Keyword Search Continues to Gain in Popularity.
New Neilsen Keyword Search Numbers Show Growth for the Search Medium in March 2006.
March 2006 Year Over Year Keyword Search Data Shows:
Google Firmly in Lead with MSN Gaining Fast on Yahoo.
Month of March Year over Year Comparisons:
1) Google searches March 2006: 2.9 billion.
2) Yahoo searches March 2006: 1.3 billion.
3) MSN searches March 2006: 643.8 million.
Google alone powered 51% of all searches in March, however when AOL's google powered search results are factored in Google acutally represented 62% of all keyword searches in March of 2006.
The March 2006 Keyword Search Market Share Percentages by Search Engine Are:
Google: 62%.
Yahoo: 22%.
MSN: 14%.
SEO Blog. Organic SEO Blog. Search Marketing News. SEO Done Right examines search engine optimization, the most effective form of internet marketing. Breaking SEO news and emerging developments at Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Leading Organic SEO Consultants Peak Positions debunk the many myths, hype, and spin related to SEO and search marketing.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Google AdWords Click Fraud A Washington Post Cover Story
Here's today's cover story on Google AdWords click fraud. The national media is beginning to document the lack of controls and seedy underside of the Search Engine Marketing / Pay Per Click Advertising industry.
Peak Positions specializes in Organic search engine optimization and works with leading companies worldwide to eliminate click fraud activity. We encourage our accounts to monitor and assign INTERNAL PPC GATEKEEPERS vs. outsourcing to third party SEM shops for PPC/SEM Management.
Keep in mind that SEM management firms and the search engines themselves have motives and cause to encourage increased pay per click activity. Higher PPC/SEM click activity equals higher PPC/SEM management fees and revenues all around.
The most effective search engine optimization campaigns require strategic organic search engine optimization as the basis with smaller, more manageable, and cost controlled, Pay Per Click campaigns laid in over the top to maximize keyword exposure and market reach all within budget.
History has proven that quality organic search engine optimization is the most effective form of internet advertising and requires proven organic seo specialists to coordinate and implement organic seo solutions that incorporate the unique technical architechture of each website involved and also require a delicate balance of marketing savvy and in-depth technical skill sets.
It is also known that acquiring cost-effective, quality organic SEO skill sets are extremely difficult to acquire.
We encourage any organization addressing search engine marketing through either Organic SEO or Pay Per Click keyword advertising campaigns (either SEO, SEM, or both) that is not experiencing significant return on investment and gains in new business revenues to contact our organic seo firm.
Peak Positions is 100% dedicated to organic seo and delivering premium organic keyword positions for all of our valued clients. We offer years of organic seo experience, the highest level of professionalism, quite possibly the strongest client roster, and most importantly, the highest client retention rate in the Search Engine Optimization industry.
Our client roster serves as our best endorsement in terms of substantiating our seo capabilities and technical skill sets and our clients are the biggest benefactors as they continue to enjoy premium keyword rankings in all of the major search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and more.
If you are looking for real SEO answers and are seeking to sidestep all of the self marketed hype, conjecture, and endless SES/SEM Pay Per Click Promotional Bantering, constant PPC promotional conferences, and the steady stream of outrageous email offers pertaining to Instant Keyword Ranking Dominance and the latest Rags to Riches Linking and PPC gimmicks plaguing our burgeoning SEO industry feel free to contact our firm. Pay Per Click is a dangerous and expensive advertising game. It does provide rewards and can drive serious new business revenues, but not without campaign controls, knowledgeable guidance, experienced partners, and trusted internal management oversight.
Caution: diving into Pay Per Click head first with the "Keyword Rush" blinders on is never a good policy. Test the waters and research the PPC territory, your CEO, CFO, and accounting team will thank you for proceeding steadily and with caution.
Here's the latest click fraud piece from today's Washington Post.
It Pays To Monitor Those Server Logs!
In Game of Click and Mouse, Advertisers Come Up Empty
Reprint of story by Leslie Walker - Washington Post
Thursday, March 16, 2006;
Radiator.com got a jolt this month from the firm it hired to audit the nearly $40,000 worth of sponsored links it buys every month from Google and Yahoo.
It appears that many of the clicks on the Web site's search-engine ads were made not by potential customers but instead by automated programs or people trying to drive up Radiator's advertising bill. Like other advertisers that place links on search engines, Radiator.com pays only when people click on the links.
After analyzing where and when each click came from, auditing firm ClickFacts Inc. estimated that 35 percent of the referrals that Radiator paid Google for stemmed from bogus traffic. Likewise, 17 percent of the leads that came from Yahoo search results were illegitimate.
"They are reporting some very high fraud rates to us," said John Thys, director of Internet marketing for 1-800-Radiator, the Benicia, Calif., distributor that owns Radiator.com. Thys said his firm will present the report to Google and Yahoo next week and request a refund for the invalid clicks.
Such activity, commonly known as click fraud, may be far more common than search engines are willing to admit. Over the past year, click fraud has mushroomed into a problem so thorny that some analysts fear that it could bring the high-flying Internet economy to its knees.
I don't know if the issue is that serious, but I'm convinced that it deserves more attention than it's getting, especially since Google distributes paid links all over the Web and shares ad revenue with thousands of sites.
Think about it: If revenue from paid links suddenly were to shrink or dry up, you could kiss a lot of Web sites goodbye.
Google has repeatedly pooh-poohed click fraud, contending that it is a minor annoyance that it has under control with automated detection technology. At a meeting with analysts two weeks ago, chief executive Eric Schmidt said click fraud "is not a material issue." Co-founder Sergey Brin said such cases amount to "a small fraction" of Google's ad clicks.
But six days later, Google surprised analysts when it agreed to settle an Arkansas class-action lawsuit by setting aside $90 million worth of ad credits to advertisers that can show invalid click charges dating to 2002.
Few other details were released regarding terms of the settlement, still to be approved by the Arkansas court. Yahoo and six other search engines remain defendants in that case.
"We stand firmly by our proprietary click-protection system and look forward to vigorously defending our system," said Gaude Paez, a Yahoo spokeswoman.
Some analysts worry that Google is rushing to establish a legal precedent that could undermine a more serious click-fraud suit pending in federal court in California. That suit, which alleges that Google knows that click fraud is rampant and has not taken significant steps to prevent it, will be considered for class-action status at a hearing in May.
"Google is getting a deal," ClickFacts co-founder Michael Caruso said, referring to the Arkansas settlement. "This is chump change to them."
Google reported $6.1 billion in revenue last year.
Caruso said his year-old firm has seen click fraud rates for Google ad campaigns range from 20 to 40 percent. Other studies have estimated that bogus clicking accounts for 10 to 30 percent of all clicks on sponsored links.
Click fraud is not new, of course. It has plagued pay-per-click advertising ever since Overture Inc., later bought by Yahoo, pioneered the ad model in the 1990s.
At Yahoo and Google today, merchants compete in online auctions to set pricing for keywords that trigger text links on search-results pages. Radiator.com, for example, pays from 80 cents to $1.20 for each click on sponsored links that appear when someone searches for "radiator," "car radiator" or other keyword search phrases.
The two most prevalent types of click fraud are competitive sabotage -- rivals clicking to drive up ad costs for competitors -- and affiliate spam -- affiliates clicking on paid ads appearing on their own sites to boost their share of ad revenue from Google or Yahoo.
Analysts say affiliate spam is more common and really took off after Google launched its AdSense network, which distributes paid links to thousands of non-search sites. They get a share of Google's ad revenue based on clicks, giving unscrupulous publishers an incentive to inflate their clicks.
Yahoo started a similar ad network last summer but limits participation to invited sites to maintain quality and reduce the risk of ad spam, Paez said.
Over the past 18 months, cottage industries have popped up on both sides of this click-and-mouse game.
For $29 or so, anyone can buy fake traffic generator software such as Smart HitBot, Fake Hits Genie and Fakezilla, programs that can send bogus traffic to any Web page or ad.
But click-fraudsters have to watch out because more and more electronic sleuths are trying to catch them. Start-ups with names like Click Tracy, Click Detective and WhosClickingWho analyze traffic and tell advertisers about suspicious activity, such as a surfer in Malaysia repeatedly clicking on ads for a dentist in Baltimore.
Established Web analytic firms are adding fraud-detection capabilities, too. ClickTracks, for example, recently started a service that analyzes 20 variables surrounding each click and compares them with historical data to determine which are legitimate.
Jessie Stricchiola, president of Internet ad consultancy Alchemist Media Inc., said the big stumbling block that search engines face in combating fraud is lack of access to evidence that could prove it -- namely, what customers do after clicking on ads. Bogus visitors almost never buy anything, while a certain percentage of legitimate customers do. Advertisers, however, are reluctant to share sales data with the search engines.
Stricchiola is pushing for standards in Internet ad auditing. She recently teamed with Fair Isaac Corp. to study whether its formulas for detecting credit card fraud might help identify click-fraud.
Cynics fear that the search engines are too afraid of how much revenue they might lose to truly commit to fighting click fraud.
But I can't believe they'd be that stupid. They must know that if they don't find a solution soon, this escalating crisis of confidence could cripple search advertising for years to come.
Amen!!!
Peak Positions organic seo has been helping our clients reduce and eliminate PPC click fraud for years. Here are some available resources that can help reduce or eliminate click fraud.
Peak Positions posted this click fraud collusion story months ago.
Link contains many leading resources in terms of stopping click fraud.
Posted by:
Jack Roberts
Peak Positions, LLC
http://www.peakpositions.com
--
Here's today's cover story on Google AdWords click fraud. The national media is beginning to document the lack of controls and seedy underside of the Search Engine Marketing / Pay Per Click Advertising industry.
