June 1, 2007 Archives

We asked the question in the past, Can an Email Address Be Counted as a Back Link? Well, maybe the answer is yes.

I was looking at Excel Diamonds backlinks in Yahoo! Site Explorer for fun and found that Yahoo! was listing an email address as a link. Well, kinda.

As you can see from the image below (if you can't see, click on it for a larger view), Yahoo is showing that they indexed an email address and they consider it a link. Why?

So I clicked on explore URL, exploring the email address, and it showed me there is a link from this email address at my personal blog.

So I clicked over and noticed, my client accidently put his email address in the location of the web address for when he commented.

So, technically, it is wrapped in an <a href=" but it is also linking to sales@excel and the @ symbol should make it invalid. However, my server people must have made it work, because when I try that URL in my browser, it works fine.

So, clearly this needs to be 301 redirected. But should Yahoo! know better? Nah, I'll take the blame for this.

Technically, Yahoo! is indexing a link and not an email address. So I have yet to see evidence of an email address that can earn link popularity.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

How is everybody doing today? We had a special visitor at the office this week, Ben Pfeiffer aka Phoenix, Senior Editor of the Search Engine Roundtable, so it's been a fun week in the sun.

Memorial Day

On Monday, many in the United States celebrated Memorial Day. Ask.com commemorated the holiday with a Memorial Day logo, and we did the same here at Search Engine Roundtable. The other search engines didn't feature any different logo, which was noticed by some people, but perhaps that's because there's not a lot of AdSense traffic on any Memorial Day weekend which probably means that search traffic is low and people aren't even using Google. Or at least that's how some people might see it. (Right.)

Maps Get Interactive

This week was a big week in maps. The coverage really is all at Search Engine Land but we highlighted it here. Google has launched street view photography, Microsoft has expanded 3D coverage to include New York, and MapQuest introduced a new ActionScript API for richer maps. Also, Google has acquired Panoramio which is a photo-mapping application and is actually pretty cool.

Yahoo Panama Hits Europe

Earlier this week, Yahoo rolled out Panama to the United Kingdom and announced that it will be going live shortly. Two days later, that dream became a reality when they launched Panama in all of Europe. Now all advertisers in Europe can take advantage of Yahoo's latest and greatest marketing platform.

Just Plain Silly

A funny kid has applied for a job at Best Buy and decided that because he is an AdSense publisher, he can put on his resume that he is employed by Google. No, AdSense publishers are not employed by Google. They are independent contractors and have no right to make such a claim. Sure, I understand the desire for people to fluff up their resumes by adding these things, but that one is just simply outrageous.

People Can Access Your Gmail Account When You Die

When you die, your family members may need to access your Gmail account. This can be done if necessary, but paperwork will need to be filed (including a death certificate) and will be processed within 30 days before access is granted. If you need data sooner, you chould try to hack the account with brute-force get a court order, but Google will only go through legal processes due to privacy concerns.

Google Gears Lets You Read Your Feeds Offline

Earlier this week, Google Gears, an extension of Google that lets you read your content offline, was launched. Barry wrote a pretty detailed screenshot presentation of how he got Google Gears working with Google Reader, which enables people to read their feeds offline. I'm sure people who have mobile connections and travel often would find this useful.

Jason Calacanis Launches Mahalo

Mahalo, a human search engine, has been launched by Jason Calacanis, entrepreneur of sorts. So far, Mahalo has been deemed an aggregate of About.com, del.icio.us, and Wikipedia, with an emphasis on what's popular. Maybe that's just now. After all, Jason emphasizes that it's pretty much in major alpha (if you didn't notice), so perhaps everyone should give it time and wait until the editors get working.

Stop Crying About PageRank

Seriously. We have this conversation everyday. I think the forums people are probably sick of it. Stop hoping that your link buy will up your PageRank. PageRank is not a definitive indicator about anything on your website. Even if you are listed in the Yahoo! directory, you may not have a high PageRank. That doesn't mean that the link is useless. It's still a high-quality link. PageRank also takes time. Again, I point you all to Danny's excellent guide on PageRank and I'll continue showing that to you until everybody gets it. :)

Next Week

Next week, Barry and I are headed to SMX Advanced which will be held in Seattle, Washington. There will be conference coverage on the blog from us and Carolyn Shelby will be guest-writing for this blog. If you're there, be sure to come up and introduce yourselves. I look forward to meeting you all!

Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Land site has been caught hiding text and performing "poor man cloaking" techniques. A WebProWorld thread called attention to the fact that Search Engine Land was hiding text in a CSS file:

text-indent: -9000px;

But Danny Sullivan didn't know about it. In fact, someone had to call this thread to his attention, and then he wrote in.

Still scratching my head, I then wondered, "Wait a minute. Is this about my site?" Surely not. But yep, there in our style sheet was the damning code. It's true. We were totally hiding text and technically might be considered spamming the search engines. Curses -- just when I hoped not to be counted among those other search spammers like Google and Yahoo that have been outed for using hidden text.

So what happened? Apparently, there was an H1 tag that was visible only to users who have images and stylesheets disabled. That's why regular users typically don't see it. Danny continues by saying that he doesn't approve of this technique and will fix it after SMX next week.

We'll look at a way to make the logo be a hyperlink that doesn't involve using a hidden style, though our permanent solution might have to wait until next week as we're sort of busy with the upcoming conference we have this week.

Sorry for anyone that somehow thought we were endorsing some spamming technique. We're not, of course.

Yeah right.

Image of Danny Sullivan (on left with beer in hand) endorsing Mr. Spam man

Forum discussion continues at WebProWorld.

If you are in the business of doing SEO, what is an appropriate job title for you? I'm sure many of you have grappled with that question, similar to a member at the HighRankings Forums.

Tough question, really. I've seen people spend a ridiculously long time explaining what they do.

thanks for asking about something I've struggled with. I call myself a SEO consultant, but than I end up having to explain myself to the general population. You call yourself a plumber or a realtor and people know what you do. You say you do SEO or SEM and they get a blank look on their face.

Some people try to say that they work in "Marketing." Others, like administrator Jill Whalen, use a more specific and to-the-point title:

o the general population (like what I tell people I meet at a wedding) I just say that "I help businesses get their websites found in Google."

To businesses, however, I'm pretty much an SEO Consultant or Search Marketer.

Another good one is a business card with the following text:

WEB OPTIMIZATION The art and science of producing targeted website traffic and converting that traffic into sales.

What do you use?

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums both are discussing a recent change in Google to the search results.

WebmasterWorld senior member, steveb, said:

And now it has all completely changed to a result set similar to what wwas around a week ago.. gone are all the trivial bits of nothing.

Senior member, Walkman, adds:

Either way, I would guess that this is an algo update so some sites will come back for good.

WebmasterWorld moderator, tigger, concurs that this seems to be a reversal in a week or two and mostly impacting one keyword phrase searches.

Continued forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

It appears that Yahoo! is now bolding the domain name in the search ads on the page.

For example, a search on ipods brings up dozens of ads, at the top and right side of the page. If you look at those ads, the domain names, under the ad descriptions, are all bold.

Here is a screen shot of the top ads and some of the right side ads, all showing bold domain names.

Is this a bug or new feature in Yahoo! Search?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread talks about how they noticed how the Yahoo! Directory pages are showing a PageRank score that is typically lower than what they showed in the past.

A member says based on that, "Looks like that $300 link was worthless."

As you know, it cost $299 per year to get reviewed to be included in the Yahoo! Directory. So he feels that the $299 he spent is not worth anything because the page with the link has a low PageRank.

Forum moderator, martinibuster, responds that it is not that simple.

Passing the review process of the Yahoo directory says something positive about a website. The toolbar doesn't reflect that.

I agree. Google knows Yahoo! tries their best to only include quality sites within their directory. Even if a page in the Yahoo! Directory has a low PageRank, it doesn't fully represent the importance of such a link.

I may be going off on an edge right now, but I believe that a Wikipedia link, even though they are nofollowed, can be valuable. If not today, I think down the road.

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to links. It is not just about PageRank or if the link is going through a redirect or even if it is nofollowed. It also depends on the source.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.