September 29, 2009

Microsoft Windows 7 House Party: Public Relations Disaster or Video Marketing Triumph?

If you create something so bad that it goes viral, is it a public relations disaster or a video marketing triumph?

That's the question that journalists and bloggers are asking after watching HostingYourParty, which tells you how to host a Microsoft Windows 7 House Party.

Microsoft is putting a Tupperware-style twist on the upcoming Windows 7 rollout -- launching a new initiative to encourage thousands of employees, partners and technology enthusiasts to throw parties in their homes and communities to demonstrate and help spread the word about its new operating system.

People accepted as official launch party hosts will get their own copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, and a chance to win a computer. But unlike the Tupperware model, there will be no literal selling. These parties are more about generating word-of-mouth buzz.

To promote this idea, Microsoft has uploaded a video to YouTube. Some journalists and bloggers think it is a public relations disaster.

Cindy Perman of CNBC writes, "You just knew that once they put the Microsoft geeks in charge of the "party," that it wouldn't be a 10-kegger and before long, we'd all be putting lampshades over our heads."

Ian Douglas, a tech blogger for the Daily Telegraph in London, writes, "I'm beginning to think that no one involved with Microsoft's advertising has ever left the house or spoken to a real person."

And James Lileks of The Bleat writes, "If Microsoft had been put in charge of marketing sex, the human race would have ended long ago, because no one would be caught dead doing something that uncool."

Now, you may be tempted to watch this 6-minute, 14-second video yourself -- to jump to your own conclusion. But, I warn you -- only serious geeks like me will watch beyond the first minute.

HostingYourParty

Now, if Microsoft really wanted to show people how to hold a Windows 7 Launch Party, they might have created a remix of the 1950s educational video below about what, in fact, makes a "good" party.

1950 - What Makes a Good Party

Not all of the reaction to Microsoft's Windows 7 House Party has been negative. Some of it can be charitably described as "mixed."

David Meerman Scott of Web Ink Now, asks, "Is this Microsoft Windows 7 House Party thing real? Or is it an incredibly wonderful and clever spoof on a 50s educational video that is so well done as to have fooled most observers who seem to think it is legit?"

Janice L. Brown of The Fussy Marketer also asks, "Hmm, if something goes viral because it's so bad, does that still count as achieving the marketing goals?"

Nevertheless, Lieutenant Columbo, if he were blogging these days, would ask just one more thing: "Why did Microsoft disable ratings and adding comments on HostingYourParty?"

Is this something you'd do if you were hoping for a video marketing triumph?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

September 14, 2009

White Knight SEO Checks Google Cash Scam Artists

Back on September 2, 2009, I posted a story entitled, "Google Cash Scam Artists vs. White Knight SEO Campaign."

On September 3, Matt McGee of Search Engine Land posted "Google Cash Scams Targeted By 'White Knight' SEOs" and Chris Crum of WebProNews posted "'White Knights' Take on Fraudulent Results."

And on September 11, Kaila Krayewski of Inernet Search Engine Database posted "SEOs Try to Push Google Cash Scams Out of Rankings."

It appears that all the attention to this issue may have prompted Google to block advertising on the term, "Google cash," as well as another term, "Google money tree." On September 11, Jonah Stein of It's the ROI posted "White Knight Checks Google Cash."

Stein said, "For advertisers playing the Google cash game, this is at best check, not mate. We have not induced a moral decision by Google to protect naive users. This appears to be the narrowest possible compromise, a strategic retreat by Google to avoid the obvious embarrassment of having the organic results overtly exposing the scams advertised on the right. Google is still allowing advertisers to bid on variations like google cash detective and google cash system."

So, the chess game continues. Still, it's interesting to note that a handful of White Knight SEO blogs seems to have promoted Google to suspend bidding on a couple of exact match terms. Can the end game be near?

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 8, 2009

YouTube Biz Blog Touts Social Media and Video Strategies Forum

How cool is this? On Monday, I posted "Social Media & Video Strategies To Be Held With SES San Jose:. It broke the news that ClickZ, YouTube and Google will be holding an event on August 11, 2009, in conjunction with SES San Jose 2009.

Then on Tuesday, the YouTube Biz Blog posted "Join Us at the SES Social Media & Video Strategies Forum." Kristin Kovner, the Industry Marketing Manager at YouTube, said, "We're excited to be a part of this first-time ever event. SES is one of the best places for businesses to learn about search; now that YouTube has millions of searches each day, it's only fitting that ClickZ and SES are expanding the agenda to include a full day dedicated to video and social media."

Just as importantly, the YouTube Biz Blog embedded the featured video on the SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube. Views of the video, which was uploaded four months ago, shot up immediately. You can see the video for youself below.

Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo

This illustrates the link between search and social media that I mentioned on Monday and Mike Grehan writes about in his cover story in the latest issue of SES Magazine.

Additional evidence can be found in research conducted by TubeMogul entitled "How do people discover videos online?" Here's the gist of what they found:

-- 45% of all videos are found on a video site, i.e. going to YouTube and doing a search or clicking around featured and related videos. -- 44% of all videos are found embedded in blogs. -- 6% of all videos are found with search engines, like Google. -- 2% of all videos are found in social networks, like Facebook. -- 2% of all videos found in social bookmarking sites. -- Less than 1% of all videos are found with video search engines, like Google Video.

So, optimizating the title, description and tags of your YouTube video is half of the success formula. But the other half is engaging what Google calls "the buzzing blogger community."

I mentioned this a year ago at SES San Jose 2008 during a video interview with Liana Evans, who was then with KeyRelevance and is now with Serengeti Communications. Looking at it again a year later, I wouldn't change a word. (And I can't anyway.)

VSEO - Video Search Engine Optimization - with Greg Jarboe at SES San Jose 2008

So, stay tuned. Because this year's events -- as you can see in the SES San Jose 2009 agenda and the Social Media and Video Strategies agenda -- are likely to demonstrate the link between search and social big time.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

April 6, 2009

Amber Naslund of Radian6 on Social Media for the Little Guy

One of the sessions at SES New York that I had to attend was "Small Voices, Big Impact: Social Media for the Little Guy."

Why did I have to attend? Well, Amber Naslund, the Director of Community for Radian6, was on the panel and I was afraid that she'd spill the beans about how Radian6 gives you a complete platform to track millions of blogs, tweets, videos, and comments.

It's one of my "secret weapons."

But she was so intent on helping helping small companies with even smaller budgets freely tap the world of social media to improve their business and increase sales that she almost didn't mention what company she was from.

I should have been selfish and let her keep my "secret weapon" secret. But, when we got to Q&A I had to ask her about Radian6 -- because it's too good a product to keep under wraps.

We've been using it to track the surprising relationships between people who use blogs, video sharing sites (YouTube), photo sharing sites (Flickr) and microblogging sites (Twitter) as well as Social networking sites (Facebook). What continually amazes me is how frequently the person who Tweets this morning is blogging about the same topic this afternoon and then uploading a video about the subject tomorrow.

