Cli.gs URLs Hacked Forwarding to lansner.freedomblogging.com

Cli.gs, (Cligs) a URL shortening/forwarding service has been hacked where several users have been reporting their older created forwarders were all going to 1 single location. Below is a screenshot within the Cligs user interface displaying some older saved forwarded URLs in my own Cligs account.

All of which were now going to:

http://lansner.freedomblogging.com/2009/06/14/twitter-hashtag-conversations/25613/

And all had the title:

Hashtag? How to join those Twitter

In the early days of URL forwarding, probably the most widely used service was TinyURL which has served well for people that were sending links via email or instant messenger because sometimes long URLs with tons of parameters get cut off in the sending process by human error, or technical error.

When microblogging came out, and Twitter gained a lot of popularity, more URL shorterners started popping out because of the limited characters allowed in a microblog post which is usually 140 characters. One of the popular URL shorterners is Cligs and the value added service Cligs had over the others, was the free web analytics bundled together with the URL shorterner. One more benefit that many others also had was the custom folder name, and the changeable URLs.

I am not sure if the changeable URL was a good idea, but URLs can always change, link in changing a domain, changing a CMS platform, and you would not want to have dead-404-shortened-URLs. But once someone gets to exploit a security hole on Cligs, this can be a vulnerability of losing all your created forwarders and will be forwarder to some place else.

From an SEO point of view... if any of your forwarding URLs get's posted by one way or another on some other site that has good search engine friendly links, Cligs forwarders are actually 301 redirects, thus giving link value. So who ever hacked into Cligs, must have had this in mind to steal some links in the attempt to rank higher.

Now the question is who has done this? That we really don't know. Although we do now that http://lansner.freedomblogging.com is owned by real estate bloggers Jonathan Lasner and Jeff Collins. Could they be responsible for this? What are your thoughts?

My Free SEO Webinar About Measuring ROI from Organic Search

On May 5th I will be doing a free SEO webinar about measuing the ROI from Organic Search. This presentation is based on my SES presentation but will be much more in depth (I only had about 10 minutes to speak at SES, The webinar is close to an hour). Please follow this link to sign up. The presentation is Wednesday, May 5th, 2009.

Sorry I have been lagging on the search cycle series of articles (the Webinar is focused on measuring and optimizing around the search cycle), but work has been unbelievably busy. I hope to start again next week. In the mean time, please mark your calendars for May 5th and my free SEO Webinar from BusinessOnLine.

Catfish

Measuring the Search Cycle: How to Improve the ROI of Search

My recent presentation at Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York afforded me the opportunity to talk about:

1. The importance of measuring the right data from each step in the "search cycle" and then,...


2. Taking action based on that data.

Many people get caught up in metrics and measuring all kinds of things that don't drive any tactical optimization activities. In an ongoing SEO campaign, resources for continued optimization need to be prioritized based on analytics data, so as to maximize ROI. Therefore, we need to measure the right data in each step of the "search cycle" in order to understand the proper allocation of those resources.

The "search cycle" is a five step process that illustrates how potential customers become customers through search:



Each of the steps in this process have certain metrics that can be leveraged to drive SEO strategy. Because of time constraints I was only able to discuss rankings and traffic at my presentation. For today's blog post, I will be discussing Search Rankings and Wednesday I will write about Search Traffic.

Search Rankings:

In the search rankings phase of the cycle, its obvious that the primary metric of concern is the ranking of a phrase. But it's important to note that where the phrase is ranked is not always consistent between users. Between localization, personalization, universal search results and ranking fluctuations between data centers, ranking #1 for a particular phrase in Google, Yahoo or MSN, isn't as clear cut as it once was. That isn't to say that top listings for competitive keyword phrases aren't important, they certainly are. But they are getting harder to measure accurately.

It's also worth noting that typically, an enterprise level Web site that gets thousands of search visitors a month, is not able to check rankings for every keyword permutation that they are interested in. Therefore they chose a smaller set of "fat head" keywords that are competitive and will in theory, generate the highest revenue or at least search traffic. But in reality, if you optimize a site for a three word phrase, you are likely also optimizing it for dozens if not hundreds more related long tail keyword phrases. And the resulting taffic from these long tail keywords for sites that target high traffic niches can be significant.