Peak Positions specializes in Organic search engine optimization and works with leading companies worldwide to eliminate click fraud activity. We encourage our accounts to monitor and assign INTERNAL PPC GATEKEEPERS vs. outsourcing to third party SEM shops for PPC/SEM Management.
Keep in mind that SEM management firms and the search engines themselves have motives and cause to encourage increased pay per click activity. Higher PPC/SEM click activity equals higher PPC/SEM management fees and revenues all around.
The most effective search engine optimization campaigns require strategic organic search engine optimization as the basis with smaller, more manageable, and cost controlled, Pay Per Click campaigns laid in over the top to maximize keyword exposure and market reach all within budget.
History has proven that quality organic search engine optimization is the most effective form of internet advertising and requires proven organic seo specialists to coordinate and implement organic seo solutions that incorporate the unique technical architechture of each website involved and also require a delicate balance of marketing savvy and in-depth technical skill sets.
It is also known that acquiring cost-effective, quality organic SEO skill sets are extremely difficult to acquire.
We encourage any organization addressing search engine marketing through either Organic SEO or Pay Per Click keyword advertising campaigns (either SEO, SEM, or both) that is not experiencing significant return on investment and gains in new business revenues to contact our organic seo firm.
Peak Positions is 100% dedicated to organic seo and delivering premium organic keyword positions for all of our valued clients. We offer years of organic seo experience, the highest level of professionalism, quite possibly the strongest client roster, and most importantly, the highest client retention rate in the Search Engine Optimization industry.
Our client roster serves as our best endorsement in terms of substantiating our seo capabilities and technical skill sets and our clients are the biggest benefactors as they continue to enjoy premium keyword rankings in all of the major search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and more.
If you are looking for real SEO answers and are seeking to sidestep all of the self marketed hype, conjecture, and endless SES/SEM Pay Per Click Promotional Bantering, constant PPC promotional conferences, and the steady stream of outrageous email offers pertaining to Instant Keyword Ranking Dominance and the latest Rags to Riches Linking and PPC gimmicks plaguing our burgeoning SEO industry feel free to contact our firm. Pay Per Click is a dangerous and expensive advertising game. It does provide rewards and can drive serious new business revenues, but not without campaign controls, knowledgeable guidance, experienced partners, and trusted internal management oversight.
Caution: diving into Pay Per Click head first with the "Keyword Rush" blinders on is never a good policy. Test the waters and research the PPC territory, your CEO, CFO, and accounting team will thank you for proceeding steadily and with caution.
Here's the latest click fraud piece from today's Washington Post.
It Pays To Monitor Those Server Logs!
In Game of Click and Mouse, Advertisers Come Up Empty
Reprint of story by Leslie Walker - Washington Post
Thursday, March 16, 2006;
Radiator.com got a jolt this month from the firm it hired to audit the nearly $40,000 worth of sponsored links it buys every month from Google and Yahoo.
It appears that many of the clicks on the Web site's search-engine ads were made not by potential customers but instead by automated programs or people trying to drive up Radiator's advertising bill. Like other advertisers that place links on search engines, Radiator.com pays only when people click on the links.
After analyzing where and when each click came from, auditing firm ClickFacts Inc. estimated that 35 percent of the referrals that Radiator paid Google for stemmed from bogus traffic. Likewise, 17 percent of the leads that came from Yahoo search results were illegitimate.
"They are reporting some very high fraud rates to us," said John Thys, director of Internet marketing for 1-800-Radiator, the Benicia, Calif., distributor that owns Radiator.com. Thys said his firm will present the report to Google and Yahoo next week and request a refund for the invalid clicks.
Such activity, commonly known as click fraud, may be far more common than search engines are willing to admit. Over the past year, click fraud has mushroomed into a problem so thorny that some analysts fear that it could bring the high-flying Internet economy to its knees.
I don't know if the issue is that serious, but I'm convinced that it deserves more attention than it's getting, especially since Google distributes paid links all over the Web and shares ad revenue with thousands of sites.
Think about it: If revenue from paid links suddenly were to shrink or dry up, you could kiss a lot of Web sites goodbye.
Google has repeatedly pooh-poohed click fraud, contending that it is a minor annoyance that it has under control with automated detection technology. At a meeting with analysts two weeks ago, chief executive Eric Schmidt said click fraud "is not a material issue." Co-founder Sergey Brin said such cases amount to "a small fraction" of Google's ad clicks.
But six days later, Google surprised analysts when it agreed to settle an Arkansas class-action lawsuit by setting aside $90 million worth of ad credits to advertisers that can show invalid click charges dating to 2002.
Few other details were released regarding terms of the settlement, still to be approved by the Arkansas court. Yahoo and six other search engines remain defendants in that case.
"We stand firmly by our proprietary click-protection system and look forward to vigorously defending our system," said Gaude Paez, a Yahoo spokeswoman.
Some analysts worry that Google is rushing to establish a legal precedent that could undermine a more serious click-fraud suit pending in federal court in California. That suit, which alleges that Google knows that click fraud is rampant and has not taken significant steps to prevent it, will be considered for class-action status at a hearing in May.
"Google is getting a deal," ClickFacts co-founder Michael Caruso said, referring to the Arkansas settlement. "This is chump change to them."
Google reported $6.1 billion in revenue last year.
Caruso said his year-old firm has seen click fraud rates for Google ad campaigns range from 20 to 40 percent. Other studies have estimated that bogus clicking accounts for 10 to 30 percent of all clicks on sponsored links.
Click fraud is not new, of course. It has plagued pay-per-click advertising ever since Overture Inc., later bought by Yahoo, pioneered the ad model in the 1990s.
At Yahoo and Google today, merchants compete in online auctions to set pricing for keywords that trigger text links on search-results pages. Radiator.com, for example, pays from 80 cents to $1.20 for each click on sponsored links that appear when someone searches for "radiator," "car radiator" or other keyword search phrases.
The two most prevalent types of click fraud are competitive sabotage -- rivals clicking to drive up ad costs for competitors -- and affiliate spam -- affiliates clicking on paid ads appearing on their own sites to boost their share of ad revenue from Google or Yahoo.
Analysts say affiliate spam is more common and really took off after Google launched its AdSense network, which distributes paid links to thousands of non-search sites. They get a share of Google's ad revenue based on clicks, giving unscrupulous publishers an incentive to inflate their clicks.
Yahoo started a similar ad network last summer but limits participation to invited sites to maintain quality and reduce the risk of ad spam, Paez said.
Over the past 18 months, cottage industries have popped up on both sides of this click-and-mouse game.
For $29 or so, anyone can buy fake traffic generator software such as Smart HitBot, Fake Hits Genie and Fakezilla, programs that can send bogus traffic to any Web page or ad.
But click-fraudsters have to watch out because more and more electronic sleuths are trying to catch them. Start-ups with names like Click Tracy, Click Detective and WhosClickingWho analyze traffic and tell advertisers about suspicious activity, such as a surfer in Malaysia repeatedly clicking on ads for a dentist in Baltimore.
Established Web analytic firms are adding fraud-detection capabilities, too. ClickTracks, for example, recently started a service that analyzes 20 variables surrounding each click and compares them with historical data to determine which are legitimate.
Jessie Stricchiola, president of Internet ad consultancy Alchemist Media Inc., said the big stumbling block that search engines face in combating fraud is lack of access to evidence that could prove it -- namely, what customers do after clicking on ads. Bogus visitors almost never buy anything, while a certain percentage of legitimate customers do. Advertisers, however, are reluctant to share sales data with the search engines.
Stricchiola is pushing for standards in Internet ad auditing. She recently teamed with Fair Isaac Corp. to study whether its formulas for detecting credit card fraud might help identify click-fraud.
Cynics fear that the search engines are too afraid of how much revenue they might lose to truly commit to fighting click fraud.
But I can't believe they'd be that stupid. They must know that if they don't find a solution soon, this escalating crisis of confidence could cripple search advertising for years to come.
Amen!!!
Peak Positions organic seo has been helping our clients reduce and eliminate PPC click fraud for years. Here are some available resources that can help reduce or eliminate click fraud.
Peak Positions posted this click fraud collusion story months ago.
Link contains many leading resources in terms of stopping click fraud.
Posted by:
Jack Roberts
Peak Positions, LLC
http://www.peakpositions.com
--
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
The Wall Street Journal Reports That Google Will Have to Turn Search Data Over To The Government
Here's The Sad Story...
U.S. Court Likely Will Force Google To Turn Over Keyword Search Data
Wall Street Joural - 3/15/06
Google likely will have to turn over keyword search data to government lawyers making a case for a child-pornography law, but a much smaller amount than originally requested, a federal judge said. U.S. District Judge James Ware said he is inclined to require the company to respond to a Department of Justice subpoena seeking the text of search queries and randomly selected Web addresses from Google's index of Internet sites.
During a hearing in San Jose, Calif., the judge said he was persuaded partly by the government's willingness to seek only 50,000 randomly selected addresses and 5,000 search queries instead of the one million addresses and millions of search queries initially sought. The government filed suit in January seeking the information after Google, of Mountain View, Calif., resisted complying with an August subpoena.
"What I've been trying to balance is the interest society has in the litigation with the interest of a private company," Judge Ware said.
The government hopes to use the information to defend its Child Online Protection Act, a law designed to shield minors from sexually explicit materials on the Internet. The Supreme Court blocked implementation of the act and returned the case to district court in Pennsylvania, where the Bush administration is battling claims from the American Civil Liberties Union that it violates the Constitution's First Amendment right to free speech.
The government claims the Google information will help it determine whether filtering software can keep minors from seeing offensive material online or whether the stronger measures of the act are needed. It has received search data from Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Time Warner Inc. Representatives from Time Warner's America Online unit, Yahoo and Microsoft wouldn't comment.
