SEO and Internet marketing news and views; the Fire Horse Trail

Warning; SEO confusion spreads PageRank madness

thegypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:36:33 +0000

Let’s put this to bed once and for all

Jeez… if there’s one thing that bugs me more than anything, is when seemingly sane people form apparently respected outlets, don’t seem to understand the fundamentals. Who cares when some blog in some far flung nether regions of the SEO makes a pedantic proclamation? Not I… Heck, I don’t even get worked up when the latest round of ‘SEO sucks’ (‘is dead’ ‘is easy’ insert ignorant analysis here). Nope, that no longer irks me.

But those that should know better, the places where new search geeks and clients lurk for learning, I hold them to a higher standard.

Case and point; there is a big difference between (Google’s) PageRank, (PR) and ToolBar PageRank, (TBPR).

Now, as with past rants, this is not meant with malice, just a love for the game. Dear Titus, care of Site Pro News, stop confusing people with articles such as this one, it’s clearly madness of the highest order.

The future of SEO; search geeks speak!

thegypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:17:46 +0000

SEOs say personalization is the one to watch

If recent indications are anything, then personalization is still the one to watch heading into 2010. In a recent poll in the Dojo, (public) more than 40% of the respondents believed that it will have the greatest impact on the (near) future of SEO.

It broke down like this;

Which do you feel will have the greatest impact on the future of SEO?

Personalization – 42.3%
Geo-Local – 20.6%
Social Search – 14.4%
Better Link Analysis – 10.3%
Mobile – 6.2%
Vertical Search – 4.1%
Other (not on list) – 2.1%
Maps – 0%

(poll results here)

Considering the poll is a week old, they just might have been onto something with the recent launch of Google Social Search (in Labs) which is most certainly a new level of personalization. We put that with other explicit signal gathering, there is a strong interest in behavioural data.

Beyond that, social search itself comes in at #3. At the number 2 position is another area that is ever increasing; Geo/Local. It has become more and more common to end up talking semantic mark-up such as micro-formats and RDFa with peeps.

‘Better link analysis’ rounds up the top 4 and with concepts such as page segmentation and personalized PageRank, among others, there is plenty of room for search engines to evolve here as well. All in all some interesting insights from the crowd and for the record? It should be no surprise I went with personalization… gotta love the implicit/explcit data I tells ya!

Feel free to add your own 2c in the comments…

This week’s poll is about the obvious choice this week; what effect will Social Search have on SEO? Drop by the Dojo and take part won’t you?

Google Social Search; an early review

thegypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:27:12 +0000

Now that Google has launched its Social Search, where do we stand? Is it a brave new world of search? Is the sky falling? Well, that’s what we’re going to find out – SOSG Style…. Of course. For starters, if you haven’t already, you can join at google.com/experimental - Next let’s get past the basics with a quick review. Over at the Google blog the most notable statement (for this geek) was;

“We've taken steps to improve the relevance of our search results with personalization, but today's launch takes that one step further.” Google Blog

Let’s keep that in mind. This as much a personalization than anything, but you knew that from last time right? Of course, you’re so damn clever, that’s what I like about ya!

Essentially the system collects contacts/info from;

Google Profile (and the sites you’ve listed; blogs, social etc..)
Google Contacts/Gtalk (friends/family/etc.. and Gtalk peeps)
Google Reader ( the blogs/sites you follow)

This also can include secondary contacts (friend of a friend) and essentially now becomes a recommendation engine to serve up potentially relevant content from your networks.

I thought it interesting that in Matt’s video he refers to it as a ‘Social Graph’ which obviously brings back visions of the Google Social Graph API we’ve been talking about the last while.

Google Social search is now live!

thegypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:44:17 +0000

Check it out now in Google Labs!

Hey gang... just a quick heads up to let you know that Google Social Search is now Live and can be accessed here. We were just talking about it this morning, so as expected, I am gonna dig in to see what we have.

For more info; see the official blog post, the help center and/or watch this vid

and a video with Matt Cutts

We'll have more on this story once I get in, dig around and get dirty! Now git on outta here and report back what ye find my fellow search geeks and warriors alike! The dawn of a new era? Or yet another 'meh' moment... We shall see.

