BusinessOnLine SEO Blog - Search Engine Marketing techniques for 3rd generation SEO» Industry News http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog BusinessOnLine SEO Blog - Search Engine Marketing techniques for 3rd generation SEO Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:12:24 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 Google Instant Doesn’t Change Much http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2010/09/google-instant-change/ http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2010/09/google-instant-change/#comments Thu, 09 Sep 2010 17:52:40 +0000 Ray "Catfish" Comstock http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/?p=583 Quick, there is a huge change at Google today!  Sound the sirens, the SEO sky is falling!  Er…wait, how exactly does this new Google Instant functionality change SEO?  That’s what I was asking myself today as this big to do from Google was announced.  Other than potentially decreasing the number of long tail searches as users may find something interesting as they type and don’t finish their initial thought before they click a result (and a potentially inflated number of PPC impressions), I don’t believe that Google’s new instant search changes much in the way of SEO best practices.  The recent increased effect of localization has a much stronger implication.  This is really a usability play by Google and probably after testing, resulted in a better user experience (and / or more ad revenue).

This article today from PC World seems to imply that somehow Google has changed the SEO landscape, and done so in dramatic fashion: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/205055/google_instant_will_save_you_seconds_but_not_for_seo.html?tk=hp_new#addyours .  But how do quicker search results change the need for authoritative content and links?  They don’t.   It’s like my friend Benj Arriola said yesterday, “it’s like auto suggest on steroids.” It may cause users to see more information before they click, which may mean that text snippets become that much more important in driving clicks, but this just reinforces current behavior.

The one thing I will say about the article in question is that no one does see the same results anymore.  But this is already been the case for a while now because of personalization and localization having such a strong influence on search results.  But the public is just now starting to understand this.  It doesn’t really affect how we optimize with the exception of paying a lot more attention to localization and localized content and link strategies for key markets.  However, that doesn’t have much to do with Google instant.

I think it’s exciting that Google keeps pushing the envelope for search.  And certainly the “May Day” update had an impact on what the SEO process looks like.  Not so much for Google Instant.  Google Instant isn’t an algorithm change, it just helps you find things faster (in theory).  And of course, that in itself is cool.  It just doesn’t have that much affect on what we do as SEO practitioners.

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]]> http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2010/09/google-instant-change/feed/ 0 Cli.gs URLs Hacked Forwarding to lansner.freedomblogging.com http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2009/06/cligs-urls-hacked-forwarding-to/ http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2009/06/cligs-urls-hacked-forwarding-to/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:16:00 +0000 Benj Arriola http://businessol.com.php5-5.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/seo-blog/?p=110 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?

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]]> http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2009/06/cligs-urls-hacked-forwarding-to/feed/ 1 Sharing Google Chrome Usage http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/09/sharing-google-chrome-usage/ http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/09/sharing-google-chrome-usage/#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:48:00 +0000 Benj Arriola http://businessol.com.php5-5.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/seo-blog/?p=79 I first saw Danny Sullivan’s Tweet talking about Barry Schwartz’ post on Google Chrome usage.

First posted by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch, stating that Google Analytics will not detect Google Chrome right away, and once it did, TechCrunch posted their Analytics user browser’s data. RustyBrick followed with their post on SearchEngineLand and was inviting the public to post theirs.

Sharing our Google Chrome Stats

Google Chrome Usage on BusinessOnLine's website visitors.

Only 0.25%, less than 1% of BusinessOnLine’s visitors use Chrome. I am even quite surprised Firefox is higher than IE. Does this mean there are more competitors looking at our site than potential corporate clients? :p Hehe

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]]> http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/09/sharing-google-chrome-usage/feed/ 0 Google Chrome – The Google Web Browser http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/09/google-chrome-google-web-browser/ http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/09/google-chrome-google-web-browser/#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:15:00 +0000 Benj Arriola http://businessol.com.php5-5.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/seo-blog/?p=78


Over the long weekend, Tweets from SEO Tweeters have been passed left and right all about Google Chrome. When I checked my emails, mailing groups are talking about it too, not only SEO email groups but also blogging, web design and other groups I am a member of. Although this is a Google product, this is not just about search.

Google Chrome is a new Internet web browser

After seeing all the tweets, I searched Google Chrome to download and give it a spin. The top results were Google books comic strip and also a blog post by GoogleBlogoscope, the unofficial Google blog. And I just bypassed all information, did not read it right away and just kept searching for the download link and install. I’ll just figure out what Google Chrome does after I install it without reading the numerous blog post, features & benefits of the browser. Knowing Google, everything should be intuitive and easy to use, easy to figure out things.

