Blog Esteve Graells

Ja tenim un Amazon més aprop, el d'Espanya

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 01:28:51 -0700

Ja tenim un Amazon més proper georàficament, el d'Espanya. Ara els costos d'enviament espero que siguin molt millors.

http://www.ara.cat/xarxes/Amazones-disponible-des-daquest-dimecres_0_554344654.html

Improving Comments Across The Web - Facebook Developers

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:11:02 -0800

https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/472
Els comentaris de Facebook millorats per a la integració amb el teu blog o web

Esteve

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10 consells per a Pimes en Facebook

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 09:12:54 -0800

Com diria aquell: se realista, traza un plan y ataca.

10 Facebook Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

All Facebook

Recent studies have found that some small business owners mistakenly think they don’t have enough time, money or other resources to invest in Facebook promotions. It doesn’t require a full-time social media coordinator nor much of a budget, if any.

The adage “keep it simple” goes a long way here, and with that in mind, here are ten ways for small businesses to maximize their presence on Facebook with minimum resources.

Manage expectations: Set realistic goals for your approach to social media and you won’t be disappointed. Don’t expect to get thousands of fans within your first month, but think more along the lines of a two or three digit number. Then if you hit something larger than you originally anticipated, you’ll be pleasantly surprised and that will give you momentum.

Make time: Unless you can find an intern willing to plan your media campaigns for free, cultivating a Facebook presence doesn’t have to be a full-time job nor something that eats up all your free time. Try to set aside an hour a day to work on your business’s page, post updates and communicate directly with customers and fans.

Learn as much as you can: Take notes based on your experiences with Facebook’s pages and other business services — at the very least, write down questions about things you don’t understand so you can make a note to look them up later. You’ll find just about anything you’re curious to know within the site’s official help center. Make a habit of reading as much as you can on this part of the site, without overdoing it.

Start with a small budget: It’s possible to promote your business on Facebook without spending anything. At some point you might get the itch to buy advertising, which certainly helps but also presents the temptation to overspend. You’re better off starting out doing small test ads to see what kind of performance you get for your money, and then ramp up when you figure out which demographics and key words you want to target.

Create a page, not a profile: Don’t open a second account on the social network to make a profile for your business. Not only does that go against Facebook’s rules but it also moves you one degree of separation away from the people who are already on your friend list. These folks are the first people you want to invite to become fans of your business’s page.

Post cool status updates: Make your profile work for your page by posting witty status updates that encourage your friends to engage with your business page. Apply that same sense of wit to the goal of one post per day to your page’s wall. If you can phrase it as a question, so much the better, because that will inspire responses from your community.

Have one-on-one conversations: Send a thank-you message right after someone clicks “like” on your page, and make a point of responding to messages and wall posts within 24 hours. Pay careful attention to whatever fans tell you on your page, and try to respond to their needs.

Don’t spam: People have gotten pretty tired of mass messaging and excessive numbers of posts filling up news feeds — don’t contribute to this noise and fans will appreciate it. When you have something to say to your followers, put it on your wall, not in their inboxes.

Create coupons and promotions: Discounts for first-time customers really work toward generating repeat business. But don’t limit the promotions to the first time someone engages with your company, lest they lose interest. Periodically put things on sale if you can, in order to keep people coming back.

Encourage check-ins: Wherever your business operates, that counts as a place on Facebook. Make a point of checking in to your place of work every day you are there, even if you’re operating out of a home office. This will put your company’s name into people’s news feeds every time you punch in.

What do you think about the ten tips presented here? If you have any additional advice for small businesses on Facebook, please share in the comments section.

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Esteve

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Facebook Spobsored stories

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:03:41 -0800

Cal entender molt bé què són, con s'utilitzen i si són adecuades per a la nostra pàgina.

Esteve

facebook

New Product Updates

Introducing Sponsored Stories
Get more from your Facebook Ads with Sponsored Stories. Sponsored Stories allow you to take advantage of word-of-mouth recommendations by highlighting the organic actions happening across Facebook such as Page posts, Page Likes, and check-ins at your business. Learn More

Updates to Ads Manager
To help you more easily navigate your reports and see how your ads are performing, we’ve added help text to the column headers on all of the pages. No data has been removed, it’s simply been rearranged to improve usability and highlight the key information you need to effectively manage accounts and campaigns.