If you use different tools to track each of these social media, then you will often miss the connections.

To illustrate this point, I interviewed Naslund after the session, have embedded the video interview below and will Tweet about in a minute. Get it? Got it? Good.

Amber Naslund, Radian6, on the importance of social media for small businesses at SES New York

At Radian6, Naslund is responsible for client engagement, community building, and helping companies tap the potential of online reputation management, customer engagement, and social media monitoring. She's spent the last decade or so raising over $60m for non-profit organizations, building brands for companies large and small, and messing with all things online.

Naslund blogs at Altitude Branding, focusing on brand building and social media marketing for business. She's also an author of Radian6's PowerShift blog, where she's just posted a great story about Southwest Airlines, an old client of mine. And she is a contributor to the popular MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog, and she keeps her personal blog at Innacurate Reality.

Oh, and if you contact Naslund, you'll discover that she's is passionate about helping companies and customers build and share brands, together. Yes, yes. That's wonderful. But, ask her to give you a demo of Radian6. If you don't see the product, you'll be missing one of the marketing tools that should be in your social media toolkit.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

March 28, 2009

NYC Public Relations Firms: Give PR Jobs to CCNY Students

If top NYC public relations firms are smart, they'll give PR jobs or paid internships to The City College of New York (CCNY) students that I met last week. Why? Because most of these kids know something that most of us don't and it is crucial to our survival as an industry.

Let me explain.

I played reverse hooky last Wednesday afternoon. I attended school when I didn't have to.

Professor Philip Ryan invited me to visit his Introduction to Public Relations class at CCNY. He was covering Chapter 13 of Public Relations Strategies and Tactics, (9th Edition) by Dennis L. Wilcox of San Jose State University and Glen T. Cameron of University of Missouri. Published by Allyn & Bacon in February 2008, Chapter 13 is entitled, "New Technologies in Public Relations."

But, as one of the students in Professor Ryan's class pointed out, "There's nothing in our textbook about SEO PR."

So, I asked for a show of hands. "How many of you use Facebook?" Virturally everyone did. "How many of you use YouTube?" Nearly everyone did. "How many of you use Twitter?" Almost everyone did.

So, I observed, "Well, SEO-PR was founded 2003, Facebook in 2004, YouTube in 2005, and Twitter in 2006. So, just because these new technologies aren't covered in your textbook doesn't mean they aren't fundamentally changing public relations as we know it. I'm speaking at Search Engine Strategies New York this week and these new technologies are all on the agenda along with social media and blogging."

Another student observed, "When I Googled the term 'SEO' you weren't ranked #1."

I replied, "Well, that's not one of my target terms. Now, if you Google the term 'SEO PR', you'll see my firm is ranked #1."

The student countered, "But that's the name of your company."

And I responded, "The term 'SEO PR' gets about 320 searches a month. Not bad for a keyword that didn't exist in 2003. But, if you Google 'blog outreach', you'll also see my firm is currently ranked #1. How many of you think blog outreach is an important part of media relations services, especially with 900,000 blog posts every day?"

Then, I added, "Besides, what I really want you to do is conduct a query at Google News for the term 'Online Marketing Summit' and find the optimized press release that we distributed yesterday for ClickZ."

I think that's when they started cutting me a little slack.

Then, Professor Ryan asked, "How is contextual marketing changing public relations as we know it?"

I explained, "Contextual advertising is targeted to a Web page based on the page's content. This means there is the opportunity to create editorial content targeted at the contextual advertising that you want to attract to your news blog or YouTube channel."

Yes, these were tough questions from sophisticated students and their professor.

Which means these CCNY students are exactly the kind of people that NYC public relations firms need to hire if they are going to survive short-term or thrive long-term.

Yes, they are still acquiring the skill of writing a press release. But they already understand that an optimized press release can get a high ranking in news search engines.

Yes, they are still becoming acquainted with the fundamentals of persuasion and communications theory. But they have already mastered how to make friends on Facebook.

Yes, they are still beginning to recognize how PR relates to other fields of marketing. But they're already familiar with how to upload YouTube videos.

Yes, they are still learning the key ethical issues affecting the practice of PR. But they've developed an appreciation for the acceptable use ofand unacceptable abuse of Twitter.

Unfortunately, most NYC public relations firms won't give PR jobs or even paid internships to these CCNY students?

Why? Short term, the recession is the primary excuse. But even if there is an opening, most of the job descriptions in the public relations industry were written back in the 20th Century. So, these square pegs won't fit into the round holes.

For example, is your HR department trying to hire an entry level public relations specialist? Does the job description read: "Prepares and disseminates information regarding an organization through newspapers, periodicals, television and radio and other forms of media. May require a bachelor's degree in a related area and 0-2 years of experience in the field or in a related area. Has knowledge of commonly-used concepts, practices, and procedures within a particular field. Relies on instructions and pre-established guidelines to perform the functions of the job. Primary job functions do not typically require exercising independent judgment. Works under immediate supervision; typically reports to a supervisor or manager."

So, don't blame your HR department if they aren't looking for someone who can prepare and optimize information regarding an organization through news search engines, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

And who is at fault if someone who doesn't have a bachelor's degree gets filtered out during the screening process even through they could have brought knowledge of new concepts, practices and procedures to the table?

And ask yourself, honestly, do you want someone who relies on instructions and pre-established guidelines to perform the ever-changing fuctions of the job? Or do you really need someone who doesn't typically exercise independent judgment in an emerging field that didn't exist when you went to college?

In other words, are you giving PR jobs to the people you will need in 2009 and the decade after this? Or, is your HR department rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

Now, if I were you, I'd find a way to play reverse hooky at CCNY.

Other "guests" to Professor Ryan's class have included Garrett Glaser, a corporate communications consultant and former reporter for CNBC, and Rena L. Lewis, the Director of Brand Management, Industries & Marketing, at KPMG, and will include David Grant, President of LVM Group.

And television journalism icon Dan Rather will deliver the Spring 2009 Samuel Rudin Distinguished Visiting Scholars Lecture at The City College of New York on Thursday, April 2. Mr. Rather, who was anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 1981 to 2005, will speak about "Democracy and the 24-Hour News Cycle."

This kind of "higher education" doesn't fit on the normal resume.

That's why it's time to overhaul the job screening process at most NYC public relations firms to ensure that you're giving PR jobs to CCNY students and others like them who are crucial to the survival of the public relations industry.

But, hey, what do I know? I'm not even mentioned in the college textbooks.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

February 6, 2009

SEW Experts: Don't Believe Everything You Read

Would you make a life or death decision about caring for a sick infant based solely on blog advice, or even WebMD? Would you decide on a retirement strategy by reading a few blog posts or a forum discussion? Probably not. Yet, some marketers choose to base their search marketing strategies on blog posts. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Don't Believe Everything You Read," Chris Boggs and Frank Watson remind you not to take the information you find online as gospel.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 23, 2008

Technorati Releases State of the Blogosphere 2008 Report

Technorati has started releasing the State of the Blogoshpere 2008 report. It will be a couple of more days before the full report is online.

