What Is PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters

What Is PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters

As an SEO Professional, I am always amazed when clients declare concern over 'that lttle green Google pagerank bar' As much I try and calm those concerns...seems like people just don't get it. And even more disturbing are those SEO's who still have no understanding of the PageRank dynamics.

Finally, the Guru of SEO Danny Sullivan has put togther a very comprehensive explanation, a white paper if you will, explaining in best of terms the PageRank factor. I have included just the brief overview below. The complete writings plus visual pictures is located here: http://searchengineland.com/070426-011828.php

Sadly -- so, so sadly -- far too many SEOs fixated on the PageRank meter when it came out first through the Google Directory and then later in December 2000 via the Google Toolbar. They focused on getting links from high PR pages without realizing that PageRank alone wasn't enough. Danny Sullivan

PageRank Versus "Toolbar" PageRank

Those PageRank scores that you can see? Those are often referred to as "toolbar" PageRank. This is different from what's often called "internal" PageRank.

Internal PageRank are the PageRank scores that Google uses as part of its ranking algorithm. Those scores are constantly being updated. In contrast, the PageRank scores that Google allows the world to see -- Toolbar PageRank -- is a snapshot of internal PageRank taken every few months.

What's important here? If you're a brand new site, you'll likely have a low or no PageRank score reported in the Google Toolbar. That might concern you, even though it will mostly impact whether you get crawled regularly (the higher your PageRank, the more likely Google will regularly revisit your pages). It does also have an impact on your ranking ability, of course.

It's likely that after a few weeks, you'll have gained some internal PageRank. You might see more traffic, as a result. But outwardly, the Google Toolbar PageRank meter will still show your same old depressing score. Then a snapshot will be made, and the better score you get will reflect what's already been happening behind the scenes.

More info on PageRank from Google's Matt Cutts explain more about this and other aspects of PageRank. You can also try the Future PageRank tool if you hear from various sources that a PageRank update is in progress for the toolbar. It might give you an early glimpse at your score to come.

PageRank tells how important a page is, relatively speaking, compared to other pages.

PageRank is just one of MANY ranking factors used to determine ranking in search results.

High PageRank does NOT guarantee a high search ranking for any particular term. If it did, then PR10 sites like Adobe would always show up for any search you do. They don't.

The anchor text of a link is often far more important than whether it's on a high PageRank page.

If you really want to know what are the most important, relevant pages to get links from, forget PageRank. Think search rank. Search for the words you'd like to rank for. See what pages come up tops in Google. Those are the most important and relevant pages you want to seek links from. That's because Google is explicitly telling you that on the topic you searched for, these are the best.

All Links To PageRank Article

Google's Definition: PageRank As Votes
Recent Google Edits Emphasize PageRank Just One Of Many Factors
PageRank For Searchers: Google Toolbar
PR Stands For PageRank, Not Public Relations
PageRank In The Google Directory
PageRank For SEOs
Seeing PageRank In Search Rankings
PageRank Versus "Toolbar" PageRank
PageRank Tech Talk
Conclusion (Especially For Those Thinking I Don't Have Time To Read)

Source: Searchengineland
http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/
http://www.ontheavenues.com/

SEO Free Tools

SEO Free Tools

Everyone wants something for nothing. Below are some Free SEO Tools. Criteria: the tools have to be FREE. Please remember, as a tool, they are automated and depending on your knowledge and understanding, may not provide you all that you need. Remember, using a tool means also understanding the tools concept and the process. It is not a quick fix

Wordtracker KEI Observation Deck

http://www.keiobservationdeck.com/

Many of you will recognize the name, John Alexander, and will
connect John to Wordtracker. John is the author of an extremely
popular e-book called, "Wordtracker Magic."

John's Wordtracker strategies take you out of the "keyword" arena
and into the behavorial research arena. His strategies allow you to
bring in targeted traffic to your Web sites without having to
compete against hundreds of thousands (or millions) of competing
pages.

If you don't believe there are decent KEI values in Wordtracker, or
if you want to learn how to get outside of the competition, stop by
the fascinating KEI Observation Deck and watch a true master of
Wordtracker at work. Remember: it's FREE!

Be sure to bookmark this page and visit again and again. It takes
practice to learn how to think laterally. Once you do, you can do
amazing things with Wordtracker.

FILExt ­ The File Extension Source

http://filext.com/

Do you ever come across a file extension that you simply have no
idea what program to connect it to? FILExt is a detailed database of
file extensions and programs that use them.

Googlesearches Tool

http://www.algotech.dk/googlesearches.asp

Use this advanced search tool to search The Mighty Google in
virtually every way you can imagine, even in language- or
country-specific searches. This handy tool is definitely one you'll
want to bookmark and come back to again and again.

Hotscripts.com

http://hotscripts.com/

Do you think that 28,959 resources in over 1,000 categories will
keep you busy for a while? Someone asked about counters and log
analyzers. This site has quite a list to choose from. Enjoy!