Tip of the Month

Bid prices tend to fluctuate over time. Remember to log in to your Ads Manager frequently and update your campaign’s bid price to ensure your ad is being shown to your target audience.

Go To Your Ads

Become an expert with the Facebook Ads Webinar Center

Our Webinar Center provides you with on-demand tutorials to help you develop successful Facebook Ads for your business.

Visit the Webinar Center

Webinar: "Get Set Up for Success"

We are delighted to invite you to attend a free Live Webinar designed for people who are new to advertising with Facebook. During the webinar we will walk through the key steps to getting started successfully with Facebook Ads. We will cover topics from “Why advertise on Facebook?” to “How to create good ads” to “How to run reports”, which will be followed by live office hours where we will answer your questions. The webinar will be held this Thursday Feb 24, 2011 at 10am PST, 1pm EST, 6pm GMT.

Click here to RSVP for this event, and to receive a reminder on your Facebook News Feed as the event approaches.

Facebook Case Study

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a chain of businesses featuring a unique combination of theater and restaurant offerings, used Facebook Deals to reward its most loyal customers and raise awareness of its business. Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas created a Deal to incentivize people to “check-in” to its locations for valuable giveaways, which resulted in over 5,100 check-in stories and higher engagement across its Page. To read the full case study, click here.

* If you would like to be featured in our upcoming newsletters, share your Facebook Ads success story here.

In the News Resources

How to Combat Abandonment with Social Sign-on
eMarketer finds that businesses can increase online sales by allowing customers to log in to using their social media account. To read more, visit eMarketer.
Anatomy of a Facebook Post
Learn how to increase the effectiveness of your social media marketing on Facebook with these tips on when and what to post. To read more, visit Vitrue.
Marketers Use Social Media for Valentine Promotions
Find out how businesses used social media in interesting ways this Valentine’s Day holiday. To read more, visit USA Today.

Guide to Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads Help Center

Facebook Ads

Facebook Connect

Facebook Marketing Solutions

Facebook Pages / Public Profiles

For more tips, news, case studies and product updates, please visit our Facebook Ads Page.

If you do not wish to receive this type of email from Facebook in the future, please click here to unsubscribe.
Facebook, Inc. P.O. Box 10005, Palo Alto, CA 94303.

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Molt bon article de tots els canvis introduïts per Facebook

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 02:32:59 -0800

És el canvi més important en els darrers 2 anys. Si teniu pàgina
d'empresa, ajudes a clients o fas formació cal q tinguis molt clar els
canvis i les noves possibilitats com l'Iframe, la notificació de
correu, els likes i comentaris en nom de la pàgina....

http://blog.involver.com/2011/02/changes-to-facebook-pages-a-quick-guide/?elq...

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Els indis i els informàtics promocionen a la feina els mateixos 3 mesos de l'any

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 05:12:44 -0800

Article molt interessant de Linkedin.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LinkedInBlog/~3/s9y4pqrOtG8/

Esteve

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Llista de tasques per al nou CEO se Google i un dels creadors

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 00:34:06 -0800

http://searchengineland.com/a-to-do-list-for-googles-new-ceo-larry-page-61957...

Esteve

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Chrome 9 Sandboxes Flash and Adds WebGL Support

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 06:16:00 -0800

S'han acabat les actualitzacions de Flash i PDF, a partir d'ara nativament ja tenim Flash i PDF en Chrome, quin descans!!!

Chrome 9 Sandboxes Flash and Adds WebGL Support

Google Operating System

Google Chrome 9 beta is now available and, unlike the previous two versions, it comes with a lot of new features.

