DMOZ Is in the Details

I have to declare that I have a new respect for DMOZ editors. It's not obvious from the outside the amount of work an editor is expected to put into vetting every submission.

Not only do you have to make sure the submitted site actually fits into your category, but also that it isn't a better fit in some other very similar category, already listed in DMOZ (only one listing in the Directory per site), using a vanity URL (or a mirror domain), or engagine in any black-hat tricks.

You check that the site is of sufficient quality, that it doesn't suffer from an excess of broken links and that it isn't stealing content from another site.

To verify legitimacy, you consider the site's submission history (oh yeah, we know if you've resubmitted the same site to a new category every two weeks) and sometimes even check it out in The Way Back Machine to see if it has been around a while (or if a previously legit domain was recently acquired by spammers). Editors of the commercial categories also need to make sure the site isn't an affiliate.

In addition to checking, approving, rewriting, moving or rejecting descriptions submitted by the public, you are also expected to go out and find sites that maybe aren't being submitted, but belong in, any of your subcategories. You also need to go through sites that are already published in your category to make sure they are still legit. If you find any 404 errors, you need to make every effort to find an alternate source for the content that used to be there.

And then there's creating, merging, deleting or crosslinking categories.

As you can imagine, it's overwhelming for a newbie editor. Luckily there's a strong community forum where you can post questions. It can be a really great meta-look at what's happening on the Web. In one of the World sections, for example, there was very recently a thorough debate regarding where a site about the "fliegendes Spaghettimonster" (that would be the Flying Spaghetti Monster) belongs. Good arguments were made in favor of several subcats; I don't know which was eventually chosen.

I just submitted this site for inclusion in the Directory. I'm hopeful my request won't require as much debate. I submitted it to http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Weblogs/ although there are also categories for /Computers/Internet/Searching/Search_Engines/Google/News_and_Media/Weblogs/
(which I thought was too Google-centric) and /Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Promotion/Weblogs/ (which gives the impression that the content needed to be useful somehow).

But there isn't an editor for this category. (You can tell because when the category has one, the editor is listed at the bottom of the page, with a link to the editor's profile.) So I might be waiting a long time.

Labels: DMOZ

Posted by Melanie Phung

Quasi-Weekly List O' Links to End the Year

Every once in a while I clean up my backlog of things worth mentioning by just providing links to other articles. This list isn't necessarily timely (i.e., this isn't "this week's top news") but they're interesting. In my opinion. For whatever that might be worth to you.

• Almost 50% of visits to shopping sites originate from other shopping sites
  
• Yahoo and MSN Strong In Shopping Referrals
  
• Yahoo teams with analytics firm to let advertisers compare online and off-line ad spends
  
• Banner Ads on Google? Not Exactly
  
• Interview with Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz
  
• Matt Cutts knows if you've been buying links
  
• Blogs beguile corporate America
  
• Invent your way to 10 million free Overture ads
  
• Opera and Google Extend Search Placement
  
• Trojan horse mimics AdSense ads
  
• A case study in news search engine referrals
  
• Overview of Google's acquisitions
  
• Reviews of search engine marketing books
  

Posted by Melanie Phung

Google Testing Nav Placement

It's always interesting to see examples of Google testing changes to the interface. Since only a very small percent of searchers are included in the tests, it's rare that the average searcher notices the change. If Google ends up not liking the results, whatever it was they were testing just quietly disappears.

Today it's reported that Google is playing with moving its navigation from the top of the results page to a column left of the results.

Hop on over to Blogoscoped for a screenshot of this latest Google test.

Labels: Google

Posted by Melanie Phung

New Strategies for Yahoo Advertising

Red Herring has an interesting article about Yahoo's attempts to catch up in a market it helped to create: contextual online advertising. For example, Yahoo is actively reaching out to bloggers by giving them more control over what ads their readers see.

Yahoo needs more than innovative products; the proverbial middle child needs to step up its PR. As the article points out, "In many cases, Yahoo managed to launch key products before its rival [Google], which is located just a few miles away in Mountain View, California. But the media and the blogging communities have overlooked Yahoo's innovation as soon as the search giant launches the same service."

Aside: Something interesting that caught my attention about the Red Herring article doesn't have anything to do with Yahoo advertising. It's that the URL they use to point to it reads:
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=15040&hed=Yahoo+Revamps+Search+Ads

But stripping away the stuff after the numerical article ID takes you to the same page no problem:
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=15040

In fact, just adding gibberish to the end of the URL doesn't break anything either. So it looks to me like Red Herring is just stuffing keywords into URLs for SEO purposes.

Labels: contextual ads

Posted by Melanie Phung

How Men and Women Use the Internet

The Pew Internet and American Life Project yesterday released its latest study. Apparently in Cyberspace, Mars and Venus are wedded to their gender roles. Jason Miller of WebProNews writes: "Women view the Internet as a place to extend, support, and nurture relationships and communities... Men are more likely to use the Internet to check the weather, get news, find do-it-yourself information, acquire sports scores and information..."

Other data from the report include:

• 67% of the adult American population goes online, including 68% of men and 66% of women
  
• 86% of women ages 18-29 are online, compared with 80% of men that age.
  
• 34% of men 65 and older use the Internet, compared with 21% of women that age.
  
