Google SEO Lab: Search Engine Optimisation Resources

he Google Feedback Loop For Quality Traffic

2006-06-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

For this to work, you need some kind of tracking for your website/web pages that tells you which search engines send people to you for what keyword searches. Now truly, for a website owner there is nothing more fascinating than their own stats, so if you don't have good tracking software yet, do go out and get some.

There are many versions about, still many free ones available, and please, DO get started with tracking your pages and their performance.***

Now, let's get started.

The Google feedback loop works very simply and like this.

Let's say you have a website and you find out that a particular phrase turns up in those search engine referrals which sends you some people reliably, week in, week out.

It doesn't matter if it's only a few, what DOES matter is that this is ALREADY HAPPENING.

Therein lies the key!

As an example, I noted that just because there was a phrase that related to this by accident in one of my essays, I got some 14 people sent to me because they were searching for "symbols of eternal love". Down the list a bit further, there were another 9 who wanted "eternal love symbols", and then the many more single queries with random variations on that phrase.

A total of fifty visitors who would otherwise have gone elsewhere, every month, on that one key phrase.

That's nice and as it doesn't cost us anything beyond a little time and ingenuity, and ...

... and this is IMPORTANT! ...

... and as I can PROVIDE MORE INFORMATION on this key phrase because that is completely within the brief of my site and what I do ...

I can now begin to enter into the "Google feedback loop".

So now, I shall expand on this idea of "symbols of eternal love".

I'll keep the original article and reference just the way it is, but I'm going to HYPERLINK the phrase where it appears in the text, and make another page with USEFUL AND MORE IN DEPTH information on "eternal symbols of love", including images, references and natural language copy.

When I do this, the following happens:

Firstly, we don't lose what traffic we are already getting by NOT CHANGING THE ORIGINAL REFERRING PAGE.

That's important!

Secondly, we are now offering the visitors MORE AND BETTER information on what they are looking for, and this will be appreciated and can be used as a starting point for a further relationship with the visitor - they may go from there to download something, or perhaps bookmark your pages because you're on the right vibe, perhaps buy something or tell a friend or a group they're on, or a forum, to go check out your site - all sorts of things can and do happen from there.

Thirdly, and this is where the "feedback loop" happens, you now have MORE and MORE VARIED keywords relating to the topic to show, more content and this will BRING YOU UP HIGHER in the rankings for that search overall - which results in MORE people clicking on your site's link, which in turn helps with your rankings.

Well, perhaps I should have called this a feedback SPIRAL because what NOW happens is that not only do you get more than your original 50 people coming every month, but you also get that same effect again - there might well be SOME THING on your further page that brings in that first flow of visitors for ANOTHER specific keyphrase which can be treated in much the same way - hyperlinked to a new page with more in depth information and even better quality content.

Go on like this for a while with the FAVOURITES amongst your key phrases, and you really will:

1. Find whole new "markets" or groups of visitors you've never had access to before;

2. Get more people for the already existing content as your site moves up in the rankings;

3. EVOLVE your site and your web presence in a very safe and expansive way - and without risking being dropped for the orig!
inal content because that doesn't change.

A last word of advice before I go.

PLEASE stay within the context of what you're doing.

No-one is served by having visitors who are the wrong crowd for your services or plans or desires.

If you are selling sun flowers, there is NO POINT in going after keywords relating to audio engineering or motorway maintenance.

Ok so you might get a bunch of visitors, but they WON'T stay, WON'T buy and WON'T do anything other than pass through like a breeze in the night and leave you wondering why you get hits but no sales!

If you *do* stay within the brief or context of what you are doing, and you go after the keywords and key phrases that MAKE SENSE in the context of your site, on the other hand, the "Google Feedback Loop" is an EXCELLENT way to improve quality traffic long term, and reliably.

Schmidt: Google Has Just Begun

2006-06-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt told media attendees at Press Day that search is the inevitable outcome of what is and will happen on the Internet.

The Internet has started a new phase, according to Schmidt, and Google is ready to lead the way to it. "We've organized Google to be the systematic innovator of scale," he said. "Virtually all of the interesting information businesses have can live on this platform."

Schmidt made the argument for search as the "inevitable outcome" of all that happens online. "As the web gets bigger you need search as a tool to get thru this," he said. "Web growth has turned out to be faster that [url=http://www.answers.com/moore's+law?nafid=3]Moore's Law[/url]."

That growth is mostly happening outside of the United States, according to Schmidt. That likely means China, acknowledged as the fastest growing Internet market with over 110 million users and more signing on all the time.

How Google does it

Schmidt also mentioned the 70-20-10 rule of Google again, in discussing how they run Google. "The 20% time is part of our bargain with our key technical people to encourage innovation, and it works really well."

This year, the goal is to systemtize everything at Google. He noted the heavy investments Google has made in search algorithms, and acknowledged they have had to invest in very significant storage and comupting capacity.

The competition has money to invest as well. "What does the competitive landscape look like?" Schmidt asked. "We have two major competitors with scale management and cash."

"None of the other competitors are focused on the 70% which is search," Schmidt said in referring to Yahoo and Microsoft.

Who are the winners online

When it comes to winning, Schmidt thinks the companies that partner more broadly, as Google has with AOL and eBay, will be the ones that win due to those collaborations. There is room for more than one winner, he suggested.

Our editor, Mike McDonald, observed in his notes that the "businesses living on the platform" is an echo of the old 'search is big enough for everybody' mantra they throw up when people talk about Google and Microsoft, and a winner and loser in that battle.

Governments and obstacles

"The challenge to a corporation is to act responsibly when governmental conflict exists," said Schmidt. "The goal here is to find the right path through the conflicting goals."

"We have people who have very legitimate privacy issues that we have to deal with," he said, a reference that recalled Google's fight with the Department of Justice over information from their search index.

"I'm convinced the impact of users on information, and information on users, is changing the way people are thinking about search."

The future of search

"What does the future look like for Google and its users?" asked Schmidt. "We have more people working on search than ever before in this company."

He also said things are going to become much more interactive, with much more content like audio, video, etc.

Schmidt said there will be much more collaborative activity taking place. That statement was strengthened by Google's announcement of Google Co-op, which enables the sharing of expertise through the labeling of useful webpages and creating "subscribed links" as well.

On ads and where to find them

Google has been driving development efforts at increasing its local search, as a way to enhance how it can deliver ads for clients.

"In the advertising world we are going to have even more targeted ads," he said. Mobile devices will be part of the strategy, due to their presence.

"In mobile the numbers in mobile are fascinating," said Schmidt. "The growth rate of mobile devices are more than 3 times that of personal computers.

"People are going to use them for searches, and they're going to be using them more for finding than searching because the screens are so small."

A Google utopia

"We want to solve the problems people have online today," he said. "We call this Create, Remember, and Share."

"The important thing is that the more things we can bring online, the more detailed, personal, and accurate we can make search."

Google sounds like it is shifting its strategy. Schmidt said, "we are much more focused in user and partner participation, and we in fact focus on giving users the ability to distribute their content.

"We're committed to a much more transparent way of working and communicating. Our fundamental goal is to get you as quickly as possible to the information you need and we remain absolutely committed to that goal.

"We have literally just begun."

5 Strategies to Get Circular With Those Links

2006-06-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

One Way Links from High Page Rank Pages are Your Ticket to the Top of the Page Rank Leader Board. Circular Links is a Win:Win:Win where everyone gets Links yet Everyone gets One Way back Links.

3 Different Link Strategies

Reciprocal Linking is Where You link to a Link Partner and The Link Partner then Returns the Link to You.
One way back Links is where a Link Partner Links to You, But you don't Link Back to the Link Partner
Circular Links is where You link to Link Partner A, and Link Partner A links to Link Partner B and then Link Partner B Links back to You. Everyone Gives a Link. But the Best part is Everyone Gets a one way Back Link.

Here are 5 Different Circular Link Strategies any Webmaster can use to get lot's of Circular Links with many Link Partners.

1 - Multiple Web Site Strategy Circular Link Strategy

If you own or operate multiple web sites you can offer a Link Partner a link from a web site of their choice that you own or operate in return for a link back to a different Web site of your choice that you own or operate.

2 - With a Little Help from My Friends Circular Link Strategy

You can offer a Link Partner a Link from your friends Web Site in return for a link back to your Web Site. You of course would then Link to Your Friend Completing the Circular Link

3 - Circle with Yourself Circular Link Strategy

If you happen to own or Operate 3 or more Web Sites why not set up Circular Links between your Web Sites. This Strategy works best when the Web Sites are on Different Servers or with Different Hosts

4 - Circle those Blogs Circular Link Strategy

Set up Multiple Free Blogs on different Blog servers and then Build Circular links Between your Blogs. At the Same Time you can build Circular Links between your Blogs and Your Web Page

5- Let's All Join Hands Circular Link Strategy

Who said you need a Circle of only 3. You can Do Circles with as Many web Pages as you Like. Thinks of this as Web Ring of Links.

Link Partner 1 Would Link to Link Partner 2
Link Partner 2 Would Link to Link Partner 3
Link Partner 3 Would Link to Link PArtner 4
.....
The Last Link Partner would Link back to 1

By Using the above 5 Strategies it should be Fairly simple to set up circular links with many Link Partners and explode your Search Engine Rankings and web site Traffic.

Search Engine Optimization Template

2006-06-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

This is my general recipe for the ubiquitous Google. It is generic enough that it works well everywhere. It’s as close as I have come to a “one-size-fits-all” SEO – that’s Search Engine Optimization – template.

Use your targeted keyword phrase:

· In META keywords. It’s not necessary for Google, but a good habit. Keep your META keywords short (128 characters max, or 10).
· In META description. Keep keyword close to the left but in a full sentence.
· In the title at the far left but possibly not as the first word.
· In the top portion of the page in first sentence of first full bodied paragraph (plain text: no bold, no italic, no style).
· In an H3 or larger heading
· In bold – second paragraph if possible and anywhere but the first usage on page.
· In italic – anywhere but the first usage.
· In subscript/superscript.
· In URL (directory name, filename, or domain name). Do not duplicate the keyword in the URL.
· In an image filename used on the page.
· In ALT tag of that previous image mentioned.
· In the title attribute of that image.
· In link text to another site.
· In an internal link’s text.
· In title attribute of all links targeted in and out of page.
· In the filename of your external CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) or JavaScript file.
· In an inbound link on site (preferably from your home page).
· In an inbound link from offsite (if possible).
· In a link to a site that has a PageRank of 8 or better.

Other search engine optimization things to consider include:

· Use “last modified” headers if you can.
· Validate that HTML. Some feel Google’s parser has become stricter at parsing instead of milder. It will miss an entire page because of a few simple errors – we have tested this in depth.
· Use an HTML template throughout your site. Google can spot the template and parse it off. (Of course, this also means they are pretty good at spotting duplicate content).
· Keep the page as .html or .htm extension. Any dynamic extension is a risk.
· Keep the HTML below 20K. 5-15K is the ideal range.
· Keep the ration of text to HTML very high. Text should out weigh HTML by significant amounts.
· Double check your page in Netscape, Opera, and IE. Use Lynx if you have it.
· Use only raw HREFs for links. Keep JavaScript far, far away from links. The simpler the link code the better.
· The traffic comes when you figure out that 1 referral a day to 10 pages is better than 10 referrals a day to 1 page.
· Don’t assume that keywords in your site’s navigation template will be worth anything at all. Google looks for full sentences and paragraphs. Keywords just laying around orphaned on the page are not worth as much as when used in a sentence.

Optimize your PPC results

2006-06-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

Their are many ways to optimize your results, but the most important (I manage 700+ PPC accounts) is to use the proper filters (like [US only] because a lot of click fraud comes from non-US traffic), and to run your logs through an analyzer to verify the country of origin. Once you have these IP's, contact your rep at the SE and get credit for them.

I consider this to be the most important element because even if you have a great campaign, but if 30% of your traffic is from click fraud IP addresses, your conversion rate is seriously affected, and your overall campign is skewed.

Here is my approach to starting new PPC campaign:

1. Contact the company by phone and get a personal rep. Here are their numbers. (Toll-free when I could find them. Some are actual rep's personal lines, some of these were pretty difficult to get!)

Google 650-330-0100
Overture/Yahoo 503-615-3602 or 866-924-6676
LookSmart 877-512-5665 or 415-348-7842
7Search 773-283-0086
Enhance 800-840-1012
Miva/FindWhat 877-274-2525
Kanoodle 877-526-6635
Search123 818-575-4500
BrainFox 646-223-1255(fax only)
SearchFeed 866.722.9951
411Web sales@411.web.com
Turbo10 (UK): 0044 20 7232 1733
Mirago +44 (0)1420 592323
Mamma 888-844-2372
QuePasa support@quepasacorp.com
Lycos 781-370-2664
Ask/Ask Jeeves 510-985-7400
Bidvertiser 866.319.0373
Go Click 702-784-1787

2. Contact your site host and make sure your log settings are set to capture and store for at least 7 days.

3. Install a log analyzer. Be sure it will seperate the clicks from different countries and their IP addresses. This will give you the proof you will need if you get non-requested and need to prove it.

4. Find out about their filters as it relates to your products country demographics.(many ppc's require you to ASK that it be turned on - i.e.Enhance, LookSmart, Kanoodle). This is important because I market just to US companies only. BrainFox has NO FILTERS, LookSmart has a US filter but it also includes Canada which equates to 16% of their traffic sent to me. Anotherword wasted clicks and money. Check each one out carefully while setting them up, and check out the fine print.

5. Use this keyword tool to get your top 10 keywords

6. Start your campaign. (See step 10 for bonus deposit credits).

7. Use each search engines estimated cost tool if available. This way you can get an estimate on the overall cost of your campaign based on your bids, and if you can afford it or need to adjust the bids.

8. If you have a conversion rate from another marketing campaign for your specific product, get it to use in this task. (For instance, I have an email campaign that gets a 1 out of 250 conversion. Applying this to a PPC budget, I need to assume that 1000 clicks will get me 4 conversions (although this SHOULD be higher because of targeted demographics a ppc provides). So if those click are costing me 10 cents each, each lead will cost $25. Is this what your getting paid or are willing to pay for a lead?) Here is a CPM tool to figure CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) and an ROI (return on investment) tool. You'll want to get friendly with both of these tools. They are the bottom line on your campaigns.

9. On some of the PPC's you can get a 1 cent listing through them such as GoClick, ePilot, 7Search, or 5 cent minimum bids on FindWhat, EnHance, Kanoodle, and Search123. Assemble a list of keywords and keywords phrases that you can buy for a 1 - 5 cent minimum bid. (statistics show the more keywords in your keyword phrase, the more the term will get traffic - 4 word phrases are better than 3, 5 is better than 4, this starts to decreases at 6 total keywords in 1 phrase) This will also give you great information down the road on certain phrases that temporarily jump up in the serps and can generate a good amount of traffic.

10. Set your daily or weekly budget low. Some will call it a "cap"**. This is the stage at which the PPC system will remove your ad from circulation. This is important!

**LookSmart has what it calls a "daily target". Beware of this, it is not a cap. I had a $70 "daily target" and thanks to click fraud, 12 hrs. later it cost me almost $800...or basically until my account was depleted. I fought and got it back but it took quite some time to resolve with my personal rep.

11. Analyze your logs and get credit from your rep on a daily basis. There are many skills to master such as bid monitoring, bid gaps, strategic bidding and keyword cpm/cpc adjustments, but these steps will get you started.

12. Learn to use the monitoring tools the PPC offers up, and if you are doing multiple campaigns across many ppc engines, checkout different ppc management tools such as BidRank or SearchIgnite to help you keep up. Some of these types of companies are signed up for affiliate programs through the vendors and can get you a $5 to $100 deposit match when you open your accounts.

If I had to target 3 of the primary tasks you need to do daily they would be;
1. Analyze your logs
2. Use your PPC Manager
3. More keyword research, keyword research, keyword research!

Click Fraud IP's

2006-06-06T12:47:00.000-07:00

Click Fraud IP's

203.160.1.43		88.111.108.1
203.162.3.152		143.238.46.54
60.50.243.126		82.114.68.28
81.195.6.213		60.49.224.65
217.219.214.180		145.53.173.87
201.219.68.118		81.214.226.232
212.138.47.17		62.135.97.111
195.229.242.54		222.252.234.170
217.218.236.14		195.238.48.13
220.231.102.11		210.195.6.27
222.252.246.61		24.222.221.220
212.138.47.24		58.186.87.233
84.241.0.2		86.131.22.228
203.84.170.194		218.111.68.51
217.219.111.90		218.111.174.5
58.89.168.153		213.166.17.25
212.195.22.250		86.132.50.164
85.103.246.76		88.110.71.249
203.134.219.224		217.218.244.2
80.191.129.198		200.78.7.180
217.219.78.36		213.42.2.23
217.219.33.1		82.119.166.251
85.102.145.74		64.18.184.132
200.23.91.8		60.50.247.171
83.77.114.145		217.66.193.71
203.210.250.49		60.48.181.36
62.60.158.97		201.247.176.242
217.218.201.133		85.115.113.30
80.191.224.198		201.230.107.126
83.131.175.171		82.38.34.226
84.121.19.147		24.42.15.139
85.98.147.217		80.123.227.77
201.255.5.43		213.123.133.136
81.12.66.131		83.67.16.3
61.1.127.108		87.107.4.38
66.36.196.169		194.214.239.248
60.51.78.35		70.52.14.135
58.70.63.81		82.41.64.207
217.219.114.231		217.46.149.137
222.252.248.194		130.226.230.2
83.228.39.18		204.209.56.253
82.114.185.25		58.187.81.253
210.186.211.236		84.70.149.57
200.122.61.181		190.48.7.44
200.28.73.172		200.64.174.61
200.159.58.98		80.129.242.192
201.254.33.58		221.198.183.131
222.253.13.202		84.68.105.132
222.253.14.179		217.218.251.20
217.219.223.7		216.211.3.204
203.162.235.62		65.49.226.61
200.214.130.18		217.218.122.77
58.186.36.139		209.226.130.134
83.46.188.174		61.50.206.22
85.103.82.91		85.8.109.121
201.226.69.106		86.131.221.36
85.140.163.243		80.169.160.228
217.219.40.81		202.147.184.104
200.148.216.74		213.207.133.150
201.232.24.17		80.42.181.248
201.137.199.2		88.107.170.47
64.114.104.47		200.106.2.154
03.135.11.5		212.138.47.21
200.58.66.70		196.206.162.73
201.240.60.153		212.138.47.14
80.191.192.4		80.191.105.103
81.12.7.4		62.6.139.13
219.93.153.249		201.153.203.192
203.158.61.239		205.211.112.2
58.186.64.236		80.189.77.211
205.206.141.139		24.67.203.43
2.137.170.71		86.143.94.175
42.179.15.253		172.215.120.99
70.69.182.133		87.248.129.202
203.210.255.13		82.36.84.239
141.85.0.71		60.229.213.142
60.231.231.160		81.44.82.202
219.95.1.128		64.180.250.200
203.210.242.82		193.150.251.23
213.16.170.77		82.201.244.98
87.107.6.241		24.201.88.53
202.58.86.3		212.32.102.208
85.101.140.245		69.159.218.146
58.187.76.121		80.191.132.98
82.41.128.25		195.93.21.73
161.142.152.198		82.132.104.17
203.210.247.63		82.38.25.66
81.79.123.236		213.207.197.33
60.226.29.168		82.38.27.12
218.111.203.132		70.48.37.16
144.131.102.115		200.121.130.44
203.162.169.67		86.129.21.53
81.129.43.12		200.221.71.95
217.219.28.48		24.43.163.82
217.219.61.164		194.225.108.107
82.99.246.120		88.109.79.114
81.79.189.191		85.155.165.18
194.164.238.100		213.114.167.82
220.231.71.118		203.210.254.213
203.162.219.244		193.92.192.48
60.234.234.204		217.219.42.141
217.24.153.25		82.33.82.99
210.213.186.236		88.109.108.60
86.144.246.58		82.10.32.135
		212.138.64.179

# posted by Gary @ Friday, March 24, 2006

Finally got my google page

http://garythescubadiver.googlepages.com/

# posted by Gary @ Thursday, March 23, 2006

Click Fraud IP Addresses

203.160.1.43		217.219.34.92
203.162.3.152		125.214.49.48
81.215.93.45		222.252.227.92
85.250.8.18		81.34.149.122
82.99.234.208		86.129.212.152
221.27.14.9		200.55.99.38
202.153.241.249		220.231.98.117
85.185.5.123		217.219.1.9
195.229.242.54		200.106.4.30
190.48.172.98		221.232.9.132
203.160.1.170		203.210.247.63
61.6.163.22		84.4.178.251
81.195.8.147		212.138.64.178
213.207.252.45		203.162.170.39
85.108.240.47		148.243.243.172
212.6.32.3		220.173.136.125
85.9.67.2		212.138.64.179
202.63.230.129		81.215.133.230
193.188.105.23		201.43.30.86
203.160.1.138		200.92.108.210
203.162.30.244		58.186.119.88
82.99.195.218		202.159.126.176
82.89.158.39		200.6.216.111
213.207.194.87		58.187.62.178
82.99.247.8		220.231.89.34
217.218.255.4		200.41.231.251
202.163.77.106		2.178.117.118
217.219.146.145		80.191.88.42
193.180.141.65		201.144.200.225
85.104.220.98		163.121.189.2
210.213.234.100		84.85.48.147
193.251.169.175		217.219.54.7
125.234.50.205		62.10.109.31
81.10.1.91		201.128.141.114