The built-in Adobe Flash plugin is now sandboxed, just like Chrome extensions and tabs. "The sandbox adds an additional layer of protection to further guard against malicious pages that try to hijack your computer or steal private information from your hard drive. Based on this groundwork in the beta, we'll be bringing the sandboxed Flash Player to Chrome for Mac and Linux in future releases as well," explains Google. Right now, the sandboxed Flash plugin is only available if you use Windows.

Google Chrome 9 enables WebGL support by default. "WebGL is a new web technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser without installing additional software" and it can be used to create cool applications like Google Body Browser, Field, Aquarium and more.

Chrome doesn't have many opt-in features. The latest feature that's not enabled by default is Instant Search, an extension of Google Instant that previews search results as you type and lets navigate to your favorite pages with only a few keystrokes. It might be useful to go to Gmail by just typing "m" in the address bar, but this feature could also be annoying if you actually wanted to visit miniclip.com. "The Instant feature can help you search and browse faster on the web by showing search results and webpages in the browser window as you type in the address bar, even before you press Enter. If you don't see the results you want, just keep typing and the results dynamically update," informs Google.

To enable Chrome Instant, go to Options > Basic and check "Enable Instant for faster searching and browsing".

Chrome Instant is not just annoying, it's also buggy. For example, Chrome's suggestions sometimes cover Google's first results.

Another new feature is the integration with Google Cloud Print, but there are no web apps or mobile applications that support this technology.

If you want to hide the button added by a Chrome extension, you can do it by right-clicking on the button and selecting "Hide button". When you change your mind, go to Tools > Extensions and click on "Show button" next to the corresponding extension.

You can now create desktop shortcuts to your favorite web apps from the new tab page and open web apps in a new window.

To install Chrome 9 beta, visit this page. If you use Chrome 8 beta, open the About dialog to manually update.

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Esteve

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Nova eina de Marketing local de Google que inclou pegatines per al negoci

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 04:10:15 -0800

Google Testing New Location-Based Marketing Platform in Portland: http://on.mash.to/fQEodw

Esteve

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Facebook dominació mundial

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:42:56 -0800

For the past year Vincenzo Cosenza has been actively plotting Facebook’s increasing domination via a world map and last night he published an updated version of his map.

According to the updated statistics, Facebook is now the market leader in 115 out of 132 countries. As we all know, China and Russia continue to present some challenges however outside of China, Facebook is gaining serious ground just about everywhere. At this point it has become pretty much common thought that there is no way to defeat Facebook’s stranglehold on the social web.

Esteve

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Google Shows Reading Levels for Search Results

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:40:43 -0800

Depenent de com escriguis i per a qui escriguis pots quedar fora de SEO.

Pels q tenim webs en angles aqt es un nou repte.

Google Shows Reading Levels for Search Results

Google Operating System

Google's advanced search page has a new feature that lets you restrict results to a certain reading level. You can choose from showing basic results, intermediate results, advanced results or annotating the results with reading levels.

"Sometimes you may want to limit your search results to a specific reading level. For instance, a junior high school teacher looking for content for her students or a second-language learner might want web pages written at a basic reading level. A scientist searching for the latest findings from the experts may want to limit results to those at advanced reading levels," suggests Google.

Right now, this feature is only available for English web pages, but Google doesn't mention if it uses the Flesch–Kincaid readability tests.

According to Google, less than half of the indexed pages are written at a basic reading level, half of the pages are written at an intermediate reading level and about 2% of the pages are written at an advanced reading level.

{ via Search Engine Roundtable }

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Esteve

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Introducing Google Message Continuity

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:31:35 -0800

Aquest nou servei de Google assegura q sempre tindràs el teu correu accessible fent una replica del correu de l'empresa. Pots tenir Exchange però si tens una caiguda seguiras tenint correu, calendari i contactes accessibles.

Introducing Google Message Continuity, powered by Postini

The Official Google Blog

When we acquired Postini in 2007, we incorporated additional cloud-based spam and virus filtering, email archiving and encryption services into our Enterprise products. We had a vision that the power of the cloud could deliver not only increased productivity and collaboration but also security and corporate compliance tools for organizations of all sizes. Today, a new Google Postini service takes this vision of the cloud and extends it to on-premises email environments.

Google Message Continuity is a cloud-based email continuity solution—a service that helps ensure that you always have access to your email. Organizations running on-premises email systems, such as Microsoft® Exchange, can run the risk of losing email access—or even worse, their email data—during a server outage, which can impact employee productivity, revenue and even company credibility. Research suggests that a 500-person company could lose nearly $90,000 annually due to email outages*, which a continuity solution could help prevent.

Google Message Continuity works by replicating email accounts hosted on Microsoft® Exchange Servers in the cloud, using Gmail, Calendar and Contacts. If the Microsoft® Exchange Server fails, or requires scheduled maintenance or downtime, all you have to do is log into Gmail and continue regular, up-to-date email communication through Google. Since Gmail and Microsoft® Exchange are constantly synchronized with each other, you can seamlessly switch from one email environment to the other. Additionally, features such as synchronous replication that are built into Google’s architecture help ensure that your data won’t be lost at any point while being delivered to you with maximum efficiency.

Google Message Continuity can also help organizations transition to Google Apps down the road. Since Microsoft® Exchange and Gmail are always in sync with one another, there’s no need to migrate email data when eventually deploying Google Apps. With Gmail, Calendar and Contacts available, users can get familiar with these cloud services without having to abruptly stop using their regular email system.

Google Message Continuity takes Gmail’s availability and extends it to Microsoft® Exchange users, delivering on the cloud’s promise of greater reliability and security for organizations of all sizes. And with research suggesting that on-premises email solutions often face regular email downtime, this extension just seems to make sense.

For more information on Google Message Continuity, stop by the Google Enterprise Blog or visit www.google.com/postini.

*Osterman Research, 2009. “Key Issues in Selecting an Email Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Solution”

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Group Product Manager, Google Apps

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Esteve

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Website Paul Buchheit: If your product is Great, it doesn't need to be Good.

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:49:05 -0800

Article molt interessant d'un dels creadors de Gmail "The original address book was implemented in two days and did almost nothing"

L'enfocament q Google va donar a Gmail i pq l'ipod i iPad fent poques coses son superventes

Paul Buchheit: If your product is Great, it doesn't need to be Good.
http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/02/if-your-product-is-great-it-doesnt-need.html

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Esteve

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La historia de google en 2 minutos.

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 14:26:29 -0800

La historia de google en 2 minutos.

SEO Profesional » SEO + POSICIONAMIENTO

La historia de google en 2 minutos.

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Esteve

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Una raó mes per no utilitzar flash en la nostra web

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:37:40 -0800

5 Consejos para Optimizar tu Sitio en el Google Instant Preview

SEO, Posicionamiento en buscadores, Google y más...

Después de varios días de estar con algunos problemas de hacker en este blog, muchas cosas nuevas sucedieron con Google, quien últimamente parece estar innovando mucho más que hace algunos años… no crees?

Una de las últimas “sorpresas” después del Google Instant, tiene que ver con la pre-visualización del sitio desde la lista de resultados (SERP), llamada “Google Instant Preview” (traducida quizás como “Vista Previa Instantánea”).

Para usuarios de Bing –como yo- no se trató de algo novedoso, pues era una de las diferencias en comparación con Google y que existía hace mucho tiempo atrás

Básicamente la función permite al usuario tener una vista previa del sitio antes de hacer clic en la lista de resultados. Solo basta con colocar el ratón encima del resultado o hacer clic en el ícono de lupa que aparece al lado derecho de cada uno, el cual mostrará una imagen tipo captura de pantalla.

Para muchos esta función es completamente nueva y han descubierto que sus sitios no se visualizan correctamente por detalles quizás relacionados con el diseño, contenido, la forma o estructura. Ante esto, algunos me han preguntado si es posible optimizar el sitio en el Google Instant Preview…

En lo personal creo que sí. Cinco consejos interesantes mencionados en este artículo quizás sean de ayuda:

1. Coloca tu logotipo en la parte superior como destacado

Esto hará un mejor branding de tu marca, siendo un área más destacada de la vista previa. No olvides darle un fondo claro para efectos de resaltar tu logo.