• 62% of unmarried men compared with 56% of unmarried women go online
  
• 75% of married women and 72% of married men go online
  
• 61% of childless men compared with 57% of childless women go online
  
• 81% of men with children and 80% of women with children go online.
  
• 52% of men and 48% of women have high-speed connections at home
  
• 94% of online women and 88% of online men use email

Posted by Melanie Phung

More Wiki Fiction

Bizarre Onion-esque article about Wikipedia's founder:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/17/jimmy_wales_shot_dead_says_wikipedia/

That's it. No comments. Just pointing out that this is weird.

Posted by Melanie Phung

MSN Local Search Misses the Mark

MSN Search has released a beta version of its own Local Search, with the mapping functionality powered by Virtual Earth. The very first search I did was "cell phones 20038" (a zip code in the middle of DC) and the results were hilariously bad. Not a single result was inside DC; the results that did pull up were located everywhere else from New York to North Carolina — even though the system clearly recognizes that I'm looking for something in Washington DC. Some other searches I did were slightly better, but still not as good as Google Local, which presented only cell phone stores within the 20038 zip code.

Posted by Melanie Phung

One Billion (with a B!) Internet Users

What's happening to the common denominator as the population of Internet users continues to mushroom? How will the trends affect your online business?

Jakob Nielsen — usability guru and publisher of the not-coincidentally- but-yet-unnecessarily ugliest professional website ever — writes about the fact that the number of Internet users in the world has surpassed 1 billion. Based on Morgan Stanley estimates, he reports: "It took 36 years for the Internet to get its first billion users. The second billion will probably be added by 2015; most of these new users will be in Asia."

I believe the rest of the numbers are all lifted directly from the Morgan Stanley report, but the report itself is a 60-page PDF née PowerPoint presentation that takes ages to download. So I'm going to prove Nielsen's point that users don't bother to look at slow-loading pages by not downloading their presentation to check. So if you're into fact-checking and that sort of thing, the presentation is available on the Morgan Stanley site under Technology Research.

Analysts are predicting e-commerce sales will at least double from their current level when more of the existing generation of users starts shopping online. Nielsen points out "Users are not like you, and the difference between elite and mainstream users is getting bigger every day...This means that for e-commerce to fulfill its potential to double, sites must be more systematic at following the e-commerce usability guidelines." The emphasis is taken from the original, so I'll add my own emphasis: Users Are Not Like You.

"You" in this case would be the type of people who run and design websites, who use the Internet to sell or advertise their own products and services, etc. As important as it has been, it's going to be even more important moving forward that e-commerce website design focus first and foremost on the user experience. ("User" in this case being people not like you.)

Labels: data

Posted by Melanie Phung

More Google Analytics Accounts

My second Google Analytics account is allowing me to add additional profiles now - although both accounts are still limited to 5 sites each. New sign-ups are still suspended. The sites on the second account are very low profile with negligible traffic, so if there's any prioritization going on in expanding user profiles this might mean the Google Analytics service might be up to 100% soon.

Labels: Google

Posted by Melanie Phung

EC VP Blasts Internet Companies' China Practices

European Commission Vice President Margot Wallström has accused Microsoft, Yahoo and Google of having flexible morals when it comes to dealing with China.

Writing in her blog, Wallström criticised the search engines for their complicity in helping China silence its domestic critics: "Words like ethics and corporate social responsibility seems to be deleted from their corporate code of conducts – or they have flexible ethical standards depending on where they operate..."

Wallström says she was "very disappointed to learn that Microsoft has agreed to block Chinese blog entries that use words like 'democracy', 'freedom', 'human rights' and 'demonstration.' ...Yahoo has even gone further. They collaborated with the Chinese government and gave up the name of a writer who sent an e-mail that commented on a party decision. Based on this information, the man received a ten-year prison sentence."

Posted by Melanie Phung

Ask Jeeves Staffs Up

Ask Jeeves is going to increase its staff by about 20%, Ask Jeeves head Steve Berkowitz says. According to TheStreet.com:

The search company has a storied history, of sorts. Ask Jeeves (NASDAQ: ASKJ) shares quadrupled on their first day of trading in 1999, only to crash when the Internet bubble burst. Now the company, which became part of New York-based IAC in a $1.9 billion deal completed in July, is expanding both its operations center and its corporate headquarters staff.

AskJeeves.com is growing market share at a better rate, 77%, then the other engines. Still, it lags Google, Yahoo and MSN Search by a wide margin having at this point less than 3% of the search market. So the 9-year-old site needs to differentiate itself from its competitors, with or without its butler mascot Jeeves. That's what Berkowitz hopes to do by adding, among other things, suggestions for searchers on how to refine their queries. That's something Yahoo already does but Ask Jeeves users tend to search very differently - with Ask's users tending toward natural language queries phrased as complete sentences or questions.

p.s. Ask Jeeves is rumored to be expanding into Germany.

Posted by Melanie Phung

Paid Links and the Church of rel=nofollow

The story broke earlier this month that Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny sells links on his personal blog without using nofollow attributes. Matt Cutts of Google, on the other hand, has for month been championing nofollow tags on all paid links.