The previous report was release in April 2007, so a lot has changed in the past year-and-a-half. Here are just some of the highlights:

Blogs are now a pervasive part of our daily lives. While there have been a number of studies conducted that tried to understanding the size of the Blogosphere -- both in terms of the number of blogs and blog readership -- all of these studies agree that blogs are now a global phenomenon that is "mainstream."

Technorati cites the numbers from three of the studies, which vary in the details but generally agree that "blogs are here to stay."

comScore MediaMetrix (August 2008) o Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US o Total internet audience 188.9 million

eMarketer (May 2008) o 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users) o 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 (12%)

Universal McCann (March 2008) o 184 million have started a blog worldwide, 26.4 million have started a blog in the US o 346 million read blogs worldwide, 60.3 million read blogs in the US o 77% of active Internet users read blogs

Other findings include this: "All blogs are not created equal." There are only 76,000 blogs with a Technorati Authority of 50 or higher.

The majority of bloggers that Technorati surveyed currently have advertising on their blogs. Among those with advertising, the mean annual investment in their blog is $1,800, but it's paying off. The mean annual revenue is $6,000 with $75K+ in revenue for those with 100,000 or more unique visitors per month.

Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently. And one-third of bloggers have been approached to be brand advocates.

There's lots more data -- and some eye-catching charts like the one above. Check out Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2008 for yourself.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

April 14, 2008

UK Govt. Want To Flog Floggers

The UK will roll out a new set of advertising and marketing regulations May 28th. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 include some interesting laws that will impact web marketing as Judith Lewis of London-based SEO Chicks reports.

The big law many SEO marketers may have to be careful about is the use of flogs - fake blogs or reviews by employees or other profit motivated people. Without disclosing that these reviews etc are being posted by motivated writers can end up being legally dangerous.

Apart from the fines involved there is also the possibility of jail time. How that would work for a US based company that happens to find themselves in UK search results is yet to be determined. What about companies that are global marketers, will they need to filter what content is sent to UK traffic?

This could be a major impact on web marketing and how things play out should be watched closely by all global marketers.

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:44 PM | Permalink

July 2, 2007

Matt Cutts Offers Corporate Blogging Advice

Joining the damage control of the Google Health Blog vs. Sicko incident on Sunday, Google blogger extraordinaire Matt Cutts outlined some guidelines for company blogging 101 as an explanation for Turner's actions, and guidance for avoiding future incidents.

He advises:

1. The easiest time to make a blogging gaffe is when you're starting out.
2. Don't criticize other companies or people.
3. Don't post when you're angry.
4. Learn which stories matter and which ones don't.
5. If you make a mistake, don't clam up.
6. Include a datestamp on all your posts.

Excellent advice from a seasoned corporate blogger.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:28 AM | Permalink

February 7, 2007

Rand Fishkin, the SUPER Man

Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz comes clean with a super secret... he was "that guy" who wanted to propose to his girlfriend during a SuperBowl commercial. Yes folks, the blogger behind MySuperProposal.com was in fact Rand Fishkin, and with a lot of help from Joseph Morin, CEO & Founder of Storybids.com, they almost pulled off the best play of Superbowl XLI. And it probably would have had the most talked/blogged about Superbowl commercial of 2007.

When the inital plans to raise money for a commerical slot or find an advertiser to sponsor the proposal fell through, CBS almost stepped up to the plate to air the 15 second proposal for FREE, based on the viral buzz the MySuperProposal blog had created. By the halftime show, (hello, who would have preferred to see this over Prince?) Rand knew it wasn't going to happen during the big game. So Plan B followed: air this simple spot locally during his long time girlfriend's favorite TV show, Veronica Mars, and drop the clip on iFilm.com, followed by a torturous wait for Geraldine's response.

Watch Rand's Video Proposal Now:

So that's not the end of the story, of course - here's the video of Geraldine's exciting reaction, which was also posted on iFilm.com, two hours after the proposal clip:

Danny Sullivan & I also discussed the impending proposal, earlier in the day on the Daily Searchcast, where you may catch me *nearly* letting some of the secret slip!

In addition to the details on MySuperProposal, SeattlePI.comhas much of the local scoop and backstory on how the project evolved, and I'm sure the SEO blogosphere is going to buzzing about this, but let me (and the team at SEW) be the first to say: Congratulations, Geraldine & Rand!

Posted by at 1:49 AM | Permalink

December 21, 2006

Bloggers must disclose sponsored posts

Anick Jesdanun, an AP Internet writer, reports that PayPerPost, a company that connects advertisers with bloggers willing to write about their products for pay, will now require disclosures "amid criticism and a regulatory threat."

Under the new policy, bloggers must disclose that they are accepting payment, either in the write-up or in a general disclosure policy on the blogger's site.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:50 AM | Permalink

December 1, 2006

Blog Coverage During SES Chicago 2006

I'm happy to announce that two of our long-time Search Engine Watch forum moderators, Chris Boggs and Frank Watson (aka AussieWebmaster) are stepping up to provide headline and conference coverage on the Search Engine Watch blog during SES Chicago next week. In addition to being SEW forum moderators, both are regular speakers at SES events.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski at 5:24 PM | Permalink

November 21, 2006

Tracking All The Official Google Blogs

It can seem like Google adds a new official blog every week, which is a pain if you want to keep up with the official statements. Who wants to manually subscribe to each one? Well, you don't have to. Google tells me there's a feed they generate out of Google Reader that you can try here. An OPML file that shows all the blogs that are part of that combined feed can be found here. Unfortunately, you still can't go to a single page from Google itself and read all the latest posts from the various Google blogs. That may come, the company told me, but for now the feed and OPML files are all that's made available. Don't get me wrong, though -- I love having them!

Postscript: Google tells me there is a single page with all the posts you can read here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:07 PM | Permalink

September 12, 2006

The Search Diggs

I love the idea of trying to combine something like Digg with search news and have been wanted to do this myself for ages. Maybe I still will, but others have gotten there first. John Battelle is the latest with SearchMob having just launched today. Head over there, and you can submit and vote on stories related to search. Search N Sniff is a similar site that launched last week, and The Search Engine Press is the oldest, launched in February.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:57 AM | Permalink

August 15, 2006

Rand & I Rank The Best Search Blogs

Rand at SEOMoz posted his Ranking 50 Top Blogs in the Search Space, which encouraged me to finally post my list of the Search Blogs Am I Most Likely To Read In More Detail at my personal blog. Rand ranks this blog as number one on his list and then ranks my blog, the Search Engine Roundtable as number two on his list. I also ranked this blog as number one of my most 'click-through blog' on my list, followed by Google Blogoscoped, which I often cite here. These two lists, I believe make up a great portion of the most important search blogs you should read. Of course, it is possible Rand and I missed some - who knows, maybe Danny will come out with his ranked list?

