So much traffic from page 7 SERP!: "the important outcome is traffic, and not a magic ranking number.
During the never ending stream of Florida posts I looked for reports which discussed the effect on traffic numbers rather than obsessing over rankings. To say they were few and far between is somewhat of an understatement.
I realised long ago that while a drop in rankings on primary terms may be a pointer that all is not well, it does not automatically mean a fall in traffic.
I realise that this may seem patronising to our experienced members, but for the benefit of the newbies.... if you are not getting access to your site statistics, and numbers of unique visitors in particular, then do something about it. Decent stats are your best friend and you are flying blind without them."
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Florida & PatentsThe Gazette ... Issue: 208 (12-22-2003)
The Gazette ... Issue: 208 (12-22-2003):
" I spoke directly with Google about these allegations and they stated unequivocally that there is "Absolutely nothing commercial affects the ordering or display of search results. Period. The only crossover between the 'organic' results and the adwords results is that adwords knows what you searched on. Beyond that, the two are completely separate entities. Any manipulation of the core search results other than algorithmic relevance, which is completely computer driven would go against the very fiber of what Google is and stands for as a company."
.
..possible internal struggles within Google related to technology patents, we wondered if we hadn't stumbled upon something big and moved to put together this article. Though I do not agree with many of the theories of the poster, the thread by 'rossendryv' is located here: http://www.jimworld.com/apps/webmaster.forums/action::thread/thread::1071160110/forum::google/.
As I looked further into the facts, and did a bit of deductive reasoning, things started making more sense, and this 'theory' began to look more and more logical"
" I spoke directly with Google about these allegations and they stated unequivocally that there is "Absolutely nothing commercial affects the ordering or display of search results. Period. The only crossover between the 'organic' results and the adwords results is that adwords knows what you searched on. Beyond that, the two are completely separate entities. Any manipulation of the core search results other than algorithmic relevance, which is completely computer driven would go against the very fiber of what Google is and stands for as a company."
.
..possible internal struggles within Google related to technology patents, we wondered if we hadn't stumbled upon something big and moved to put together this article. Though I do not agree with many of the theories of the poster, the thread by 'rossendryv' is located here: http://www.jimworld.com/apps/webmaster.forums/action::thread/thread::1071160110/forum::google/.
As I looked further into the facts, and did a bit of deductive reasoning, things started making more sense, and this 'theory' began to look more and more logical"
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
BW Online | December 16, 2003 | Google Here, There, and Everywhere
BW Online | December 16, 2003 | Google Here, There, and Everywhere: " If the FedEx move is any indication, then the guys at Google have only started their attempts to turn their search engine into the all-purpose Web information tool."
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Digital revolution leaves Google feeling quite flush - 2003-12-15 - San Francisco Business Times
Digital revolution leaves Google feeling quite flush - 2003-12-15 - San Francisco Business Times: "The noted Internet search engine has recently installed digital toilets at its Mountain View offices"
Google Enhances Froogle, Offers New Ad and Search Features
Google Enhances Froogle, Offers New Ad and Search Features: "Google.com users will now also notice three Froogle result links appearing at the top of product-specific query results, similar to the way news links are included for news-oriented queries. These results are focused on specific products, for searches on product names, not categories. Queries need to be very specific to appear in main Google search results...
New Google AdWords features for advertisers include a Visual click-through rate status indicator on the campaign management page indicates how well keywords are performing. The billing summary page has been redesigned to be easier to use, and larger advertisers with contracted spends now see details of account budgets and percentage spent to date."
New Google AdWords features for advertisers include a Visual click-through rate status indicator on the campaign management page indicates how well keywords are performing. The billing summary page has been redesigned to be easier to use, and larger advertisers with contracted spends now see details of account budgets and percentage spent to date."
Google's Florida Update: One Month Later
Google's Florida Update: One Month Later:
Concludes that Google may be rolling out "an artificially intelligent, self adapting algorithm"
"It's been almost one month since Google started rolling out the Florida update and millions of listings were dropped from the results. In that time, hundreds of search engine marketers and thousands of website owners have dealt with the loss with all the classic signs of bereavement: at first, denial, then anger, gradually changing to acceptance and finally, healing. We're moving on, understanding that we're just part of the never ending circle of Google. "
"I said this was a filter aimed at aggressively optimized and affiliate sites. After several hours of team research and speaking to others in the industry, I'm beginning to think this is part 1 of a major change in how Google will rank sites. Danny Sullivan put forward his theory that Google is now using two algorithms, a new more sophisticated one on the more competitive searches and the old one on the less competitive searches...
There has been some discussion about the possible role Google's recent purchase of Applied Semantics may be playing here...
Applied Semantics Concept Server used language patterns, including semantics and ontology to try to both determine the real meaning of the words on a website page and also to anticipate what people are looking for. It tries to interpret concepts based on the use of words, their proximity and the patterns they occur in. What if Florida was Google's first attempt to start introducing this concept to their search engine?
What if Google is combining the artificial intelligence of Applied Semantics Concept Server and this monitoring of click throughs. .. As Google monitors more searches, the Concept Server will start to notice patterns between similar concepts and the type of results chosen by the searcher. With every search, Google will be better able to anticipate what the searcher is looking for, even if their query isn't right on target...
Google Dance is a thing of the past. Changes in results will happen fluidly and consistently, based on ongoing relevancy monitoring based on click throughs. It's almost as if Google has taken a page from Direct Hit's book and gave it a Google twist. Direct Hit was the one time search engine wunderkind that used searcher click throughs to determine relevance. Apparently its back end technology still plays a part in determining results on Ask Jeeves and Teoma.
Secondly, it would mean that individual rankings will move much more frequently and reliance on specific keyphrases will become less important.
Thirdly, a change like this will take a while to fully roll out, so Google will continue to take us on a roller coaster ride for the foreseeable future.
Lastly, this would be the first major step forward in search engine technology in quite some time, and that's probably the biggest reason why we think we might be on to something...
"Why did Google not just come out and tell us what they were doing, rather than force us to guess?" This point is a little more valid. Officially, Google's line was that is was just another algorithm change. If our theory is correct, this statement is true in substance, but grossly understated in scope. The Google Guy gave a few more hints on Webmaster World, but remained pretty tight lipped and virtually disappeared from the forums during the worst of the turmoil...
"
Concludes that Google may be rolling out "an artificially intelligent, self adapting algorithm"
"It's been almost one month since Google started rolling out the Florida update and millions of listings were dropped from the results. In that time, hundreds of search engine marketers and thousands of website owners have dealt with the loss with all the classic signs of bereavement: at first, denial, then anger, gradually changing to acceptance and finally, healing. We're moving on, understanding that we're just part of the never ending circle of Google. "
"I said this was a filter aimed at aggressively optimized and affiliate sites. After several hours of team research and speaking to others in the industry, I'm beginning to think this is part 1 of a major change in how Google will rank sites. Danny Sullivan put forward his theory that Google is now using two algorithms, a new more sophisticated one on the more competitive searches and the old one on the less competitive searches...
There has been some discussion about the possible role Google's recent purchase of Applied Semantics may be playing here...
Applied Semantics Concept Server used language patterns, including semantics and ontology to try to both determine the real meaning of the words on a website page and also to anticipate what people are looking for. It tries to interpret concepts based on the use of words, their proximity and the patterns they occur in. What if Florida was Google's first attempt to start introducing this concept to their search engine?
What if Google is combining the artificial intelligence of Applied Semantics Concept Server and this monitoring of click throughs. .. As Google monitors more searches, the Concept Server will start to notice patterns between similar concepts and the type of results chosen by the searcher. With every search, Google will be better able to anticipate what the searcher is looking for, even if their query isn't right on target...
Google Dance is a thing of the past. Changes in results will happen fluidly and consistently, based on ongoing relevancy monitoring based on click throughs. It's almost as if Google has taken a page from Direct Hit's book and gave it a Google twist. Direct Hit was the one time search engine wunderkind that used searcher click throughs to determine relevance. Apparently its back end technology still plays a part in determining results on Ask Jeeves and Teoma.
Secondly, it would mean that individual rankings will move much more frequently and reliance on specific keyphrases will become less important.
Thirdly, a change like this will take a while to fully roll out, so Google will continue to take us on a roller coaster ride for the foreseeable future.
Lastly, this would be the first major step forward in search engine technology in quite some time, and that's probably the biggest reason why we think we might be on to something...
"Why did Google not just come out and tell us what they were doing, rather than force us to guess?" This point is a little more valid. Officially, Google's line was that is was just another algorithm change. If our theory is correct, this statement is true in substance, but grossly understated in scope. The Google Guy gave a few more hints on Webmaster World, but remained pretty tight lipped and virtually disappeared from the forums during the worst of the turmoil...
"
Monday, December 15, 2003
More on Google stemming
Search engine news, on Web searching and search engine optimization: "it is not always obvious when this occurs. 'The stemming does not seem to occur on single word searches or on phrase searches,' he says.
This means that you can use quotation marks to override the automatic stemming. You may also put a plus sign in front of words you would like Google to leave untouched, like this: car +park "
Links on stemming:
Google help:
Google Help: "Word Variations (Stemming)
Google now uses stemming technology. Thus, when appropriate, it will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. If you search for 'pet lemur dietary needs', Google will also search for 'pet lemur diet needs', and other related variations of your terms. Any variants of your terms that were searched for will be highlighted in the snippet of text accompanying each result"
Search Engine Showdown News: Google Starts Auto Stemming Searches
D Sullivan: What Happened To My Searches On Google?: "Yes, and this addition of stemming is the most significant change searchers should be aware of. When you now search on Google, it will automatically look up variations of words. So a search for travel tips behind the scenes is looking for pages that have all of these words, and perhaps others, on them:
travel
travelers
traveling
tips
tip
Stemming can be overridden. When you enter any search command, in front of a word, stemming is shut off for that word. So:
travel +tips
Would only enable stemming on the word travel while
+travel +tip
Would disable stemming on both terms."
This means that you can use quotation marks to override the automatic stemming. You may also put a plus sign in front of words you would like Google to leave untouched, like this: car +park "
Links on stemming:
Google help:
Google Help: "Word Variations (Stemming)
Google now uses stemming technology. Thus, when appropriate, it will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. If you search for 'pet lemur dietary needs', Google will also search for 'pet lemur diet needs', and other related variations of your terms. Any variants of your terms that were searched for will be highlighted in the snippet of text accompanying each result"
Search Engine Showdown News: Google Starts Auto Stemming Searches
D Sullivan: What Happened To My Searches On Google?: "Yes, and this addition of stemming is the most significant change searchers should be aware of. When you now search on Google, it will automatically look up variations of words. So a search for travel tips behind the scenes is looking for pages that have all of these words, and perhaps others, on them:
travel
travelers
traveling
tips
tip
Stemming can be overridden. When you enter any search command, in front of a word, stemming is shut off for that word. So:
travel +tips
Would only enable stemming on the word travel while
+travel +tip
Would disable stemming on both terms."
Google Web Search Features - Numbers
2 ) Google Web Search Features: "Search By Number
Parcel tracking IDs, patents and other specialized numbers can be entered into Google's search box for quick access to information about them. For example, typing 'fedex' followed by a space and a FedEx tracking number will return the latest information on your package"
Parcel tracking IDs, patents and other specialized numbers can be entered into Google's search box for quick access to information about them. For example, typing 'fedex' followed by a space and a FedEx tracking number will return the latest information on your package"
Two new (beta) Google Web Search Features - USA only
1) Google Web Search Features: "Travel Conditions
To see delays and weather conditions at a particular airport, type the airport's three letter code followed by the word 'airport.' For example, San Francisco International Airport updates can be found by searching for 'sfo airport.'"
To see delays and weather conditions at a particular airport, type the airport's three letter code followed by the word 'airport.' For example, San Francisco International Airport updates can be found by searching for 'sfo airport.'"
Friday, December 12, 2003
- Michael Campbell's internet marketing secrets
- Michael Campbell's internet marketing secrets: "Issue is #38 published December 11 2003"
1) look for a spring shake up in search. Google
goes public with a rapid spike in price. Yahoo sells off their
stock and announces a switch to Inktomi. Google stock falls in
price, as word spreads that search domination is over.
2) Google algorithm change.... or just an angry executive?
There's a lot of theories flying around. Most can be dismissed
with a few clicks and a little research. Some people thought
it was an over optimization penalty, others a bug. Whatever it
was, and still is, Google has upset a lot of people...my conclusion is.... don't hit, play fair, hold hands
crossing the street, and always follow the Google guidelines
that say, "Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains
with substantially duplicate content."
3) more insight - and mathematical proof - into the Google
changes, be sure to read Leslie Rohde's research paper
entitled, "A Statistical and Experimental Analysis of Google's
Florida Update, using the link below.
Florida
1) look for a spring shake up in search. Google
goes public with a rapid spike in price. Yahoo sells off their
stock and announces a switch to Inktomi. Google stock falls in
price, as word spreads that search domination is over.
2) Google algorithm change.... or just an angry executive?
There's a lot of theories flying around. Most can be dismissed
with a few clicks and a little research. Some people thought
it was an over optimization penalty, others a bug. Whatever it
was, and still is, Google has upset a lot of people...my conclusion is.... don't hit, play fair, hold hands
crossing the street, and always follow the Google guidelines
that say, "Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains
with substantially duplicate content."
3) more insight - and mathematical proof - into the Google
changes, be sure to read Leslie Rohde's research paper
entitled, "A Statistical and Experimental Analysis of Google's
Florida Update, using the link below.
Florida
Search engine news blog | Search Engine Lowdown
Search engine news blog | Search Engine Lowdown: "Google reps were scarce, with those manning the booth reluctant to talk about the recent update despite the constant requests from attendees. Google really was keeping a low profile at the event, not wanting to send their normal engineers to speak. As one of my co-workers put it, Google simply sent the �sacrificial lambs�."
A Merry Christmas for Content Writers at Search Engine Roundtable Weblog
A Merry Christmas for Content Writers at Search Engine Roundtable Weblog: "A Merry Christmas for Content Writers
Hi everyone-- I'm honored to be a part of this little adventure and hope to have some good discussions here.
For my inaugural post I'd like to mention a little gem from a post on High Rankings Forum's Florida update thread. (Seems every forum has one or ten.) The moderator Old Welsh Guy, in his normal brilliantly funny fashion, has composed a verse for a Christmas card to Google.
Your Algo sucks
times are now hard
here's your XXXXXX
Christmas card
He's kidding, of course (he did fine in the update), but it's pretty amusing.
The upshot of this (long, of course) thread, and the related (very long) threads on the other forums I frequent, is that:
1) Florida's been really hard on a lot of people. The jury's still out on the conspiracy theories, and there's currently a lot of debate among those who chose to make changes to their sites to recover rankings and those who made no changes-- it seems ranking are returning to many, and they're returning to both those who changed and those who didn't.
2) Content sites have fared well. Content seems to be as important as ever, if not more so. Which is a premise from which I will be making a lot more posts in the future: if content is king, how do I get some good content?
3) Don't take free traffic for granted. We're all looking forward to the day when Google has some decent competitors.
But, again, see #2: they all like good, quality content. "
Hi everyone-- I'm honored to be a part of this little adventure and hope to have some good discussions here.
For my inaugural post I'd like to mention a little gem from a post on High Rankings Forum's Florida update thread. (Seems every forum has one or ten.) The moderator Old Welsh Guy, in his normal brilliantly funny fashion, has composed a verse for a Christmas card to Google.