The story that's playing out is that Zawodny was "caught" doing this, as if underhandedly, with bad intentions, polluting the sacred ground that is the World Wide Web. But it's not like he pulled a Wordpress stunt by hiding the ads.

At issue, to simplify it for those of you who don't know, is that the current generation of search engines, starting with the invention of Google, count links to a site as "votes" of sorts in their algorithm and that paid links are basically fake votes. A while back, at the urging of the industry, the engines said they'd obey a "nofollow" tag, which webmasters can apply to an entire page or just one link at a time. Those links would then not be weighted in the PageRank (or equivalent) calculaton. Hence the call to put nofollow tags on "unnatural" links.

Just to be contrarian and for the sake of debate: I find it strange that Google's algorithm is now dictating how the Web should be structured. Paid ad links existed long before any algorithms were created that factored them in.

I guess I just don't see how it's my responsibility to keep search engine results relevant (by their definition) by catering to their algorithms - that's their job. If they think advertising shouldn't count as part of their equations - well bully for them. Advertising goes way back - it's part of how commerce work. And the Internet, like nearly everything else, is governed by economics. If the engines don't like paid links, they should, can, and for the most part have, figured out ways to discount those links.

Basically what we have is a great example of the tragedy of the commons. And I'm just not inclined to blame the individual herder for adding more cattle to the field as long as there aren't any rules against it. And for now at least, there aren't. As easy as it is to forget these days: Google is not the Web.

Get background on this nofollow debate. Check it out, even if only for the Link Condom parody site.

Labels: industry buzz, link-building, monetizing, navel-gazing

Posted by Melanie Phung

More Stuff I Don't Have Time to Blog About

Top news, of course, is that Google paid $1 billion to acquire a 5% stake in AOL, beating out the other competitor for AOL's affections - MSN. Other interesting things going on this week:

• Does Google deal set AOL up for IPO?
• Google teaches AOL how to SEO
  
• Brief History of Sponsored Search
  
• Yahoo PPC Ads Being Truncated
  
• Paid search as information-seeking paradigm
  
• Yahoo tying RSS into its social media services
  
• New look for Yahoo SERPs
  
• Google testing Firefox extension that displays outside blogger comments
  
• Eight predictions for tech, including why Yahoo's expansion of search will hurt Google
  
• Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Google, ads and technology
  
• Interview with Andrew Goodman, author of 2 books on Google AdWords
  
• More AdWords goodness from SiteMaps
  
• Yahoo shortcuts for even faster searching
  
• Typo-squatters making money from Google
  

In addition to these worthwhile SEO-related stories, also check out "What I'm Reading" in the left nav of the homepage. Those are recently surfed links to things that I thought were interesting. The list is powered by a super-duper, extra-secret app being developed by a very smart friend of mine.

Posted by Melanie Phung

How Much Are Searchers Worth?

I reported earlier that Gates prophesized search engines will be paying Web surfers to use their services at some point. He's said it again, and people are reading between the lines to conclude that he's hinting MSN Search will do this soon.

WebProNews says another spokesperson, however, said Microsoft had no immediate plans to start paying users. And consulting company Ovum reminds us:

Payment for viewing ads is a tactic that has been tried before, and is fundamentally flawed. There were in the tech boom a number of attempts to make this model work, including in the US offers of low or no cost PCs for users prepared to view lots of ads and/or click though on them. The fundamental flaw is that the advertisers want people who have money to spend on their goods and services. This generally excludes people who are prepared to spend hours on their computer viewing ads and following clicking-throughs.

Gates said in an earlier interview that MSN makes about $50 per user. How much would MSN be willing to pay out for customer acquisition? How much would a search engine need to pay you to switch?

Labels: data

Posted by Melanie Phung

Top Searches of 2005

A bunch of search engines have released their annual lists of top search terms in 2005. Jason Lee Miller of WebProNews bemoans what they say about the collective mind of the searching public:

So I'm an Aristotelian pretentious egghead iconoclast jerk. Sue me. But at the end of every year when various media rehash what was on the collective mind of my compatriots, I tarry near weeping - okay, so that's dramatic, but have you seen what the kids are searching for on the Internet these days?.

But he declines to wax philosophical and just leaves it at this "rough translation" of a saying he attributes to Aristotle: "the massess are asses"!

The top 10 from meta-search engine Dogpile:
1. Music Lyrics
2. Paris Hilton
3. Google
4. eBay
5. Yahoo
6. Mapquest
7. Games Cheat
8. Games
9. Dogs
10. Top 100 Baby Names

Top 10 searches inYahoo:
1. Britney Spears
2. 50 Cent
3. Cartoon Network
4. Mariah Carey
5. Green Day
6. Jessica Simpson
7. Paris Hilton
8. Eminem
9. Ciara
10. Lindsay Lohan

Most popular queries according to AOL:
1. Lottery
2. Horoscopes
3. Tattoos
4. Lyrics
5. Ringtones
6. IRS
7. Jokes
8. American Idol
9. Hairstyles
10. NASCAR

Top searches by Lycos users:
1. Paris Hilton
2. Pamela Anderson
3. Britney Spears
4. Poker
5. Dragonball
6. Jennifer Lopez
7. WWE
8. Pokemon
9. Playstation
10. Hurricane Katrina

Google is notorious for not wanting to share specific data, so there doesn't appear to be a 2005's Top Searches list; but you can get a sense of what's hot (besides Paris Hilton) from its Zeitgeist list, which tracks weekly and monthly trends.

