's SVP of Corporate Development, and George De Los Reyes, a former Google board member. Details on Google's representation in Italy, the anticipated legal battle, and court dates have yet to be released.

The Case's History

The case centers around footage posted to Google Video in 2006. The content showed Italian students harassing a fellow student who has autism. While the content was pulled down less than 24 hours after it was posted, the Italian government decided to charge Google representatives with both defamation and privacy violations.

The Italian Government first chose to pursue the case as a criminal matter in February 2009. This meant that, beyond any civil penalties and damages, Google execs faced the possibility of jail time. In November 2009, the Italian government moved forward with pursuit of "six-month to a year sentences."

While broadly dismissed as a ridiculous case that would almost certainly fail to stick, the February 2010 ruling found three of the four executives guilty of the privacy violations. (The defamation charges came back as "not guilty.") The executives were sentenced to six months in jail.

As the executives awaited an appeal, their jail time was suspended. As Google appeals the ruling, the sentences will either be dismissed or served.

The case is noteworthy in how hard is pushes against the boundaries of privacy laws for content distributors on the web. Do you think the case will be dismissed? What responsibility, from a legal perspective, should content distributors have for the content published on their platform? Who should be held responsible when the law is violated? And, should the execs be confirmed as guilty in this case, should Google or the U.S. government resist the choice? Sound off in the comments.

Google Discusses 10 Recent Algorithm Changes

2011-11-28T11:13:00.004+05:30

Google is trying to become more open about their search algorithm changes. Beyond the much-discussed "fresh" update, Google discussed recent changes in SERP titles and descriptions, date-specified searches, image search signals, and more.

While Matt Cutts called this "An experiment in radical transparency", the information remains fairly veiled and covers only a small portion of the algorithm changes that have been made.

Nine Recent Changes to Google's Algorithm

Several of the changes discussed were applicable either globally or specifically for the English-speaking market, while three changes are specifically for foreign markets (the last three on this list). The announced changes are:

Snippets pulling more from page content.The snippet displayed on the SERP, sometimes en lieu of the meta description for a page, will now pull more often from page content as opposed to menu or header text.
Displayed page titles pulling less from duplicate boilerplate anchors. The text of navigation links that's identical from page to page will no longer gain additional weight due to the high volume at which the text is repeated.
Application rich snippets are extended. Apps will now display cost and user review details in the SERP when marked up correctly. (We previously discussed the details of rich app snippets.)
An image search signal has been retired. While Google wasn't completely clear on what exact signal was retired, something "related to images that had references from multiple documents on the web" is being removed as a ranking factor.
The detection of official pages has been improved. Official pages are now located and promoted more effectively.
Results for date range–specific queries will be better organized for that range. Whenever users specify the dates for results, Google will organize the order of results to best meet the specified time period.
Cross-language information retrieval has been improved. In foreign languages, English web pages will now have an additional translated title on the SERP that will link to a translated version of the page.
Length issues in autocomplete predictions for Russian have been resolved. Excessively long queries are now being handled appropriately (in much the same way they were already being handled for English).
Issues with IME autocomplete predictions have been resolved. Autocomplete was inappropriately counting the intermediate keystrokes for IME (non-Latin characters) queries, leading to gibberish predictions for searches in certain languages (i.e., Hebrew, Arabic, and Russian). This has now been resolved.

The One Big Change

The recent fresh search results change places greater weight on how recently content was posted and/or updated. While not all results will be impacted, any queries that are for recent events (e.g., a news story, a current event, details on upcoming events, etc.), recurring events (e.g., events that happen every few years, TV seasons that renew each year, data on sports that will become less relevant very quickly, etc.), or "high decay" terms (e.g., technology items that change regularly, details on politicians who hold different stances now than they did two years ago, etc.).

While more than a third of searches are impacted, "only" 6 to 10 percent of searches (based on language and Google domain) will see a significantly different SERP.

We discussed further details of the fresh search results change to Google's algorithm previously, delving into the winners and losers, the specific types of "fresh" content affected, and methods for using news, blogs, and events to make the most of the change.

What's significant is that Google is now providing additional details on both large and small algorithm alterations. Do you think this is a sign of things to come? Insufficient "hush money" for webmasters and SEOs who want to know details? Or a way to show the various government institutions that are investigating Google that the company is willing to play nice? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2125512/Google-Discusses-10-Recent-Algorithm-Changes

Top 5 Considerations For International SEO

2011-11-28T11:12:00.002+05:30

ments

Considering a global expansion in 2012? Extending your web presence internationally can be challenging, especially without local resources at your disposal. But, with the right preparations it can be done. Understanding the basic principles of International SEO will ready you to enter a new foreign market successfully. Here are five critical considerations to account for prior to embarking on global SEO.

Goals & Limitations

Don’t rush the process of analyzing your existing resources and identifying potential barriers to entry. Future changes are likely to be expensive and short-cuts now can eventually be detrimental to your SEO.
Start by assessing your target market. Are you focused on a region (Latin America), a language (Spanish speakers), or a single country (Spain)? These are important distinctions that will impact all other decisions to follow.
Assess the strengths and limitations of your existing content management system (CMS). Assess and plan for various IT questions such as how you intend to handle subdomains and directories or if you’ll be able to localize URLs.
Review external factors like legal requirements, whether local hosting is a necessity, or if specific advertising laws are relevant to your industry.

Search Engine Selection

Identify which search engines are most popular in the countries you're targeting. Don’t assume the search engine landscape will mirror that of the United States.
In many foreign countries, Google’s presence is far more pronounced, while in others, a local or regional company dominates. In Europe, Google accounts for more than 90 percent market share. In Russia, Yandex is the most prominent search engine and in China, Baidu is the front-runner.
When considering which search engines to target, take note: unless a user has unique personalized settings, most search engines default to the user’s local version. Meaning, if you're in Germany you will automatically be directed to Google.de. As a result, it's essential to do keyword research as well as rank checking on the local level.