Google Social Search; the potential for personalization

thegypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:34:53 +0000

aka - Now Caffeine Makes Sense...

What’s the future of search (and by extension SEO)? Well, some 40% of the people we asked in our recent poll said personalization would have the greatest effect. But how? One such avenue would be taking it a step further than its current state… to add more layers to the search onion. In short, by getting more social; the rise of the social search engine.

Here on the Trail we’d recently we looked at some ways that Google could get social (which wasn’t far off, I’d wager). And then we took it a step farther by looking at their social network behavioural targeting (and potential issues therein). Will this be what the future holds? Or are they taking a completely different direction? It seemed we’d be waiting for the next big move and twiddle our didgits… not so.

Because last week we were (officially?) introduced to the world of Social Search at Google. It has been one of the buzz terms over the last few years and might finally see some adoption from one of the majors. Marissa Mayer was speaking last week of a new addition coming to Google Labs that contains;

“(..) a new feature that allows you to see results for queries from people in your social network. This works by using your Google Profile. If you fill it out with the other social networks you’re a member of, such as FriendFeed, Google will scan who you are connected to and give your results from those people.”

Come Join the SEO Dojo

thegypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:17:12 +0000

Training for Search Warriors!

OK, if you've been wandering the trails with us here for any length of time, you might have caught wind of a little project me and a few dozen friends (old and new) have been working on. I speak of the SEO Dojo, a community for search geeks and professionals. It began as a desire to have a private hang out with a few peeps and turned into a community that evolved with dozens of members and new features/content each and every week.

Somewhere along the line things changed. No longer was it just a simple little hobby, oh no my friends, when you'r search obsessed, odd things can happen. We started to polish it, prime it and make ready to bring our little home to the world.

We've Launched on our maiden voyage!

Yup it's true... just like I promised. So what do you do now? That's easy.. come join us! You can learn more and join us using the following links;

For those of you that have been looking for a top notch community for search geeks (we've got some bloggers, web designers and shirt makers too!) it is my hope that you'll join us. It has been a labour of love (mostly hee hee) and it's nice to see it leave the nest.

The League of Awesome Optimizers!

thegypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:20:31 +0000

If SEOs were Superheroes

If your favorite SEOs where superheroes, who would they be? This was a discussion that came up last month with some pals, and I thought would be a bast to play with. Like any good geek, comics and superheroes were part of my youth. So it seems only natural to have some fun and turn some of my mates and people I respect in the industry into some geeky goodiness.

The following is nothing more than a random list of peeps I thought would make cool heroes (it's not a popularity thang m'kay?)

Enjoy!


		From the far away ‘Hypeandpimp’ Galaxy, Link Bait (a.k.a Lyndon Antcliff) arrived on earth with the uncanny ability to craft content that would hypnotize the masses and create unheard of curiosity. Few can resist his bait and links attract to him unlike any other before him. To be admired and feared, we're just glad he's on OUR side (he is on our side right?)


		If you thought that other green guy that gets mad was something, you’ve never seen the Rant Master in action. A freak combination of brand bias, torrents and too much ‘Caffeine’ turned the once gentle Aaron Wall into a behemoth of unequalled anger. He’s now a giant in the industry that can squash all but the mightiest of foes. His nemesis is *the Google borg* whom he has saved us all from their clutches more than a few times.

SEO Dojo Launch Date Announced

thegypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:31:31 +0000

Hey Gang, I wanted to pass along some exciting news (for me at least...hehe). Over the last while we’ve been quietly building a community for SEO geeks and warriors called; the SEO Dojo. It all started back earlier this year when some fellow search geeks and I had been talking about having a place where SEO professionals (and webmasters) could hang out and talk shop. So we built one.

In my youth, training/teaching martial arts was a big part of my life and so the SEO Dojo was built with the same credo; ‘We’re all teachers and we’re all students’. There are no egos and it isn’t a competition. There is always someone that knows more, (or different areas) than you do, and there are those with less knowledge. It is by working together, and exhanging ideas that we can achieve the best results.

