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We have taken a look at several reasons your efforts at SEO may not be giving you the results that you have been aiming for. Just to recap, we took a look at several things such as wrong keywords, infrequent updates, and lack of inbound links. You can probably say that these are [...]

While the rest of the world was distracted by the launch of Chrome, Sugarrae aka Rae Hoffman - definitely a woman who “pulls rank” - was covering the nofollowing of links over at Twitter at the behest of Google.

Her argument is powerful and once again challenges Google for pushing sites to do what they want. As she asks:

“If Google is the one who wants that web link nofollowed because some twitter profile pages may be automated bots or spammers, then it is time they realize that THEY are responsible for determining which of those individual pages is authoritative, trusted and legitimate enough to pass link popularity, by a method other than demanding that other websites and social networks change the ways they do business to help Google stop links being used as a form of currency and to manipulate their algorithm - an issue Google and Google alone created and profited from.”

This should be read by everyone in our industry. Leave the shiny new browser alone for a few minutes and see where our futures are going. Thanks for not being distracted by Chrome.

Despite some popularly held ideas to the contrary, viral campaigns don’t need to be massive to be successful. You can have a small campaign that has a big impact in your industry or community. In today’s linkbuilding column, “Viral Link Building: Size Doesn’t Always Matter,” Justilien Gaspard explains that the power of viral marketing for link building comes from going after a targeted audience.

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For the past couple of posts, we have been taking a look at some factors that may be hindering your SEO efforts from bearing fruit. Just to recap, we discussed the use of appropriate keywords and the frequency of your updates. These apply to both blogs and web sites in general. Today, [...]

Want to solve the link building riddle? Stop thinking about money and start thinking about something bigger. In today’s link building column, “Get Links Now: Make a Difference, Make Connections,” Sage Lewis shows you how getting outside of your own little world can expand your horizons, as well as your link portfolio.

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Have you ever been around a friend who points out a flaw about themselves and you say, “I would never have noticed that if you hadn’t pointed it out?”

Google is doing the same thing sans flaws.

On the Official Google Blog, Ben Gomes explains that sometimes Google’s search experiments are very subtle. They’ll test things like white space in the search results or how big the plus box should be next to a stock quote link.

The differences among the options being tested are very difficult to detect without being told what’s going on. But the results of tests show that even a small number of pixels can make a big difference. For example, it could mean the difference between a searcher spending a lot of time on one search result - and not necessarily the first one - or a searcher being able to scan the results more easily. And then Google has to decide which is better.

All in all, Google’s search experiments are not always about the alogorithm. What do you think of these experiments? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Related Reading:
Google News Testing Updates
Google Testing Time Elements In Search Results
Google Testing Expandable “More Google” Links On Home Page & More

With the Democratic National Convention starting today in Denver, I thought it would be prudent to see which search engine is handling the highly anticipated event the best. Of course, Microsoft rocked the Olympics and outpaces everyone in mapping Georgia, but who’s got political game?

Microsoft proved again that it’s on top of current events, but it’s AOL that takes the cake in my book. First, AOL makes use of its design as a portal to serve up content on the homepage, which eliminates searching for today’s biggest US story.

Then, AOL makes use of its news and content networks to provide relevant links in its search results. Something that caught my eye is a link to News Video. I would have thought YouTube would dominate online video for the conventions, especially considering their involvement in the debates. But YouTube left a lot to be desired, while AOL News Video served up relevant, organized video.

AOL Homepage

AOL convention search results

AOL News Video results

YouTube results

Ask.com didn’t have to do anything different. Their usual results, which includes a right sidebar with images, provided a nice offering of convention-related content.

Ask.com search results

Microsoft’s Live.com could have made use of their new design, making the image of the day related to the convention. But they still have an Olympics-themed image up. Still, a search provides the latest convention news results at the top, and I like how their links to image, video, and other types of search are below the search box instead of on top. That helps users find what they’re looking for even better. Searching for video via Live.com brings up results from AOL, YouTube and other sources such as the AP. The videos are organized like image results, which makes for quick browsing - probably quicker than AOL or YouTube. However, some of the videos are from past conventions.

Live.com search results

Live.com video search results

As I was writing this, Yahoo changed its results. Before, it showed News Results about halfway down the page, now news results for the convention are at the top. This puts it on par with Microsoft. Yahoo does take slight advantage of being a portal to provide content right on the front page so no searching is involved. But today’s headline is the new Dancing With the Stars cast and whether Kim Kardashian’s foot injury will prevent her from participating.

Yahoo convention search results

Google offered nothing special. They both provided News Results, but placed them about halfway down the page.

Google results

Yahoo front page

But don’t take my word for it. Do some searching of your own and then leave a comment giving your vote for best search engine for Presidential politics.

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The [...]

On Saturday night, while watching the Olympics, I learned that there is a British swimmer named Hannah Miley. As a mom of a 10 year old, I found this amusing as my daughter has been thoroughly obsessed with the Disney show Hannah Montana where the lead character is played by Miley Cyrus.

I was curious as to how the search engines would handle a search for Hannah Miley. Would the results be completely dominated by the increasingly scandalous teen queen? Or would there at least be one mention of the Olympic athlete?

First, I checked out Google. After all, they’re the best search engine in the world and everyone knows it except people in China (who prefer Baidu) and southeast Asia (who prefer Yahoo). Perhaps we should learn something from this year’s Olympic hosts and their neighbors.

Google had ZERO results for Hannah Miley the swimmer on their front page. They didn’t even pull results from their news search product, which does have results about the swimmer - during the Olympics! Tsk. Tsk.

Next, I moved onto Microsoft’s Live Search. I was greeted with an photo of an Olympic event as the background and part of their new home page design. The first result for Hannah Miley was about the British swimmer!

The main link was to NBCOlympics.com, who is partnering with Microsoft for the Olympics. Then there were several site search links below to send searchers automatically to more detailed information they might be looking for.

You might say that’s cheating, that it’s not part of some supreme algorithm. I say, it’s useful and relevant information for searchers and most will not particularly care how it got there.

Plus, Microsoft did include a link to Hannah Miley’s wikipedia page as part of their “regular” result, something the googlebot ignored.

Last, I headed to Yahoo. They served up some news results for the Hannah Miley search. The first one was for the British swimmer and the second was for the Disney star. Then the organic results are dominated by the latter, save for one result from Zimbio.com about the athlete.

So that’s how the “big three” search engines are handling the 2008 Olympics. Microsoft clearly takes the gold, Yahoo is half-heartedly participating, and Google is sitting out the games altogether.

And if you think it’s unfair of me to use a search for “Hannah Miley” as the basis for such a statement. Check out the screenshots below for a search for American superstar swimmer Michael Phelps and tell me who’s serving up the best results. (This time Yahoo wins the gold!)

We have talked about blogs that spam anchor text links and blogs that have fake links (that is, links that point to ads and trick users into clicking on them).  Are there any other kinds of blogs out there that you would want to avoid if you want to make a good name for yourself [...]