Site Structure Considerations

Given any technical limitations you identify, choose a web structure that is optimal for your business’s aims. In addition to server site and other local signals such as addresses, phone numbers, links, etc., the format you select will impact search engines’ assessments of your target market. Likewise, these assumptions will ultimately determine your rankings within that geography.
You may choose to use a country code top-level domain like site.fr, a generic top-level domain (GTLD) like fr.site.org, a subdirectory with a GTLD like site.com/fr or a URL parameter like site.com?loc=fr. The pros and cons for each are different.
When selecting a structure the answer is not absolute. What may be the best choice for a large enterprise service provider with operations worldwide may be detrimental for a small B2C focused on expanding into Canada.
Decide if you want a uniform format and design for all your expansion locales or if you’d prefer to have flexibility and diversification between websites. Cultural and linguistic differences should drive these decisions. A picture of a tall, blond woman may be right for a women’s magazine in Germany but not one in Japan.
Language localization also requires advanced planning. Without it, your translators might encounter space problems. For example, on average, German words are 30 percent longer than English words. Determine in advance, if you plan on keeping wireframes the same across all languages; establish clear guidelines for style, script size, word or character count; and leave space in your original language layout for localized text length variation.

Optimization Principles

As you research strategic keywords, be sure to perform your analysis and search volume assessment on a local level in order to understand which queries are most relevant for your market. Page optimization basics apply regardless of whether your site is targeted toward the French market or the United States.
Drive page optimization by inserting your target keywords in the URL, title tags, meta description, header tags, and page content. Don’t forget to optimize pictures and videos with localized captions, headlines, and alt-texts. Often image optimization presents a comparably easy opportunity to drive additional traffic.
To gain authority in your target country or region, focus on inbound links from local sites. For example, try to obtain links from French bloggers and newspapers if you're targeting France. As with link building anywhere, the more interesting and relevant your content is, the greater your chance to earn a link.

Localization Guidelines

Users will be less likely to provide credit card information, sign up for your newsletter, or simply trust you, if their experience is flawed by a less than professional translation, so don’t rely on automated translator tools (albeit powerful but not perfect) such as Google Translate for your website.
Once you have your perfect translation, it still may need to be optimized for search. For example, more colloquial terms frequently have higher search volumes. Using a keyword more than once may be better than using a synonym that is rarely searched for. Striking the right balance between an SEO friendly localization and an eloquently worded translation is key.
Lastly, consider cultural factors when deciding how to allocate funds. In depth product research may be more crucial in some countries than in others. China is an excellent example of a market where you’ll likely need to spend more resources to understand the nuances of the consumer psyche.
Without a doubt, cultural relevance and content quality will affect conversion rates.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2126401/Top-5-Considerations-For-International-SEO

How Search Engine Watch Grew Google News Traffic by 300% [Case Study]

2011-11-28T11:11:00.001+05:30

One of our stated goals in the Search Engine Watch redesign was to increase traffic from Google News in order to establish ourselves as an authoritative publication on the search marketing industry. The results of our project are below:

* Average monthly Visits from Google News up 329% on last year (2010) and 994% on strongest year (2008)

There is no magic formula for getting more traffic from Google News, but there are some best practices to follow.

Domain Optimization

In the case of the old Search Engine Watch there was a single obvious point of failure that meant the site was not maximizing visibility. The old site was running on two different CMS and consequently, two different domains.

Searchenginewatch.com housed all the columns from our expert contributors. Meanwhile the subdomain blog.searchenginewatch.com was home to all the industry news articles. Both had a completely different category structure and tagging facility. Consequently we had two different XML sitemaps being fed into Google News that had completely different taxonomies, tags and even timestamps.

XML Sitemap for Google News

Google News is optimization is fundamentally about producing a glitch free XML sitemap. It needs to be as clean and functional as possible, and personally speaking we have found that it works best when it is not overloaded with content. We only submit the last 3 days worth of stories.

The content migration for the new SEW on the new CMS gave us an opportunity to create a single sitemap with a uniform category and tag structure. Search industry news and expert contributor content now all came under one feed. Not only was this a technically better way of doing things but from a usability standpoint we felt that a mix of news and columns in one single 'river of content' was the way forward. Also, by not differentiating between the two, we could potentially reward contributors with more traffic if they happened to write about a timely piece that tied into the news of the week.

Topic Clusters

If there is any secret sauce to Google News ranking factors it is in how topic clusters work. When you look at how the Google News interface works, it clearly clusters stories from different sources in clusters of topics.

Whilst I have no hard evidence of how topic clusters work technically from Google’s point of view, I can share with you anecdotal evidence that lends insight into how topic clustering probably works.

I’m not a qualified journalist myself but Incisive Media has over 100 business to business publications, so I have easy access to many qualified journalists. Classical journalistic practices always seek to develop a news story from the original source. In order to do this, journalists seek new angles on a story which has been broken by the mainstream outlets and embellish the story with new perspectives and most importantly, new facts. As new facts come to light, the story essentially develops.

Real-time search algorithms mimic this journalistic practice. By analyzing a smaller corpus of documents (when compared to the wider web), real-time news algorithms attempt to calculate breakout terms within a document in order to see if they match, follow or lead a trend.

Real Time Search Algorithms

* OneRiot Out of Beta, Launches Trending Topic Engine

* Google News: Key Ranking Factors [Study]

* A Day in the Life of a Trending Topic

* 7 Reasons Why Google Instant Makes SEO Dead-on Relevant

Put another way, a real time search algorithm analyzes all of the content in a body of work and makes a series of bets about possible directions the story might develop. Whilst 99% of those bets will turn out to be nonsense, where more content appears in real time to corroborate some bets, those topics start to ‘heat up’, or mutate, and break out into a new trend.

What is so fundamentally interesting about this process is that in effect you have a situation where the very very near past becomes a predictor for the very very near future (If you are into the X-files, Lost, or understand a bit about Quantum theory, it is basically the principle that, at any given moment, all possible worlds exist at all possible times. And the progress of time is more akin to an observable mutation from all those possibilities).

So, from a SEO strategy point of view, to get more traffic from Google and Google News, your site should be expertly curating content around topics and any created content need to strongly signal a mutation in the story.

With the Ultra Knowledge Platform, our topics engine automatically clusters topics and identifies mutations. Furthermore, experience has shown that even when you don’t have a story out about the latest news, as news breaks and interest mounts, our incoming search traffic becomes a predictor for what people want to know about.

Furthermore, editorially, SEW has taken on a practice of advising our writers to prioritize developing a story where possible, ideally in a step beyond any existing commentary. If you can’t break a story, Google News will reward you if can still try and develop it.

