In a recent report into “Online Solutions” aimed at imparting advice on how to develop an effective web presence American Express have advised companies not to “waste money” on search engin optimisation specialists.  Apparently suggetsing that this is a sure fire way to get your site banned from the listings.  This is a very strong statement and one which Im sure please their incumbent SEO agency, Greenlight!  Imagine being the agency for a company who makes a statement like that! Cant fill you with much confidence for your next contract renewal.  I wonder whether the phrase “expensive” and the warning about being penalised refer directly to Greenlight’s work or whether this is jus a coincidence!?!

The full article is here and I have copied the offending paragraph below:

—  optimize your search engines

Search engines, like Yahoo! and Google, are usually the first place people will look for you. Make it easier for them to find you. Yahoo! and Google offer tools to let them know the site map structure of your Web site. Also, using clean U.R.L.s such as yourdomain.com/store/widgets instead of yourdomain.com/store.php?id=42&categoryID=widgets will increase your chances of getting indexed in a search engine. Finally, don’t waste money on so-called Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.) specialists. Search engines are very quick to penalize sites that try to trick their filtering techniques, and once your site has been put on Google’s blacklist, it will take forever to get off.

I spotted something on Google today which I hadn’t seen before and is a new development in universal search.  On a search for “times” I was presented with the standard search results you get for a brand term but then in addition to this there was a search box contained with the results! On entering a search phrase into this box I was presented with the site search results but still with the Google SERP.  This functionality is well known and nothing new but the inclusion of the search box in the results is not something I have seen before. 

It is obviously just another element of Universal Search in action but is alos a good tool for Google to make their results as accurate as possible and keep people within their pages.  By allowing them to search within Google for keywords contained within a site you are not only enhancing the user experience but promoting loyalty and boosting query numbers at the same time, win all round.  On top of this they are also able to produce additional Adwords results on the secondary search and potentially boosting revenues as well.

 

Yahoo!’s board have unanimously voted to reject Microsoft’s astronomical bid of $44.6bn (£22.4bn) claiming the offer significantly underalued the company! Rich considering the offer was 61% up on their closing share price from the previous day.  Yahoo!’s explanation is that the bid undervalued the strength of the Yahoo! brand, user base and recenty investment in advertising technology.  My take is that they arent too keen on becoming a Microsoft company and having a consolidated position in the market as they already have a larger share of the lucrative search marketplace and a comparitive stance in other areas of online as well.  I wonder whether this will open the door for a bid from Google as had been rumoured last week or whether Yahoo! would rather continue the fight on their own against the big G.  This probably wont be the last we hear about alliances and a consolidating market but Im not sure any future deals will be on the same scale.

NMA article here

Search engine land reported today the release of some new functional by ask which allows a user to upload their own personal background image for the search engine.  The functionality to add a skin to the background has been available since last year but this was only for predetermined images and wasn’t customisable.  I like the idea of customising the results page and this is a much simpler solution than Google’s which involves xml information rather than a simple image upload.  It is also much more flexible and interesting than msn and yahoo’s offerings which only allow the selection of different colour palletes for the page.

This functionality is just another stage in the battle for search engine supremacy but also for loyalty within internet users through added value.  Yahoo had this a long time ago through positioning itself as an information portal and one stop shop for your internet needs (email, news, sport, search…) a similar position taken by MSN.  Then Google smashed this with its simplicity and accuracy of results.  But even the big G has recognised the need to give people more and through iGoogle struck a balance between information on the page and usability by allowing the user to choose which information feeds they received.  The issue at the bottom of all of this is keeping people using your page/engine, setting it as their homepage, and a base for all their online activities.  If they can use your site for everything they need online whey would they go elsewhere?  The longer a user in on your site, the more searches they do, the more ads they view, the more ads they click, the more money you make! Simple.  Expect a lot more releases like in this in the next 12 months as the battle continues.

It’ll take a lot more functionality for Yahoo, Ask or MSN to catch Google but I do know people who now use the Yahoo homepage as they prefer it to Google so there is some movement going on.   You can check out the Ask function on the US site here, it is not yet available in the UK.

It was announced last week on the official google blog that Google are currently testing out their latest project Google Knol which is a wiki based information source populated by knowledgeable contributed and edited by the users.  This is obviously a direct competition to Wikipedia and is based on the same principles and ideas. 

Apparently the challenge posed by Larry, Sergey and Eric was to find a way to help people share their knowledge, and this was their solution.  At the moment the tool is only open to a select group of invited individuals and the tool is in its first stage of development and testing but with the speed at which Google tend to do things I cant see it being long before its launched to the public.  According to the article goal is for Knols to cover all topics and to highlight and credit authors, something which is rarely done online. 

Much like on Wikipedia users will be able to submit edits, questions, comments, additional content etc etc but they can also include Adsense ads in relation to their article and earn a percentage of the revenue earned through these ads.  This is where Knol might steel a march on Wikipedia as Wiki users participate for free and have no option to earn money.  It is a nice touch from Google as they are appearing to be giving back to the contributors when in reality they are obviously taking the Lion’s share of the profits for themselves.