The dispute has drawn national interest to the Google case for signs of how readily U.S. courts will let the government subpoena search data for investigations and surveillance. The judge said he was troubled by the privacy issues surrounding the release of the search queries, where individuals enter search terms into the Google site to locate information and Web pages.
Judge Ware asked government lawyer Joel McElvain if the google keyword search queries couldn't inadvertently reveal personal information such as Social Security numbers, credit-card numbers or the sexual preference of a public figure. Mr. McElvain said the government didn't intend to use any personal information that might show up in the queries. Google Associate General Counsel Nicole Wong said the judge's questions and concerns "reflected our concerns about user privacy and the scope of the government's subpoena request."
Here's The Sad Story...
U.S. Court Likely Will Force Google To Turn Over Keyword Search Data
Wall Street Joural - 3/15/06
Google likely will have to turn over keyword search data to government lawyers making a case for a child-pornography law, but a much smaller amount than originally requested, a federal judge said. U.S. District Judge James Ware said he is inclined to require the company to respond to a Department of Justice subpoena seeking the text of search queries and randomly selected Web addresses from Google's index of Internet sites.
During a hearing in San Jose, Calif., the judge said he was persuaded partly by the government's willingness to seek only 50,000 randomly selected addresses and 5,000 search queries instead of the one million addresses and millions of search queries initially sought. The government filed suit in January seeking the information after Google, of Mountain View, Calif., resisted complying with an August subpoena.
"What I've been trying to balance is the interest society has in the litigation with the interest of a private company," Judge Ware said.
The government hopes to use the information to defend its Child Online Protection Act, a law designed to shield minors from sexually explicit materials on the Internet. The Supreme Court blocked implementation of the act and returned the case to district court in Pennsylvania, where the Bush administration is battling claims from the American Civil Liberties Union that it violates the Constitution's First Amendment right to free speech.
The government claims the Google information will help it determine whether filtering software can keep minors from seeing offensive material online or whether the stronger measures of the act are needed. It has received search data from Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Time Warner Inc. Representatives from Time Warner's America Online unit, Yahoo and Microsoft wouldn't comment.
The dispute has drawn national interest to the Google case for signs of how readily U.S. courts will let the government subpoena search data for investigations and surveillance. The judge said he was troubled by the privacy issues surrounding the release of the search queries, where individuals enter search terms into the Google site to locate information and Web pages.
Judge Ware asked government lawyer Joel McElvain if the google keyword search queries couldn't inadvertently reveal personal information such as Social Security numbers, credit-card numbers or the sexual preference of a public figure. Mr. McElvain said the government didn't intend to use any personal information that might show up in the queries. Google Associate General Counsel Nicole Wong said the judge's questions and concerns "reflected our concerns about user privacy and the scope of the government's subpoena request."
Microsoft Preps For Google Fight
Redmond Claims The New MSN Search Engine is Finally Ready to Battle Google
Software giant arriving way late to the keyword search party.
Microsoft sales executive, Joanne Bradford, spent her early years at Micorsoft wondering if the software giant was truly serious about maximizing keyword search revenues.
When she joined Microsoft in 2001, Micorsoft lacked a search engine of its own and had no clear Web advertising strategy. Google and Yahoo proceeded to make multibillion-dollar businesses of search-related advertising while Microsoft slept.
"I wasn't sure the first couple of years that we were here to stay," said Bradford, Microsoft's corporate vice president for global sales and marketing. "I thank Yahoo and Google for proving that a software company can be a media company and a media company can be a software company."
These days, Microsoft is very serious about grabbing a larger piece of the $15 billion U.S. search market. Micorsoft has revamped the MSN search engine and also developed a new advertising system called MSN AdCenter to sell pay-per-click ads across MSNs Web content and related services.
Microsoft plans to overhaul its entire web presence, consolidating e-mail, instant messaging, online PC security and search at its Windows Live site along with new offerings like an online marketplace in order to increase traffic and create valuable space for advertisers.
However, the company is arriving years late to the keyword search party and faces a steep uphill climb.
Microsoft's MSN Internet unit generated $1.4 billion in online advertising revenue in its past fiscal year, while Google pulled in $6 billion in sales and Yahoo racked up $4.6 billion in 2005.
MSN's strategic push combined with a steadily growing Internet advertising market -- now expected to reach $26 billion in 2009, according to Forrester Research -- should boost Microsoft's online advertising sales.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft could double (its online advertising revenue) in three to five years," said one independent research firm executive.
MSN TUNES-UP SEARCH ENGINE
Analysts caution Microsoft trails Google and Yahoo in producing relevant results from its search engine and unless it can close that gap, it will be difficult to gain market share in keyword search, the largest segment for online advertising.
Like Google and Yahoo, Microsoft lets advertisers, through MSN AdCenter, bid how much they will pay each time a user clicks on their ad. Until recently, all of the Pay Per Click search ads on Microsoft's search service were sold by Yahoo.
Yahoo (Overture) still sells three-quarters of Microsoft's paid search ads, while the company tests adCenter in the United States. It plans a full switch to adCenter in the next few months.
Microsoft officials said MSN adCenter provides advertisers with demographic data to better target customers with projections about the search user's age, sex and location. Eventually, MSN wants to integrate projections about the user's wealth, preferences and online behavior patterns.
Backed by registration information obtained from 230 million hotmail e-mail accounts and 205 million instant messaging users, Microsoft said that database allows it to provide more accurate projections than Google or Yahoo.
Microsoft envisions adCenter to one day be a one-stop shop for search advertisers to gather information as they bid for clicks and sponsor position for pay per click ads listed in MSN search results pages, Microsoft-related sites and services, non-Microsoft sites, mobile phone software or even online Xbox video games.
"We're really starting to see Microsoft gear up. Of course, the company was asleep at the wheel for a lot of years," said a search engine analyst.
One major hurdle is that SEM ads placed on Microsoft's search results reach only a fraction of those from Google and Yahoo.
Google finished January with 66 percent of the U.S. search market, trailed by Yahoo at 22 percent and MSN at 11 percent, according to Nielsen//Net Ratings. Microsoft stressed that online advertising is not a zero-sum game.
"The online advertising market is growing at such a rapid pace and we want to participate in some of that," Microsoft's Bradford said. "This isn't a winner-take-all proposition." MSN's focus is to become a more profitable third player in the keyword search marketplace with aspirations of one day becoming an even more competitive and profitable number two to Google.
MSN made no comment regarding PPC Click Fraud Controls.
Redmond Claims The New MSN Search Engine is Finally Ready to Battle Google
Software giant arriving way late to the keyword search party.
Microsoft sales executive, Joanne Bradford, spent her early years at Micorsoft wondering if the software giant was truly serious about maximizing keyword search revenues.
When she joined Microsoft in 2001, Micorsoft lacked a search engine of its own and had no clear Web advertising strategy. Google and Yahoo proceeded to make multibillion-dollar businesses of search-related advertising while Microsoft slept.
"I wasn't sure the first couple of years that we were here to stay," said Bradford, Microsoft's corporate vice president for global sales and marketing. "I thank Yahoo and Google for proving that a software company can be a media company and a media company can be a software company."
These days, Microsoft is very serious about grabbing a larger piece of the $15 billion U.S. search market. Micorsoft has revamped the MSN search engine and also developed a new advertising system called MSN AdCenter to sell pay-per-click ads across MSNs Web content and related services.
Microsoft plans to overhaul its entire web presence, consolidating e-mail, instant messaging, online PC security and search at its Windows Live site along with new offerings like an online marketplace in order to increase traffic and create valuable space for advertisers.
However, the company is arriving years late to the keyword search party and faces a steep uphill climb.
Microsoft's MSN Internet unit generated $1.4 billion in online advertising revenue in its past fiscal year, while Google pulled in $6 billion in sales and Yahoo racked up $4.6 billion in 2005.
MSN's strategic push combined with a steadily growing Internet advertising market -- now expected to reach $26 billion in 2009, according to Forrester Research -- should boost Microsoft's online advertising sales.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft could double (its online advertising revenue) in three to five years," said one independent research firm executive.
MSN TUNES-UP SEARCH ENGINE
Analysts caution Microsoft trails Google and Yahoo in producing relevant results from its search engine and unless it can close that gap, it will be difficult to gain market share in keyword search, the largest segment for online advertising.
Like Google and Yahoo, Microsoft lets advertisers, through MSN AdCenter, bid how much they will pay each time a user clicks on their ad. Until recently, all of the Pay Per Click search ads on Microsoft's search service were sold by Yahoo.
Yahoo (Overture) still sells three-quarters of Microsoft's paid search ads, while the company tests adCenter in the United States. It plans a full switch to adCenter in the next few months.
Microsoft officials said MSN adCenter provides advertisers with demographic data to better target customers with projections about the search user's age, sex and location. Eventually, MSN wants to integrate projections about the user's wealth, preferences and online behavior patterns.
Backed by registration information obtained from 230 million hotmail e-mail accounts and 205 million instant messaging users, Microsoft said that database allows it to provide more accurate projections than Google or Yahoo.
Microsoft envisions adCenter to one day be a one-stop shop for search advertisers to gather information as they bid for clicks and sponsor position for pay per click ads listed in MSN search results pages, Microsoft-related sites and services, non-Microsoft sites, mobile phone software or even online Xbox video games.
"We're really starting to see Microsoft gear up. Of course, the company was asleep at the wheel for a lot of years," said a search engine analyst.
One major hurdle is that SEM ads placed on Microsoft's search results reach only a fraction of those from Google and Yahoo.
Google finished January with 66 percent of the U.S. search market, trailed by Yahoo at 22 percent and MSN at 11 percent, according to Nielsen//Net Ratings. Microsoft stressed that online advertising is not a zero-sum game.