To execute a similar strategy on your own site, rethink the way that your tag index pages work on your own site and give more power to them. Think in terms of axiomatic connections between content yet try to get economical such that you identify the core theme and use your editorial judgment to predict the mutation. Every tag index will create another link to your story and give you a boost on Google News.

Publication Reputation

Other key ranking factors on Google News, like publication reputation, are something that simply takes time an effort – crafting quality content, breaking news and getting high profile citations. Practically speaking Publication Reputation is little different to good relationship link building practices and maximizing social sharing and social architecture of your website.

Relationship Link Building

* Relationship Link Building: An Interview with Paul May of BuzzStream

* 21-Day Link Builder Relationship Challenge

* The Lost Art of the Personal Link Request

* Build Links Without a Computer

Over the last 18 months SEW has put a lot of work into raising its link profile from high quality sources. It’s all been a case of relationship link building – a strategy which SEW expert contributors have covered in great detail.

Given that getting links from journalists is largely down to chance, we set up a custom segment on Google Analytics called key referrers to track spikes of interest from visitors from mainstream publications, and goes some way to tracking a combination of mentions and links.

* Average monthly Visits from mainstream media sources up 113% on last year (2010) but down 14% on 2008

Calling a Success

Whilst mainstream media interest, as reflected in site visits, is marginally lower than our best year, there are so many factors at play in terms of how the news landscape operated then, compared to how it does now, that we cannot count this figure against us. Furthermore, if you are only ever as good as your last gig, then we can say that the efforts we have put into relationship link building with mainstream media has been nothing short of a success.

The absolutely incredible growth of traffic from Google News validates our SEO strategy. Consolidating our domains to a single source and revamping our site architecture to make use of topic clusters whilst engaging in reputation boosting (activity to be on a par with successes in the past) has enabled SEW to increase traffic from Google News by tenfold.

James Taylor, Technical Director at Ultra Knowledge said, "Having worked with large online news brands in the past we were able to bring our lesson learned when migrated all of the SEW content onto our Platform. Combined with the in house expertise from SEW we were able to achieve results which we are all extremely pleased with."

Visits to SEW via Google News

Can I get a hell yeah?

Get More Traffic From Google News

* Headline Links: Getting Citations from News Sources

* How to Get Links from Journalists

* Journalism, 'Churnalism' & the Sticky Subject of Anchor Text Links

* Social PR: 10 Ways to Do PR Better with Social Media

* PR-SEO Mythbusting for Better Link Building

* Blog SMO Guide: How to Apply Social Media Optimization to Your Blog in 33 Steps

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2126971/How-Search-Engine-Watch-Grew-Google-News-Traffic-by-300-Case-Study

Latest Google Weather Report: Panda Squall Warning

2011-11-28T11:08:00.002+05:30

Google last week tweeted another of their algorithm Weather Reports. While it's supposed to only affect less than 1 percent of searches, the results could be more impactful than that small number suggests.

google-panda-weather-report-november

Given 11.9 billion searches were conducted on Google last month, that 1 percent could represent an impact on millions of searches and thousands of sites. Google's Weather Report may not have announced a major algorithmic shift, but it it isn't something we should overlook.

Occupy Wall Street is protesting the impact of 1 percent. Indigenous people in the United States - Native Americans - represent less than 1 percent of the country's population. Remove either of those two groups from the population and the impact would be far more significant than numbers would suggest.

So while the number is small, we really should be watching to see if the impact is much larger than this tweet implies. The video below offers an interesting insight in to the Google process.

"When you align Google's interests with users' interests as we have aligned, good things happen," one senior engineer states. But, as the medical spelling correction example used in the video does not cover, what happens when giving what Google feels is the correct response actually details the wrong information? Hey, it was less than 1 percent whose lives were threatened.

So while the tweet may have seemed like a throwaway, this Weather Report could be the warning of a greater storm to come. Either way it should be something search marketers keep on their radar.

SEO for Naver – Korea’s Largest Search Engine

2011-11-28T11:06:00.002+05:30

Naver has never been known as a simple search engine. As pointed out in my recent article on Naver’s paid search, it's a dynamic, complex software system appealing to an affluent yet small market by Asian standards (South Korea’s population is only approximately 50 million). Considering its challenges, paid search on Naver at least guarantees you a top spot, but, what about organic?

Naver’s search results are categorically grouped. Its organic results are based upon three different areas of content:

A question and answer (Q&A) knowledge base (Knowledge Q&A) A database search (Direct Answers) Websearch (organic search results), which are within one massive result page

Why? According to Naver, Korean web content is miniscule compared to other languages like English and Spanish.

Naver puts in a lot of effort to provide more enhanced content rich search results to users in a way that appeals to the Koreans need for as much information as possible. It's a supply and demand thing really, when you have “less supply” (Korean web content), yet high demand (search queries), you’re forced to provide as much quality content as possible. In order to do this, Naver figured out that it might as well provide three separate ways to provide all of this information.

“Home Loans” keyword search on Naver:

naver-loan-result

Knowledge Q&A

Considering the lack of enough “web content” in Korean, Naver figured out that user-generated content (UGC) might be the key to solving its lack of content problems. So in 2002, they were one of the first search engines to create a Web 2.0 knowledge base Q&A portal where users could pose questions and others could answer. In 2005, Yahoo based its U.S. Q&A site on the same model. Still today, its one of the largest traffic referring sources from (ironically) Google.

Posing related questions to your business and having people answer those questions, will help your positioning in the Q&A section. Keep in mind, popularity is key here, so you better have your story straight or you run the risk of embarrassment.

Database Search (a.k.a. Direct Answers)

Another way Naver has been able to build up content on their portal is by incorporating what they call a “database search” from a vast archive of content partners. The content partners feed their database content by allowing Naver to crawl and index their results within their search result pages. These database searches are common for celebrities, weather, movies, books, wines, public services, famous brands, etc.

There is a fine line when it comes to organic database search versus paid database search. For example, a Wikipedia type site feeding its useful content into Naver would be considered non-paid, because it’s mainly content rich value.

However, a massive site and brand like Intel could also plug in their databases of products into Naver, but for a fee. This is similar to paid inclusion, but Brand Search results in awesome, top of page and 60 percent viewable real estate in the results.

