Stefan Weitz gives us a lesson in Image Search

Stefan Weitz demonstrates some really interesting features in the LiveSearch image search with his own brand of humor.

This is an interesting and informative video. If you do image searches of any kind the information here will save you more time than you’ll spend watching this video.

Watch out Google the future of image search is here and it is brought to us by MSN or should I say LiveSearch.

After watching this video I would be willing to say Google image search has some catching up to do. LiveSearch image search definitely has a leg up on the competition.

You may think you know Image Search, but in the next five minutes I’ll show you at least a couple of things I bet you didn’t know you could do.

So just how can we leverage this information in the world of SEO and Marketing?

I guess that is best left for another time and another post.

Late,
Gary Pool

Google, MSN, LiveSearch, a Lesson in Image Search is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Tip 8 of my Top 10 Tips and Tricks for building a search engine optimized (SEO) website from the ground up is Submitting to Search Engines (or not).

Search engine submission is how a webmaster submits a web site directly to a search engine. While Search Engine Submission is often seen as a way to promote a web site, it generally is not necessary. Because the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN use crawlers, bots, and spiders that eventually would find all by themselves most web sites on the Internet.

There are two basic reasons to submit a web site or web page to a search engine. The first reason would be to add an entirely new web site because the site operators would rather not wait for a search engine to discover them. The second reason is to have a web page or web site updated in the respective search engine.

When I entered search engine submission in to Google I get 10,600,000 results.

You would think with over 10 million results submitting your site to the search engines would be a positive thing. Years ago you would have been right thinking that. Search engines don’t live in the past, at least the ones we care about don’t.

The top search engines tweak their algorithms almost daily and adjust them weekly. If your site is found by the major search engines (the big three are Google, Yahoo, and Live or MSN) the rest will find it also. This is what SEO is all about staying up with the search engines and trying to stay a half step ahead of them.

If the major search engine finds your site on their own it (your website) receives more value than it would if you have to tell them about it. For the sake of clarity let’s say the search engine can assign a maximum value of 100 search love points to a site. All together now “the search engine can assign a maximum value of 100 search love points to a site”. If they find your site on their own you can receive a maximum of 100 search love points. If you have to bring it to their front door you can only receive 80 search love points maximum.

Let’s just take a look at the search engines position…
If this website is really of value wouldn’t I be able to find it without it being brought to my door step? If this site had real value wouldn’t there be a link from another site I have already visited to it?

Doesn’t this argument make sense? This is why it is better to NOT submit your site to search engines through the front door. You need to find ways to have it brought to their attention without waving a flag and yelling “HERE I AM, OVER HERE, I AM RIGHT HERE!”

Are you thinking “Is getting another site to give me a link the only way to get my site found without submitting it to the search engines?” Actually no! You can submit your site to directories which we will deal with next time or now with Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer you can have Google and Yahoo bring it in the back door.

Both Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer allow you to add a meta tag or page to the root of your site which they verify. This verification process will also get your site on their radar. Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer give you access to some very good tools for your websites SEO.

Give it some thought and I’ll bet you can come up with other ways to get your site on the search engines radar without delivering it your self. Most blog comments allow a link back to your site. Maybe if you can find a blog that deals with the same subject and post a comment you could get a very relative link back to your new site?

Still want to submit your site to search engines? There are plenty of outdated tools and software out there that would be more than glad to take your money to help you do so. Make sure if you are resubmitting your website you have also changed your sites content too.

Now that you have chosen whether or not to submit your site to the search engines you are ready to move to Tip 9 Submitting to Directories (free and paid).

late,
gary pool

Top 10 SEO Tips and Tricks | Submitting to Search Engines (or not) Tip 8 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

As a follow up to a blog post and discussion Scott Hendison and I had a few days back I am posting some more research information I have discovered. This all started with a post by Scott “Is Yahoo Selling Out“. I found something I thought was very interesting.