2. Coloca un área de texto optimizado

Para algunas capturas de pantalla Google tomará en cuenta párrafos de texto que incluyan esas palabras clave donde quieres posicionarte, y lo colocará como “resaltado” por encima de la vista previa. Utiliza texto que invite a las personas a hacer clic.

3. Uso de colores

Si utilizas un fondo color negro como background, piénsalo dos veces. Los colores oscuros tienden a opacar la vista previa, incluyendo no solo las imágenes sino también el contenido. Por otro lado; colores como el rojo o naranja, podrían degradarse y no mirarse atractivos.

4. Uso de Flash

Si tienes un encabezado con tu logo o el banner de promoción en Flash, es mejor que hagas algo al respecto. El mismo no se visualiza del todo dentro de la captura de pantalla.

5. Estructura

Asegúrate que la estructura del sitio sea tan simple como sea posible. Esto hará que la vista previa en miniatura muestre que es de fácil navegación y atraiga clics.

Ya viste tu sitio en el Google Instant Preview? En caso no, es mejor que lo hagas!

¿Alguna otra recomendación?

http://www.seocharlie.com/blog/5-consejos-para-optimizar-tu-sitio-en-el-googl..." title="Save to Twitter" rel="nofollow">

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Esteve

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Google + Bing Confirm that Twitter/Facebook Influence SEO

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:43:07 -0800

Google + Bing Confirm that Twitter/Facebook Influence SEO

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Posted by randfish

As of yesterday, both Bing and Google have confirmed (via an excellent interview by Danny Sullivan) that links shared through Twitter and Facebook have a direct impact on rankings (in addition to the positive second-order effects they may have on the link graph). This has long been suspected by SEOs (in fact, many of us posited it was happening as of November of last year following Google + Bing's announcements of partnerships with Twitter), but getting this official confirmation is a substantive step forward.

In addition to that revelation, another piece of critical data came via yesterday's announcement:

Danny Sullivan: If an article is retweeted or referenced much in Twitter, do you count that as a signal outside of finding any non-nofollowed links that may naturally result from it?

Bing: We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results. It carries much more weight in Bing Social Search, where tweets from more authoritative people will flow to the top when best match relevancy is used.

Google: Yes, we do use it as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by marking how many people shared an article.

Danny Sullivan: Do you try to calculate the authority of someone who tweets that might be assigned to their Twitter page. Do you try to “know,” if you will, who they are?

Bing: Yes. We do calculate the authority of someone who tweets. For known public figures or publishers, we do associate them with who they are. (For example, query for Danny Sullivan)

Google: Yes we do compute and use author quality. We don’t know who anyone is in real life :-)

Danny Sullivan: Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on the person who tweets it?

Bing: Yes.

Google: Yes we do use this as a signal, especially in the “Top links” section [of Google Realtime Search]. Author authority is independent of PageRank, but it is currently only used in limited situations in ordinary web search.

We now know that those link sharing activities on Twitter + Facebook are evaluated based on the person/entity sharing them through a score Google calls "Author Authority," and Bing calls "Social Authority."

We can probably predict a lot of the signals the search engines care about when it comes to social sharing; some of my guesses include:

Diversity of Sources - having 50 tweets of a link from one account, like having 50 links from one site, is not nearly as valuable as 50 tweets from 50 unique accounts.
Timing - sharing that occurs when an RSS feed first publishes a story may be valuable in QDF, but tweets/shares of older pieces could be seen as more indicative of lasting value and interest (rather than just sharing what's new).
Surrounding Content - the message(s) accompanying the link may give the engines substantive information about their potential relevance and topic; it could even fill the gap that's left by the lack of anchor text, particularly on Twitter.
Engagement Level - the quantity of clicks, retweets, likes, etc. (if/when measurable) could certainly impact how much weight is given to the link.