One question that does need to be asked is what does this mean for Wikipedia, and in particular their search rankings?  They do very well in the natural results and Google have often been criticised for ranking the site so well.  Could it be that we will start to see the demise of Wiki’s search rankings once Knol is introduced, now that would be convenient!  However Google might not even need to do this as they say in their article “A Knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read.” Which suggests to me that the Knol’s may become a part of the Universal Search page and appear above all the natural results anyway.  Could the end be nigh for Wikipedia?

Tags: wikipedia, Google, universal search, google knol, knol

Google’s Universal Search project has been well documented and for a while now it has been integrating its other properties (i.e. maps, product search etc) into the standard SERP. But whilst searching this week I noticed that once a search is completed which produces maps results Google are now limiting the natural search results to 7 listings for page 1. This has huge implications for search engine optimisers as it makes it even more difficult to get front page exposure. It is also safe to assume that as other types of results are integrated into Universal Search that this number could easily reduce further.

We have seen this with Ask as well with their new platform. Due to their inclusion of images video and definitions into their SERP they are now only showing 8 paid search listings. Google could easily follow suit as this can be used (as it has been by Ask) to free up real estate on the right hand side of the page. they will need to be careful how they go about doing this however as the paid listings are their main revenue driver and any reduction or change in their format could reduce earnings significantly.

It will be interesting to see how universal search pans out and if it has the desired effect. Personally if I want to search for an image I am more than happy to visit the image search page directly and likewise with video, but maybe for the less educated user a one stop search shop this would be more appealing.

a useful little list of top factors for consideration in SEO.

Top Factors Affecting Positive Search Engine Rankings

The jury of search engine experts over at SEOMoz has weighed in, and here are the top factors affecting search engine placement, according to them, with my comments.

1. Keyword Use in Title TagI have said for many years that if I had a gun to my head, and could do only one thing to a web page to optimize it, my choice would be the title tag. Put your keyphrases in your title tag, and remember to optimize each page individually (i.e. don’t overstuff your title tag, and have different title tags for each page that reflect the content of that particular page - otherwise, you may suffer from a duplicative content exclusion and find yourself in the supplemental results).

2. Keyword Use in Body TextDuh. If your keyword or keyphrase isn’t mentioned at least once in the body text of the web page, then it does not seem your page is very relevant to that keyphrase, now does it? But don’t get all caught up in the keyphrase density myth - there is no magic number of times it should appear. Make sense to readers, and it will make sense to the search engines.

3. Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords (Topic Analysis)Google is smarter than you give them credit for, and just stuffing a keyphrase into a completely unrelated page won’t do you much, if any good. Your page should be on a topic which is semantically related to the keyphrase which you are targeting in your title tag.

4. Keyword Use in H1 TagOh, for years the naysayers have been telling me that H1 tag keyphrase use meant nothing and that I was an idiot for thinking otherwise. Well the verdict is in and this is the fourth most important factor according to the SEOMoz article. At this point, therefore, we have learned to put your keyphrase in your title tag, include it in your body text, which body text is topically or semantically related to the keyphrase, and head up the body text with an H1 containing the keyphrase.

5. Keyword Use in Domain NameThis is one that I disagree with. I have seen absolutely no evidence of this at all. Do a simple search on the internet for most any search term, and chances are the top results do not have the search query in the domain name. I believe this may have minor importance, but don’t go and change your domain because of it. Seriously, you have much more to lose (such as age of domain, inbound linkage, site reputation, etc.) I regularly see clients at the top of Google with domain names containing nothing near the relevant search terms.

6. Keyword Use in Page URLThis is what I have called “descriptive file naming” for a number of years. I believe it is of some importance, again, however, is more of a factor when setting up a new domain than would be for an existing domain with high pagerank and inbound linkage. Changing your internal url’s for the sole purpose of meeting this criterion again is very risky, for the same reasons mentioned above.

7. Keyword Use in H2, H3, H… TagsWell if it works for H1, why not for H2 et al.?

8. Keyword Use in ALT Attributes and Image TitlesSEOMoz incorrectly calls them an ALT tag, but it is not a tag, the ALT is an attribute of the IMG tag. Semantics aside, I believe this to be highly important, I would have ranked this above the URL and domain name items. Experience has shown me that image optimization (image file name, alt attribute, and title) is a wonderful way to make a page more relevant to a desired search query.

9. Keyword Use in Bold/Strong TagsI always use this method, as well as keyword use within the EM (italics) tag. I believe this to be a moderately important factor as it helps emphasize to Google what your page is about, and what you consider important. Definitely on my short list of things to do for “on page” search engine optimization.

10. Keyword Use in Meta Description TagAgain, one of my “big 4″ for on page optimization. The “big 4″ being: title tag, meta description, h1, and image ALT attributes. (I don’t include body text in my big 4 as I believe that is self evident). Definitely important, and again, each page should have custom title and meta description tags.