Ask Jeeves does something similar with top gaining queries. A9 goes with the "that's random" route and lists the top 99 searches that contained exactly 9 letters. And MSN Search publishes its list of current 200 top search terms, although in random order.

Update Dec. 20:
Google's Zeitgeist for the year was just released.

Posted by Melanie Phung

Additional Profiles for Some Analytics Accounts

Google Analytics, used for tracking site traffic data, earlier this week allowed me to add new websites to one of my accounts. It did not give me this option for another Analytics account I have, and signups by new users are still suspended.

Google Analytics stopped accepting new accounts almost immediately after making its service free in mid-November. The system was overwhelmed with so much demand that it stopped functioning for its existing (paying) users.

Labels: Google, industry buzz

Posted by Melanie Phung

Google Adds Music Search

Google has added music search feature than can be accessed via its regular search interface. The search engine is now supposed to be better at telling the difference between music-related searches and regular searches that just happen to contain words also found in lyrics.

"You might be thinking, 'Why can't I just type in an album name or a song name and get the same music search results?'" wrote David Alpert, search quality product manager at Google, in a blog posting.

"There are many album names and songs which are also plain English words," he added. "Sometimes users are looking for music information related to those words, and sometimes they aren't."

Supposedly, the "the results are displayed with a musical note next to them" and "will provide more information about artists, album cover art, reviews, and links to stores where users can download a track or buy a CD, according to a Red Herring article.

When I tried right now, it only worked when I was looking up popular artists, not song lyrics or title or smaller bands. Instead of a musical note (did they mean note as in symbol used for musical notation?), I see a thumbnail of cover art, with some info and a link to take you to specialized search results; it is not very clear that the first link takes you to another set of search results and not a page, but the music SERPs look good. Uncluttered, sortable by release date and popularity, album details and, in a separate column, links to the artists' official sites.

Once you're on one of those music SERPs you can restrict your search to just a music, but there is no intuitive way to do that from the regular interface, like you can with images and news (toggle using the links above the search box) or Book Search (currently there's a link at the bottom of every regular search results page). The pages on which you can restrict your search to just music aren't branded with a Google Music beta logo, so it doesn't look like it's a full blown specialized search function. But you can backward engineer the URL -- http://www.google.com/musicsearch -- and bookmark it.

But for my money, Yahoo is ahead of the game on this one with its Yahoo Audio Search (use the link above the search box), which lets you search for music or podcasts, and provides links to samples, single-song downloads and a bunch more useful info.

Posted by Melanie Phung

Write Like You Mean It

Let's address one of my biggest pet peeves on the Web and anywhere - awful and pointless writing. When they say "content is king" they don't mean slap a crown on a troll and call it Your Majesty. (And when they proclaim that the king is dead, ignore them. They know not of which they speak.)

It's time to break out an oldie but goody. This article from 2002 would be a cliché if it weren't still so damn necessary. 10 Tips on Writing for the Living Web highlights qualities that will make or break a personal blog.

My favorite tips are:

• Write for a reason - If you don't really care, don’t write, because we won't either.
  
• Write tight - Omit unnecessary words.
  
• Let the story unfold - See yourself as a storyteller, create a narrative arc.
  
• Stand up, speak out - If you know your facts and have done your homework, you have a right to your opinion. State it clearly. Never waffle, whine, or weasel.
  
• Be sexy - Sex is interesting.
  
• Relax! - Don't take yourself too seriously.
  

This comes from A List Apart - a site "for people who make websites" - which has an archive of all sorts of things that'll make your site better. I also like the more recent article Attack of the Zombie Copy, which not only pokes fun at corporate speak but actually helps you identify and fix it. And How to Write a Better Weblog, from which I pull this quote:

Great writing can't be taught, but atrocious writing is entirely preventable.

There are, in fact, rules—even online. Rules are not restrictions. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, rhythm, focus, syntax, and structure aren’t especially romantic terms, until you get to know them. Writers want to make sense. They want to move the reader. It ain't never gonna happen if you got busted paragraphs, mistaken punctuation and, bad rhythm, not to mention kreative spelling: see? Clarity is key. Learn the rules. Break ’em later.

The best rules can't be stated, but you can learn them by reading excellent writing. Develop an ear. If you know what works, you’ll start to emulate it. Conversely, it’s good to study truly horrendous language, stuff that makes you embarrassed for those responsible. You'll find yourself mortally afraid of—and automatically avoiding—the same mistakes in your own writing. Hemingway said, "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built–in shock–proof shit-detector." (They’re cheap if you haven’t already got one.) This is especially important for web writers, most of whom are publishing without the benefit of editors.

Posted by Melanie Phung

Yahoo Weather Report

It's snowing in Washington, DC, but on Yahoo the SERPs are doing a little dance. It is reported that Tim Mayer (author of the Yahoo Search Blog) confirmed an algo update last night. Take a deep breath, don't panic... and wait here while I go check my rankings!

Labels: industry buzz

Posted by Melanie Phung

Increase Your Page Views

Darren Rowse, the man behind ProBlogger.net, has 11 tips for getting visitors to stick around your blog a little longer. I recommend starting with #11.