Bookmarklets ­

Add Extra Functionality to Your Browser with these Simple Scripts

http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/accessibility/bookmarklets.html

What are they? Bookmarklets are easy-to-use little programs that you
can integrate into your browser to make your coding, debugging, and
researching lives much easier. Give them a try!

Search Engine Decoder ­ Relationship Chart

http://www.search-this.com/search_engine_decoder.asp

This cool chart shows the relationships between the various search
engines and directories. Click on any search engine, and you'll see
which search engines/directories supply results back and forth to
that engine. It loads extremely fast, even with a 56K modem, and
it's up to date. Very impressive.

Martindale's "The Reference Desk"

http://www.martindalecenter.com/

Though not a "tool" per se, Martindale's is a reference site that
you'll want to bookmark and refer back to time and time again. What
can you find at Martindale's?

How about 19,575 online calculators? Can you imagine? You'll find
calculators for every type of project imaginable. You'll also find
translators, patent and trademark information, and world maps. The
list is virtually endless.

125 Legitimate Link Building Strategies

http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/leglinkpop.html

We all know the importance of off-page factors when it comes to
search engine rankings. Link popularity is one of the crucial
off-page factors that can make such a difference to the success of a
Web site. In this article, which can also be downloaded in e-book
format, over 30 SEO authorities offer their best suggestions for
increasing the link popularity of your Web site.

HTML Tags ­ A Free Online Cheatsheet

http://html-tags.info/

This HTML quick reference guide is excellent. All HTML tags with
attributes and values are for XHTML 1.1, also known as HTML 4.01.
Print out the guide and keep it beside your computer.

CSS Tutorial at W3Schools.com

http://www.w3schools.com/css/

Learn how Cascading Style Sheets can make your life as a search
engine marketer much easier, and how it can help you clean up your
source code. W3Schools provides an excellent CSS tutorial free of
charge, complete with a lot of examples and quizzes.

Again, thanks to all of you who shared these "cool tools" with me.
Be sure and send me YOUR list, and I'll add them to the next
article.

Thanks so much! (robin@searchengineworkshops.com)

Robin Nobles teaches 2-, 3-, and 5-day hands-on search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe as well as online courses in SEO. They have opened the first networking community for SEOs called The Workshop Resource Center for Search Engine Marketers, and they have expanded their workshops to Europe with Search Engine Workshops UK.

http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/
http://www.ontheavenues.com

The Search Engines' Semantic Analysis Capabilities

The Search Engines' Semantic Analysis Capabilities

The search engines are considerably smarter than we often give them credit for, and one of the ways they've become so "intelligent" is through the data provided to them on the billions of web pages they crawl. Today, I'd like to walk through a visual tour of the search engines' process and abilities in the field of semantic analysis and understanding.

Googlebot crawls billions of pages across the web, indexing a text content equivalent to thousands of times the size of all the world's libraries combined. With all this massive amount of data in the index, Google can start to form some assumptions about the incidence and frequency of particular terms & phrases.

One of Google's simplest powers is to be able to calculate the relationships between two or more terms/phrases. In the example above, Google's recognized that Spain & Iberia might be connected semantically. If we recall Dr. Garcia's lessons on term co-occurrence, we can see a simplistic way that this might be happening.

Obviously, Google has even more sophisticated ways of breaking down and analyzing an individual page or even sections in a page. They could, for example, form tighter connections between words/phrases that frequently appear very close to each other in sentences or paragraphs. As these techniques get more refined and more advanced, Google could take on an almost artificial intelligence with regard to semantic connections.

Pretty impressive for a robot & a scary, mechanized spider, eh? So how does this apply to the practice of SEO, content authorship, or website building?

There are several hypotheses I've formed about how to optimize based on this knowledge:

Build a Semantically Intelligent Site Architecture

Since the search engines have some data about what terms are relevant and related to one another, it can't hurt to use the most logical system possible to create an organization chart for your site's content. Usually, common sense works best, but you could always fall back on the co-occurrence calculations if you need to find out if that chicken stock recipe belongs under "french cooking" or "american classics."

Create Documents that Use Relevant Terms/Phrases

If you're targeting the term "mortgages" but most of your content is about rental properties, you might find that changing it around to connect with more relevant content is valuable.

Get Links from Semantically Relevant Pages

Term Co-Occurrence can be a great way to find out if a link from a page about surfing will be semantically beneficial to your page about snowboarding.

Understand Why that Page Might be Ranking

Sometimes when we see a page ranking and run a few checks on the strength of the domain and the links pointing in, we might scratch our heads thinking, "how the heck is that ranking above my page?" I've experienced this queasy feeling plenty of times and found that after some careful analysis, it looked like many of the pages pointing to my domain and page weren't nearly as "connected" as the pages linking to my competitor. While links in number and authority are very powerful, there's little doubt that semantic connections and topical relationships play their part, too.

Get a Sense of What the Future Holds

In a few years, will Google be smart enough to identify link "intent?" Could they have the semantic processing capability to extract psychological cues from the sentences and paragraphs surrounding a link? Would this help them to determine link weighting and link trust? Very possibly.