"The online advertising market is growing at such a rapid pace and we want to participate in some of that," Microsoft's Bradford said. "This isn't a winner-take-all proposition." MSN's focus is to become a more profitable third player in the keyword search marketplace with aspirations of one day becoming an even more competitive and profitable number two to Google.
MSN made no comment regarding PPC Click Fraud Controls.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Google's Big Daddy Seeking Content
The New Google "Big Daddy" Algorithm Update has rolled out and after extensive analysis of Google's new algorithm one thing remains clear...
"Big Daddy's" Hungry for Relevant Content!!!
The Googlebot spider family have had their algortihms updated and are favoring urls based on these Four Factors:
1) Relevant Content
2) URL naming conventions
Database site? ...Dynamic urls?... is your ecommerce portal still struggling after an expensive MOD rewrite?... only Peak Positions dynamic database optimization accounts are privvy to an exclusive inside track with actionable URL naming conventions heavily favored by the googlebots.
3) AdWords Partner URLs receiving favoritism
4) Affiliate Heavy / eCommerce Link Farm Sites falling fast.
Google's "Big Daddy" algorithm updates are throwing away URLs with high outbound link counts. The googlebots are also burying URLs loaded with redirect links, invalid page code, multiple cookies, and sticky web analytics/user tracking codes.
Time to Address Website Content Vs. Linking
How important is HTML text content to Google? Let us first answer this million dollar organic search engine optimization question with another, much more important question in terms of organic website optimization... What else is there? ... Really, why even have a website if you are not making every effort to deliver quality information and relevant content to website visitors?
Websites and companies that understand their purpose and focus on serving their in-market website users with helpful and useful information will always be successful.
Many advertising agencies, graphic houses, SES attendees, and marketing directors read the misleading and endless hype in their emails with offers of immediate organic SEO Success and then mistakenly begin to believe that incoming links from third party websites are the ‘magic silver bullet’ needed to drive their content-light sites into prominent organic keyword ranking positions on Google, MSN and Yahoo-Inktomi.
Don’t fall into the links trap and take your focus off of relevant content.
Links from high ranking, above board, theme-related, quality websites pointing out to your site always play a role and need to be implemented, however they hold very little value if your site is not serving users and spiders with quality content.
Is your site delivering the content that users are seeking? Remain focused on serving users first and foremost with relevant content before reaching out to unknown sites in an attempt to increase your link popularity scores.
Keep some of Google’s basic principles in mind when working on your website.
Don't deceive users, or present unique page content to search engine spiders that is not being made available to users.
Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's link popularity.
In particular, avoid links with web spammers, Free For All Link Farms (FFAs), or "bad link neighborhoods" on the web as your own keyword rankings are often adversely affected by these types of suspect links.
Don't use automated computer programs (Web Position Gold, Submit Wolf, Traffic Blazer, etc.) to submit pages. Automated submission software programs consume computing resources and breach the major search engines terms of service.
When in doubt, remain focused on serving users with relevant content.
Submitting too often using automated submission software programs has more negative consequences with Google than cloaking. Submitting redundant urls also has negative consequences as just badgering Google, MSN, and Yahoo with repetitive URL submissions can get a site/url pulled for several months, sometimes for a full year or more.
Hopefully the truth about Cloaking, Links, PageRank, & Google's Mythical New Site Sandbox, will all someday come to the front again as the SEO grapevine has primarily been cluttered with inaccurate hype on these popular SEO topics in recent weeks.
Especially from the Search Engine Marketing / SES Strategies crowd. So much SEM/SES hype and unfoundeded SEO conjecture (disguised as SEO email newsletters) many with false promises of immediate top keyword ranking offers, including these recent Microsoft Outlook SEO headlines:
1) Why take the time to optimize? buy immediate keyword exposure.
2) Don't take the time to open up your site to the search engine spiders long-term, this takes too long...get out your credit card and sponsor any meaningless, broad-based, off target keyword that you would like today!
3) Outsource Pay Per Click Management and Your Dreams will Come True!!!
4) Pay Per Click and SEM the quickest ways to SEO(?) success.
5) Ignore keyword search preferences (who cares that keyword searchers prefer organic search results 7 to 1 vs. paid search listings) that only reduce SEM/PPC management fees.
6) Gain additional knowledge and insight (?) with the latest exclusive SEO analytics tool (that simply spins and dresses up readily available free data from your own server logs) requiring spider roadblock code that pushes sites further down in the organic results and forces bigger SEM spends!
Instead Let us Suggest That You Keep these key SEO Facts in mind at all times:
1) Pay Per Click Fraud is at an all-time high
2) Pay Per Click Rates Are Increasing Daily
3) Keyword searchers prefer organic search results 7 to 1 !
4) Premium Organic Keyword Positions Serve as Website Endorsements
5) Buying Website Traffic is expensive and leads to poor brand impressions and low conversion rates
6) Quality organic search engine optimization that is above board, ethical, compliant and favored by the search engine spiders is the most effective, LONG-TERM Internet Marketing Strategy Available Today!
The New Google "Big Daddy" Algorithm Update has rolled out and after extensive analysis of Google's new algorithm one thing remains clear...
"Big Daddy's" Hungry for Relevant Content!!!
The Googlebot spider family have had their algortihms updated and are favoring urls based on these Four Factors:
1) Relevant Content
2) URL naming conventions
Database site? ...Dynamic urls?... is your ecommerce portal still struggling after an expensive MOD rewrite?... only Peak Positions dynamic database optimization accounts are privvy to an exclusive inside track with actionable URL naming conventions heavily favored by the googlebots.
3) AdWords Partner URLs receiving favoritism
4) Affiliate Heavy / eCommerce Link Farm Sites falling fast.
Google's "Big Daddy" algorithm updates are throwing away URLs with high outbound link counts. The googlebots are also burying URLs loaded with redirect links, invalid page code, multiple cookies, and sticky web analytics/user tracking codes.
Time to Address Website Content Vs. Linking
How important is HTML text content to Google? Let us first answer this million dollar organic search engine optimization question with another, much more important question in terms of organic website optimization... What else is there? ... Really, why even have a website if you are not making every effort to deliver quality information and relevant content to website visitors?
Websites and companies that understand their purpose and focus on serving their in-market website users with helpful and useful information will always be successful.
Many advertising agencies, graphic houses, SES attendees, and marketing directors read the misleading and endless hype in their emails with offers of immediate organic SEO Success and then mistakenly begin to believe that incoming links from third party websites are the ‘magic silver bullet’ needed to drive their content-light sites into prominent organic keyword ranking positions on Google, MSN and Yahoo-Inktomi.
Don’t fall into the links trap and take your focus off of relevant content.
Links from high ranking, above board, theme-related, quality websites pointing out to your site always play a role and need to be implemented, however they hold very little value if your site is not serving users and spiders with quality content.
Is your site delivering the content that users are seeking? Remain focused on serving users first and foremost with relevant content before reaching out to unknown sites in an attempt to increase your link popularity scores.
Keep some of Google’s basic principles in mind when working on your website.
Don't deceive users, or present unique page content to search engine spiders that is not being made available to users.
Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's link popularity.
In particular, avoid links with web spammers, Free For All Link Farms (FFAs), or "bad link neighborhoods" on the web as your own keyword rankings are often adversely affected by these types of suspect links.
Don't use automated computer programs (Web Position Gold, Submit Wolf, Traffic Blazer, etc.) to submit pages. Automated submission software programs consume computing resources and breach the major search engines terms of service.
When in doubt, remain focused on serving users with relevant content.
Submitting too often using automated submission software programs has more negative consequences with Google than cloaking. Submitting redundant urls also has negative consequences as just badgering Google, MSN, and Yahoo with repetitive URL submissions can get a site/url pulled for several months, sometimes for a full year or more.
Hopefully the truth about Cloaking, Links, PageRank, & Google's Mythical New Site Sandbox, will all someday come to the front again as the SEO grapevine has primarily been cluttered with inaccurate hype on these popular SEO topics in recent weeks.
Especially from the Search Engine Marketing / SES Strategies crowd. So much SEM/SES hype and unfoundeded SEO conjecture (disguised as SEO email newsletters) many with false promises of immediate top keyword ranking offers, including these recent Microsoft Outlook SEO headlines:
1) Why take the time to optimize? buy immediate keyword exposure.
2) Don't take the time to open up your site to the search engine spiders long-term, this takes too long...get out your credit card and sponsor any meaningless, broad-based, off target keyword that you would like today!
3) Outsource Pay Per Click Management and Your Dreams will Come True!!!
4) Pay Per Click and SEM the quickest ways to SEO(?) success.
5) Ignore keyword search preferences (who cares that keyword searchers prefer organic search results 7 to 1 vs. paid search listings) that only reduce SEM/PPC management fees.
6) Gain additional knowledge and insight (?) with the latest exclusive SEO analytics tool (that simply spins and dresses up readily available free data from your own server logs) requiring spider roadblock code that pushes sites further down in the organic results and forces bigger SEM spends!
Instead Let us Suggest That You Keep these key SEO Facts in mind at all times:
1) Pay Per Click Fraud is at an all-time high
2) Pay Per Click Rates Are Increasing Daily
3) Keyword searchers prefer organic search results 7 to 1 !
4) Premium Organic Keyword Positions Serve as Website Endorsements
5) Buying Website Traffic is expensive and leads to poor brand impressions and low conversion rates
6) Quality organic search engine optimization that is above board, ethical, compliant and favored by the search engine spiders is the most effective, LONG-TERM Internet Marketing Strategy Available Today!
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Organic SEO vs. PPC
Google Agrees To Pay $90 Million in AdWords Click Fraud Settlement
Google has agreed to settle a class-action CLICK FRAUD LAWSUIT with an offer to provide up to $90 million worth of PPC AdWords credits to website owners who have been charged for invalid clicks. The click fraud settlement, announced today still has to be approved by the judge.
Rumors are that the judge is also seeking monetary damages and Click Fraud system improvements from Google that could help curb escalating Click Fraud trends in the AdWords Pay Per Click system.
Google willingness to settle only with 'make good clicks' on future AdWords advertising campaigns vs. a cash settlement, and abruptly push the AdWords Click Fraud issue under the rug once again is not pleasing the judge. Hundreds of Google Click Fraud lawsuits are flooding the court system and the judge is receiving pressure from the federal courts to stem the Google click faurd litigation tide.
This new AdWords Click Fraud settlement stems from a lawsuit filed in Arkansas by Lane's Gifts and Collectibles, which presented website server log files that demonstrated they had paid for Google AdWords clicks that were fraudulent. Lnae's sought class-action status on behalf of several other Google AdWords search advertisers.
Google general counsel Nicole Wong (one of nearly 400 litigation attorneys now on Google's staff) claims the companies are "near a resolution."
Under the proposed agreement, Google would allow any AdWords advertisers who believe they have paid for invalid clicks at any time since 2002 to contact the company and apply for reimbursement with AdWords credits. To date, Google required AdWords PPC advertisers to contact it within 60 days of the alleged fraudulent click acitivity for log file review.
Google will offer AdWords credits that can be used to purchase new advertising with Google. "We do not know how many advertisers will apply and receive credits, but under the agreement, the total amount of credits, plus attorneys fees, will not exceed $90 million," Ms. Wong says.
This single case is only the tip of the iceberg as Google AdWords Click Fraud is running rampant.
If your are evaluating Organic SEO vs. PPC click fraud needs consideration and analysis.
If you are outsourcing for PPC/SEM Campaign Management and your monthly invoices are increasing substantially along with your SEM management fees, consider pulling PPC/SEM back in house or at least assign an internal gatekeeper, monitor your website server logs and police your PPC campaigns...it might just save your budget.
Also analyze your organic search engine optimization strategies and contact a proven organic search engine optimization provider that is dedicated strictly to organic seo best practices.
If searchers prefer organic search results 6 to 1 versus the paid advertising (PPC listings) isn't this cause enough for you to address organic website optimization and make a LONG-TERM organic seo investment resulting in real website traffic and new business vs. short-term, leased, expensive, "click fraud riddled" SEM website activity.
Stay Tuned as this Peak Positions Organic SEO Blog we will provide details on many Google AdWords Click Fraud Lawsuits now active and preceeding in the courts in 2006.
Google Agrees To Pay $90 Million in AdWords Click Fraud Settlement
Google has agreed to settle a class-action CLICK FRAUD LAWSUIT with an offer to provide up to $90 million worth of PPC AdWords credits to website owners who have been charged for invalid clicks. The click fraud settlement, announced today still has to be approved by the judge.
Rumors are that the judge is also seeking monetary damages and Click Fraud system improvements from Google that could help curb escalating Click Fraud trends in the AdWords Pay Per Click system.
Google willingness to settle only with 'make good clicks' on future AdWords advertising campaigns vs. a cash settlement, and abruptly push the AdWords Click Fraud issue under the rug once again is not pleasing the judge. Hundreds of Google Click Fraud lawsuits are flooding the court system and the judge is receiving pressure from the federal courts to stem the Google click faurd litigation tide.
This new AdWords Click Fraud settlement stems from a lawsuit filed in Arkansas by Lane's Gifts and Collectibles, which presented website server log files that demonstrated they had paid for Google AdWords clicks that were fraudulent. Lnae's sought class-action status on behalf of several other Google AdWords search advertisers.
Google general counsel Nicole Wong (one of nearly 400 litigation attorneys now on Google's staff) claims the companies are "near a resolution."
Under the proposed agreement, Google would allow any AdWords advertisers who believe they have paid for invalid clicks at any time since 2002 to contact the company and apply for reimbursement with AdWords credits. To date, Google required AdWords PPC advertisers to contact it within 60 days of the alleged fraudulent click acitivity for log file review.
Google will offer AdWords credits that can be used to purchase new advertising with Google. "We do not know how many advertisers will apply and receive credits, but under the agreement, the total amount of credits, plus attorneys fees, will not exceed $90 million," Ms. Wong says.
This single case is only the tip of the iceberg as Google AdWords Click Fraud is running rampant.
If your are evaluating Organic SEO vs. PPC click fraud needs consideration and analysis.
If you are outsourcing for PPC/SEM Campaign Management and your monthly invoices are increasing substantially along with your SEM management fees, consider pulling PPC/SEM back in house or at least assign an internal gatekeeper, monitor your website server logs and police your PPC campaigns...it might just save your budget.
Also analyze your organic search engine optimization strategies and contact a proven organic search engine optimization provider that is dedicated strictly to organic seo best practices.
If searchers prefer organic search results 6 to 1 versus the paid advertising (PPC listings) isn't this cause enough for you to address organic website optimization and make a LONG-TERM organic seo investment resulting in real website traffic and new business vs. short-term, leased, expensive, "click fraud riddled" SEM website activity.
Stay Tuned as this Peak Positions Organic SEO Blog we will provide details on many Google AdWords Click Fraud Lawsuits now active and preceeding in the courts in 2006.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Pay Per Click Rates Skyrocketing
PPC/SEM Click Fraud Also on the Rise.
Keyword prices continues to increase substantially. In recent weeks several well known brands have ripped through their quarterly SEM budgets with little conversion to speak of. Just last week eBay (now sponsoring nearly every possible keyword combination), FTD, and Blue Nile have all publicly groaned their PPC keyword rates have increased more than 50%. Blue Nile blames the PPC rate increase on "irrational behavior" and Blue Nile founder Mark Vadon cites Google AdWords keyword rate increases as the primary reason why his company missed its fourth quarter 2005 revenue projections.
Both Google and Yahoo/Overture have confirmed that their sponsored keyword rates are rising rapidly. The market frenzy and rush to sponsor keywords coupled with rising click fraud corruption is creating a complicated environment and trap-filled SEM lansdcape.
Consider implementation of an comprehensive organic search engine foundation that provides keyword exposure and brand consideration on the search engine results pages as in-depth pay per click research is conducted.
The most sucessful search engine optimization programs involve organic search engine optimization as the basis point and Pay Per Click as an additional layer that is dropped later to augment and compliant organic seo efforts.
Also keep in mind that searchers prefer the organic search results 6 to 1 vs. paid and long-term seo strength can only be accomplished through organic website optimization programs. Make sure that your website and content is open for indexing by the robot crawlers that determine the order of links on the results pages before becoming active in the Pay Per click "open auction" marketplace.
PPC/SEM Click Fraud Also on the Rise.
Keyword prices continues to increase substantially. In recent weeks several well known brands have ripped through their quarterly SEM budgets with little conversion to speak of. Just last week eBay (now sponsoring nearly every possible keyword combination), FTD, and Blue Nile have all publicly groaned their PPC keyword rates have increased more than 50%. Blue Nile blames the PPC rate increase on "irrational behavior" and Blue Nile founder Mark Vadon cites Google AdWords keyword rate increases as the primary reason why his company missed its fourth quarter 2005 revenue projections.
Both Google and Yahoo/Overture have confirmed that their sponsored keyword rates are rising rapidly. The market frenzy and rush to sponsor keywords coupled with rising click fraud corruption is creating a complicated environment and trap-filled SEM lansdcape.
Consider implementation of an comprehensive organic search engine foundation that provides keyword exposure and brand consideration on the search engine results pages as in-depth pay per click research is conducted.
The most sucessful search engine optimization programs involve organic search engine optimization as the basis point and Pay Per Click as an additional layer that is dropped later to augment and compliant organic seo efforts.
Also keep in mind that searchers prefer the organic search results 6 to 1 vs. paid and long-term seo strength can only be accomplished through organic website optimization programs. Make sure that your website and content is open for indexing by the robot crawlers that determine the order of links on the results pages before becoming active in the Pay Per click "open auction" marketplace.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Google Stock Falls Hard Following Slow Growth Announcement
Google Warning on Growth
Unnerves Investors
Goog Stock Plunges Some 13%, Ending Down 7.1%
The Easy Stuff May Be Over
a recap from the Wall Street Journal
Google Inc.'s chief financial officer spooked investors with a warning that the Web-search company's growth rate would slow from its breakneck pace, sending Google shares down almost immediately.
Speaking at a Merrill Lynch & Co. investor conference, Google finance chief George Reyes said that Google is "getting to a point where the law of large numbers starts to take root," referring to the challenge of increasing revenue and profits at the same rate from higher base levels. "At the end of the day, growth will slow," he added. "Will it be precipitous? I doubt it."
Google shares plunged to $338.51 from $397.54 following his comments, as investors and analysts scrambled to figure out how serious Mr. Reyes's warning was. The shares later recovered partially, as some issued research notes saying that Google's sharp selloff was unwarranted, given that Google executives in the past had made similar warnings: that growth will eventually slow and profit margins eventually contract.
Google shares closed down $27.76, or 7.1%, at $362.62 for the day. At that level, they were 24% below than their intraday high of $475.11 hit on Jan. 11. The volume of 38.9 million shares traded yesterday made it the second-most-active day for Google since the company went public in August 2004.
But, for some investors who remained jittery from Google's fourth-quarter earnings shortfall announced on Jan. 31, Mr. Reyes's comments could be taken as the latest sign that Google is finished with the easy stuff. Some believe that the company has entered a new era, where factors such as tax rates, international operations and expenses can weigh more on short-term results than they have in the past. Such factors helped depress fourth-quarter earnings. Google's blowout growth -- its revenue rose 118% in 2004 from the previous year, for example -- has in the past largely masked any such concerns.