# posted by Gary @ Thursday, March 23, 2006

April 3

125.23.27.250 221.210.196.149
125.90.80.195 221.210.252.181
125.93.11.237 221.212.140.54
125.93.221.21 221.212.153.26
131.165.113.217 221.212.89.200
142.176.14.228 221.214.142.230
142.59.81.77 221.214.212.231
156.34.212.19 221.214.230.228
159.171.152.2 221.216.26.188
172.180.118.212 221.217.71.220
172.182.182.245 221.219.10.96
172.188.130.163 221.219.57.161
172.200.161.242 221.8.63.215
172.203.56.45 221.9.45.126
172.216.224.36 221.9.47.229
192.100.104.29 222.126.114.2
192.116.128.90 222.132.238.199
192.116.81.123 222.133.181.26
193.1.57.1 222.133.219.219
193.111.252.6 222.135.108.48
193.140.101.5 222.135.79.226
193.151.48.132 222.140.21.44
193.151.64.193 222.160.219.253
193.188.46.254 222.160.77.106
193.201.115.80 222.168.4.251
193.208.78.2 222.241.220.81
193.251.169.174 222.245.81.189
193.77.157.201 222.252.224.150
193.85.146.135 222.253.13.128
194.210.68.77 222.253.17.57
194.27.49.1 222.90.144.131
194.63.235.164 222.90.214.149
194.69.198.241 222.97.6.14
195.166.237.40 24.150.61.1
195.34.225.105 24.222.133.126
195.78.31.202 24.43.80.196
196.200.10.19 58.140.42.162
196.200.10.19 58.147.63.2
196.205.132.139 58.148.82.4
196.206.202.214 58.17.41.132
196.206.211.200 58.18.109.124
196.206.213.140 58.18.117.0
196.206.223.157 58.18.168.194
196.206.232.47 58.18.181.74
196.206.239.71 58.18.190.196
196.206.83.122 58.18.4.76
196.207.234.118 58.18.57.138
196.207.8.133 58.187.70.120
196.217.212.163 58.187.85.155
196.217.215.31 58.187.85.203
196.217.218.159 58.209.140.84
196.217.227.119 58.49.126.38
196.217.38.148 58.60.138.157
196.217.57.15 58.60.181.99
196.218.128.251 58.60.252.157
196.218.15.1 58.63.113.122
196.218.57.105 58.63.121.173
196.31.127.21 58.69.177.92
196.47.94.134 58.69.33.181
198.54.202.234 58.77.46.34
199.243.168.139 59.160.172.2
200.117.27.5 59.164.41.192
200.124.163.184 59.17.127.202
200.49.101.150 59.177.1.122
200.68.152.139 59.50.232.249
200.83.82.34 59.61.131.216
200.84.164.61 59.95.15.231
200.85.235.17 59.95.7.205
200.87.4.76 60.1.80.17
201.135.125.245 60.10.87.89
201.137.145.49 60.17.139.191
201.137.224.204 60.190.68.38
201.208.189.141 60.208.62.195
201.230.206.26 60.209.151.57
202.110.116.193 60.21.200.173
202.137.7.250 60.210.175.158
202.147.31.193 60.210.48.206
202.153.119.35 60.211.169.206
202.173.8.243 60.212.59.98
202.229.5.209 60.216.169.18
202.63.226.52 60.217.194.254
202.65.150.50 60.22.131.34
202.80.171.20 60.22.49.96
203.101.160.72 60.22.55.187
203.135.21.45 60.222.63.68
203.144.144.164 60.223.68.168
203.147.0.48 60.229.164.46
203.160.1.43 60.25.205.130
203.160.1.43 60.31.105.228
203.160.1.43 60.31.197.101
203.160.1.43 60.31.201.160
203.160.1.43 60.39.211.90
203.160.1.43 60.46.187.121
203.160.1.43 60.48.4.14
203.160.1.43 60.5.74.18
203.160.1.43 60.50.143.32
203.160.1.43 60.8.111.182
203.160.1.43 60.9.222.240
203.162.237.12 61.11.102.195
203.162.3.146 61.11.102.195
203.162.3.146 61.138.123.4
203.162.3.146 61.149.97.45
203.162.3.146 61.167.192.87
203.162.3.146 61.182.199.235
203.162.3.152 61.19.213.102
203.162.3.152 61.2.163.156
203.162.3.152 61.241.158.51
203.162.3.152 61.242.222.152
203.210.249.119 61.48.53.171
206.116.137.218 61.49.165.50
206.116.137.218 61.51.179.134
206.186.8.66 61.51.43.149
209.89.183.129 61.54.213.204
210.183.104.60 61.54.3.42
210.214.18.38 61.55.67.157
210.5.196.22 62.128.163.169
210.5.85.178 62.128.166.13
210.87.141.64 62.135.83.196
211.108.214.55 62.192.130.66
211.201.231.51 62.192.131.82
211.238.73.65 62.248.4.10
211.249.250.144 62.253.128.14
211.75.91.18 62.56.148.91
212.103.66.217 62.68.86.21
212.143.98.120 62.80.224.246
212.159.127.200 65.110.175.156
212.175.112.136 65.92.162.145
212.179.75.246 65.95.224.100
212.186.105.11 66.178.40.41
212.38.118.177 66.198.41.17
212.85.201.22 67.70.95.7
213.186.180.152 67.71.140.182
213.186.211.50 67.71.81.199
213.209.160.24 69.156.172.94
213.221.3.18 69.157.140.83
213.253.86.160 69.158.50.41
213.31.43.203 69.158.6.73
213.42.2.21 69.88.3.250
213.47.172.164 70.31.116.128
213.5.45.53 70.48.80.47
216.139.164.85 70.69.35.187
216.221.81.99 72.136.253.101
216.86.96.10 80.1.224.6
217.10.188.114 80.191.196.132
217.132.111.204 80.191.199.131
217.15.109.36 80.191.238.253
217.218.195.45 80.195.133.215
217.218.241.194 80.255.59.243
217.219.155.130 80.53.13.98
217.219.166.129 80.78.18.114
217.219.255.2 80.84.153.195
217.219.28.82 80.87.80.161
217.219.54.7 80.87.84.90
217.219.7.134 81.10.119.14
217.219.89.70 81.10.35.129
217.250.74.28 81.12.70.34
217.255.223.168 81.132.92.88
217.54.139.54 81.192.12.51
218.10.215.10 81.192.13.234
218.10.66.43 81.192.140.21
218.11.71.115 81.192.17.31
218.111.20.147 81.192.178.232
218.12.149.174 81.192.187.27
218.12.149.242 81.192.199.133
218.12.150.122 81.192.23.28
218.12.178.3 81.192.247.88
218.22.52.202 81.192.34.95
218.24.147.176 81.192.35.68
218.24.147.49 81.192.46.8
218.24.150.8 81.192.65.162
218.25.52.170 81.192.92.228
218.26.162.172 81.199.241.90
218.26.179.194 81.199.84.106
218.26.190.108 81.213.161.239
218.27.101.26 81.213.167.90
218.27.99.201 81.215.106.15
218.28.105.158 81.215.145.71
218.4.201.238 81.215.226.148
218.56.150.86 81.22.77.29
218.56.237.112 81.22.90.42
218.59.161.178 81.52.161.72
218.61.114.72 81.52.161.74
218.62.121.181 81.52.161.79
218.62.29.154 81.52.163.6
218.68.47.135 82.101.151.35
218.69.27.106 82.114.184.204
218.69.6.154 82.128.1.202
218.8.179.56 82.128.5.10
218.9.63.229 82.131.163.66
219.154.125.38 82.145.229.199
219.154.195.4 82.201.132.254
219.154.94.40 82.201.209.8
219.156.138.93 82.201.234.16
219.249.138.120 82.201.235.249
219.73.88.195 82.201.241.96
219.78.178.193 82.206.234.115
220.175.84.117 82.208.200.11
220.192.92.125 82.31.158.225
220.194.196.98 82.31.158.225
220.196.200.99 82.63.133.82
220.201.17.26 82.66.214.180
220.202.37.130 82.68.19.62
220.207.124.168 83.141.72.14
220.226.6.224 83.20.25.73
220.226.6.237 83.229.48.131
220.231.102.169 83.78.70.109
220.236.79.216 83.8.138.211
220.238.132.103 84.11.94.10
221.0.11.49 84.178.23.183
221.1.11.189 84.203.146.180
221.13.132.30 84.228.185.97
221.146.113.21 84.36.14.174
221.159.164.78 84.54.139.91
221.192.232.18 84.56.220.204
221.193.233.94 85.100.67.18
221.194.106.110 85.101.148.14
221.194.134.44 85.103.152.42
221.194.192.10 85.103.19.22
221.195.0.191 85.103.190.110
221.195.101.202 85.105.156.71
221.195.192.253 85.13.64.1
221.195.6.83 85.185.102.67
221.196.210.115 85.29.228.151
221.197.218.196 85.96.138.178
221.197.237.40 85.98.211.176
221.199.166.233 85.99.177.99
221.2.183.192 85.99.73.20
221.203.125.252 86.125.89.84
221.203.76.85 86.126.10.120
221.205.215.176 86.134.127.84
221.205.52.119 86.141.212.243
221.205.60.97 86.193.55.230
221.207.144.232 86.35.136.129
221.207.148.66 86.35.136.129
87.202.128.240 86.51.0.135
87.250.160.30 87.107.10.82
87.80.29.123 87.197.142.32
88.224.110.248 88.241.8.101

Sri Lanka and Argentina
203.94.87.240
190.48.37.2
190.48.59.105
190.48.54.251
62.21.65.242
220.209.23.134
201.138.227.223
190.48.36.105
190.48.49.133
201.21.94.18
221.168.133.129
83.59.202.124
83.43.24.205

125.23.27.250 221.210.196.149
125.90.80.195 221.210.252.181
125.93.11.237 221.212.140.54
125.93.221.21 221.212.153.26
131.165.113.217 221.212.89.200
142.176.14.228 221.214.142.230
142.59.81.77 221.214.212.231
156.34.212.19 221.214.230.228
159.171.152.2 221.216.26.188
172.180.118.212 221.217.71.220
172.182.182.245 221.219.10.96
172.188.130.163 221.219.57.161
172.200.161.242 221.8.63.215
172.203.56.45 221.9.45.126
172.216.224.36 221.9.47.229
192.100.104.29 222.126.114.2
192.116.128.90 222.132.238.199
192.116.81.123 222.133.181.26
193.1.57.1 222.133.219.219
193.111.252.6 222.135.108.48
193.140.101.5 222.135.79.226
193.151.48.132 222.140.21.44
193.151.64.193 222.160.219.253
193.188.46.254 222.160.77.106
193.201.115.80 222.168.4.251
193.208.78.2 222.241.220.81
193.251.169.174 222.245.81.189
193.77.157.201 222.252.224.150
193.85.146.135 222.253.13.128
194.210.68.77 222.253.17.57
194.27.49.1 222.90.144.131
194.63.235.164 222.90.214.149
194.69.198.241 222.97.6.14
195.166.237.40 24.150.61.1
195.34.225.105 24.222.133.126
195.78.31.202 24.43.80.196
196.200.10.19 58.140.42.162
196.200.10.19 58.147.63.2
196.205.132.139 58.148.82.4
196.206.202.214 58.17.41.132
196.206.211.200 58.18.109.124
196.206.213.140 58.18.117.0
196.206.223.157 58.18.168.194
196.206.232.47 58.18.181.74
196.206.239.71 58.18.190.196
196.206.83.122 58.18.4.76
196.207.234.118 58.18.57.138
196.207.8.133 58.187.70.120
196.217.212.163 58.187.85.155
196.217.215.31 58.187.85.203
196.217.218.159 58.209.140.84
196.217.227.119 58.49.126.38
196.217.38.148 58.60.138.157
196.217.57.15 58.60.181.99
196.218.128.251 58.60.252.157
196.218.15.1 58.63.113.122
196.218.57.105 58.63.121.173
196.31.127.21 58.69.177.92
196.47.94.134 58.69.33.181
198.54.202.234 58.77.46.34
199.243.168.139 59.160.172.2
200.117.27.5 59.164.41.192
200.124.163.184 59.17.127.202
200.49.101.150 59.177.1.122
200.68.152.139 59.50.232.249
200.83.82.34 59.61.131.216
200.84.164.61 59.95.15.231
200.85.235.17 59.95.7.205
200.87.4.76 60.1.80.17
201.135.125.245 60.10.87.89
201.137.145.49 60.17.139.191
201.137.224.204 60.190.68.38
201.208.189.141 60.208.62.195
201.230.206.26 60.209.151.57
202.110.116.193 60.21.200.173
202.137.7.250 60.210.175.158
202.147.31.193 60.210.48.206
202.153.119.35 60.211.169.206
202.173.8.243 60.212.59.98
202.229.5.209 60.216.169.18
202.63.226.52 60.217.194.254
202.65.150.50 60.22.131.34
202.80.171.20 60.22.49.96
203.101.160.72 60.22.55.187
203.135.21.45 60.222.63.68
203.144.144.164 60.223.68.168
203.147.0.48 60.229.164.46
203.160.1.43 60.25.205.130
203.160.1.43 60.31.105.228
203.160.1.43 60.31.197.101
203.160.1.43 60.31.201.160
203.160.1.43 60.39.211.90
203.160.1.43 60.46.187.121
203.160.1.43 60.48.4.14
203.160.1.43 60.5.74.18
203.160.1.43 60.50.143.32
203.160.1.43 60.8.111.182
203.160.1.43 60.9.222.240
203.162.237.12 61.11.102.195
203.162.3.146 61.11.102.195
203.162.3.146 61.138.123.4
203.162.3.146 61.149.97.45
203.162.3.146 61.167.192.87
203.162.3.146 61.182.199.235
203.162.3.152 61.19.213.102
203.162.3.152 61.2.163.156
203.162.3.152 61.241.158.51
203.162.3.152 61.242.222.152
203.210.249.119 61.48.53.171
206.116.137.218 61.49.165.50
206.116.137.218 61.51.179.134
206.186.8.66 61.51.43.149
209.89.183.129 61.54.213.204
210.183.104.60 61.54.3.42
210.214.18.38 61.55.67.157
210.5.196.22 62.128.163.169
210.5.85.178 62.128.166.13
210.87.141.64 62.135.83.196
211.108.214.55 62.192.130.66
211.201.231.51 62.192.131.82
211.238.73.65 62.248.4.10
211.249.250.144 62.253.128.14
211.75.91.18 62.56.148.91
212.103.66.217 62.68.86.21
212.143.98.120 62.80.224.246
212.159.127.200 65.110.175.156
212.175.112.136 65.92.162.145
212.179.75.246 65.95.224.100
212.186.105.11 66.178.40.41
212.38.118.177 66.198.41.17
212.85.201.22 67.70.95.7
213.186.180.152 67.71.140.182
213.186.211.50 67.71.81.199
213.209.160.24 69.156.172.94
213.221.3.18 69.157.140.83
213.253.86.160 69.158.50.41
213.31.43.203 69.158.6.73
213.42.2.21 69.88.3.250
213.47.172.164 70.31.116.128
213.5.45.53 70.48.80.47
216.139.164.85 70.69.35.187
216.221.81.99 72.136.253.101
216.86.96.10 80.1.224.6
217.10.188.114 80.191.196.132
217.132.111.204 80.191.199.131
217.15.109.36 80.191.238.253
217.218.195.45 80.195.133.215
217.218.241.194 80.255.59.243
217.219.155.130 80.53.13.98
217.219.166.129 80.78.18.114
217.219.255.2 80.84.153.195
217.219.28.82 80.87.80.161
217.219.54.7 80.87.84.90
217.219.7.134 81.10.119.14
217.219.89.70 81.10.35.129
217.250.74.28 81.12.70.34
217.255.223.168 81.132.92.88
217.54.139.54 81.192.12.51
218.10.215.10 81.192.13.234
218.10.66.43 81.192.140.21
218.11.71.115 81.192.17.31
218.111.20.147 81.192.178.232
218.12.149.174 81.192.187.27
218.12.149.242 81.192.199.133
218.12.150.122 81.192.23.28
218.12.178.3 81.192.247.88
218.22.52.202 81.192.34.95
218.24.147.176 81.192.35.68
218.24.147.49 81.192.46.8
218.24.150.8 81.192.65.162
218.25.52.170 81.192.92.228
218.26.162.172 81.199.241.90
218.26.179.194 81.199.84.106
218.26.190.108 81.213.161.239
218.27.101.26 81.213.167.90
218.27.99.201 81.215.106.15
218.28.105.158 81.215.145.71
218.4.201.238 81.215.226.148
218.56.150.86 81.22.77.29
218.56.237.112 81.22.90.42
218.59.161.178 81.52.161.72
218.61.114.72 81.52.161.74
218.62.121.181 81.52.161.79
218.62.29.154 81.52.163.6
218.68.47.135 82.101.151.35
218.69.27.106 82.114.184.204
218.69.6.154 82.128.1.202
218.8.179.56 82.128.5.10
218.9.63.229 82.131.163.66
219.154.125.38 82.145.229.199
219.154.195.4 82.201.132.254
219.154.94.40 82.201.209.8
219.156.138.93 82.201.234.16
219.249.138.120 82.201.235.249
219.73.88.195 82.201.241.96
219.78.178.193 82.206.234.115
220.175.84.117 82.208.200.11
220.192.92.125 82.31.158.225
220.194.196.98 82.31.158.225
220.196.200.99 82.63.133.82
220.201.17.26 82.66.214.180
220.202.37.130 82.68.19.62
220.207.124.168 83.141.72.14
220.226.6.224 83.20.25.73
220.226.6.237 83.229.48.131
220.231.102.169 83.78.70.109
220.236.79.216 83.8.138.211
220.238.132.103 84.11.94.10
221.0.11.49 84.178.23.183
221.1.11.189 84.203.146.180
221.13.132.30 84.228.185.97
221.146.113.21 84.36.14.174
221.159.164.78 84.54.139.91
221.192.232.18 84.56.220.204
221.193.233.94 85.100.67.18
221.194.106.110 85.101.148.14
221.194.134.44 85.103.152.42
221.194.192.10 85.103.19.22
221.195.0.191 85.103.190.110
221.195.101.202 85.105.156.71
221.195.192.253 85.13.64.1
221.195.6.83 85.185.102.67
221.196.210.115 85.29.228.151
221.197.218.196 85.96.138.178
221.197.237.40 85.98.211.176
221.199.166.233 85.99.177.99
221.2.183.192 85.99.73.20
221.203.125.252 86.125.89.84
221.203.76.85 86.126.10.120
221.205.215.176 86.134.127.84
221.205.52.119 86.141.212.243
221.205.60.97 86.193.55.230
221.207.144.232 86.35.136.129
221.207.148.66 86.35.136.129
87.202.128.240 86.51.0.135
87.250.160.30 87.107.10.82
87.80.29.123 87.197.142.32
88.224.110.248 88.241.8.101

Beginners Guide to PPC Campaign

2006-06-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

A Beginners Guide to Creating a top PPC Campaign

Their are many ways to optimize your results, but the most important (I manage 700+ PPC accounts) is to use the proper filters (like [US only] because a lot of click fraud comes from non-US traffic), and to run your logs through an analyzer to verify the country of origin. Once you have these IP's, contact your rep at the SE and get credit for them.

I consider this to be the most important element because even if you have a great campaign, but if 30% of your traffic is from click fraud IP addresses, your conversion rate is seriously affected, and your overall campign is skewed.

Here is my approach to starting new PPC campaign:

1. Contact the company by phone and get a personal rep. Here are their numbers. (Toll-free when I could find them. Some are actual rep's personal lines, some of these were pretty difficult to get!)

Google 650-330-0100
Overture/Yahoo 503-615-3602 or 866-924-6676
LookSmart 877-512-5665 or 415-348-7842
7Search 773-283-0086
Enhance 800-840-1012
Miva/FindWhat 877-274-2525
Kanoodle 877-526-6635
Search123 818-575-4500
BrainFox 646-223-1255(fax only)
SearchFeed 866.722.9951
411Web sales@411.web.com
Turbo10 (UK): 0044 20 7232 1733
Mirago +44 (0)1420 592323
Mamma 888-844-2372
QuePasa support@quepasacorp.com
Lycos 781-370-2664
Ask/Ask Jeeves 510-985-7400
Bidvertiser 866.319.0373
Go Click 702-784-1787

2. Contact your site host and make sure your log settings are set to capture and store for at least 7 days.

3. Install a log analyzer. Be sure it will seperate the clicks from different countries and their IP addresses. This will give you the proof you will need if you get non-requested and need to prove it.

4. Find out about their filters as it relates to your products country demographics.(many ppc's require you to ASK that it be turned on - i.e.Enhance, LookSmart, Kanoodle). This is important because I market just to US companies only. BrainFox has NO FILTERS, LookSmart has a US filter but it also includes Canada which equates to 16% of their traffic sent to me. Anotherword wasted clicks and money. Check each one out carefully while setting them up, and check out the fine print.

5. Use this keyword tool to get your top 10 keywords

6. Start your campaign. (See step 10 for bonus deposit credits).

7. Use each search engines estimated cost tool if available. This way you can get an estimate on the overall cost of your campaign based on your bids, and if you can afford it or need to adjust the bids.

8. If you have a conversion rate from another marketing campaign for your specific product, get it to use in this task. (For instance, I have an email campaign that gets a 1 out of 250 conversion. Applying this to a PPC budget, I need to assume that 1000 clicks will get me 4 conversions (although this SHOULD be higher because of targeted demographics a ppc provides). So if those click are costing me 10 cents each, each lead will cost $25. Is this what your getting paid or are willing to pay for a lead?) Here is a CPM tool to figure CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) and an ROI (return on investment) tool. You'll want to get friendly with both of these tools. They are the bottom line on your campaigns.

9. On some of the PPC's you can get a 1 cent listing through them such as GoClick, ePilot, 7Search, or 5 cent minimum bids on FindWhat, EnHance, Kanoodle, and Search123. Assemble a list of keywords and keywords phrases that you can buy for a 1 - 5 cent minimum bid. (statistics show the more keywords in your keyword phrase, the more the term will get traffic - 4 word phrases are better than 3, 5 is better than 4, this starts to decreases at 6 total keywords in 1 phrase) This will also give you great information down the road on certain phrases that temporarily jump up in the serps and can generate a good amount of traffic.

10. Set your daily or weekly budget low. Some will call it a "cap"**. This is the stage at which the PPC system will remove your ad from circulation. This is important!

**LookSmart has what it calls a "daily target". Beware of this, it is not a cap. I had a $70 "daily target" and thanks to click fraud, 12 hrs. later it cost me almost $800...or basically until my account was depleted. I fought and got it back but it took quite some time to resolve with my personal rep.

11. Analyze your logs and get credit from your rep on a daily basis. There are many skills to master such as bid monitoring, bid gaps, strategic bidding and keyword cpm/cpc adjustments, but these steps will get you started.

12. Learn to use the monitoring tools the PPC offers up, and if you are doing multiple campaigns across many ppc engines, checkout different ppc management tools such as BidRank or SearchIgnite to help you keep up. Some of these types of companies are signed up for affiliate programs through the vendors and can get you a $5 to $100 deposit match when you open your accounts.

If I had to target 3 of the primary tasks you need to do daily they would be;
1. Analyze your logs
2. Use your PPC Manager
3. More keyword research, keyword research, keyword research!

Google Information

2006-06-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

Google Information

Google Basics: Links to Google provided information.

General Google Links
Google Site Map
Google TOS
Google Privacy Policy
Google Help Central

Technology Google Links
Google Technology Overview
PageRank Explained
Search Features

ToolBar, SPAM, PR

Google Toolbar
Internet Explorer add-on that directly accesses Googles search functions, translation functions and shows the user a graphical approximation of a pages rank (PageRank: Googles determined value of you webpage as determined by Google.)

Google Webmaster Information

Webmasters Guide Index
http://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html' rel='nofollow' target='new'>Google Facts & Fiction
FAQs

Add/Remove sites/content

Add Url
Add your root url here, Google will find your other pages by crawling (following) your links.

Remove Content
Does Google have certain pages that you DIDN'T want indexed? This tells you how to remove it.

SPAM Report :: Spam Report Generic link to Google's spam form.
Any unethical technique used by an seo to gain better search engine ranking should be reported via the Spam Report link as requested by Google. Be sure the spam is clear cut and not just a site that you would like to see removed.

You can also report from any SERP - at the bottom of the first page there is a link "Dissatisfied with your results? Help us improve" When you click that link (the 'help us improve part') you will be taken to a custom spam report that tells Google what search you did to find the spam. If you do use the generic form please be sure to state what your search was, the offending url(s) and any other information. Keep it simple and factual, short and to the point.

Common Forum Questions & Answers:

1) Q: What is the 'Google Dance'

A: The 'Google Dance' is what the monthly update is commonly called. It refers to the update process that is visible in the index. The update takes about a week to complete and during that time you will see the listings vary wildly from new data to old while positions will jump up and down (and sometimes completely out) in a SERP as well.

2) Q: When does Google update?

A: Google has a standard monthly update which generally occurs at the end of every month. The data for this update is gathered during the preceding weeks. Google has been known to delay updates (or process them sooner than expected) when the mood strikes. Chances are delays are due to new algorithms being implemented and tested.

3) Q: What is "Everflux, Freshbot, Freshcrawl"

A: Everflux is when the SERPs appear to change (sites move up and down) while the update is NOT in effect. This is brought about by the Freshbot (or Freshcrawl) and is Googles way of ensuring that their data is the 'freshest' on the web. When the phenomena first occurred it was identifiable by the word 'Fresh!' and a date appearing on the last line of your listing between the URL and the 'Cached' link. The addition of 'Fresh!' the word was misleading to the public at large as it appeared to be a comment on the quality of the data not the recency of the crawl (which was what it was) so the word was quickly removed but the date remains. When you see this date attached to your listing you know that it is the product of a 'Fresh crawl' or 'Everflux'. What does this do for you? This enables Google to present the most recent version of your site in their listings and can cause your listing to move up or down in the SERPs. This is not a permanent change of your information within their database and if your site is not re-crawled by the 'freshbot' any changes associated with this crawl will fall out in approximately 48hrs. If your site is new to Google and is crawled by the 'freshbot' Note: there is no official bot called 'freshbot' it is a term used in forums to describe the googlebot that affects these specific changes within SERPs so don't email them for information regarding the 'freshbot' as they will respond that it doesn't exist! (because it doesn't)

4) Q: When will Google spider my site and how can I tell?
Q: What is googlebot?

A: Googlebot (Google's spider) finds sites by following links from other sites. The more links to your site they find the the chance of Googlebot finding you. They also follow links from their addurl form, but prefer to find links to you instead. You can check to see if/when Googlebot has visited by reviewing your site's logs located on your server. When Googlebot visits you will see a reference to 'The little robot that google.com sends out to spider website content GoogleBot' or 'crawler12.googlebot.com' or something similar. They announce who they are. For more on locating and viewing your server logs you need to speak to your hosting company. Many common website statistics (site stats) programs will gather this information and present an easy to read report for you.

5) Q: What is PageRank?

A: PageRank is Google's method of ranking web pages. Google basically counts the number of incoming links to your web PAGE and (considers various other factors) to determine the importance of your web page and where it should rank. Keep in mind that this is only one factor in ranking.

6) Q: Will Google index my (asp, php, html, xml, etc) site?

A: Probably. Here is a list of what Google indexes as of 9/12/02 (from Google.com):
http://www.google.com/corporate/facts.html
http://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html

HyperText Markup Language (html, pdf, asp, jsp, hdml, shtml, xml, cfml)
Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf)
Adobe PostScript (ps)
Lotus 1-2-3 (wk1, wk2, wk3, wk4, wk5, wki, wks, wku)
Lotus WordPro (lwp)
MacWrite (mw)
Microsoft Excel (xls)
Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt)
Microsoft Word (doc)
Microsoft Works (wks, wps, wdb)
Microsoft Write (wri)
Rich Text Format (rtf)
Text (ans, txt)
Images
Usenet messages

7) Q: I reported spam I found in Google, why is it still there?