Your Algo sucks
times are now hard
here's your XXXXXX
Christmas card
He's kidding, of course (he did fine in the update), but it's pretty amusing.
The upshot of this (long, of course) thread, and the related (very long) threads on the other forums I frequent, is that:
1) Florida's been really hard on a lot of people. The jury's still out on the conspiracy theories, and there's currently a lot of debate among those who chose to make changes to their sites to recover rankings and those who made no changes-- it seems ranking are returning to many, and they're returning to both those who changed and those who didn't.
2) Content sites have fared well. Content seems to be as important as ever, if not more so. Which is a premise from which I will be making a lot more posts in the future: if content is king, how do I get some good content?
3) Don't take free traffic for granted. We're all looking forward to the day when Google has some decent competitors.
But, again, see #2: they all like good, quality content. "
Thursday, December 11, 2003
SEC rule may nudge Google toward IPO | CNET News.com
That ruling I mentioned...
SEC rule may nudge Google toward IPO | CNET News.com: "A private company must report its finances once it has more than 500 common shareholders--or stock-option holders--and $10 million in assets, according to section XII(g) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. That means a private company must file quarterly forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that disclose operating expenses, profits, partnerships, shareholders and many other details--a laborious process that can cost as much as $2 million annually."
SEC rule may nudge Google toward IPO | CNET News.com: "A private company must report its finances once it has more than 500 common shareholders--or stock-option holders--and $10 million in assets, according to section XII(g) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. That means a private company must file quarterly forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that disclose operating expenses, profits, partnerships, shareholders and many other details--a laborious process that can cost as much as $2 million annually."
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
More Florida...Search engine news blog | Search Engine Lowdown
Search engine news blog | Search Engine Lowdown: "Who will come out on top?
1. Those web sites that target more than just a few search terms. Your site should be relevant for more than just the generic phrases.
2. As I have always said, relevant links are the key, not just any link. Look at SEL, we've jumped to a PageRank of 7 with just 39 links, but each one of them is from a relevant site and not a single one solicited.
3. With Google now stemming search results, we no longer have to worry about whether to target the singular or plural search terms.
Don't panic, continue to make your site relevant for targeted search terms and don't employ spam techniques and you should weather the 'florida' storm"
1. Those web sites that target more than just a few search terms. Your site should be relevant for more than just the generic phrases.
2. As I have always said, relevant links are the key, not just any link. Look at SEL, we've jumped to a PageRank of 7 with just 39 links, but each one of them is from a relevant site and not a single one solicited.
3. With Google now stemming search results, we no longer have to worry about whether to target the singular or plural search terms.
Don't panic, continue to make your site relevant for targeted search terms and don't employ spam techniques and you should weather the 'florida' storm"
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
A few quotes from In conversation with... Daniel Dulitz - Google Engineer.
people are just casually surfing the web they can see
what Google's PageRank impression of that page is. And
that's great. I'm all for people doing that. But for
search engine marketing, search engine optimisation
purposes, yeah, I'd say that there's too much emphasis
placed on what that PageRank number actually is.
Our job as a search engine is to return the best results
that we can. And we're not naive enough to think that we
can condense every indicator about a page into a number
from one to ten. We certainly can't do that. So, if people
are trying to look at what we're doing and their idea is
based on that single number from one to ten, then ...
well, they're not going to be effective in figuring out
what we're doing at...
I think part of the problem also, is that people are
fascinated too much about what kind of rank they have at
search engines – regardless of whether it's any use having
that rank. You know, whether it brings them any traffic or
not. And those issues seem to become just so important to
them. As far as I'm concerned, I get a better idea of what
traffic I'm getting, and from where, just by looking at
log files – not by doing a rank check to see if I'm still
number one for my own name spelt backwards...
...Much more important than checking your rank on search
engines... In fact, I think THE most important thing
you can possibly do is track conversions of users who
visit your site – and to track that by referrer – yes, as
you say, to analyse your own site logs.
Then you can work backwards from there, you can see what
referrers are doing a good job for you. Are these
directory or links from other sites providing a lot of
good traffic AND are search engines providing good
traffic. And then you can look at changes in those
relationships. You can detect between yesterday and today
that there are fewer conversions from, say, Alta Vista
than there used to be. Then you have a real live person
case asking the question...
Mike G
So, as I said, you can learn a lot more about your success
from your log files than you will doing a rank check for a
keyword or phrase, which even if you're number one,
doesn't convert for you...
Florida Google Dance Resources
MOST COMPREHENSIVE TO DATE:
Florida Google Dance Resources: "Florida Google Dance Resources
By Danny Sullivan, Editor
December 7, 2003
This page summarizes articles from Search Engine Watch and resources from elsewhere that pertain to major changes to Google's search algorithm that happened in November and December 2003. 'Florida' is the nickname that's been given to this particular wave of changes known as the Google Dance."
Florida Google Dance Resources: "Florida Google Dance Resources
By Danny Sullivan, Editor
December 7, 2003
This page summarizes articles from Search Engine Watch and resources from elsewhere that pertain to major changes to Google's search algorithm that happened in November and December 2003. 'Florida' is the nickname that's been given to this particular wave of changes known as the Google Dance."
How to Get Google to Deep Crawl
How to Get Google to Deep Crawl: "Too many people focus on driving crawlers to the home page in order to cultivate PageRank. Toolbar PR is only a representation, an estimate, of many factors that go into determining a website's popularity. On a scale of 1-10, it is a very rough measure. See this interview with a Google Engineer and take note of what he says about the shortcomings of the Google PR shown in the toolbar.
Concentrate instead on creating content that is good enough that other webmasters will feel it is worth linking to. I know, this won't work in every business model- that's when ingenuity and creativity come into play."
Concentrate instead on creating content that is good enough that other webmasters will feel it is worth linking to. I know, this won't work in every business model- that's when ingenuity and creativity come into play."
Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone
Brett_Tabke, top tips from 2002 - a few choice items... from " a condensed SEO bible."
Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone: "The following will build a successful site in 1 years time via Google alone. It can be done faster if you are a real go getter, or everyones favorite a self starter."
H) Insite Cross links.
(cross links in this context are links WITHIN the same site)
Link to on topic quality content across your site. If a page is about food, then make sure it links it to the apples and veggies page. Specifically with Google, on topic cross linking is very important for sharing your pr value across your site. You do NOT want an "all star" page that out performs the rest of your site. You want 50 pages that produce 1 referral each a day and do NOT want 1 page that produces 50 referrals a day. If you do find one page that drastically out produces the rest of the site with Google, you need to off load some of that pr value to other pages by cross linking heavily. It's the old share the wealth thing.
P) Gimmicks.
Stay far away from any "fades of the day" or anything that appears spammy, unethical, or tricky. Plant yourself firmly on the high ground in the middle of the road.
The multiplier effect of many pages is not mentioned often enough, and IMO the phrase: "You do NOT want and "all star" page that out performs the rest of your site. You want 50 pages that produce 1 referral each a day and do NOT want 1 page that produces 50 referrals a day."
Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone: "The following will build a successful site in 1 years time via Google alone. It can be done faster if you are a real go getter, or everyones favorite a self starter."
H) Insite Cross links.
(cross links in this context are links WITHIN the same site)
Link to on topic quality content across your site. If a page is about food, then make sure it links it to the apples and veggies page. Specifically with Google, on topic cross linking is very important for sharing your pr value across your site. You do NOT want an "all star" page that out performs the rest of your site. You want 50 pages that produce 1 referral each a day and do NOT want 1 page that produces 50 referrals a day. If you do find one page that drastically out produces the rest of the site with Google, you need to off load some of that pr value to other pages by cross linking heavily. It's the old share the wealth thing.
P) Gimmicks.
Stay far away from any "fades of the day" or anything that appears spammy, unethical, or tricky. Plant yourself firmly on the high ground in the middle of the road.
The multiplier effect of many pages is not mentioned often enough, and IMO the phrase: "You do NOT want and "all star" page that out performs the rest of your site. You want 50 pages that produce 1 referral each a day and do NOT want 1 page that produces 50 referrals a day."
What Happened To My Site On Google?
Danny's 3 basic "golden Rules"
1) Have a good, descriptive HTML title tag that reflects the two or three key search phrases you want your page to be found for.
2) Have good, descriptive body copy that make use of the phrases you want to be found for in an appropriate manner.
3) Seek out links from other web sites that are appropriate to you in content"
Three golden rules of link building:
1) Get links from web pages that are read by the audience you want.
2) Buy links if visitors that come solely from the links will justify the cost.
3) Link to sites because you want your visitors to know about them
So not much has changed re the basics:
Search Engine Placement Tips: "Search Engine Placement Tips By Danny Sullivan, Editor October 14, 2002 "
On pageRank:
Google never used the PageRank algorithm to rank web pages. PageRank is simply a component of that overall algorithm, a system Google uses to measure how important a page is based on links to it. It has always -- ALWAYS -- been the case that the context of links to the page was also considered, as well as the content on the page itself
1) Have a good, descriptive HTML title tag that reflects the two or three key search phrases you want your page to be found for.
2) Have good, descriptive body copy that make use of the phrases you want to be found for in an appropriate manner.
3) Seek out links from other web sites that are appropriate to you in content"
Three golden rules of link building:
1) Get links from web pages that are read by the audience you want.
2) Buy links if visitors that come solely from the links will justify the cost.
3) Link to sites because you want your visitors to know about them
So not much has changed re the basics:
Search Engine Placement Tips: "Search Engine Placement Tips By Danny Sullivan, Editor October 14, 2002 "
On pageRank:
Google never used the PageRank algorithm to rank web pages. PageRank is simply a component of that overall algorithm, a system Google uses to measure how important a page is based on links to it. It has always -- ALWAYS -- been the case that the context of links to the page was also considered, as well as the content on the page itself
What Happened To My Site On Google?
Review of Florida dance in Q&A form, conclusions included below:
What Happened To My Site On Google?: "What Happened To My Site On Google?
By Danny Sullivan, Editor December 7, 2003 "
Smart businesses will realize they need to budget for this, just as they budget for advertising and to obtain leads in the real world. It's the rare and exceptional company that can get by on PR alone ... free listings aren't guaranteed. Yes, search engines can do what they want. Yes, it's foolish for anyone to have built a business around getting what are essentially free business phone calls via Google.
My advice is unchanged -- do the basic, simple things that have historically helped with search engines. Have good titles. Have good content. Build good links. Don't try to highly-engineer pages that you think will please a search engine's algorithm. Focus instead on building the best site you can for your visitors, offering content that goes beyond just selling but which also offers information, and I feel you should succeed.
Google and other search engines will continue altering their ranking systems, just as they always have done -- and that listings will change, sometimes dramatically, as a result.
What Happened To My Site On Google?: "What Happened To My Site On Google?
By Danny Sullivan, Editor December 7, 2003 "
Smart businesses will realize they need to budget for this, just as they budget for advertising and to obtain leads in the real world. It's the rare and exceptional company that can get by on PR alone ... free listings aren't guaranteed. Yes, search engines can do what they want. Yes, it's foolish for anyone to have built a business around getting what are essentially free business phone calls via Google.
My advice is unchanged -- do the basic, simple things that have historically helped with search engines. Have good titles. Have good content. Build good links. Don't try to highly-engineer pages that you think will please a search engine's algorithm. Focus instead on building the best site you can for your visitors, offering content that goes beyond just selling but which also offers information, and I feel you should succeed.
Google and other search engines will continue altering their ranking systems, just as they always have done -- and that listings will change, sometimes dramatically, as a result.
Friday, December 05, 2003
"Google’s Trademark Policy"
Google Adwords: FAQ:
Google's trademark policy is fairly simple. The trademark holder governs how the trademark is used as a search term. There are two options: a blacklist of advertisers who may not use your trademark and a whitelist of advertisers who may. For dealing with problems, read Google's full trademark complaint procedure.
Overture's policy is a bit more permissive, allowing advertisers to use a trademarked term as a search term for "comparative advertising, sale of a product bearing the trademark, or commentary about the trademark owner or its product." The policy acknowledges some "fair use" of trademarks results in consumer confusion.
If you have a trademark issue, you may get different resolutions from different engines. Read each engine's policy, and start discussions armed with the appropriate facts and supporting documentation.
Google's trademark policy is fairly simple. The trademark holder governs how the trademark is used as a search term. There are two options: a blacklist of advertisers who may not use your trademark and a whitelist of advertisers who may. For dealing with problems, read Google's full trademark complaint procedure.
Overture's policy is a bit more permissive, allowing advertisers to use a trademarked term as a search term for "comparative advertising, sale of a product bearing the trademark, or commentary about the trademark owner or its product." The policy acknowledges some "fair use" of trademarks results in consumer confusion.
If you have a trademark issue, you may get different resolutions from different engines. Read each engine's policy, and start discussions armed with the appropriate facts and supporting documentation.
News
News: "Espotting inks paid listings deal with Lastminute
London, December 4 2003, (netimperative)
by Susie Harwood
Espotting, the European search marketing network, has landed a pan-European distribution deal with Lastminute.com to provide the online travel firm with paid listings across five countries.
Under the agreement, Lastminute will include Espotting's listings on the exit pages of its four channels: 'hotels, 'flights', 'holidays' and the new 'flight+hotel' dynamic packaging functionality.
The deal covers all four channels in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, but is already live on the UK hotels pages.
A lastminute.com branded pop-under page will be served to users leaving the hotels channel of the site without making a booking, and will display Espotting's top five keyword specific listings to the corresponding channel. For example, the channel 'hotels' will feature 'hotels' and 'cheap hotels'.
Espotting said that its dedicated content editors have worked with Lastminute to select the relevant keywords."
London, December 4 2003, (netimperative)
by Susie Harwood
Espotting, the European search marketing network, has landed a pan-European distribution deal with Lastminute.com to provide the online travel firm with paid listings across five countries.
Under the agreement, Lastminute will include Espotting's listings on the exit pages of its four channels: 'hotels, 'flights', 'holidays' and the new 'flight+hotel' dynamic packaging functionality.
The deal covers all four channels in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, but is already live on the UK hotels pages.
A lastminute.com branded pop-under page will be served to users leaving the hotels channel of the site without making a booking, and will display Espotting's top five keyword specific listings to the corresponding channel. For example, the channel 'hotels' will feature 'hotels' and 'cheap hotels'.
Espotting said that its dedicated content editors have worked with Lastminute to select the relevant keywords."
Travel Stockwatch - 04-Dec-03. - 06 Nov 2003
Travel Stockwatch - 04-Dec-03. - 06 Nov 2003: "Performer of the day, without doubt, was Lastminute.com, which added 16p to close at 292p. What is more, The Times is predicting that the shares will grow in value in coming months and is rating them as a �buy�. "
Lastminute poised for trade launch of dynamic packaging - 04-Dec-03. - 06 Nov 2003
Lastminute poised for trade launch of dynamic packaging - 04-Dec-03. - 06 Nov 2003: "Lastminute poised for trade launch of dynamic packaging"
Precis of contending theories Google's Florida update - what really happened
Google's Florida update - what really happened: "Any pages that are found to exceed the threshold of 'allowable' seo, are dropped from the results. That's a summary of the theory.