Websearch

Finally, when you reach Websearch results, you have reached the natural, organic search results as we know it in the SEO industry. There are a number of similarities to Google however, weighting factors are completely different. Naver has two methods to analyzing and ranking, one known as “collection ranking” and the other is known as “search consequence ranking.”

* Collection Ranking: Collection ranking is basically impression based click-through rate (CTR) analysis ranking and is based on an average click index that occurred from classified collection sets (similar to ad groups).

* Search Consequence Ranking: There are many other factors for the rest of their algorithm, such as keyword relevance, website content freshness, content accuracy, quality of information, quantity of information, and the inherent link popularity of the page. Naver completely excludes indexing low quality pages, spam and commercial pages, they purely want search results that have what they consider great content. Using what they call “FAS” (Feedbank Analysis System), Naver reflects the search ranking by the duration of user’s visit and “collection ranking” to determine the quality of the link pages.

Although, Naver provides organic results, the best way to do it is with tons of good quality content. The investment in that amount of content versus the investment in paid search is to be weighted.

Similar to Yandex and how it understands the Russian language through semantic intent mixed with its language analysis, Naver has also built its engine around the language. Naver developed its indexing engine for the Korean keywords and language, along with categories, resulting in a better user experience and better results then its competitors.

Due to the nature of Korean language syllabification, it’s harder to understand the meanings by separation than other languages. For example, “ilbonjeon gol” in Korean means “goal at the match with Japan”; however, “ilbon jeongol” means “Japanese stew.”

Naver: Complicated, Overwhelming...Awesome

I never said Naver would be easy. But considering Google’s near zero market share, Naver is doing something right.

Naver feels that users can’t be perfectly satisfied with their search intention (a Google experience). Hence, Naver offers the search results of the various areas and categories such as news, Knowledge Q&A, blogs, paid, and data base searches all on the same page. Each individual category has its own ranking methodology.

To our eyes, it looks complicated and overwhelming. To a Korean, it’s “awesome.”

Huge thanks to Kyle Choi of NHN (Naver’s U.S. office) for helping me figure this out.

WordPress SEO: How to Optimize Your WordPress Site

2011-11-27T11:14:00.001+05:30

WordPress has made it very easy for small businesses to have a website that is easy to update and maintain, but do you know how to optimize your WordPress site so that it has the best chance of appearing at the top of your customers' search results?

The process is similar to optimizing any website, but with a WordPress installation you can customize many of your pages' SEO elements, as well as automating them to cut down on the time it takes to post a new item to your site.

WordPress vs. WordPress.com

Templates

Having your blog hosted at WordPress.com limits the changes you can make to your page template. But more importantly, it restricts your SEO. Having your site hosted on WordPress.com only benefits WordPress.com in terms of backlinks generated.

Make sure that from day one you’re in control by hosting your blog on your own domain. That way you get all the credit for backlinks generated and reap the rewards for strengthening the overall reputation of your domain in the search engines.

SEO Plugins

SEO plugins can be a great way to optimize you site and make blog management much easier.

There are several useful WordPress plugins, so it’s a case of finding the ones that work best for your needs. The ones which stand out for SEO, to name just a couple are:

* All in One SEO

* Broken Link Checker

* SEO Smart Links

* Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARRP)

* Urban Giraffe Redirection

Stay up-to-date and Avoid Malware Google Alerts

WordPress hacking for malware is common. Google now provides alerts on this within Webmaster Tools as it causes big issues to the quality of their results shown to searchers.

Make sure that you stay up-to-date and check those malware reports in Google Webmaster Tools just to make sure everything is safe.

SEO for WordPress

WordPress is naturally very well set up for SEO, in terms of header optimization, title tags, internal/cross-linking, etc. The plugins, such as All in One SEO, will go a long way toward improving this further.

However, WordPress doesn’t do it all for you. You still need to keywords after all!

Plus, you need to make sure you put effort into optimizing URL structure and internal linking, to make sure your blog is as well optimized as possible.

Great Content = Great SEO

In terms of optimizing each page or post within the main body text, there are again several key areas to focus on, such as including target keyword phrases in headlines and the body of the post.

More importantly, make sure you write for users. SEO is important when running a blog – but I would always sacrifice SEO in favor of writing a post that has the potential to generate attention and go viral.

Links are obviously the most important single ranking factor in SEO, so well-optimized content with no links is still likely to be out-ranked by un-optimized great content with lots of links.

You might get some good “freshness” rankings in the short-term – but as with Google's Panda update, we all know that longer-term quality content will succeed.

'Optimization' at its Best

To really achieve true optimization, your content needs to be great – that’s why the likes of ProBlogger, SEOmoz, etc., will rank for so many long-tail searches. Yes, they use keywords – but more importantly they write great content that attracts thousands of links.

But there are still a few quick wins, too. Use the SEO plugins. Even if you think your site or blog is optimized, look again at its URL structure, the title tags, the use of internal linking, image alt tags, and text formatting.

You could find that, somewhere along the line, you've missed that game-changing SEO technique that could take your page from the middle of page two to the top of page one in the search engine

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2124917/WordPress-SEO-How-to-Optimize-Your-WordPress-Site

Google Places: How Eye Tracking Heats Up Conversions and Clicks

2011-11-27T10:55:00.000+05:30

Advertisers and marketers have known for many years about how a viewer's gaze travels across visual media. The effectiveness of any successful advertisement relies on understanding how the eye moves across a page, why it is drawn to particular areas, and what causes a viewer to linger at a given spot.

Modern persuasive advertisements stem from classical and renaissance artists. The great artists of antiquity were well versed in the use of spatial relationships and how the eye moves across a space.

In the 21st century, we see modern advertising employing these well-established concepts and are so well entrenched in our minds that the same techniques permeate every facet of advertising in use today.

Eye Tracking and Click Mapping Google Places

google-maps-tattoo-near-hamilton-on

A Toronto-based Canadian company, Mediative, spent a great deal of time and research using eye tracking technology, remote surveys, click-mapping and in-person interviews to determine how people interact with web sites.

Last month, Mediative concluded an in-depth study to determine how people interact within the search results of Google Places listings. The study was designed to determine which ads received more clicks and attention; listings with images, or those with customer quotes.

The main questions Mediative were hoping to answer were:

* How do individuals interact with the search results from Google Places listings?

* Where do people look on a page?