Since I do not like to often express controversial or personal opinion on these blogs, I posted how I would change Rand's ranking order over here. When ranking my own list, I did not reference Rand's list, instead, I referenced my list of 76 search blogs I subscribe to. In addition, you can find a nice blogroll of search related blogs that Danny compiled, on the left hand side of this site, after clicking here.

So in short, you can find some excellent blogs in rank order at: (1) SEOMoz (2) Cartoon Barry

And a nice listing of blogs that Danny complied but did not rank on the left hand side of this blog's home page, here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 4:58 PM | Permalink

June 21, 2006

Don't Vote For Us As Best Search Marketing Blog At MarketingSherpa!

That's right. We don't want your vote in the "Blogs On Search Marketing" or "Best Podcast" categories of MarketingSherpa's awards, happening right now. We couldn't take them if we wanted to, since we didn't make the short list. Then again, neither did John Battelle's blog, nor Threadwatch, nor Matt Cutts, nor many of the others we list in our blog roll. I guess either:

1. Not one of the 1,028 readers who nominated blogs thought we were worthy (sniff, we'll try better, I suppose)
2. Those readers who failed to nominate us and other good search marketing blogs need to better educate themselves (c'mon over -- we're fine reading)
3. MarketingSherpa doesn't like us (sniff)

Barry's Search Engine Roundtable blog won last year and is nominated again, so give Barry your vote. Or give it to Brian's ComparisonEngines.com! Or Aaron's SEO Book blog, or Search Engine Lowdown or one of the others that are listed.

Postscript: And see? Our "don't vote for us" request would already ensure that someone like Heather Hamilton at Microsoft would vote for us -- if she could vote for us, you know, if we were on the list :) Sadly

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:24 AM | Permalink

April 10, 2006

Yahoo! Publisher Network Launches YPNBlog.com

The Yahoo! Publisher Network has jumped on the blogging bandwagon and launched their own blog at YPNBlog.com. They plan to keep the publisher community up-to-date with news, tips and advice, publisher profiles and interviews, a weekly Publisher Spotlight, as well as guest columnists writing on issues important to YPN publishers.

There is a full rundown on the new blog at JenSense or you can visit the blog here.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 10:24 AM | Permalink

April 5, 2006

FM's All-In-One Tech Blogs Page & New Marketing Roundup Page

John Battelle of "The Search" fame has been busy assembling his Federated Media content empire. Last month, he put up a new great page consolidating posts from the various tech blogs that are part of FM. It's well worth checking out here, plus you can subscribe to an RSS feed and get all this tech goodness in one place. Wait you say, you've got time for yet more reading? OK, then check out Interweb Marketing. It takes in about 70 feeds and categorizes them into categories such as search engines, PPC advertising, local search and more.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:35 PM | Permalink

April 3, 2006

Greg Sterling Leaves Kelsey, Starts New Blog

If you read stories on local search, you've heard the name Greg Sterling, a long time Kelsey Group analyst on the subject. Greg's now headed off on his own to consult and research on local, search, small business advertisers and their move from traditional to online. He's also got a new blog here, and news of his new site will be posted there in the near future.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:36 PM | Permalink

February 3, 2006

New Gossip Rag On Google Execs Dating

New gossip rag ValleyWag discloses that Google cofounder Larry Page and Google vice president of search products Marissa Mayer apparently used to date, backed up by an anonymous comment on a blog. Hey, that's not the only evidence! Apparently it's an open secret in Silicon Valley. Publications haven't reported this out of fear the Big G might get upset with them, ValleyWag helpfully explains.

Yep, these same publications had no problem slamming Google right and left when it had the gall to stop talking to News.com after a privacy article involving Google CEO Eric Schmidt. But reporting the alleged love lives of Googlers? That would clearly be a step too far.

Meanwhile, expect Gray Hat News to step up and kick some ValleyWag butt shortly. Gurtie and Chris have been all over the Marissa scene from her birthday to her clothes as well as hard hitting interviews about user needs. ValleyWag isn't going to be able to walk into their territory without taking a blow. Gurtie's tough -- plus she's a Brit like ValleyWag's publisher Nick Denton. She can take 'em (FYI, for Nick's love life, you'll have to read Jossip here. I don't think he ever dated Larry, but I'm sure either Jossip or ValleyWag will let us know, if so).

Anyway, I've got it down now. Before asking about things like Chinese Censorship or AutoLink issues or whether partnering with AOL might impact Google's editorial quality, gotta ensure all interviews now cover past, current and future dating partners.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:03 AM | Permalink

January 26, 2006

Watch SEOs Battle Live & New SEO Humor Site

Matt Cutts highlighted this funny site, SEO Generations, where you can pit various people in the SEO world against each other to say who you think would get a site ranked better in a face-to-face battle.

Right now, Matt's at the top of the winner list (but would he be for a battle on Yahoo when pitted against Tim Mayer?), followed by Dave Naylor, Aaron Wall, Jill Whalen and some Canadian guy (just joking, Todd!).

Loooosers are, um, Aaron and Jill at the top of the list? But they were winners? Guess it shows you win some, you lose some.

Meanwhile, Dave Naylor bares all -- heck, he's bareback and baring all -- on a new SEO humor site he's launched, SE Ops. Think of it as Gray Hat Search Engine News or In Search Of Stuff (yesterday's story, Yahoo To Secure Buzz Aldrin As New Spokesman had me rolling) with caricatures.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:31 AM | Permalink

January 11, 2006

Google Trademarking The Word Beta

No, not really. But one of our SEW Forum threads points over to In Search Of Stuff, where 2006 isos Search Predictions suggests humorously that this will be the year that Google decides to trademark the word "beta." Others I liked:

• Search will be integrated with everything from mobile phones to microwaves, but people will continue to use their browser to search, their mobile phones to make calls and their microwave to reheat 4 day old pizza that is ?still good?.  
• The Hilton in Paris will continue to pay well over the odds for PPC traffic, and leave many punters bitterly disappointed when they arrive at their site.  
• Google release rel=?this_link_is_not_paid_I_promise? link attribute.

A good chuckle. Thanks Scottie and Mike. My prediction is that Gray Hat Search Engine News will either challenge ISOS for a duel over who can have the funniest satire site about search or that the two will merge.

Speaking of betas, Stop Press! Google Product Leaves BETA covers how Gray Hat is in disbelief that a Google product has left beta.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:18 PM | Permalink

December 27, 2005

Winners Of The 2005 Search Blog Awards Announced

The results of Search Engine Journal's 2005 Search Blog Awards are in. We're thrilled to be winners in one category (and thank you all for making it happen with your votes!) along with a number of other great sites in other categories. A rundown is below. And as I said before, be sure to check out all the nominated blogs, because they're all excellent to put on your reading list.

• Best Search Engine News Blog: Search Engine Watch Blog
• Best Search Engine Community Blog: Search Engine Roundtable
• Best SEO Blog: Matt Cutts
• Best Search Marketing & Contextual Blog: JenSense
• Best News/Blog Search Engine Blog: Technorati Weblog
• Best Search Engine Corporate Blog: Google

I think the only category not yet announced is Most Likely Search Engine Blogger To Flame You For Spamming, Matt or Jeremy? Watch Search Engine Journal for that, and I'll update when it comes in.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:25 PM | Permalink

December 18, 2005

A New Blog from WWW Founder Tim Berners-Lee and a Bit of WWW History

This isn't search but if were not for the work of Sir Tim Berner-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, we wouldn't have web search to talk about in the first place. Now, Dr. Berners-Lee blogging on timbl's blog. His first post is titled, "So I have a blog" is available here.

He writes: Strangely enough, the web took off very much as a publishing medium, in which people edited offline. Bizarely, they were prepared to edit the funny angle brackets of HTML source, and didn't demand a what you see is what you get editor. WWW was soon full of lots of interesting stuff, but not a space for communal design, for discource through communal authorship.

Now in 2005, we have blogs and wikis, and the fact that they are so popular makes me feel I wasn't crazy to think people needed a creative space. In the mean time, I have had the luxury of having a web site which I have write access, and I've used tools like Amaya and Nvu which allow direct editing of web pages.

Thanks to Google Blogoscoped and Searchblog for the news tip.

Two quick points: First, I've been using NVU to edit and create web pages for most of 2005 and I love it. One of my favorite new client web tools of the year. It's free!

Second, long before blogs and wikis there were and still are such things as newsgroups, bulletin boards, etc. For the web historians out there, this newsgroup post from August 9, 1991 by Tim Berners-Lee is the first (or one of the first) widely distrubted public announcements about TBL's WWW project. Berners-Lee writes: The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to make an easy but powerful global information system.

The project started with the philosophy that much academic information should be freely available to anyone. It aims to allow information sharing within internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by support groups.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:42 PM | Permalink

December 14, 2005

Vote For Your Favorite Search Blog

Loren Baker over at Search Engine Journal is asking people to vote for their favorite search blogs. Hey, if you like us, we'd love your vote. Use the form reached from here. But more important, I love the way Loren's done this. Rather than have one single category, he's broken different blogs into different categories, such as:

• Best Search Engine News Blog
• Best SEO Blog
• Best Search Engine Corporate Blog (Ask, Google, MSN & Yahoo)
• Most Likely Search Engine Blogger To Flame You For Spamming, Matt or Jeremy?
• Best Search Marketing & Contextual Blog
• Best News/Blog Search Engine Blog
• Best Community Search Blog

The only thing I wish is that for blogs I didn't know, there was a N/A option. The form won't go through unless you vote on each or every blog, rate it from 1 (best) to 5 (worst). If I didn't know, I went with the lowest score.

Overall, I can't wait to see the results. You'll have a much more diverse set of winners to choose from, and certainly all the nominees will be much more focused around search than something like News.com's Blog 100, where only two of 13 picks for the "Search/Media" category -- 15 percent -- are actually about search.

Don't just focus on the winners. The entire nominee list is full of good blogs for anyone to check out. Good luck to everyone!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:21 AM | Permalink

December 1, 2005

Simultaneously Search and Browse All of Google's Many Blogs; RSS Feed Also Available

Philipp over at Google Blogoscoped is one of my favorite people in the blogosphere. I just mentioned yesterday what a great job he does. Today, Philipp created and Danny posted about what can be best be described as, "so many Google Blogs, so little time." Philipp's service creates a single feed for all of Google's many blogs.

Now, not having the coding skills that PL has, I experimented and tried another service and within minutes created a single SEARCHABLE source with Google's many blog feeds (did I miss any?) using Blogdigger's "Group" feature.

My Google Blog collection is available here. It even has its own feed. You can search all blogs by date or relevance and/or view/search one blog at a time via the "Group Roll" located on the right side of the page. I've noticed a few small problems and have contacted Blogdigger's Greg Gershman to help find and fix. More about Blogdigger Groups here.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:59 PM | Permalink

November 30, 2005

Threadwatch Changes Ownership

Just over a year ago, Nick Wilson created Threadwatch, which grew into a great search blog. Today in Farewell Threadwatch, he moves on. Nick's been working on a new project, Performancing, a blog and advice site for bloggers. That's now growing so much that he had to choose, and he's going with the new site. Good luck, Nick! Threadwatchers needn't panic that the site is going away, however. Aaron Wall of SEO Book has taken it over -- and good luck with the new endeavor, Aaron!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:24 AM | Permalink

November 2, 2005

Google Blogorama: Two New Official Blogs from Mountain View

Two new "official blogs" from Mountain View!

First, as Google Desktop 2 leaves beta (now with more sidebar panels), Google Blogoscoped reports that the Google Desktop now has its own official blog that's titled, "Inside Google Desktop" (not to be confused with Nathan Weinberg's "Inside Google.") Here's our original overview post about Google Desktop 2.

Second, GB also reports that Google now has an official Video Blog that "celebrates" material contributed to the Google Upload Program.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:52 PM | Permalink

October 7, 2005

News.com Gets Top 100 Blog List

News.com has a new Blog 100 list, including a search and media blogs category. There's no page for that category I can point you at, but Threadwatch made the list, and you can see the write-up here (congrats, Nick!). From there, you can see other search blogs. Well, you can see the only other search blog on the list, John Battelle's Searchblog (congrats, John!), written up here.

Despite News.com often citing our Search Engine Watch Blog, we suck and don't make the list. In reaction, we're going all Googly and not speaking to News.com until June 2006 unless added to the list. Just joking! (and the two are talking again, anyway).

Think we ought to be on the list? Hey, help us out and drop a polite word to News.com here. Pretty please, with sugar on top? If not for me, how about Gary? He works so hard, and he always gets down if we don't make lists like this.

You might also mention adding Barry's Search Engine Roundtable or Google Blogoscoped, among others. Other search blogs? Surely there can't be more! Absolutely, and a good starting place is our blog roll of search blogs. We even list News.com :)

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:37 AM | Permalink

October 6, 2005

Hitwise Blogs Search Stats

Hitwise is a great source of data about what people search for, and Bill Tancer over there who heads global research has started up a new blog here already filled with some nice gems.

Search Term Pairs looks at spikes for searches on engagement rings versus wedding dresses. Notes from Vegas: Search Terms and the Competitive Substitute looks at how searches for online poker go up as sports betting drop, making him wonder if the same people are doing both but can't afford to do both at the same time.

Batman is in, Elmo is out tells me the Thunderbirds costumes I got for the kids for Halloween aren't making the top ten list of terms containing costumes. Guess I should be dressing them up like pirates, the top term, or Batman, the second. Pirate was a top term last year. Elmo, it turns out, is not.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:07 PM | Permalink

October 3, 2005

Threadwatch Turns One: Congrats!