At first I liked this idea because it makes very good sense for a search engine to do it. But I saw pages that were still ranked in the top 10, and that were very well optimized for the searchterms that they were ranked for. If an seo filter was being applied, they wouldn't have been listed at all.
People noticed that the filter was being applied to some searchterms but not to others, so they decided that Google is maintaining a list of searchterms to apply the filter to. I never liked that idea because it doesn't make sense. If Google can apply a filter to one search on-the-fly, it can apply it to all searches on-the-fly.
Another idea that has taken hold is that Google have implemented LocalRank. LocalRank is a method of modifying the rankings based on the interconnectivity between the pages that have been selected to be ranked. I.e. pages in the selected set, that are linked to from other pages in the selected set, are ranked more highly. (Google took out a patent on LocalRank earlier this year). But this idea cannot be right. A brief study of LocalRank shows that the technique does not drop pages from the results. It merely rearranges them a bit.
It was noticed that many search results were biased towards information pages, and commercial pages were either dropped or moved down the rankings. From this sprang the theory that Google is maintaining a list of 'money-words', and modifying the rankings of searches that are done for those words, so that informative pages are displayed rather than commercial ones.
Google sells advertising, and the ads are placed on the search results pages. Every time a person clicks on one of the ads, Google gets paid by the advertiser. "
Conclusion: every effect that the Florida update has caused can be attributed to a Hilltop-type, expert-based system.
I can see flaws in every theory that has been put forward thus far. The flaw in the seo filter idea is that there are highly SEOed pages still ranking in the top 10 for searchterms that they should have been filtered out for. The flaw in the LocalRank theory is that LocalRank doesn't drop pages, but a great many pages have been dropped. The flaw in the list of searchterms is that if a filter can be applied to one searchterm, it can be applied to them all, so why bother maintaining a list. The flaw in the money-words list idea is that, if it ever came out that they were doing it, Google would run the risk of going quickly downhill. I just don't believe that the people at Google are that stupid.
The expert-system, or something like it, accounts for every effect that we see. I am convinced that this is what Google rolled out in the Florida update. Having said that, I must also add that it is still a theory
What next: then the first thing to realise is that the system cannot deal with all searchterms, so targeting non-generalised and lesser search terms, using the usual search engine optimization basics, will still work.
For more generalised searchterms, the page needs to be linked to by multiple expert pages that are unaffiliated with the page. By "unaffiliated" I mean that they must reside on servers with different IP C block addresses than each other and than the target page, and their URLs must not use the same domain name as each other or as the target page. These expert pages can either be found and links requested or they can be created.
At first I liked this idea because it makes very good sense for a search engine to do it. But I saw pages that were still ranked in the top 10, and that were very well optimized for the searchterms that they were ranked for. If an seo filter was being applied, they wouldn't have been listed at all.
People noticed that the filter was being applied to some searchterms but not to others, so they decided that Google is maintaining a list of searchterms to apply the filter to. I never liked that idea because it doesn't make sense. If Google can apply a filter to one search on-the-fly, it can apply it to all searches on-the-fly.
Another idea that has taken hold is that Google have implemented LocalRank. LocalRank is a method of modifying the rankings based on the interconnectivity between the pages that have been selected to be ranked. I.e. pages in the selected set, that are linked to from other pages in the selected set, are ranked more highly. (Google took out a patent on LocalRank earlier this year). But this idea cannot be right. A brief study of LocalRank shows that the technique does not drop pages from the results. It merely rearranges them a bit.
It was noticed that many search results were biased towards information pages, and commercial pages were either dropped or moved down the rankings. From this sprang the theory that Google is maintaining a list of 'money-words', and modifying the rankings of searches that are done for those words, so that informative pages are displayed rather than commercial ones.
Google sells advertising, and the ads are placed on the search results pages. Every time a person clicks on one of the ads, Google gets paid by the advertiser. "
Conclusion: every effect that the Florida update has caused can be attributed to a Hilltop-type, expert-based system.
I can see flaws in every theory that has been put forward thus far. The flaw in the seo filter idea is that there are highly SEOed pages still ranking in the top 10 for searchterms that they should have been filtered out for. The flaw in the LocalRank theory is that LocalRank doesn't drop pages, but a great many pages have been dropped. The flaw in the list of searchterms is that if a filter can be applied to one searchterm, it can be applied to them all, so why bother maintaining a list. The flaw in the money-words list idea is that, if it ever came out that they were doing it, Google would run the risk of going quickly downhill. I just don't believe that the people at Google are that stupid.
The expert-system, or something like it, accounts for every effect that we see. I am convinced that this is what Google rolled out in the Florida update. Having said that, I must also add that it is still a theory
What next: then the first thing to realise is that the system cannot deal with all searchterms, so targeting non-generalised and lesser search terms, using the usual search engine optimization basics, will still work.
For more generalised searchterms, the page needs to be linked to by multiple expert pages that are unaffiliated with the page. By "unaffiliated" I mean that they must reside on servers with different IP C block addresses than each other and than the target page, and their URLs must not use the same domain name as each other or as the target page. These expert pages can either be found and links requested or they can be created.
Florida Fever: The Google Update Uproar
Florida Fever: The Google Update Uproar:
Conclusion: "A number of forum posts indicated that Google was taking aim at SEO. I don't believe so. I think Google is trying to wipe out bad SEO and affiliate programs and unfortunately there are a number of innocent bystanders who got hit in the crossfire. But every indication from Google itself (both from posts to forums and in replies to help requests) seems to indicate that Florida is a work in progress. "
The filter: the Florida update was rolled out November 16th. It appears to be a new filter that is applied to commercially based searches, triggered by certain words in the query. The filter clears out many of the sites that previously populated the top 100.
The sites affected: The target is pretty clear. Its affiliate sites, with domains that contain the keywords, and with a network of keyword links pointing back to the home page of the site. The filter is remarkably effective in removing the affiliate clutter. Unfortunately, legitimate commercial sites with lower page rank are being removed as well. There seems to be a PageRank threshold above which sites are no longer affected by the filter.
Conclusion: "A number of forum posts indicated that Google was taking aim at SEO. I don't believe so. I think Google is trying to wipe out bad SEO and affiliate programs and unfortunately there are a number of innocent bystanders who got hit in the crossfire. But every indication from Google itself (both from posts to forums and in replies to help requests) seems to indicate that Florida is a work in progress. "
The filter: the Florida update was rolled out November 16th. It appears to be a new filter that is applied to commercially based searches, triggered by certain words in the query. The filter clears out many of the sites that previously populated the top 100.
The sites affected: The target is pretty clear. Its affiliate sites, with domains that contain the keywords, and with a network of keyword links pointing back to the home page of the site. The filter is remarkably effective in removing the affiliate clutter. Unfortunately, legitimate commercial sites with lower page rank are being removed as well. There seems to be a PageRank threshold above which sites are no longer affected by the filter.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Google should understand this
Google should understand this: "1) A webmaster's point of view:
Google owes its existence to Adwords. Adwords supply the revenue for serving the 'free' results.
If I spend money on advertising with any media, I expect that media to be of reasonable standard and observe some deontology.
As an Adwords advertiser, I expect from Google to serve 'free' results that are unbiaised and independent from their advertising section.
If (this is only an 'if' ) it was proven that Google:
- have used Adwords data, in any way, to influence their 'free' results;
- have tampered with their 'free' results in order to get more Adwords revenue;
- have introduced one or several 'spies' into the webmaster community with the purpose of disseminating supposedly helpful, but in reality fallacious information that will lead to the fall of money-making websites, and lead their owners to hopefully buy more Adwords;
If any of the above was true, I would then tend to think that this is a case for an ethic committee... or maybe even for a criminal court?
2) A consumer's point of view:
Google is not free. I pay for the 'free' results by purchasing any item that is being sold through Adwords. I expect the 'free' results to be unbiaised and independent from their advertising section. If it was proven that Google are tampering with the free results to gain financial advantage, I would feel deceived and I would then tend to think that this is a case for an ethic committee... or maybe even for a criminal court?
-- "
Google owes its existence to Adwords. Adwords supply the revenue for serving the 'free' results.
If I spend money on advertising with any media, I expect that media to be of reasonable standard and observe some deontology.
As an Adwords advertiser, I expect from Google to serve 'free' results that are unbiaised and independent from their advertising section.
If (this is only an 'if' ) it was proven that Google:
- have used Adwords data, in any way, to influence their 'free' results;
- have tampered with their 'free' results in order to get more Adwords revenue;
- have introduced one or several 'spies' into the webmaster community with the purpose of disseminating supposedly helpful, but in reality fallacious information that will lead to the fall of money-making websites, and lead their owners to hopefully buy more Adwords;
If any of the above was true, I would then tend to think that this is a case for an ethic committee... or maybe even for a criminal court?
2) A consumer's point of view:
Google is not free. I pay for the 'free' results by purchasing any item that is being sold through Adwords. I expect the 'free' results to be unbiaised and independent from their advertising section. If it was proven that Google are tampering with the free results to gain financial advantage, I would feel deceived and I would then tend to think that this is a case for an ethic committee... or maybe even for a criminal court?
-- "
Google should understand this
Google should understand this: "If many, many companies/websites enjoyed high rankings for a variety of search phrases and these rankings were procured in a 'legal and ethical way' and then lost all their rankings because of an algorithm change that again, unfairly penalized these companies for no apparent reason (while other competing companies remained unscathed) then these companies ABSOLUTELY would have a bonafide legal argument against Google.
Google has a wide reach on the internet (some might say a monopoly as it pertains to search results) and with that comes alot of responsibilty AND scrutiny, warranted or not"
Google has a wide reach on the internet (some might say a monopoly as it pertains to search results) and with that comes alot of responsibilty AND scrutiny, warranted or not"
Cre8asite forums. Google - Google is stemming now. [ Search Engine Optimization, Usability and Web Design. ]
Cre8asite forums. Google - Google is stemming now. [ Search Engine Optimization, Usability and Web Design. ]: "Quote:
Google now uses stemming technology. Thus, when appropriate, it will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. If you search for 'pet lemur dietary needs', Google will also search for 'pet lemur diet needs', and other related variations of your terms. Any variants of your terms that were searched for will be highlighted in the snippet of text accompanying each result.
This is taken from the Google Search Tips. Until recently it said quite the reverse. That's a pretty fundamental change to bring in without a fanfare!"
Google now uses stemming technology. Thus, when appropriate, it will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. If you search for 'pet lemur dietary needs', Google will also search for 'pet lemur diet needs', and other related variations of your terms. Any variants of your terms that were searched for will be highlighted in the snippet of text accompanying each result.
This is taken from the Google Search Tips. Until recently it said quite the reverse. That's a pretty fundamental change to bring in without a fanfare!"
Forbes.com: Change to Google ranking system irks merchants
Forbes.com: Change to Google ranking system irks merchants: "SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Some business owners who depend on Google driving Internet users to their Web sites are angry over a change to the top search engine's ranking system, which they say threatens to dent their revenue during the holiday shopping season."
Traffick | Minding the Internet Search Engines' Business
Traffick | Minding the Internet Search Engines' Business: "I suggested that Google was making more effort to discern the 'type' of information on a page (resource/discussion/information, store/affiliate, company, etc.) 'was heading down the right path.' Norvig even went so far as to agree that the type of thing Google 'might' do would be to look for information such as 'how long a company has been established, what kind of information is it showing to the site visitor, etc.' "
Prepare to be Monetized, Punk: Google Plays Sherriff with Commercially-Oriented Search Listings
Prepare to be Monetized, Punk: Google Plays Sherriff with Commercially-Oriented Search Listings:
"The shortest path to the truth seems to be the following rule: 'where there is a critical mass of advertisers, Google has chosen to re-rank the index.'
Google is doing what search engines have been doing for years: studying common SEO techniques and trying to ensure that clever marketers don't get the upper hand in the "free" index. What's different is how much is at stake if Google can indeed dislodge the best-laid plans of free-riders at this crucial stage.
We've seen trends towards giving more top-ten listings to sites that involve discussion, comparison, content, resources, etc.. It's just been accelerated now, and made more aggressive.
Another revenue angle to consider: Google now actually stands to make money from quality content sites which get ranked well. That's because many of these sites now show AdSense ads, and Google gets a little revenue share from them, too.
Advertisers who have always struck the right balance between paid and unpaid listings, between interesting content and company information, and commercial pages, won't have been caught flat-footed by this latest diabolical Google reshuffle.
But plenty of cocky search-marketing cowboys -- those who felt a growing sense of entitlement to rankings they "earned" for their sites on the strength of little more than a few cheap parlor tricks -- have been knocked to the dirt hard in this latest dustup. Most will pick themselves up, knock back a couple of shots of the hard stuff, and prepare themselves to fight again. But some won't."
"The shortest path to the truth seems to be the following rule: 'where there is a critical mass of advertisers, Google has chosen to re-rank the index.'
Google is doing what search engines have been doing for years: studying common SEO techniques and trying to ensure that clever marketers don't get the upper hand in the "free" index. What's different is how much is at stake if Google can indeed dislodge the best-laid plans of free-riders at this crucial stage.
We've seen trends towards giving more top-ten listings to sites that involve discussion, comparison, content, resources, etc.. It's just been accelerated now, and made more aggressive.
Another revenue angle to consider: Google now actually stands to make money from quality content sites which get ranked well. That's because many of these sites now show AdSense ads, and Google gets a little revenue share from them, too.
Advertisers who have always struck the right balance between paid and unpaid listings, between interesting content and company information, and commercial pages, won't have been caught flat-footed by this latest diabolical Google reshuffle.
But plenty of cocky search-marketing cowboys -- those who felt a growing sense of entitlement to rankings they "earned" for their sites on the strength of little more than a few cheap parlor tricks -- have been knocked to the dirt hard in this latest dustup. Most will pick themselves up, knock back a couple of shots of the hard stuff, and prepare themselves to fight again. But some won't."
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
News: Google France fined for trademark violation
Implications....
News: Google France fined for trademark violation: "Luteciel and Viaticum claimed intellectual property rights in 'bourse des vols' and 'bourse des voyages,' which roughly translate to travel market and airflight market."
News: Google France fined for trademark violation: "Luteciel and Viaticum claimed intellectual property rights in 'bourse des vols' and 'bourse des voyages,' which roughly translate to travel market and airflight market."
Search Engines And Legal Issues - previous case list
Search Engines And Legal Issues: "Legal experts urge webmasters to think carefully before using tactics such as competitors' words in meta tags or buying trademarked keywords on search engines."
Got any top tips re Google Adwords? : e-consultancy.com
ADWORDS:
Got any top tips re Google Adwords? : e-consultancy.com:
Google Adwords explained
-------------------------------------------
Jim at Web Diversity provides detailed information on the four tiers
that Google's technology uses to determine where to place a listing.
Essential reading for those that pay for placement on Adwords, or
those thinking about doing so.
"There are 4 types of keywords you can have in Google Adwords :
1. Broad match - your ad is shown if the words you are bidding on show anywhere in your list.
2. Phrase match - your ad is shown if the phrase you are bidding on is shown within the context of the search made
3. Exact match - your ad is shown if the phrase you are bidding on is shown EXACTLY as the search made.
4. Negative match - your ad is NOT shown if one of the stop words you choose is used"
Got any top tips re Google Adwords? : e-consultancy.com:
Google Adwords explained
-------------------------------------------
Jim at Web Diversity provides detailed information on the four tiers
that Google's technology uses to determine where to place a listing.