What bothered me was:

Did Vintage Tub buy the organic #1 position? No where in the results, except for the paid ad, is the word antique associated with the site ranked #1 in the organic results. Now I did a little research and I couldn’t find “antique tub” in any anchor text pointing to the vintagetub.com site. It appears you can buy a #1 non-paid listing on the big “G”. Google didn’t even use “nofollow” tags either.

Now I did a little more research and what I found is very interesting. While both Yahoo and MSN or what is now Live included the same site in their results, they both listed the vintagetub.com site #2, they actually listed different pages than Google. The pages Yahoo and Live listed actually had the word antique in them.

Yahoo lists vintagetub.com #2 and #3. Vintagetub.com also isn’t listed #1 or #2 in the paid search listings either.

MSN (Live) lists vintagetub.com #2 and adds a supplemental listing. Vintagetub.com is actually listed #1 in the paid results on Live.

This is really interesting to me. Yahoo and MSN actually list the same page in their results. The page asp/edu_ antiques.asp is listed #2 in Yahoo and #2 – supplemental in the MSN results. Neither MSN or Yahoo list the vintagetub home page in their results other than paid results. Google does not list the pages with the actual words in my search in their results, just the home page. I am going to refrain from making any deductions however, I do find this really mind boggling.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Google -Yahoo – MSN – the search engine dance? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

SMX Advanced Seattle, Washington, June 4, 2007

SEO, Meet SMM

SEO has a lot to gain from SMM, social media marketing. Getting your content into the major social media sites does more than provide an initial traffic jump. It can generate links or provide rankings you might not be able to tap into with your own site. In this session, SMM essentials that SEOs need to know.

Moderator:
Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land

Speakers:
Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-Founder, SEOmoz
Cindy Krum, Senior SEO Analyst, Blue Moon Works Inc.
Todd Malicoat, Internet Marketing Consultant, Stuntdubl
Neil Patel, Author, Pronet Advertising

Rand Fishkin – Social Media Marketing vs. Viral Marketing

Web 2.0 sites and approach these sites in the desire to be part of the community. We make the Yahoo, MSN, and Ask communities work for us. This now extends to social media to leverage them for success.

• Rule the search results
• Link love.
• Traffic
• Influence the traditional media

Places you can use the above list:

1. YouTube
2. Wikipedia
3. Yahoo! answers
4. Yelp
5. LinkedIn
6. Flickr
7. Craigslist
8. Facebook
9. Amazon – blogs, lists
10. MySpace
11. Technorati
12. Judy’s Book
13. Newsvine
14. CitySearch

How well does this work?
SEOMoz has 724,200 links and a PR of 7 since launched in October 2004.

Neil Patel

Unwritten rules:

• don’t do self promotion
• add biased information
• ask friends for vote

Users will accuse you of spamming your link on all the front page stories and call you out on it.

Neil’s golden rules:

• Add tons of friends. If you submit a piece of a content and plenty of people vote on it, that means they’re interested in the stuff you’re submitting, so become their friends.
• Participate in the community. Get involved with the people who leave their AIM screenname or email in their profile
• Become a top user. You can submit stuff and get away with it. People will vote on your stuff and you’ll succeed
• Use their features against them. If they give you tools to become friends, become friends with them.
• Create a social brand. Don’t use the name like "neilpatel" all over. People might recognize you

The StumbleUpon tool and the ability to send a link to your friends that forces them to visit your page.

If you want to succeed, do what’s ethical. Develop your brand don’t jeopardize it. Think long term. Social Media isn’t a quick fix, it’s a long term strategy.

Todd Malicoat

The benefits to strategic linking with social media:

• control over
  • anchor text
  • body copy
  • theme
• opportunity for links from trusted sources
• Rankings
• traffic
• sales go up
• Squidoo

Invisible nofollows
With Digg, sometimes the links won’t follow at all.