Initial feedback after installing Google Chrome

Good points I noticed right away after I installed Chrome:

  • Firefox information imported well and the most visited sites tab was populated right away. This is very useful for visiting the sites I visit so often. No need to type in the address all the time. This feature reminded me a lot of Opera.
  • No menu bar on top. I was not sure if there are add-on toolbars, or optional menu and button bars. It looked clean and even if I am so used to having so much toolbars that I toggle on and off in Firefox, I was pleased of having none so there is a larger screen real estate for browsing and viewing pages. This reminded me of IE7 in a way that they took out the menu bar and by instinct, I pressed the Alt button just to see if a menu bar appears. Nothing happened. I then stared at the top bar and noticed the drop down buttons on the right side of the address bar. I think that is a good decision to do. Collapse them so that there is more space for the page.
  • The Google Chrome’s Omnibar works better than how it is in Firefox 3. What Firefox 3 did was great, when you type in any part of a URL or a Title, recent history comes out of visited URLs with the string you are typing in the box. In Google Chrome, not only that happens, but also options to search for the word, some initial suggested websites (Something like a I’m Feeling Lucky script added on to it) and show Google Suggest automatically too. Type in single general words and you also get Dictionary links.
  • Built in Plugins – When even I freshly install any browser, I check right away, the following: Adobe Flash, Java Applets, Quicktime Movies. I noticed that Quicktime and Flash just played right away. But Java Applets did not work. Something I still need to play around with and figure how to get that installed.

Other than that, those were the quick things I noticed right after installation. Now to know more about the official features on what are the real advantages of this, I suggest read the official Google Chrome download site since I myself need to figure this out too.

What is the future of Google Chrome?

Actually I don’t know what the future is but many people are speculating. Google already has their web-based applications such as a Wordprocessor (like Microsoft Word), a spreadsheet (like Excel), a web-based presentation software (like PowerPoint), all rolled into one in Google Docs. A calendar (like Outlook’s Calendar), web-based email (Why use Outlook?), some 3D software (not quite yet like 3DS Max, Maya but good for basic stuff), and now a desktop application web browser. After making so many tools that are web-based, Chrome is one of the major desktop applications that is slowly inching into the Microsoft market. Are we going to see GoogleOS soon?

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]]> http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/09/google-chrome-google-web-browser/feed/ 1 Google Unleashes New Mobile Search App for Iphone http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/07/google-unleashes-new-mobile-search-app/ http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/07/google-unleashes-new-mobile-search-app/#comments Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:01:00 +0000 Ray "Catfish" Comstock http://businessol.com.php5-5.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/seo-blog/?p=71 Fresh from Google’s Blog, Google has just launched a new search application (app) for the Iphone.

Once again Google continues to push the competition in search. This is definately a must try. Not only do you get Google search features for the Web, but it also works for your contacts! Enjoy.

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]]> http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/07/google-unleashes-new-mobile-search-app/feed/ 2 Google’s Friend Connect Ready to Dominate Web 2.0 Social Media http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/05/google-friend-connect-ready-to-dominate/ http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/05/google-friend-connect-ready-to-dominate/#comments Tue, 13 May 2008 18:42:00 +0000 Ray "Catfish" Comstock http://businessol.com.php5-5.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/seo-blog/?p=57 Just when I think I have seen the best that Google has to offer, they come up with something new. And today they did it again with Google Friend Connect. Check out the video and see how this new Google toolset can add social media functionality to your Web site in a matter of minutes (once its out of beta), requires almost no coding and immediately helps your site become more viral. The ability of your friends to publish their activities on your site through their activities feed (which gets displayed on facebook for example) has the potential to be a stand alone viral traffic source. I signed up for the beta today for my bands Web site (www.heavymusic.com)so I will let everyone know once I get in to the program. But I highly recommend the video if for no other reason, because a lot of people are going to be using this soon.

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]]> http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/05/google-friend-connect-ready-to-dominate/feed/ 0 Ask.com Celebrates "Cinco DO Mayo" http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/05/askcom-celebrates-do-mayo/ http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/05/askcom-celebrates-do-mayo/#comments Mon, 05 May 2008 19:12:00 +0000 Ray "Catfish" Comstock http://businessol.com.php5-5.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/seo-blog/?p=55 ASK.com today decided to do their best Homer Simpson impersonation (DOh!) by celebrating “Cinco do Mayo” (c’mon fellas, let’s do some proof reading):

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]]> http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/05/askcom-celebrates-do-mayo/feed/ 1 Google Now Crawling Forms to Find "Invisible Web" http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/04/google-now-crawling-forms-to-find-web/ http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/04/google-now-crawling-forms-to-find-web/#comments Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:51:00 +0000 Ray "Catfish" Comstock http://businessol.com.php5-5.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/seo-blog/?p=51 Google announced today that they have started to experiment with filling out forms to get access to data that they currently can’t see. Unfortunately there are still a lot of potential variables that can prevent your content from being indexed but it is a step in the right direction. Don’t skip the noscript tags for your drop down menus just yet though. This experiment is so far confined to a limited number of trustworthy sites, and, remember that the no script tag is still good for accessibility for users without Java script. So while this is good news for searchers in general, I don’t think it really changes much of the optimization process. Especially if you want to have a consistent pattern of indexing. One interesting note is the confirmation that Google does scan Java script and Flash for links, although again, to ensure that Google sees what we want it to see, existing optimization techniques should still continue to be used.