Posted by Melanie Phung

Who, What, When, Where, and Wiki

I'm feeling sorry this week for the man who copped to creating false content in Wikipedia as a prank and then lost his job.

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia edited entirely by volunteers from around the world. Anyone can add, delete or change entries. Up until recently you didn't even have to log in for any of the editorial functions.

It usually (but not in this case) works suprisingly well as a self-policed resource. Of course, one should "trust but verify"; there are very few online resources of any type that I wouldn't want to doublecheck against another source. That said, if you're not familiar with the culture of wiki it's probably near impossible to believe just how well the self-policing works or the relative quality maintained across Wikipedia as a whole (usually). Edits that aren't up to snuff are sometimes undone within hours (in this case the mistake lasted several months).

This man, who later admitted that he had no idea that Wikipedia is actually used as a serious reference tool, edited an entry to link a prominent journalist to the Kennedy assasination. The journalist was John Seigenthaler Sr., former publisher of a Tennessean newspaper and founding editorial director of USA Today, who then wrote a scathing editorial in his paper about Wikipedia: "Wikipedia is inviting [lawmakers to try to regulate the Internet] by its allowing irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody."

The "vandal" in question apologized and resigned his job.

Creating deliberately false entries in a collaborative media (okay, let's go ahead and say "community") like Wikipedia isn't cool, no argument from me. And the "losing his job thing" is fitting were he a journalist or someone who we can all agree ought to have known better. But he was the operations manager of a delivery company. It was a prank - it seems a little harsh to me that he be forced to lose his job over this.

... but on the other hand ...

Wikipedia is the new Google (which was the new Microsoft)! says Steve Rubel author of the Micro Persuasion blog. And there would be hell to pay if you screwed around with either of those companies.

Anyway, Rubel's point didn't have anything to do with delivery company employees, USA Today, or Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, and this posting is already too long, so I'll write more about Wikipedia vis-a-vis Google another day.

Labels: social media

Posted by Melanie Phung

"Internet Content Cannot Remain Free"

"Publishers cannot continue to allow search engines to make money off of their content [without paying for it]. ...It is fascinating to see how these companies 'help themselves' to copyright-protected material, build up their own business models around what they have collected, and parasitically, earn advertising revenue off the back of other people's content."

Thus said Pinto Balsemão, head of the European Publishers Council, in Brussels last week, showing his solidarity with French news agency AFP in its lawsuit against Google.

John Dvorak, a columnist for PC Magazine, reports that Balsemão wasn't suggesting publishers make all their sites pay-per-view, but that search engines could not and should not be able to search for content freely.

Just to be clear, Balsemão isn't talking about the controversial Google Books project (aka Google Print); he's criticizing the whole concept of search engines.

Dvorak's response to the statement, which he isn't shy about calling pathetic, is that what the EPC spokesman is arguing "is like saying that the travel industry and the airlines are building up their business models around cities like Paris—making money from other people's hard work."

Sadly, I am reaffirmed in my belief that most people just don't "get" the Internet. And that for a large part, these people exert a sizable amount of influence over how technology is going to evolve.

Posted by Melanie Phung

GOOG Joins the NASDAQ 100

As if there were any doubt left that Google is all grown up, GOOG has joined the NASDAQ 100 Index, which consists of the hundred biggest non-financial companies being traded on the exchange and serves as a de facto barometer of tech stocks.

According to TheStreet.com, "Google was granted a waiver from the usual two-year waiting period for inclusion in the index because of the rapid growth of its market capitalization. The company is currently worth about $121 billion."

Labels: Google

Posted by Melanie Phung

SEO Navel Gazing

A Crea8asite thread discusses why there's so much SEO information out there, yet misinformation continues to rule. It appears that the good SEOs are so busy talking amongst themselves that they aren't optimizing SEO info for newbies.

Posted by Melanie Phung

Small Business Blogging - Part I

I was recently asked what purpose a blog could serve for a small business. It's true that "blogging" is very trendy for corporate communications now - but it is also a very effective and low-cost way to build online visibility for a small business.

Blogs are more personal than online advertising and easier for the technically inclined as well. Best of all, it costs as little as nothing (except your time) to post about happenings in your industry or to give users advice and how-tos on things you already know well.

Business blogs, filled with original content written with a unique point of view, also give entrepreneurs a unique opportunity to come across as real people. And consumers generally prefer dealing with a real person over a cold, faceless corporate entity. On the Internet no one knows you're a dog, so a blog can help you put a sympathetic human face on your business.

Take for example GoDaddy.com, which sells domain names and hosting solutions. Bob Parsons, president and founder of the company, uses his blog to share his small business marketing insights with anyone who cares to visit. Sometimes he shares his opinions on industry news. What Bob doesn't do is blatantly promote his company or treat his readers like marks.

These days, the domain registration business is hyper competitive - with some registrars selling domains for as low as $3 a year; and there's nothing to prevent shoppers from simply picking the lowest prices. But you can be sure that loyal readers of Bob's blog will consider GoDaddy.com when it's time to buy a new domain or upgrade their website because they like and trust him.