The main takeaway here is that rankings in and of themselves don't tell the whole story about your SEO campaign. So its important not to rely solely on rankings as the primary metric of success. It's certainly a key indicator, but the rest of the search cycle must be considered in order to both understand and improve your ROI from search.

So with that in mind, I gave some tips on how to use search rankings to drive SEO strategy:

1. You should create a "keyword map" in Excel that lists all of the keyword phrases that you are targeting as well as which URL you would like ranked for that URL. The keyword map serves a number of purposes.
   
   One, it is a permanent record of which pages have been optimized for which keywords. This is very helpful in both internal and external link development on an ongoing basis.
   
   Two, in the event that a different page on your site is listed for a particular keyword, it allows you to see the differences in what content you think is most relevant for that phrase versus which content Google thinks is most relevant. Often times this will provide excellent clues on how to improve your optimization.
   
   Additionally, you can then ensure that the messaging on the page that is ranked, is consistent with the page you thought was going to be ranked, thereby improving your conversion rate. In other words, if you sell a product and you have a blog post about the product, and the blog post gets more links and gets ranked higher than the product page, make sure you have a "buy now" button on the blog post.


2. The second way rankings can drive strategy is understanding that rankings in the top 10 are the only rankings that really matter, because they are the only rankings that consistently produce traffic. Therefore, it makes sense to monitor your top keywords to see which in are the top 30 or so that are not in the top 10. These rankings illustrate an immediate opportunity where a few small improvements can make a big difference.


3. Additionally, it pays to look at long tail keywords that convert well and add them to your optimization. Often times it doesn't take much optimization to really improve your ranking for a long tail keyword. And the difference in traffic between a #8 listing and a #3 listing can be substancial.

In summary, any ranking not in the top 10 represents an opportunity for continued optimization. There are usually more opportunities for more SEO (content, internal links, external links, etc) than there are resources. In that event, it is useful to prioritize based on which terms convert better, which terms drive the most profitable sales and which terms are in markets where the company has a competitive advantage. It is advantageous to have a keyword map that serves as a master gameplan for your optimization. This will allow you to understand if your visitors are going where you want them to and that they see messaging that will result in the highest possible conversions. Adding long tail keyword phrases to your map that convert well according to your analytics and then optimizing for those phrases can significantly increase rankings for those phrases.

Rankings are really just the tip of the iceberg as it relates to what you need to measure to maximize your ROI for your organic search campaign. In my next blog post, I will talk about traffic metrics, what's important, what isn't, and how that data should drive your ongoing optimization.

Hidden Content/Cloaking - Any day can be April Fool's Day

The Internet goes wild on April Fool's day. This year, you may have noticed some already from Google's CADIE, YouTube's mirror image and the one I liked was Reddit's pages were redesigned on various parts of their site that look like Digg, Fark, Slashdot and maybe more.

Here at BusinessOnLine, as mentioned in our last years April Fool's Day blog post, we work hard and we play hard. For some reason, everyone seemed so busy with client projects that no well coordinated prank was executed this day of the pranks in 2009.

But since we do play hard aside from work hard, any day here can be like April Fool's day. An earlier prank happened on March 4, 2009. This is the office cubicle of our HR manager.



And in this prank we did, blackhat hidden content. We cloaked the HR's office.



Too bad, all of us never saw Trevor's reaction that day. He usually comes in at 5:00am. Too early for the rest of the company.

Any day can be April Fool's Day here at BusinessOnLine.

My SES New York 2009 Experience: SEO Adventures 3000 Miles from Home

I just got back from SES New York on Friday where I was very honored to have an opportunity to speak and to contribute to an outstanding session called "Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers". Between myself and the other exceptional speakers including Cindy Krum, Founder and CEO of Rank-Mobile; Anne Kennedy, SES Advisory Board and Managing Partner and Founder of Beyond Ink; and Seth Besmertnik, CEO & Co-Founder of Conductor, Inc. I felt like we put on a very informative session and the feedback I got from audience members after the presentation was very encouraging. I will be presenting a separate blog post later in the week covering some of what I spoke about at the conference.