Essential reading for those that pay for placement on Adwords, or
those thinking about doing so.
"There are 4 types of keywords you can have in Google Adwords :
1. Broad match - your ad is shown if the words you are bidding on show anywhere in your list.
2. Phrase match - your ad is shown if the phrase you are bidding on is shown within the context of the search made
3. Exact match - your ad is shown if the phrase you are bidding on is shown EXACTLY as the search made.
4. Negative match - your ad is NOT shown if one of the stop words you choose is used"
Search engine news, on Web searching and search engine optimization
Search engine news, on Web searching and search engine optimization: "Google's global usage share has reached has increased from 55.2 percent to 56.1 percent since OneStat's previous report.
According to OneStat the seven largest search engines on the web are:
Google 56.1%
Yahoo 21.5%
MSN Search 9.4%
AOL Search 3.7%
Terra Lycos 2.3%
Altavista 1.9%
AskJeeves 1.6%"
According to OneStat the seven largest search engines on the web are:
Google 56.1%
Yahoo 21.5%
MSN Search 9.4%
AOL Search 3.7%
Terra Lycos 2.3%
Altavista 1.9%
AskJeeves 1.6%"
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "believe that it is not a simple matter of the hilltop algorithm,.. there is much more in play here. Another interesting algorithm is the Topic-Sensitive-Pagerank algorithm. This algorithm consideres up to 16 or more different PageRank factors.
The original PageRank formula considered only 1 factor. It also failed to recognize any unrelated links. Google tried to compensate for this with things like looking at the anchor text,.. but all these things were just minor updates to compensate for what the original PageRank was missing. This new update does a much better job as it improved determination of relevancy of a back link"
The original PageRank formula considered only 1 factor. It also failed to recognize any unrelated links. Google tried to compensate for this with things like looking at the anchor text,.. but all these things were just minor updates to compensate for what the original PageRank was missing. This new update does a much better job as it improved determination of relevancy of a back link"
One more theory...Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "the results are dominated by quasi, directory-like web pages. This is what leads me towards concluding that G has implemented something similar to Hilltop. Studying that document closely compels me think it is likely that an Expert Page can also become an Authority Page.
Expert Pages are described as pages 'about a certain topic with links to many non-affiliated pages about that same topic'.....operative words are 'many' and 'non-affiliated'
Authority Pages are described as 'an authority on the certain topic if and only when some of the best expert pages link to it'.
Directory-like sites that are informational- based fit the profile of both Expert and Authority. Typically, those type of sites would not have an abundance of affiliated links.
IMO, they have been rewarded by fitting the descriptions and having backlinks that are typically non-afilliated."
Expert Pages are described as pages 'about a certain topic with links to many non-affiliated pages about that same topic'.....operative words are 'many' and 'non-affiliated'
Authority Pages are described as 'an authority on the certain topic if and only when some of the best expert pages link to it'.
Directory-like sites that are informational- based fit the profile of both Expert and Authority. Typically, those type of sites would not have an abundance of affiliated links.
IMO, they have been rewarded by fitting the descriptions and having backlinks that are typically non-afilliated."
Saturday, November 29, 2003
BW Online | November 25, 2003 | These Sites Are a Shopper's Dream
BW Online | November 25, 2003 | These Sites Are a Shopper's Dream: "In October, Yahoo launched an even bigger initiative: scanning the entire Internet for product listings, though without returning pricing data. That looks like a broadside at Google's online product search engine, Froogle. Launched last December, Froogle doesn't offer side-by-side comparisons, but it does allow shoppers to arrange product listings by price. It pulls in hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month and is growing smartly -- and selling ads.
'We don't usually monetize beta products, but we do monetize Froogle,' says Marissa Mayer, director of consumer products at Google. While Google contends that Froogle isn't a shopping-comparison site but rather a search engine to help customers find products, analysts wonder if the search leader has bigger plans. 'If Google starts taking the online shopping-comparison part of its business more seriously, Shopping.com and the others in that group could have a big problem,' says Nielsen's Leathern.
The sector's leaders say they aren't afraid of Google. They argue that its basic search technology, called PageRank, might prove difficult to adapt to online shopping. 'With PageRank, the thesis is you can always rank the most relevant results at the top and the least relevant results at the bottom. In shopping, relevancy is a function of the user. Is it the brand first? Is it the lowest price? There's no PageRank that will solve what's in your head vs. what's in my head,' says Tolia.
Froogle's Mayer says its product does what it's intended to do very well, which is find products and not necessarily supply comparison features. And Froogle can perform the most important relevancy calculation, namely ranking product offerings by price."
'We don't usually monetize beta products, but we do monetize Froogle,' says Marissa Mayer, director of consumer products at Google. While Google contends that Froogle isn't a shopping-comparison site but rather a search engine to help customers find products, analysts wonder if the search leader has bigger plans. 'If Google starts taking the online shopping-comparison part of its business more seriously, Shopping.com and the others in that group could have a big problem,' says Nielsen's Leathern.
The sector's leaders say they aren't afraid of Google. They argue that its basic search technology, called PageRank, might prove difficult to adapt to online shopping. 'With PageRank, the thesis is you can always rank the most relevant results at the top and the least relevant results at the bottom. In shopping, relevancy is a function of the user. Is it the brand first? Is it the lowest price? There's no PageRank that will solve what's in your head vs. what's in my head,' says Tolia.
Froogle's Mayer says its product does what it's intended to do very well, which is find products and not necessarily supply comparison features. And Froogle can perform the most important relevancy calculation, namely ranking product offerings by price."
Price war predicted after Virgin deal - 28-Nov-03. - 06 Nov 2003
Price war predicted after Virgin deal - 28-Nov-03. - 06 Nov 2003: "Industry commentators are predicting a price war on routes from London to New York and Sydney after Virgin Atlantic came a step closer to launching a service between Hong Kong and Sydney. "
Thursday, November 27, 2003
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
One more set of "conclusions"...
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "Saying this future of SEOs are still bright as Dan said if you get the clue you win if not you loose. We have to do a lot of research on the current algo and one thing that is special about this algo is if we rank we have the chance of ranking for all the keywords in our theme, Google has clearly said in their guidelines,
QUOTE
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
This is just a way to broad band matching instead of matching a query to a keyword phrase, I have clearly explained how to win this game in my previous posts here is a small briefing.
Sprinking the words related to your site all over your site,
breaking down anchor text to match different keywords,( examples personalized)
proper internal internal link structure to support the theme of your site link to pages in your site with appropriate keyword in it avoid phrases here too,
Linking you site to some high quality sites in your category,
getting links from authority pages, directories, relevant sites,
adding your domain name or company name to the anchor text,
giving enough food(contents- I am talking about contents around 400+ words per page) to the robots to make our site more relevant to the matching query,
avoid any type of stress on your phrases like the way we used to add it once in header, once in title, once in bold, once in italic avoid anything like this.
Just add it promptly somewhere on your page may be on your header or your body or title somewhere other than that just distribute the keywords related to your site all over your place"
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "Saying this future of SEOs are still bright as Dan said if you get the clue you win if not you loose. We have to do a lot of research on the current algo and one thing that is special about this algo is if we rank we have the chance of ranking for all the keywords in our theme, Google has clearly said in their guidelines,
QUOTE
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
This is just a way to broad band matching instead of matching a query to a keyword phrase, I have clearly explained how to win this game in my previous posts here is a small briefing.
Sprinking the words related to your site all over your site,
breaking down anchor text to match different keywords,( examples personalized)
proper internal internal link structure to support the theme of your site link to pages in your site with appropriate keyword in it avoid phrases here too,
Linking you site to some high quality sites in your category,
getting links from authority pages, directories, relevant sites,
adding your domain name or company name to the anchor text,
giving enough food(contents- I am talking about contents around 400+ words per page) to the robots to make our site more relevant to the matching query,
avoid any type of stress on your phrases like the way we used to add it once in header, once in title, once in bold, once in italic avoid anything like this.
Just add it promptly somewhere on your page may be on your header or your body or title somewhere other than that just distribute the keywords related to your site all over your place"
One more set of conclusions....Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "Saying this future of SEOs are still bright as Dan said if you get the clue you win if not you loose. We have to do a lot of research on the current algo and one thing that is special about this algo is if we rank we have the chance of ranking for all the keywords in our theme, Google has clearly said in their guidelines,
QUOTE
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
This is just a way to broad band matching instead of matching a query to a keyword phrase, I have clearly explained how to win this game in my previous posts here is a small briefing.
Sprinking the words related to your site all over your site,
breaking down anchor text to match different keywords,( examples personalized)
proper internal internal link structure to support the theme of your site link to pages in your site with appropriate keyword in it avoid phrases here too,
Linking you site to some high quality sites in your category,
getting links from authority pages, directories, relevant sites,
adding your domain name or company name to the anchor text,
giving enough food(contents- I am talking about contents around 400+ words per page) to the robots to make our site more relevant to the matching query,
avoid any type of stress on your phrases like the way we used to add it once in header, once in title, once in bold, once in italic avoid anything like this.
Just add it promptly somewhere on your page may be on your header or your body or title somewhere other than that just distribute the keywords related to your site all over your place"
QUOTE
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
This is just a way to broad band matching instead of matching a query to a keyword phrase, I have clearly explained how to win this game in my previous posts here is a small briefing.
Sprinking the words related to your site all over your site,
breaking down anchor text to match different keywords,( examples personalized)
proper internal internal link structure to support the theme of your site link to pages in your site with appropriate keyword in it avoid phrases here too,
Linking you site to some high quality sites in your category,
getting links from authority pages, directories, relevant sites,
adding your domain name or company name to the anchor text,
giving enough food(contents- I am talking about contents around 400+ words per page) to the robots to make our site more relevant to the matching query,
avoid any type of stress on your phrases like the way we used to add it once in header, once in title, once in bold, once in italic avoid anything like this.
Just add it promptly somewhere on your page may be on your header or your body or title somewhere other than that just distribute the keywords related to your site all over your place"
Source Claims SCO Will Sue Google (LinuxWorld)
Source Claims SCO Will Sue Google (LinuxWorld): "It's said to have a Linux server farm of some 10,000 of servers, worth, oh, $7 million to SCO as long as SCO's current cut-rate license fees maintain. "
Google Adwords: Pricing & Billing
Work out max CPC
Google Adwords: Pricing & Billing: "The pre-filled amount highlighted in blue is our recommended maximum CPC. Matching this amount ensures maximum ad exposure and clicks for all of your keywords. Once you have decided on a maximum CPC, click Calculate Estimates"
Google Adwords: Pricing & Billing: "The pre-filled amount highlighted in blue is our recommended maximum CPC. Matching this amount ensures maximum ad exposure and clicks for all of your keywords. Once you have decided on a maximum CPC, click Calculate Estimates"
google & Wall St
The Register: "So in one way, Google is already set up for the ruthless labor policies that Wall Street likes. Its decision to pursue an aggressive patent policy is another corporate trait that should stand it in good stead with the markets. (And its notorious secrecy - well known to regular Register readers - is another characteristic that should help keep it out of trouble more often than not. That said, Google's reluctance to write anything down can cause self-inflicted wounds - the PR disaster that has arisen from the company refusing to produce a public written policy for Google News has been entirely self-inflicted.)
The Fortune article does credit Schmidt with creating the products from which Google now draws its profits: $350 million on an annualized turnover of $900 million, the magazine reckons. Before Schmidt came along the company bumbled along without a clear idea money-spinner. Schmidt transformed Google into an advertising broker...
there's no space to discuss the fate of Google's marque search engine, which since the explosion of revenue from Adwords and Adsense this year has taken a beating: Google is fighting a losing battle to preserve the integrity of its search results. (You can however, now watch baseball in London again). Whether it wins the war, or even wants to, is another question. "
The Fortune article does credit Schmidt with creating the products from which Google now draws its profits: $350 million on an annualized turnover of $900 million, the magazine reckons. Before Schmidt came along the company bumbled along without a clear idea money-spinner. Schmidt transformed Google into an advertising broker...
there's no space to discuss the fate of Google's marque search engine, which since the explosion of revenue from Adwords and Adsense this year has taken a beating: Google is fighting a losing battle to preserve the integrity of its search results. (You can however, now watch baseball in London again). Whether it wins the war, or even wants to, is another question. "
Page and Brin's Blog hehehe
Page and Brin's Blog: "May 24, 2003 PageRank Broken
Posted by: Sergey Brin
According to the forums PageRank is broken again. Never mind. Larry fixed it, he understands these things."
Posted by: Sergey Brin
According to the forums PageRank is broken again. Never mind. Larry fixed it, he understands these things."
Google Results: australia totaltravel
Google Results: australia totaltravel: "Google Results: australia totaltravel
These 0 links are missing from the top 100; the red number just counts them and the black number following it is the position it would have occupied in the top 100"
Their "previous" are not the same as positions I knew about....to watch esp in HighRankings forum.
These 0 links are missing from the top 100; the red number just counts them and the black number following it is the position it would have occupied in the top 100"
Their "previous" are not the same as positions I knew about....to watch esp in HighRankings forum.
Customers rage at Google tweak | CNET News.com
Customers rage at Google tweak | CNET News.com: "The search engine giant tweaked its AdWords service in late October, saying it was making the move to better identify successful ads--those that get clicks--and to increase their visibility. It also took steps to reduce the number of unsuccessful ads that show up on its search results pages...
the new system pits smaller companies against bigger ones, ultimately favoring deep-pocketed advertisers that can afford to outbid rivals for coveted keywords...
Google is seeking to address shortcomings in its service without building up a large, well-trained staff of human editors to review ads--the course taken by its main rival, Overture Services.
"Google is trying to accomplish through technology what Overture essentially does through an editorial staff--they have a much more intense review process of what ads can appear against what words, whereas Google relies a lot more on technology," Lamberti said. "The financials are going to play into Google's favor, because they relying on the efficiency of the technology. It's yet to be seen whether it will work."
a recent study from the IAB and Comscore, the average click-through rates for travel- and finance-related sponsored ads were 18.3 percent for April and May of 2003. That compares to click-through rates of 4.3 percent for ordinary search results for related terms...
Under the old system, a hotel-chain advertiser could bid for a term such as "hotel." If the price was right and its Web page was a popular destination for Web surfers, its ads would surface to the top of Google results pages for the term. The buyer's ads would also show up in searches on phrases that included the word, such as "hotel with swimming pool," in a system called broad match.
Opening up broad match
Broad match terms evolve over time, based on the click-through rates of an ad in different contexts. For example, a keyword advertiser for the term "accommodations," might see ads appear for related keywords such as "hotels," "inns," and "hostels." But if the system learns that searchers aren't clicking on the ad in relation to the term "hostels," it will eventually remove that term from the mix.
Google expanded broad match so that it now automatically matches keywords to a wider set of terms, including synonyms and misspellings. Advertisers might now see their ads appear in results for search queries that don't use their keyword at all. For example, an ad tied to the keyword "hotel" might show up in searches on related terms, such as "vacations" or "car rentals."
Google changed a key measure it uses to determine an ad's placement, known as the "minimum click-through threshold." Google now disables any ad that has a click-through rate lower than 0.5 percent. In addition, ads must now show a higher click-through rate than they did previously in order to appear within a certain broad match phrase...
One owner of a travel Web site said that AdSense has displayed ads for hotels in Madrid on pages about Amsterdam, for example. That publisher said that for the last two weeks of October, click-through rates were down 10 percent and earnings were down 14 percent on the AdSense program, compared with the last two weeks of September.