Engage your readers in conversation, solicit feedback, don't try to disguise advertising as information, and most of all be helpful and informative - then you're on the right road to developing a larger and more loyal customer base.

Labels: blogging, search marketing

Posted by Melanie Phung

Try It: Google Suggest

Users of the Firefox Google Toolbar may have noticed a dropdown box in the last month that suggests search phrases as you type a query into the Toolbar. For those of you using MSIE or who don't have the toolbar, you have access to this feature at Google Suggest. It's not as good as Yahoo's but it's a long-overdue feature for Google Search. (Yahoo Search and a few other engines have included this feature for long time already). What's interesting for search engine optimizers is that next to each suggestion Google lists the number of results that a particular search term will return. That information, combined with a search term popularity tool, will give you an idea of how stiff competition for that phrase is going to be if you try to optimize for it.

Labels: Google

Posted by Melanie Phung

Things I Don't Have Time to Blog About

There are always more things worth writing about, or at least mentioning, than there is time to. Here are a couple of links to interesting articles. I might do this every once in a while when a backlog builds up, but I reserve the right to revisit any of these topics in future posts:

• Funny Web 2.0 spoofs
  
• A searchable compendium of all Google blogs
  
• Analysis of Yahoo's strengths and weaknesses
  
• Ways to optimize Blogger
  
• Yahoo, not Google, partners with Firefox in Asia
  
• Google, Microsoft and Yahoo battle over features
  
• Randfish's analysis of a paper on link spam alliances
  
• Yahoo: From Dot-Com Survivor to Web 2.0 Powerhouse
  
• Microsoft's version of Google Base
  
• Support a cause every time you search
  
• Blogrolling - Other good SEO blogs
  
• Three-part interview with David Vise, author of a new book The Google Story
  
• Interview with Google's Eric Schmidt
  
• A Google timeline
  

Posted by Melanie Phung

Introduction to Google PageRank

Back to SEO basics: What is PageRank and why do SEOs talk about it?

The PageRank system was developed by Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to help determine a page's relevance or importance. This method of counting links to a page as votes of popularity set the Google search engine (then called "BackRub") apart from the previous generation of search engines.

Naturally people tried to take advantage of this by artificially inflating the number of inbound links (IBLs), so Google explains that its PR algorithm "looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves 'important' weigh more heavily and help to make other pages 'important.'"

But still, people try to make up in quantity what they lack in quality by engaging in artificial linkbuilding schemes (the linkbuilding is artificial, the schemes are real). And with each successive algorithm update Google seems to be discounting volume more and more. The latest Jagger update, word has it, really went back to focusing on votes from "important" pages and discounting votes from pages that themselves don't have many IBLs, as well as votes from pages that are not related to the topic of the page.

Contrary to popular belief, and despite how logical it seems, PageRank is not named thus because it ranks pages. PageRank is a value that's part of a much larger equation that's calculated whenever someone does a search on Google. PageRank is named after Larry Page.

Read more about PageRank and methods used to exploit it for higher rankings.

Labels: Google, link-building

Posted by Melanie Phung

Yahoo Acquires del.icio.us

Joshua Schachter, the founder of del.icio.us, announced the deal on the site's blog this afternoon - about 5 hours ago - and already there are 180 comments, most of which are congratulatory.

"We're proud to announce that del.icio.us has joined the Yahoo! family. Together we'll continue to improve how people discover, remember and share on the Internet, with a big emphasis on the power of community," said Schachter.

"We're excited to be working with the Yahoo! Search team - they definitely get social systems and their potential to change the web. (We're also excited to be joining our fraternal twin Flickr!)"

Jon Gales called the acquisition an "excellent move on Yahoo's part. Delicious wasn't huge, but many of its users are influential web users. Just like with Flickr, Yahoo now has a whole bunch more important users."

Posted by Melanie Phung

Black Hat Tricks 101: Cloaking

There are two forum threads, a current one at Crea8aSite and another one at Search Engine Watch started 2 months ago, on the merits of IP cloaking - one of the common techniques in the "black hat" SEO's arsenal.

IP cloaking is the practice of detecting the IP address of a visitor and presenting different content to different groups. There are legitimate reasons to cloak - a search engine might present more geographically targeted results based on a user's physical location, for example. Sometimes cloaking is also the only way to show search engines what's on a page built in Flash (search engines can't parse Macromedia Flash).

But usually cloaking is used to show heavily manipulated SEO pages to search engines, while users from other IP addresses are shown something entirely different. In this case "optimizing" usually involves keyword stuffing or putting content on a page you wouldn't want a customer to see. (Or conversely, to hide from a search engine the content people are going to see.)

The discussions going on in Crea8aSite and SEW do a good job of educating on the issue, not just demonizing the tactic. In fact, some posters even go so far as to recommend the services of a particular company.

Something mentioned in the forums that I think is worth highlighting is what is often forgotten in the "white hat" versus "black hat" debate: whichever method you choose, it's still going to require doing something to get ranked. Cloaking (or any black hat technique) isn't a magic pill that gets you to the top of the rankings automatically. You still have to actually do some optimization work.

The general consensus among the posters seems to be - if you don't already know what you're doing ... really know what you're doing ... cloaking is not the way to go. If you absolutely have to do it, hand it off to someone who has a really good reputation doing this sort of thing.