(Learn more about the membership program here)

Monday October 19th 2009 is the day

After many months of hanging out and building the offering, we’re thrilled to announce we’re setting it loose into the wild next Monday. Our goal is to offer a (gated) commuity that SEOs will feel comfortable talking tactics, strategy and even participate in the latest industry chatter.

If you’re interested in learning more…. Use the following links;

We have taken our time in building this community and struggled even with what we wanted to do with it ultimately. To ensure the quality of the individuals and avoid spam, it will be a closed door affair. We’ve had 100 great SEO and webmaster related peeps in there for the last while and the evolution of the SEO Dojo, was greatly enhanced from the interactions.

As for me, it has been a truly exhausting experience at times and it will be nice to get the maiden voyage underway.

Watch for discounts

As part of the launch next week we’ll be offering some discounts to the early birds that get on board early. If you want to make sure YOU get the specials be sure to get hooked up with the SEO Geeks Newsletter or watch the SEO Dojo on Twitter for more.

I want to thank all of those that have helped build the Dojo and to those that are sponsoring the effort. You folks just ROCK!!

We hope to see you there!

NOTE: If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please get in touch

5 SEO Scams in a Sea of Scumbags

thegypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:01:13 +0000

(by Brian Harnish)

It has become common throughout the SEO industry to find more and more head-shaking scams full of false promises. Not all SEO companies will scam you, but there are quite a few out there, that you will want to keep an eye out for when you’re looking for SEO suppliers (or even outsourcing partners).

On a personal level, the majority of these scammers also give SEO a bad name, it’s no wonder that SEO is sometimes referred to as a snake oil laden industry. Anyway, before I get too worked up, let’s move on to the scams;

Or any variation of the above c-r-a-p.

The fact of the matter is, this is NOT true. Google does not currently sponsor any work-from-home programs. They do not hire people to work from home, and they do not offer money to people looking to make a quick buck. Google is like any other company out there. You have a hiring process – you have a background check – you have to work in an office.

The unfortunate thing is that these scammers are banking on the bad economy. They don’t have any remorse or care about the individual they’re hurting. Quite simply, these scammers are banking on the economy and people’s desperation to quit working and become their own boss. The problem with that is that building a business takes years.

The one thing these people are counting on is your ignorance – that you don’t know that Google as a company doesn’t do that. Well, take it from me as a professional in the SEO industry – they do not. These lame advertisers are banking on the Google affiliation, and the fact that you’ll open your wallet without thinking to purchase the latest, greatest get rich quick scheme.

SEO, however, is NOT get rich quick. True SEO requires hard work, dedication, talent, and a temperament to deal with hours upon hours of content writing, link building, and other technical work that goes into gaining higher rankings.

Twitter and the Agents of influence

thegypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:10:56 +0000

(by Terry VanHorne)

Relationship marketing and Social Media Success

First off let me say that I have been around the web for a long time and can tell you that whenever something new comes along we get stories like; Loosing to the social web visualized. Sorry, but with that story, I felt more then just a little smoke being blown up a hole I'd rather not experience.

Yes Social Media is taking off but to use the sites they did in that post and not mention that the greatest recession since the great depression didn't play a role in the dramatic traffic decreases is to see a world no bigger than your Social Media cubicle. A few of the sites listed like the newspapers are likely very affected.

I doubt people are choosing to buy from the Dell Facebook page instead of the Dell website. To the author... I strongly urge you to pull your head out of your a$$, take a look around the world beyond yourFacebook page and see the financial turmoil that may be just as responsible and quite likely more responsible for the down trend on those graphs. Also will you take it back in December when those store graphs are reversed?

Social Media people you haven't discovered one new technique that hasn't been around Internet Marketing for years! Twitter is just improved IRC if you really think about it.

The net, and many of the services like search and stores that these Social Media twits say Social Networks will replace is unfathomable. Sounds like the guys back in the day saying in 4 years we'll all be surfing the net on our phone... 9 years later and it's still a hope of AT&T and Apple and not really that much closer in NA. Believe it or not there are people who bought smart phones for reasons other than to keep their Facebook page updated.