I don't use a heavy dose of co-occurrence calculation in most of my work, and it's actually rare that the topic comes up in a consulting contract, but I do believe that the more we know about search engines and the more we can see the machine at work when we look at the results, the better we'll be as SEOs.

Source: by randfish IR & Patents

http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/

Bigger Levers For Your Social Media Campaign

Bigger Levers For Your Social Media Campaign

We all know that getting on the homepage of social media sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us and Netscape can drive tons of links and traffic, which is why we try and leverage these social sites on a regular basis. But are you leveraging them fully?

Below, some tips not to overlook, such as the importance of good post titles to encourage relevant anchor text, the need to keep content concise, pushing your feed URL and content being king.

Good Post Titles

SEOs know that the titles of their articles should contain the terms they want to be found for. But those titles might not be the most attractive to visitors at social media sites. That's OK. Your submission to sites like Digg doesn't have to use the same exact title of your article. However, you still want your submission to make use of the key terms you want to be found for. That helps ensure those seeing your article via these sites might link to you using those titles -- and thus getting your key terms in anchor text, which helps with rankings.

Example: Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz wrote the Beginner's Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization. The post did very well on social sites such as Del.icio.us, and because of the post title, he now ranks high on Google for the phrase search engine optimization.

Keep It Concise

Social media visitors in most cases don't like reading a lot content. Because of this, you want your content to be easy to read, short and to the point. Make sure your introductory paragraph is enticing enough to get people to read the rest of your material. By doing this, you will get more people to read and like your content, thus increasing the chance that they actually link to it.

Example: Brian Provost wrote a simple article called How To Generate Targeted Site Traffic Without Search Engines and it received over 900 links after getting on Digg.

Push The Feed

Visitors from social media sites probably will not click on ads or purchase products, but that doesn't mean they are useless. One way to get them to keep on coming back to your website is to place a big RSS button in their faces. By doing this, some will subscribe to your site, which will also cause some of them to submit future content from your site to these social sites. The other great thing about RSS is that you could place ads within your RSS feeds, which is one way to make more money.

Example: John Chow has been on social media sites like Digg dozens of time, which has helped him get over 300,000 pageviews, 4,000 RSS subscribers, and $8,500 in monthly revenue.

Content is King

Content, content, content. The more you have, the better chances you may have of getting traffic. Social media users love to give input through comments, but tons of websites or blogs make it difficult to comment. Don't require users to sign-in, and don't place any other barriers that may stop them from participating. Instead, invite them to give their input by baiting them at the end of your content. [Editors Note: Yes, we require sign-in here against Neil's advice. We understand the trade-off this causes in terms of potential comments. More on that is covered here].

Example: I wrote a simple article on Google's Growing List of Domains which encouraged comments, and it ended up receiving 168 of them after getting on a few social sites.

These are just some of the ways I know of leveraging social media traffic. What other ways have you found effective?

Neil Patel is co-founder and CTO of ACS and writes regularly on social media issues through the company's blog, Pronet Advertising. The Let's Get Social column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.

http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/

Google and Performics SEO

Google and Performics SEO

Source: Submitted by Ross Dunn

Google is treading in dangerous waters right now. The prolific company will inherit its own search engine optimization (SEO) company called Performics after purchasing the online advertising giant DoubleClick on April 13th (takeover due to complete at the end of the year) and so far there is no sure indication of the company's future.

Unfortunately, since the purchase it (outwardly) appears business is as usual at Performics and the prospect of that continuing does not sit well with many people. The fact of the matter is a leading search engine like Google who claims to highly value its "don't be evil" mantra will rapidly lose any remaining credibility if it continues to operate a SEO/SEM company.

The Basics: Why is this a conflict?

According to Wikipedia, search engine optimization (SEO) is "the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results." Algorithmic results are supposed to be unbiased and highly relevant which is why Google keeps its proprietary algorithm so closely guarded. With the purchase of a search engine marketing company such as Performics, Google is put into the conflicted position of trying to generate profits by providing result-oriented organic ranking services for its own "unbiased" organic search results.

In addition, Performics provides other services within the realm of search engine marketing that add another dimension of conflict. For example, it provides paid ranking campaigns (pay per click, banners, etc.) that are designed to provide quality returns on investment. In their own words, Performics claims to "know which paid keywords convert to sales and optimize ROI on advertising investments with Yahoo!, Google and other paid search engines." Now, this is not an uncommon claim within the paid advertising industry, however, with Google behind the wheel the claim is likely to be perceived as having merit within Google's paid search results.

So What is Next for Google and Performics?

Google could run Performics completely above board and without any advantage whatsoever but unfortunately there is no one to police them to ensure that happens and I am certainly not comfortable with Google policing itself. That said, Google seems largely un-intimidated by anyone these days so I figure they will do whatever they want to in the end. However unlikely, Google could even hold on to Performics and try to ensure the world that the SEO company is a far, unconnected arm of the wider corporation. But that would not be a very smart move since the potential damage done would not be worth the benefit of having (comparatively) a trickle of profit from Performics.