Happy First Birthday, Threadwatch! If WebmasterWorld has been the SEM industry's Slashdot, and Gray Hat News fills the role of The Onion (and happy birthday Gurtie!), Threadwatch to me has often been our tabloid newspaper. Like the The National Enquirer or The Sun, it can have that simultaneous feeling of reading a scandal sheet and thinking you shouldn't! But it's far from all scandal and sensation. Nick's built a great community and resource that I turn to regularly. You can drop your own greetings at the site's thread, Threadwatch: 1yr Old Today.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:08 AM | Permalink

Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz Proposes Via Ask Jeeves Search Results

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable is getting married. He proposed to his girlfriend by getting her to type her name into Ask Jeeves, where the Ask Jeeves team kindly helped long-time Ask Jeeves-watcher Barry by rigging up a custom answer. Hmm -- perhaps something that could even be a future product offering? Barry tells you more here: First Ever Wedding Proposal via Search Engine. Congrats, Barry and Yisha -- and Happy New Year, as well! Want to send your congrats? Drop them a note at in the thread at our SEW Forums, Wedding Bells For Rustybrick, As He Proposes Via Ask Jeeves!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:50 AM | Permalink

September 23, 2005

Recapping Official Search Engine Blogs

Search Engine Blogs as Public Relations Tools from Loren Baker over at Search Engine Journal is a nice overview of how the various major search engines are turning more and more to blogs as a communication tool, with continuing unofficial help from employee blogs such as those from Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny and Google's Matt Cutts (hey, Google, get his blog listed in your Blogs By Googlers section on the Google Blog already!).

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:10 AM | Permalink

September 19, 2005

Traffic Power Suit Against SEO Book Moves To US Federal Court

Traffic Power Lawsuit Update from Aaron Wall notes that the suit filed against him by Traffic Power over allegedly revealing trade secrets has been moved from Nevada state court to US federal state court, through his efforts. The federal case number is CV-S-05-1109-RLH-LRL. For more background on the case, see Traffic Power Suit Could Be Quashed Through Anti-Slapp Motion and SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets".

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:50 PM | Permalink

September 8, 2005

Traffic Power Suit Could Be Quashed Through Anti-Slapp Motion

Legal Showdown in Search Fracas from Adam Penenberg at Wired looks at the lawsuit by Traffic Power against SEO Book's Aaron Wall, alleging that he revealed trade secrets. Lawyers Penenberg talks with find the suit seems more about quashing negative opinions Wall had about Traffic Power than trade secrets. One from the EFF says the suit might be subject to an "anti-Slapp" motion, a statute to prevent lawsuits being brought with no merit and intended to silence critics.

The idea that trade secrets are involved gets shot down by citing my past examination of the case, as well as including observations from long-time search marketer Greg Boser, who says there are no secrets to protect because the code is published on a publicly-accessible web server. For more background, see my previous SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets" article.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:21 AM | Permalink

September 7, 2005

Andy Beal Back Blogging At Marketing Pilgrim

I wrote earlier of Andy Beal departing his former company WebSourced and the Search Engine Lowdown blog he created. News from him now that he's back blogging about search news and new media at Marketing Pilgrim. He's got an intro letter here. Welcome back, Andy :)

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:36 PM | Permalink

September 1, 2005

Aaron Wall To Fight Traffic Power Suit; Calls For Donations

Aaron Wall of SEO Book, who is being sued by Traffic Power over allegedly helping reveal "trade secrets" has decided to fight the lawsuit. In Legal Donations Accepted, he explains that despite getting settlement agreement papers, he's decided the issue goes beyond his blog and needs to be fought:

This suit is not about Traffic Power. This suit is not about this blog. This suit is more about free speech, which is the very fabric that holds the web and democracy together. An issue far more important than I could ever pretend to be.

If I do not face this suit, then it is easier for the next person to get trampled. After all the support people have offered I do not think it is the right decision to tuck tail and run, especially since I am still unaware of what specifically is wrong - and never once has there been an attempt to tell me.

Further in his post, he calls for donations and pledges that if donations exceed legal costs, any excess will go to groups such as the EFF.

For more background on the case, see our previous SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets" article. Wall's fight was also picked up by the Wall Street Journal in its Blogger Faces Lawsuit Over Comments Posted by Readers article and also at Slashdot.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit the Traffic Power Files Suit Against SEO Book thread in our Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:14 AM | Permalink

August 30, 2005

SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets"

Back in June, I heard from Aaron Wall of the SEO Book blog. He'd been served with a cease-and-desist letter from SEO company Traffic-Power.com that seemed impossible to comply with. At issue was a claim that Wall had published "proprietary and confidential information." However, the claim didn't list any specific infringing material that Wall was supposed to remove. Now things have progressed to an actual lawsuit over the matter, one that I can't help thinking will get dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

The Cease-And-Desist Letter

Let's start with the actual letter. The Max D Spilka & Traffic Power Cease and Desist Letter post at Wall's blog at the end of July reprints the letter he was sent. It's not long, but I'll highlight the key parts in bullet point format:

• It has come to our attention that on a website you control, namely www.SEO Book..com, proprietary and confidential information related to Traffic Power's business has been published.  
• The published information violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. Sections 2510-2521, and is subject to certain contracts between Traffic-Power and its former and/or current employees.  
• The published information has been pirated from Traffic Power and you have obtained the information illegally, all of which you knew or should have known.  
• You are to cease and desist immediately from the same or any similar activity. In the event you fail to do so, Traffic Power is prepared to initiate litigation to obtain an injunction to enforce its rights.  
• Finally, consistant with recent court rulings you may now be obligated to disclose the source(s) of your information. Accordingly, within ten (10) days of this letter, you are to do the following:  
  • 1. Provide a list of the sources of your information complete with name, address, and telephone number; and,  
  • 2. Remove from www.SEO Book.com website all information relating to Traffic-Power.

Lack Of Specifics

As said, I found this letter almost impossible to comply with. What's the confidential information? Where was it published? Which sources are alleged to be involved?

I contacted Traffic Power to learn more about what Wall was supposed to do in response to the letter. Below are questions I sent, along with the emailed responses from Traffic Power's public relations firm AMR Partners that I received at the end of June. I've made light edits to clean up some spellings and grammatical errors in both the questions sent and answers received, produced by the informal nature of email:

Question: The letter never actually says what it is he supposedly pirated or published. What exactly is it that's in contention here?

Traffic Power tells me that in threads regarding Traffic-Power portions of private and confidential emails have been presented as well as links to proprietary company information as well as false claims against the company regard non-existing lawsuits and other potentially libelous claims.