* Do listings with reviews get more attention?

* Do people really look at the maps?

* Does Google's "Golden Triangle" still receive much attention?

The methodology was based on a simple study using real page captures from Google map searches. The study enlisted 12 participants for in-person research and another 90 online participants to be studied with eye-tracking software.

The Main Findings

Each participant was given the same scenario. They were asked to make an imaginary road trip with stops in Hamilton, London, Winnipeg, and Edmonton and to choose a place for a friend to get a tattoo in each of these cities based on the available information in the Google Places search results.

The main findings of the study concluded that:

* While top-listed results get the most attention, the listings below it received a high proportion of the viewers gaze as well as the map. These results were fairly consistent between both study groups.

* Most clicking occurred on the same spots that the eyes were shown to have lingered on site.

* The third result down in the listings which had reviews seemed to have boosted its popularity suggesting that being in the top-listed position id good, but social signals can be a significant boon to lower ranking sites.

google-golden-traingleMediative observed that Google's Golden Triangle is still relevant in understanding how a viewers gaze travels across the screen.

In much the same as printed material, a viewer's gaze begins at the top of the listing. The eye scans from left to right, as it moves down to subsequent listings. The viewer scanned less of the listing's content the further down the result was located.

(The Golden Triangle is a based on established understanding of various cultural perceptions and interpretations of printed media. In Western cultural we printed media top to bottom, left to right. In other cultures the heat map would read right-to-left and vertically bottom to top.)

Additional Findings

Some of the other findings of the study concluded:

* Listings that included images received more clicks and attention.

* Maps generate a significant amount of the viewers' attention.

* When the top results have fewer reviews, lower results get more visual attention.

* When no reviews are present, the top listing receives the most clicks.

* If your site isn't in the top listing, or doesn't have reviews, it will usually be ignored; especially when other listings do have reviews or social signals.

Marketing Takeaway

The results of this study are significant to those currently employing, or who are considering employing the use of Google Places into their online social presence and marketing strategy. The understanding and implementation of these concepts are shown to have a substantial effect on businesses.

The research offers solid evidence to show that by maximizing your use the listings with SEO, maps, images and reviews, businesses can realize significant increases in click through rates and conversions.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2124918/Google-Places-How-Eye-Tracking-Heats-Up-Conversions-and-Clicks

SEO for Google+ Profiles and Pages

2011-11-27T10:46:00.000+05:30

One thing I've been particularly obsessed with recently is the SEO elements of social profiles. It began with checking out the SEO for Facebook fan pages and then onto social content. Now, it's time to take a look at the differences between the optimization of your Google+ personal profile and the new Google+ Pages.

SEO Elements of the Google+ Personal Profile

We’ll start by looking at the parts of the Google+ personal profile that you can customize based on the data you enter in specific fields.

SEO Title: Your Name – Google+
Google+ is all about the personal branding, and they insist that you use your real name for your profile. If you want to use a business name, blog name, or keywords, save it for your Google+ Page.
Meta Description: Your Name – Your Headline + Your Occupation
The meta description for your Google+ profile is a combination of different pieces of your profile information including:

Your name followed by your headline.
Your occupation.
Your current employer.

Those items are followed by your introduction text, but by this point you're usually well beyond the 160 character mark. Make sure that the first 160 characters count by writing a great headline and occupation title. Also make sure those areas are set to be seen by anyone on the web.

Dofollow Links: Everywhere
From what I can tell, the links within the introduction content as well as the ones under other profiles, contributor to, and recommended links are all dofollow. So don’t shy away from anchor text as this is a premier Google property. Just make sure the profile still sounds good and doesn't look like a big link farm.

SEO Elements of the Google+ Page

When it comes to the customizable SEO elements of the Google+ pages, they are about the same as the personal profiles. One exception is that there isn't an occupation or current employer field in the pages (or at least not for products or brands). Hence your meta description will be your page's name, headline, and then the introduction text.

How do Google+ Profiles Rank vs. Pages

As of right now, I see that my personal Google+ profile ranks No. 9 for my name when I use Google Chrome (signed out of my Google account), but it's on the second page of results when I use Firefox (also signed out of my Google account). My Google+ page for my blog isn't ranking in the first 100 results for my blog's name Kikolani.
Pete Cashmore's personal Google+ profile, for example, ranks at No. 8 for his name in Google Chrome, but it's on the second page of results in Firefox. Mashable's Google+ Page, on the other hand, ranks on the second page of search results in both Google Chrome and Firefox.
As another example, Arianna Huffington's personal Google+ profile ranks at No. 8 in Google Chrome, but it's on the second page of results in Firefox. Huffington Post's Google+ Page ranks on the third page of results in both Google Chrome and Firefox.
How do your Google+ profiles and pages rank? Do you believe that links from these Google+ pages are helping your personal or business brand in search results?

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2124899/SEO-for-Google-Profiles-and-Pages

Google X: A Lab Where the Future Is Made

2011-11-27T10:44:00.001+05:30

A recent report on Google's "secret lab," known as Google X, shows how far beyond their core business Google will explore: space elevators, web-connected appliance, and robotic avatars are among the 100 far-out ideas being researched.

Projects from Google's Secret Lab

According to the New York Times, Google X is hard to research because Google is "so secretive about the effort that many employees do not even know the lab exists." The lab is used to test out highly experimental ideas that are generally unrelated to Google's core business.

Sources say that the lab has a list of "100 shoot-for-the-stars ideas" to be researched. Some of those projects are quite literally reaching toward the stars; the "space elevator," a fantasy of Google's founders, is one of the many projects currently underway. It may be that Sergey Brin is behind several of these projects; while Brin evades any mention of Google X, he notes that his work "is farther afield projects."

Another major Google X project includes a robotic avatar program, in some ways frighteningly similar to the movie "Surrogates". The experimental project is testing how remotely controlled robots can become the stand-in workers completing tasks and gathering information for employees who are still sitting at home. Brin even tested the idea himself by attending a conference via robot.

Google is also working on a project known as "the web of things." This project connects appliances and other objects to the internet, allowing for remote control over everything from coffee makers to lightbulbs to sprinklers. Among other engineers working on the project is Johnny Chung Lee, the creator of Microsoft Kinect.

While most of the projects are in the early research phases, at least a couple of the projects are reported to be nearing completion.