When all is said and done, I have little doubt Google will sell off Performics as soon as possible in order to stem any bleeding of Google's hard earned reputation for quality search results. Whatever the result, Google's final decision on the fate of Performics will give some insight into their current level of brazenness. For the moment, however, I bet the conversations between Performics and Google are extremely tight-lipped while the big decisions are being made.

http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/
http://www.ontheavenues.com

SEO Tip: Title Tags: Adding Zest to your Click Through Ratios

SEO Tip" Title Tags. Adding Zest to your Click Through Ratios

By: John Alexander

Are you making the most of your Title Tags? Let's talk about some easy ways to fine tune your pages that you think could be performing a little better. Of all of the other choices a potential visitor may have to choose from, within the top search results, you want to make yours just a little more unique, a little more compelling than the next guy who may just throw their Title tag together with very little thought. Now for the sake of this article, we are not suggesting this tip for the purpose of improving your ranking, but rather for improving your click through ratios, regardless of the ranking (so long as you are within the top 10.) If more people are compelled to view your link than some other competing link, then that has some significant merit.

We know there are at least 100 influences in ranking criteria and this article assumes that you've already had some professional training and instruction in that aspect. You are aware that solid SEO work includes things like on-page factors, off-page factors and even artificial intelligence (AI) these days. However, the suggestion for working with your Titles that I have for you here is not just about rankings and visibility, but it's about improving the click through ratio for your pages.

These are just a few quick tips that you may find helpful.
To begin, let's take a good look at your Title tags and see if you can't improve them a little.

Try this tip on some of your pages which you feel need improvement or could use a higher percentage of visitors.

Consider including 3 elements in your title. These days every one knows that it can be important to have your researched keyword phrase included in your title. But then what do some people do? Often you'll see people stuffing their Title full of keywords in hopes that they may show up for those terms. "Keyword stuffing" is not competent SEO no matter who may think so and it's not recommended. Instead, your focus is to always create high quality, useful content that will please visitors. Your title needs to be compelling and it needs to read well and it should make sense to the reader.

Try this approach:

Use your keyword phrase up front, followed by a clicking trigger, followed by a genuine benefit that your product offers.

What do I mean by a "keyword?". When I talk about your primary keyword phrase, I'm assuming you know how to research and target the right phrase which is essential. However, If you are not sure how to do keyword research, then read this article here. If you are brand new to optimization, you may want to study one on our online SEO courses.

What do I mean by a "Trigger?" A trigger is simply an action related "reason" why someone chooses to respond. For example there are certain triggers or reasons why people will buy something. Among these are topics related to health, safety, education or learning, making money, saving money, improving appearance, losing weight, gaining status etc.

If you are familiar with writing sales copy, you'll be aware that there are a whole list of "reasons" why someone will buy or take action.

What do I mean by a "Benefit?" This is the old "what is in it for me" factor that's essential to all salesletters.

Of course these are all good essential elements for writing a sales letter. The difference here is that I am suggesting you move these elements right up into your Title tag where you will have them visible within the search results. The result should be a Title that reads well and compels the reader to take action and choose your link over other competing links regardless of where you rank in the top 10 results or so. After all, working with Title Tags is very easy to do.

For Example: (I'm making these examples up on the fly)

Maybe you are selling an e-book. The trigger would be "learning" (people will pay to learn something). The e-book might be on how to breed rare tropical fish. Maybe the book is a fairly quick read but details important information that you can absorb in a couple of days. This could be the benefit - (the short learning time).

So your title may read like this:
Breed tropical fish - Learn how to breed rare tropical fish for fun and profit in just 48 hours.

or get a little more specific to narrow up on the niche. Maybe it's about "angel fish"...

Breed angel fish - Learn to breed exotic angel fish for fun and profit in just 48 hours.

A few other examples of keyword plus trigger plus benefit.

Piano lessons - Learn how to memorize beautiful chords over this weekend.

Diamond jewelry - Discover how to grade color cut and clarity like a gemologist.

Okay let's play with a few other triggers ideas based on earning money:

Start a home based business - Ideal earning potential while you set your own hours

Internet based business - Start earning immediately as you work from home

Smart investments earn a second income online while you sleep.

Or triggers ideas based on streamlining a process:

Keyword research - save hours of research time and instantly find top results in only minutes

Pool heaters - eliminate energy waste and save $100 per month heating your pool

Renew your mortgage - Get an Instant quote quicker than your bank!

By getting a little creative, I'm sure you'll come up with even better examples than I have demonstrated here. Just remember to do proper keyword research using a tool like Wordtracker. Also really give some thought to the objective of each page. Try and identify a unique buying trigger (the reason why people buy) for your specific product. Also think about the benefits over features.

Use all of these elements creatively to fashion a Title tag that will build curiosity, offer value, educate, put forth a question or grab your readers attention in some way. Of course the most clever title won't really benefit you unless you are also creating quality content for the visitors to read once they click through to your page. We assume that our readers already understand the value of creating useful content. This quick tip is just a reminder that regardless of how good your Web site may be, there are always ways to improve it even further and add more value for your visitors.

Sometimes, with a little thought, you can use your keyword phrase up front, followed by a clicking trigger, followed by a product benefit and even tie the sentence as a whole, into the objective of your page. For example, you may have a product for sale, or you may have a different objective for the page. Perhaps you are just asking someone to sign up for a newsletter. See if you can you tie it into that Title statement. Be creative.

Start by taking a look at your log files and checking your ranks to see which pages could use some work. Be cautious about changing pages that are already scoring within the top 5 results. Focus more on some of the weaker scoring pages that may be ranked between say 5 and 15 but you can tell they could use a little more creative thought and work on the titles. By simply writing more compelling titles, combined with high quality content that is of genuine value to your visitors, you'll enjoy significant value in the increased click through ratios.

On a final note, make absolutely sure that your Web page has a solid "call to action." Make it clear to your visitors what you would like them to do. Sometimes the smallest little edits to your pages can make significant differences.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: John Alexander

John Alexander is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with Robin Nobles. Together, they teach their students the full spectrum of SEO skills in their "hands on" search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. John also teaches online SEO training courses, and he’s an official member of the Wordtracker official question support team. John is also author of the popular e-book Wordtracker Magic.

http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/
http://www.ontheavenues.com

Hidden Links - Paid Links. The SEO Negative Affects

Hidden Links - Paid Links. The SEO Negative Affects

While it is possible to temporarily get high rankings with shady optimization techniques, search engines will ban your web site sooner or later if you try to cheat them.

Among other things, unethical SEO techniques include doorway pages, cloaking and hidden links. In a recent blog post, Google's anti-spam engineer Matt Cutts commented on hidden and paid links.

What are hidden links? Can Google detect them?

Hidden links are links that can be seen by search engine spiders but not by human web surfers:

White text on a white background (or any other text that has the same color as the background).

Links that have been changed with CSS so that they are extremely small.

Linked periods in the middle of a paragraph.

Links in invisible CSS divs.

If you use links like these on your web pages then you violate Google's quality guidelines and you risk being banned on Google by using these links.

It's likely that Google can detect most hidden links. While some hiding techniques still might work, Google's anti-spam team will probably be able to detect them very soon.

What are paid links? Do they work with Google?

Paid links are simply text links for which the webmaster of the linked site paid. Paid links can be used to advertise your web site on other sites.

Most webmasters buy links to increase their search engine rankings. Unfortunately, Google doesn't like paid links.

Google is currently working on an algorithm that helps them to detect (and downgrade) paid links. Last week, Google asked webmasters to report web pages with paid links to the Google spam team.

What does this mean to your web site?

If you use hidden links or other hidden content on your web pages, you should remove these web page elements as soon as possible from your site. The more spam elements you use on your web site, the more likely it is that your web site will get a ranking penalty.

Paid links to your web site won't hurt your website rankings. However, it's likely that paid links also won't help your rankings anymore with Google's new algorithm change.

Inbound links are very important to get high rankings on Google. That's why Google works so hard on filtering the wrong kind of links. If you want to succeed on Google, you have to build the right links that will help your search engine rankings.

http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/
http://www.ontheavenues.com

Google My Search History Personalizes the Web

Google Launches My Search Personalized Web History

http://www.google.com/history

What is Web History?

You know that great web site you saw online and now can't find? With Web History, you can view and search across web pages you've visited in the past, including Google searches. Web History also provides interesting trends on your web activity, such as which sites you visit most frequently and what your top searches are. Finally, Web History helps deliver more personalized search results based on what you've searched for and which sites you've visited.

My Search History differs from the automatic caching feature in the Google Desktop application, which saves copies of web pages you've viewed on your personal computer. My Search History doesn't save web pages; rather, it saves your search behavior, and makes it easy to rediscover both your past queries and the search result pages you've viewed.

View and manage your web activity.
You know that great web site you saw online and now can't find? From now on, you can. With Web History, you can view and search across the full text of the pages you've visited, including Google searches, web pages, images, videos and news stories. You can also manage your web activity and remove items from your web history at any time.

Get the search results most relevant to you.
Web History helps deliver more personalized search results based on what you've searched for on Google and which sites you've visited. You might not notice a big impact on your search results early on, but they should steadily improve over time as you use Web History.

Follow interesting trends in your web activity.
Which sites do you visit frequently? How many searches did you do between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.? Web History can tell you about these and other interesting trends on your web activity.

Web History Depends On Google Toolbar

Web history is tied to the Google Toolbar. The Google Toolbar -- first released back in December 2000 -- has long had the ability to track whatever a user views across the web. This only happened if the toolbar's PageRank meter was enabled. By default, the PageRank meter was NOT switched on. In fact, it's long been joked that the relatively few people who do turn it on are SEOs who obsess over getting links from pages with high PageRank.

That's now changing. If you download the Google Toolbar directly from the Google Toolbar page, it will still be the case that the PageRank meter will NOT be switched on. However, Google will now begin prompting users in various ways to download a version where the PageRank tracking feature IS switched on or to get those with the toolbar already installed to switch it over.

My Search History differs from the automatic caching feature in the Google Desktop application, which saves copies of web pages you've viewed on your personal computer. My Search History doesn't save web pages; rather, it saves your search behavior, and makes it easy to rediscover both your past queries and the search result pages you've viewed.

Unlike personalization options from Yahoo and Ask Jeeves that are hidden away and have their own interface, Google's My Search History integrates directly into the main Google search and result pages. And you don't have to do anything special, such as explicitly select search results, to make it work.

Using the application is easy. Simply enter your query in a Google search box and click the additional "Search History" button that is installed next to the familiar "Search Web" button. Results are displayed in what Google calls the Main View for your search history.

Results on this view are ordered by date, with your most recent searches appearing at the top. Each of your search queries is displayed as a linked, boldfaced term. To re-run a search, simply click the link. Beneath each search term is a list of results that you viewed from that search, along with the time and number of times you've viewed each page.

A calendar on the right side of the result page allows you to access the searches you did on a particular date. Color on a date box on the calendar shows the number of searches you did on that day. White means zero, and shades of green from lighter to darker indicate heavier usage.

The more search history Google has to work with, the better the related results, at least in theory. "The interesting thing about these products is that it really does take a while to build up enough history to be useful," said Mayer.

My Search History also integrates with Google web search. If relevant results from your history are available for a Google web search, you'll see My Search History results in the "one-box" area at the top of the result page. Google also displays one-box results when it finds relevant links from Google News, shopping, local or desktop search results.

http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/
http://www.ontheavenues.com

Next-Generation SEO Hands Power to the People

Next-Generation SEO Hands Power to the People

Whether business likes it or not, Web 2.0 has put consumers in charge of media. The days of "gaming" Google with search engine optimization technologies are short-lived. A new generation of search engine that puts power in individuals and communities, not institutions, is about to take over. In the process, it will take online social networking to new heights, create new communities of like-minded individuals that will enhance the users' experience and protect users from unwanted institutional spin.

What is this quiet revolution? Today millions of individuals are rating everything from products, services, Web sites, physical businesses, and even virtual people (avatars). Through this participation, the biggest disruption in consumer purchasing patterns is taking place since the introduction of the Internet itself.

Consumers are reaping the benefits from the first generation of these services through systems like Amazon's product rating system and eBay's buyer and seller rating system, which both help consumers make better decisions about transactions. Similar systems are popping up all over the Internet. Many of these sites are just going through the motions, providing basic rating services for the sake of keeping up with the competition.

As these early ratings systems have aged, their flaws have started to become more glaring. Groups of users systematically "game" ratings systems to boost their favorite products, news articles and Web sites and bash the ones they dislike. Authors of books are routinely outed for writing glowing reviews of their own novels. The aggregate nature of these first-generation rating systems are naturally flawed, and the yes/no mechanisms of many Web sites lack the depth of information that today's consumer demands.

Some companies are now taking these ratings to the next natural evolutionary phase. By pooling and analyzing this rating data, organizations and Web sites are starting to offer their users a significantly more personalized experience. These techniques ultimately are used to keep people on a site longer, sell more product, accelerate the sale of product, optimize ads and provide a better user experience.

For example, these personalization techniques can be rendered in the form of optimized search, where the user is provided a completely unique search result based on their known likes and dislikes or by proxying this information to the closest user with similar tastes. Other examples, could be in the form of a personalized YouTube model that provides optimized video material based on similar algorithms that provide the user better suggestions for that specific individual. Additionally, this information could be used to make highly optimized suggestions for a user's shopping experience on a certain Web site.

As these new optimization services are introduced, they could have a downside for certain organizations, as it will be harder for their marketing departments to control the spin. The fate of these products and services will be in the hands of the consumer where it will live or die.

This is only good news for the consumer, but vendors will be forced into complete transparency of their product quality. Those with poor product quality may be forced out of their respective markets.

These optimization services are being deployed as we speak, in innovative rating services like Netflix's movie suggestion service, which recommends films based on your movie rating history, and companies that offer Web sites the ability to embed these services on their own sites. Ultimately these services should not only make the end-user experience more enjoyable, but they should drive more revenue for the sites that implement them.

These services will quickly develop over the coming months and be ubiquitous within the next couple of years. Optimized ratings will allow businesses to provide personalized ratings that, instead of a majority opinion, look for the opinions of like-minded people in order to make consumer recommendations. Ultimately these ratings services will have a social impact too. New online communities will be able to provide feedback about what they like and don't like so that companies can constantly refine a product to meet consumers' needs.

The big losers in the new era will be those who have built their businesses on pushing subpar products on marketing alone, or those who stand pat with the current generation of easily manipulated rating systems.