We can probably also take a stab at some of the signals Google + Bing use for Author/Social Authority in the context of the sharing/tweeting source:

Quantity of Friends/Followers - like links, it's likely the case that more is better, though there will likely be caveats; low quality bots and inauthentic accounts are likely to be filtered (and may be much easier to spot than spammy links, due to the challenge they find in getting any "legitimate" friends/followers).
Importance of Friends/Followers - the friends/followers you have, like the link sources you have, are also probably playing a role. Earn high "authority" followers and you yourself must be a high authority person.
Analysis of Friends/Followers Ratios - Much like the engines' analysis of the editorial nature of links, consideration of whether a social user is engaging in following/follower behavior purely out of reciprocity vs. true interest and engagement may be part of authority scoring. If you have 100K followers and follow 99K of them, but the engagement between you and your followers is slim, you're likely not as authoritative as an account with 100K followers + 5K following, but those followers are constantly engaged, retweeting, liking, sharing, etc.
Topic Focus / Relevance - The consistency or patterns between your sharing behaviors could also be a consideration, using topic analysis, patterns in the sources of shared/tweeted links, etc. Being an "authority" could even be subject-specific, such that when a prominent SEO tweets links to celebrity news it has less of an impact than when they tweet links to a web marketing resource.
Association Bias - I suspect Google and Bing do a good job of associating social authors with the sites/domains they're "part of" vs. independent from. Sometimes, this might be as easy as looking at the URL associated with the account, other times it could be based on patterns like where you most often tweet/share links to or whether your account is listed on pages from that site. Basically, if @randfish tweets links to *.seomoz.org, that probably means less than when I tweet links to bitlynews or when someone outside the company tweets links to SEOmoz.

These signals represent my opinions only, and while it's very likely that at least some are being used, it's even more likely that there are many more that aren't listed above. Over time, hopefully we'll discover more about the impact of social sharing on web rankings and how we can best combine SEO + social media marketing.

To me, the most exciting part about this is the potential to reduce webspam and return to a more purely editorial model. While people often link to, read and enjoy sources that link out manipulatively, very few of us will be likely to follow a Twitter account, friend someone on Facebook, or "like" something in a social site that's inauthentic, manipulative or spammy. The social graph isn't necessarily cleaner, but the complexity of spam is far lower.

Here's to the evolution of organic marketing - search, social, content, blogs, links - it's all coming together faster than ever before, and that's a very good thing for holisticly minded web marketers.

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What Is "Advanced" SEO?

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 11:11:12 -0800

What Is "Advanced" SEO?

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Posted by Dr. Pete

One of the things we struggle with as SEO content providers, whether it's as bloggers or event organizers, is what level to target content at. It seems that, almost no matter what the content, some part of the audience complains that it isn't advanced enough. This is clearly an industry-wide struggle – we even have conferences now with "Advanced" right in the name.

The problem is that "advanced" means a lot of things to a lot of people. Some of those meanings are useful and can inform our future efforts, but some are closer to myth than reality.

1. "Advanced" Means Secrets

Let's start with one that's closer to myth. To some, especially people who are new to SEO, "advanced" means giving away the secret sauce. They naturally assume that we SEOs are saving the best stuff for ourselves or will only part with it if the price is right. Unfortunately, the snake-oil side of the industry does its best to perpetuate that myth.

Over the years, I've gotten to know and have access to some pretty amazing search marketers. It's true, on the one hand, that there are bits of information they don't share with everyone. In most cases, though, those "secrets" are either short-lived (Google catches on), fit a very narrow niche, or are just high-level tactics that still require a lot of time and effort. I've never once heard a secret that would magically propel a site to the top of the rankings with no work.

2. "Advanced" Means New

Sometimes, "advanced" just means new or cutting-edge. Google's algorithm changed more than 300 times last year, so keeping up with the latest can be important, and it certainly takes an advanced SEO (or, at least, a full-time one) to keep up with all the news. On the other hand, only a fraction of those changes really impact most people, so whether it's important to always have that news instantly is open for debate.