Why So Secretive?

The lab was described as being run with CIA-like stealth; the company has two separate non-descript labs, and all staff members are briefed only on limited portions of the project. Beyond protecting their intellectual property, Google is likely guarding against potential shareholder fallout.

Discussing far-out projects such as these, Google spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker stated that, "While the possibilities are incredibly exciting, please do keep in mind that the sums involved are very small by comparison to the investments we make in our core businesses." It certainly seems the company wants to reassure shareholders that their money isn't being wasted on far-fetched ideas.

These are wild projects that may be the next big thing or total flops. While knowing which ones are which will be difficult to tell prior to the actual release of the projects, we have seen some examples of Google's experiments; aerial Wi-Fi, gigabit ethernet connections, and self-driving cars are just a few of the now-visible projects that likely started with Google X.

What projects are you most excited for? And what do you hope Google's secret lab will work on next?

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2125190/Google-X-A-Lab-Where-the-Future-Is-Made

Google+ Adds Community Guides for Organizations

2011-11-27T10:36:00.002+05:30

Google is pushing to get more celebrities, politicians, nonprofits, and other organizations onto Google+ by providing "community guides." These free guides showcase successful profiles, give free advice, and link to additional community resources.

google-community-guidelines

Steve Grove, head of community partnerships at Google, stated that "we want to help more organizations, politicians, artists, celebrities, athletes, media companies and nonprofits use Google+ to share and interact with each other – and with Google+ users."

Google is doing so by educating organizations on the effective use of the platform. The six core community guides (one each for celebs, media, nonprofits, politics, sports, and universities) highlight examples, tactics, and further learning resources; each has resources customized to the category.

In the nonprofit category, for instance, Google shows how the organization and its actions can be shown off via a Google+ profile, shows how the organization can "tailor [its] message with Circles," and shows how the +1 button can help promote the organization's content. Readers are then linked to a PDF guide for nonprofits, a "10 tips" article for community building, a nonprofit toolkit, and more.

It's clear that Google is reaching out to organizations across the world with the addition of these guides. Whether the guides cause a major stir, they're a telling move; Google seems to be positioning itself for a full-fledged battle with Facebook.

Google+ may not yet be a threat to Facebook, but Plus's current figures of 40 to 60 million users foreshadows a future where Google could directly compete for the top spot in the world of social networking. As such, the recent addition of pages for organizations is a huge step; it matches the Facebook Page, a crucial resource for businesses reaching into the world of social media. These community guides then seek to one-up Facebook's educational resources, making Google the more accessible option.

Are the guides effective and helpful for you? What should Google change? What else does Google need to do to win over your organization and clients? Do you think Google will ever overtake Facebook? What should Facebook be doing in response to Google's efforts? Leave your thoughts in the comments, below.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2127087/Google-Adds-Community-Guides-for-Organizations

Google's Battle for the Mobile Web

2011-11-26T18:19:00.005+05:30

I was recently questioned by a colleague who was surprised to learn after all the talk about mobile apps and smartphones, that Google doesn’t have a library of apps. By that, I mean Google lacks native apps for platforms like iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone, and yes, Android.

This is the heart of the industry-wide “apps vs. mobile web” debate. Apple wants an app-centric world because it gets 30 percent of app sales. It also wants the functionality endemic to native apps in order to maintain the quality standard that sells iPhones.

Google on the other hand wants a mobile Web-centric world because, put simply, that’s where search happens. Conversely, think of the lessened need for search while you are within narrowly-defined sets of content and functionality, otherwise known as apps.

But there are still user expectations for app-based home screen navigation, which Google doesn't want to forgo on Android handsets. Here’s where web apps come in. Think of them as glorified bookmarks: websites masquerading as apps on smartphone homescreens throughout the land.

Wild Wild Web

Many believe apps vs. mobile web isn’t really a debate because the right answer is “both”. That’s slightly Utopian as the real world contains resource constraints for mobile product developers who must decide, if not which platform to develop for – at least which one to develop first.

Though comScore puts app and mobile web use at parity, there has been much greater attention and resources devoted to mobile app development. For developers, there’s greater functionality in smartphone SDKs, and for users it’s a warm & fuzzy environment (i.e. app stores), to discover apps.

Compare that to the mobile web which is reminiscent of the wild west that was the early desktop web. Content is under-optimized and hard to get to. Mobile website developer Duda mobile measures 1.25 percent of websites to be optimized for mobile. Google says 21 percent of its advertisers have optimized sites.

In addition to lack of content, another gating factor for users is the search process within the mobile browser. Rather than lots of finger tapping to search a mobile web that is under-optimized, many smartphone users – especially on iOS – have opted for the decidedly more user-friendly app route.

But this will turn around: though apps aren't going anywhere, we’ll see more growth in development of mobile websites over the coming years. In the past few weeks alone, we've seen this from OpenTable, Wine.com, and of course Google has long relied on web apps over native.

Having less to do with which tech heavyweight is backing the standard, the shift to web apps is more a function of economics. It’s cheaper for developers to build and maintain a mobile website than an app; and you're available to any phone with a mobile browser, rather than the fragmented OS scene.

Of course there are quality advantages with native apps, but HTML5 provides app-like functionality for mobile sites. That of course will be difficult for things like high end games or apps that need more direct access to the graphics chip and processor. But for many apps, it's sufficient.

But what about discovery? The challenge of finding websites, compared to app store search, is one of their biggest stumbling blocks as mentioned. But this will ease up with the combination of more intuitive search like voice and visual (i.e. Siri), and a mobile web that isn’t so daunting.

GoMo, Young Man

It’s no surprise that the company taking the biggest steps to solve some of these problems is Google. One of its biggest mobile initiatives of late is to support mobile websites that are optimized for the mobile browser (rather than being a scaled down version of the full desktop site).

This started in September when Google announced that it will bring mobile website optimization (or lack thereof) into its ranking factors for mobile search quality score. This of course applies to its mobile search algorithm only (doesn't affect desktop).

In other words, any site that wants to rank higher in Google mobile search – a growing source of engaged, local, and commercially geared traffic – has to get itself in order. Besides being de-ranked, there’s other evidence that lost business results from un-optimized mobile sites.