Just as some businesses failed to recognize the potential of the Web early on, those who don't embrace these new ratings and optimization technologies could be left behind in the coming era of customer-generated ratings.

Source: Chris Bailey is the founder and CEO of RatePoint, Inc., which has created a universal platform for social ratings (www.ratepoint.com).

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SEO Tip" Content Freshness Keeps The Search Engines Coming Back

SEO Tip" Content Freshness Keeps The Search Engines Coming Back

Remember that you can get much more relevancy for "content freshness" than you may expect. Content freshness: Don't just dump a bunch of new content on your Web site, but consistently add new articles or content on a regular basis. Watch how the search engine robots behave when you start doing this consistently.

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SEO Theory for Beginners

SEO Theory for Beginners

Michael Martinez gives a wonderful recap on the therory of SEO. Below is from the Blog: Source: SEO Theory - SEO Theory and Analysis Blog

The SEO Theory site appears to be building its audience, and given how many articles I’ve written over the past few months maybe it would be helpful to the new readers if I recap the basic points of SEO Theory.

The definition of Search Engine OptimizationSearch Engine Optimization is the art of designing or modifying Web pages so that they achieve high rankings in search results and pass converting traffic. The folks at work asked me to add that last part and it does seem reasonable.

The SEO Method

The SEO Method is experiment, evaluate, adjust. That does not mean in any way, “When in
doubt, go read SEO blogs and forums.” Read the blogs and forums when you’re bored, and maybe to be randomly inspired to try something new.

The Spammy Method Test

You know it will get you penalized if
you find yourself asking, “Is there anything wrong with [insert SEO trick here]?” Trust your gut instinct. If you read about a great technique in an SEO forum or blog, and you really really really want to try it out, ask yourself, “Can I live without this domain?”

Experiment, evaluate, adjust doesn’t mean, “Try every lame trick you read about on blogs and forums with your most precious domain.” It means be reasonable, be sensible, be prudent, be moderate, and definitely be
conservative. Leave the sneaky nonsense to the black hats who burn through 10,000 domains a month.

The Four Reasons Your Rankings Change

Your rankings in search results change because:

1. Of what you do with your pages

2. Of what other people do with their pages

3. Of what search engines do with their data

4. Of what people search for
   

We Need Links For Three Reasons

We need links to:

1. Get crawled (and indexed)
   

2. Be validated (earn trust)
   

3. Compete in highly optimized queries
   
   We don’t need links just because some idiot in a
   forum says we need them.
   
   Links pass 6 types of value
   

1. Traffic

2. Visibility

3. Crawling
   

4. Trust
   

5. Anchor Text
   

6. PageRank
   

How To Get Out Of Google’s Supplemental Index

Get value-passing links from pages in the Main Web Index.

Third-party analytics software sucks because

Third-party analytics packages like Google Analytics under-report your data by as much as 24-30%. It’s true. One reason this is so is that between 12% and 15% of surfers usually browse with Javascript turned off (they are so not into AJAX). Other reasons include: failure to connect to remote server, incomplete page loading, and ISP timeouts.

The Good, The Bad, and The Spammy

The Good -
Link baiting is cool if you can create the content and spam the social media sites, but for long-term traffic give real value to other sites.

The Bad -
SEO blogs and forums are great places to learn what not to do, as most experienced SEOs spend a lot of time saying, “Don’t do that! Don’t do that, either! You’ll be sorry!” Corollary: The first post in any SEO discussion is
almost always wrong.

The Spammy
- Every linking technique you pick up from blogs and forums is virtually worthless because it will be abused and spammed to death. The less specific the advice, the more it makes you think and be creative, the better.

No Such Things
There is no such thing as a “quality link”
There is no such thing as an “irrelevant link”
There is no such thing as a “duplicate content penalty”
There is no such thing as “an authority Web site”
There is no such thing as “an authority link”

And the most important fact you should take away from this blog: There is another search engine
update coming. Are you ready for it?

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http://bonnieburns.wordpress.com/

50 Questions You Need Answered Before Starting Your SEO Campaign

50 Questions You Need Answered Before Starting Your SEO Campaign

An online business owner basically has two choices when it comes to their website marketing efforts. They can outsource it or they can do it in-house. Both of these options bring a number of secondary options to choose from and its up to the business owner to do what is best for his or her situation. Here is a rundown of the possible choices:

Questions I need answered if I insource my search marketing:

• Do I do it myself?
  
• Do I have the time?
  
• What is my time worth?


• Do I have the knowledge and skills?
  
  
  
  • Do I have the time to get the knowledge and skills?


• Is this something I really want to do along with my regular work?


• Will this take me away from my family?
  
  
  
  • Is this worth the cost of not hiring or outsourcing


• Will I be able to be effective


• What if I screw up my site or get thrown out of the search engines?
  
  
• Do I hire someone to do it?
  
  
  
  • Do I pay someone to learn search marketing on the job?
    
    
    
    • Do I have the resources to teach or pay someone to learn the craft?
    