In other words, boys and girls, don't try this at home.

Labels: cloaking

Posted by Melanie Phung

You Down with ODP?

I was planning on blogging about my ongoing quixotic travails of becoming a DMOZ (Open Directory Project) editor, based on my experience trying to submit entries and never getting any response, as well as a funny story told by SEO educator Bruce Clay during his training sessions about his attempts to do the same.

Looks like the funny story is going to have to do because they approved my application within 24 hours. I'm a volunteer editor for ODP, hooray - but don't bother pestering me about getting your sites included in the directory (one of the holy grails of SEO). The category I'm editing is not a commercial one and I can't approve entries in other categories. No special treatment - you'll just have to submit your site and be ignored just like everyone else.

But Bruce Clay agreed to an interview, so at least you'll get to read the story of Bruce Clay versus DMOZ.

Labels: DMOZ

Posted by Melanie Phung

AdSense and Dollar Sensibility

Yahoo Publisher Network (beta), Yahoo's challenge to Google AdSense, has been generating some positive buzz among publishers. Participation in the program was by invitation only, but they're taking applications now.

Apparently the difference in per-click payouts is large enough to outweigh lower click-through rates (according to one publisher I asked, income is up 40%-60%!)

That, plus some recent grumbles that AdSense ads are becoming less targeted and relevant to publishers' sites, might result in a sizable migration. I have to admit that I grow increasingly puzzled by the AdSense advertisements showing up on many sites, this one included.

AdSense losing customers to YPN is significant because analysts estimate that search advertising in the United States could grow nearly 80% in the next five years to $7.5 billion.

Hope we publishers are going to see some of that come over our way.

Labels: contextual ads, monetizing, navel-gazing

Posted by Melanie Phung

Is Google the Next Microsoft?

A couple of days ago I asked my interview subject if Google was the next Microsoft.

Kevin Kelleher, contributing to TheStreet.com, tackles this question himself in Google vs. Microsoft: The Great Tech Debate.

The gist of the article is that innovation is the first thing to go when Microsoft falls behind on its timelines, so that what starts as an ambitious and buzz-worthy project ends up being a cheap imitation of something already on the market.

Google, on the other hand, has a corporate culture that is very passionate about innovation and less susceptible to compromise, although it keeps its cards close to the vest.

The cowboy mentality that served Google so well during its early days, says John Battelle, needs to make way for a "balanced mixture of leadership, will, and diplomacy." Whether or not the company can make that shift will determine if it can "avoid the fate which ultimately hobbled Microsoft."

Me thinks that all this attention on the Google vs. Microsoft war is going to be good for Yahoo, which is staying out of this cutthroat tech competition by standing by its "we're a media company" positioning.

Labels: Google

Posted by Melanie Phung

Rate the Search Engines

Much like the Cola Wars of the '80s proved that brand loyalty trumps taste, so too is the search engines' battle for the hearts and minds of Web users as much about brand as it is about relevancy.

Back in April of this year Barry Schwartz (aka rustybrick) started a thread at Search Engine Watch proposing a test to rate search engine results.

His company built a white label search engine to let users rate the returned search results. It's not the most user-friendly application and it doesn't tell you which search engine's results you picked. So I recommend using the Webmaster Brain version. In this relevancy test, you rate the top three results as a set, instead of each results separately. And it will tell you whose results you picked.

I took the challenge to see if my biases (and actual marketshare) reflected the actual quality of the SERPs. Ten searches later -- mostly two- and three-word phrases, and one single-word search; a couple of people names, a product for sale, and some random things -- here's what I found.

• Three times Yahoo had the most relevant top 3 results.
• Twice Google had the most relevant top 3 results.
• Once Google and MSN tied.
• Once Yahoo and MSN tied
• And once there was a three-way Google/MSN/Yahoo tie.

I'd say there was no hands-down winner based on my test searches, although when conducting a real search I tend to evaluate more than just the top 3 results.

Perhaps Microsoft's Gates was right when he said his search engine's results were "at least as good" as the big G's. But then again, in blind taste tests more people actually did prefer the taste of New Coke.

Posted by Melanie Phung

Interview with Blogger Jon Gales

It took me 2 weeks to get back to Jon Gales about that interview he agreed to, and he responded in 2 hours. Now that's what separates the professional bloggers from the amateurs.

So, if you haven't Googled him already, Jon is creator of MobileTracker.net and a professional blogger. The ad revenue generated by this cell phone blog today is somewhere around $10,000 a month -- twice what Jon was making when he was interviewed by Fortune magazine one year ago. (Aside: the title of the Fortune article was Is Google Worth $165 a Share? Ah, remember those days?)

It wouldn't be an interview with Jon Gales until someone mentioned not only how much money he makes but also his age. So let's just say he's young... you-couldn't-buy-him-a-beer-in-return-for-his-insights young.

Even though it was both sensationalistic and gauche of me to highlight those two points (just like everyone else does), that shouldn't distract from the fact that he's successful in running a profitable online business - an accomplishment by any measure. Any of you would-be bloggers out there are going to have to hussle hard to catch up with him.

Jon, when you created MobileTracker, was it your intention to make a profit with it?