Speaking yesterday, Mr. Reyes said that the Mountain View, Calif., company had achieved most of the possible gains from a recent initiative to increase the revenue it generates for each consumer search. "We're going to have to find other ways to monetize our business," he said.
Mr. Reyes said future gains would come from "organic" growth, including by increasing the number of search queries Google handles. He cited Internet services that consumers can access from mobile phones and search services providing results linked to specific geographic locations as also having particularly strong potential. Google also has been pushing its toolbar software as a way to increase usage of its search services.
"I'm not turning bearish at all. I think we have a lot of growth ahead of us," Mr. Reyes said. "The question is, at what rate?" In response to a question, he said his comments weren't prompted by any specific observation about Google's business during the current quarter.
Analysts largely shrugged off Mr. Reyes's warnings. Piper Jaffray & Co. Internet analyst Safa Rashtchy in a research note said the share selloff represented a buying opportunity, saying Mr. Reyes's comments didn't suggest any faster or slower growth than Mr. Rashtchy already forecast. Piper Jaffray has received compensation for investment-banking services or has had a client relationship with Google in the past year and makes a market in Google shares.
Analyst David Garrity at Investec Inc. said in a note that Mr. Reyes "is not distinguishing his tenure through building investor confidence with well-timed statements," but also noted that the selloff possibly presented investors with a good opportunity to buy shares.
Many analysts and investors hope Google will provide more clarity during its annual analysts' day tomorrow. The company has been reluctant to provide specific financial guidance, but the recent earnings shortfall -- which Google blamed on complex tax considerations -- has increased analysts' demands for more details about its prospects.
Google Warning on Growth
Unnerves Investors
Goog Stock Plunges Some 13%, Ending Down 7.1%
The Easy Stuff May Be Over
a recap from the Wall Street Journal
Google Inc.'s chief financial officer spooked investors with a warning that the Web-search company's growth rate would slow from its breakneck pace, sending Google shares down almost immediately.
Speaking at a Merrill Lynch & Co. investor conference, Google finance chief George Reyes said that Google is "getting to a point where the law of large numbers starts to take root," referring to the challenge of increasing revenue and profits at the same rate from higher base levels. "At the end of the day, growth will slow," he added. "Will it be precipitous? I doubt it."
Google shares plunged to $338.51 from $397.54 following his comments, as investors and analysts scrambled to figure out how serious Mr. Reyes's warning was. The shares later recovered partially, as some issued research notes saying that Google's sharp selloff was unwarranted, given that Google executives in the past had made similar warnings: that growth will eventually slow and profit margins eventually contract.
Google shares closed down $27.76, or 7.1%, at $362.62 for the day. At that level, they were 24% below than their intraday high of $475.11 hit on Jan. 11. The volume of 38.9 million shares traded yesterday made it the second-most-active day for Google since the company went public in August 2004.
But, for some investors who remained jittery from Google's fourth-quarter earnings shortfall announced on Jan. 31, Mr. Reyes's comments could be taken as the latest sign that Google is finished with the easy stuff. Some believe that the company has entered a new era, where factors such as tax rates, international operations and expenses can weigh more on short-term results than they have in the past. Such factors helped depress fourth-quarter earnings. Google's blowout growth -- its revenue rose 118% in 2004 from the previous year, for example -- has in the past largely masked any such concerns.
Speaking yesterday, Mr. Reyes said that the Mountain View, Calif., company had achieved most of the possible gains from a recent initiative to increase the revenue it generates for each consumer search. "We're going to have to find other ways to monetize our business," he said.
Mr. Reyes said future gains would come from "organic" growth, including by increasing the number of search queries Google handles. He cited Internet services that consumers can access from mobile phones and search services providing results linked to specific geographic locations as also having particularly strong potential. Google also has been pushing its toolbar software as a way to increase usage of its search services.
"I'm not turning bearish at all. I think we have a lot of growth ahead of us," Mr. Reyes said. "The question is, at what rate?" In response to a question, he said his comments weren't prompted by any specific observation about Google's business during the current quarter.
Analysts largely shrugged off Mr. Reyes's warnings. Piper Jaffray & Co. Internet analyst Safa Rashtchy in a research note said the share selloff represented a buying opportunity, saying Mr. Reyes's comments didn't suggest any faster or slower growth than Mr. Rashtchy already forecast. Piper Jaffray has received compensation for investment-banking services or has had a client relationship with Google in the past year and makes a market in Google shares.
Analyst David Garrity at Investec Inc. said in a note that Mr. Reyes "is not distinguishing his tenure through building investor confidence with well-timed statements," but also noted that the selloff possibly presented investors with a good opportunity to buy shares.
Many analysts and investors hope Google will provide more clarity during its annual analysts' day tomorrow. The company has been reluctant to provide specific financial guidance, but the recent earnings shortfall -- which Google blamed on complex tax considerations -- has increased analysts' demands for more details about its prospects.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Concerned About Your MSN Rankings?
MSN Engineers Confirm It's All About Content!
A recent conf. call with a team of MSN search engineers was most telling. The Redmond gang has done a great job of improving the quality of their organic keyword search results in recent months and searchers are responding.
It appears that keyword searchers are rewarding MSN as recent Nielsen reports confirm that MSN has increased from 8% to 14% of all keyword search in recent weeks.
**It looks like the MSN search gains are resulting in Yahoo search losses as Yahoo has fallen from 26% of all keyword searches to 18% and Google reports are up again increasing from 62% to 65% of all keyword search.
In Summary here are the latest Nielsen Net Ratings keyword search stats:
Percentage of Keyword Search Activity by Search Engine:
Google 65%
Yahoo 18%
MSN 14%
All other search engines: 3%
Why the recent jump in the MSN search numbers?
1) More Relevant Results.
2) Deeper Indexing.
3) Removal of Overly Commercial / Affiliate Heavy / eCommerce Link Farm Sites.
The MSN engineering team is confirming that recent algorithm updates are pushing down and restricting URLs with numerous affiliate links and/or high outbound link counts. Also the MSBbot formulas have been modified to negate URLs containing redirect links, invalid page code, or sticky web analytics/tracking URLs.
The reconfigured MSNbots can now travel much deeper and are indexing volumes of urls per crawl versus only one or two URLs per site in years past. Also the semantic text matching capabilities of the Microsoft robot crawlers has improved significantly as the MSNBots now parse, index, and full capture almost any kind of text document with the formatting as the original layout provides.
These text parsing improvements at MSN search have led to dramatic improvements in the MSN search results and more keyword searchers are beginning to move towards MSN and away from Yahoo.
So much so that just last week Yahoo began a new user incentive campaign that rewards Yahoo users for staying and searching the tired and slow Yahoo search results. Yahoo account holders are now being given varoius FREE rewards and incentives to remain at Yahoo and search. This 'Yahoo search only promotion' appears to be the latest public admission by Yahoo senior management that the Yahoo keyword search product remains unfinished and in a state of constant flux.
Over in Redmond the keyword search engineering troops are gaining more confidence daily as their search numbers keep rising. The new MSN Ad Center is set to launch any day and feedback from new search programs like the Windows Live Mobile Search (now in beta tests) are receiving great user reviews and feedback.
MSN Confirms Content is King yet again!
MSN search engineers are requesting that webmasters and publishers seeking to increase their keyword positions focus on page content. Relevant content pieces and URLs with helpful information that best serve users are being more heavily favored than ever before. Those parties seeking to increase website awareness in MSN search are being strongly encouraged to deliver quality content.
On a related organic seo note was the downplay of backlinks in the new MSN organic search system as recent algorithm updates value on-page text parameters increasingly, versus suspect incoming links, as MSN feels incoming links from off-topic, or unrelated documents, cannot always be trusted, and often lead to results page manipulation and poor organic search results.
Relevant Content is definitely the key in the new MSN!
MSN Engineers Confirm It's All About Content!
A recent conf. call with a team of MSN search engineers was most telling. The Redmond gang has done a great job of improving the quality of their organic keyword search results in recent months and searchers are responding.
It appears that keyword searchers are rewarding MSN as recent Nielsen reports confirm that MSN has increased from 8% to 14% of all keyword search in recent weeks.
**It looks like the MSN search gains are resulting in Yahoo search losses as Yahoo has fallen from 26% of all keyword searches to 18% and Google reports are up again increasing from 62% to 65% of all keyword search.
In Summary here are the latest Nielsen Net Ratings keyword search stats:
Percentage of Keyword Search Activity by Search Engine:
Google 65%
Yahoo 18%
MSN 14%
All other search engines: 3%
Why the recent jump in the MSN search numbers?
1) More Relevant Results.
2) Deeper Indexing.
3) Removal of Overly Commercial / Affiliate Heavy / eCommerce Link Farm Sites.
The MSN engineering team is confirming that recent algorithm updates are pushing down and restricting URLs with numerous affiliate links and/or high outbound link counts. Also the MSBbot formulas have been modified to negate URLs containing redirect links, invalid page code, or sticky web analytics/tracking URLs.
The reconfigured MSNbots can now travel much deeper and are indexing volumes of urls per crawl versus only one or two URLs per site in years past. Also the semantic text matching capabilities of the Microsoft robot crawlers has improved significantly as the MSNBots now parse, index, and full capture almost any kind of text document with the formatting as the original layout provides.
These text parsing improvements at MSN search have led to dramatic improvements in the MSN search results and more keyword searchers are beginning to move towards MSN and away from Yahoo.
So much so that just last week Yahoo began a new user incentive campaign that rewards Yahoo users for staying and searching the tired and slow Yahoo search results. Yahoo account holders are now being given varoius FREE rewards and incentives to remain at Yahoo and search. This 'Yahoo search only promotion' appears to be the latest public admission by Yahoo senior management that the Yahoo keyword search product remains unfinished and in a state of constant flux.