I was happy to have an opportunity to speak right after Guy Kawasaki's keynote speech which I thought was fairly well done and educational despite what some other people have suggested. I thought most people coming away from the keynote were energized and ready to learn more about SEO, SMO and everything in between. So I wasn't surprised that we had an almost capacity room of about 150 people.

After I was done speaking, I attended some of the sessions in the afternoon although I admit I skipped the session after I spoke to unwind and get some pizza. I have been to SES before so I wasn't particularly confident that the stock lunch menu would be to my liking (I was happily surprised that SES has definitely improved their food selection since last time I was there two years ago). Props to the SES New York organizers for taking care of the problem. However, I was more than happy to have some authentic slices of pie from Ray's Pizza around the corner from the Hilton where the conference was taking place.

While we are talking about the Hilton, let me say that the hotel is fantastic. The only complaint that I have (and it's a big one), is if your going to charge a $250 discounted nightly rate, don't try to weasel me for $15 extra a day for Wireless Internet. If nothing else, be smart enough to realize that at this conference its pretty much a given that almost everyone needs it. So bundle it in with the total package cost and let me be happily surprised that my laptop works as soon as I enter my room. That was a REALLY annoying part of the whole experience.

Overall though I had a great time. I thought that the sessions were really good for the most part. I thought Michael Gray had one of the better presentations that I saw, and was impressed with the amount of tactical advice that he gave people that could be implemented immediately. I am a big fan of sessions that teach people how to do things, rather than those whose speakers pontificate about high level subjects that make for interesting coffee conversations, but don't really help you make money.

For example, in the session titled "Universal and Blended Search: An Update", the people that were from agencies did an ok job discussing some tactical elements of Universal Search. But the search engine representatives seemed like they were giving a commercial about all their Universal Search properties. There was no real tactical advice and it felt like that they were all trying to convince people that their search engine was cooler than the other guys (and it wasn't hard to figure out how to spend advertising money with them... *lol*). Ironically, Google, who invented the phrase Universal Search, was not part of the panel. Thankfully for them. So that was a little disappointing.

But the session on video search was outstanding. It was probably the best session I went to (or at least tied with the "feed" session that Michael Gray was part of). It's amazing how the popularity of video has turned YouTube into the second biggest search engine in America. And goes to show you how important video content is to SEO.

I also learned a lot more about social media, especially with regard to how cool targeting ads can be with FaceBook. Actually there is a lot of cool stuff happening at FaceBook. If you haven't set up a page for your business on FaceBook, now would be a good time. Between the social media capabilities, the viral possibles, and the potential SEO benefits, a FaceBook page for your business should be a priority for your online marketing efforts.

It wasn't all business in New York (although mostly it was). The first night, Monday, I went to sleep early so that I could be well rested for speaking. Plus the 6 hour flight is always draining. The second night we went around the corner to a little New York bar filled with other SES attendees and talked a little SEO over a couple Heinekens. The last night I went to Dave and Busters in Time Square which was definitely the highlight of the trip. I got to hang out with my friend Heather and we were thoroughly entertained by the wisdom of Bruce Clay. Bruce is a fun guy to talk SEO with. His experience and his passion about the subject of SEO are almost unmatched in the industry. We both laughed when I reminded him that I met him six years ago. Time Flys.

So I had a great time, but after three days of intense SEO and meeting all kinds of amazing people (like Jefferey Eisenberg for example), I was VERY happy to get home (although not so happy with the extra hour of waiting for our plane to take off... *lol*). One fantastic thing about living in San Diego is your never really sad to come home. It's not paradise, but its pretty darn close.

And it sure is a lot warmer here than New York :)

Stay tuned later this week for my blog post about my session and some of the SEO tips that I spoke about. Have a great week!

Catfish

MSN Search Engine is out of Touch with Reality

Steve Ballmer, chief executive for Microsoft, said today that MSN is in an advantageous position in search because they have the freedom to experiment while Google has to "play it safe" based on the size of their organization and the success of their business model.