"I just thought anyone should know, This is an interesting link to a law firm that is getting ready to file a class action against Traffic-Power.com http://www.girardgibbs.com/traffic-power.html"

Many of these links are no longer available and Mr. Wall's site - Blocked Wayback Machine with "Robots.txt Query Exclusion" (See robots.txt file at http://www.seobook.com/robots.txt) http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.seobook.com/archives/000314.shtml

Question: Isn't a violation of the act [cited in the cease and desist] a criminal violation?

That would be a better question for Traffic Power's attorney, Mr. Spilka.

Question: The letter suggests Traffic-Power might be entitled to damages under the act. Isn't it really that he'd be fined by the federal government?

I believe the letter is suggesting that Traffic Power will pursue all legal remedies both criminal and civil to resolve this matter.

Question: Can you be more specific of what exactly he's done to violate the act, which seems to be mostly related to federal wiretapping provisions?

Again I feel that would be a better question for Traffic Powers Attorney, Mr. Spilka.

Question: How is he supposed to comply with a demand for source disclosure when you haven't cited what was allegedly published or pirated? Are you expecting a list of every person he's ever talked with?

I have no idea what the legal team might expect in terms of disclosure of sources, but I have been told that any evidence will not be presented until it has been decided whether or not they need to file a lawsuit.

Question: Are you suggesting everything on the SEO Book web site that might mention Traffic-Power is somehow pirated material? Doing a quick search, I see http://www.seobook.com/archives/000314.shtml, where he talks about being called by Traffic-Power. Is this the pirated communication? And if so, was he informed of this before the phone call began?

I do not think the intent of the letter is to imply that everything on the site is pirated or in response to the two links you've posted, but rather to suggest that pirated material as well as material that could be considered libelous are present and that there are several issues on Mr. Wall's sites that are potentially actionable.

In conclusion, Traffic Power has assured me that they would much prefer a civil dialog with their critics instead of any legal action and that they at least, would be open to discussion.

I'm afraid the responses left me not much clearer about the situation. The cease-and-desist letter talked about Wall allegedly publishing confidential information, yet the follow-up answers went broader to suggest there was potentially libelous information at issue, as well.

Certainly Wall didn't know what he should do. As he wrote on his blog:

The only way I could have complied with it is if I shut my site down and gave them contact information of everyone I have ever contacted. Since it was impossible to comply without destroying my business model and potentially getting my friends and customers spammed or cold called I asked a friend about the situation.

The Cold Call Post

It seems the key trigger in all of this was Wall's Traffic Power & Cold Call SEO post of May 6, 2004. That's the http://www.seobook.com/archives/000314.shtml URL mentioned in the follow-up response I received (though not in the actual letter sent to Wall). That's Wall's best guess as well, as he's emailed me and as he speculates in a timeline-of-sorts in this post on August 26 about being sued.

In the post, he talks about being cold called by someone from Traffic-Power and coming away unimpressed. I didn't see anything proprietary when I looked at the post. Libelous? That wasn't an issue in the letter he was sent. Trade secrets? Again, nothing I see any the post anything remotely approaching what I'd view as trade secrets.

There's more than the post, of course. There are comments below it. Some in our forum thread on the lawsuit wonder if perhaps some of the things people have posted might have been deemed trade secrets, such as:

• Alleged use of doorway pages
• Apparently hosting keyword-targeted pages on other web sites, maintaining ultimate control of the traffic
• Alleged use of JavaScript cloaking

If these are trade secrets, none of them would be considered proprietary or unique to Traffic-Power, to my knowledge. Moreover, if these are things that have been discussed with clients and potential clients -- without requiring the use of non-disclosure statements -- then they hardly seem secrets worthy of legal protection.

By the way, how about that law mentioned as part of the letter? The EFF gives a layman's view here and FindLaw has info on various sections here. I came away thinking it was made certain wiretapping like activities a criminal action that the US government could pursue, not something to be tried in civil court.

The Lawsuit Against SEO Book

As said, I started looking into this back in June. My understanding was that the issue had gone away. Wall posted the letter he received on his blog, and that seemed to be the end of it.

Obviously, it is not. Notice! You Have Been Sued is a follow-up post on Wall's blog that contains the lawsuit. You can read through it there. It reasserts that Wall has somehow helped reveal trade secrets while not explaining where, when or how. It further alleges that Wall's published "false and defamatory" information about Traffic-Power, though again not naming or explaining what this is. Perhaps there were exhibits as part of the filing, but if so, these aren't referenced as is typical in a complaint.

Wall says that he's been told verbally that if he drops all content about Traffic Power on his web site -- regardless of whether it is legitimate -- the suit would be dropped. He's now seeking a written confirmation of this, while weighing up the pros of fighting the case versus the cons, all of which are itemized on the site. Ultimately, he says he's leaning toward pulling the material.

A Chilling Effect -- But Not For Everyone

If so, I find it unfortunate. In fact, I find the entire lawsuit unfortunate. Whatever reputation improvement Traffic-Power thought it might be gaining through such an action has just gotten worse. Small sites may react to the chilling effect of being sued. Larger publishers won't -- and many more of them just learned about Traffic-Power and the many allegations levied against them over the past year, as a result of the action.

One big publisher, by the way, is Google. As Marcia over in our forum thread on the lawsuit pointed out, there's a Google Answers question that talks about Traffic-Power "doorway pages," describes hidden links as "cloaking" and has a conclusion that "questionable SEO tactics are being employed on your website." If anything, that response on a web site hosted by Google, from a freelance question answerer paid through Google, is far more damaging than what I've seen referenced on the SEO Book blog.

In fact, maybe even other smaller sites will stick with it. Wall points over to the Traffic Power Sucks site, a protest site against the firm that talks about how to gain refunds, a possible class action lawsuit and advice from the site's perspective of things to watch out for. It sounds like the site received a letter similar to what Wall got:

I received a little letter from the same lawyer threatening me with a lawsuit if I didn't take "proprietary and confidential information related to Traffic Power's business" off of my website. I called the lawyer and asked him exactly what information he was referring to. He had no idea what I was talking about. This was the guy who signed the letter, and he was clueless. If anyone can find anything at all on this website that could possibly be considered Traffic Power's "proprietary and confidential information", drop me an email at webmaster@trafficpowersucks.com.

I take it Traffic Power Sucks has no plans to remove material and if ultimately sued, I suspect it will press onward since it seems to be organizing its own lawsuit against the firm.

Want to discuss? Visit the Traffic Power Files Suit Against SEO Book thread in our Search Engine Watch Forums.

Postscript from Gary: I did a bit of searching and on August 11th, the same day a lawsuit was filed against Aaron Wall/SEO Book, another suit was filed in a Neveda District Court listing TrafficPowerSucks.com (and those who run the site) as defendents.

Postscript 2: The Wall Street Journal now has a story with some legal comments: Blogger Faces Lawsuit Over Comments Posted by Readers.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:22 PM | Permalink

August 23, 2005

ClickZ Blog Launched

Just a quick note that our sister site ClickZ has launched a blog. Executive Editor Rebecca Lieb explains more in ClickZ Is Blogging. If you're not familiar with ClickZ, it's a long-standing online marketing web site with coverage that ranges from search through to rich media.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:26 AM | Permalink

June 23, 2005

Tips On Finding New Sites

Out of site, out of mind from the Guardian made me smile when it mentioned some of the ways Jack Schofield used to keep up with new web sites, reminding me of sources I used to depend on like Net Happenings. Then I smiled again when we got the nod along with other resources to consider if you want to keep up on search happenings. If we're not enough, check out some of the sites listed on the blog roll on our home page. Still not enough? See our Giant Lists Of Search Blogs post.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:24 AM | Permalink

June 15, 2005

Searchblog's Battelle Launching Blog Ad Network

Wired Co-Founder Nears Launch of Blog Ad Network look at how John Battelle, author of Searchblog and the upcoming book The Search, is branching out into running a blog ad network. The idea is to have a small selection of high-quality blogs that will take ads through his new FM Publishing company (but ads from others are also allowed). John talks more about this directly on the FMPublishing blog.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:50 PM | Permalink

June 14, 2005

Search Engine Roundtable Named Best Search Blog

Barry Schwartz's Search Engine Roundtable blog has always been one of the best places to keep track of what's happening on various search forums if you're too busy to read through all the material on the forums themselves. Now it's been named the best search marketing blog for 2005 in the recent MarketingSherpa awards that were announced. Congrats, Barry!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:56 AM | Permalink

May 19, 2005

Google AdWords & Other Feeds Offered

Spotted via Jensense, there's a new Inside AdWords blog from Google. And from Dirson, an entire list of current Google feeds, such as from Blogger and Picasa. Not listed are the Google News feeds I wrote about earlier -- but you can currently only get them within Gmail. Google Orkut Media also offers feeds.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:49 AM | Permalink

May 16, 2005

Giant Lists Of Search Blogs

Need more search blogs? Here are two resources that aim to point you to all the search blogs out there!

The first comes from fantomNews, a still relatively new blog that takes the same name of fantomaster's former email newsletter. Fantomaster is headed by Ralph Tegtmeier, a long-time search engine optimizer who specializes in cloaking and IP detection software.

Aside from offering a lot of interesting tips and observations on its own blog, fantommaster's assembled a list of nearly 200 search marketing blogs. It keeps growing, and you'll find it here: SEO / SEM Blogs.

Meanwhile, the Search Visibility Report has its own list of search blogs here. It also offers two interesting feeds:

• Official Search Engine Blogs lets you get posts from various official search engine blogs all in one feed.
• Search Blogs lets you get posts from all types of search blogs in one feed.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:21 PM | Permalink

May 6, 2005

SEO Inc Tries To Silence Google Blogoscoped Over Rankings

Last month, SEO Inc apparently fell out of the top rankings for the term "search engine optimization" at Google. I felt it was a non-story then. That's changed now that the company issued a cease-and-desist notice against Google Blogoscoped, implying that Philipp Lenssen there may have trade libeled them. More details and a copy of the letter from Philipp here: SEO Inc Sent Me a Cease & Desist.

Wow. What did he say? John Battelle has a reprint over here, but here's the key passage is this:

It?s kind of ironic that SEOInc.com, a search engine optimization company which for a while was on the Google number 1 spot for the highly competitive query "search engine optimization", is now nowhere to be found in the Google results. This is likely due to the recent PageRank update and even more algorithm tweaks implemented by Google. Enter ?SEOinc? into Google.com, and SEOInc.com is nowhere in the top 10; and the SEOInc.com PageRank has dropped to ?none?. Only by entering ?site:seoinc.com? into Google will you see the site is still indexed in some way.

And while a low or non-existent Google ranking is bad enough for sites outside the SEO industry, it hits everyone in the SEO business twice as hard: not only are SEOInc not being found with search engines anymore, they?ve also lost their biggest proof their services are worth paying for.

Of course, the fact this site has seen the Google death penalty hints that they?ve overoptimized using ?black hat? search engine optimization (such as linkfarms, for example).

Who is Philipp to say that SEO Inc lost the biggest proof that their services were worthwhile? Actually, SEO Inc. made this suggestion. Until recently, it had these claims on its web site, which Philipp's article lead off with:

?Search Engine Optimization Inc. uses our proven Search Engine Placement techniques to rank more sites in more top positions than anyone in the business. Our cutting-edge strategies are currently used by companies including AT&T Broadband, IGN, Sierra Trading Post, and Microsoft. (...)

The title of Certified Advanced Search Engine Marketing Strategist from the Academy of Web Specialists is your assurance that SEO Inc Search Engine Optimization incorporates highly effective, ethical and proven methods of gaining you top positioning.?

Those are now gone, though in a new development, the company appears to have recently become a member of the W3C. From its home page:

Search Engine Optimization Inc is the FIRST and Only search engine marketing firm to become a member of the (W3C) World Wide Web Consortium. Read Article here.

As said, I thought the company's drop in placement for "search engine optimization" was a non-issue when I heard about it a few weeks ago. I wouldn't have reported them as being "good" for having any type of placement, since placement for a term doesn't necessary mean good conversions.

In addition, top rankings can be meaningless. Was the term competitive or not? IE, does anyone actually search on it? And if you were top ranked, how long for? On which search engines? Ones people actually use? These are the types of reasons why I simply ignore any claims based on rankings.

Want to discuss or learn more? Check out these forum discussions:

• SEO Inc. banned from Google?, WebmasterWorld
• SEOInc ... they have forums!, SEO Chat
• SEOInc Sending out Cease & Desists, Threadwatch
• SEOINC.com Penalized in Google, Search Engine Watch Forums

That last thread we actually pulled from our forums back in mid-April. No, not because of a cease-and-desist letter or any message. Instead, our forums have a policy about public spam reporting. We don't allow it, unless a site is incredibly well-known or the issue has become discussed in a variety of public forums. Ironically, with the many blog comments now about the cease-and-desist, the thread that previously was pulled now qualifies for restoration.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:58 PM | Permalink

January 13, 2005

Shopping Search, Contextual Ads & General Search Blogs Offered

I met up with Sean O'Rourke at our SES Chicago show who's heavily into shopping search and threatened to launch a blog on the topic. Now he's done it. The Organized Shopping Blog looks promising, so if you're a retailer interested in the important area of shopping search, you may want to tune in.

I've also been meaning to mention JenSense. That's a blog launched several weeks ago by Jennifer Slegg, more commonly known to many as Jenstar, moderator of WebmasterWorld's Google AdSense forum. Aside from being one of the nicest people you could meet, those I know into generating money from AdSense tell me she's one of the sharpest people you can talk to.

We don't cover much about contextual here, because as I've written before, it's not search. But it IS important to online advertisers and publishers, so check out Jen's blog.

To close things out, search marketing firm Reprise Media's just started its new blog SearchViews that's taking a look at search as a whole.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:42 AM | Permalink

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