Over in Redmond the keyword search engineering troops are gaining more confidence daily as their search numbers keep rising. The new MSN Ad Center is set to launch any day and feedback from new search programs like the Windows Live Mobile Search (now in beta tests) are receiving great user reviews and feedback.
MSN Confirms Content is King yet again!
MSN search engineers are requesting that webmasters and publishers seeking to increase their keyword positions focus on page content. Relevant content pieces and URLs with helpful information that best serve users are being more heavily favored than ever before. Those parties seeking to increase website awareness in MSN search are being strongly encouraged to deliver quality content.
On a related organic seo note was the downplay of backlinks in the new MSN organic search system as recent algorithm updates value on-page text parameters increasingly, versus suspect incoming links, as MSN feels incoming links from off-topic, or unrelated documents, cannot always be trusted, and often lead to results page manipulation and poor organic search results.
Relevant Content is definitely the key in the new MSN!
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Google Confirms SEO Company Traffic Power and Client Sites were Banned in 2004.
Google engineer Matt Cutts posted these comments about rogue Law Vegas SEO Traffic Power earlier this week.
"I can confirm that Google has removed traffic-power.com and domains promoted by Traffic Power from our index because of search engine optimization techniques that violated our webmaster guidelines at http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html.
If you are a client or former client of Traffic Power and your site is not in Google, please see my previous advice on requesting reinclusion into Google’s index to learn what steps to take if you would like to be reincluded in Google’s index."
This Google Confirmation might help put an end to all of the legal fights that Traffic Power started as a result of Google's ban. Traffic Power created a new company and is operating as First Poisition here's the new website http://www.1p.com.
Google's Big Daddy Say: "Be Wary of Doorway Pages".
Google engineer Matt Cutts posted these comments about rogue Law Vegas SEO Traffic Power earlier this week.
"I can confirm that Google has removed traffic-power.com and domains promoted by Traffic Power from our index because of search engine optimization techniques that violated our webmaster guidelines at http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html.
If you are a client or former client of Traffic Power and your site is not in Google, please see my previous advice on requesting reinclusion into Google’s index to learn what steps to take if you would like to be reincluded in Google’s index."
This Google Confirmation might help put an end to all of the legal fights that Traffic Power started as a result of Google's ban. Traffic Power created a new company and is operating as First Poisition here's the new website http://www.1p.com.
Google's Big Daddy Say: "Be Wary of Doorway Pages".
Monday, February 13, 2006
BMW Germany Pulled From Google For Cloaking --- NOT SEO
The SEO grapevine is spinning out of control once again, over last week's announcement by Matt Cutts at Google that they pulled BMW Germany for cloaking their search engine. Cutts posted a story (and the evidence) with details on how BMW Germany was serving pages based upon IP address or cloaking Google.
BMW programmed the known googlebot spider IP addresses into their servers and fed highly optimized pages to googlebot spider IPs, and their "true" graphics-heavy, un-optimized homepage, to all other IP addresses. The Google Cloak worked great for about three weeks, until Google sent some spiders out to double check this new high-ranking BMW Germany site on anonymized IPs.
Google randomly checks top ranking sites using anonymized IPs to make sure top ranking websites are on the up and up.
When the anonymous spiders from Google received the "true" unoptimized homepage and not the optimized page, BMW Germany was pulled from Google for cloaking.
Cloaking is cause for Google to Pull a website (typically 45 days or less) and is far too risky a method, however some larger companies still feel tempted to try and fool or trick the search engines rather than optimize their sites. Google has been temporarily pulling sites for Cloaking for years. This BMW Germnay case is simply the latest Google cloaking case of several hundred in the past few years.
That's why the SEO grapevine spin being put on this BMW Germany episode has gotten absolutely out of control.
This past weekend one blogger posted on his blog that SEO got BMW pulled from Google.
First we need to clarify a couple of points:
SEO is not Cloaking.
SEO is not "tricking" or "fooling" the search engines.
SEO = search engine optimization.
Quality Organic Optimization or organic seo is a proven process that equates to the organization of HTML elements throughout a site, cover to cover, that assists the search engine spiders in crawling, indexing, and ranking a site in top organic keyword search positions.
Search engine optimization is not showing one page to spiders and another page to website users. This is too easy, short-sighted, not ethical and websites involved in cloaking are most deserving of being pulled from Google's database.
SEO Grapevine Blog posts like the one that follows are wrong, insulting and only further clouds the truth surrounding quality organic SEO which is highly specialized work, that requires substantial time and effort, and is not a simple flip of the switch, or employment of manipulative techniques that avoid the real issue: poor website design, too many dynamic-database indicators, slop code, sub-par linking architectures, and poor content.
Here's the error filled hype from a "self professed seo" blog post this past weekend. (again this blog post is 100% wrong!)
Google Blacklists BMW for Boosting Ranking, Blogger Says
Frankfurt -- According to a blog by Matt Cutts, a software engineer for Google,
the U.S.-based Internet search-engine giant has blacklisted the German website
of BMW after the car-maker allegedly tried to boost its popularity ranking
artificially. Cutts claims BMW employed a practice called search-engine
optimisation to ensure that searches for "BMW" and "used cars" returned to
BMW's website first -- a practice that apparently runs counter to Google
guidelines. Cutts said Google placed a "Google Death Penalty" on BMW's
German website that lowers its Internet profile.
(read original blog past from matt cutts here:http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/googleseo/
Can this blogger read, understand or write english?
Here is what Matt Cutts really had to say about why Google pulled the BMW Germany site and we quote...
"Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.”
i.e.: Do Not Cloak Google!
As for the Google death penalty this poorly informed Blogger references that BMW Germany received a "Google Death Penalty".
The truth is that the BMW Germany site was "temporarily pulled" from Google for only 30 days.
Submitting too often using automated submission software programs has more negative consequences with Google than cloaking. As submitting redundant urls and just badgering Google with redundant submissions can get a site/url pulled for several months.
Hopefully the truth about Cloaking, Links, PageRank, & Google's Mythical New Site Sandbox, will all someday come to the front again as the SEO grapevine has primarily been cluttered with inaccurate hype on these topics in recent months.
Especially from the Search Engine Marketing -- SES crowd. So much SEM/SES hype and conjecture with immediate top ranking offers that include:
1) Why optimize just buy keyword exposure.
2) Don't take the time to open up your site to the search engine spiders long-term, that takes too long...get out your credit card and sponsor any keyword you want today!
3) Outsource Pay Per Click Management and Your Dreams will come True!
4) Pay Per Click and SEM the quickest ways to SEO sucess.
5) Forget that organic search results are preferred 7 to 1 vs. paid links.
Or is quality organic search engine optimization that is above board, compliant and favored by the Google spiders worth the investment and effort?
You decide...
--
The SEO grapevine is spinning out of control once again, over last week's announcement by Matt Cutts at Google that they pulled BMW Germany for cloaking their search engine. Cutts posted a story (and the evidence) with details on how BMW Germany was serving pages based upon IP address or cloaking Google.
BMW programmed the known googlebot spider IP addresses into their servers and fed highly optimized pages to googlebot spider IPs, and their "true" graphics-heavy, un-optimized homepage, to all other IP addresses. The Google Cloak worked great for about three weeks, until Google sent some spiders out to double check this new high-ranking BMW Germany site on anonymized IPs.
Google randomly checks top ranking sites using anonymized IPs to make sure top ranking websites are on the up and up.
When the anonymous spiders from Google received the "true" unoptimized homepage and not the optimized page, BMW Germany was pulled from Google for cloaking.
Cloaking is cause for Google to Pull a website (typically 45 days or less) and is far too risky a method, however some larger companies still feel tempted to try and fool or trick the search engines rather than optimize their sites. Google has been temporarily pulling sites for Cloaking for years. This BMW Germnay case is simply the latest Google cloaking case of several hundred in the past few years.
That's why the SEO grapevine spin being put on this BMW Germany episode has gotten absolutely out of control.
This past weekend one blogger posted on his blog that SEO got BMW pulled from Google.
First we need to clarify a couple of points:
SEO is not Cloaking.
SEO is not "tricking" or "fooling" the search engines.
SEO = search engine optimization.
Quality Organic Optimization or organic seo is a proven process that equates to the organization of HTML elements throughout a site, cover to cover, that assists the search engine spiders in crawling, indexing, and ranking a site in top organic keyword search positions.
Search engine optimization is not showing one page to spiders and another page to website users. This is too easy, short-sighted, not ethical and websites involved in cloaking are most deserving of being pulled from Google's database.
SEO Grapevine Blog posts like the one that follows are wrong, insulting and only further clouds the truth surrounding quality organic SEO which is highly specialized work, that requires substantial time and effort, and is not a simple flip of the switch, or employment of manipulative techniques that avoid the real issue: poor website design, too many dynamic-database indicators, slop code, sub-par linking architectures, and poor content.
Here's the error filled hype from a "self professed seo" blog post this past weekend. (again this blog post is 100% wrong!)
Google Blacklists BMW for Boosting Ranking, Blogger Says
Frankfurt -- According to a blog by Matt Cutts, a software engineer for Google,
the U.S.-based Internet search-engine giant has blacklisted the German website
of BMW after the car-maker allegedly tried to boost its popularity ranking
artificially. Cutts claims BMW employed a practice called search-engine
optimisation to ensure that searches for "BMW" and "used cars" returned to
BMW's website first -- a practice that apparently runs counter to Google
guidelines. Cutts said Google placed a "Google Death Penalty" on BMW's
German website that lowers its Internet profile.
(read original blog past from matt cutts here:http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/googleseo/
Can this blogger read, understand or write english?
Here is what Matt Cutts really had to say about why Google pulled the BMW Germany site and we quote...
"Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.”
i.e.: Do Not Cloak Google!
As for the Google death penalty this poorly informed Blogger references that BMW Germany received a "Google Death Penalty".
The truth is that the BMW Germany site was "temporarily pulled" from Google for only 30 days.
Submitting too often using automated submission software programs has more negative consequences with Google than cloaking. As submitting redundant urls and just badgering Google with redundant submissions can get a site/url pulled for several months.
Hopefully the truth about Cloaking, Links, PageRank, & Google's Mythical New Site Sandbox, will all someday come to the front again as the SEO grapevine has primarily been cluttered with inaccurate hype on these topics in recent months.
Especially from the Search Engine Marketing -- SES crowd. So much SEM/SES hype and conjecture with immediate top ranking offers that include:
1) Why optimize just buy keyword exposure.
2) Don't take the time to open up your site to the search engine spiders long-term, that takes too long...get out your credit card and sponsor any keyword you want today!
3) Outsource Pay Per Click Management and Your Dreams will come True!
4) Pay Per Click and SEM the quickest ways to SEO sucess.
5) Forget that organic search results are preferred 7 to 1 vs. paid links.
Or is quality organic search engine optimization that is above board, compliant and favored by the Google spiders worth the investment and effort?
You decide...
--
Friday, February 10, 2006
Dell and Google Partner on New Line of Computers
Dell and Google have confirmed that they are testing a pre-installed package of Google software on Dell computers, in a blow to Microsoft dominance of the desktop software business.
Dell the world's leading personal computer maker is evaluating Google software that PC customers could use to search both the public Web and for local information stored on their desktop Personal Computers.
Dell and Google are making updates to hardware that Dell is scheduled to roll out with Hewlett-Packard.
Dell and Google are in talks to put Google software on as many as 100 million new Dell PCs.
This new development with Dell blends in with partnership deals that Google already has with many leading PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, Sony, Apple Computer, and Toshiba to distribute the Google Toolbar.
Dell and Google have confirmed that they are testing a pre-installed package of Google software on Dell computers, in a blow to Microsoft dominance of the desktop software business.
Dell the world's leading personal computer maker is evaluating Google software that PC customers could use to search both the public Web and for local information stored on their desktop Personal Computers.
Dell and Google are making updates to hardware that Dell is scheduled to roll out with Hewlett-Packard.
Dell and Google are in talks to put Google software on as many as 100 million new Dell PCs.
This new development with Dell blends in with partnership deals that Google already has with many leading PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, Sony, Apple Computer, and Toshiba to distribute the Google Toolbar.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Link Architecture Critical To Organic SEO Success !
Just got off the phone with a senior engineer at Google. The conversation turned from the feds hanging out in Google's lobby today unsuccessfully requesting the last two weeks of Google keyword search data, over to linking and redirects on websites.
It was confirmed that recent algorithmic updates have been installed that reduce the value of incoming links and decrease third party link casting scores. Too many sneaky redirects were reducing the relevancy of Google's organic results.
Instead a renewed focus of the googlebot spiders is link navigation. As so many websites have moved to sticky include files, especially many large dynamically generated, database sites that are using links housed in javascript and flash, despite the fact that the googlebot spiders often times cannot follow such links.
Creating a secondary navigation is a step in the right direction, however these new secondary navigation links are just that, secondary, and as such, typically cannot make enough of an impact to offset or compensate for the poorly designed and less than search engine friendly dynamic link navigation being used for the primary links of the website.
Why should a search engine spider favor or trust sites that utilize dynamic link navigations?, especially if the site combines one bad design idea with another and also uses urls that feature dynamic query strings. This deadly dynamic combination of javascript/flash link navigations used on "character-heavy, spider-choking query string urls" typically leaves a site invisible to new in-market users using search engines, found by no keyword searchers, and floating around aimlessley in the invisible 'dark web'.
How can a google spider be expected to "trust" sites with dynamic link navigations or redirect links, to actually serve users relevant content, or even render properly in all browsers, on pdas, wireless web enabled cell phones, or in alternative web browsers specifically designed for people with disabilities, etc.?
Google encourages sites with problematic dynamic link navigation schemes to create a google sitemap url and also an xml feed providing a text url driectory or text based crawler roadmap for the spiders. This is a step in the right direction but even these spider sitemaps cannot compensate for the critical site design flaw of housing primary link navigations in javascript and flash.
The spiders are programmed to index and crawl rendered pages and engage their semantic text matching capabilities on the 'true' rendered pages of sites, not specialty text based spider site maps that only list url names and feature zero relevant page content.
In other words, why sacrifice the keyword ranking capabilities of your best pages by linking to them using links that are embedded in javascript or flash?
When the powers that be at your company begin knocking on your cube walls and tapping on your shoulders at the water cooler, moaning over their inability to find their company site on google searches of the company name and exclusive product/brand names, try explaining why javascript and flash based links are being used in the primary link navigation and how pretty they are.
Do you think upper management will understand why the site is not being found on searches for the company by name ?
I suggest touching up the resume and ensuring your COBRA plan elgibility before starting this discussion. Is it fair to conclude that search engine visibility far outweighs design aesthetics...it should as without search engine exposure no one will ever see the company picasso.
Consider that 90% of all first time website visitors are delivered to sites for the first time by a major search engine.
Link Architecture and W3C Code Vaildation Are Absolutely Critical To Organic SEO Success !
---
Just got off the phone with a senior engineer at Google. The conversation turned from the feds hanging out in Google's lobby today unsuccessfully requesting the last two weeks of Google keyword search data, over to linking and redirects on websites.
It was confirmed that recent algorithmic updates have been installed that reduce the value of incoming links and decrease third party link casting scores. Too many sneaky redirects were reducing the relevancy of Google's organic results.
Instead a renewed focus of the googlebot spiders is link navigation. As so many websites have moved to sticky include files, especially many large dynamically generated, database sites that are using links housed in javascript and flash, despite the fact that the googlebot spiders often times cannot follow such links.
Creating a secondary navigation is a step in the right direction, however these new secondary navigation links are just that, secondary, and as such, typically cannot make enough of an impact to offset or compensate for the poorly designed and less than search engine friendly dynamic link navigation being used for the primary links of the website.
Why should a search engine spider favor or trust sites that utilize dynamic link navigations?, especially if the site combines one bad design idea with another and also uses urls that feature dynamic query strings. This deadly dynamic combination of javascript/flash link navigations used on "character-heavy, spider-choking query string urls" typically leaves a site invisible to new in-market users using search engines, found by no keyword searchers, and floating around aimlessley in the invisible 'dark web'.
How can a google spider be expected to "trust" sites with dynamic link navigations or redirect links, to actually serve users relevant content, or even render properly in all browsers, on pdas, wireless web enabled cell phones, or in alternative web browsers specifically designed for people with disabilities, etc.?
Google encourages sites with problematic dynamic link navigation schemes to create a google sitemap url and also an xml feed providing a text url driectory or text based crawler roadmap for the spiders. This is a step in the right direction but even these spider sitemaps cannot compensate for the critical site design flaw of housing primary link navigations in javascript and flash.
The spiders are programmed to index and crawl rendered pages and engage their semantic text matching capabilities on the 'true' rendered pages of sites, not specialty text based spider site maps that only list url names and feature zero relevant page content.
In other words, why sacrifice the keyword ranking capabilities of your best pages by linking to them using links that are embedded in javascript or flash?
When the powers that be at your company begin knocking on your cube walls and tapping on your shoulders at the water cooler, moaning over their inability to find their company site on google searches of the company name and exclusive product/brand names, try explaining why javascript and flash based links are being used in the primary link navigation and how pretty they are.
Do you think upper management will understand why the site is not being found on searches for the company by name ?
I suggest touching up the resume and ensuring your COBRA plan elgibility before starting this discussion. Is it fair to conclude that search engine visibility far outweighs design aesthetics...it should as without search engine exposure no one will ever see the company picasso.
Consider that 90% of all first time website visitors are delivered to sites for the first time by a major search engine.
Link Architecture and W3C Code Vaildation Are Absolutely Critical To Organic SEO Success !
---
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
MAC Software Developers Upset Over New Intel Partnership.
Our senior level software developer contacts at Apple are telling us that they are not happy about incorporating Intel processors into their new products.
They have a major concern that new Windows emulators will allow Windows programs to run on Macs, therfore eliminating the need for MAC only programmers and Mac only software developers.
Mac only developers feel the new Intel partnership could drive them into the unemployment lines.
New MAC Hacks are only weeks away.
Hackers are already working fast and furious to crack the new Intel/Mac products.
What hacker will become the king of the underground by being the first to hack the MAC Operating System.
Antivirus Software manufacturers like Kaspersky and Symantec are testing new programs designed to ward off MAC OS virus hacks.
How long before the MAC Operating System is able to run on Dell, HP, Toshiba and other popular computer line?
MAC software developers are touching up their resumes and contacting Union Stewards as the MAC OS enters the mainstream.
Our senior level software developer contacts at Apple are telling us that they are not happy about incorporating Intel processors into their new products.
They have a major concern that new Windows emulators will allow Windows programs to run on Macs, therfore eliminating the need for MAC only programmers and Mac only software developers.
Mac only developers feel the new Intel partnership could drive them into the unemployment lines.
New MAC Hacks are only weeks away.
Hackers are already working fast and furious to crack the new Intel/Mac products.
What hacker will become the king of the underground by being the first to hack the MAC Operating System.
Antivirus Software manufacturers like Kaspersky and Symantec are testing new programs designed to ward off MAC OS virus hacks.
How long before the MAC Operating System is able to run on Dell, HP, Toshiba and other popular computer line?
MAC software developers are touching up their resumes and contacting Union Stewards as the MAC OS enters the mainstream.
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