Joining this effort is the recently launched "GoMo" campaign. This is an online educational resource for businesses to optimize their sites. It includes a list of endorsed vendors and even a simulator (“gomometer”) to see how your current site looks on mobile.

Though an un-optimized experience reflects more on the site itself than on Google, the search giant is in a game of “help us help you”. Together, both entities win by way of more traffic and search volume. The latter slowly happens through the reinforcement of the quality of the mobile web.

As this propagates, more mobile sites will be built, necessitating someone to index and make sense of it all… Guess who? But there could be even more on the line here for Google than where it previously hung its hat. 65% online search market share is eclipsed in mobile...where it owns 95% of search.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2127356/Googles-Battle-for-the-Mobile-Web

New Google Map Ads Stir Controversy

2011-11-26T18:06:00.003+05:30

Google recently added bubble ads to select Google Maps locations. The choice to create new ad space has caused controversy, with some business owners concerned about the potential for reputation warfare and poorly targeted ads.

The New Ad Space

The ads on Google Maps were reported Laura Alisanne earlier this month. Alissan noted that ads were now appearing on local business listings, below the place location in the standard info bubble.

According to Mike Blumenthal, Google may have been planning for this a lot longer. Blumenthal states he'd heard in "early September of Adword Account Reps instructing large Adword clients to take out ads in Google Maps in anticipation of this rollout."

While clearly denoted as ads, the ad exposure in the Maps info bubble raises two distinct concerns. First, that ads may cause undue trouble for locations on Google Maps. Second, that the ads themselves will be poorly and even inappropriately targeted.

Concerns with the Chaos Raised in Ad Space Expansion

It's fairly normal for any company to seek new opportunities for monetization, and Google is far from excluded. However, the introduction of ads in the info bubble have the potential to cause some peculiar issues.

For one, it's now possible to advertise directly against a competitor's physical location, or even pitch a philosophical viewpoint that contradicts your own. Blumenthal tracked down this somewhat amusing example of a gay rights advocacy appearing on the NYC diocese of the Catholic church:

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2127362/New-Google-Map-Ads-Stir-Controversy

Google and Samsung confirm Galaxy Nexus volume bugs

2011-11-26T17:40:00.002+05:30

Google and Samsung have confirmed that there are volume issues with their flagship mobile phone the Galaxy Nexus.

It follows complaints on net forums about unexplained changes in volume.

The handset, the first to feature Google's operating system Android Ice Cream Sandwich, is currently available in the UK and is due to go on sale in the US in December.

Samsung said that it is aware of the problem and will offer a repair but did not say when.

"Regarding the Galaxy Nexus, we are aware of the volume issue and have developed a fix," Samsung said in a statement. "We will update devices as soon as possible."

Google issued an almost identical statement.

Silent alarm

Posting on Google's Android user forum Damian M summed up the problem many seem to be experiencing: "Volume drops to nothing seemingly at random, volume rocker becomes unresponsive for a few seconds," he said.

Some users reported that the issues became worse when using the 2G network. Others complained that they were unable to rely on the device.

"Had this problem since buying the phone on the 17 Nov. Happened so far on 3G, wifi and using the sat nav. It also happened this morning again when my alarm went off," wrote one user nicknamed Stuartea.

"I was already awake and had not touched the phone yet, the alarm sounded for a second and then went silent. Thought that was weird so checked the phone and the volume was down. I can't trust the alarm to wake me up now for work!"

It is unclear at this stage whether the issues are caused by hardware or software faults.

Rivalry

The problem comes as Apple rushes to fix a bug in its new operating system iOS 5.

Users complain that iPhone batteries are running down too quickly.

An initial software patch issued by Apple to solve the problem has not appeared to have helped.

Apple and Samsung are engaged in a fierce rivalry for market share.

Research from Strategy Analytics suggested that Samsung had overtaken Apple to become the world's biggest shipper of smartphones between July and September.

The study said that the South Korean firm had shipped 27.8 million smartphones in the three-month period, compared with 17.1 million from Apple and 16.8 million from Nokia.

Meanwhile, Samsung and Apple remain locked in intellectual property disputes around the world. Both are trying to ban sales of each other's products.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15870020

Facebook users average 3.74 degrees of separation

2011-11-26T17:36:00.001+05:30

There are on average 3.74 degrees of separation between any one Facebook user and another, a study suggests.

The number of degrees represents the number of people in a friendship chain, excluding the people at either end.
Or, as the authors put it: "When considering another person in the world, a friend of your friend knows a friend of their friend."
The study was carried out in May and involved all of the social network's active members.
Facebook defines a user as active if they have logged on at least once over the past 28 days.
Some journalists misreported the news claiming there were 4.74 degrees of separation. However, this confused the number of degrees with the distance - or hops - between each of the people on the friendship chain.
The authors of the report say that they "assume that 'degree of separation' is the same as 'distance minus one'".
Kevin Bacon The experiment is the biggest test to date for an idea first proposed by the Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy in 1929.
He suggested there were six degrees of separation between any two people in the world.
The theory was made popular by a play, movie and later a trivia game in which players try to link the actor Kevin Bacon to another Hollywood star within six steps.
Testing that the hypothesis proved true for the wider population has long posed a challenge.
Deep data A previous attempt by the psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s involved delivering a letter. Volunteers were asked to make sure it reached a specific person, but they were told to only pass it through personal acquaintances who already knew each other.
The problem was that this only involved a few hundred initial subjects, and there was no way to know that the routes the letters took were the most direct ones possible.
Facebook's data scientist Lars Backstrom was able to work with a much bigger data sample.

His social network had 721 million members at the time of the experiment - representing around 10% of the global population - with a total of 69 billion friendships between them.
Despite the vast quantity of data, Mr Backstrom and four researchers from the University of Milan were able to crunch the data using a 24-core computer with a 1 terabyte hard disk. They said the hardware cost no more than a couple of thousand pounds.
Celebrities' "Facebook Pages" were excluded and the test was carried out before the network introduced "Subscriptions", a feature designed to link users to other people they might be interested in, even if they are not acquaintances.

Stabilising Facebook limits users to having 5,000 friends, but the median figure was far lower at just 100 contacts, or 0.000014% of Facebook's total membership.

Despite this relatively small number, the results showed 99.6% of all pairs of users were connected by five degrees of separation, and 92% were connected by four degrees.

On average, the distance between any two members was 3.74 degrees.