Earth to Steve, your search engine is not competitive to Google's because that's all they do is experiment with new search technology. And they hire the smartest people to do it. It was Google that was the first to push Universal Search, which was a huge change to the way people searched for things. It was Google that came out with Webmaster Tools that enabled site owners to better understand how the search engine was indexing their site. It was Google that first used a quality score to influence PPC results. It was Google that came out with the Big Daddy update that solved a lot of canonicalization problems that MSNs engine still chokes on.

MSN/Live Search to my knowledge hasn't done much to innovate search. Thier MSN live experiment was a huge failure. They had a directory and then closed it. They still can't figure out redirects as well as Google or even Yahoo. The fact that their results are so influenced by on page factors makes them more susceptible to spam, scrappers and other black hat SEO techniques. They never have organic search engines at conferences to help Webmasters but they definately have advertising reps if you wanna spend money. The whole culture that MSN portrays is an organization that can't move because its so big that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Google on the other hand projects a young, innovative culture that "gets it".

If MSN is ever going to become competitive in this space, they need to get a grasp on how far behind they are and spend more time actually creating search technology innovations that resonate with users. Rather than having their chief executive officer say things like "Our search does not need to be all things to all people." I mean what does that say? We only care about some people? It's certainly not a winning philosophy when your trying to compete with Google and you have the resources that Microsoft does.

My other recommendation to Microsoft... buy Twitter. At least then you would own something that people actually cared about.

That's my MSN rant for a Friday. Hope to see everyone at SES New York next week. I will be speaking in the first session after Guy's opening keynote presentation. The session is entitled "Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers". See ya in NYC!

The views and opinions stated by the authors of blog post is of the author alone. These statements may not necessarily be the statements of BusinessOnLine (BusinessOL.com) or any of it's employees.

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The Right Techniques & Attitudes for Local SEO

Building Your Local Reputation Online

Step 3: Participate in Online Local Community

As mentioned in our previous blog post about blog comment strategy, participating in online community that is relevant to your business and industry is a key way to increase your online visibility.

Blog comment strategy was discussed as a way to build relevant links to your site and to increase visitors within a targeted industry.

In local search optimization, your participation does not have to lead to obtaining a link, but it should lead to increasing your business name’s relevancy to your local information such as your address, local phone number, city, or any other neighborhood area names. The ideal local business profile would be the following, as demonstrated on this local ABC Chennel 7’s special Valentine’s Day coverage web page:

Your Business Title
Street Address
City, State Zip Code
(Local Area Code) Phone Number
Link to Your Website

Obtaining your local information on other websites doesn’t have to wait till another Valentine’s Day coverage of local broadcast station website. You can start with free online local directory that offer reviews and generate good traffic, such as Yelp.

The key to obtaining local references is to make sure those sites are crawled by Google for local content. Since local references do not get a link back, if a local directory site is not on the list to be crawled by Google for local content, your efforts to build local relevancy for local SEO won’t be so effective.

One of the ways to check is to look through “Web Pages” tab when you search for a relevant local keyword in Google Maps.



In the example above, you can tell SignOnSanDiego.com is one of the San Diego local sites that are crawled to find local business information, by looking at the Web Pages tab.

One thing you need to keep in mind in building your local relevancy through an off-page SEO campaign is that you should not just pick the local listing ranked at #1 and try to obtain all the local references that company has. Your company is unique from any other local companies, and it should be reflected in your local reference portfolio. You should have a unique combination of keywords and service areas, and optimizing for those local keywords to reach your targeted local audience should naturally lead to having a unique local reference portfolio. Besides, if you just follow them, you will never get ahead of them.

To be unique and outstanding, your local reference portfolio shouldn’t be just about Internet Yellow Pages or few major local directories. Be active in your online local community to find more local resources your locals visitor to find local information and contribute helpful content about your industry, and your local references should naturally grow with the trust you gain within the community.

Overall, optimizing for local search engines offers an opportunity to turn online traffic into your offline visitors, and in the process of local search optimization, you will get plenty of chances to create buzz about your business and gain trust as an industry expert within your online local community.

If you haven’t read about Local Keyword Discovery and Exploring Google Maps Features for Local Business Listings, check them out.