A: Google does not remove spam just because it was reported. They review the report as soon as they can to determine if it really is spam (imagine, what would you do if it was that easy and your competitor got you removed). If it is particularly bad they may manually remove the offensive site or page but they do try and avoid this when ever possible. If it is not then the site or page will most likely become test material for new filter tweaks. Google always prefer to adjust their filters and algorithms to catch spam.

8) [Common listing description questions]
- Can I change my description?
- What is my description?
- That's not the description I wanted!

A: The description Google provides with your listing is comprised of what they call Snippets. Snippets are created by taking the searched term and pulling that, along with the surrounding text, from your text data on your page. This Snippet is variable and changes with the search term.

If your site/url has an ODP/DMOZ listing then Google will list the ODP description below the Snippet, indicated by the word 'Description:' preceding it. The only way to alter this is by getting your ODP description altered.

9) What are internal links, external links, backlinks?

A: Internal links are links to your own site from withing your own site. External links are links to your site from someone else's site. Backlinks describes the links that Google shows as counting towards your site. Via the Google ToolBar there is a button that states "Backward Links" which when clicked is supposed to show you sites linking to the page your browser is currently viewing. Note that this button does not show all links indexed or credited to your site. Common belief is that it only shows links with a PR4 or above and that it also only shows 1/2 of the links credited to your site/page.

10) What do links have to do with Google?

A: Links, internal and external, help Googlebot find the pages within your site so that it can index them. Links also count, to various degrees depending on the link, towards your PageRank.

11) What is proxy.google.com ?

A: Google offers wireless services for several devices and go so far as to convert your html site for viewers using wireless appliances (such as cell phones and pda's). Google Wireless, wireless user guide.

Pay Per Click and PPC Management

# posted by Gary @ Wednesday, May 03, 2006

My Affiliate Network

Google Tools

How people underestimate the search marketing industry

2006-05-26T07:18:00.000-07:00

Gord Hotchkiss has a wonderfully inciteful article over at MediaPost Publications today. It's probably one of the best that I've read in terms of insight into how people underestimate the search marketing industry.

A few quotes:
Perhaps the problem is that most users' touch point with search seems so simple. I type in words, I see words come back--and not a lot of them, either. Most messages are 15 to 20 words at most. How hard can it be? It's this prevailing attitude that has made search the bastard child of the online ad space. We get no respect. From the outside, it seems like anyone with an IQ topping 60 could market this way. So agencies launch search divisions. Large companies find people that seem to have no pressing items on their to-do lists and make them the new director of search marketing. Everyone throws their hat in the ever increasing search marketing ring.
Search is advancing on all fronts at once...You've got new ways of using search, for broadband, on mobile devices and for finding local advertisers. And on top of that, we're just starting to understand how, when and why consumers use search. I remember once in high school chemistry a classmate spilled a bunch of mercury on a workbench top. A hundred little globs of quicksilver scattered everywhere, proving impossible to round up and contain. That's what search is like, multiplied by a factor of 100.

It's a good read, especially for a small business that's thinking about taking their search marketing on internally. While it's totally doable, it's important to have realistic expecations about exactly what quality search engine marketing entails. It's not simply something that can be delegated to the person with the most free time, it's a complex marketing challenge that should be given to someone that has a grasp of how these things work

Advanced Pay-Per-Click Strategies

2005-11-30T23:11:00.000-08:00

Pay-per-Click has grown substantially more competitive and expensive over the past 24 months. Whereas competitive bids once commanded $0.35-$0.60, they now range from $1.00-$5.00 per click. These rises are due in part to the recognition by companies big and small of the ROI on this form of exceptionally targeted advertising. No other paid method of inclusion provides such a well chosen audience, and measuring conversion & traffic down to the exact point of profit requires only a few steps. In order to compete in this market, search advertisers must use intelligent strategies to beat their competition. Attracting eyeballs and clicks to your ads while armed with the best tracking technology has to offer are the keys to using PPC successfully.

Writing Great PPC Ads

There is no 'secret' to writing great PPC ads. It is often trial and error that creates the best ad. However, common sense and a deep understanding of your customer base can help to start off on the right foot. Before writing your PPC ads, you should be able to cogently answer each of the following:

What are the demographics of your target market - geography, income, gender, age, etc.?

The demographics will tell you what messages your audience will be receptive to - i.e. don't use the same writing style for urban males age 20-30 that you would for rural women aged 40+.
Are your buyers new to your product, or are you selling familiar goods/services?

If your products are unfamiliar, you will have to do a little explaining in your ad - tell them what problem your product fixes or why they need it. If your products are well known and are being directly searched for, use more nuance and sizzle to generate click-throughs.
Is your company well established? Do you have a reputation?

Depending on the degree of branding you want to achieve and your current standing, it may benefit you to reinforce why consumers should buy from your firm, or simply push the product - i.e. Amazon doesn't need to say anything about themselves; consumers already know who they are.
Are you selling on price, quality or intangible values?

When selling on price, it's critical to mention free shipping if you have it, or sell the idea that your prices are the lowest. When using other qualities, don't forget to use words that appeal to the consumer who is willing to pay more - luxury, quality, guarantee, etc.

The best PPC ads also use something that catches the eyes of consumers - interesting or unexpected lead ins, text that requires a second glance, etc. The key to writing this type of text is to be creative - try new words, titles and phrases that are surprising and unique. The click-through rates will quickly tell you if your ads are working.

Using Tools & Tracking

Overture, Adwords & several of the minor PPC engines offer a high degree of accountability through their vast arrays of tracking tools. Setting up the tools properly and knowing what to track and how it should impact the decisions you make is critical to running the most successful PPC campaign possible. The following are critical measurements you should know in order to make the most of your PPC dollars.

Click-Through Rate

Overture & AdWords both track this automatically - what it tells you is what percentage of people who were exposed to your ad clicked through to your site. This statistic can be misleading, however, because it does account for people who may visited the page your ad was on, but not seen it because it was "below the fold" - meaning below the area initially visible on the screen without scrolling. The PPC companies are not yet able to calculate how many actually saw your ad - so skepticism, particularly when your ad is not in the first 3-6 positions is wise.

Conversion Rate

Conversion Rate measures how many visitors to your site made a purchase. The advanced tracking systems from Google and Overture enable you to add very specific conversion data to your website that gets reported back in the PPC Tool admin center. However, adding your own tracking system that measures all keyword phrases and referral traffic can be even better as you can use the ideas and terms to optimize your PPC use.

Google AdWords

Google's Adwords service serves two types of ads - search match and content match. Search match ads are listed on top and right-hand side of a search engine results page. Content match ads are provided on third-party (read - not Google) websites that serve the ads either vertically or horizontally on the page. According to Google, content match is determined by the words/phrases, etc. that appear on the page, however, many inconsistencies have been reported. If you decide to use content match from AdWords, make doubly sure that your ROI and conversion rates perform adequately.

An additional piece of information about Google's AdWords program of interest is how to get a site up to the top of the search rankings, rather than simply on the right-hand side of the search results pages. According to a Google AdWords rep at SearchEngineWatch Forums , the top position is achieved by getting a particularly high click-through rate, rather than paying a particularly dominating price per click. Manual approval by an AdWords worker is also required, although they will look at your ad (supposedly) if you are doing particularly well.

Overture

It's important to remember the power Overture has - although Google has a lion's share of the search market, Overture provides results to both Yahoo! & MSN as well as many other smaller sites - like AltaVista & AlltheWeb. Google provides results @ AskJeeves & AOL too - giving Overture only a slightly lower number of total eyeballs each day. But, Overture's click-through rates, conversion rates & satisfaction rates have always been superior to Google's - this could be due to the intrusiveness of the ads, the difficulty in distinguishing them from unpaid results, or the better, more usable system has built for its advertisers - being able to write individual ads for keywords, bidding by the keyword, etc. In any case, a PPC campaign may be better off starting with Overture and adding Google, rather than the other way around.

Additional PPC Information

It's important for webmasters and PPC buyers think of the service in very different terms than normal (organic) search engine optimization. Pay-per-click must provide a direct return on investment and the ROI is the most important factor to measure. If you're spending $1000 per day on PPC, your profits (not sales, but profits - after ALL expenses) must be greater than $1000 to make any return at all. If your production, shipping or other per piece costs are high, it's even more important to have a good grasp on the numbers to see if PPC is paying off for your business.

On the other hand, it's also important not to discount a minimal ROI from PPC - by spending more money, you may be able to make slim margins, but compensate through quantity. PPC is a great tool for advertisers and web-based businesses, but using it properly is extremely important.

For more information on who provides what results, see Bruce Clay's sublime relationship chart .

Advanced Link Building Tactics

2005-11-30T23:08:00.000-08:00

Link building requires dedication and consistent effort. It is the most difficult, time-consuming and important task an SEO performs to get a website ranked well. Certain strategies are well known to SEOs, while others are in the realm of the experts or forward-thinkers who puzzle them out. I have attempted to list here many of the link building tactics used by the SEO community.

Directories

Although it may seem an obvious and tired way to build links, directory use is still valuable and valid. I have compiled an exhaustive list of directories including PR, pages that have been spidered, and submission requirements for directories - see List of SEO Directories. When submitting to directories, make sure to vary anchor text and try to use your keywords in the description and title fields as naturally as possible. A good SEO should be able to obtain between 75-150 unique backlinks just from directories.
Top Competition

This tactic can help you generate the most visitors to your site. Search Yahoo, Google, MSN and the other search engines for each of your important keyword phrases and make a point of attempting to get a link from each page. Oftentimes a direct phone call to site owners or a very tactful email can go a long way. I've even used handwritten letters to attempt to cajole site owners into giving me a link. Use whatever resources you have help persuade - links from other sites you own, money (if you have it), free SEO services, contributions of articles or content, etc.

When I use this technique, I'll typically make a spreadsheet listing all of the sites I have a shot at getting a link from (i.e. excluding direct, obvious competitors). I then get as much contact information as I can about each one and run down the list. This can be very time-consuming, but also exceptionally worthwhile. Even if your site doesn't get ranked much higher, each link from a site that ranks in the top 20 will bring direct, targeted traffic.
Link Searches

This old technique has been honed to a science by many SEOs, but there is always room to improve. The goal is to use Google/Yahoo to search for pages that let you add a link (reciprocal, paid, etc.) that already have your keyword or some closely related content on them. Often these searches turn up smalltime site operators with reciprocal link directories managed by 3rd party software. Don't overlook these, and make sure you submit. But the real prize is pages that give free links or offer paid links to sites they feel are important - many of the highest PR links can be obtained through this method, especially if you conduct the search at SEOChat's PR Search Tool.

The following searches are worthy of being tried, but feel free to experiment:
1. intitle:add+url "keyword phrase"
2. intitle:submit+site "keyword phrase"
3. intitle:submit+url "keyword phrase"
4. intitle:add+site "keyword phrase"
5. intitle:add+your+site "keyword phrase"
6. intitle:directory "keyword phrase"
7. intitle:list "keyword phrase"
8. intitle:sites "keyword phrase"
All of the above searches can be used without the intitle to give even more results. As with other link building processes, these are tedious and time-consuming, but it is critical to stay focused on finding quality, relevant links. When using this method, make sure you note to which other sites the page is linking and what text content is listed. If it fits well with your content, don't worry if the page is PR0.
Usurping Competitors' Links

Although this may sound unseemly, it is one of the most effective ways to build links, and is commonly practiced. The goal is to find as many domains and pages as possible that link to your competitors' sites and get those sites to link to you as well. This is often easier than it sounds, because the site is already linking out to people in your industry. Money, services, links or simple requests are all used to get the job done.

The most effective ways to find your competitors' links are listed below:
1. At Yahoo! type linkdomain:url.com -site:url.com
2. At MSN's techpreview type link:url.com -site:url.com
3. At Yahoo! type link:http://www.url.com
4. At Google type "url.com" -site:url.com
These are typically the most reliable way to find the sites and pages that link to your competitors and, incidentally, those sites which link to you. Remember to be as courteous, direct and friendly as possible. Don't forget how effective non-electronic methods of communication can be - phone, letters, etc.
Article Writing & Submission

Writing unique, valuable content about your subject matter for your own site is the most critical piece of on-site SEO. But it can also be a fantastic way to generate quality links from other sites. Many existing websites are designed around hosting the content of others and providing links back to them. I have listed some of the biggest 3rd-party article hosting sites below.

General Articles - These cover a wide range of subjects and will accept submission on many topics:
- Idea Marketers - http://www.ideamarketers.com/writers.cfm
- Buzzle.com - http://www.buzzle.com/secure/become-editor.asp
- EBooksnBytes - http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/articles/submit.shtml
- Article Central - http://thewhir.com/find/articlecentral/suggest.asp
- Go Articles - http://www.goarticles.com/ulogin.html
- EzineArticles - http://ezinearticles.com/submit/
- AMAzines - http://amazines.com/
- Article City - http://www.articlecity.com/article_submission.shtml
- BPubs.com - http://www.bpubs.com/cgi/add.cgi
- Business Know-How - businessknowhow.com/newsletter/articleguidelines.htm
- WWIO - http://www.certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
- About.com - http://sbinformation.about.com/library/blsubmission.htm (note, this is just of many places on the site where you can submit articles - choose the subject that best matches your site)
- NetterWeb.com - http://www.netterweb.com/articles/
- Simply Search 4it - http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/addart.php
- Vector Central Marketing - http://www.vectorcentral.com/articles-form.html
- Learning Folder - http://www.learningfolder.com/SubmitArticle.aspx
- Knowledge Bed - http://www.knowledgebed.com/submission.html
- Article Insider - http://www.articleinsider.com/start.php
- Articles that Sell - http://www.articlesthatsell.com/submityourarticle.htm
- Smart Ads - http://www.smartads.info/articles/
- Writing Career - http://www.writingcareer.com/freearticles-submit.html
These are just some of the thousands of sites that offer the ability to spread your content around the web. Additional sites on your specific topics can be found using the search engines. Especially prevalent are sites offering content in website marketing & technology - there are hundreds of sites that deal in content on these issues.
Forums & Online Communities

Generating links through forums is often considered spam, but forums are valuable tools for link builders as long as the proper methods are employed. The forum signature of a member is certainly a fair place to promote your site, and while doing so may not provide a worthy backlink in the search engines' eyes, it does offer visitors on the forum a chance to see your site.

The primary goal of joining a forum should be to contribute and learn from the community, but promotion certainly isn't out of place, as long as it remains on-topic. In SEO forums, people constantly plug their new directories, tools, articles, etc. These are all appropriate as long as they are subtle, relevant and not overdone.

When a specific page, tool or link would provide a great resource or answer to a question in a community, don't hesitate to provide it. Much of the information used to write this article and the SEO Survey tool was provided in forums through links. Just remember to carefully read the terms of use for the forums you post in - many are harsh if they feel someone is there to spam or advertise.
Blogging & Comments

Blogging is a very effective way to get natural inbound links, and by having a personal blog at your site, you can more easily make commentary at other sites that link back to you. DO NOT spam blog comments with advertisements; your goal is to create an online reputation you can be proud of. Blog owners and visitors will not take kindly to blog spam. The key to effective blogging for links is to make sure you comment relevantly & intelligently about the specific subject in the blog. A well thought-out response to a relevant blog or article can bring not only search engines, but more importantly other readers of the blog to your site through the link. If your content proves interesting, you could build much more than just a single link through your comments.

Another important thing to remember is that your link in blog comments may not count at all in the search engines. Many blogs prevent access to these comments or don't provide direct, spiderable links for blog visitors. This, combined with the fact that these comments are buried at least 2-3 links deep from the main page means that you should keep your focus on the visitors you might generate, rather than the search engine optimization you might get.

However, you should still be as SE friendly as possible. If the subject matter deals directly with your keyword phrases, you're in fine shape, but if they are on related subjects, it can't hurt to use your keyword phrase(s) once or twice in a longer comment/entry. You should also try to make your 'name' - which is typically the anchor text for your link contain at least one of your kw phrases, but remember to keep it varied and never let it overtake the importance of getting visitors, i.e. if your site is about Orange County T-Shirts, having a 'name' of OC-Tshirt-Man can't hurt you, but Orange-County-T-Shirts is probably not as wise.
Renting Pages from Authority Sites

This tactic is not often mentioned, but can be extremely valuable. The premise is to rent, for a monthly fee, a page hosted on a larger or more authoritative site in your industry. You then add content & links on the page to your own site(s) with the anchor text you choose and in the format you select. These are almost like 'advertorials' in magazines, where you provide content that the site links to (hopefully not more than 2 links from the homepage) and then link back to your own site.

The fundamental difference between this tactic and simple article hosting is that you approach a site or company that doesn't normally host other people's content about having your information. Although rejection is often likely, the benefits can be phenomenal, as the page itself may rank well for your search terms very quickly.
Purchasing Online Advertising

Link building through advertising is exceptionally expensive, but it can bring in good returns if properly managed. Make sure as you buy links that you get the click-through rate from the seller for the past 6 months. You should get a lot of other statistics to review as well - make sure to avoid advertising in places where the seller doesn't have good information on click-through rates, visitors, etc. You'll also have to work around re-direct scripts, links sent through ad networks (like DoubleClick), etc. As long as you are up front and friendly, you'll be able to have some success in this arena as long as you have the funding.
Text Link Brokers

Although initial thoughts about link brokers can give a bad impression, this new industry can actually have a positive value on your link building efforts. I recommend against purchasing sitewide links unless your only goal is to build PR (i.e. directories or SEO related sites, etc.). Sitewide links have come to be associated with "manipulation" of the SERPs by search engines and should be largely avoided. However, purchasing text links on specific, related sites surrounded by the content of your choice can be beneficial, if difficult to find.

The key to a successful text link is that all the components of natural SEO are there:
- Is the page closely related to your site's topic?
- Is the link placed in a strategic position - i.e. not in an obvious advertising space or footer?
- Is the site related to the topic of your site and the topic of the page?
- Is the site spidered frequently by the search engines and do the pages have visible PR?
If the link meets these criteria, it could be very worthwhile. However, be careful to avoid paying high prices for a particular page or site, simply because of its PR. It is more likely that multiple low PR (3,4 & 5) pages are worth more to you than a single PR7 or 8.

Several lists of text links sellers are available online:
Text Link Brokers - Discussion and some links at SearchEngineWatch Forums
Be wary and always do some search research and asking at the major SEO forums prior to buying from text link brokers. The industry is, sadly, rife with scammers & companies that don't deliver as promised.
Unique Tools & Services

By offering specific, relevant free Internet tools/services at your site, you can generate naturally built links. My recommendation is to find a tool or service that isn't currently offered or that you believe you can improve upon. For some industries, this will be much harder than others, but creativity is your best tool. Imagine what automated web service, list of resources or submission-type tool would best benefit you and then build it and offer it on your site.

Some excellent examples are listed below (these come straight from my imagination):
- For a site about animals, a tool that visually diagrams the phylum/genus/species relationships
- For a site about travel, a tool that creates a pre-planned itinerary based on a selection of interests
- For a site about real estate, a tool that estimates property value or gives a % chance of selling for a based on time, region & price.
The possibilities are endless, and there is little doubt that the web can automate and make easier hundreds of tasks in any industry. The key, after you have built your tool, is to promote it with industry leaders - send it to bloggers who discuss your subject matter, ask people to use and evaluate it on forums, etc. You can even try to promote it by writing an article about your findings, development or the simple existence of the tool and submitting it across the newswires.
Automated Link Building Programs

Many SEOs feel that automated link building is a surefire way to get banned/penalized by the search engines. If you are caught practicing this tactic, I would certainly agree. However, for those willing to take risks, the rewards can be substantial. Well-built and well hidden link networks often bring higher rankings in a short amount of time. The key is to select a provider who will offer the following:
1. A vastly distributed network that is not interlinked and doesn't share any C-Block IP addresses
2. Linking pages that contain some relevant content that has been well-linked through a sitemap system
3. Pages that are as close to naturally-designed and built as possible
4. A company that can speak at an expert level about SEO and the tactics they use to avoid detection - call them and talk to them first; their knowledge and competence should be instantly apparent.
5. Someone you trust and have researched thoroughly - I DO NOT recommend posting on forums about these companies, as you could damage your chances for success. Just ask for recommendations from trusted members of the SEO community.
6. Pages that link not only to your site(s) but to other relevant, related sites as well - even if they are your composition. That way, if you get penalized, at least your competition is suffering as well.
This is one of the riskiest strategies that can be pursued in link building and I recommend it only with extreme caution. You are breaking the search engine's printed rules by "intentionally manipulating the search results" and you should have a contingency plan in the event of disaster.
Donations & Charity

Many high PR websites are run by charity organizations, open-source technology groups & the like. Contributions of time, money or resources in exchange for links are commonplace and very worthwhile. For this type of link building, relevancy is still important, but you may not be able to find any link partners in this segment if you focus solely on topic-sensitive sites & pages. It may be very worthwhile to donate regardless and see if the links from PR7 & 8 pages can help to boost your importance.

In order to find sites like these, I use the PR Search tool at SEOChat to search for terms/phrases like donate, contribute, give, etc. Appending your broadest search terms to these types of words can help you find the sites most likely to pass you a good link. Remember that even if non-profits, charities, etc. don't have a link program in place, they may be more than happy to provide a special link for you if you request it when contributing. If nothing else, these links and the time/money you spend getting them are a great way to sleep better at night.
Press Releases

Press releases written by an SEO firm can contain a carefully worded title, well placed keywords and a link to the site that is the subject of the article. SEOs have been using press release services for some time, and as with many other things, the more you spend, the better distribution is. Press releases can also rank well on their own, particularly in the first few days/weeks of release as they receive the 'fresh content' boost in the SERPs. A particularly interesting or well-written press release may even garner the attention of some larger players in the new market, and if your article is picked up by one or several good sources, it can serve as a great boon to traffic and exposure.

Success relies on the careful crafting of the article itself - providing excellent, factual information in a way that is interesting to read and relevant to the industry. Hiring a journalism student for $100-$200 an article or a more experienced professional for more may well be worth the money. In any case, the press release needs to be sent through a distribution site. The following are popular in the SEO industry because they offer links, serve to a large variety of sites and provide enough flexibility to let an SEO perform well.
The top two sites listed are the largest, with the greatest distribution networks, but each site offers its own unique benefits and some are less expensive than others. It is worthwhile, especially if you have the money and are in a competitive arena, to opt for the maximum spend at PRWeb - somewhere around $250 per article. The distribution that is achieved will determine the value of the links and the article. It's also important to keep in mind that duplicate content penalties may hurt you - DO NOT re-publish the press release on your own site.
Natural Link Building

Although undoubtedly a difficult and time consuming method, as well as one of the more unreliable ones, natural link building is what powers most of the top sites on the Internet. This method involves developing the most useful, relevant content that provides the best resources, tools, services, prices, etc. in the industry. By offering the web community the best possible site, you can gain natural links through the power of having others on the web link to you.

Sadly, this tactic is somewhat usurped by the search engines, as newer sites often fair exceptionally poorly in the search results, especially for popular terms. In order to build natural links, people must be exposed to your site. At one time natural link building was the very best method to get traffic and links, but in the current state of search and traffic, it is more of a boost that you use to help convert some of the webmasters & bloggers who might visit your site into link builders.

Building valuable content is no easy task, and building an industry-leading resource is even more challenging. However, the long-term benefits can be spectacular, assuming you have the money and time to maintain your resource without proportional income. Remember to ask yourself what someone who comes to your site might want and try to provide the absolute best service/information in your industry in the cleanest, most usable site possible.

Guide to Applying 301 Redirects in Apache

2005-11-30T23:04:00.000-08:00

seomoz.org was hosted under www.socengine.com/seo/ rather than as its own domain. We were moving seomoz.org to its own dedicated server and wanted it to be accessed as its own domain rather than as a subdirectory of socengine.com. We needed visitors accessing anything in www.socengine.com/seo/ to be redirected to www.seomoz.org. The redirection had to accommodate several file and folder name changes and had to be done with 301 redirects in order to be search engine friendly and to ensure compatibility across all web browsers. We also needed to forward http://seomoz.org to http://www.seomoz.org for aesthetic purposes and also to avoid a 301 sabotage.

Solution:

The simplest approach would have been to add 301 redirects to the PHP code that powers SEOmoz.org using PHP’s header function. Utilizing the power of the apache module mod_rewrite, however, we could match specific patterns for entire folders and redirect them to their new URLs without having to go through every PHP script. Also, several of our pages were static HTML and it was not practical to use javascript or META tags for redirection.

Installation:

If your web server does not have mod_rewrite installed, I suggest reading over the apache documentation for installing modules. It will usually require you to recompile apache with the option –enable-module=rewrite or --enable-module=most.

If your hosting services does not support mod_rewrite, I would urge your systems administrator to have it installed. Most apache installations will have mod_rewrite installed by default. Our server is running FreeBSD and mod_rewrite was included by default when installing from the ports collection. Once it is installed, you can verify it is working by adding this line to your apache configuration file or your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On

Context

The mod_rewrite module operates in per-server context or in per-directory context.