Interesting thoughs on the future of search engine optimisation. The area which interests me most is that of personalisation as this, to me, is one of the key strengths of the internet. Amazon have done it for years, personalising the products offered to a return user, showing producst which may be of interest. The introduction fo this to the world of search engine marketing could change the way in which we all operate.

The Transformation Of Natural Search Optimization by Rob Garner, Wednesday, February 14, 2007

THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT natural search is coming to a crossroads. My view is that the transformation may not be so radical that everything changes, in so much as having situations where only some things become more challenging. However, the basic tenets of natural search will remain the same, only applied to more sophisticated scenarios on a personalized level, a research level, and a technical level. Here are a few thoughts on some of these key drivers in the changing landscape of natural search optimization:
Personalization. Google recently announced that it was rolling out personalized results, marking the beginning of a change in the way we approach natural search optimization campaigns. Though there is the theoretical potential for every search result page to be different, the impact is not quite as drastic as it sounds.
My basic view of optimizing for personalized results is similar to some points outlined by David Berkowitz in yesterday’s Search Insider column. His primary assertion is that the basic benchmark for optimization is still the editorial results (personalization turned off).
Make it there, and you’ll make it anywhere. Achieving top rankings in the editorial results ensures that your site is trusted, and that you created a natural presence that is best-of-class in its keyword space.
More emphasis should be placed on aggregate traffic metrics such as increased share of natural search traffic, and ultimately, increased ROI and conversions. If personalization meets its primary goal of increased relevancy, then traffic and conversions should increase to properly tuned sites.
The rise of market research in search (going beyond “keyword research”). In recognizing that personalization is a now-major factor in the way that natural search traffic is delivered, the new imperative is optimizing a site to satisfy the target customer’s desires. This is accomplished by thoroughly knowing your customer through market research, and further down the road, testing and validating through analytics and clickstream analysis. The deeper implication is that search-informed market research should be further integrated into the discovery and design phases of Web development.
The future will be in knowing what your target audience wants, knowing the language they speak and knowing how they find what they seek. Provide the content and experience they are seeking, and you will naturally match your offering to the key aspects of the personalization algorithm, such as click-through rate, time-on-site, number of page views (or in a rich app, back to “time-on-site”), internal site clickstreams, repeat visits, bookmarks, etc. Engage your target market, and the search engines will engage your site.
Today, many search firms substitute “keyword research” for true “market research.” Predicting and understanding human search intent is much more complicated than choosing keyword terms based on search frequency, and the guestimated likelihood to click through. Human search intent is as complex as human beings themselves, and market research should be a primary driver in creating exceptional search engine marketing campaigns, for both natural and paid campaigns.
SEOs will be met with increasing technical demands to address the crawlability and indexability off rich Internet applications The trend of enterprise RIA adoption is hitting its stride in 2007. The shift is essentially focused on moving from a “page-based” paradigm to a “pageless” paradigm; one that treats the Web more as an application, rather than a book. Ajax is driving the change.
Senior Google engineer Matt Cutts told Search Insider back in December that RIA-based sites are not a threat to relevancy at this time, mainly because the developers that create them are technical enough to build a second site for search engines. This statement is interesting for a couple of reasons.
The first is that it is not a threat “at this time.” This indicates that widespread adoption of RIA without a secondary technical solution for search engines could be a major threat to relevancy, as well as a threat to a company’s search presence. If the content is hidden, the engines can’t find it, and companies cannot be found.
The second implication is that to have your user-interface cake and eat it too, a progressive tech solution for search is on the menu. This will go beyond the capabilities of many search firms.
Ultimately, I don’t believe that RIA will put any SEO firms out of business, because page-based sites are not going away any time soon (not for the next 10 years, anyway). As long as there are page-based sites and the need to rank those pages, there is room for those who practice current methods. But a new breed of SEO will emerge to address the need to optimize for RIA (there are many in existence now).
The bottom line is that natural search optimization is in a state of transformation at the enterprise level. If anything has changed, it’s not that SEO is dead or dying — it’s that the bar has just been set even higher.
Rob Garner is a senior strategic planner for interactive marketing and search agency iCrossing. He is president-elect of the Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association, and also serves on the board of the Dallas/Fort Worth Interactive Marketing Association.

Mark Simon reported in Medis Posts Search Insider (12/02/2007) that the search engines would be the death of SEO. The logic behind this arguement being that as the search engines advance even futher in the way they read and index web pages the more the tactis used by SEO companies will become irrelevant. They will eventually be so advance in their algorithm that they will pull the websit ewhich is most useful to the user regardless of the sites tactics, and maybe even content.

Im not sur I agree with this arguement but I do agree to some degree that search engine optimisers will need to become experts in usability and functionality of a website rather than content. Navigation will become increasingly important (even more so than today) as will display and ease of use. Elements such as download speed become more prevelant and the basic rules of SEO as we know today change. This nothing ground breaking but is something to consider when making recommendations for websites. In the future the basic premise will be, make the site user friendly and you will make it search engine friendly.