3. "Advanced" Means New to Me

Of course, "new" is a bit subjective. Even the TV tells us: "if you haven't seen it, it's new to you." In SEO, that could mean content you simply haven't seen before, or it could mean a content niche that's complementary to SEO but isn't discussed as often. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a good example – it's relevant and interesting to search marketers. On the other hand, as someone who participates actively in the CRO space, I'm often amazed at what passes for "advanced" with an SEO audience. I have to step back and realize that, just because I see that content ever day, our readers don't. So, it's new (and useful) to some of you.

4. "Advanced" Means Technical

If you like to get your hands dirty, you may think "advanced" means deeply technical tips, complete with spreadsheets, plug-ins, and code. It's true that a lot of advanced tactics do require a deeper understanding of the technical side of SEO, but it's often a challenge to cover that kind of content in a blog post or conference session. Either you can't quite do it justice, or the topic becomes so niche that it only applies to a small segment of the audience. When you serve a wide demographic, this can be challenging, to say the least.

5. "Advanced" Means Enterprise

Finally, some people equate "advanced" with large-scale, enterprise SEO. Like the technical side, there's certainly some validity to that idea. Sites with 100,000+ pages definitely have unique problems, and the scale can turn even sometimes simple issues (like duplicate content) complex fast. Like deeply technical SEO, the challenge here is that any given solution or discussion probably only applies to a fairly small number of sites, at least once you dig into the details.

What Does "Advanced" Mean To You?

Of course, these are just a few examples, and each of them can be split apart even more. Here's where I'd like to hear from you. What do you think "advanced" SEO is, and, in a perfect world, how would you want search blogs and conferences to cover advanced topics? Feel free to use the survey below and/or to reply in the comments section.

Survey Results (11/29)

The graph below shows the survey results. There were 651 responses for options (1)-(5) and 73 "Other" answers. The big winner was "Technical SEO", with 57% of the votes. I left out the "Other" answers in the chart, because some of them were just people screwing around. Common other options included "All of the above" (or some combination), "Black hat", "Experimentation", "Holistic", and "Strategic".

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Google Editions to Be Released This Month

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:17:39 -0800

Google Editions to Be Released This Month

Google Operating System

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google will launch this month Google Editions, the service that will allow users to read copyrighted books from Google Book Search.

The long-delayed venture — Google executives had said they hoped to launch this summer — recently has cleared several technical and legal hurdles, people close to the company say. It is set to debut in the U.S. by the end of the year and internationally in the first quarter of next year, said Scott Dougall, a Google product management director. (...)
Google Editions hopes to upend the existing e-book market by offering an open, "read anywhere" model that is different from many competitors. Users will be able to buy books directly from Google or from multiple online retailers — including independent bookstores — and add them to an online library tied to a Google account. They will be able to access their Google accounts on most devices with a Web browser, including personal computers, smartphones and tablets.

This will finally answer the question "How can I read an entire book in Google Book Search?". Right now, you can only read books in the public domain and some books from the Partner Program. "Many of the books in Google Books come from authors and publishers who participate in our Partner Program. For these books, our partners decide how much of the book is browsable - anywhere from a few sample pages to the whole book," explains Google. Google's partners will now have an incentive to allow full access to the books: users will actually pay to read the books.

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Web Store, the Most Important New Feature in Chrome 8

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:17:35 -0800

Web Store, the Most Important New Feature in Chrome 8

Google Operating System

Even if Google didn't mention it in the release notes, Chrome 7 has support for installing web apps, but Chrome Web Store is not yet released. The store will be the most important new feature in Chrome 8, which will be launched very soon.

"Chrome 8 is the first version that supports the Chrome Web Store," mentions a Google Chrome engineer. There's already a new icon for the store in Chromium and this should be the final icon.

Google Chrome 7 was launched on October 21, almost 6 weeks ago, so Chrome 8 and Chrome Web Store should be available this week.

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Beyond Good and Evil in SEO

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:59:51 -0800

Posted by DragonSearch

This post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

I recently heard a story about a local SEO shop whose customers, overnight, almost ALL lost ranking in Google. Apparently, the shop had been engaging in “black hat” techniques. I’m pretty sure the teller of the tale made a “tsk tsk” sound at the end to help emphasize this as another instance where people who do evil get their just desserts.