"The relevancy of the ads has deteriorated significantly in the past month," said the publisher, who asked to remain nameless because of Google's terms of service forbid publishers from discussing the program. "When an ad appears on the page that has nothing to do with the topic of the page, click-through and revenues go down significantly."
"
the new system pits smaller companies against bigger ones, ultimately favoring deep-pocketed advertisers that can afford to outbid rivals for coveted keywords...
Google is seeking to address shortcomings in its service without building up a large, well-trained staff of human editors to review ads--the course taken by its main rival, Overture Services.
"Google is trying to accomplish through technology what Overture essentially does through an editorial staff--they have a much more intense review process of what ads can appear against what words, whereas Google relies a lot more on technology," Lamberti said. "The financials are going to play into Google's favor, because they relying on the efficiency of the technology. It's yet to be seen whether it will work."
a recent study from the IAB and Comscore, the average click-through rates for travel- and finance-related sponsored ads were 18.3 percent for April and May of 2003. That compares to click-through rates of 4.3 percent for ordinary search results for related terms...
Under the old system, a hotel-chain advertiser could bid for a term such as "hotel." If the price was right and its Web page was a popular destination for Web surfers, its ads would surface to the top of Google results pages for the term. The buyer's ads would also show up in searches on phrases that included the word, such as "hotel with swimming pool," in a system called broad match.
Opening up broad match
Broad match terms evolve over time, based on the click-through rates of an ad in different contexts. For example, a keyword advertiser for the term "accommodations," might see ads appear for related keywords such as "hotels," "inns," and "hostels." But if the system learns that searchers aren't clicking on the ad in relation to the term "hostels," it will eventually remove that term from the mix.
Google expanded broad match so that it now automatically matches keywords to a wider set of terms, including synonyms and misspellings. Advertisers might now see their ads appear in results for search queries that don't use their keyword at all. For example, an ad tied to the keyword "hotel" might show up in searches on related terms, such as "vacations" or "car rentals."
Google changed a key measure it uses to determine an ad's placement, known as the "minimum click-through threshold." Google now disables any ad that has a click-through rate lower than 0.5 percent. In addition, ads must now show a higher click-through rate than they did previously in order to appear within a certain broad match phrase...
One owner of a travel Web site said that AdSense has displayed ads for hotels in Madrid on pages about Amsterdam, for example. That publisher said that for the last two weeks of October, click-through rates were down 10 percent and earnings were down 14 percent on the AdSense program, compared with the last two weeks of September.
"The relevancy of the ads has deteriorated significantly in the past month," said the publisher, who asked to remain nameless because of Google's terms of service forbid publishers from discussing the program. "When an ad appears on the page that has nothing to do with the topic of the page, click-through and revenues go down significantly."
"
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Google Spam Filtering Gone Bad
Google Spam Filtering Gone Bad: "Abstract: This report describes a possible explanation for recent changes in Google search results, where long-time high-ranking sites have disappeared. It is hypothesized that the changes are a result of the implementation of a 'Bayesian spam filtering' algorithm, which is producing unintended consequences."
Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents
Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents: "Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents"
"propose a novel ranking scheme for broad queries that places the most authoritative pages on the query topic at the top of the ranking. Our algorithm operates on a special index of "expert documents." These are a subset of the pages on the WWW identified as directories of links to non-affiliated sources on specific topics. Results are ranked based on the match between the query and relevant descriptive text for hyperlinks on expert pages pointing to a given result page.
Three approaches to improve the authoritativeness of ranked results have been taken in the past:
1) Ranking Based on Human Classification: Human editors have been used by companies such as Yahoo! and Mining Company to manually associate a set of categories and keywords with a subset of documents on the web. These are then matched against the user's query to return valid matches. The trouble with this approach is that: (a) it is slow and can only be applied to a small number of pages, and (b) often the keywords and classifications assigned by the human judges are inadequate or incomplete. Given the rate at which the WWW is growing and the wide variation in queries this is not a comprehensive solution.
2) Ranking Based on Usage Information: Some services such as DirectHit collect information on: (a) the queries individual users submit to search services and (b) the pages they look at subsequently and the time spent on each page. This information is used to return pages that most users visit after deploying the given query. For this technique to succeed a large amount of data needs to be collected for each query. Thus, the potential set of queries on which this technique applies is small. Also, this technique is open to spamming.
3) Ranking Based on Connectivity: This approach involves analyzing the hyperlinks between pages on the web on the assumption that: (a) pages on the topic link to each other, and (b) authoritative pages tend to point to other authoritative pages.
PageRank relies on (b)
Our approach is based on the same assumptions as the other connectivity algorithms, namely that the number and quality of the sources referring to a page are a good measure of the page's quality. The key difference consists in the fact that we are only considering "expert" sources - pages that have been created with the specific purpose of directing people towards resources. In response to a query, we first compute a list of the most relevant experts on the query topic. Then, we identify relevant links within the selected set of experts, and follow them to identify target web pages. The targets are then ranked according to the number and relevance of non-affiliated experts that point to them. Thus, the score of a target page reflects the collective opinion of the best independent experts on the query topic. When such a pool of experts is not available, Hilltop provides no results. Thus, Hilltop is tuned for result accuracy and not query coverage.
Our algorithm consists of two broad phases:
(i) Expert Lookup
We define an expert page as a page that is about a certain topic and has links to many non-affiliated pages on that topic. Two pages are non-affiliated conceptually if they are authored by authors from non-affiliated organizations.
(ii) Target Ranking
We believe a page is an authority on the query topic if and only if some of the best experts on the query topic point to it.
The problem is, how can we distinguish an expert from other types of pages? In other words what makes a page an expert? We felt than an expert page needs to be objective and diverse: that is, its recommendations should be unbiased and point to numerous non-affiliated pages on the subject. Therefore, in order to find the experts, we needed to detect when two sites belong to the same or related organizations.
2.1 Detecting Host Affiliation
We define two hosts as affiliated if one or both of the following is true:
They share the same first 3 octets of the IP address.
The rightmost non-generic token in the hostname is the same.
Keywords - Indexing the experts
document text. URLs located within the scope of a phrase are said to be "qualified" by it. For example, the title, headings (e.g., text within a pair of
For a target to be considered it must be pointed to by at least 2 experts on hosts that are mutually non-affiliated and are not affiliated to the target. For all targets that qualify we compute a target score reflecting both the number and relevance of the experts pointing to it and the relevance of the phrases qualifying the links.
Conclusions
We described a new ranking algorithm for broad queries called Hilltop and the implementation of a search engine based on it. Given a broad query Hilltop generates a list of target pages which are likely to be very authoritative pages on the topic of the query. This is by virtue of the fact that they are highly valued by pages on the WWW which address the topic of the query. In computing the usefulness of a target page from the hyperlinks pointing to it, we only consider links originating from pages that seem to be experts. Experts in our definition are directories of links pointing to many non-affiliated sites. This is an indication that these pages were created for the purpose of directing users to resources, and hence we regard their opinion as valuable. Additionally, in computing the level of relevance, we require a match between the query and the text on the expert page which qualifies the hyperlink being considered. This ensures that hyperlinks being considered are on the query topic. For further accuracy, we require that at least 2 non-affiliated experts point to the returned page with relevant qualifying text describing their linkage. The result of the steps described above is to generate a listing of pages that are highly relevant to the user's query and of high quality.
"propose a novel ranking scheme for broad queries that places the most authoritative pages on the query topic at the top of the ranking. Our algorithm operates on a special index of "expert documents." These are a subset of the pages on the WWW identified as directories of links to non-affiliated sources on specific topics. Results are ranked based on the match between the query and relevant descriptive text for hyperlinks on expert pages pointing to a given result page.
Three approaches to improve the authoritativeness of ranked results have been taken in the past:
1) Ranking Based on Human Classification: Human editors have been used by companies such as Yahoo! and Mining Company to manually associate a set of categories and keywords with a subset of documents on the web. These are then matched against the user's query to return valid matches. The trouble with this approach is that: (a) it is slow and can only be applied to a small number of pages, and (b) often the keywords and classifications assigned by the human judges are inadequate or incomplete. Given the rate at which the WWW is growing and the wide variation in queries this is not a comprehensive solution.
2) Ranking Based on Usage Information: Some services such as DirectHit collect information on: (a) the queries individual users submit to search services and (b) the pages they look at subsequently and the time spent on each page. This information is used to return pages that most users visit after deploying the given query. For this technique to succeed a large amount of data needs to be collected for each query. Thus, the potential set of queries on which this technique applies is small. Also, this technique is open to spamming.
3) Ranking Based on Connectivity: This approach involves analyzing the hyperlinks between pages on the web on the assumption that: (a) pages on the topic link to each other, and (b) authoritative pages tend to point to other authoritative pages.
PageRank relies on (b)
Our approach is based on the same assumptions as the other connectivity algorithms, namely that the number and quality of the sources referring to a page are a good measure of the page's quality. The key difference consists in the fact that we are only considering "expert" sources - pages that have been created with the specific purpose of directing people towards resources. In response to a query, we first compute a list of the most relevant experts on the query topic. Then, we identify relevant links within the selected set of experts, and follow them to identify target web pages. The targets are then ranked according to the number and relevance of non-affiliated experts that point to them. Thus, the score of a target page reflects the collective opinion of the best independent experts on the query topic. When such a pool of experts is not available, Hilltop provides no results. Thus, Hilltop is tuned for result accuracy and not query coverage.
Our algorithm consists of two broad phases:
(i) Expert Lookup
We define an expert page as a page that is about a certain topic and has links to many non-affiliated pages on that topic. Two pages are non-affiliated conceptually if they are authored by authors from non-affiliated organizations.
(ii) Target Ranking
We believe a page is an authority on the query topic if and only if some of the best experts on the query topic point to it.
The problem is, how can we distinguish an expert from other types of pages? In other words what makes a page an expert? We felt than an expert page needs to be objective and diverse: that is, its recommendations should be unbiased and point to numerous non-affiliated pages on the subject. Therefore, in order to find the experts, we needed to detect when two sites belong to the same or related organizations.
2.1 Detecting Host Affiliation
We define two hosts as affiliated if one or both of the following is true:
They share the same first 3 octets of the IP address.
The rightmost non-generic token in the hostname is the same.
Keywords - Indexing the experts
document text. URLs located within the scope of a phrase are said to be "qualified" by it. For example, the title, headings (e.g., text within a pair of
tags) and anchor text within the expert page are considered key phrases. The title has a scope that qualifies all URLs in the document. A heading's scope qualifies all URLs until the next heading of the same or greater importance...
For a target to be considered it must be pointed to by at least 2 experts on hosts that are mutually non-affiliated and are not affiliated to the target. For all targets that qualify we compute a target score reflecting both the number and relevance of the experts pointing to it and the relevance of the phrases qualifying the links.
Conclusions
We described a new ranking algorithm for broad queries called Hilltop and the implementation of a search engine based on it. Given a broad query Hilltop generates a list of target pages which are likely to be very authoritative pages on the topic of the query. This is by virtue of the fact that they are highly valued by pages on the WWW which address the topic of the query. In computing the usefulness of a target page from the hyperlinks pointing to it, we only consider links originating from pages that seem to be experts. Experts in our definition are directories of links pointing to many non-affiliated sites. This is an indication that these pages were created for the purpose of directing users to resources, and hence we regard their opinion as valuable. Additionally, in computing the level of relevance, we require a match between the query and the text on the expert page which qualifies the hyperlink being considered. This ensures that hyperlinks being considered are on the query topic. For further accuracy, we require that at least 2 non-affiliated experts point to the returned page with relevant qualifying text describing their linkage. The result of the steps described above is to generate a listing of pages that are highly relevant to the user's query and of high quality.
Been Gazumped by Google? Trying to make Sense of the "Florida" Update!
Been Gazumped by Google? Trying to make Sense of the "Florida" Update!: "The following is an attempt to put down rationally (I hope) most of the information that is known and the (unproven) theories behind the update algo.
Starting on the 16th of November, a major shift in results was seen on Google...
In many areas all the top 20 ranking sites disappeared, including industry leaders, to be replaced by educational sites, news review sites, government sites, major shopping portals or directories. Something major had happened - but what?
After tests on over 500 phrases we have concluded that certain phrases kick in the new algo, and certain don't. The ones that do are always highly commercial and the ones that are not, are often also commercial.
Be aware these are theories, some are bizarre, some may be close to the truth - but only Google knows what they are doing.
Main theory; Google manages to identify sought-after search terms. It then, when the search term is looked for, applies an optimisation filter to redress the influence SEOd sites may have and reveals the adjusted, "authoritative" results. This is why you tend to see governmental, educational, shopping portal, business directory and news sites on many searches. However, some commercial sites will still be considered the authority on that subject and remain - many, though, will drop out. This is the theory we subscribe to. We believe this was, and is, the intention of Google in this update.
Google is trying to separate their results into non-commercial and commercial. Commercial results will be AdWords and non-commercial the natural listing, primarily used for research purposes. My conclusion - well, it was probably me who started this, with a rather cynical tongue-in-cheek remark on the High Rankings Forum. Well, in reality, this is pretty much impossible and would defeat Google's idea of returning the most suitable sites for all searches. But some searches do make it look that way. However, in my opinion, this is not true.
Google has changed their algo to suit their biggest advertisers. My conclusion - highly unlikely and I do not believe that Google has any wish to be seen as an unethical company, regardless of their growing unpopularity with "jilted" webmasters.
There is no separate algo for "commercial" phrases and this is a new over-all update. My conclusion - all evidence points to this not being the case. I'm waiting to be convinced I am wrong, though.
This is a result of a virus or blog results upsetting the standard results which can only be seen if you type in -mt-tb.cgi as revealed in The Register. My conclusion - this is confusing the results returned unfiltered as shown with our -waffle (or any other garbage word) with a method of getting rid of extraneous listings from Blogs in the search results by excluding from the search the signature of the most used blogger trackback script.
Conclusion:
Despite the furore, there is no great conspiracy theory. Google are trying to redress the balance by trying to eradicate obvious search engine manipulation from their most competitive results. Remember, it is what Google considers their most competitive results probably gauged by both value and number of searches. As such, certain types of site don't fall into this category. SEO sites, for example, may be competitive but are not searched for with huge frequency.
The results of the filter have probably surprised Google, but, for the moment, few surfers will notice anything - unlike webmasters. The quality of the results has changed, with searches for home alarm, web design Calgary, and medela breast pumps showing, variously, sites with nothing to do with home alarms, a hockey team being top for web design and a listing of pretty much nothing but shopping portals. (My thanks to some of the many people who have posted some of the searches they have seen and I have used - you know who you are!) Many feel this has been a severe downgrading in relevancy, others believe that this is an improvement in the surfer experience. It is your judgement!
It is certain that Google will be watching the result of their change and will adjust the algo if they think it will reward sites of merit and increase relevancy. Whatever happens, though, the days of easy rankings through simple SEO are over"
Starting on the 16th of November, a major shift in results was seen on Google...
In many areas all the top 20 ranking sites disappeared, including industry leaders, to be replaced by educational sites, news review sites, government sites, major shopping portals or directories. Something major had happened - but what?
After tests on over 500 phrases we have concluded that certain phrases kick in the new algo, and certain don't. The ones that do are always highly commercial and the ones that are not, are often also commercial.