    
    • Will I have to pay for additional resources such as converences, books, etc.?
    
    
    • What if somone learns it and leaves?
    
    
    • What if I can't find someone capable of learning the craft?
    
    
    • What if they screw up my site or get me thrown out of the search engines?
  
  
  • Do I hire someone with experience?
    
    
    
    • How much is that going to cost me?
    
    
    • How do I know they can do what they claim?
    
    
    • Will they have all the skills necessary?
      
      
      
      • Will I have to pay additional dollars as they sub-contract out specialty work?
    
    
    • Will they expect to attend all the major SEO trade shows?
    
    
    • How much will I have to pay to keep their knowledge current?
    
    
    • What if they engage in "black hat" activities that screw up my site or get me thrown out of the search engines?


• Do I sub out part of it and do the rest myself?
  
• What parts do I do myself?


• How do I ensure that all the sub-contractors are working in unison together?
  
• How do I know who to blame if my search marketing or optimization doesn't work
• 
  Questions I need answered if I outsource my search marketing
  
• Do I hire a firm or a consultant?
  
  
  
  • If I hire a search marketing consultant:
    
    
    
    • Can a consultant do everything I need or do I have to do it myself?
    
    
    • Will a consultant have all the skills necessary to complete the job?
      
      
      
      • Will the consultant sub work out to other consultants?
      
      
      • Will I be forced to pay additional fees sub-contractors?
    
    
    • Will a consultant spend enough quality time on my account?
    
    
    • Will I be able to get a hold of a consultant when I need them during business hours?
  
  
  • If I hire a search marketing firm
    
    
    
    • Will a firm have qualified people working on my account?
    
    
    • Will a firm have too many clients to give me quality time?
    
    
    • Is the firm a "ranking factory" or will be sure to pay attention to the needs of my audience?
    
    
    • How responsive will my search marketing firm be with my concerns?
    
    
    • Will my calls get answered?
    
    
    • Will my emails be returned?


• How much should search marketing cost?
  


• What should be included and what shouldn't be?


• Will I get the return on my investment?
  
• What kind of results should I expect?


• How soon should I expect to see those results?
  
  
• Will I have to give up too much control of my site?
  
• Am I willing to give out sensitive site access information?


• Will I implement recommendations as they are provided?


• Can I veto recommendations and still expect results?
  
• Will I be expected to do anything?
  
  
  
  • How much will I have to be involved?
  
  
  • How much will I be allowed to be involved?

Finding some of these answers might take time, but each is essential before moving forward. Only after you have answered each of these questions will you really know which route is best for you.

Source: Stoney deGeyter is CEO of Pole Position Marketing. The Small Is Beautiful column appears on Thursdays at Search Engine Land.

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Google's Froogle Renamed to Google Product Search

Google's Froogle Renamed to Google Product Search

Google's official blog alerts us to a name change for the shopping search engine known as Froogle. Below is the new announcment.

Source: Official Google Blog

Today, we're making some changes to how we help users find things to buy. You may be familiar with our product Froogle (a pun on "frugal"). Froogle offers a lot of great functionality and has helped many users find things to buy over the years, but the name caused confusion for some because it doesn't clearly describe what the product does.

So we're renaming Froogle as Google Product Search. We're taking the opportunity to refocus the user experience on providing the most comprehensive, relevant results in a clean, simple, easy-to-use UI. We're also excited about how Google Checkout can help searchers have a fast and secure purchase experience, so the new interface makes it easier to buy with Checkout.

One thing we didn't change is the wide variety of items you can find with Product Search. Perhaps you're looking for a toaster, a wireless router, or an apple slicer. Or maybe you're in the market for a Lego watch (like Jeff's) or a new longboard (go for Flashback wheels). We hope this update makes it easier to find whatever you're looking to buy.

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New FAQ Search Engine

New FAQ Search Engine

QueryCat is a new search engine looking through Frequently Asked Questions pages only. As opposed to a typical Google result, QueryCat will include the answer to the question right in the result snippet (if available). However, I’m not fully convinced: for example, when I ask QueryCat “how can i create a favicon?”, the instant answer is “It’s free and it’s easy - just click here to create one now. For free image-editing software, please click here,” redirecting me to a Million Dollar Homepage spin off. The same query on Google, on the other hand, results in a page titled “Mysteries Of The Favicon.ico – How To Create A Favicon In Photoshop” which looks like a relevant, good tutorial. (Of course, this is just a single random query and other queries may work better.)

On a related note, I wonder if it would be feasible for Google to include FAQ’s in their Q&A onebox, in case they don’t do this already...

Source: GoogleBlogScope

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10 Steps to get Traffic from Yahoo Answers

10 Steps to get Traffic from Yahoo Answers

The hot selling topic in the blogosphere is howto get good traffic to blogs and web sites and how to retain them or covert them as regular readers. The popular ones around are Digg, Stumbleupon, Technorati, MyBlogLog, Search Engine, Forums, Directories, Social Newteorking. But the one that is overlooked and never talked about is