But I think there is a fundamental disjoint in even using the phrase “black hat” – as it does infer a big gap in morality. And ‘black hats’ aren’t going around stealing the life savings of pensioners, killing kittens, or committing other dastardly deeds. What they are doing is gaming the system.

In Italy, there is a word for when someone uses audacity to gain advantage: “Furbo”. And it is, in a way, considered a virtue. In many cultures, it isn’t a bad thing at all to be a “player”. So how is it, in my own circle of SEO experts, black hat is spoken of with such disdain? Mind you, I’m not advocating black hat seo tactics – as I’ll explain in more detail in a bit. But by framing the black/white hat discussion in terms of morality, we might be distorting the real meaning behind the concepts.

What IS happening in Black Hat

What IS happening in black hat is the gaming, or the attempt at gaming the system. And in this case, the system is usually Google. Now, Google, we hope, wants to present the best search results to its users. I’m not always sure about that, and not at all sure that the reality isn’t that Google wants to present the best results to its users that helps Google make the most money. If we’re going to discuss ethics, there is a whole topic for discussion in that.

In a way, as a professional SEO, what we want to do is get Google to see our page as being more relevant to a topic than our competitor’s page. And who is to say it isn’t? Google, as we know, has an algorithm, albeit a SECRET algorithm – and we can all find countless examples of where Google does not provide the best results. So, we’re asking, is Google a better arbiter of best results?

Let’s consider a black hat tactic I recently heard discussed at SMX East, the acquisition of an old well-indexed website, and then peppering it with back links to our web page. Those link’s were NOT part of the original content of the site – and perhaps not even relevant to the content of that old well-indexed site – so in essence, the black hat is using Google’s system to sort of cheat a little.

By the way; there are some interesting studies (http://blog.ted.com/2009/03/13/dan_ariely_offe/ ) that show that MOST people WILL cheat in small incremental ways if they believe that can go undetected. It’s just a little cheat. In game theory, this is an aspect of the “Tragedy of the Commons” – people will take a little bit from the group if their actions benefit themselves a lot, but only hurt the group a little. The problem is, of course, that all those little hurts to the group add up.

Now, isn’t it true that emphasizing a key phrase in meta tags, H1’s, links, etc, is ALSO gaming the system? Maybe it is gaming the system but in a lesser way than acquiring a mothballed site. But if we’re talking about ethics, can we really talk degrees of ethics, and where do we score the little measures?

Mrs. Google

Imagine a classroom where the teacher up front is Mrs. Google, and all of the students are us SEO’s. Mrs. Google asks a question, “who is the most relevant student here to answer this question”? And we all raise our hands – each one of us wants her to notice ME, we want to her to pick ME! And sometimes, to get noticed, maybe we sort of bounce up and down in our seats, to help influence her choosing. But should the student doing the most bouncing up and down in their seat be chosen? Are they really the most relevant? Now, maybe one student not only bobs up and down in his seat, but emits a small chirping sound! Is the chirper a black hat? Isn’t he using a method of getting called-on that has nothing to do with the fairness of his being chosen?

So; what I’m suggesting is that black hats are simply taking their methods of being noticed FURTHER than white hats – and in comparison to most SEO professionals, is only doing what is done by everyone, just in greater degrees.

Beyond Good and Evil

As an SEO, I discourage the use of so-called black hat techniques. Simply put, they can result in a web site’s being perceived as deserving a Google purgatory. It would be irresponsible to put a website at risk in that way. It’s a risk management issue, not a moral issue.

The SERP has been dying a long and painful death. Every so often, a new Google enhancement causes SERP to be less relevant – instant search, local results, etc. In other words, DYNAMIC results based on the searcher’s demographics or behavior. Cool. And by focusing more on creating content that is rich in relevant clouds of words and phrases, we’re not simply trying to be perceived as being more relevant, we’re focusing on BEING more relevant. It takes the entire discussion outside of the black hat/white hat.

About Ric Dragon

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