Somewhat, but not in the manner it turned out. Back when I started it (Feb 2003) there was no AdSense program or even a contextual advertising program of any kind. The main revenue stream at the launch was through referrals to Amazon.com. While that did make some money, AdSense obviously trounced it after it launched later that summer.

Do you consider blogging to be your job (as in "I can't hang out at the beach today because I have to work")?

Absolutely, but most of the time it's not that cut and dry. There are a few days that I have to be at the computer at given times (usually for conferences that I didn't go to but there are still going to be announcements at). Reviews and what not can be taken care of at any hour, so it's not a 9-5 thing. I tend to be a night owl, so my hours are different anyway.

My friends all work anyway, so they don't ask to go to the beach during the week (which would be tempting!) I'm usually able to meet people for lunch which is nice.

What's the secret of your success? (Or at least, what's the #1 piece of advice to someone looking to make money by publishing online?)

Keep at it. Not many people like old content. Too many sites with great concepts have gone stale. MobileTracker didn't start out reaching hundreds of thousands of people a month; it started one visitor at a time.

But how do you keep things fresh? How can you tell you've gone stale and how do you go about getting inspired again?

My vertical makes it pretty easy to see when you're slacking -- there are new products being announced all of the time. Since 2003 I've been able to cover about every mobile phone launch for North America.

Some topics aren't as cut and dry so you just have to set goals (x amount a week, month, etc).

What's the biggest mistake you see made by aspiring bloggers?

I'm sort of a design snob (perhaps it's because I'm a Mac user) so I would say using default templates. I can't say I read a site that's using a default template. Well, commercial sites at least. If you don't have the design chops, pay someone that does. It's well worth it.

If the Web as we now know it never existed, what do you think you'd be doing right now?

That's hard to say, I've been working online for a long time! I've been building websites for over seven years, and got my first paid writing job online over six years ago. It's my way of life. I've always like doing my own thing though, so probably own a small business.

What, in your opinion, is going to turn out to be the next big thing to truly revolutionize (for lack of a better word) the Web?

I'm waiting for TV distribution. I have a 15 megabit fiber optic internet connection just begging to be able to download TV programs, but the big networks are all stuck in an ad obsessed broadcast paradigm. The internet allows for instant global distribution and it would even be cheap with technology like BitTorrent. The day when all my media (TV shows, movies, music, photos, etc) can be accessed from anywhere will be a *great* day.

"Great" in the revolutionary sense? Disrupting the way things work and opening doors to entirely new innovation? On par with the introduction of a graphical browser? Of contextual ads?

I think video in general is just a large untapped resource online. From where I stand, TV ads are pathetic right now because they can't really be modified for an audience (not contextual) and results can't be measured. But yet TV spending way outpaces online ad spending.

Right now video advertising online is pretty scant, but I can definitely see a day when not only TV content is available online with contextual ads, but original video content from the web joins it. Sort of like how blogging has made publishing a more equal field. Right now you can make video and post it, but you're not going to be making anything from it. That's exactly what's stopping a lot of people from doing so.

I've had great responses to the videos I have made for MobileTracker. So I would love to be able to expand.

Google stock: $400+ a share. Overpriced?

Well I don't own any shares and I don't think I would buy right now. I'm as big of a Google user as anyone (been using it since it had the beta label on web search), but I would wait to see what they do with their war chest of cash before plunking down for some shares. Too many companies have gotten to this stage and screwed it up - with big money comes big responsibility.

Is Google the next Microsoft?

I hope not! From my view (again, pesky Mac user) Microsoft is a black hole that doesn't allow any innovation or originality escape. It's hard to scale creativity which is exactly what Google needs to do.

Looking at it the other way, Google can definitely overtake Microsoft in terms of importance. More and more people are using Windows to simply use web based apps like Google and Gmail. Those apps are OS agnostic. Might as well use Linux or a cell phone.

What, if anything, can Yahoo and MSN do to be part of the conversation again, to be relevant to search?

Yahoo is definitely a part of the conversation since they have been buying up Web 2.0 companies, but I think both Y and MSN could actually start these sites on their own. MS is trying with Start.com, but I wasn't too impressed. Google's done a good job with Google Maps and Gmail.

Finally, what's something you always wished people would ask when interviewing you but don't?

Well I don't get interviewed enough to lay awake at night and grouse over missed questions, but it would be nice to be able to rant about some of the crazy email I get. I once got a message from someone in India looking to find their phone that was left on a bus. He didn't give the phone number, but did let me know the model and city (New Delhi I believe). I had to explain what Mobile "Tracker" was... Sure made me laugh.

Posted by Melanie Phung

The Few, the Proud - MSN Search Campers

Want to know what super-secret projects are in the works at MSN Search? Want to work with Microsoft to help shape the future of one of their products? You might be able to.

Although the competition to get an invitation is going to be cutthroat -- and I wouldn't be telling you this if I thought there was any chance my invitation would be jeopardized by your application -- everyone now has an opportunity to apply for the upcoming MSN Search Camp.

MSN Search Camp is organized by the guys in Redmond to show participants future plans, get input and make connections. It's still invitation only, but this time, unlike their previous Search Camps, you can at least let them know you'd be interested in an invite. The application form (which is actually a Survey Monkey survey) can be found at their blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/

Posted by Melanie Phung