The per-server context requires you to edit the apache configuration file, httpd.conf , while the per-directory context uses .htaccess files that exist in each folder you want to configure. If you do not have access to httpd.conf, you will have to use .htaccess files.

Regular Expressions (aka Regexes)

From wikipedia.org:

A regular expression is a string that describes or matches a set of strings, according to certain syntax rules. Regular expressions are used by many text editors and utilities to search and manipulate bodies of text based on certain patterns.

We will be using regular expressions to match patterns in the client URL and redirect them accordingly. Regular expressions are an invaluable skill to learn if as both a programmer and a systems administrator. To redirect URLs according to the examples in this document, you will only have to understand the basics of using regexes. This is a list of the characters and operators you will use in the regexes described in this document:

. Period - matches anything.
* Asterick – matches zero or more of the preceding character
+ Plus sign – matches one or more of the preceding character
( ) Parenthesis - enclosing a value in parenthesis will store what was matched in a variable to be used later. This is also referred to as a back-reference.
(value1|value2) - Enclosing two or more values in parenthesis and separating them with a pipe character is the equivalent of saying: “matching value1 OR value2.”

Redirecting specific files and folders from one domain to another.

We needed redirection from the old server to the new one with the filenames preserved.

Example

Redirect: http://www.socengine.com/seo/somefile.php
To: http://www.seomoz.org/somefile.php

Solution

Add the following directive:
RedirectMatch 301 /seo/(.*) http://www.seomoz.org/$1

Explanation:

The regular expression /seo/(.*) tells apache to match the seo folder followed by zero or more of any character. Surrounding the .* in parenthesis tells apache to save the matched string as a back-reference. This back-reference is placed at the end of the url we are directing to, in our case, $1.

Redirecting without preserving the filename

Several files that existed on the old server were no long present on the new server. Instead of preserving the file names in the redirection (which would result in a 404 not found error on the new server), the old files just needed to be redirected to the root URL of the new domain.

Redirect: http://www.socengine.com/seo/someoldfile.php
To: http://www.seomoz.org/

Solution:

Add the following directive:
RedirectMatch 301 /seo/someoldfile.php http://www.seomoz.org

Explanation:

Omitting any parenthesis, all requests for /seo/someoldfile.php should redirect to the root URL of http://www.seomoz.org

Redirecting the GET string

Some of our PHP scripts had different names but the GET string stayed the same. We needed to redirect the visitors to the new PHP scripts while preserving these GET strings. The GET string is the set of characters that come after a filename in the URL and are used to pass data to a web page. An example of a GET string in the URL http://www.seomoz.org/myfile.php?this=that&foo=bar would be “?this=that&foo=bar.”

Redirect: http://www.socengine.com/seo/categorydetail.php?CAT_ID=12345
To: http://www.seomoz.org/artcat.php?CAT_ID=12345

Solution:

Add the following directive:
RedirectMatch 301 /seo/categorydetail.php(.*) http://www.seomoz.org/artcat.php$1

Explanation:

Once again the regular expression (.*) tells apache to match zero or more of any character and save it as the back-reference $1. Since we put $1 after /seo/categorydetail.php, it will now redirect the get string to this new php file.

Redirecting while changing file extensions

We had a folder of files on the old server that were mixed HTML and PHP. On the new server these were all PHP and we needed the old HTML files to change to this new extension.

Redirect: http://www.socengine.com/seo/guide/anyfile.html
To: http://www.seomoz.org/articles/anyfile.php

Redirect: http://www.socengine.com/seo/guide/anyfile2.php
To: http://www.seomoz.org/articles/anyfile2.php

Solution:

Add the following directive:
RedirectMatch 301 /seo/guide/(.*)\.(php|html) http://www.seomoz.org/articles/$1.php

Explanation:

(*.) matches zero or more of any character and saves it as the back-reference $1. \.(php|html) tells apache to match a period followed by either “php” or “html” and saves it as the back-reference $2 (although we won’t be using it in this example). Notice we had to escape the period with a backslash. This is to ensure apache does not interpret the period as meaning “any character” but rather as an actual period. Enclosing “php” and “html” in parenthesis and separating them with a pipe “|” character means to match either one of the values. So if it were to say (php|html|css|js|jpg|gif) the regex would match any of the files with the extensions php, html, css, js, jpg, or gif.

Also, if for some reasons we needed to preserve the name of the extension we matched, it would be stored as the back-reference $2. Back-references are incremented in accordance with how many sets of parenthesis are in the regular expression.

Redirecting canonical hostnames

We needed to redirect any requests that do not start with www.seomoz.org to make sure they include the www. We did this not only because it looks better, but to avoid the now common 301 sabotage.

Redirect: http://seomoz.org/
To: http://www.seomoz.org/

Redirect: http://mail.seomoz.org/
To: http://www.seomoz.org

Redirect: http://seomoz.org/somefile.php
To: http://www.seomoz.org/somefile.php

Solution:

Add the following directive:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.seomoz\.org
RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.seomoz.org/$1 [R=301,L]

Explanation:

This directive tells apache to examine the host the visitor is accessing (in this case: seomoz.org), and if it does not equal www.seomoz.org redirect them to www.seomoz.org. The exclamation point (!) in front of www.seomoz.org negates the comparison, saying “if the host IS NOT www.seomoz.org, then perform RewriteRule.” In our case RewriteRule redirects them to www.seomoz.org while preserving the exact file they were accessing in a back-reference.

Conclusion:

By harnessing the power of mod_rewrite and a little regular expression magic we can develop a set of simple rules for redirecting web pages. By using 301 redirects we are maintaining browser compatibility and are staying search engine friendly. If you are interested in learning more I recommend reading a few of the many regular expressions tutorials found on the internet. O’Reilly also has a great book, “Mastering regular expressions” that I highly recommend. I read the book in its entirety many years ago and what I learned from it has proved to be invaluable. I would also read up on mod_rewrite in the URL rewriting guide and the mod_rewrite reference documentation found at the Apache Software Foundation website.

2005 Analysis of Google's Sandbox

2005-11-30T22:54:00.000-08:00

Google's infamously and arguably mis-titled"Sandbox Effect" has been an observed phenomenon since early 2004. Although many continue to argue and debate the causes and effects of this unusual algorithmic element, there is virtually no debate on its existence. At one time, the best explanation of the sandbox was:

"The penalty or devaluation in the Google SERPs of sites with SEO efforts begun after March of 2004."

However, with time, observation and refinement, a new, more detailed and accurate definition can be made:

"The observed phenomenon of a site whose rankings in the Google SERPs are vastly, negatively disparate from its rank in other search engines (including Yahoo!, MSN & Teoma) and in Google's own allin: results for the same queries."

This penalization system is known to be unpredictable and particularly difficult to analyze or understand due to the ways in which it behaves. This article attempts to sum up the experience of many SEOs and websites in the field that have fallen under the effect of the sandbox. I have had the particular privilege of analyzing many dozens of sites affected by the filter thanks (primarily) to e-mail contacts with users ranking particularly high on the sandbox detection tool here at SEOmoz. Although I cannot reveal most of these sources by URL or name, the observed effects should be familiar to many in the SEO business who have started optimization of new websites since March of 2004.

List of Observed "Sandbox" Phenomenon

The Sandbox Effect has been noted to affect many unique aspects of rankings in the SERPs. This list is a collection of the most commonly mentioned and obvious factors weighing into the observations.

The Sandbox is known to affect...

...entire top-level domains, rather than simply web pages, directories or sub-domains.
...a higher percentage of newly registered (post-2003) websites than those registered prior to that year. There are, however, several examples that show exceptions to this rule.
...most commonly, those websites which have had search optimization tactics performed on them, specifically on-page optimization of text, titles, meta data, etc. and external link building efforts. There are exceptions to this rule as well, most often from sites which have received a high number of external links over a short period of time.
...websites primarily in the English language. While reports exist of sandbox-like factors affecting some other languages, it is noticeably absent particularly from Italian & Dutch language websites targeting searches at Google.it and Google.nl.
...rankings for all levels of difficulty. Despite rumors that the sandbox only targets highly competitive keyword phrases, the most heavily "boxed" sites I've reviewed could not rank successfully for even the most non-competitive terms. Several sites even had unique terms found on virtually no other sites prior to the existence of the domain, and yet were outranked by pages at other sites mentioning or linking to them.
...rankings only at the Google search engine. Sites that are most heavily penalized will often be ranking in the top 3 results at the other major search engines (Yahoo!, MSN, AskJeeves), yet will be ranked in the 100's or worse at Google.
...rankings only in standard SERPs. A search using alllinanchor:, allintext:, allintitle:, or allinurl: will return the site in its 'normal' position. This effect is also perceived when using the "-asdf trick" where the search phrase is proceeded by 16-20 negative modifiers such as -asdf. See an example here.
...low quality, affiliate, spam and sites carrying AdSense more often than those without these features. This could very well be the intended result of the system, and would therefore be only natural. However, these sites certainly are not universally affected, nor are they alone in being affected - the most prominent examples of sandboxed sites are often purely "white-hat", natural, organic sites.
...commercial and private sector sites only. There has never been a reported case of a .gov, .mil, .edu or other official use TLD affected by the sandbox.
...rankings for anywhere from 1 month to more than 1 year. Examples have been shown to me of sites that seem to 'never' escape the sandbox, though these sites are often of the "low quality" variety described above.

The sandbox has also been observed to typically release sites into "normal" rankings en masse, which is to say that there have been virtually no examples of a single site "escaping" by itself. It appears that certain updates in Google's search engine release many sites all at once. Speculation about this centers around Google wishing to avoid the appearance of manually reviewing sites one by one, although other reasons have been proposed as well.

Technological Explanations for the Sandbox

Several theories have evolved over time to explain how Google flags websites to be put into the sandbox, and why the effect is not universal. The following are either extremely popular, or have stood up to most evidence and appear to be logical explanations:

Over-Optimization Flagging

Many suspect that Google initially identifies websites to be "sandboxed" by analyzing commonly optimized components like the backlinks structure, on-page stuffing of keyword terms or phrases, and rate at which inbound links come to the site. There can be little doubt that through careful analysis, Google has an excellent idea of what natural text and link structures and a very good idea of what these look like for spam sites and can thus distinguish between the two. Many unique criteria have been mentioned in regards to what can trigger these situations:

Rate of Inbound Links

As mentioned in the recent Google patent, the rate at which new links to a website or page are found can be measured and compared against historical data to determine whether the page/site has become particularly relevant or whether this is an effort to spam. The key to using this data would be comparing how a popular page that is picked up by the blogosphere or news websites differs from a page that simply has purchased or created thousands of links in order to manipulate the search engines. There are examples that appear to have fallen afoul of this portion of the sandbox filter despite using purely natural techniques.
Over-Optimized Anchor Text

Similar to the rate of inbound links above, Google also has a very good idea of what constitutes natural anchor text across the structure of many dozens, hundreds or thousands of links. When these structures appear over-optimized, which is to say particularly focused on specific commercial phrases or terms, it is suspected that this can trigger "sandboxing".
On-Page Over Optimization

Keyword Stuffing or over-targeting of particular terms on the page or across the site has been named as a possible culprit for being sandboxed. This particular rationale is often used to explain why so many 'SEOd' sites get filtered, while many non-optimized sites do not (although there are plenty of exceptions on both sides).

Commercial Keyword Targeting

There have been suggestions, although these have largely lacked solid evidence, that by targeting specific, commercial search terms, your website may be more likely to fall afoul of the filter. There have been many, many examples of sites that have been filtered despite targeting non-commercial phrases and largely non-competitive terms that my personal opinion is that the sandbox does not discriminate based on the targeted terms/phrases.

Natural Text Analysis

Many patents and white papers have been written by the major search engines on the subject of analyzing and differentiating naturally, human written text from computer-aided or generated text, commonly used by spam websites. This has motivated many to believe that Google is conducting this analysis with an eye towards "sandboxing" non-natural text. Luckily, for those SEOs who write their own content, this should be a relatively easy problem to work around, as false positives when conducting automated text analysis are highly unlikely. Sadly, experience has shown that many sites whose text is entirely human-written, never duplicated and of generally high quality still experience the sandbox phenomenon. My personal opinion on this issue is that text analysis of any kind is not to blame for the sandbox, though low quality text could pre-dispose a site to penalties or make it more difficult to "escape" the sandbox.

Manual Review

Thanks to Henk Van Ess' Search Bistro and his exposé therein of Eval.Google, the theory that Google manually reviews new websites that gain any significant number of links, are sent a certain quantity of visitors, or trigger some other set of parameters are flagged for manual review has skyrocketed. This belief may not be unfounded, however, as a Google representative at SES NYC, Craig Manning, pointed out that Google will indeed review sites like ChristpoherReeve.org or Tsunami.Blogspot.com to check if the large number of links and high rankings they have achieved are indeed warranted. Craig noted that this was a way to keep low quality sites from ranking well via link-bombing techniques.

Many in the industry, however, reject the manual review idea behind the sandbox as being too convenient and not efficient enough for Google. They point to Google's overarching theme of their technology as being completely fair and automated, which would certainly preclude human judgments from affecting the search landscape as completely as the sandbox phenomenon does.

Manual review is certainly an explanation that fits all the facts, it accounts for both inconsistencies in the application of the sandbox, the widely varying escape times, and even the proclivity of sites exhibiting common SEO traits (optimized pages, links, etc.) to be more susceptible to penalization.

Major Myths, Red Herrings & Exceptions

For every rule, there is an exception and with Google's sandbox, where few hard rules exist, this is even more true. However, it's important to point out certain exemptions and factors that are outside the normal understanding of the phenomenon. A short list follows:

Escaping the Sandbox in only a few weeks - I have never directly observed this phenomenon, but it has been reported to me once, and appeared in the forums another time. For the site I have knowledge of, I can say that it was of very high quality in terms of design, content and usability. I have no way of knowing whether these factors influenced its quick "escape".
Extensions - It had been reported that .org websites were less vulnerable to sandboxing than .com, .net or other domains (.info, .tv, etc.). However, based on my experience, and the direct experience of SEOmoz.org, I can say with near certainty that this is not an accurate representation of reality. The only domains never observed to be affected are .mil (military), .gov (government) and .edu (educational).
"Trusted Links" to Escape - Rumors have abounded that specific links from places like DMOZ, .gov or .edu websites, or even major news sites like CNN, Reuters or the AP can "release" a site from the sandbox. While these types of links can correlate with a high quality site (occasionally an indicator that the sandbox stint will be shorter), they do not dictate an immediate release. I've personally seen several sites obtain links like these and remain in the "box" for several months afterwards.
Have an "in" at Google - Myths have been circulating the SEO forums that suggest having a relationship with "someone" at Google can get you un-sandboxed. I believe this to be largely false, with the singular exception of a colleague who showed his website to Matt Cutts specifically after a session in NYC and had it promptly un-"boxed" about 2 weeks after the show. Whether this is a direct result of the conversation or simple coincidence, I cannot be sure. I do admit to eavesdropping while waiting in line to speak with Matt (I couldn't help it!). My guess is that Google wrongly penalized the site and rectified the mistake. I'm guessing the $1500 ticket to attend an SES conference was a bargain for the site owner.

Possible Solutions & Suggestions

Although many suggestions have emerged as to how to prevent entry of a new site into Google's sandbox, very few have panned out. Several, such as the recommendation to use a subdomain of an existing TLD have met with mixed success, while others including the "don't get links" advice are self-defeating. The best advice pieces I've seen, mixed with those new sites that have dodged the sandbox are listed below:

Target "Topical Phenomena" & a Non-Commercial Audience - If you know that you're building a great website that's going to earn a lot of links, the #1 piece of advice I can give is to target your site towards non-profit/educational at first. I'd also highly recommend targeting something newsworthy and interesting to a massive audience. For example, if you're creating a site on real estate in Boston, start with a news/blog site that tracks trends and information about the real estate market, rather than pushing a single service. Offer a tool like Google Maps integrated with the MLS or Craigslist real estate listings or another great piece of information that would be likely to earn lots of natural incoming links.

The idea behind this strategy is to legitimize the link gain you'll experience at the beginning of the site and, with some luck, avoid the sandbox by being a "topical phenomenon". This strategy is difficult and takes not only hard work and dedication, but out-of-the-box thinking. However, if you're shooting for high traffic and high links quickly, this is the best way to dodge the sandbox.
Build Natural Links & Avoid Getting Blogrolled - One of the most common elements suspected for sandboxing completely"natural" sites is their addition to blogrolls. These links are sitewides on URLs that frequently have many thousands of pages in Google's index and it appears on the surface that they can cause the link problems that lead to sandboxing. The best way to avoid this is to watch your logs for referring URLs and request to be removed from any blogrolls that are sent to you. With some luck, the sympathetic blogger will understand and remove you. It seems ridiculous to have to go to these extents to avoid sandboxing, but in the commercial reality of the web, it may, in fact, help you in both the short and long run. Naturally, if you aren't running a blog on your site, it's much easier to "stay off the rolls", but you also miss inclusion in great blog directories and traffic sources that can earn you high quality links (i.e. Technorati, Blogwise, etc).
Get Noticed in the News - Although this is exceptionally difficult, being picked up by major news services and syndicated to online news portals and newspapers is a great way to avoid the sandbox. It seems that the legitimacy of these link sources can actually help to actively prevent sandboxing. This effect has been noted to me on 2 occasions, and fits with the "topical phenomena" theory.
Build Exceptional Quality Sites - This tip seems highly suspicious, but it also fits the facts. The sites that have been "escaping" Google's filter are often those that are outstanding sources of information for their target group, offer top-notch usability and information architecture, and employ the highest level of professional design. If your site looks like a Fortune 500 website, you're on the right track. It could be simple coincidence that these types of sites have not been "boxed", or it could be the manual review system in play. In either case, this method of site building isn't just good for the sandbox, it also will build links quickly, achieve consumer trust and be a more profitable venture overall. There's simply no reason not to attempt this.
Don't Rely on Google's Traffic - If you know that your site will likely be sandboxed, you can always opt to dodge Google entirely and instead shoot for traffic from other sources. The best way to do this is to target highly or moderately competitive terms at Yahoo!, MSN & Ask that get thousands of searches each day at those engines. Although your link building and site building will require great strength to compete, it's much faster and easier to target these engines with a good site, than to go after Google. You can also look for alternative traffic sources like ads on the top SERPs at Google for the terms, traffic from alternative search sources like Wikipedia, Technorati or topical communities (blogs & forums). If you opt for this methodology, get creative, but don't get sloppy. You still want to build smart and naturally - after all, the Google sandbox is finite in length, and eventually, you will want to "escape".

Predictions for the Future and Conclusions

The Google Sandbox's continued existence and impact on the SERPs is difficult for those outside of Google to see. There are those who would argue that Google has gotten both more and less spammy in its SERPs, and equivalent folks on both sides of the increased/decreased relevancy debate. What has emerged from the last 18 months of study, observation and testing is that the Sandbox is almost certainly designed to help reduce the amount of spam and manipulation of links to boost rankings in Google's search engine.

As such, it would appear that the best way to avoid the penalty is to avoid techniques common to spam and manipulation. Sadly, since Google is erring on the side of less spam, many legitimate websites are being wiped out of the SERPs for long periods. It's important both to avoid over-diagnosis of the Sandbox and to be aware of the filter's qualities to make identification easier. Although many in the search community advise "sitting back and waiting", I personally do not approve of this approach. While it is important not to obsess over Google's rankings during a sandbox period, it's also important to experiment, grow and push your site and brand. "Sitting back and waiting" is never good advice in the web promotion space.

The future likely holds more of the same from Google and the sandbox. Despite webmasters' frustration, my opinion is that Google's engineers and quality raters are pleased with the success of the filter and are not planning to remove it in the near future. For the long term, however, I predict that much more sophisticated spam filters and link analysis techniques will emerge to replace the sandbox. The current sloppiness of the filter means that many websites that Google would like to have in their results are being caught improperly, and filtration is on a constant evolution at the search engines.

Several people have also predicted that Yahoo! or MSN may take up similar techniques to help stop spam. This phenomenon could seriously undermine new SEO/Ms and new campaigns, but it is a possibility. My recommendation is not to discount this possibility and launch projects or at least holding sites and their promotional efforts ASAP. The web environment right now is still relatively friendly to new sites, but will certainly become more competitive and unforgiving with time, no matter what saerch engine filters exist.

Additional Resources & Tools:

Courtesy of SEOMoz

Google's Patent: Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data

2005-11-30T21:27:00.000-08:00

This report has been prepared to help SEOs understand the concepts and practical applications contained in Google's US Patent Application #20050071741 - Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data . My own advice and interpretation is offered throughout this paper - please conduct your own research before acting on the recommendations.

Overview of the 5 Most Critical Concepts from this Paper

These 5 concepts are what I believe to be the most ground-breaking and important for search engine optimization professionals to understand in order to best conduct their work.

1. Google's Concept of "Document Inception"

The date of "document inception", which can refer to either a website as a whole or a single page is used in many different areas by Google. This data can come from the registration info, the date Google first found a link to the site/page or the site/page itself. Google will be using this data to rank documents and establish credibility and relevance.

2. How Changing Content can Affect Rankings

Changing content over time has a huge impact in Google's measures according to this patent. They use changes to determine "freshness" or "staleness" of websites and pages and how that data impacts the value of the links on the page as well its rankings. They'll also measure large, "real", content changes vs. superfluous changes and rank based on that data.

Google also says that for some types of queries, particular results are more valuable - stale results may be desirable for information that doesn't need updating, fresh content is good for results that require it, seasonal results may pop up or down in the rankings based on the time of month/year, etc.

3. Spam Detection & Punishment

Google is employing many new systems of spam detection and prevention according to the patent. These include:

Watching for sites that rise in the rankings too quickly
Watching for registration information, IP addresses, name servers, hosts, etc that are on their "bad list"
Growth of off-topic links
Speed of link gain
Percentage of similar anchor text
Topic/Subject shifts or additions

4. What Google is Attempting to Measure

Google wants to measure or is attempting to actively measure each of the following:

Domain information
- Registration date
- Length of renewal (10 years, 5 years, 1 year, etc)
- Addresses and Names of admin & technical contacts
- DNS Records
- Address of Name Servers
- Hosting Location & Company
- Stability of this data
Information on User Behavior Online
- CTR (Click-Through Rate) of individual results in the SERPs
- Length of time spent on a given site/page
Data contained on your computer
- Favorites/Bookmarks List
- Cache & Temp Files
- Frequency of visits to particular sites/pages (history)

5. The Impact of this Patent

I believe that this patent will help to verify most of the theories surrounding Google's rankings. There has been speculation over the past 18-24 months on nearly every subject covered in this patent at the major SEO forums, but this will serve as verification.

Although it is long, I urge every SEO/Webmaster to read this page completely. I have attempted to make the information legible and readable, and only pulled out parts that are important to the active practice of SEO (which was almost 2/3 of the document, surprisingly). If you have any questions or corrections on this summary, please send me an email.

Analysis & Interpretation of the 63 Patent Components

History Data

1. Documents may be scored in Google's rankings based on "one or more types of history data".

Inception Date

2. The "inception date" read - registration date - may be considered as a scoring factor (I assume that older will be considered better, but this is not spelled out).

3. Google may determine how old each of the pages on a given website is and then determine the average age of pages on the website as a whole. The difference between a specific page's age and the average age of all documents on the site will be used in the ranking score.

4. The score for a website may include the amount of time since "document inception" - i.e. how old the website is.

5. One methodology of discovering site age might include when Google first "discovered" - read spiders the site, when Google first finds a link to the site, and when the site contains a "predetermined number of pages". I interpret this to mean that Google has some kind of threshold for site size (number of pages) that when reached, triggers a scoring effect (probably positive).

Frequency of Document Changes over Time

6. Google's scoring will (according to the patent) be based on "determining a frequency at which the content changes over time".

7. The "frequency at which the content changes" will be determined by the average time between changes, the number of changes over a particular time period, and the rate of change of one time period vs. the rate of change for another time period. So, if you are updating your website every day, then switch to updating once a week, your scoring in the historical measurements at Google will shift.

8. Scoring will also include how much of the site has changed over a given time period (new pages, changes, etc.).

9. The scoring based on changes (described in #8) will be determined by the number of new pages within a time period, the ratio of new pages vs. old pages and the total "percentage of the content of the document that has changed during a timed period."

10. The scoring of changes (from #8) will be based on the "perceived importance of the portions" that have been changed. The score will also take into account the changes as compared to the weighting(s) of each of the different pages of the site - i.e. if important pages change, it will have a different impact than if unimportant pages changed. My guess is that importance is mostly determined by links (both internal and external) that point to a given page. So if your contact page changes, it's not a big deal, but if your home page changes, that's a bigger deal.