Be aware these are theories, some are bizarre, some may be close to the truth - but only Google knows what they are doing.
Main theory; Google manages to identify sought-after search terms. It then, when the search term is looked for, applies an optimisation filter to redress the influence SEOd sites may have and reveals the adjusted, "authoritative" results. This is why you tend to see governmental, educational, shopping portal, business directory and news sites on many searches. However, some commercial sites will still be considered the authority on that subject and remain - many, though, will drop out. This is the theory we subscribe to. We believe this was, and is, the intention of Google in this update.
Google is trying to separate their results into non-commercial and commercial. Commercial results will be AdWords and non-commercial the natural listing, primarily used for research purposes. My conclusion - well, it was probably me who started this, with a rather cynical tongue-in-cheek remark on the High Rankings Forum. Well, in reality, this is pretty much impossible and would defeat Google's idea of returning the most suitable sites for all searches. But some searches do make it look that way. However, in my opinion, this is not true.
Google has changed their algo to suit their biggest advertisers. My conclusion - highly unlikely and I do not believe that Google has any wish to be seen as an unethical company, regardless of their growing unpopularity with "jilted" webmasters.
There is no separate algo for "commercial" phrases and this is a new over-all update. My conclusion - all evidence points to this not being the case. I'm waiting to be convinced I am wrong, though.
This is a result of a virus or blog results upsetting the standard results which can only be seen if you type in -mt-tb.cgi as revealed in The Register. My conclusion - this is confusing the results returned unfiltered as shown with our -waffle (or any other garbage word) with a method of getting rid of extraneous listings from Blogs in the search results by excluding from the search the signature of the most used blogger trackback script.
Conclusion:
Despite the furore, there is no great conspiracy theory. Google are trying to redress the balance by trying to eradicate obvious search engine manipulation from their most competitive results. Remember, it is what Google considers their most competitive results probably gauged by both value and number of searches. As such, certain types of site don't fall into this category. SEO sites, for example, may be competitive but are not searched for with huge frequency.
The results of the filter have probably surprised Google, but, for the moment, few surfers will notice anything - unlike webmasters. The quality of the results has changed, with searches for home alarm, web design Calgary, and medela breast pumps showing, variously, sites with nothing to do with home alarms, a hockey team being top for web design and a listing of pretty much nothing but shopping portals. (My thanks to some of the many people who have posted some of the searches they have seen and I have used - you know who you are!) Many feel this has been a severe downgrading in relevancy, others believe that this is an improvement in the surfer experience. It is your judgement!
It is certain that Google will be watching the result of their change and will adjust the algo if they think it will reward sites of merit and increase relevancy. Whatever happens, though, the days of easy rankings through simple SEO are over"
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Google 'supplemental results'
Google 'supplemental results': "Hey, the supplemental results are a new experimental feature to augment the results for obscure queries. This is a new technology that can return more results for queries that for example have a small number of results. So it might not affect the results for a popular search, but for a researcher doing a more specific query, it can improve the recall of the results. The supplemental collection of pages has been collected from the web just like the 3.3 billion pages in Google's main index. "
Boston.com / Business / Technology / As Google grows, critics emerge
Boston.com / Business / Technology / As Google grows, critics emerge: "'Every few years there's another big fish,' he said. 'Nothing lasts forever on the Web.'
True enough. You remember AltaVista -- barely. It was the Google of the late 1990s, acclaimed as the world's best search service. But the tech-heads dropped AltaVista for Google and brought the rest of the world along with them. If Google makes them mad enough, it could happen again"
True enough. You remember AltaVista -- barely. It was the Google of the late 1990s, acclaimed as the world's best search service. But the tech-heads dropped AltaVista for Google and brought the rest of the world along with them. If Google makes them mad enough, it could happen again"
Fortune.com - Technology - Can Google Grow Up?
No apologies for quoting at length.... Fortune.com - Technology - Can Google Grow Up?: "We'll sing more of Google's praises later, but first the worrisome news: Google has grown arrogant, making some of its executives as frustrating to deal with in negotiations as AOL's cowboy salesmen during the bubble. It has grown so fast that employees and business partners are often confused about who does what. A rise of stock- and option-stoked greed is creating rifts within the company. Employees carp that Google is morphing in strange and nerve-racking ways. And talk swirls over the question of who's really in charge: CEO Schmidt or co-founders Brin and Page?"...
All are aiming for what they see as Google's weak spot: lack of customer lock-in. ...Google's foes have a much firmer hold on customers, argues Seth Godin, a well-known Internet consultant and editor of last summer's widely distributed online book What Should Google Do?... consider the way My Yahoo brings you information on everything from your portfolio to fixing your house. They will probably use that same information to tailor search results. Google, meanwhile, knows little more about you than what you are currently searching for.
...
versus...
In a short time Google has become one of the world's best-loved brands. Movie stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and ex-Presidents like Jimmy Carter drop by for visits. A thousand people apply for jobs at Google every day."...
Though web-search startups were a dime a dozen, investors couldn't hand money over to Google fast enough. When the founders showed Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim a demo in the summer of 1998, he wrote a $100,000 check on the spot. Brin and Page had to wait a month until Google actually existed to cash it. In 1999 top venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital invested $25 million. "It was very unfashionable to invest in a company like Google back then," said Michael Moritz, the Sequoia partner in charge of the deal, in an interview with FORTUNE last year. "But we thought Larry and Sergey were taking a fresh look." Soon after, Yahoo anted up $10 million...
Larry and Sergey spent more time talking about how they weren't going to make money—no user registration, no blast e-mails, no banner advertising—than how they were," says a participant in Google's early discussions. On Google's website, under the heading "Ten things Google has found to be true," No. 6 still reads, "You can make money without doing evil." Not doing evil is a common concern around Google and loosely translates into avoiding anything that mars Google's user experience...
Adsense, which puts ads on nonsearch sites. Read about the New York marathon on newyorktimes.com, for instance, and Adsense serves up ads for sports drinks, running shoes, or whoever else pays...
Those close to Google say that the company has begun to more closely resemble a madhouse than any kind of serene dot-com dream. It's a tough place to work, and a tough place to do business with.
Beyond the bean-bagged lobby, 12-hour days are considered standard, and an unspoken caste system has emerged. At the top are the engineers, people in the mold of Brin and Page. At the bottom are the contractors, the 30% of Google workers who labor alongside full-timers—yet without benefits, stock options, or access to the company intranet, not to mention to meetings or social events. That's fostered anger in Google's overeducated ranks....
The most immediate threat is Yahoo. It's expanding into new areas like product search (helping people to find goods, read reviews, compare prices, and buy) and local search (enabling users to find a plumber or landscaper in their neighborhood). Google has prototype sites that provide those services (froogle.google.com and labs.google.com/location), but they're not nearly as good. With about a 5% stake in Google, Yahoo goes quiet when talking about the company. Yet it's likely Yahoo will dump the stock after the IPO. Even sooner it will stop using Google's search on its site, relying instead on its newly acquired units. Says Jeff Weiner, senior vice president in charge of search: "We have every intention of deploying Inktomi and Overture throughout all our search..."
Then there's Microsoft. The company has an army of brainiacs working on incorporating web search into MSN and its new operating system, code-named Longhorn, due out in 2006. It plans to be able to index every user's hard drive and use the information to provide better searches. "All I'll say is that search is vitally important to us," says Chris Payne, Microsoft's executive in charge of search
All are aiming for what they see as Google's weak spot: lack of customer lock-in. ...Google's foes have a much firmer hold on customers, argues Seth Godin, a well-known Internet consultant and editor of last summer's widely distributed online book What Should Google Do?... consider the way My Yahoo brings you information on everything from your portfolio to fixing your house. They will probably use that same information to tailor search results. Google, meanwhile, knows little more about you than what you are currently searching for.
...
versus...
In a short time Google has become one of the world's best-loved brands. Movie stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and ex-Presidents like Jimmy Carter drop by for visits. A thousand people apply for jobs at Google every day."...
Though web-search startups were a dime a dozen, investors couldn't hand money over to Google fast enough. When the founders showed Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim a demo in the summer of 1998, he wrote a $100,000 check on the spot. Brin and Page had to wait a month until Google actually existed to cash it. In 1999 top venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital invested $25 million. "It was very unfashionable to invest in a company like Google back then," said Michael Moritz, the Sequoia partner in charge of the deal, in an interview with FORTUNE last year. "But we thought Larry and Sergey were taking a fresh look." Soon after, Yahoo anted up $10 million...
Larry and Sergey spent more time talking about how they weren't going to make money—no user registration, no blast e-mails, no banner advertising—than how they were," says a participant in Google's early discussions. On Google's website, under the heading "Ten things Google has found to be true," No. 6 still reads, "You can make money without doing evil." Not doing evil is a common concern around Google and loosely translates into avoiding anything that mars Google's user experience...
Adsense, which puts ads on nonsearch sites. Read about the New York marathon on newyorktimes.com, for instance, and Adsense serves up ads for sports drinks, running shoes, or whoever else pays...
Those close to Google say that the company has begun to more closely resemble a madhouse than any kind of serene dot-com dream. It's a tough place to work, and a tough place to do business with.
Beyond the bean-bagged lobby, 12-hour days are considered standard, and an unspoken caste system has emerged. At the top are the engineers, people in the mold of Brin and Page. At the bottom are the contractors, the 30% of Google workers who labor alongside full-timers—yet without benefits, stock options, or access to the company intranet, not to mention to meetings or social events. That's fostered anger in Google's overeducated ranks....
The most immediate threat is Yahoo. It's expanding into new areas like product search (helping people to find goods, read reviews, compare prices, and buy) and local search (enabling users to find a plumber or landscaper in their neighborhood). Google has prototype sites that provide those services (froogle.google.com and labs.google.com/location), but they're not nearly as good. With about a 5% stake in Google, Yahoo goes quiet when talking about the company. Yet it's likely Yahoo will dump the stock after the IPO. Even sooner it will stop using Google's search on its site, relying instead on its newly acquired units. Says Jeff Weiner, senior vice president in charge of search: "We have every intention of deploying Inktomi and Overture throughout all our search..."
Then there's Microsoft. The company has an army of brainiacs working on incorporating web search into MSN and its new operating system, code-named Longhorn, due out in 2006. It plans to be able to index every user's hard drive and use the information to provide better searches. "All I'll say is that search is vitally important to us," says Chris Payne, Microsoft's executive in charge of search
Saturday, November 22, 2003
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "AND,.. this I like,... it means that in order to rank high,... a commercial site now will need to give much more content,. more information,... more general information,.. and I think that that is something many SEO consultants (like your self) have been preaching for many years already. That´s probably why you don't see that many of your sites effected."
Friday, November 21, 2003
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "New type of message from google. When we type 'seo' initially it was dominated by commercial sites like topseo.com now they are gone disappeared. Now no.1 ranking is google webmaster warnings on SEOs.
www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html
So they definetely want to send a message to everyone. Dont use SEOs first read our guidelines on selecting an SEO.
oops this definetely looks manually manipulating the SERPs to tell people what they are not supposed to do. Got to see how long google sets the rules,
VIJAY."
www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html
So they definetely want to send a message to everyone. Dont use SEOs first read our guidelines on selecting an SEO.
oops this definetely looks manually manipulating the SERPs to tell people what they are not supposed to do. Got to see how long google sets the rules,
VIJAY."
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
Google fuck over conspiracy theoriesGoogle: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "QUOTE (Toadally @ Nov 21 2003, 12:36 AM)
I think this is the most reprehenisble tactic that Google has ever undertaken. AND I think it all has to do with their upcomoming IPO. By putting everything as far as organic placement in flux, right before Christmas, they make everybody start to pay PPC, which drives their profit margin way up (and ours way down) before their upcoming IPO early next year.
Hmmm...Very, very interesting, I had exactly the same speculation, as strangely enough my firm was contacted by Google to upgrade our adwards just today...as long as we maintain or increase our monthly budget that is...!
...targeting the same (competitive) phrase that we have dropped for....nerve... "
I think this is the most reprehenisble tactic that Google has ever undertaken. AND I think it all has to do with their upcomoming IPO. By putting everything as far as organic placement in flux, right before Christmas, they make everybody start to pay PPC, which drives their profit margin way up (and ours way down) before their upcoming IPO early next year.
Hmmm...Very, very interesting, I had exactly the same speculation, as strangely enough my firm was contacted by Google to upgrade our adwards just today...as long as we maintain or increase our monthly budget that is...!
...targeting the same (competitive) phrase that we have dropped for....nerve... "
Google as a Public Utility? No Results in This Search for Monopoly - TechKnowledge Newsletter
Google as a Public Utility? No Results in This Search for Monopoly - TechKnowledge Newsletter: "technology consultant Bill Thompson in a recent online BBC News column: �Perhaps the time has come to recognize this dominant search engine for what it is�a public utility that must be regulated in the public interest.� Thompson adds, �A government serious about ensuring that the net benefits society as a whole could start by investigating Google and considering whether we should create Ofsearch, the Office of Search Engines.� Daniel Brandt of Google Watch / Public Information Research, Inc., has similar dire predictions. �It's way too powerful�It�s scary because if Google drops you, you could be out of business in no time.� "
Retailers Rise in Google Rankings as Rivals Cry Foul
I think that this example demonstrates the deep tension betweens the Google ranking philosophy & commerce, especially where resellers & affiliates are involved.
Retailers Rise in Google Rankings as Rivals Cry Foul: "Danny Sullivan, who is the editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, said the problem had hit other industries too, particularly as companies encourage affiliates, or online brokers, to sell their products. He worries about the impact on consumers.
'If I do a search for gift baskets, I'd probably like to get a balanced list,' he said. 'If I get 10 listings from the same company, that doesn't help me.'
But other search engine experts say that occupying multiple slots in search rankings may simply be smart marketing. Greg Boser, the founder of WebGuerrilla.com, a search-engine marketing consultancy, likened the Gift Services sites to GMC and Chevrolet. 'They have different logos and different TV commercials,' he said, 'but a Chevy truck is exactly the same thing as a GMC truck.'"
Retailers Rise in Google Rankings as Rivals Cry Foul: "Danny Sullivan, who is the editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, said the problem had hit other industries too, particularly as companies encourage affiliates, or online brokers, to sell their products. He worries about the impact on consumers.
'If I do a search for gift baskets, I'd probably like to get a balanced list,' he said. 'If I get 10 listings from the same company, that doesn't help me.'
But other search engine experts say that occupying multiple slots in search rankings may simply be smart marketing. Greg Boser, the founder of WebGuerrilla.com, a search-engine marketing consultancy, likened the Gift Services sites to GMC and Chevrolet. 'They have different logos and different TV commercials,' he said, 'but a Chevy truck is exactly the same thing as a GMC truck.'"
Google filters
Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine News, Blog Search: "Google recently introduced a new keyword phrase filter during its most recent update. Some phrases were unchanged, but many highly optimized and highly competitive phrases were drastically altered. Some webmasters saw their sites drop from top listings to not being in the top 1,000 sites. Unlike other filters, this spam peanalty does not affect a page or sites overall perceived value. The end effect is lowered rankings for various specific searches for that page."
Thursday, November 20, 2003
The Search Light Vol.3 Issue 9, free search engine newsletter
The Search Light Vol.3 Issue 9, free search engine newsletter: "Speaking of rumors, this week I heard one from a very reliable source that a large online retail company in Pakistan has just launched a lawsuit against Google for alleged violation of their own TOS via the closure of the company's AdWords advertising accounts.
According to my source, if Google doesn't respond within 7 days, the Pakistani firm will apply for a ruling from a local court restricting Google from operating in Pakistan, including denial of access to Google search sites (and their partners sites such as Yahoo. AOL etc) from within Pakistan. I've asked Google to confirm or deny the rumor and I'll post more details to my blog as soon as I receive them..."
According to my source, if Google doesn't respond within 7 days, the Pakistani firm will apply for a ruling from a local court restricting Google from operating in Pakistan, including denial of access to Google search sites (and their partners sites such as Yahoo. AOL etc) from within Pakistan. I've asked Google to confirm or deny the rumor and I'll post more details to my blog as soon as I receive them..."
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Google No. 1 search site in the world according to OneStat.com (OneStat.com) - Pressi.com
Google No. 1 search site in the world according to OneStat.com (OneStat.com) - Pressi.com: "News release 11/18/2003 10:55:19 AM GMT
Google No. 1 search site in the world according to OneStat.com"
Google No. 1 search site in the world according to OneStat.com"
What Future for Search?
Take heed...
What Future for Search?: "If Google were to continue with this model, (and in the absence of any other major competitor some might argue there's little reason why they should not) we could reasonably assume that for people who rely on organic search there's still plenty of time for a free lunch. However, with IPO on the horizon and the lure of even bigger profits, combined with inevitable shareholder pressure any existing 'free real estate' could rapidly diminish. "
What Future for Search?: "If Google were to continue with this model, (and in the absence of any other major competitor some might argue there's little reason why they should not) we could reasonably assume that for people who rely on organic search there's still plenty of time for a free lunch. However, with IPO on the horizon and the lure of even bigger profits, combined with inevitable shareholder pressure any existing 'free real estate' could rapidly diminish. "
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Localized Google Search Result Exclusions: Statement of Issues & A Call for Data
Localized Google Search Result Exclusions: Statement of Issues & A Call for Data: "A note on search criteria: The authors' searches use standard Google search syntax to request 1) pages on the specified web site (using the site:stormfront.org restriction), and 2) pages that lack a phrase of gibberish (using the exclusion syntax -asdfasdf), since some search term must be specified. Similar searches for other sites confirm that these search criteria provide a reliable estimate of the number of pages indexed by Google on a given web site."
Localized Google Search Result Exclusions: Statement of Issues & A Call for Data
Localized Google Search Result Exclusions: Statement of Issues & A Call for Data: "The authors are studying exclusions from search engine search results, and have found some 113 sites excluded, in whole or in part, from the French google.fr and German google.de compared with google.com. Learn more about the situation and context, test the exclusions for yourself, and submit further sites suspected to be excluded."
Google News by CodingTheWeb.com
Couple of references to google dancing big style over the past couple of days. Canot access the webmaster world one without paying & other ref is on globalpromoter who promise No 1 placement....
so it seems to have the status of rumour for now but will be extra attentive...Google News by CodingTheWeb.com: "Google Update Florida - November 15, 2003
With all the changes in the Google update process the last six months, it is hard to tell what is and isn't a major update. By-all-accounts, this appears to be a major update - it is an old school dance."
so it seems to have the status of rumour for now but will be extra attentive...Google News by CodingTheWeb.com: "Google Update Florida - November 15, 2003
With all the changes in the Google update process the last six months, it is hard to tell what is and isn't a major update. By-all-accounts, this appears to be a major update - it is an old school dance."
K-Praxis - Pre-IPO Google Dossier: An Experiment in Opinion Mining
K-Praxis - Pre-IPO Google Dossier: An Experiment in Opinion Mining: "K-Praxis treated this as an opportunity to try out text analysis based opinion mining using a combination of text analysis software, methodologies and a text analysis processes-metrics to create what we call a 'Pre-IPO Google Dossier'. This is an attempt to understand a company, its technology and the buzz it has been able generate through and across the dot-com-boom and bust era. More than looking at just the business aspect of the company, this is an attempt to look at the whole phenomena of Google in a holistic and multi-dimensional manner...
Google's uniqueness also partly stems from a style that very often represents a spirit of non-commercialism yet in the end turns this perceived non-commercial attitude into a business proposition. Take for example Google Location Search, an attempt to provide a geo-spatial information retrieval solution rather than just providing a paid directory listing - something that eventually could lead to unleashing a huge revenue potential...
DeskBar. This could be seen as Google's bid to take control of users' desktop, getting Google inside the day-to-day workflow of a knowledge worker. There are suggestions that Google could create a "global command key" ('control, alt, G,') that could allow users to search through another application.
Since many businesses now depend on Google search and the decisions it makes affects the way people business, there are bound to be legal issues - as shown by the SearchKing Case that showed that a search engine has rights to present search results (invoking the First Amendment) in any order it wants. But the case underscores the importance of the issue in the minds of many Web site owners.
Another future search battle will be fought on the grounds of local search—Google will be fighting here for local advertising dollars from the Internet Yellow Pages vendors. Google has already started showing interest in this area launching a beta location based search through Google Labs.
"Problems with Google
Google users have reported a number of problems recently: some of them are related to the heavy influence of blogs in search ranking, problem with the behavior of the PageRank system, the vulnerability of Google to those webmasters who are ready to try every trick in the book to romp up the PageRank. Given these problems, Google's search supremacy and leadership is not guaranteed. There is a great deal of abuse going on of PageRank. People use link farms and redirect pages and identical mirror sites to improve page rank. "
"we need to think of relevance of a web page from a different perspectives other than PageRank. Wee may want to judge the relevance a page based on the user's personal choices or a particular field of knowledge/ domain /subject category the user is interested in. The new dimension of these combined efforts could be that the meaning and the philosophy of PageRank itself would get overhauled. Personalized and contextual computation of PageRank could mean you are able (at any given time) to compute three very important aspects of a web page a) its total rank across the web, b) its content -through content analysis c) its relative rank within a specific context.
Google as competition to Amazon & Ebay
"Companies like eBay too have started feeling the pinch of Google's expansion plans. E-Bay executives think that Google could prove to be a competitive threat. E-bay - a company adjudged by the analysts as one of the most successful dot.com survivors with an operating profit of $986 million in 2004 on sales of $2.9 billion and a company that spends a great deal of money advertising on Google itself - understands that Google could lure away advertisers from its site by directly placing ads on Google search or local targeted listings.
Amazon on the other hand, started its own foray into search recently with its new Book Search. Amazon unveiled this new book search service, including a keyword search that returns text snippets from pages of some 120, 000 books listed on Amazon.com. So it could be said that in a way Amazon too is looking to grab its own share of the search engine pie. Apparently it has started its own search company, iconically named: 'A9'. Just within few days of this announcement it came out that Google too was talking to publishers to introduce similar service."
Should always remain aware that: the other problems with Google is that not many of its features are either understood or used by the general searchers as many of their features remain in beta testing phase for long time - note that Google News is still in beta testing as are many other features.
Who owns Google? Some of the principle owners are: Larry E. Page 15%; Sergey Brin 15% ; Kleiner Perkins ; Caufield & Byers 10% ; Sequoia Capital 10% ;
Yahoo 2% ; David R. Cheriton (Professor at Stanford who lent some money to the founders when they started off) 1% ; Cisco Systems Inc 1%
Hypothesis: Google Brand and Google Business
Google's dominance in the search space is dependent on the perceived non-commercial attitude to Internet Information Retrieval that Google has exhibited. Non-commercial here means that they have tried to solve the problem of hyper linked web information retrieval without tampering (to a large extent) with results for plausible commercial gains. Even though it is unlikely that Google will lose its dominance in the search arena in short term, in the long run Google will have to play a balancing act between importance of unfiltered results and commercial gains.................
Google's uniqueness also partly stems from a style that very often represents a spirit of non-commercialism yet in the end turns this perceived non-commercial attitude into a business proposition. Take for example Google Location Search, an attempt to provide a geo-spatial information retrieval solution rather than just providing a paid directory listing - something that eventually could lead to unleashing a huge revenue potential...
DeskBar. This could be seen as Google's bid to take control of users' desktop, getting Google inside the day-to-day workflow of a knowledge worker. There are suggestions that Google could create a "global command key" ('control, alt, G,') that could allow users to search through another application.
Since many businesses now depend on Google search and the decisions it makes affects the way people business, there are bound to be legal issues - as shown by the SearchKing Case that showed that a search engine has rights to present search results (invoking the First Amendment) in any order it wants. But the case underscores the importance of the issue in the minds of many Web site owners.
Another future search battle will be fought on the grounds of local search—Google will be fighting here for local advertising dollars from the Internet Yellow Pages vendors. Google has already started showing interest in this area launching a beta location based search through Google Labs.
"Problems with Google
Google users have reported a number of problems recently: some of them are related to the heavy influence of blogs in search ranking, problem with the behavior of the PageRank system, the vulnerability of Google to those webmasters who are ready to try every trick in the book to romp up the PageRank. Given these problems, Google's search supremacy and leadership is not guaranteed. There is a great deal of abuse going on of PageRank. People use link farms and redirect pages and identical mirror sites to improve page rank. "
"we need to think of relevance of a web page from a different perspectives other than PageRank. Wee may want to judge the relevance a page based on the user's personal choices or a particular field of knowledge/ domain /subject category the user is interested in. The new dimension of these combined efforts could be that the meaning and the philosophy of PageRank itself would get overhauled. Personalized and contextual computation of PageRank could mean you are able (at any given time) to compute three very important aspects of a web page a) its total rank across the web, b) its content -through content analysis c) its relative rank within a specific context.
Google as competition to Amazon & Ebay
"Companies like eBay too have started feeling the pinch of Google's expansion plans. E-Bay executives think that Google could prove to be a competitive threat. E-bay - a company adjudged by the analysts as one of the most successful dot.com survivors with an operating profit of $986 million in 2004 on sales of $2.9 billion and a company that spends a great deal of money advertising on Google itself - understands that Google could lure away advertisers from its site by directly placing ads on Google search or local targeted listings.
Amazon on the other hand, started its own foray into search recently with its new Book Search. Amazon unveiled this new book search service, including a keyword search that returns text snippets from pages of some 120, 000 books listed on Amazon.com. So it could be said that in a way Amazon too is looking to grab its own share of the search engine pie. Apparently it has started its own search company, iconically named: 'A9'. Just within few days of this announcement it came out that Google too was talking to publishers to introduce similar service."
Should always remain aware that: the other problems with Google is that not many of its features are either understood or used by the general searchers as many of their features remain in beta testing phase for long time - note that Google News is still in beta testing as are many other features.
Who owns Google? Some of the principle owners are: Larry E. Page 15%; Sergey Brin 15% ; Kleiner Perkins ; Caufield & Byers 10% ; Sequoia Capital 10% ;
Yahoo 2% ; David R. Cheriton (Professor at Stanford who lent some money to the founders when they started off) 1% ; Cisco Systems Inc 1%
Hypothesis: Google Brand and Google Business
Google's dominance in the search space is dependent on the perceived non-commercial attitude to Internet Information Retrieval that Google has exhibited. Non-commercial here means that they have tried to solve the problem of hyper linked web information retrieval without tampering (to a large extent) with results for plausible commercial gains. Even though it is unlikely that Google will lose its dominance in the search arena in short term, in the long run Google will have to play a balancing act between importance of unfiltered results and commercial gains.................
Growth in Google's revenue engine seen slowing
Growth in Google's revenue engine seen slowing: "analysts still forecast double-digit gains in the search industry as far as the eye can see, but they caution that as the market matures Google could also face tougher competition from big and entrenched Internet players like Microsoft Corp."
USATODAY.com - Gates: Microsoft aiming at spam, viruses
USATODAY.com - Gates: Microsoft aiming at spam, viruses: "Microsoft chairman Bill Gates says.
'We've never been in any talks with Google about any acquisition thing in any way, shape or form,' Gates told USA TODAY last week."
'We've never been in any talks with Google about any acquisition thing in any way, shape or form,' Gates told USA TODAY last week."
Playing Googlebot with Mozilla Firebird
Playing Googlebot with Mozilla Firebird :: Search Engine Optimization at ChriSEO.com :: Search Engine optimization and web site ranking tips, articles and news: "Firebird is now pretending to be Googlebot pretty effectively. Navigate to your web site and check the links. Look in the status bar as you mouseover links to check that none have parameters like sid=234aa3441235bb (or some similar strange string of characters). If they do, you have a problem.
Navigate to the various sections of your site. If you can't get to something then nor can Googlebot."
Navigate to the various sections of your site. If you can't get to something then nor can Googlebot."
Saturday, November 15, 2003
Russell Beattie Notebook
Russell Beattie Notebook: " Google AdSense has serious problems with its Terms And Conditions and it's transparency. "
SEM Adwords Customers rage at Google tweak
Customers rage at Google tweak | CNET News.com: "Sponsored ads also drove more sales than did ordinary search links, according to the research. About 1.4 percent of the people who clicked on sponsored listings became customers of the advertisers. In comparison, about 0.6 percent of the people who clicked on ordinary search results made a purchase"
"In mid-October, Google expanded broad match so that it now automatically matches keywords to a wider set of terms, including synonyms and misspellings. Advertisers might now see their ads appear in results for search queries that don't use their keyword at all. For example, an ad tied to the keyword 'hotel' might show up in searches on related terms, such as 'vacations' or 'car rentals.'"
Customers rage at Google tweak | CNET News.com: "In addition, Google changed a key measure it uses to determine an ad's placement, known as the 'minimum click-through threshold.' Although Google has not disclosed the new threshold, the company now disables any ad that has a click-through rate lower than 0.5 percent. Also, ads must now show a higher click-through rate than they did previously, in order to appear within a certain broad match phrase."
"In mid-October, Google expanded broad match so that it now automatically matches keywords to a wider set of terms, including synonyms and misspellings. Advertisers might now see their ads appear in results for search queries that don't use their keyword at all. For example, an ad tied to the keyword 'hotel' might show up in searches on related terms, such as 'vacations' or 'car rentals.'"
Customers rage at Google tweak | CNET News.com: "In addition, Google changed a key measure it uses to determine an ad's placement, known as the 'minimum click-through threshold.' Although Google has not disclosed the new threshold, the company now disables any ad that has a click-through rate lower than 0.5 percent. Also, ads must now show a higher click-through rate than they did previously, in order to appear within a certain broad match phrase."
Friday, November 14, 2003
WEBMASTRY
WEBMASTRY: "Google often 'energizes' its word-of-mouth marketing by getting to information gatekeepers like journalists, teachers, key members of a company, etc. and demonstrating (or as Mary Ellen Bates puts it, politely 'getting in their faces') about what their service offers. Again, doing this costs only time."
Protect Your Domain Name From Cybertheft
Protect Your Domain Name From Cybertheft: "Protect Your Domain Name From Cybertheft "
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
More local search:
Internet Marketing E-mail Tip of the Week: "While Google's local search (called 'Search by Location') is set up similarly, they have also partnered with MapQuest in order to be able to show local matches on a map. If you're looking to get in a golf game around the Queenstown, MD area, a Google location search for 'golf' and 'Queenstown, MD' yields 326 results and maps 10 of them. Here are the Google Local Search results.
Google's Search by Location reveals tidbits of how it generates its results, which include site content with zip codes, town names, and addresses. Notice the second listing on the above search resulst page is for a bed & breakfast. It 'made the cut' because its site content aligned with the parameters of the search. If you are a local business that would benefit from these kinds of related searches, it seems it would behoove you to include keyword content not just related to your specific business.
Optimizing Your Site For Local Search
Along with basic search engine optimization (SEO), if you have a geographically-specific business you should be looking at localized SEO as well. Things may change in how the search engines eventually refine their local search technology, but it can't hurt to do a few simple things...and get a jump on your local competition.
1) Add your address in a prominent place on your web pages. Many sites use the very bottom of their pages for their address listings. Address location didn't use to matter. Localized search may change all that, so consider including all or part of your address nearer to the top of your page.
2) Add city and state information to your meta and title tags.
3) Add local information to your site's content. As demonstrated in our local golf search example, links to and information on other businesses and attractions in your town may end up helping to promote your own site.
The Kelsey Group which surveyed search and directory executives, the top four perceived obstacles cited were:
1) Most small businesses lack a web site so won't show up in local search results
2) Small businesses won't be able to bid for keywords against national chains
3) Pricing models for localized search may be too complex for small businesses to grasp (versus Yellow Pages)
4) Local search may be too labor intensive, like today's normal search results. Do small business owners have the time to keep up with localized SEO?
It may take a while for Google, Overture and the others to get their localized search solutions polished and refined, but you can bet that it's going to happen, and probably sooner than you're ready for. If you're not thinking about it now, get prepared.
"
Internet Marketing E-mail Tip of the Week: "While Google's local search (called 'Search by Location') is set up similarly, they have also partnered with MapQuest in order to be able to show local matches on a map. If you're looking to get in a golf game around the Queenstown, MD area, a Google location search for 'golf' and 'Queenstown, MD' yields 326 results and maps 10 of them. Here are the Google Local Search results.
Google's Search by Location reveals tidbits of how it generates its results, which include site content with zip codes, town names, and addresses. Notice the second listing on the above search resulst page is for a bed & breakfast. It 'made the cut' because its site content aligned with the parameters of the search. If you are a local business that would benefit from these kinds of related searches, it seems it would behoove you to include keyword content not just related to your specific business.
Optimizing Your Site For Local Search
Along with basic search engine optimization (SEO), if you have a geographically-specific business you should be looking at localized SEO as well. Things may change in how the search engines eventually refine their local search technology, but it can't hurt to do a few simple things...and get a jump on your local competition.
1) Add your address in a prominent place on your web pages. Many sites use the very bottom of their pages for their address listings. Address location didn't use to matter. Localized search may change all that, so consider including all or part of your address nearer to the top of your page.
2) Add city and state information to your meta and title tags.
3) Add local information to your site's content. As demonstrated in our local golf search example, links to and information on other businesses and attractions in your town may end up helping to promote your own site.
The Kelsey Group which surveyed search and directory executives, the top four perceived obstacles cited were:
1) Most small businesses lack a web site so won't show up in local search results
2) Small businesses won't be able to bid for keywords against national chains
3) Pricing models for localized search may be too complex for small businesses to grasp (versus Yellow Pages)
4) Local search may be too labor intensive, like today's normal search results. Do small business owners have the time to keep up with localized SEO?
It may take a while for Google, Overture and the others to get their localized search solutions polished and refined, but you can bet that it's going to happen, and probably sooner than you're ready for. If you're not thinking about it now, get prepared.
"
The Art of Advanced Link Building: "Daniel Dulitz, a software engineer at Google, spoke candidly about PageRank and technical issues currently surrounding the use of the Google Toolbar, saying '0/10 is inaccurate at many times, and because data isn't on a consistent update schedule, it is unreliable, and a poor measure of content value.'
Of the Google toolbar, Greg Boser strongly says 'uninstall it!' Even though the toolbar offers a basic gauge of PageRank (and therefore link popularity), it's simply not worth the obsession if rankings are holding fairly steady and traffic has not dropped off.
When evaluating the weight of a link, Google wants to know as much as it can about it. Complicated issues such as Javascript, bad coding, image map links, and CSS hurt the process because these make Googlebot work too hard, which can lead to mistakes while spidering webpages. Link text puts sites into context, said Dulitz, and that's critical for determining places of importance related to a subject, even if a link doesn't contain the exact phrases associated with the web page it points to.
Google emphasizes that by placing a link on a site, you are associating your site with another, thereby lending credibility to the quality of content. However, certain linking situations can come with unwanted baggage, such as linking to trademark names while making false claims about the company or holder of the trademark.
But if it's fair comparison, it might not be illegal - so check with a lawyer. One trademark owner in the audience said you can take advantage of sites that mention your trademark or brand name fairly, and require a link to the official website in exchange.
When in doubt, it pays to follow Danny Sullivan's golden rules of link building"
Of the Google toolbar, Greg Boser strongly says 'uninstall it!' Even though the toolbar offers a basic gauge of PageRank (and therefore link popularity), it's simply not worth the obsession if rankings are holding fairly steady and traffic has not dropped off.
When evaluating the weight of a link, Google wants to know as much as it can about it. Complicated issues such as Javascript, bad coding, image map links, and CSS hurt the process because these make Googlebot work too hard, which can lead to mistakes while spidering webpages. Link text puts sites into context, said Dulitz, and that's critical for determining places of importance related to a subject, even if a link doesn't contain the exact phrases associated with the web page it points to.
Google emphasizes that by placing a link on a site, you are associating your site with another, thereby lending credibility to the quality of content. However, certain linking situations can come with unwanted baggage, such as linking to trademark names while making false claims about the company or holder of the trademark.
But if it's fair comparison, it might not be illegal - so check with a lawyer. One trademark owner in the audience said you can take advantage of sites that mention your trademark or brand name fairly, and require a link to the official website in exchange.
When in doubt, it pays to follow Danny Sullivan's golden rules of link building"
A hub is what totaltravel will become...DMOZ & Googleshould be sorted, just Yahoo to pay...I recommend for each home page at the least
Rich Get Richer - Why Yahoo, DMOZ, Google and PageRank are Important: "Albert-Lazlo Barabasi's book, Linked, points out that 'power laws mathematically formulate the fact that in most real networks the majority of nodes have only a few links and that these numerous tiny nodes coexist with a few big hubs.'
The Rich Get Richer concept helps explain why Yahoo, DMOZ, and Google are at the center of the web and why Google PageRank plays a large role in determining which web sites become hubs.
Scientists over at Google understand Pareto's Law and they know that 80 percent of links on the web point to only 15 percent of web pages. This 15 percent of web pages are the hubs that guide us to the other 85 percent of the web...
"A Link from DMOZ or the Yahoo directory alone can give a site a PageRank of 4, which is an important number. Only web pages with a PageRank of 4 or higher are displayed in Google's backward links feature. Why? Google probably displays the 15 percent of web pages that are the hubs of the web.
Rich Get Richer - Why Yahoo, DMOZ, Google and PageRank are Important: "Albert-Lazlo Barabasi's book, Linked, points out that 'power laws mathematically formulate the fact that in most real networks the majority of nodes have only a few links and that these numerous tiny nodes coexist with a few big hubs.'
The Rich Get Richer concept helps explain why Yahoo, DMOZ, and Google are at the center of the web and why Google PageRank plays a large role in determining which web sites become hubs.
Scientists over at Google understand Pareto's Law and they know that 80 percent of links on the web point to only 15 percent of web pages. This 15 percent of web pages are the hubs that guide us to the other 85 percent of the web...
"A Link from DMOZ or the Yahoo directory alone can give a site a PageRank of 4, which is an important number. Only web pages with a PageRank of 4 or higher are displayed in Google's backward links feature. Why? Google probably displays the 15 percent of web pages that are the hubs of the web.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Where To Report This? -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "try spamreport@google.com"
Google's future looking good / Bulked-up search firm beats up rivals: "Many small Web sites also have issues with Google. All of the owners want their sites to be at the top of certain searches to increase their visibility to potential customers, but some of them complain about being relegated to relative obscurity.
To avoid this, some companies hire firms that specialize in getting Web sites higher placement on search engines by trying to game the formulas they use for rankings. In fact, one such firm, SearchKing, in Oklahoma City, filed a lawsuit in federal court last year when Google fought back by penalizing it and its clients with lower search results.
SearchKing lost the case in May, based on Google's argument that it has First Amendment rights to present search results in any order it wants. But the case underscores the importance of the issue in the minds of many Web site owners.
'There needs to be some way for people to argue and defend themselves when Google makes decisions that can affect your business,' said Bob Massa, chief executive of SearchKing. "
To avoid this, some companies hire firms that specialize in getting Web sites higher placement on search engines by trying to game the formulas they use for rankings. In fact, one such firm, SearchKing, in Oklahoma City, filed a lawsuit in federal court last year when Google fought back by penalizing it and its clients with lower search results.
SearchKing lost the case in May, based on Google's argument that it has First Amendment rights to present search results in any order it wants. But the case underscores the importance of the issue in the minds of many Web site owners.
'There needs to be some way for people to argue and defend themselves when Google makes decisions that can affect your business,' said Bob Massa, chief executive of SearchKing. "
Monday, November 10, 2003
Other possibilities
WOAI: SAN ANTONIO//NEWS: "Has Google Disappeared?
LAST UPDATE: 10/7/2003 7:31:30 AM"
Shut Up and Serve Ads (Google Weblog): "Google's terms of service requires that you not publicly discuss AdSense"
PageRank is Sick... Is Google Broken?: "Google has tried to deal with this issue for almost a year now but has not succeeded in preventing spam from reaching the top of its rankings...
Google seems to be focusing a lot of well-educated mental bandwidth on providing a personalized base for paid-advertisments through its highly profitable AdWords and Froogle features."
Will we see eventual seperation of any commercial sites from non-commercial in Google SERPS?
WOAI: SAN ANTONIO//NEWS: "Has Google Disappeared?
LAST UPDATE: 10/7/2003 7:31:30 AM"
Shut Up and Serve Ads (Google Weblog): "Google's terms of service requires that you not publicly discuss AdSense"
PageRank is Sick... Is Google Broken?: "Google has tried to deal with this issue for almost a year now but has not succeeded in preventing spam from reaching the top of its rankings...
Google seems to be focusing a lot of well-educated mental bandwidth on providing a personalized base for paid-advertisments through its highly profitable AdWords and Froogle features."
Will we see eventual seperation of any commercial sites from non-commercial in Google SERPS?
The Register: "On Sunday Google admitted to the Washington Post that it was working on a bug it had found which was withholding thousands of legitimate search results from its users. The bug was in response to another bug: Google's susceptibility to being gamed by spammers who set up 'link farms' to tripwire its PageRank� algorithm. 'Is Google starting to show signs of strain against spammers and Web scammers?', asked the Post"
Google Cache Redirected - Bad Guy Spammers Or Not? -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum:
Our site is experiencing some apparently random days of very low traffic from Google which is causing concern. We are looking at all sorts of possibilities, one of which is competitors sites pushing ours down the results but there seem to be a whole load of new spammy listings for some of our key phrases which previously delivered traffic.
A member of our team in Australia sent me a message saying "Check out the result with the blue stars! How do they do that???"
Now, I got no blue stars but there are some really rancid looking things going on with results that appear totally different at first read but all pointing to the same site & if I try to view the google cache they manage to redirect from the usual cache page with highlighted words to their home page quite quickly.
A check on their backward links & similar sites shows a network of "sex tourism" sites & gambling sites most of which employ similar redirects for their cached results.
Search string:
Accommodation Southern Highlands Australia
google search result
Australia are not at work at the moment but I guess that the results he meant include this one:
★ Accommodation in Southern Highlands Australia ★
Search: Accommodation in Southern Highlands Australia, Date: This
Month. Found ... Accommodation in Southern Highlands,Australia. Link ...
accommodation-in.gofuzion.com/Australia/Accommodation%20in%20Southern%20Highlands%20Australia/ - 101k - Cached - Similar pages
If I repeat the search with our company name the top 2 results are:
★ Accommodation in Southern Highlands Australia ★
... southern highlands hotels Found by: Teoma | NEW www.totaltravel.com/localguides/sou...ighlands/hotels 62 ... Accommodation in Southern Highlands. ...
accommodation-in.gofuzion.com/Australia/Accommodation%20in%20Southern%20Highlands%20Australia/ - 101k - Cached - Similar pages
★ Hotels in Southern Highlands Australia ★
... Found by: Teoma | NEW www.totaltravel.com/localguides ... coast (NSW) southern
highlands (NSW) sydney ... accommodation deals in Australia - covering the next ...
www.clevelandpd.net/Hotels%20in%20Southern%20Highlands%20Australia/ - 93k - Cached - Similar pages
Does anyone have any idea how & why our url appears in the results?
Is it worth reporting the cache redirects?
"The 'cloaking' is actually just a JavaScript redirect.
Disabling JavaScript, you can see that the cached page is a SERP for 'Accommodation in Southern Highlands Australia'. This SERP appears to have been generated by a human or robot using a meta-search engine (Copernic looks likely). Totaltravel is listed as follows:"
Our site is experiencing some apparently random days of very low traffic from Google which is causing concern. We are looking at all sorts of possibilities, one of which is competitors sites pushing ours down the results but there seem to be a whole load of new spammy listings for some of our key phrases which previously delivered traffic.
A member of our team in Australia sent me a message saying "Check out the result with the blue stars! How do they do that???"
Now, I got no blue stars but there are some really rancid looking things going on with results that appear totally different at first read but all pointing to the same site & if I try to view the google cache they manage to redirect from the usual cache page with highlighted words to their home page quite quickly.
A check on their backward links & similar sites shows a network of "sex tourism" sites & gambling sites most of which employ similar redirects for their cached results.
Search string:
Accommodation Southern Highlands Australia
google search result
Australia are not at work at the moment but I guess that the results he meant include this one:
★ Accommodation in Southern Highlands Australia ★
Search: Accommodation in Southern Highlands Australia, Date: This
Month. Found ... Accommodation in Southern Highlands,Australia. Link ...
accommodation-in.gofuzion.com/Australia/Accommodation%20in%20Southern%20Highlands%20Australia/ - 101k - Cached - Similar pages
If I repeat the search with our company name the top 2 results are:
★ Accommodation in Southern Highlands Australia ★
... southern highlands hotels Found by: Teoma | NEW www.totaltravel.com/localguides/sou...ighlands/hotels 62 ... Accommodation in Southern Highlands. ...
accommodation-in.gofuzion.com/Australia/Accommodation%20in%20Southern%20Highlands%20Australia/ - 101k - Cached - Similar pages
★ Hotels in Southern Highlands Australia ★
... Found by: Teoma | NEW www.totaltravel.com/localguides ... coast (NSW) southern
highlands (NSW) sydney ... accommodation deals in Australia - covering the next ...
www.clevelandpd.net/Hotels%20in%20Southern%20Highlands%20Australia/ - 93k - Cached - Similar pages
Does anyone have any idea how & why our url appears in the results?
Is it worth reporting the cache redirects?
"The 'cloaking' is actually just a JavaScript redirect.
Disabling JavaScript, you can see that the cached page is a SERP for 'Accommodation in Southern Highlands Australia'. This SERP appears to have been generated by a human or robot using a meta-search engine (Copernic looks likely). Totaltravel is listed as follows:"
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