That was shorter than the average 4.28 degrees of separation registered by Facebook's 2008 membership, when the network was smaller.

However, the researchers say the average distance "appears now to be stabilising", suggesting that even if the other nine tenths of the world join Facebook, our degree of separation will not get much smaller.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15844230

Google updates search engine for fresher results

2011-11-26T17:33:00.004+05:30

Google has overhauled the way it serves up results in response to search queries.

The update is designed to work out whether a person wants up-to-date results or historical data.

The US firm estimated the alterations to its core algorithm would make a difference to about 35% of searches.

The changes try to make results more relevant and beef up features which Google believes set it apart from rivals.

By contrast, Microsoft's Bing search engine emphasises social search.

Fresh spam

"Search results, like warm cookies right out of the oven or cool refreshing fruit on a hot summer's day, are best when they're fresh," wrote Google fellow Amit Singhal in a blogpost explaining the changes.

The under-the-hood changes sought to understand whether a searcher wants results "from the last week, day or even minute" said Mr Singhal.

The update is supposed to offer a better guess of how "fresh" the results should be.

For instance, said Mr Singhal, anyone searching for information about the "Occupy Oakland protests" would probably want up to the minute news.

These need to be distinguished from searches for regular events such as sports results or company reports.

Other types of searches could call on older results, he said. Those looking for a recipe to make tomato sauce for pasta quickly would be happy with a page that is a few months or years old.

The update to improve the "freshness" of results builds on the big update made to the underlying infrastructure of Google's core indexing system in August 2010 known as Caffeine. That change made it easier for Google to keep its index up to date and to add new sources of information.

Writing on the Search Engine Land news site, analyst Danny Sullivan described the changes as "huge". The last big update to the Google algorithm, known as Panda, affected only 12% of searches.

The update could have potential disadvantages, warned Mr Sullivan.

"Rewarding freshness potentially introduces huge decreases in relevancy, new avenues for spamming or getting "light" content in," said Mr Sullivan.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15590285

39 Android Apps that I love

2011-11-24T14:36:00.002+05:30

Here are the Android Apps that I currently love. It’s not a complete list, but it’s a pretty good start.
Music and sound apps

Subsonic: stream music from your home computer to your phone
Listen: save and play podcasts like This Week in Google
Tuner – gStrings: a great guitar tuner
Pandora Radio: stream customized music based on artists you like
RingDroid: Make a ringtone or alarm out of any sound you record
Voice Recorder: Record audio and mail it to yourself
Shazam: Identify any song you hear

Apps for when you’re traveling

TripIt: keep track of trips and plane flights for upcoming travel
Google Translate: translate tons of languages into tons of other languages. You can also do voice-recognition-to-text for English, then translate. This app will even do text-to-speech (voice synthesis) in many languages such as French, Spanish, Italian, and German.
Yelp: Find great restaurants nearby. Pro tip: scan the reviews to discover good dishes to order.
Compass: also handy when you’re traveling

Social apps

Twitter: official Twitter app for Android. This app can take empty/missing pictures in your contacts and populate your contacts’ pictures with their Twitter profile pictures, which is nice.
Seesmic: another fantastic Twitter app for Android
Google Buzz widget: an easy way to post to Buzz from your phone. By the way, I’ve noticed myself using Buzz more and more recently. When I started on Twitter, it took me several months to warm to the service. I think the same principle applies to Buzz. Buzz fills a nice niche between Twitter (microblogging) and regular blogging. It’s great when you want to throw out one quick idea, but you need more than 140 characters. You can read my Buzzes (or follow me on Buzz) if you want.

Cool demos / showing off

Google Skymap: move your phone to see where stars are. Like augmented reality for the sky.
Tricorder: shows all the different sensor readings of your phone. Includes accelerometer and tilt sensors, GPS and lat/lon, wifi, cell phone strength, compass, acoustic data–even solar activity.
Metal Detector: an app that detects metal. I still don’t know how it works (maybe it uses the magnetometer sensor that allows the compass), but it actually does work on many types of metal
Google Earth: most of the eye candy of Google Earth, but on your phone
LED Scroller: enter a message and your phone turns into a faux LED scrolling sign. Kinda low-tech, but impresses people more than I expected.
Hypnotic Spiral: makes a swirling spiral that you can control
The Schwartz Unsheathed: a light sword that makes cool sounds as you move your phone.

Signal strength apps

Wifi Analyzer: walk around and see a dynamic graph of wifi signal strength. Great for picking the right place to sit in an airport or cafe to get the best wifi signal
Antennas: shows a Google map with nearby antennas on it. Good for monitoring your phone’s signal strength
RF Signal Tracker (two versions, Donut and Eclair): another app to measure cell phone tower signal strength

QR Code and Barcode apps

Key Ring: scan your loyalty and other membership cards (e.g. Safeway, or your gym). Then use this app instead of carrying a bunch of membership cards around. I wish my phone could replace everything in my wallet.
App Referrer: shows all your installed apps. Click on an application and it will generate a large QR barcode on your screen that your friend can scan to install the same app.
Barcode Scanner: scan barcodes and QR codes. Very handy to install applications and visit urls. Note that the “Barcode Scanner” app (like App Referrer) can also show QR codes for applications — just press the options button. Can also show QR codes for contacts, bookmarks, and the clipboard.

Core apps / misc

My Tracks: records where you go using GPS and lets you upload a “track” to Google Maps
Navigation: get turn-by-turn directions as you drive
Movies: check movie times and see ratings from critics vs. audiences
Wheres My Droid: If you lose your phone and it’s in silent mode, this app will help you find your phone. I’ve tried Mobile Defense and that’s also very nice.
WordPress: Upload images and blog from your phone
Amazon.com: mobile shopping, plus add things to your Amazon wishlist
Shopper: Google app to scan barcodes and show product search results
BBC News: see the latest in world news. This is an unofficial widget.
News and Weather: customizable news, plus this app shows weather in your current location. Wish I could enter 3-4 cities and flick between weather reports though.
Weather: see the weather in multiple cities
Google Finance: check stock prices and news
Google Maps: see where you are

Google also offers a lot of mobile apps, but I just wanted to highlight my favorite applications.
Okay, those are my favorite Android apps, but what did I miss? Which Android Apps do you love?

39 Android Apps that I love

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