11. The scoring for a "plurality of documents" - many pages in a given website - includes determining the last date of change for each page, determining the average date of change, and scoring the documents based on, "at least in part", the difference between a specific page's change and the average document's change. So, if one page had new information added, it would be scored differently than the other pages, while if all the pages changed together (maybe a new date, or new link or copyright in the footer, etc.), they would all be equal (since their date of change compared to the average is the same).

Amount of Changes over Time

12. Google's score may also include a measure of the amount of content which changes over time on the given website.

13. The "amount of content changes" from #11 will be determined by the ratio of new pages vs. the total number of pages on the site, and the percentage of content change over a given time period.

14. The "changes over a given time" from #12 will be scored based on "weighting different portions of the content differently based on a perceived importance" - once again, I read this as internal and external links to a page - the more links, the more "perceived importance".

Click-Through Rate Data

15. The "history data" from #1 could include information on "how often the document is selected when the document is included in a set of search results". This is literally tracking clickthroughs and rewarding those sites with higher CTR - just like AdSense does. Google will be scoring based on the "extent to which the document is selected over time... when included in a set of search results". We always assumed this to be true, but this is the first hard evidence I've seen directly from the horse's mouth.

16. Google may assign a "higher score" when the document is selected more often. No-brainer.

Document Association to Search Terms

17. Google might be scoring based on "determining whether a document (that has been showing up in the search results) is associated with the search terms".

Queries that Remain the Same but have New Meanings over Time

18. Google (according to the patent) calculates whether the "information relating to queries" remains the same or changes and scores documents based on this. For example, prior to September 11, the phrase 9-11 would not be related with terrorism, afterwards, it would be. Google will score documents based on the changes in the results for a given query to keep up with the times.

Staleness of Documents

19. The "staleness of documents" might be calculated as part of Google's scoring.

20. Google may also determine whether "stale documents" are preferable for certain types of queries (those that don't change over time, or for which a specific, single answer is what's necessary).

21. The "favorability" of stale documents may be determined by how often they are clicked on in the search results (over other documents). I relate this to a Wikipedia article on the nature of volcanoes - it doesn't need too much updating and will be a good relevant source for a long time for the query - "nature of volcanoes".

Link Behavior

22. History data scores might also consider the "behavior of links over time".

23. The appearance and disappearance of links figure into the scoring for link behavior (from #22).

24. The appearance/disappearance of links are dated by Google and used in the scoring.

25. The link appearances/disappearances are monitored and Google measures "how many links... appear or disappear during a time period, and whether there is a trend" toward more links or fewer links. The temporal (time-based) nature of groups of links will be scored by Google.

Freshness of Links

26. Google may use the "freshness of links" and assign weights to links based on freshness.

27. The "freshness" of a link (from #26) is calculated by the date of appearance of that link, the date of any changes in the link or anchor text, the date which the page and site that the link is from appeared and the date of the links to that linking page. So, if you have a new blog entry that points to a new site, the freshness will be super-fresh, since the page is new, the link to the page is new, the blog page that links to it is new, and the link to your blog entry on your own site is new (that's a lot of new, hence it's super-fresh).

28. The weight of a link also takes into account how "trusted" the site is, how authoritative the page with the link on it is and how "fresh" the page & site containing the link are.

29. The scoring also takes into account the "age distribution associated with the links based on the ages of the links". Google will take into account the age of the links to your page, and the time periods over which you got the links, i.e. lots of new links, a wide distribution over time, most links from a long time ago, etc.

Anchor Text Changes over Time

30. Google may also calculate changes in anchor text over time and use this data to score. My guess is that anchor text doesn't change very often, but they're certainly free to measure it.

Content Changes in a Document compared to Linking Anchor Text

31. Google might also measure if the content of a document changes, but the anchor text remains the same, or vice-versa. They're trying to protect against the anchor text "bait and switch" that makes a document look relevant to the anchor text, then replaces it with something else.

Freshness of Anchor Text

32. Freshness of anchor text can be considered.

33. Freshness of anchor text is calculated by "date of appearance", "date of change", and the dates of change and appearance of the page the link is on.

Traffic Characteristics of Site/Page

34. Traffic characteristics associated with a page/site may be taken into account in scoring.

35. The traffic pattern will have associated analysis that might feed into Google's score. So Google must be measuring traffic to a site/page and determining if, over time, it increases, decreases, etc. - they're seeking trends on which to base scoring.

User Behavior

36. User behavior regarding a particular page/site may figure into the scoring.

37. Google says that user behavior (from #36) is basically just the percentage of the time users click on a site/page when it is listed in the search results pages, along with the amount of time that users spend "accessing the document". I guess we all need to keep up the amount of time people spend on our sites.

Domain Related Information

38. The scoring might also include the sites associated with a given site and the "domain-related" information. This is defined in greater detail below.

39. Associated sites (from #38) are measured in terms of "legitimacy", which I interpret to mean non-spam, different owner, etc. Google says, specifically "scoring the document based... on whether the domain associated with the document is legitimate."

40. The "expiration date of the domain", the "domain name server record" and the "name server associated with the domain" are all parts of how Google will establish the legitimacy of an "associated" site.

Prior Rankings Data

41. History data scores could also take into account "information relating to a prior ranking". This means Google will be storing information about previous rankings for a site and using them to base scores on.

42. Google may also calculate where in the previous rankings the site was and how it moved around as pieces to figure into the scoring data.

43. In reference to #41, Google is using seasonal, "burstiness" and changes in scores over time as metrics to calculate the prior rankings scoring. So if a site is particularly relevant for "gifts for girlfriend" around Valentine's Day, but not as much for the same query at Christmas, Google will record this information and rank accordingly.

44. Google could also, with regard to #41, record "spikes in the rank" of site/pages in the search results.

User Maintained Data

45. "User maintained data" may also be recorded and monitored for the rankings scores.

46. "User maintained data" includes; favorites lists, bookmarks, temp files and cache files of monitored users. I'm not sure how they could obtain this data without installing "Google Spyware" - perhaps in the form of desktop search or the Google toolbar.

47. Monitoring the rate at which a site/page "is added to or removed from user generated data" may be used in the scoring.

Growth Profiles of Anchor Text

48. Scores might include "growth profiles of anchor text" - Google could monitor the use of anchor text in large groups and where/when they point to different sites & pages.

Linkage of Independent Peers

49. Information "relating to linkage of independent peers" might be added to scoring by "determining the growth in a number of independent peers that include the document". Google will basically be monitoring sites that are not in your subject category and how they link to you (I assumed they meant non-related subject peers, but they actually mean off-topic sites; see - Linkage of Independent Peers, below).

Document Topics

50. "Document topics" may be included in the scoring, this includes using "topic extraction". I assume this is determined by Google's text mining and analysis of the actual words on the page.

Identifying Relevant Documents

51. Relevance of documents to a given search query may be part of the scoring system. This is just Google's way of saying that documents about "pink dogs" will be part of those analyzed by the ranking algorithm when a user queries "pink dogs".

Plurality of History Data

52. Google might also use "means for obtaining a plurality of types of history data associated with the document" to score sites/pages. This just means that they will use a methodology that groups all of the bits of historical information into the rankings together to determine scoring.

History Component

53. "History data" can be measured by Google and used in the rankings. I'm not sure to what they're referring here - the entire quote is; "A system for scoring a document, comprising: a history component configured to obtain one or more types of history data associated with a document; and a ranking component configured to: generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data."

Ranking of Linked Documents

54. Google may be measuring the documents you link to and scoring based "on a decaying function of the age of the linkage data". So, fresher links vs. stale links will be taken into account (although whether there is a positive or negative effect associated with this is unknown).

55. For #54, Google says the "linkage data includes at least one link." So, they won't be measuring linkage data for pages with no links.

56. For #54, Google may include the anchor text in the linkage data.

57. For #54, Google says the "linkage data includes a rank based... on links and anchor text provided by one more linking documents." Google is simply saying that linkage data includes the anchor text and other info about the links coming to a page.

58. Google can use the "longevity of the linkage data" and determine from that an adjustment of the rankings based on the changes, stability & age of the linkage data. They explain below how they score this.

59. Google will be "penalizing the ranking if the longevity indicates a short life for the linkage data and boosting the ranking if the longevity indicates a long life for the linkage data." Google is, in effect, explaining a little of what we call "sandboxing" - they're saying that the older a link is, the more value it has, while new links have relatively lower value. This doesn't completely explain the effect, as many sites rank well quickly, etc. - but, it is an explanation for the phenomenon.

60. Google can adjust scoring by penalizing for linking documents they consider "stale" over a period of time and boost scoring if the content is frequently updated. So, it's better to be linked to on a page that frequently updates its content.

61. "Link churn" may be measured (explained in #62) and scoring adjusted based on this.

62. "Link churn" is "computed as a function of an extent to which one or more links provided by the document changes over time". Once again, Google is referring to the changes in where links point, their anchor text, etc. on a given page. More changes means more "link churn".

63. "Link churn" might create a penalization if it is above a certain threshold. So, if your links are changing all the time, the link will not be as valuable. This would shut down the methods used by the popular "Traffic Power/1p" spam company.

Patent Description:

Background of the Invention:

This is designed for IR (Information Retrieval) Systems and specifically to the methods used to generate search results.

Description of Related Art:

This information is largely irrelevant, but one important quote is: "There are several factors that may affect the quality of the results generated by a search engine. For example, some web site producers use spamming techniques to artificially inflate their rank. Also, "stale" documents (i.e., those documents that have not been updated for a period of time and, thus, contain stale data) may be ranked higher than "fresher" documents (i.e., those documents that have been more recently updated and, thus, contain more recent data). In some particular contexts, the higher ranking stale documents degrade the search results. Thus, there remains a need to improve the quality of results generated by search engines."

Summary of the Invention:

Google says "history data associated with the documents" may be used to score them in the search results. The invention provides a "method for scoring a document" and it "may include determining the age of linkage data associated with a linked document and ranking the linked document based on a decaying function of the age of the linkage data."

Brief Description of the Drawings:

The drawings are all exceptional simple charts showing the process for examination. A PDF with the charts at the bottom is available at http://files.bighosting.net/tr19070.pdf

Exemplary History Data:

This is the canonical and expository section of the patent description. It contains examples and explanations of many of the most important parts of this study, including detailed descriptions for many of the 63 components.

Document Inception Date

Google notes that the "date" label is used broadly and may include many time & date measurements. Google describes several of the techniques used to obtain an "inception date" and mentions that some techniques are "biased" because they can be influenced by a 3rd party.

The first technique used is when Google learns of or indexes the document - either by finding a link to the site/page, or following it. A second technique uses the registration date of the URL or the first time it was referenced in a "news article, newsgroup, mailing list" or combination of these types of documents.

The patent mentions that Google assumes that a "fairly recent inception date will not have a significant number of links from other documents." However, they say that the document's rankings can be adjusted accordingly based on how well it is doing in terms of links with consideration for its age.

Google is also wary of spam, they use the following example (which is already being quoted around the web):

"Consider the example of a document with an inception date of yesterday that is referenced by 10 back links. This document may be scored higher by (Google) than a document with an inception date of 10 years ago that is referenced by 100 back links because the rate of link growth for the former is relatively higher than the latter. While a spiky rate of growth in the number of back links may be a factor used by (Google) to score documents, it may also signal an attempt to spam search engine 125. Accordingly, in this situation, (Google) may actually lower the score of a document(s) to reduce the effect of spamming."

Google might also use the date of inception as a method for measuring the "rate at which links to the document are created". They say that "this rate can then be used to score the document, for example, giving more weight to documents to which links are generated more often."

The patent goes so far as to provide a formula for link-based score modification:

H=L/log(F+2),

H = history-adjusted link score
L = link score given to the document, which can be derived using any known link scoring technique that assigns a score to a document based on links to/from the document
F = elapsed time measured from the inception date associated with the document (or a window within this period).

The result of this formula would be that on the day of inception, L will be divided by 0.301 - the equivalent of multiplying L by 33.2. After 10 days (or any other unit of time), the formula will divide L by 1.079, making H smaller and smaller as time goes on.

The patent then suggests that "for some queries, older documents may be more favorable than newer ones" and that, as a result, Google may "adjust the score of a document based on the difference (in age) from the average age of the result set". This would push certain pages up or down in the rankings depending on their age and the age of their competition.

Content Updates/Changes

Google says that a "document's content changes over time may be used to generate/alter a score associated with that document." They again offer a formula for calculating this:

U=f(UF, UA)

f = a function, such as a sum or weighted sum
UF = update frequency score that represents how often a document (or page) is updated
UA = update amount score that represents how much the document (or page) has changed over time

Google notes that UA can also be determined as:

The number of "new" or unique pages associated with a document over a period of time
The ratio of the number of new or unique pages associated with a document over a period of time versus the total number of pages associated with that document
The amount that the document is updated over one or more periods of time (e.g., n % of a document's visible content may change over a period t (e.g., last m months)), which might be an average value
The amount that the document (or page) has changed in one or more periods of time (e.g., within the last x days)

UA could also different pieces of the content weighted differently, helping to eliminate changes that are cosmetic or insubstantial. Google mentions:

JavaScript
Comments
Advertisements
Navigational elements
Boilerplate material
Date/time tags

They also identify some important areas where content changes might necessitate greater weight:

Title
Anchor text of forward links

Google also mentions the use of trend analysis in the changes of a site/page by comparing an acceleration or deceleration of the rate of change (amount of new content, etc.). Google notes that maintaining all of this information may be too intensive for practical data storage and proposes measuring only large changes and storing "term vectors" only or "a small portion" of a page "determined to be important".

The patent notes that Google may, on occasion prefer stale documents for certain types of queries. They may also cerate an average age of change and adjust the scoring for documents based on their relations to the average (if more stale or more fresh content is desired).

Query Analysis

This technique describes several phenomenon that can influence rankings:

Clicks on a site/page in the SERPs can be used to rank it higher or lower - those clicked more often, move higher in the rankings (so make sure your title & description are good)
If a particular search term is increasingly associated with particular subjects, the pages on those subjects would rank higher for that query. For example, the meaning of the word "soap" was increasingly associated with Simple Object Access Protocol, rather than a cleansing agent, so pages on those subjects rose in the results.
The number of search results for a particular term is measured to check for "hot topics" or "breaking news" to help Google follow or become aware of trends. An example might be the recent Tsunami in East Asia, where thousands of pages popped up overnight on the subject.
Google also measures search queries whose answers or relevance changes over time. They use the example of "World Series Champion" which would be different after each Baseball season.
"Staleness" can be a deciding factor in the rankings. Google will use user clicks and traffic to decide if "stale" results are relevant for a particular query or not and rank accordingly. Google says it measures "staleness" by:
- Creation Date
- Anchor Growth
- Traffic
- Content Changes
- Forward/Back link growth

Link Based Criteria

Google can measure various linking based factors including:

The dates new links appear to a site/page
Dates that link or pages linking to a site/page disappeared
The time-varying behavior of links to a page and any possible "trends" that are indicated by this, i.e. is the site gaining links overall or losing them? A downward trend might indicate "staleness", while an upward trend would indicate "freshness".
Google may check the number of new links to a document over a given time period compared to the new links the document has received since it was first found. They'll also use the "oldest age of the most recent y% of links compared to the age of the first link found."
Google gives an example in the patent of two websites that were both found 100 days ago:
- Site #1 - 10% of the links were found less than 10 days ago
- Site #2 - 0% of the links were found less than 10 days ago
- This data might be used to " predict if a particular distribution signifies a particular type of site (e.g., a site that is no longer updated, increasing or decreasing in popularity, superceded, etc.)"
Freshness weights assigned to a link can also be used to rank sites/pages. Several factors can influence link freshness:
- Date of appearance
- Date of change of anchor text
- Date of change of the page the link is on
- Date of appearance of page the link is on
- Google says they theorize that a page that is updated (significantly) while the link remains the same is a good indicator of a "relevant and good" link.
Other weights for links include:
- How trusted the links are (they specifically mention government documents as being assigned higher trust)
- How authoritative the websites and pages linking to the page are
- Freshness of the page/site - they mention the Yahoo! homepage as one where links frequently appear and disappear.
- The "sum of the weight of the links" pointing to a page/site may be used to raise or lower the scoring in the rankings. Google will measure the freshness of the page based on the freshness of the links to it and the freshness of the pages which the links are on.
- Age distribution over time will also be measured, i.e. a site/page will be compared against all of its links over time and when it received them.
Google may use link date appearance to "detect spam", "where owners of documents or their colleagues create links to their own document for the purpose of boosting the score assigned by a search engine". Google says that legitimate sites/pages "attract back links slowly" and that a "large spike in the quantity of back links" may signal either a "topical phenomenon" or "attempts to spam a search engine."
- Google gives the example of the CDC website after the outbreak of SARS as an example of a "topical phenomenon".
- Google gives 3 examples of link spam techniques - "exchanging links", "purchasing links" or "gaining links from documents without editorial discretion on making links".
- Google also gives examples of "documents that give links without editorial discretion" - including guest books, referrer logs and "free for all pages that let anyone add a link to a document."
A decrease over time in the number of links a document has can be used to indicate irrelevance, and Google notes that it will discount the links from these "stale" documents.
The "dynamic-ness" of links will also be measured and scored, based on how consistently links are given to a particular page. They use the example of "featured link" of the day and note that they'll use a page score based on the pages that link to the page, "for all versions of the documents within a window of time."

Anchor Text

Google can use anchor text measurements to determine ranking scores:

Anchor text changes over time might be used to indicate "an update or change of focus" on a site/page.
Anchor text that is no longer relevant or on-topic with the site/page it links to may be tracked and discounted if necessary. Large document changes will result in Google checking the anchor text to see if the subject matter is still the same as the anchor text.
Freshness of anchor text can be calculated. It can be determined by:
- Date of appearance/change of the anchor text
- Date of appearance/change of the linked to page
- Date of appearance/change of the page with the link on it
- Google notes that the date of appearance/change of the page with the link on it makes the link and anchor text more "relevant and good"

Traffic

Google can measure traffic levels to a page/site as part of their ranking scores.

A "large reduction in traffic may indicate that a document may be stale"
Google may compare the average traffic for a page/site over the past "j days" (as an example j=30) to the average traffic over the last year to see if the page/site is still as relevant for the query.
Google might also use seasonality to help determine if a particular site is more/less relevant for a query during specific times of the year.
Google is going to measure "advertising traffic" for websites:
- "The extent to and rate at which advertisements are presented or updated by a given document over time"
- The "quality of the advertisers". They note that referrers like Amazon.com will be given more trust and weight than a "pornographic site's" advertisements.
- The "click-through rate" of the traffic referrals from the pages the ads are on.

User Behavior

Google may be measuring "aggregate user behavior". This can include:

The "number of times that a document is selected from a set of search results"
The "amount of time one or more users spend accessing the document"
The relative "amount of time" compared to an average that users spend on a particular site/page
- Google uses an example of a swimming schedule page that users typically spent 30 seconds accessing, but have recently spent "a few seconds" accessing.
- Google says this can be an indication for them that the page "contains an outdated swimming schedule" and they will push down its rank.

Domain-Related Information

Information associated with a domain can be used by Google to score sites in the rankings. They mention specific types of " information relating to how a document is hosted within a computer network (e.g., the Internet, an intranet, etc.)" including:

Doorway and "throwaway" domains - Google says they will use "information regarding the legitimacy of the domains"
Valuable domains, according to Google, "are often paid for several years in advance", while the throwaway domains "rarely are used for more than a year."
The DNS records will also be checked to determine legitimacy:
- Who registered the domain
- Admin & technical addresses and contacts
- Address of name servers
- Stability of data (and host company) vs. high number of changes
Google claims they will use "a list of known-bad contact information, name servers, and/or IP addresses" to predict whether a spammer is running the domain.
Google will also use information regarding a specific name server in similar ways -
- "A "good" name server may have a mix of different domains from different registrars and have a history of hosting those domains, while a "bad" name server might host mainly pornography or doorway domains, domains with commercial words (a common indicator of spam), or primarily bulk domains from a single registrar, or might be brand new"

Ranking History

Google can measure the history of where a site ranked over time and data associated with this. Some specifics include:

A site that "jumps in rankings across many queries might be a topical document or it could signal an attempt to spam search engine"
The "quantity or rate that a document moves in rankings over a period of time might be used to influence future scores"
Sites can be weighted according to their position in the results, where the top result receives a higher score and the lower sites receive progressively lower scores. Google uses the equation:
- [((N+1)-SLOT)/N]
- Where N=the number of search results measured and SLOT equals the ranking position of the measured site
- In this equation, the 1st result receives a score of 1.0 and the last result receives a score close to 0.
Google could check "commercial queries" specifically and documents that gained X% in the rankings " may be flagged or the percentage growth in ranking may be used" to determine if the "likelihood of spam is higher".
Google may also monitor:
- "The rate at which (a site/page) is selected as a search result over time"
- Seasonality - fluctuations based on the time of month or year
- Burstiness - Sudden gains or losses in clicks
- Other patterns in CTR
The rate of change in scores can be measured over time to see if a search term is getting more/less competitive and additional attention is needed.
Google "may monitor the ranks of documents over time to detect sudden spikes in the ranks". This could indicate, according to the patent, "either a topical phenomenon (e.g., a hot topic) or an attempt to spam search engine"
Google may use preventative measures against spam by:
- "Employing hysteresis to allow a rank to grow at a certain rate" - hysteresis in this instance probably means a pull that results in the growth rate falling. The terms has dozens of unique definitions.
- Limiting the "maximum threshold of growth over a predefined window of time" for a given site/page.
- Google will also "consider mentions of the document in news articles, discussion groups, etc. on the theory that spam documents will not be mentioned"
Certain types of sites/pages (Google specifically mentions "government documents, web directories (e.g., Yahoo), and documents that have shown a relatively steady and high rank over time") may be immune to the "spike" tracking and penalization
Google may also "consider significant drops in ranks of documents as an indication that these documents are "out of favor" or outdated"

User Maintained/Generated Data

Google wants to measure many different types of aggregate data that user keep on their computers about their web visits and experiences, including:

Bookmarks & Favorites lists in the browser
- They want to obtain this data either via a "browse assistant" - like the toolbar or desktop search, or.
- Directly via the browser itself - I predict they are developing their own Google Browser.
- Google will use this data over time to predict how valuable a particular site or page is
Google also wants to document additions and removals from favorites & bookmarks over time to help predict the value of a site/page
Google will also measure how often users access the site/page from their browser to see if it is still relevant, or just a leftover ("outdated" or "unpopular")
The "temp or cache files associated with users could be monitored" by Google to identify their visiting patterns on the web and determine whether there is "an upward or downward trend in interest" in a given site/page.

Unique Word, Bigrams, Phrases in Anchor Text

Google intends to measure the profile of how anchor text appears over time to a particular site/page to watch for spam. They note that "naturally developed web graphs typically involve independent decisions. Synthetically generated web graphs, which are usually indicative of an intent to spam, are based on coordinated decisions". The difference in patterns can be measured and put to use to block spam.

Google notes that the "spikiness" of "anchor words/bigrams/phrases" is a prime measurement. They note that spam typical shows "the addition of a large number of identical anchors from many documents".

Linkage of Independent Peers

Google can also use link data from "independent peers (e.g., unrelated documents)" to check for spam. They say that a " sudden growth in the number of independent peers... with a large number of links... may indicate a potentially synthetic web graph, which is an indicator of an attempt to spam." Google notes that this "indication may be strengthened if the growth corresponds to anchor text that is unusually coherent or discordant" and that they can discount the value of these links either by a "fixed amount" or a "multiplicative factor" - this would give an additional penalty just for having these links.

Document Topics

Topic extraction can be performed by Google through the following methods:

Categorization
URL analysis
Content analysis
Clustering
Summarization
A set of unique low frequency words

The goal is to "monitor the topic(s) of a document over time and use this information for scoring purposes."

Google notes that "a spike in the number of topics could indicate spam" or that significant document topic changes may indicate that the website "has changed owners and previous document indicators, such as score, anchor text, etc., are no longer reliable." Google says that "if one or more of these situations are detected, (they) may reduce the relative score of such documents and/or the links, anchor text, or other data" from the website.

List of Additional Coverage & Resources

The patent from US Patent and Trademark Office - US Patent #20050071741 - Information retrieval based on historical data
From SEOChat Forums - Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data - Sandbox Explanation, Aging Delay?
From Threadwatch - Google's War on SEO - Documented
From SearchEngineWatch Forums - Does New Google Patent Validate Sandbox Theory?
From HighRankings Forum - New Google Patent, Must Read
From SERoundtable - Sandbox Explained by Google? "Information retrieval based on historical data"

Courtesy of SEOMoz

Getting out of Google’s Supplemental Index

2005-11-30T21:19:00.000-08:00

First, you need to find out why you’re in it. That’s easier said than done, here are some ideas:

Duplicate Content - take someone elses content, get sent to Google Hell (Supplemental Results)
No Content - create pages with no content (remember the days of directories that would create 1 million pages with only 100 listing?) - empty pages get sent to Google Hell.
Orphaned web pages. Pages that no one links to, including yourself.
I can vouch for these. And keep in mind that duped content can be from copying yourself, such as having a mirrored site, for example.

So how do you get out?

If you stole content - change it.
If there’s no content - add some.
If it’s orphaned - link to it.
But once you’ve changed what’s causing it, you’ve got to get Google to come back around. I agree that the best way to do that is to create a Google sitemap and to ping Google with it.

Who's Afraid of Google?

2005-11-29T20:43:00.000-08:00

Of course, Google has always wanted to be more than a search engine. Even in the early days, its ultimate goal was extravagant: to organize the world's information. High-minded as that sounds, Google's ever-expanding agenda has put it on a collision course with nearly every company in the information technology industry: Amazon.com, Comcast, eBay, Yahoo!, even Microsoft.

In less than a decade, Google has gone from guerrilla startup to 800-pound gorilla. In some ways, the company is a gentle giant. Whereas Microsoft infamously smothered new and open standards, Google is famous for supporting them. And the firm is softening its image, launching a philanthropic arm, Google.org, with nearly $1 billion earmarked for social causes. But that doesn't reduce the fear factor, and Google knows it. Omid Kordestani, the company's global sales guru, said at a recent conference, "We're trying to find ways so we are not viewed as a gorilla." Given its outsize ambitions, that's one search Google might not be able to handle.

Is the sky falling? That's how it looks to panicked tech companies across the Valley as they contend with Google's ever-expanding power and ambition.

VIDEO
Today, Google Video is a motley mix: clips of monkeys performing karate and robot dogs attacking iguanas. Tomorrow? No one knows, but everyone is worried.
Who's threatened: Comcast and other cable providers, Yahoo!, TV networks that still shun the Net
Signs of panic: Comcast wants to be the Google of television. Yahoo! bristles at any mention of Google Video. Networks were stunned to find Google compiling a database of their programs.
Reality check: Google Video is up and running. The question is, How much content can it attract - or pay for - to fill the database. Watch for a strategic acquisition, even something big. TiVo?

CLASSIFIEDS
When secrecy-obsessed Google let news of "Google Base" slip, it looked like an aggressive entrée into online classifieds. The test service can search ads like used-car and personals listings, which would mesh with Google Local and might even kick-start Orkut, Google's social network.
Who's threatened: craigslist, eBay, Monster, Tribe.net
Signs of panic: Within hours of the Base bombshell, eBay's market value dropped by almost $2 billion. And even before that, the classified sites were nervous. CareerBuilder and others fretted about letting Google host their feeds.
Reality check: This may be an extension of Froogle rather than a stand-alone product. But it could expand to everything from travel to eBay-like offerings.

TELECOM
Free Wi-Fi in San Francisco, instant-messaging software, a widely anticipated VoIP foray - Google's telecom initiatives seem designed to make life radically easier for users.
Who's threatened: Comcast, SBC, Verizon, Vonage, what's left of AOL
Signs of panic: Surprisingly few so far, partially because Google says it has no plans to offer Wi-Fi beyond San Francisco. Still, Comcast coined the word Comcastic - is that its answer to Googlicious?
Reality check: Something's clearly afoot, and it could be big. With great power comes great regulation - so Google recently opened a DC lobbying shop to combat "centralized control by network operators."

OPERATING SYSTEMS
If anyone can fulfill the dream of turning the Internet into the operating system, it's Google. If the company chooses to develop an OS, the move will cement Google's other initiatives into a powerful whole.
Who's threatened: Apple, Microsoft
Signs of panic: When one of Microsoft's key operating system engineers defected to Google last year, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threw a chair across an office and vowed to kill Google.
Reality check: The migration of applications from PCs to the Net is already happening - and it's key to Google's future. But the likelihood of a Google OS depends on what Microsoft accomplishes with its new OS, Vista.

PRINT
What if a search engine trolled not just every page on the Web, but every page in every book? Amazon.com tried it first, then Google said it would "make the full text of all the world's books searchable by anyone."
Who's threatened: Amazon, Microsoft, book publishers
Signs of panic: Against the interests of a legion of obscure writers, the Authors Guild sued Google. The Association of American Publishers, with more to fear, did the same. Microsoft and Yahoo! have joined a group that's creating its own book search service.
Reality check: Making every book searchable sends a clear signal that Google has the brawn to organize the world's information. But a vicious backlash could drown out that message.

PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAMS
Google joined with Sun Microsystems in October to jointly promote and distribute apps like the Google Toolbar and Sun's free OpenOffice software. Wider distribution of the toolbar, Google's most potent Trojan horse, gives the search engine access to a world of desktops.
Who's threatened: Apple, Corel, Microsoft
Signs of panic: Microsoft launched its own toolbar and protested the decision of the Massachusetts Information Technology Department to dump Office for open source alternatives.
Reality check: It may be a fiendishly clever way to attack one of Microsoft's highest-margin products, but this tactic can't be a top priority. Google Toolbar will thrive without Sun.

ECOMMERCE
Froogle threatens no one yet. But what if, as the development of Google Wallet suggests, Google handled your every online transaction? The potential revenue from Google's cut of each purchase would make AdSense look like AdCents.
Who's threatened: Amazon, Buy.com, eBay
Signs of panic: After reports speculated that Google might take on PayPal, eBay said it would pay up to $4.1 billion for VoIP rebel Skype. Wall Street's read: With PayPal under fire, eBay needed a new growth area.
Reality check: Rather than take on PayPal directly, the company may start with something less ambitious, like handling payments for premium video content. But after that? Watch out.

Google in 2084

2005-11-29T05:17:00.000-08:00

List of blog directories for ping

2005-11-29T05:04:00.000-08:00

"Blog and Ping" -a process by which you post a portion of information from your site to a blog with a URL to your site included, You then notify Yahoo that a post exists on this blog. Your blog will be spidered quickly by both Google and Yahoo. Many bloggers use http://www.blogger.com to accomplish this (recommended for newbie bloggers).

Here's a good list of blog directories you can ping and submit your blog to. That should get some traffic moving in your direction. You will notice my sites XML feed in some of the examples I show you. Be sure to replace my XML feed with your own. Make sure you paste it exactly over where my XML URL is. This is the fat-finger way I should tell you. Many blogging tools Like MoveableType and WordPress have integrated blog ping features. In addition there is 3 party software suh as RSS Submit that can automate this process. Hopefully this information proves useful to you

Yahoo - Here is the Yahoo ping URL: http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

Here is an example of how your ping URL should look: http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping?u=http://goorank.blogspot.com

MSN Search - Get your site indexed by the My MSN RSS search tool. By entering the Web address of your RSS feed into My MSN, your site will be searchable by My MSN within 24 hours.

Fyber Search - http://www.fybersearch.com/add-url.php

Bulk Feeds - http://bulkfeeds.net

Truth Laid Bear - http://www.truthlaidbear.com/addtoscan.php

Moreover - Here is the Moreover ping URL: http://api.moreover.com/ping

Here is an example of how your ping URL should look: http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://goorank.blogspot.com

Blog Street - Use this URL to add a Blog: http://www.blogstreet.com/bin/add.cgi?

Use this URL to add an RSS Feed: http://www.blogstreet.com/bin/addrss.cgi

Memigo - http://memigo.com/feed

Feeds Farm - http://www.feedsfarm.com/a.html (strictly for news oriented sites)

Blogarama - http://www.blogarama.com/index.php?show=add

News Knowledge - http://www.newsknowledge.com/home.html

Blog Wise - http://www.blogwise.com/submit

News Trove - http://newstrove.com/suggest_site.html

Every Feed - http://www.everyfeed.com/addsite.php

Blog Search Engine - http://www.blogsearchengine.com/add_link.html

Syndic8 - http://www.syndic8.com/suggest.php?Mode=data

Boing Boing - http://boingboing.net/suggest.html (Follow the instructions)

RSS Clipping - http://www.rss-clipping.com/

Fastbuzz - http://www.fastbuzz.com/

Eatonweb - http://portal.eatonweb.com/add.php

Newsmob - http://www.newsmob.com/index.php?m=c

2RSS - http://www.2rss.com (bottom of page)

Feedster - http://feedster.com/add.php

Search4RSS - http://www.search4rss.com/addfeed.php

Anse - http://www.anse.de/rdfticker/addchannel.php

Sourceforge - http://sourceforge.net/

Blog Digger - http://www.blogdigger.com/add.jsp

Day Pop - http://www.daypop.com/info/submit.htm

Feed-Directory - http://www.feed-directory.com/addfeed/

Sarthak Blog - http://www.sarthak.net/blogz/add.php

Bloggernity - http://www.bloggernity.com/cgi-bin/add.cgi

Bloogz - http://www.bloogz.com/man_en/add_your_url.php

News Is Free - http://www.newsisfree.com/contact.php?ctmode=suggest

Rocket Info - http://reader.rocketinfo.com/desktop/AddRSSFeed.jsp

Genecast - http://www.genecast.com/news/create.jsp

Easy RSS - http://www.easyrss.com/ (bottom of page)

Postami - http://blogdirectory.postami.com/

Topix - http://www.topix.net/ (good source for site content)

Headline Spot - http://www.headlinespot.com/site/suggest.htm

Blogdex - http://blogdex.net/add.asp

Pub Sub - http://www.pubsub.com/add_feed.php

Blog Tree - http://www.blogtree.com/ (bandwidth exceeded at the moment)

Findory - http://findory.com/submit-blog/

Blog Catalog - http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/submit_blog.html

Step Newz - http://stepnewz.com/sn/nr_feed_add.asp

WeBlogALot - http://www.weblogalot.com/Ping/

Blog Matcher - http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

News Feeds - http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

Feedplex - http://www.feedplex.com/suggest-a-feed.php

Popdex - http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

Newzfire - http://www.newzfire.com/suggest.aspx

Read A Blog - http://www.readablog.com/AddFeed.aspx

Blog Pulse - http://www.blogpulse.com/submit.html

Rub Hub - http://www.rubhub.com/main/add/

Feed 24 - http://www.feed24.com/?c=add

Blog Map - http://www.feedmap.net/BlogMap/submit.aspx (very cool, I use it on this page)

Weblogs * - http://www.weblogs.com/ (currently busted)

Feed Burner * - http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home (great tool)

Blo.gs * - http://blo.gs/ping.php

BlogRolling * - http://www.blogrolling.com/ping.phtml

Technorati * - http://beta.technorati.com/

NewsGator * - http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/Folksonomy.aspx

Pingomatic * - http://pingomatic.com/ (awesome tool)

RSS Network - http://www.rss-network.com/submitrss.php

Plazoo - http://www.plazoo.com/en/addrss.asp

RSS Munch - http://scriptosis.com/submit.asp

Feed Miner - http://www.feedminer.com/addfeed.aspx

Ice Rocket - http://www.icerocket.com/c?p=addblog and http://www.icerocket.com/c?p=ping

Google Wants to Dominate Madison Avenue

2005-11-29T03:07:00.000-08:00

IN many ways, Larry Page and Sergey Brin seem an unlikely pair to lead an advertising revolution. As Stanford graduate students sketching out the idea that became Google , the two software engineers sniffed in an academic paper that "advertising-funded search engines will inherently be biased toward the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers."

They softened that line a bit by the time they got around to pitching their business to venture capitalists, allowing that selling ads would be a handy safety net if their other, less distasteful ideas for generating revenue didn't pan out.

Google soared in popularity in its first years but had no meaningful revenue until the founders reluctantly fell on that safety net and started selling ads. Even then, they approached advertising with the mind-set of engineers: Ads would look more like fortune cookies than anything Madison Avenue would come up with.

As it turned out, the safety net was a trampoline. Those little ads - 12 word snippets of text, linked to topics that users are actually interested in - have turned Google into one of the biggest advertising vehicles the world has ever seen. This year, Google will sell $6.1 billion in ads, nearly double what it sold last year, according to Anthony Noto, an analyst at Goldman Sachs . That is more advertising than is sold by any newspaper chain, magazine publisher or television network. By next year, Mr. Noto said, he expects Google to have advertising revenue of $9.5 billion. That would place it fourth among American media companies in total ad sales after Viacom , the News Corporation and the Walt Disney Company , but ahead of giants including NBC Universal and Time Warner.

Not content to just suck advertising dollars from Web search, Google is using its windfall to pay for an eclectic range of ambitious projects that have the potential to radically disrupt other industries. Among other things, it is offering to build a free wireless Internet network in San Francisco , plans to scan nearly every book published and is testing a free classified advertising system it calls Google Base.

More quietly, Google is also preparing to disrupt the advertising business itself, by replacing creative salesmanship with cold number-crunching. Its premise so far is that advertising is most effective when seen only by people who are interested in what's for sale, based on what they are searching for or reading about on the Web. Because Google's ad-buying clients pay for ads only when users click on them, they can precisely measure their effectiveness - and are willing to pay more for ads that really sell their products.

HIDDEN behind its simple white pages, Google has already created what it says is one of the most sophisticated artificial intelligence systems ever built. In a fraction of a second, it can evaluate millions of variables about its users and advertisers, correlate them with its potential database of billions of ads and deliver the message to which each user is most likely to respond.

Because of this technology, users click ads 50 percent to 100 percent more often on Google than they do on Yahoo , Mr. Noto estimates, and that is a powerful driver of Google's growth and profits. "Because the ads are more relevant," he said, "they create a better return for advertisers, which causes them to spend more money, which gives Google better margins." (Yahoo is working on its own technology to narrow that gap.)

Google already sells its text ads for many other sites on the Internet , and is also moving tentatively to sell the picture-based interactive advertising preferred by marketers who want to promote brands rather than immediately sell products. Now it is preparing to extend its technology to nearly every other medium, most significantly television. It is looking toward a world of digital cable boxes and Internet-delivered television that will allow it to show commercials tailored for each viewer, as it does now for each Web page it displays.

Eric E. Schmidt, Google's chief executive, explains the company's astounding success in advertising - and reconciles it with the founders' distrust of hucksterism - by suggesting that advertising should be interesting, relevant and useful to users. "Improving ad quality improves Google's revenue," he said in an interview at the company's headquarters, known as the Googleplex. "If we target the right ad to the right person at the right time and they click it, we win."

This proposition, he continued, is applicable to other media. "If we can figure out a way to improve the quality of ads on television with ads that have real value for end-users, we should do it," he said. While he is watching television, for example, "Why do I see women's clothing ads?" he said. "Why don't I see just men's clothing ads?"

The media and advertising industries certainly see a future in which television ads are aimed at individual viewers. But few outside of the engineering Ph.D.'s at Google think that television ads should simply be utilitarian, rather than entertaining, provocative or annoyingly repetitive - the models that have worked so far. And some media industry executives wonder whether Google, which has already become the most powerful force in Internet advertising, should also become the clearinghouse for ads of all types - a kind of advertising Nasdaq.

"For all of us to throw all our eggs in the Google basket is dangerous, because no one should have that much power," said Jeff Jarvis, a veteran magazine editor who publishes BuzzMachine, a blog about the media, and is a consultant for About.com, a division of The New York Times Company. He added that if Google were to expand its ad sales to other media outlets, prices would fall. "Google commoditizes everything," he said.

There is no better example of that than Google Base, a service that allows users to post all sorts of information free, including classified ads, he said. Newspapers, which increasingly use Google to sell ads on their own Web pages, will see Google Base as a "frontal assault" on their lucrative classified-ad business, and they will say, "I can't trust Google," Mr. Jarvis said.

Mr. Brin said that preliminary versions of Google Base leaked onto the Internet and that the company's partners should not fear it. "Google Base is as much about classified as it is about zoology," he said.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin were exceedingly ambitious from the day they started Google, but the job of finding some source of revenue fell to Omid Kordestani, an amiable former Netscape sales executive who was brought to the company in 1999 by K. Ram Shriram, another Netscape alumnus and an early Google investor. Mr. Kordestani explored a range of ideas, including charging users for searches as well as selling Google's technology to corporations or to other Web sites - notably Yahoo - that were less shy about selling ads.

Eventually, in 2000, Google started to sell ads on its own site, but they were only a few lines of text placed above the search results. There were no graphics and no banners. At first, these ads - and later, a second form of text advertisement that ran down the right side of the page - were sold at fixed prices. But such an approach would not last long.

In early 2002, a Google employee, Salar Kamangar, now 28, convinced Mr. Schmidt and the founders to switch to an auction-based system like the one set up by Bill Gross, the head of IdeaLab. Mr. Gross had created Goto.com, a search engine made up entirely of ads, where advertisers paid only if their ad was clicked on, and the advertiser who bid the most per click was listed first. (Goto was later renamed Overture Services and then bought by Yahoo, an early Google backer that has become its fiercest rival.)

Mr. Kamangar, though, had an important improvement on the model. Rather than giving priority to the advertisers that bid the most per click, as Goto did, he realized that it was better to save the front of the line for ads that brought in the most money - a combination of the bid and the number of clicks on the ad. This was not only more profitable, but it also linked readers to ads that were more relevant to them. He also figured out that the system should use what is called a Vickrey auction - that is, to charge the winner only one cent more than the second-highest bidder. That gives advertisers an incentive to bid high, knowing that they will not be penalized if they are far higher than the rest of the market.

Mr. Page and Mr. Brin were suspicious of any system that put high-bidding advertisers at the top, Mr. Kamangar said. "They thought if someone was willing to pay more it was a negative," he recalled. But he was able to convince them that the site could be improved by incorporating how often users clicked on an ad.

Mr. Schmidt, who was still new as chief executive, was worried more that moving to an entirely auction-based system - amid a recession in online advertising - could be financially disastrous. "I said to Salar, 'Promise me the revenue won't go down,' " Mr. Schmidt said. "I was afraid people would realize these ads were worthless." In fact, revenue quickly increased tenfold.

As Google's audience took off, advertisers came running - many thousands of smaller ones at first, but soon large companies as well. Among Google's largest advertisers is eBay , which has long bought keywords for nearly every sort of merchandise it sells.

"The smartest thing that Google did was getting smaller advertisers to buy in," said Ellen Siminoff, the chief executive of Efficient Frontier, an agency that helps advertisers manage their campaigns on search engines. She estimates that Google has two to three times as many advertisers as Yahoo does, largely because Yahoo has a 10-cent minimum bid. This lets Google earn money on more obscure search terms for which rivals have no ads.

This growing advertising business gave Google the confidence to expand its audience. Most significantly, in 2002, America Online brought in Google to replace Overture, which provided both search and search ads; that deal enshrined Google as the premier search engine and ad network. Google won the deal by guaranteeing AOL a substantial sum, which it would not disclose. Google was willing to make that bid only because of its confidence in its advertising sales prowess. "If we were wrong," Mr. Kordestani said, "there were some scenarios that would bankrupt the company."

But by that point, Google had figured out that the same sort of computing and engineering skill that it used to find Web pages could also be used to improve the quality and, ultimately, the profitability of advertising. "Initially, we didn't understand how fundamental the computer science was in advertising," Mr. Schmidt said. "We didn't have enough staffing or focus on this area. I managed to fix that."

GOOGLE introduced its current system for determining which ad to show on which page late last year. It is a wonder of technology that rivals its search engine in complexity. For every page that Google shows, more than 100 computers evaluate more than a million variables to choose the advertisements in its database to display - and they do it in milliseconds. The computers look at the amount bid and the budget of the advertiser, but they also consider the user - such as his or her location, which they try to infer by analyzing the user's Internet connections - as well as the time of day and myriad other factors Google has tracked and analyzed from its experience with advertisements.

"If someone is coming from a particular location, a certain ad may be more popular there," explained Jeff Huber, Google's vice president for engineering. "The system can use all the signals available, and the system itself learns the correlations between them."

This technology is both amazing and potentially frightening. Google already collects and keeps vast amount of data about what Web pages and advertisements each of its users click on, and it can evaluate that history - and compare it with that of hundreds of millions of other users - to select the ad shown on each page. For now, Google says it identifies users only by a number in a cookie it places on each computer that uses Google. It says it has not connected the vast dossier of interests and behavior to specific users by name. But that could change as Google offers more personal services - like e-mail messages and social networking - and works more tightly with partners who already have such personal information.

Lauren Weinstein, the founder of the Privacy Forum, said the data that Google collects creates troubling privacy issues, especially because it declines to say what data it keeps or for how long. "If you start to target people based on a corpus of data, it can be abused in various ways internally and externally by organizations and government agencies," he said. Government investigators and lawyers in civil suits regularly get court orders to force Internet companies to reveal e-mail messages and other personal information about users.

Google recently rewrote its privacy policy to make it easier to understand what data it collects, but it did not scale back its data retention. Nor did it, as Mr. Weinstein and others have demanded, give users the right to see the data collected about them and their computers.

For now, the only personal information Google says it considers is the user's location, which allows it to display ads for local merchants. It is starting to encourage other Web sites to send it the ZIP codes of their registered users so Google can display ads relevant to their location.

Mr. Brin said he was not sure what other information about users might prove useful, but he said Google would not use the data inappropriately. "I don't think it's a big deal to show opera glasses to someone searching for binoculars that you somehow infer is a woman," he said. "But you don't want to pop up ads for H.I.V. drugs on someone's page, because you inferred they have H.I.V., when their boss is standing there looking at their computer."

To be sure, other Web sites are far more aggressive in using personal information. Yahoo will let marketers display ads to users based on demographic information the users provide as well as the users' surfing and searching history. Microsoft's new system for MSN explicitly allows advertisers to bid different prices for clicks from users of different ages, sexes and locations.

In addition to selling ads on its own site and on other sites that use its search technology, Google also places text ads on all manner of sites published both by professional media companies and by amateurs. Mr. Brin created this program in early 2003 after he became worried that the Internet crash would keep people from creating interesting Web pages for Google to index. This technology, called AdSense for Content, has made advertising on Google more attractive and provided the economic foundation for the rise of blogs.

"God bless Google," said Mr. Jarvis, the BuzzMachine blogger. "They took the cooties off citizen media." Until Google's program came along, advertisers shied away from placing ads on individual user's pages. But AdSense analyzed each page and tried - not always successfully - to find ads related to the page's content.

Now Google is looking to expand its advertising into even more places. It is testing a plan to buy pages in magazines on which to place text ads. And it also shows ads as users browse its new book search service. "A lot of the world's content is not accessible today and thus it is not easily monetizable today," Mr. Kordestani said. "We will figure out how to get more and more content and find the right way to put ads on it."

Advertisers, meanwhile, have had to scramble to adapt to this completely different approach to buying ads. They needed to find ways to keep track of bids on thousands of keywords, and to measure which ads, tied to which keywords, produced which sales - and then to figure out if they had bid the right amount for the ad.

Many advertisers and their agencies have a powerful love-hate relationship with Google. They find it a meaningful source of leads and sales, and the effectiveness of Google's ads is much easier to measure than that of traditional media. But Google has sometimes been hard to deal with. There is a growing sense that a significant number of clicks that advertisers pay for are fraudulent - made by competitors trying to deplete advertising budgets or by Web sites trying to bolster the revenue they get for displaying the ads. Google says it has technology to minimize what is called click fraud, but many people in the Internet business are skeptical that the incidence of fraud is as low as Google contends.

Here, as in other places, many advertisers criticize Google for being like a black box, because the company gives them less specific information and control than they would like. Until recently, for example, advertisers could not specify where their ads ran, though they were convinced that some Web sites in Google's network were much more likely than others to send them customers. Google responded with what it calls "smart pricing" technology that discounts certain ads if Google's analysis shows that they are seen on sites it determines are less likely to produce paying customers. But Google discloses little about how this works, and advertisers find it frustrating.

"Google is very opaque and bizarre to deal with," said Joshua Stylman, a managing partner at Reprise Media, a search advertising agency, but he added that Google had become somewhat more responsive in recent months.

Mr. Schmidt addresses those complaints by saying that advertisers are missing the point of Google's new model. It shouldn't matter what Google does with their ads, he argues, so long as the received value, which advertisers can measure, is higher than the price they pay. The entire discipline of media planning, which has long been important on Madison Avenue, may be rendered obsolete - just as Google's fully automated news Web site threatens the livelihoods of human news editors.

In any case, there is little doubt that Mr. Schmidt believes that science will replace much of the art of marketing. "I have this fantasy that goes like this," he said at one point. "You are the C.E.O. of a large company, and I come to you and say, 'Give me $1 million and give me your Web site, and we will guarantee you will get $100 million in sales.' Which C.E.O. would turn that down?"

Google isn't quite pursuing that sort of deal, but it is trying to have big retailers link their inventory systems directly to its advertising auction. That way, a toy store chain, for example, could respond to a search for dolls with an ad for either Barbies or Bratz, depending on which were overstocked in the store near the user's home. "Most retailers only advertise 5 percent of their products," said Tim Armstrong, Google's vice president for ad sales. "We can let them advertise all of them."

ON the other end of the spectrum, Google is also trying to focus on what the Internet market calls branding advertising - the sort that dominates television and magazines and creates awareness of a product, but doesn't directly call on viewers to buy right away. Yahoo, AOL and MSN have all evolved the simple rectangular banner ad into much more elaborate units with animation, interactivity and sometimes video formats that have been embraced by national advertisers.

Google has been able to convince some companies that its text ads can help build awareness of their products, even if people don't click on them to buy something. But top executives are also meeting weekly to develop a broader strategy for branding advertisements. Google has already allowed its so-called publisher network - those non-Google sites for which it sells ads - to accept advertising with limited graphics. At first, these were simple images, perhaps with a little animation. It is now moving to accept ads that use the popular Flash technology that allows for more interactivity. So far, these nontext ads have been only a tiny part of Google's business.

Indeed, such ads shine a spotlight on the mental compromise that Mr. Brin and Mr. Page made when they overcame their initial objections to advertising on their service. Text ads, they argued, were not the normal fluff of Madison Avenue, but actual information that was useful to searchers.

"Advertising was not a business built by logic, and we don't work by algorithm," said Wenda Harris Millard, Yahoo's chief sales officer. "Yes, we need to be more accountable, but that doesn't mean you sacrifice art and creativity."

Mr. Schmidt acknowledges that as Google explores moving into television, it may well face a conflict between its core belief that advertising must be useful and the typical television commercial that is "based on feeling and emotion."

"Our model is likely to affect television last," he said, while expressing optimism that a formula for useful, targeted commercials could be found. For now, he quickly added, the market for various forms of direct marketing is three times larger than that for television ads. "I was shocked by this," he said. "All of us are so conditioned to television as the height of advertising.

"We are in the really boring part of the business," Mr. Schmidt concluded, "the boring big business."

Google Adds Library Texts to Search Database

2005-11-29T02:44:00.000-08:00

Google said yesterday that it had completed the first major expansion of its Google Print database of searchable books, adding the full text of more than 10,000 works that are no longer under copyright, culled from the collections of four major research libraries.

The additions, from the university libraries at Michigan, Harvard and Stanford and from the New York Public Library, represent the first large group of material to be made available electronically from those libraries, which along with Oxford University contracted with Google last year to let the company scan and make searchable the contents of much or all of their collections.

The new material includes works of literature, like "Transatlantic Sketches" and other works by Henry James, from Harvard; government documents, like the collected appropriations bills passed by the 50th Congress in 1888 and 1889, from Stanford; history, like the 1903 work, "The Seventh Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers in the Civil War," by William P. Hopkins, from the University of Michigan; and biographies, like the New York Public Library's collection of the annual publication, "The Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of the City of New York."

The entire text of the works can be searched and read online through the Google Print site (print.google.com). Users can also save individual pages and cut and paste excerpts from the material. The ability to print is currently limited, however, to single pages at a time, said Adam Smith, a senior business product manager at Google.

The newly available materials are part of a program that has brought Google under fire from many of the same publishers that are its partners in another, related program, under which publishers offer new books to Google to scan and allow searching, in the hope that Google users will be prompted to discover and buy the books.

But members of trade groups representing authors and publishers have sued to stop Google from scanning copyrighted works in the library collections. Many of those works are out of print or otherwise inaccessible to most potential users.

Google temporarily stopped the scanning of copyrighted material this summer to allow publishers and authors to "opt out" of the program if their works were in those libraries. But both groups objected, saying that it is Google that must first obtain permission to copy materials. Google said this week that it would resume scanning copyrighted works as of Nov. 1.

Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies

2005-11-29T02:41:00.000-08:00

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, often intimidates its competitors and suppliers. Makers of goods from diapers to DVD's must cater to its whims. But there is one company that even Wal-Mart eyes warily these days: Google, a seven-year-old business in a seemingly distant industry.

"We watch Google very closely at Wal-Mart," said Jim Breyer, a member of Wal-Mart's board.

In Google, Wal-Mart sees both a technology pioneer and the seed of a threat, said Mr. Breyer, who is also a partner in a venture capital firm. The worry is that by making information available everywhere, Google might soon be able to tell Wal-Mart shoppers if better bargains are available nearby.

Wal-Mart is scarcely alone in its concern. As Google increasingly becomes the starting point for finding information and buying products and services, companies that even a year ago did not see themselves as competing with Google are beginning to view the company with some angst - mixed with admiration.

Google's recent moves have stirred concern in industries from book publishing to telecommunications. Businesses already feeling the Google effect include advertising, software and the news media. Apart from retailing, Google's disruptive presence may soon be felt in real estate and auto sales.

Google, the reigning giant of Web search, could extend its economic reach in the next few years as more people get high-speed Internet service and cellphones become full-fledged search tools, according to analysts. And ever-smarter software, they say, will cull and organize larger and larger digital storehouses of news, images, real estate listings and traffic reports, delivering results that are more like the advice of a trusted human expert.

Such advances, predicts Esther Dyson, a technology consultant, will bring "a huge reduction in inefficiency everywhere." That, in turn, would be an unsettling force for all sorts of industries and workers. But it would also reward consumers with lower prices and open up opportunities for new companies.

Google, then, may turn out to have a more far-reaching impact than earlier Web winners like Amazon and eBay. "Google is the realization of everything that we thought the Internet was going to be about but really wasn't until Google," said David B. Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School.

Google, to be sure, is but one company at the forefront of the continuing spread of Internet technology. It has many competitors, and it could stumble. In the search market alone, Google faces formidable rivals like Microsoft and Yahoo.

Microsoft, in particular, is pushing hard to catch Google in Internet search. "This is hyper-competition, make no mistake," said Bill Gates, Microsoft's chief executive. "The magic moment will come when our search is demonstrably better than Google's," he said, suggesting that this could happen in a year or so.

Still, apart from its front-runner status, Google is also remarkable for its pace of innovation and for how broadly it seems to interpret its mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

The company's current lineup of offerings includes: software for searching personal computer files; an e-mail service; maps; satellite images; instant messaging; blogging tools; a service for posting and sharing digital photos; and specialized searches for news, video, shopping and local information. Google's most controversial venture, Google Print, is a project to copy and catalog millions of books; it faces lawsuits by some publishers and authors who say it violates copyright law.

Google, which tends to keep its plans secret, certainly has the wealth to fund ambitious ventures. Its revenues are growing by nearly 100 percent a year, and its profits are rising even faster. Its executives speak of the company's outlook only in broad strokes, but they suggest all but unlimited horizons. "We believe that search networks as industries remain in their nascent stages of growth with great forward potential," Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, told analysts last month.

Among the many projects being developed and debated inside Google is a real estate service, according to a person who has attended meetings on the proposal. The concept, the person said, would be to improve the capabilities of its satellite imaging, maps and local search and combine them with property listings.

The service, this person said, could make house hunting far more efficient, requiring potential buyers to visit fewer real estate agents and houses. If successful, it would be another magnet for the text ads that appear next to search results, the source of most of Google's revenue.

In telecommunications, the company has made a number of moves that have grabbed the attention of industry executives. It has been buying fiber-optic cable capacity in the United States and has invested in a company delivering high-speed Internet access over power lines. And it is participating in an experiment to provide free wireless Internet access in San Francisco.

That has led to speculation that the company wants to build a national free GoogleNet, paid for mostly by advertising. And Google executives seem to delight in dropping tantalizing, if vague, hints. "We focus on access to the information as much as the search itself because you need both," Mr. Schmidt said in an analysts' conference call last month.

Telecommunications executives are skeptical that Google could seriously eat into their business anytime soon. For one thing, they say, it will be difficult and expensive to build a national network. Still, they monitor Google's every move. "Google is certainly a potential competitor," said Bill Smith, the chief technology officer of BellSouth, the Atlanta-based regional phone company.

The No. 1 rival to phone companies in the Internet access business, Mr. Smith noted, is the cable television operators. "But do I discount Google? Absolutely not," he said. "You'd be a fool to do that these days."

In retailing, Google has no interest in stocking and selling merchandise. Its potential impact is more subtle, yet still significant. Every store is a collection of goods, some items more profitable than others. But the less-profitable items may bring people into stores, where they also buy the high-margin offerings - one shelf, in effect, subsidizes another.

Search engines, combined with other technologies, have the potential to drive comparison shopping down to the shelf-by-shelf level. Cellphone makers, for example, are looking at the concept of a "shopping phone" with a camera that can read product bar codes. The phone could connect to databases and search services and, aided by satellite technology, reveal that the flat-screen TV model in front of you is $200 cheaper at a store five miles away.

"We see this huge power moving to the edge - to consumers - in this Google environment," said Lou Steinberg, chief technology officer of Symbol Technologies, which supplies bar-code scanners to retailers.

Such services could lead to lower prices for consumers, but also relentless competition that threatens to break up existing businesses.

A newspaper or a magazine can be seen as a media store - a collection of news, entertainment and advertising delivered in a package. A tool like Google News allows a reader or an advertiser to pick and choose, breaking up the package by splitting the articles from the ads. And Google's ads, tucked to the side of its search-engine results, are often a more efficient sales generator than print ads.

"Google represents a challenge to newspapers, to be sure," said Gary B. Pruitt, chief executive of the McClatchy Company, a chain of 12 newspapers including The Star Tribune in Minneapolis and The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. "Google is attacking the advertising base of newspapers."

At the same time, Google and search technology are becoming crucial to the health of newspapers as more readers migrate to the Web. As one path to the future, Mr. Pruitt speaks of his newspapers prospering by tailoring search for local businesses, but also partnering with search engines to attract readers.

Within industries, the influence of Internet search is often uneven. For example, search engines are being embraced by car companies, yet they pose a challenge to car dealers.

George E. Murphy, senior vice president of global marketing for Chrysler, said Chrysler buys ads on 3,000 keywords a day on the big search sites: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN and AOL, whose search is supplied by Google. If a person types in one of those keywords, the search results are accompanied by a sponsored link to a Chrysler site.

Chrysler refines its approach based on what search words attract clicks, and studies its site traffic for clues on converting browsers to buyers. "We've got Ph.D.'s working on this," Mr. Murphy said. "The great thing about search is that you can do the math and follow the trail."

After following a link to a Chrysler Web site, a prospective buyer can configure a model, find a dealer and get a preliminary price. Only dealers can make final price quotes. Yet with more information on the Web, the direction of things is clear, in Mr. Murphy's view. "It will fundamentally change what the dealer does, because telling people about the vehicle won't add value for the customer anymore," he said. "If dealers don't change, they'll be dinosaurs."

Mr. Breyer, the Wal-Mart board member, watches Google closely in his job as managing partner of Accel Partners, a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. These days, he advises startups to avoid a "collision course" with Google, just as he has long counseled fledgling companies to steer clear of Microsoft's stronghold in desktop software.

Internet search, like personal computing in its heyday, is a disruptive technology, he said, threatening traditional industries and opening the door to new ones. "We think there is plenty of opportunity for innovation in the Google economy," Mr. Breyer said.

Jagger, Google Analytics, and the Future of Search & SEO

2005-11-29T02:28:00.000-08:00

I have avoided chatting about Jagger, or even thinking about it. It’s pretty silly to give Google updates names, just call in November, 2005 update. Far more useful. But I did read an interesting article over at Googlelady, who seems to have a cool site. Go visit and digest.

“1) Increased importance placed on IBL (Inbound Links) Relevancy
2) Increased importance placed on OBL (Outbound Links) Relevancy
3) Promotion of relevant Niche Directories (related to No. 1 & #2)

Some other interesting effects were reported by WG Moore. By monitoring the links to his test sites as reported by Google, he established that:

“… Google is down-grading or eliminating reciprocal links as a measure of popularity… a few of our reciprocal links did come back up… from articles where we discussed our area of expertise: Web Analytics… So we feel that these links came back because of content, not linking.””

Google Jagger Update 1/2/3

2005-11-29T01:11:00.000-08:00

Google has recently done a major algorithm update, nick named "Jagger" update series. This article gives an overview of how and why Google needs to update its website ranking algorithms periodically.

If there is one thing Search Engine Marketers and website owners fear - it is a major algorithm update, especially by Google. Well, much as we may like it not to happen, its here. Google has recently done a major algorithm update, nick named "Jagger" update series.

Google does minor algorithm updates almost on a monthly basis and once in a while, it implements a major algorithm update. The last major Google algorithm update happened in November 2003 called the Florida update, which created quite a stir with website rankings. To know more, read our article on Google Florida Algo Update.

Like the Florida update, the Jagger update has done the much feared "blender" act. It has churned the top-ranking websites and turned it into a list of unrecognizable pulp.

Google has been a hot-favorite amongst the web community searching for information. Most feel that the search results have always been highly relevant. It would be therefore safe to assume that whatever algorithm Google has, works just fine. So why does Google need to re-engineer its perfect-looking algo so drastically? Has it not heard the saying don't fix what aint broke"? From Google's standpoint, the reason is simple and valid. Well, for starters, web is ever-evolving and the algo always need to be adjusted in order to provide the best of results. Google engineered an algo, which it believes will reward good sites and rank them well for its viewers.

Google, like most other search engines, keeps this algo a closely guarded secret to prevent it from being exploited. However, the SEO community is constantly at work trying to rank their sites well. Using calculated guesswork, logical thinking, special tests and extensive trial-and-error methods, they gradually figure out what the algorithm likes and dislikes. Armed with this knowledge, it is not difficult to work on websites to rank them high in SERP (Search Engine Result Pages), irrespective of whether the site deserves to rank at the top or not. This kind of algorithm abuse results in ‘less than desirable' websites displacing good sites from the top ranks, contaminating the Google index. Consequently, following the Kaizen philosophy, Google needs to re-engineer its algorithms to keep, what it believes are bad sites, out of its top ranks. Naturally, major algorithm updates upset the current high-ranking websites & sends a lot of SEO professionals back to their work-bench in order to start all over again.

What is interesting to note is the timing of the algorithm update. When Google updated its algorithm in November 2003, there were large scale allegations by website owners that Google intentionally upset the rankings of popular websites just before the Christmas shopping season to force them into buying Google AdWords paid advertising in order to sustain the visitor traffic. While Google claims that the algo update decisions are not influenced by the AdWords team, it is difficult to understand why they would once again choose a critical timing just before Christmas shopping season to update their algorithm. The stakes are very high and its business after all. Google earned $1.57 Billion in Q3 of 2005. If 2003 pre-Christmas algorithm update effect is any indication, I estimate that Google would record revenues of over $2.05 Billion in Q4 of 2005.

Sources at Google claim that the changes we see are part of 3-phase update (Jagger1, Jagger2 & Jagger3). At the time of writing this article, we are in the completion stage of Jagger2 update. The Jagger3 update is expected to be rolled out over the next few weeks.

Jagger Update 1
The Jagger 1 update pre-shocks actually started with a string of back-link updates that began in September 2005 and continued into middle of October 2005. In mid October, Google updated its PageRank database for public view. Usually updated once a quarter, the PR update always creates a stir. While most SEO professionals heavily play-down the importance of PR in ranking, the legacy of its importance is so deep-rooted in the minds of most webmasters, that it is difficult to shake it off as an insignificant ranking parameter.

Jagger Update 2
It is believed that the Jagger 2 update is now complete and replicated to all the data centers of Google. However, you may still notice some fluctuations in the rankings as things stabilize for each update. We are now at the threshold of the 3rd phase of the Jagger update, which is expected to initiate sometime in the second week of November 2005.

From what we have studied so far, Google has re-engineered several aspects of its algorithm. Amongst other aspects we will know as things roll out, we believe it has altered the impact of the following:-

1. Value of incoming links
2. Value of anchor text in incoming links
3. Content on page of incoming links
4. Keyword repetitions in anchor text
5. Age of the incoming links
6. Nature of sites linking to you
7. Directory links
8. Speed and volume of incoming links created
9. Value of reciprocal links
10. Impact of outbound links / links page on your website
11. Sandbox effect / age of your site, domain registration date
12. Size of your site's content
13. Addition and frequency of fresh content update
14. Canonical / sub domains, sub-sub domains
15. Multiple domains on same IP numbers
16. Duplicate content on same site or on multiple domains
17. Over-optimization, excessive text markup
18. Irrational use of CSS

We are studying various aspects of the Jagger algo update and are closely monitoring the impact of changes in each of the above mentioned parameters and many more not mentioned here. We shall be discussing the impact of each of these aspects in the next parts of this article, which are likely to be written once the Jagger3 update and our study of it is complete.

In the meanwhile, we'd like to give out a word of caution – If you have suffered drop in your website rankings, do not do any drastic changes on your website until the Jagger3 update is fully implemented and stabilized. There is a delicate balance and inter-dependence of all these parameters that can bring back your ranks once the Jagger3 update is completed.

Most of the Update Jagger - Part 2 which described mostly two things;

(1) Duplicate content issues due to www. vs. non www. or /index.html or / or not and so on. Mostly canonicals issues, affecting page rankings in this update.
(2) Reciprocal linking, seems to have been spotted and discounted.

Now, at the same time, people in these threads are reporting the direct opposite results. So it is hard to no for sure, without doing my own tests - which I haven't done - nor will I until this update is over.

Jagger 3 is on its way, Matt Cutts explains that Jagger3 was visible at the 66.102.9.104 data center since November 4th. It seems some of the canonicals issues have been resolved with this Jagger 3 update, but it may be too early to say.

WebmasterWorld has a huge thread already on Part 3 of the Update Jagger. Mcdar built a nice tool to keep track of this Jagger update at http://www.mcdar.net/jaggerresults.htm. Reseller in the thread writes;

We can assume that the following DCs are showing at present Jagger3 Beta-2

66.102.11.99
66.102.11.104

66.102.9.99
66.102.9.104

While previously the following DCs had shown Jagger3 Beta-1 ;-)

216.239.53.99
216.239.57.99
66.102.7.99

Jagger1, Jagger2, and Jagger3 are mostly independent changes, but they’re occurring closely enough in time (plus they interact to some degree) that it’s clearer just to act as if they were one update for feedback purposes.

Google’s Jagger Update - Near Completion ?

What Happened?
Webmaster’s, Site Owners, Online Businesses and SEO Companies everywhere have been desperately trying to decipher the fallout from the longest and most grueling algorithm update in the history of the Internet. Webmaster and SEO Forums have been busier than ever before.

Relevancy and revenue generation are the two top goals of any SE (Search Engine). As the Internet and associated technologies mature, SE algorithms have become much more complex. This was demonstrated in Google’s 3-4 week long 3 phase “Jagger” update.

The initial response was very negative and Google received more bad press from every conceivable corner than what could have been imagined, going in. Many sites fell completely out of SERP (Search Engine Result Placement) over night, seemingly unexplainably. Some have recovered, but many haven’t, while others have improved traffic.

Compounding prognostication, Yahoo initiated a much milder index update during the latter phase of the Jagger update.

Google had several issues to deal with:

1) Scraper Sites
2) Faux AdSense Directory Sites
3) CSS Spamming Techniques
4) Growing “Generic” SERP Irrelevancy
5) Reciprocal Linking Abuse
6) Ballooning BlogSpam

Google had no choice but to act decisively and convincingly.

The following list is how we believe Google has handled these issues in the Jagger update:

1) Increased importance placed on IBL (Inbound Links) Relevancy?
2) Increased importance placed on OBL (Outbound Links) Relevancy?
3) Promotion of relevant Niche Directories (related to 1) & 2)?
4) More weïght thrown back to PR @ top domain?
5) Increased importance on AdSense placement relevancy?
6) Possible introduction of CSS Sp@m filtering?
7) Overall Blog demotions?
8) New and unresolved “canonical” issues?

Let’s look at each action separately:

1) Increased Importance Placed on IBL Relevancy

Reciprocal linking abuse was growing out of hand, even “organic” SERPs were losing relevancy because the majority of active Site administrators were link-mongering anywhere and with anyone they could, regardless of relevant value. Google created that monster throwing the weïght behind quantity over quality for a long time. It appears they simply started applying several published relevancy measurement factors (See US Patent Application #2005007174), which seem to have started becoming more noticeable during the “Bourbon” update.

2) Increased Importance Placed on OBL Relevancy?

The patent application mentioned above is ripe for OBL Relevancy algorithm application. The “Bourbon” update ushered in a marked hit on irrelevantly linked and broader based Directories, while promoting “niche” or “focused” more relevant topical based directories. It makes perfect sense to cut sp@m at its source. This move was subtle but at the same time was an engineering masterpiece because it addressed every förm of link sp@m to some degree, including CSS spammed links. Theoretically, if a link can’t be seen, it won’t be selected by visitors and no measurable time is spent there, therefore it’s “Relevancy Rating” starts to diminish immediately. Some even hypothesize that those kind of links can effect the overall “Relevancy Ranking” for the entire site and has potential to effect the page and Site PR (Page Ranking). We definitely saw a promotion of “Relevant” Directories almost across the board with Jagger.

3) Promotion of Relevant Niche Directories (related to #s 1, 2 & 5)?

We began seeing a Directory SERP shift in the “Bourbon” update and definitely saw a promotion of “Relevant” Directories almost across the board with Jagger. Based on those facts, no one can deny that there has been a significant algorithm re-emphasis in and about “Linking” issues.

4) More Weïght Thrown Back to PR @ Top Domain?

Google had seemed to stray from earlier value ascribed to PageRank for some time in quest of content, content freshness and other goals. After Jagger3, I was surprised to find PR zero pages highly placed in important Topic SERP with a great deal of code and 2 sentences of content. One example is prominent just below Matt Cutt’s Blog when doing a Google search for “Jagger Update”. This particular example is mostly javascrïpt, Adsense and intra-site links. On further inspection, the site is well done, contains a good deal of relative information and has a top domain ranking of PR6. Based on these observations one might concur that more emphasis has been placed on top domain PR. This “observed” return focus to “Authoritative” or Sites holding “Trusted” status should hold no real surprise in the quest for “relevancy” improvement.

5) Increased Importance on AdSense Placement Relevancy?

Google has declared all out war against Sp@m AdSense Sites of every kind. Many of these are/were faux directories and scrapers or other Mëga-Sites utilizing auto content and auto link generation technologies and services. Matt Cutts in his Blog openly asked for and gave specific instructions on how to report these Sites to help augment the overall effect of the alg changes targeting those raging atrocities. The war rages on against all kinds of sp@m, but you can always bet that relevancy, revenue protection and growth will be at the top of the list.

Top 10 Exposure on 105+ Search Engines
Your Keywords - No Bidding - No Pay-Per-Click!
Over 150 Million Searches Per Month
Starting at $3 to $4 or Less per Month
Sign Up Today - Receive 2 Bonuses Valued at $60

6) Possible Introduction of CSS Sp@m Filtering?

Matt Cutts issued an unusually stern warning about using CSS Sp@m techniques, coinciding with the Jagger Update (strangely enough) Oct 19, 2005: Hëre is link to the article in Threadwatch entitled: Google Engineer Hammered over CSS Sp@m Comments.

There is a great deal of controversy over this issue, but it has been a growing cancer for a long time. Some almost seem to be speculating that Google couldn’t figure out the algs to combat these issues yet outside of OBL Relevancy implementation, almost dismissing Matt’s warning as “huff and puff” to scare CSS sp@m abusers into compliance. Google always addresses serious sp@m issues eventually and this one has been on the table for around a year, that I know of! It just doesn’t make sense to ignore a warning from a top Google Engineer, does it?

7) Overall Blog Demotions?

BlogSpam became a growing problem after Blogging gained prominence in 2004. Google had to backtrack on Blog SERP prominence because many of them were not managed well, or at all, losing topical relevancy. Jagger seems to have ushered in a SERP sweep of Blogs that were not topically focused, managed with purpose, and contained adsense and link sp@m. It got to the point that it seemed that half the top SERP for almost any topic were Blog listings. Many have fallen in Jagger.

8) New and Unresolved “Canonical” Issues?

Many are complaining of incorrect indexing issues, especially for sites that were indexed for the first time during Jagger. The problem seems to stem from Google treating the abbreviated Site URL (without www) and the complete URL.

I’ll use one of my own as an example:
www.precisioncompletion.com is a new unranked launch during Jagger and comes up correctly.

Do a Google search for precisioncompletion.com and look at the cache - A PR7 and the wrong website!

Half of the listings are correct and the other half pertain to that other site. Google is aware of these canonical issues being reported, and I believe they are planning to address them as the dust settles a little more on this update. Maybe I need to do a 301 permanent redirect to the full “URL” before I löse that PR7 and see if I can get it to transfer and magically pump up that PR zero!

What to expect next?

There are a large number of sites that saw crippling SERP demotions, including clean coded, relevant, W3C validated, completely “White Hat” sites that haven’t ever even engaged in link exchange programs. I know, I had one that got hit, my first time ever in a Google update. Many of us in that position hope that effect is temporary “Collateral Damage” which will be rectified in subsequent alg tweaking as the dust continues to settle on the “Jagger” update.

I don’t see that Google has deviated off their widely expressed intentions and historical path in the Jagger update. They will continue to fight sp@m at any level that protects the footsteps in their expressed intended path: Relevancy - Market Share - Revenue Generation (Maintenance & Growth) - Fiscal and Community Responsibility.

Google's Jagger 3 Update Soft Launch Friday

I'm not telling the algoholics anything new, but for those of you not monitoring data centers Google AlgoLord Matt Cutts announced Saturday that, "starting yesterday, Jagger3 was visible at the 66.102.9.104 data center. There’s still some minor flux on that data center, but it includes Jagger1, Jagger2, and Jagger3."

Link Spam Detection Based on Mass Estimation

2005-11-28T22:57:00.000-08:00

Not sure how many people believe TrustRank is in effect in the current Google algorithm, but I would be willing to bet it is. Recently another link quality research paper came out by the name of Link Spam Detection Based on Mass Estimation [PDF].

It was authored by Zoltan Gyongyi, Pavel Berkhin, Hector Garcia-Molina, and Jan Pedersen.

The proposed method for determining Spam Mass works to detect spam, so it compliments nicely with TrustRank (TrustRank is primarily aimed to detect quality pages and demote spam).

The paper starts off by defining what spam mass is.

Spam Mass - an estimate of how much PageRank a page accumulates by being linked to from spam pages.

I covered a bunch of the how it works in theory stuff in the extended area of this post, but the general takehome tips from the article are

.edu and .gov love is the real deal, and then some
Don't be scared of getting a few spammy links (everyone has some).
TrustRank may deweight the effects of some spammy links. Since most spammy links have a low authority score they do not comprise a high percentage of your PageRank weighted link popularity if you have some good quality links. A few bad inbound links are not going to put your site over the edge to where it is algorithmically tagged as spam unless you were already near the limit prior to picking them up.
If you can get a few well known trusted links you can get away with having a large number of spammy links.
These types of algorithms work on a relative basis. If you can get more traditional media coverage than the competition you can get away with having a bunch more junk links as well.
Following up on that last point, some sites may be doing well in spite of some of the things they are doing. If you aim to replicate the linkage profile of a competitor make sure you spend some time building up some serious quality linkage data before going after too many spammy or semi spammy links.
Human review is here to stay in search algorithms. Humans are only going to get more important. Inside workers, remote quality raters, and user feedback and tagging gives search engines another layer to build upon beyond link analysis.
Only a few quality links are needed to rank in Google in many fields.
If you can get the right resources to be interested in linking your way (directly or indirectly) a quality on topic high PageRank .edu link can be worth some serious cash.
Sometimes the cheapest way to get those kinds of links will be creating causes or linkbait, which may be external to your main site.

On to the review...

To determine the effect of spam mass they computate PageRank twice. Once normally and then again with more weight on known trusted sites that would be deemed to have a low spam mass.
Spammers either use a large number of low PageRank links, a few hard to get high PageRank links, or some combination of the two.
While the quality authoritative links to spam sites are more rare, they are often obtained through the following
- blog / comment / forum / guestbook spam
- honey pots (creating something useful to gather link popularity to send to spam)
- buying recently expired domain names
if the majority of inlinks are from spam nodes it is assumed that the host is spam, otherwise it is labeled good. Rather than looking at the raw link count this can further be biased by looking at percent of total PageRank which comes from spam nodes
to further determine the percent of PageRank due to spam nodes you can also look at link structure of in-direct nodes and how they pass PageRank toward the end node
the presumption of knowing weather something is good or bad is not feasible, so it must be estimated from a subset of the index
for this to be practical search engines must have white lists and / or black lists to compare other nodes to. this can be automated or manual compiled
it is easier to assemble a good core since it is fairly reliable and does not change as often as spam techniques and spam sites (Aaron speculation: perhaps this is part of the reason some uber spammy older sites are getting away with murder...having many links from the good core from back when links were easier to obtain)
since the small reviewed core will be much smaller of a sample than the number of good pages on the web you must also review a small random uniform sample of the web to determine the approximate percent of the web that is spam to normalize the estimated spam mass
due to sampling methods some nodes may have a negative spam mass, and are likely to be nodes that were either assumed to be good in advance or nodes which are linked closely and heavily to other good nodes
it was too hard to manually create a large human reviewed set, so
- they placed all sites listed in a small directory they considered to be virtually void of spam in the good core (they chose not to disclose the URL...anyone want to guess which one it was?). this group consisted of 16,776 hosts.
- .gov and .edu hosts (and a few international organizations) also got placed in the good core
- those sources gave them 504,150 unique trusted hosts
of the 73.3 million hosts in their test set 91.1% have a PageRank less than 2 (less than double the minimum PageRank value)
only about 64,000 hosts had a PageRank 100 times the minimum or more
they selected an arbitrary limit for minimum PageRank for reviewing the final results (since you are only concerned about the higher PageRank results that would appear atop search results) of this group of 883,328 sites and they hand reviewed 892 hosts
- 564 (63.2%) were quality
- 229 (25.7%) were spam
- 54 (6.1%) uncertain (like beauty, spam is in the eye of the beholder)
- 45 (5%) hosts down
ALL high spam mass anomalies on good sites were categorized into the following three groups
- some Alibia sites (Chinese was far from the core group),
- Blogger.com.br (relatively isolated from core group),
- .pl URLs (there were only 12 polish educational institusions in the core group)
Calculating relative mass is better than absolute mass (which is only logical if you wanted the system to scale, so I don't know why they put it in the paper). Example of why absolute spam mass does not work:
- Adobe had lowest absolute spam mass (Aaron speculation: those taking the time to create a PDF are probably more concerned with content quality than the average website)
- Macromedia had third highest absolute spam mass (Aaron speculation: lots of adult and casino type sites have links to Flash)
[update: Orion also mentioned something useful about the paper on SEW forums.
"A number of recent publications propose link spam detection methods. For instance, Fetterly et al. [Fetterly et al., 2004] analyze the indegree and outdegree distributions of web pages. Most web pages have in- and outdegrees that follow a power-law distribution. Occasionally, however, 17 search engines encounter substantially more pages with the exact same in- or outdegrees than what is predicted by the distribution formula. The authors find that the vast majority of such outliers are spam pages. Similarly, Bencz´ur et al. [Bencz´ur et al., 2005] verify for each page x whether the distribution of PageRank scores of pages pointing to x conforms a power law. They claim that a major deviation in PageRank distribution is an indicator of link spamming that benefits x. These methods are powerful at detecting large, automatically generated link spam structures with “unnatural” link patterns. However, they fail to recognize more sophisticated forms of spam, when spammers mimic reputable web content. "
So if you are using an off the shelf spam generator script you bought from a hyped up sales letter and a few thousand other people are using it that might set some flags off, as search engines look at the various systematic footprints most spam generators leave to remove the bulk of them from the index.]
Link from Gary
Search The Search Engines for "Link Spam Detection Based on Mass Estimation": Google | Yahoo! Search | Teoma | MSN Search Beta | Wisenut | Gigablast
Category(s) seo tips
Posted by Aaron Wall (of SEO Book.com) at November 10, 2005 07:47 AM

Comments

From the above: "Spammers either use a large number of low PageRank links, a few hard to get high PageRank links, or some combination of the two."

Seems pretty broad and could almost cover the incoming links for, er, possibly 80% of sites on the net?

Posted by: bock at November 14, 2005 04:17 PM

>Seems pretty broad and could almost cover the incoming links for, er, possibly 80% of sites on the net?

Well I think if you look at the power laws bit mentioned by Orion that you can think of it a bit more as mathematical patterns.

Most automated spam systems have patterns associated with them.

Algorithms and systems like these are not about catching all spam, but are about reducing the volume of spam to a manageable level.

Posted by: aaron wall at November 15, 2005 03:04 AM

They are looking for spikes in the high PageRank Web sites (and their scale for PageRank does not match the classic PageRank definition -- this is a modified PageRank algorithm).

According to their test, about 1 in 4 "high PageRank" sites were found to be spam. Given how few of the sites were tested (less than 1 million out of a database of 70+ million), these sites would probably correspond to Toolbar PR 8 and above sites, maybe only PR 9 and above.

A lot of layering is implied in this model. That is, they suggest that the spammers create(d) low-quality sites that were used to boost a few other sites, which were used to boost ultimate target sites to high PR. My feeling is that the practice is a bit more sophisticated than that.

The paper also identifies "cliques" on the Web, isolated regions where good content pretty much links in a closed group. The MegaSpam sites apparently don't fall into the clique categories. They have stepped past the boundaries of self-inclusion and actually participate in natural Web community linking.

But the paper argues that, despite this apparent blending with the natural Web community, bad sites with high PR still stick out as bad sites.

Since PR doesn't affect search rankings very much, the paper in itself is not significant, but it may signal future trends in spam detection that could feed new filters.

Secret Google "Quality Labs"

2005-11-24T05:39:00.000-08:00

In keeping with the theme of the past few posts regarding targeted website traffic, honest website marketing and marketing tools, and legitimate work-from-home income, I want to reprint some insightful articles. We have been talking about "fingerprinting" and how that can be damaging to to directory sites, such as those created by Traffic Equalizer.

By the way, let me repeat that search engines do not necessarily think that site created by TE and other directory software such as Traffic Hurricane or Directory Generator are bad. There has been a lot of talk to the effect that these site are spam. There are various schools of opinion. One school holds that TE sites are spam because they use TE. However, opinion aside, the fact of the matter seems to be that regardless of opinion, whether or not the search engines consider such a site spam depends on how the webmaster used the software. In some of the earlier posts I go into this in a bit more detail.

In this post, I want to print an article from the Axandra SEO newsletter on the Google Human Quality center and what that means for website owners. I have shown this article before, but it has been a bit, and I think in light of the last several entries that this continues to be relevant.

Do humans change Google's search results?

It has turned out that _eval.google.com is some kind of quality center. Google pays people from all over the world US$10 to US$20 per hour to check Google search results every day.

These people, called International Agents at Google, seem to have been recruited through universities. There is also a job posting for Google quality raters on Monster.com:

Google Inc. is recruiting part-time, temporary, home-based workers to help with work on a search quality evaluation on a project basis. [...]

Candidates will evaluate search results and rate their relevance. Thus, all candidates must be web-savvy and analytical, have excellent web research skills and a broad range of interests. Specific areas of expertise are highly desirable.

An official Google spokesman has confirmed that the quality center exists and that real people rate the quality of search results.

What does this mean to your web site?

As long as you didn't optimize your web site with shady tricks, this means nothing to your web site. The human reviewer try to filter web pages that use unethical search engine optimization methods such as cloaking, hidden text, etc. from the search results.

We've said it before in our newsletter: ethical search engine optimization is about everyone winning.

Search engines: They win as they are provided with pages that are easy to understand and that contain the quality information that their visitors search for.

Searchers: They win as they are getting what they ask for from the search engines. They search for "green widgets" and get a page about green widgets.

Web site owners: They win as they are getting quality visitors who are interested in what their web site has to offer.

As long as you optimize your web pages with ethical search engine optimization methods, you don't have to be afraid of human reviewers.

Google, Revenue Insider, Keyword Avalanche, and More

2005-11-24T05:29:00.000-08:00

1. My site traffic continues to increase, largely as a result of this blog and the RSS feeds. I should also say that the Isell classifieds script brings in a large number of visitors. This is not targeted traffic, per se, but it is traffic that arrives for which I have to do absolutely nothing.

2. Google continues to regularly spider this blog. I mentioned earlier that I had a site indexed on Google and Yahoo within 48 hours through a link I placed on this blog. For the time being, only the index pages are listed, but the sites are in the directories. This blog is now listed in MSN. So, I'm listed by the Big 3, and the only work I had to do was build the site. Later, I'll put attention on forcing the indexing of the remaining pages.

3. The Revenue Inside membership continues to be interesting. I am very close to being convinced that this is the "real deal." By "real deal" I mean an honest service run by honorable individuals who intend to live up to their promise. And, there is cash incentive to do so as the RI group make in excess of $50,000 a month from their consituency (i.e. membership). However, I promised to tell the good, the bad, and the ugly. And right now, I am having a difficult time installing Wordpress on my RI sites. I had hoped to have a site up over the weekend, but it is stalled because I cannot get Wordpress to work properly.

4. I have also just joined Keyword Avalanche. I am too new to know whether or not this will be worth while. It ought to be, but there will be a break in period. It does seem to be the case that the owner of the membership really has made a lot of money with Adsense. However, the heavy hitters seem to be over at Revenue Insider.

Growth in Google Traffic

2005-11-21T22:09:00.000-08:00

Google.Com would receive more traffic than MSN.Com. There have been several ups and downs in the charts over this period, but these last few months have gotten very interesting. MSN almost seems to be decreasing, as Google is shooting right up there.

Looking at the current growth trends Google will surpass MSN sometime late November or early December. At this point, Google.Com will become the the 2nd largest site on the net in terms of traffic. The #1 spot currently belongs to Yahoo.Com and Google still has a bit to go before it will become #1 on the Internet.

Google will take #1 sometime next year (2006) if looking at current trends.One thing is for sure, though. Google will surpass MSN very shortly.

Domains Registered to Google Inc

2005-11-21T00:53:00.000-08:00

Domains Registered to Google Inc.
Last Updated: November 21, 2005

*Googleclips.com

*Googlelecture.com

*Googlemotherfucker.com

466453.com

Adsbygoogle.com

Adsense.net

Adwords.com

Adwords.net

Adwords.org

Adwordselect.com

Adwordsexample.com

Adwordsgoogle.com

Adwordsselect.com

Adwords-select.com

Adwordsselect.net

Adwordsselect.org

Akwan.com (still not registered as a Google domain)

Android.com (still not registered as a Google domain)

Answergoogle.com

Answer-google.com

Answersgoogle.com

Answers-google.com

AppliedSemantics.com

Appsem.com

Arabgoogle.com

Arabicgoogle.com

Askgoogle.com

Blogger.com

blog-google.com is registered to a person in Australia

blog-google.info

blog-google.net

blog-google.org

Blogspot.com

Catalogsgoogle.com

Chinagoogle.com

Cobrasearch.com

Deja.com

Deja.net

Dejadiscussion.com

Dejadiscussions.com

Deja-discussions.com

Dejanews.com

Dejanews.net

Dejanews.org

Dejastinks.com

Dejastinks.net

Dejasucks.net

Dejatracker.com

Deja-tracker.com

Dodgeball.com (still not registered as a Google domain)

Earthender.com

Earthender.net

Earthstream.com (still registered to Keyhole)

Earthviewer.com

Earthviewer.net

Earthviewer.org (still registered to Keyhole)

Elgoog.com

Elgoog.net

Elgoog.org

Firehunt.com (not registered to Google by using Google domain servers)

Foofle.com

Fourth-party.com

Fourthparty.net

Fourth-party.net

Fourthparty.org

Fourth-party.org

Froogel.com

Froogle.com

Froogol.com

Frooogle.com

G00gle.com

Gbrowser.com

Gbrowser.net

Gbrowser.org

Gcalendar.com (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Gchat.biz

Gchat.us

Gdrive.com (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Gewgle.Com

Gewgle.com

Gewgol.Com

Gewgol.com

Ggoogle.com

Ggooglers.net

Ggooglers.org

Gigagoogle.com

Gigagoogle.net

Gigagoogle.org

Gmail.com

Gmmgjd.net

Gmmgjd.org

Gmmgjdwap.com

Gngjd.com

Gogle.com

Gogole.com

Googel.com

Googil.comc

Google.biz

Google.com

Google.info

Google.net

Google.org

Google.us

Google.ws

Google1.com

Google2.com

Google3.com

Google4mp3.com

Googleaccelerator.com

Googleaccess.com

googleaccess.com

Google-access.com

google-access.com

googleaccess.info

google-access.info

googleaccess.net

google-access.net

googleaccess.org

google-access.org

Googleadsense.com.

Googleadservices.com

Googleadult.com

Googleadvancedsearch.com

Googleanalytic.com

Googleanalyticas.com

Googleanalytics.com

Googleanswer.com

Google-answer.com

Googleanswers.com

Google-answers.com

Googlearabic.com

Googlearchive.com

Googlearchives.com

Googlearth.com

Googlebay.com

Googleblog.biz

Googleblog.com

Googleblog.info

Googleblog.net

Googleblog.org

googleblogger.com is registered to a person in the UK

googleblogger.info

googleblogger.net

googleblogger.org

google-blogs.com is registered to a person in Australia

google-blogs.info

google-blogs.net

google-blogs.org

Googleblows.com

Googleblows.net

Googleblows.org

Googlebot.com

Googlebox.biz (registered to Data Docket but using Google domain servers)

Googlebox.com (registered to Data Docket but using Google domain servers)

Googlebox.info (registered to Data Docket but using Google domain servers)

Googlebox.net (registered to Data Docket but using Google domain servers)

Googlebox.org (registered to Data Docket but using Google domain servers)

Googlebrowserbutton.com

Googlebrowserbuttons.com

Googlebucks.com

Googlebutton.com

Googlebutton.net

Googlebutton.org

Googlebuttons.com

Googlebuy.com

Googlebuy.info (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlebuy.net (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlebuy.org (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlecache.com

Googlecalendar.net (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlecatalog.com

Googlecatalogs.com

Googlecom.com

Google-compute.com

Googlecompute.com

Googlecompute.net

Googlecompute.org

Googlecomputers.com

Googlecomputing.com

Google-computing.com

Googledesktop.com

Google-desktop.com

Googledigital.info

Googledigital.net

Googledigital.org

Googledirectory.com

Googledirectory.net

Googledirectory.org

Googledoodle.com

Googledoodle.net

Googledoodle.org

Googlee.com

Googleearth.com

Googleearth.infi

Googleearth.info

Googleearth.net

Googleearth.org

Googlefoundation.com

Googlefoundation.net

Googlefoundation.org (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlegalactic.om

Googlegalaxy.com

Googlegear.com

Googlegear.net

Googlegear.org

Googlegoods.com

Googlegroups.com

Googleguy.com

Googleimageads.com

Googleimages.com

googleimagesearch.com

Google-inc.com

Googleinstantmessenger.com

Googleit.com

Googleit.net

Googleit.org

Googlejobs.com

Googlejobs.net

Googlejournals.com

Googlejupiter.com

Googlelabs.info

Googlelabs.net

Googlelabs.org

Googlelocal.net

Googlelocal.org

Googlemail.biz

Googlemail.com

Googlemail.info

Googlemail.org

Googlemail.us

Googlemaps.com

Googlemaps.org

Googlemars.com

Googlemastercard.com

Googleme.com

Googlemercury.com

google-mobile.com is registered to a person in Israel

google-mobile.info

google-mobile.net

google-mobile.org

Googlemoon.com

Googlemovie.info

Googlemovie.net

Googlemovie.org

Googlemovies.info

Googlemovies.net

Googlemovies.org

Googlemusic.com

Googlenepture.com

Googlenews.net

Googlenews.org

Googlenum.com

Googleoogle.com

Googleoogle.net

Googleoogle.org

Googlepage.org

Googleplex.com

Googleplex.org

Googleplus.com

Googlepluto.com

Googleporn.com

Googleprint.biz

Googleprint.com

Googleprint.info

Googleprint.net

Googleprint.org

Googleprint.us

Googleproxy.com

Googlequiz.com

Googlequiz.net

Googlequiz.org

Googlereader.com

Google-reader.com

Googlereader.info

Google-reader.info

Googlereader.net

Google-reader.net

Googlereader.org

Google-reader.org

Googleregistrar.com

Googlesatellite.com

Googlesatellite.info

Googlesatellite.net

Googlesatellite.org

Googlesaturn.com

Googlesearch.com

Googlesearch.net

google-secure.com

google-secure.info

google-secure.net

google-secure.org

google-secure-access.com

google-secure-access.info

google-secure-access.net

google-secure-access.org

Googleseek.com

Googlesex.com

Googlesex.info

Googleshopping.com

Googleshopping.net

Googleshopping.org (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlesidebar.com

Googlesidebar.net

Googlesidebar.org (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlesimplex.com

google-sitemap.com is registered to a person in the UK

google-sitemap.info

google-sitemap.net

google-sitemap.org

googlesitmap.com

googlesitmap.info

googlesitmap.net

googlesitmap.org

Googlesms.biz (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlesms.info (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlesms.net (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlesms.org (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlesms.us (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googlesolarsytem.com

Googlesponsoredlinks.com

Googlestore.com

Googlestuff.com

Google-stuff.com

Googlesucks.com

Googlesucks.net

Googlesucks.org

Googlesun.com

Googlesyndication.com

Googletalk.info (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googletalk.net

Googletalk.org (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googletoolbar.com

Googletv.com (currently registered to Data Docket*)

Googletv.net

Googletv.org

Googleuniverse.com

Googleuranus.com

Googlevenus.com

Googlevideo.biz

Googlevillage.com

google-vpn.com

google-vpn.info

google-vpn.net

google-vpn.org

google-wifi.com

Googlewifi.info

google-wifi.info

Googlewifi.net

google-wifi.net

Googlewifi.org

google-wifi.org

Googlewireless.info

Googlewireless.net

Googlewireless.org

Googleworld.org

Googli.com

Googlie.com

Googlr.com

Goolge.com

Gooogle.com

Gotgoogle.com

Gppgle.com

Gppglr.com

Groupsgoogle.com

Guugle.com

Guugle.org

Igoogle.com

Igoogle.net

Igoogle.org

Kaltix.com

Kaltix.net

Kaltix.org

Keyhole.com

Keyholecorp.com

Keyholecorp.net

Keyholecorp.org (still registered to Keyhole)

Mobilegoogle.info

Mobilegoogle.net

Mobilegoogle.org

My-deja.com

Mydeja.net

My-deja.net

Mydejanews.com

My-dejanews.com

Mygoogle.com

My-google.com

Mygoogle.net

My-google.net

Mygoogle.org

My-google.org

Ngoogle.com

Numgoogle.com

Oingo.com

Orcit.com

Orcut.com

Orkat.com

Orkut.biz

Orkut.com

Orkut.info

Orkut.org

Pageadgooglesyndication.com

Porngoogle.com

Sergeybrin.com

Sergeybrin.net

Sergeybrin.org

sitemap-google.com

sitemapgoogle.com is registered to a person in France

sitemapgoogle.info

sitemap-google.info

sitemapgoogle.net

sitemap-google.net

sitemapgoogle.org

sitemap-google.org

Talageo.com

Toolbargoogle.com

Urchin.com (not registered to Google but using Google domain servers)

Urching.com

Urchinstats.com

Wapgmmgjd.com

Wapgoogle.com

Wappdapag.com

Wwapgmmgjd.com

Wwwadwordsselect.com

Wwwadwords-select.com

Wwwgoogle.com

Wwwgooglecom.com

Wwwgoogleoogle.com

Wwwgooglesyndication.com

Wwwwgoogle.com

Zipdash.com (acquired by Google but not registered to Google Inc. at the present time)

Google Analytics stops at 234,725 accounts

2005-11-20T23:22:00.000-08:00

According to the Google Analytics "sign up" page, they have temporarily disallowed people from signing up. They also removed the "Add new profile" link from inside analytics which previously allowed a single account to track up to 40 different Web sites. With 234,725 Analytics accounts created (and probably over 200,000 additional profiles), Google has went from tracking zero to almost half a million in about a week

This is a huge amount of data to process. Anybody who has tried WebTrends knows the processing power Google will need to get all these accounts caught up. Unfortunately, this delay users have been experiencing since it's launch is giving this product a bad reputation

Google Says:
"Google Analytics has experienced extremely strong demand, and as a result, we have temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. In the meantime, please submit your name and email address and we will notify you as soon as we are ready to add new accounts. Thank you for your patience."

Google SEO Lab: Search Engine Optimisation Resources

he Google Feedback Loop For Quality Traffic

Schmidt: Google Has Just Begun

5 Strategies to Get Circular With Those Links

Search Engine Optimization Template

Optimize your PPC results

Click Fraud IP's

Click Fraud IP's

Finally got my google page

Click Fraud IP Addresses

Beginners Guide to PPC Campaign

A Beginners Guide to Creating a top PPC Campaign

Google Information

Google Information

SEO and PPC Manager Stuff

How people underestimate the search marketing industry

Advanced Pay-Per-Click Strategies

Advanced Link Building Tactics

Guide to Applying 301 Redirects in Apache

2005 Analysis of Google's Sandbox

Google's Patent: Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data

Getting out of Google’s Supplemental Index

Who's Afraid of Google?

Google in 2084

List of blog directories for ping

Google Wants to Dominate Madison Avenue

Google Adds Library Texts to Search Database

Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies

Jagger, Google Analytics, and the Future of Search & SEO

Google Jagger Update 1/2/3

Link Spam Detection Based on Mass Estimation

Secret Google "Quality Labs"

Google, Revenue Insider, Keyword Avalanche, and More

Growth in Google Traffic

Domains Registered to Google Inc

Google Analytics stops at 234,725 accounts