Spam is determined by intent and extent – Size matters

• link buying vs. strategic placement
• doorway pages vs. landing pages
• social media spamming vs. social media optimization

Strategies: build reputation neighborhood which is good for reputation management, build hubs (e.g. Squidoo) with social media links, maximize the use of anchor text, and looking for social media sites.

Reputation neighborhoods sign up to everything you can find, test them and see which rank, if they are good, link to them. Build a neighborhood of sites and interlink them.

Build a hub – you can use MySpace…

Test social media sites for link value find out if the site is indexed.

1. Is the site indexed?
2. Is the page indexed?
3. Do these pages rank?
4. How many links?
5. Does the page pass on link juice?

Testing methodology:

• run a site:command on similar pages on the site
• build on the social media site filled with nonsense
• link to another nonsense page

Conclusions – Benefits: know how to use the tools.

• size matters
• intent and extent also matters
• use strategies
• experiment

Cindy Krum

Social Media for Brand Awareness

Why is social media important to your brand?
Ubiquitous adoption of web technology means your customers will demand a higher level of interaction with your brand.
Social networks have an undeniable power.
Radical transparency is the new public relations nirvana.
Social network advertising is expected to triple by 2011.

Secure your social presence:

• Research relevant social networks
• Create your own social sites
• Look for niche/vertical sites
• Blogs and forums.

Wiki sites.

• Identify existing networks for your brand and industry
• Have a strategy
• Who gets social profiles?
• Brand – products – company icons

Use social profile portals to your brand. You want people to be part of your community and to come back. Keep the information fresh and current.

Manage multiple social profiles in centralized locations. Use remote photo hosting instead of hosting on multiple sites. Leverage email functionality, blogs, and billboards.

SEO your profiles:

• use traditional SEO best practices
• focus on brand keywords
• interlink profiles to your brand sites
• initiate friending campaigns
• drive traffic to the profile/s

Empower brand evangelists – give them great stuff:

• widgets
• profile layouts
• graphics
• desktops/wallpaper
• videos
• podcasts
• special deals

Starbucks gives out a widget. You can add MySpace profiles and you can invite people to drink coffee with you. LOST also – staying on top of the buzz about the show.

• Embrace convergence
• leverage existing marketing efforts
• send TV/radio/print traffic to profile pages
• link to commercials on your profile pages
• link to information/press about the campaign from the profile

Social Network offline traffic:

• host meetups offline
• offer in-store only coupons
• use social profiles to integrate on and offline brand interaction

Social Network online traffic:

• create a social media section on your site
• link it from your homepage
• encourage visitors to add you as a friend
• promote all the cool stuff you’re giving away on your profile

Maybe I’ll see you at SMX Advanced in Seattle today!

late,
Gary

SMX Advanced | Social Marketing | SEO | MySpace | LinkedIn is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Just to keep you updated on Micro$oft adCenter, I found this post online at SearchEngineWatch.com posted by the Microsoft adCenter Community Team.

Hi All

We are pleased to announce the arrival of adCenter 3.7.1. As communicated in advance of the upgrade, reporting will remain out of SLA until around Tuesday May 1st 2007 due to the massive amounts of data that we must process as a result of the upgrade.

Users ‘may’ see some partial data in our BI reporting for day, month, year when compared to hourly:

This is an expected side effect of the upgrade and catch up of data.

This is only affecting data after Friday the 27th of April. All data prior is complete for all grains – hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, etc.

This is only temporary. We expect to catch up on the data end of day Tuesday 1st May 2007.

Users will likely see blanks or ‘-’ in the Keyword Performance tab (under the Campaigns Tab) instead of the actual keyword data. We are working hard to investigate root cause. The good news – there is a work-around:

Simply run a Keyword Performance report in adCenter and you should get the data you are looking for.

We’ll keep you informed as the progress of this post-upgrade data catch-up.

Please do let us know what you think of the new UI and features.

Cheers

adCenterEU

late,
Gary

adCenter Upgrade – Temporary Reporting Delay is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician