Other Search Topics Archives

A Webmaster Talk forums member is trying to reduce the amount of search traffic he's getting.

Allow me to explain. Basically, he's looking to even out his traffic because other sources are yielding overall traffic success. Search alone hasn't been cutting it.

What can be done to reduce the emphasis on getting traffic through search engines? The usual: link building, tools and services, community involvement, a forum, a newsletter, advertising, word of mouth, and contests.

Or you can go the extreme measure and disallow search spiders by updating your robots.txt. Still, some search traffic would be nice, right?!

The idea here is a good one. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Focus on getting traffic from a variety of sources.

Forum discussion continues at Webmaster Talk.

A study performed out of Penn State College found with reasonable accuracy that "about 80 percent of queries are informational and about 10 percent each are for navigational and transactional purposes." At Search Engine Land, Barry breaks down the behaviors and says that the informational queries include searching for a fact or topic, navigational searches include looking for a specific website, and transactional queries address buying products or services.

According to Bill Slawski on Sphinn, this data was obtained from Dogpile. It appears, then, that the information may not be accurate if accounting for searcher behavior on Google. Indeed, as forum member evan420 points out, navigational searches make up for 5-7x what they cite in the study. He says that if the same study would come out on Google, you'd see different results.

Google has a nearly ubiquitous toolbar and is the "navigational gateway" for so many who bypass the browser address bar, so I have to think a new study using the major SE's search logs, while improbable, would yield far different results.

It makes a good deal of sense. Is anyone up for doing research on searcher behavior on Google? :)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

If you're like me, you live on the internet for a big chunk of your day. You thrive on the internet. The internet is a big key player of your being, and if there's no internet, you can hardly imagine your existence without it.

This feeling is only going to grow with time. We become increasingly dependent on our online activities. We become increasingly dependent on search. Whereas 20 years ago, we had to do research in, uh, libraries, we can now do it at the tip of our fingertips at any time of day (wearing nothing or everything).

So what would happen in a world where, if you got banned by a search engine, you had some recourse? Imagine that if you got banned from Google, it would actually be illegal? In other words, search engines were not allowed to ban sites without a reason (assuming there is no reason already).

Search Engine Watch Forums members are discussing the possibility of exactly that. And forum members believe that it would be a great idea to take legal action against those search engines who ban you or who lower your position in the SERPs.

But more than that, search engines are becoming viewed as commodities and this can't necessarily be as far fetched as some folks imagine. Could they eventually be regulated by government entities? Probably -- or probably not. In a "probably" scenario, there would be rules on who would rank, where they'd rank, and the like.

I foresee that to be an incredible undertaking and waste of tax dollars if implemented. Right now, there may be a few unhappy webmasters, but overall, the state of search is pretty good. Bringing in a big player (like the US government) would be a mistake.

There's more to this really interesting discussion. Worth envisioning or not? I still think not. But if you want to read more about what forum members are saying, check out Search Engine Watch Forums.

I remember working as a private investigator and visiting the United States Patent and Trademark Office way too often as part of my job. And when I read Sarah Bird's post on SEOmoz about an individual named Jason Gambert who is looking to file a trademark for the term SEO, I knew exactly where to go.

The background: an individual named "Mr. Gambert" is trying extremely hard to get his "process" of SEO (or so that's what he claims it is) to be trademarked. He's been rejected but he's been narrowing his scope every so often so that he can persevere and succeed with the trademark filing.

This will hurt the industry heavily if such a thing actually pans out as any SEO could be held accountable (and have to pay) if the trademark goes through.

I encourage anyone interested in pursuing this further to speak with a lawyer (particularly one involved in trademark litigation) to dispute this filing.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn and Search Engine Watch Forums.

Kalena Jordan writes a blog about her concern over an SEM rating site called SEMCompare. She tells us that the Search Marketing Standard magazine has started this site to allow people to write reviews about the search marketing agencies they've worked on, whether it's positive or negative.

After doing an interview with one of the people behind the site, she was alarmed by a comment from said individual: "At the end of the day we can’t really endorse or condone reviews on the site.” Does it make sense to create a site if you can't vouch for its content?

The discussion moves over to Sphinn where sentiment is similar. Here are some reactions:

U gotta be kidding me right? So I can hire a gang of offshore monkeys to go by (spoofed IPs) and whack attack all the competition? I Love It.....

And another:

One of my concerns, which you didn't mention, was whether SEM/SEO firms would be able to buy their way to the top or to good reviews? To me, the site looks like one of those kind.

Finally, another valid point:

Another concern that I have that I don't think has been discussed is the conflict of interest in asking a client to review your agency and knowing that SEMCompare exists.

A positive review is great, but exposure to your compeitiion is not so.

Boris Mordkovich of SEMCompare responds to these concerns and says that the concept arose from several inquiries about SEM agency recommendations. They created a site driven by user generated content to do this. There are some safeguards they've put in place, including contacting people whose reviews don't match up. This should prevent the system from being abused. Users need to have a valid email and website and if their reviews are specious, the SEMCompare staff will ask the user directly.

Does it have promise? Perhaps. I still think that the service can be easily gamed. Also, it's interesting that a lot of marketing companies I haven't heard of have a solid 5.0 score whereas the more known companies have lower scores (between 1.7 and 4.9). Something about that just doesn't feel right.

The ongoing discussion (oh yes, there's a lot more) continues on Sphinn.

Lately, we've heard a lot about the need for search marketing standards. Most people that I've encountered are overwhelmingly supportive of such a move.

Not Jill Whalen, however. Over at Search Engine Land, she provides her four reasons as to why we shouldn't go that direction. Her reasons: there's no "one size fits all" solution to SEO, the definition of "SEO" is not agreed upon entirely by the community, laws already exist that protect consumers from SEO scams, and there's no such thing as "cheating" in SEO.

At High Rankings Forum, people are largely supportive of Jill this time around. One even puts it this way: "standardizing SEO is like standardizing art."

But Ian McAnerin, who spoke at the Search Marketing Standards session I liveblogged during SMX West, disagrees with her. His blog post addresses this (note: there are two parts) and he feels that the standards are more for the public's understanding of SEO, not for SEOs themselves.

In the end, it may be two different discussions entirely. We may need to standardize this debate. ;)

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

Ann Smarty has written a post at Search Engine Journal about how the mindset of webmasters who launch sites with and without SEO in mind. If SEO is a priority, choose a relevant domain name and think over website structure. Of course, that's how you'd approach it if search engines were important.

But what if they weren't?

If search engines didn't exist (or rather, you'd like the search engines to find you instead), you wouldn't care about indexing the site immediately and you certainly wouldn't submit your site to search engines. You wouldn't update your content that quickly. Instead, you'd search for alternative traffic sources, like blog comments.

She has a good point. As Barry Welford says, "Simply put it’s getting the fundamentals right then watching it grow." Eventually, it will, but technicalities may not have to be at the forefront of your thought process.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

According to Aaron Wall, since Mahalo adds no value (if you remove the links which point to other pages on the Internet), it violates Google's spam guidelines.

While many people, particularly SEOs (who have been frustrated with Jason's commentary in the past -- though to me, he redeemed himself during the keynote at SESNY last week), lauded Aaron's statements, I have to disagree with Aaron's statement. Personally, do you think that this post on how to convert from a PC to Mac lacks any substance? I think it's a great piece.

Jason responds in the Sphinn thread:

Over time I think you’ll see our pages grow to be over 50% original content, 20% links, and 20% UGC (i.e. reviews, votes, comments). Most pages in the system are 50-70% complete.... over the next two to three years they will reach 80-90% complete thanks to the help of the community and they will be worthy of a top 30-50 ranking in 20-30% of the cases is my guess.

Furthermore, all pages with less than 400 unique words will be nofollowed.

Personally, I think that's a great step. And I have to continue to disagree with individuals who think it's appropriate to continue bashing Jason when he clearly rectified the situation last week -- since, well, I was there.

As one member puts it, "if an actual human being combs through that data to provide us a garbage free page, then it should not be considered scraping or spam."

Agreed on all fronts.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Brett Borders wrote a great article on the 13 pages negative online publicity comes from that are most difficult to outrank, which includes articles on authority blogs, government pages, press releases, off-topic pages, and rip-off report listings. Are there more? Probably. On Sphinn, a user suggests that this beginner guide on reputation management should be applied, and here are some suggestions: don't open 100 blogs, don't start a MySpace account, don't start a Wikipedia page, and more.

Personally, given that I just scored Andy Beal's new book, I suggest reading his 7 step online reputation crisis plan which realistically gives you steps to identify and respond to reputation management crises. (btw, he's giving away an iPod Touch. I claim it.)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

We talked about the SEMMYs at least twice. These are awards from Matt McGee about his favorite blog posts voted upon by everyone else.

Well, the winners are now in, and guess what? I won an award! My article, Top 6 Ideas for Incredible Viral Content, won the best of its class in the Viral Content category. Score!

The official results are at the SEMMYs website. But in case you don't want to venture there (though you should; it's worth the visit to see the other contenders), here are all the winners:

Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Ranking Factors Version 2 - Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz
Pay-Per-Click
Optimizing Paid Search & Landing Pages for TV, Radio and Print Advertising - Greg Meyers, SEM Geek
Google
Why Google Can’t Just "Dump" PageRank - Dan Thies, SEO Fast Star
Viral Marketing
Top 6 Ideas for Incredible Viral Content - Tamar Weinberg, Techipedia
Link Building
Help! I’m New, I Need Links, What Can I Do? - Debra Mastaler, The Link Spiel
Local Search
Anatomy & Optimization Of A Local Business Profile - Chris Silver Smith, Search Engine Land
Blogs & Blogging
The Blogger’s Guide to SEO - Aaron & Giovanna Wall, SEO Book
Reputation Management
Buzz Monitoring: 26 Free Tools You Must Have - Andy Beal, Marketing Pilgrim
Small Business
Branding For Small Business And Bloggers - Steven Bradley, TheVanBlog
Social Media
The Social Media Manual: Read Before You Play - Muhammad Saleem, Search Engine Land
Web Analytics
Web Analytics Demystified - Avinash Kaushik, Occam’s Razor
Search Tech
Which Is Better For SEO: Shared or Dedicated IPs - Lisa Barone, Bruce Clay Blog
Online Marketing / General
How A Pretty Face Can Push Visitors Away - Bryan Eisenberg, GrokDotCom<
LOL Funny
9 Ways To Bore The Audience at SES New York - Lisa Barone, Bruce Clay Blog
Rants
Web 2.0 & SEO: Must We Piss In Every Public Fountain? - Dan Thies, SEO Fast Start

It's been a lot of fun, Matt!

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Bryson Meunier posted a characteristics of the top 100 mobile search queries at AT&T. The top five keywords, in order, are "google," "yahoo," "sports," "facebook," and "myspace."

Further, Bryson says that mobile users are looking for navigational options as opposed to the traditional sit-at-your-computer search where you may not know what you're looking for.

According to the classification, the mobile queries were overwhelmingly navigational in nature, with almost three quarters of the queries coming from users who already knew what they were looking for: query intent percent of queries informational 12% navigational 73% transactional 15%

The article concludes with some best practices, including:

Using navigational queries such as branded terms, competitor terms and names of known products as core keywords could lead to increased visibility in mobile search engines.

...[U]sers are looking for usable sites, [so] developing a mobile web site and including the term "mobile" in the copy as a secondary keyword could lead to increased visibility in mobile search engines.

The research is very detailed and incredibly in-depth. If you're going along the mobile route, it's a definite read for you.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Jeff Quipp over at Search Engine People has started a funny blog post about search spammers. His post, entitled "You might be a search spammer if...." has hit the front page of Sphinn and caused a lot of chuckles. Here are some of the items on the list:

1. You know what a Markov Chain is
2. you use an image editor to write your emails
3. you think of him as “Matt Cutts Me Out”

Surprisingly, there are a lot of people who can identify with these tactics! Do you?!

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Last week, we introduced the SEMMYs, Matt McGee's awards for his favorite blog posts. Well, folks, the judges' votes are in and you can now vote for the best of the best. Matt explains the voting procedure on his blog.

For a list of finalists, go to the SEMMYs website and cast your vote. There are 15 different surveys from which to vote, so at the minimum, choose the two where I appear as a finalist.(Viral Marketing and Analytics). ;)

What are you waiting for?

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

On her blog, DazzlinDonna proposes a plan that some people think is unfathomable: stay away from search news for 24 hours. Her argument is that if you avoid the news, you might actually be able to get things done.

The question is: can you do it? If so, do it today.

The discussion moves over to Sphinn where most, if not all of the forum participants, believe that they cannot step away from their computers and avoid search-related news. It just seems too difficult.

In a way, I can relate to that. If I avoid reading blogs for 24 hours, I have over 2500 new posts to read and I don't give them the attention they deserve. That's why I'm checking my feed reader constantly.

(Oh, and if you vowed to participate, why are you reading this?!)

Maybe Donna will just have to form a support group.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Matt McGee arranged a very cool contest that highlights the best posts in Internet Marketing this year. His creation has been called the SEMMYS. And both Barry and I are judging it. In addition, several of our posts have been nominated:

• Impact of Changing Registrar Data on Search Rankings
• Pages Ranking Poorly in Yahoo but Well in Google?
• Why Do Some SEOs Want the Toolbar PageRank to Go Away?
• Google Declares War on Paid Links: But Why Now?
• Ethical Link Building Incentives
• Google Does Impact Many Small Businesses
• First Screen Shots of Microsoft's Live Webmaster Portal

Soon, the judges will have their votes in. Then it's up to you, the people, to vote for the best post of the year. We can't wait to see what the keys hold!

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Over at Hobo SEO UK, Shaun Anderson wrote a really interesting "take me back to the early days" post about how established SEO and SEMs got started. He looks at many bloggers' very first posts and many have come a long way since then.

For example, here's Danny Sullivan's first personal blog post. And apparently Jim Boykin is a snail and Sebastian just wanted to follow the crowd.

By the way, Barry's first personal blog post is here. And here is Search Engine Roundtable's first post. Nostalgic, isn't it?

It's funny and cool at the same time to see how many bloggers have started and how they have changed and grown over the months and years of blogging.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Matt McGee made a really cute 2007 search marketing quiz that you can take until later tonight. So far, I probably am the winner, but I challenge you to a duel.

Here's a sample question:

What color monkey is Rob Kerry?

You can choose from the following answers:

Red, black, green, brown, orange

Okay, I'm kidding. But the quiz is fun and the winner gets $25 from Matt's pocket. As of last night, only 6 people got all the questions right!

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

The I'm Not a Doctor blog has an interesting poll: how often do you dream about SEO? The poll has some interesting results so far (one guy dreams about SEO every night, but most go with once a month). The discussion led to Sphinn where many people admit that they do dream about their work -- a lot.

Haha. Yup, I am sad to say that I do. I was just thinking about how dorky I am when I wake up and run to my computer in response to a dream I had only to be disappointed (or relieved) that the dream was not true.

Yeah, those are the kinds of vivid dreams I typically don't have. But it's funny that so many people have these funny dreams.

DigitalPoint Forums members don't dream about SEO. Instead, they dream about Google AdSense.

Replying to a post just now has just reminded me that last night I had a dream where I checked my Adsense account and found I had a huge amount of clicks but only half the impressions.

Yeah, and someone recommends that he goes outside more. I guess that most of the community there doesn't relate. :)

Anyway, what do you dream about? Barry has interesting dreams. He dreams about blogging. He also dreams about Matt Cutts leaving Google and working for RustyBrick. Maybe ... in his dreams. :)

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums and Sphinn.

The Register reports about some corruption that was discovered within Wikipedia: the existence of a secret mailing list that cracks down on users why may be threats to Wikipedia administrators' power. The article goes into depth about what ensued, what happened, the reaction, and the community is pretty shocked.

Can Wikipedia still be considered a trusted source by search engines with this information known? Well, most people say that there are always flaws in these sources, but the data is still more relevant than other search terms.

The real story here seems to be the paranoia and the heavy handed treatment of dissent by the Admin group. It comes down to control. I don't think Jimbo wants to lose that.

Users will still be in control to keep the results relevant.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Cre8asite Forums moderator eKstreme asked in a Cre8asite Forums thread, "Are SEOs better searchers?"

Wow, what an excellent question!

I think SEOs have to be better searchers. Why? We know how search engines work, at least we know more about how search engines work when compared to normal searchers. Don't you think Matt Cutts at Google is a better searcher than most SEOs even? He really knows how Google works, more than SEOS. But SEOs know how search engines work more than normal searchers.

• How often do you find yourself using quotes in your searches?
• How often do yourself scanning the paid listings when you are looking to buy things?
• How often do you use site operators in your searches?
• How often do you use time based operators?
• The list goes on, allinanchor, allintitle, special file operators, etc...

We know how to find things things that the ordinary searcher may not be able to find. Of course, it is the search engines goal to make sure the searcher finds what he or she is looking for ever time. So it may not be all that important to be "a better searcher" these days then it was back in the Alta Vista days.

But when it comes down to it.

• I know when to use a generic search engine versus a speciality search engine.
• I know when to use special operators and when to let the search engine do the work.
• I know when to disregard the paid search ads and when to focus on them.
• I know when to consult Gary Price for help and when not to

What an excellent topic!

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread points to recent research on mobile search in a document entitled Deciphering Trends in Mobile Search (PDF link).

The Google team (a Ph.D student and senior staff researcher) analyzed data on over 1 million page views from Google logs and found the following:

• The average mobile query was 2.56 words.
• The most popular searches are listed in the chart below:
  
• Mobile queries are less homogeneous which may be attributed to the diversity of mobile users.
• More users are clicking on search results in comparison to 2005.
• There is a reduction in the amount of time it took to enter a query, possibly due to better keyboards or greater experience with mobile devices.

Some of these results come as a shock to users, especially since local searches are not as heavily emphasized as originally thought.

There are some surprises in this research for me - in fact, some of it has me scratching my head in bewilderment. I've always assumed that mobile search would be HEAVILY about Local Search.

But the data may not be completely accurate, as administrator Brett Tabke notes:

As it stands today (just checked) they are not properly detecting several browsers and a mobile browser variations on google.com. This was one of the main topics I talked about down at the mobile conference in Orlando last week. The fact that Google misidentifies Opera, Netfront, BlackBerry/RIM, and Thunderhawk.

Regardless, the findings are interesting and are worth a read if you're interested in mobile search.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Let's say you're ranking really well for a specific keyword. You also have a PPC campaign and your paid listings are on top. Is it too much? Should you curb your spending and focus on your organic links, since in the end, it is free?

In many cases, the answer is no. They complement each other. Awhile ago, I covered a webcast where link expert Eric Ward says the same thing: an appropriate mix is critical. Bill Hartzer says the same thing on Search Engine Guide. This still holds true. Reinforcement is always helpful, and if your results appear on both the organic and paid side, your users might be inclined to click on those links and increase your revenue.

Some very valid thoughts are voiced by member J. Clark:

1. I want the conversion no matter how we get it (as long as it is profitable)
2. If my company isn't visible in those sponsored spots, our competitors will gladly take the real estate.

If it costs more to rank in both areas, do it. Just keep tweaking to find the solution that converts best for you with the least amount of spend if budgeting is your concern.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

This post was composed on October 2nd and was scheduled for publication on October 5th.

Picture this. You're a search engine marketer from the dawn age of web site promotion. You go to a cave and meditate on what the heck Google is up to next for a few years. Return to this reality and do a bit of research to catch up on your old industry. Your heart races with joy when you discover this new-fangled thing called "social media". (As one might, having been stuck in a cave, ok?)

It looks strikingly similar to web sites from the early days, with the same type of ads mentality, placement and channels for lead development. You wonder. Just exactly who was it that was living inside the cave all those years?

Two lively forum pro's, "Glyn" and "iamlost", tackle the lack of marketing creativity and progress online in a Cre8asiteforums thread called Quite Frankly I'm Staggered...Advertising on the web hasn't moved on at all. They bounce around some ideas and play around with the topic.

From Glyn:

"Here's another thing at the end of the day I question whether or not a person will get spooked if advertising is so targeted that the user is clicking on every add. Thought police of 1984?

When does targeted advertising become spooky?"

This one could be juicy.
(Note: Please forgive the dancing bananas.)

An article about lack of research into sales pitches has Cre8asite Forums members reeling.

A new study by the Intelligent Business Group, a UK-based marketing think tank, provides a devastating critique of the performance of most advertising and marketing agencies ... Eighty-five percent of the survey respondents believe that the agencies pitching them do a lousy job of researching their basic business issues before making their pitch. Astonishingly, 61 percent believe that the agency did no research at all.

That's a huge number. The forums discussion wonders how much time members spend to pitch their SEO or SEM services.

Everyone says that they do research in some form or another whether to determine the industry, the type of product or service being sold, and information about competitors. Some of the participants don't generally make sales pitches at all; instead, people seeking services call them.

But this much is true:

The statistics are staggering but not unexpected. Too many people want to do their job w/o doing it.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

In response to an article by SEMPO about the ineffectiveness of in-house search engine marketing (caution, PDF link), Search Engine Watch members believe that SEMPO is off the mark.

The article highlights obstacles that get in the way of efficient outsourced SEO:

1. SEO/SEM campaigns are time intensive.
2. SEM requires dedication.
3. SEM is very competitive and the market drives costs up.
4. Successful SEM campaigns demand accurate tracking and analysis of effectiveness.
5. In-house SEM programs often are unaware of search engine policies.
6. In-house SEM programs do not have support.

But forum members believe that there are advantages to in-house SEO, such as keeping confidential information confidential, having more insight into the industry to which the marketing is being performed, and having internal control of the people within the company for whom the responsibilities lie.

Having someone in house provides a dedicated resource and know-how for any search marketing campaign. Being able to hire someone solely for the job of search marketing is very effective.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Greg Sterling over at Search Engine Land posts a startling (but not surprising) report that internet ad spend will surpass traditional media ad spend by 2011.

Driven by audience migration, the US Internet is anticipated to capture $61.98 billion and become the top ad medium in 2011. Traditional media will show slow, low single-digit growth while alternative media will grow at a compound annual rate of 17.4 percent during the forecast period.

WebmasterWorld members don't find it surprising either. In fact, it can be often viewed as the desire for newspapers not to conform.

The leading online newspaper consultant screamed at his clients to get into the retail and business directory biz online. They just sat there. Yellow Pages and Google took it over.

Scary thought but quite true.

The Internet is taking a chunk of advertising. Media is evolving. To stay in the game, newspapers will have to get up to speed and bring their services online.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

While doing a website evaluation for a client who hosts his website on Microsoft IIS, Ogletree noticed that Google was indexing a bunch of URLs that did not seem legitimate. These URLs were in the form of adding parenthesis between two slashes, like so:

http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/(I(id=1546973))/Default.aspx

It will take you to the same page as http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/Default.aspx.

Upon further investigation, ogletree found that if you use IIS and the .NET 2.0 framework, this will occur. A default IIS installation will not experience these strange side effects.

The problem with this is a threat to duplicate content, a concern that plagues many webmasters. As ogletree puts it, "You can also link to these new URL's and even submit them to a bunch of directories. It would create as many copies of the same pages as you like."

pageoneresults, WebmasterWorld moderator, says that there are other problems with IIS too. For example, since IIS filenames are not case sensitive, you can "wreak total havoc on someone's IIS hosted site." A scary thought indeed.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

An article in the Wall Street Journal says that Business.com, an online marketing directory, was sold for $345 million.

Business.com works as a kind of online yellow pages. It allows users to search for business services, while collecting a bounty for sending Internet traffic to individual merchants.

WebmasterWorld members react to the purchase. The price tag is quite high. Will it be worth it?

They'll need a great strategy to turn a quick profit on this investment.

Maybe.

If the owner of utube.com can generate $162k a year from the ads and traffic they get, one can only imagine what business.com must be pulling in...

Would you ever invest in a domain that is that costly?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A Cre8asite Forums poses an interesting question regarding social responsibility. If you have a site that requires age verification and you want to keep the content away from people who are not of age, what can you do?

The best solution offered is to hold true to your concerns of social responsibility and keep the content from search engines just as you would from users.

But I think that has to be carried over to the search engines, too. If you can't show your content to underage surfers then the engines shouldn't show it to underage surfers either. And that's exactly what will happen, via snippets and cached pages, if the site is indexed.

So that seems to be possible, by using the following directive:

<META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOSNIPPET">

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Gord Hotchkiss blogged about an amazing interview with usability expert Jakob Nielsen on the future of the search results. A discussion ensued on Cre8asite Forums about the interview, since Nielsen brings up a lot of really interesting points:

• He says that results may not be computed by the number of links in the future so sites like Wikipedia may no longer be in the forefront.
• He proposes changing the search results to more two-dimensional layouts.
• He believes that personalization is impossible since people may want different results depending on the time of day.
• Display ads may cause "banner blindness" which means that users may disregard other multimedia presented on the page.

Bill Slawski disagrees with much of what Nielsen says. For one, he believes that the search results have changed drastically within 3 years, whereas Nielsen believes that they haven't. He also believes that Wikipedia is useful as a starting point in conducting research -- and I'd agree with that. Wikipedia links are often relevant to the typical user.

The interview is very comprehensive but should definitely be read, and forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Being #3 usually sucks. People like #1 and some have learned to settle for #2. But when you're the third-most-preferred search engine, why continue competing? That's the question of the day at the Cre8asite Forums.

I see figures like 50-65% for Google. That does not leave mu[ch] for the rest. Yahoo is number 2 from far away.

Moderator eKstreme has some good insights. He suggests that one reads Don Dodge's article on why 1% of the Search Market is worth more than $1 billion. He mentions that the race is still on, especially since TechCrunch just announced that Microsoft is gaining on Yahoo.

He adds:

Why do they bother? Why does anyone bother starting a business? Simply put, they believe they can do it better. The search market is about solving people's search problems.

But what else can it be? Some people say that audience is key. You might have a site that appeals to savvier users. They're likely to be using Google. Then you have the other search engines, and back to what eKstreme said, those people think that these search engines do it better than Google.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Google is gaining momentum in the search sphere, but Microsoft seems to be picking up the pace. According to a Chicago Tribune article, financial analysts expect that over the next decade, Google will take a whopping 90% of the market "through increased spending on research and development."

WebmasterWorld members are not convinced.

10 years ago Google didn't even exist (at least not as a commercial company), what did the analysts back then predict for 2007?

In fact, another WebmasterWorld thread says that Microsoft's search share is increasing. Was that predicted by financial analysts? I don't think it was.

Still, as Danny writes on Search Engine Land, Microsoft is picking up the pace. Could we see them controlling the market in a decade, at least more so than is expected?

For some nostalgia, check out Barry's post from 2004 where he muses about Microsoft's relevancy. Microsoft has gained the market share only in the past few weeks, but I'm not hearing anything about relevancy getting worse. Search is alive and well.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld (Google) and WebmasterWorld (Microsoft).

We cover reputation management every so often. There are reputation management sessions at Search Engine Strategies. With search, a positive company image is quite important. Bad publicity ranked on the top of the SERPs can hurt your image.

Barry wrote about multiple ways to deal with reputation management last year and the year before. A few suggestions included starting a blog, creating a personal website, sending out press releases, linking to positive articles about the company, writing articles, and participating in forums under the company name.

A WebmasterWorld discusses this a little further. Administrator tedster offers some great tips about how you can work with your audience to improve your image.

Maybe some do that -- but I prefer it to b