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]]> http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/04/google-now-crawling-forms-to-find-web/feed/ 1 Shady crazy guy tries to trademark SEO http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/04/shady-crazy-guy-tries-to-trademark-seo/ http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/04/shady-crazy-guy-tries-to-trademark-seo/#comments Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:26:00 +0000 Benj Arriola http://businessol.com.php5-5.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/seo-blog/?p=50 Good thing Sarah Bird was paying some attention to pending filed trademarks at the US Patent and Trademark Office and found someone named Jason Gambert trying to file a trademark for the word: SEO. The trademark is actually near it’s final stages of getting approved and Sarah blogged about it on SEOMoz.

SEO, the acronym for Search Engine Optimization is so widely used just like saying you are a consultant and you offer consulting services. You can’t just trademark “consulting” since it is not something that originally belongs to you to identify your product or service as part of it’s brand. Although SEO may not be a dictionary word, it is still an acronym that is commonly used since the late 90’s for Search Engine Optimization. It is a generic service that is almost like a verb in some ways.

Now some dude, named Jason Gambert attempts to register SEO as his trademark with his main premise as SEO is his process and it is not a service. After several declined statements from the US Patent and Trademark Office, he still shoots back and somehow convinces the trademark office to reached near the final stage. Right now it is openly published for opposition.

What will happen if Jason Gambert does get to register the word SEO as his trademark?

We can’t tell the future but what he can do is file a cease and desist order to every company that uses the word SEO and say they cannot use it because he owns the trademark. So far this battle is led by Sarah who already started the filing of opposition which cost her $300 by the way. But if ever this still does not get the attention of the approving lawyers at the Patent and Trademark office, maybe more voices may help. Besides $300 is a small price to pay by any good SEO company.

I felt compelled myself to blog about this and I believe every SEO blogger should blog about it and get more people to tell the US Patent and Trademark Office that SEO is a service, not a process by Jason Gambert. SEO is almost common language to every ad agency and web design/development company today as it is part of their services.

Jason Gambert/SEO Trademark Update – 5/27/08

Many other people joined in the battle aside from Sarah Bird. Rhea Drysdale, Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, Arteworks, SEO.com, LLC, JE Hochman & Associates also filed opposition to the trademark of “SEO” filed by Jason Gambert.

As a summary of Sarah’s opposition update, here are a few bullet points:

  • After the first opposition, Jason Gambert made his own blog and started creating his own online buzz about what everything was all about. He also tried to address his thoughts to the SEO community indicating that his efforts for mainly to set the SEO standards.
  • Other people has filed their opposition as well.
  • Jason Gambert was not able to file on time his official statements in defense of the opposition first filed by Sarah Bird.
  • Just as Sarah was about to file to be the winner by default, since Jason was late, Jason files some story again.
  • Gambert wishes this to be confidential. Hmmm filing for a trademark and make it confidential?
  • Gambert mentions Wikipedia as a very reliable source of information. Still enforcing that SEO is a process not a service.
  • He says SEO did not exist before Google existed and was first mentioned in some email back in 1997.

Full story of updates here.

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]]> http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/04/shady-crazy-guy-tries-to-trademark-seo/feed/ 3 Yahoo Pushes Usability Closer to SEO http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/03/yahoo-pushes-usability-closer-to-seo/ http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2008/03/yahoo-pushes-usability-closer-to-seo/#comments Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:54:00 +0000 Ray "Catfish" Comstock http://businessol.com.php5-5.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/seo-blog/?p=40 Today I decided to visit some SEO blogs that I hadn’t really had the opportunity to read for a while. One of my forgotten favorites is the SEO by the Sea blog written by Bill Slawski. Bill wrote a great article on a new Yahoo patent that attempts to measure a page’s usability and use that measurement in the overall ranking of Web sites. Without trying to say I told you so (even though I did..lol ;) , I did say in my first post of the year that, “I really think that 2008 is going to be the year that you see the study of Web site Usability move to the forefront of Search Engine Optimization.” And I believe that this is another important step that moves us in that direction.

If you read this patent, it really is all about determining whether or not the page is “cluttered” and how that might affect usability. Certainly the study of usability encompasses much more than just how cluttered a page is. But I believe more and more of these types of mathematical models that quantify known relationships between measurable data and user experience will continue to evolve. And rather than trying to reverse engineer each one of them as SEO people like myself are prone to do, it makes more sense just to focus on building the best possible site with the user in mind at all times.

The good news of patents like this one is that going forward, Web sites that are user focused will be rewarded as it relates to their search engine rankings. As search engines develop more sophisticated algorithms that bring more continuity between SEO and Usability, good usability will be directly attributable to high search rankings. SEO professionals at all levels will have to pay more attention to usability which should have a very positive effective on the overall quality of optimized Web sites. And that will only increase the value of SEO services and the community as a whole. So if you are an SEO, now is the time to start studying good usability principles!

It makes me feel very lucky to work with a team of usability experts who can answer my questions. :)

Have a great week.

Catfish

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