search engine marketing

Search drives the sale; branding just validates it

In a fascinating article about branding versus SEO, search engine watch put into words very nicely a feeling that has been tugging at me for a long time:

Before-

In 1991, if you wanted to buy a portable compact disc player, you had to know:

1. What you wanted to buy (portable compact disc player) R.I.P. Branding
2. What brand you wanted to buy (Sony)
3. What product you wanted to buy (Discman)
4. What store to buy it at (The Wiz)
5. Where to find that store (Menlo Park Mall)

Aside from Step 1, every other piece of information came to you from branding.

After-

Battling seo hackers

Earlier this year I commented on Matt Cutts SEO hacker prediction:

"Would you notice if a strange link appeared somewhere inside your website? How long would it take you to see it? Hacking is a reality for everyone in our industry at one time or another but this is one that could be difficult to detect."

Well, his prediction was right on target. But if this happens to you, you will not notice any of the links the hackers install on your website -- they are invisible.  Our Drupal sites were hit a couple weeks ago and it has cost us plenty of time and energy to disinfect these websites. 

Here is how it was done:

Matt Cutts on exact match domains, parking, purchasing, sandbox etc.

Matt Cutts at Domain Roundtable talks about exact match domains as reported by randfish:

Owning a keyword match domain name is going to carry some weight in Google for the foreseeable future. It is something they want to reward.

And more detailed notes on Matt's speech and Q&A session from Johnon.com:

Is it legal to use your competitors name in meta tags? In CPC advertising?

Search engine watch is reporting a new ruling that would make it illegal to use hotjobs, careerbuilder, or your direct competitor's name in the meta tags of your job board.

The 11th Circuit Court of Georgia ruled the use of others' trademarks in meta tags infringes trademark laws, according to North American Medical Corp. v. Axiom Worldwide, Inc.

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Yahoo opens up to developers with semantic web

The 'semantic web' news has great significance for job boards - the LinkedIn example says it all.  Of course the potential for spammers is tremendous too...

Go Hyperactive or Get Chained to AdWords

Aaron Wall reports that even the best quality web directories are having their Google PR manually adjusted down reducing their ability to pass on link authority to entrepreneurs working to improve their search engine rankings.  This makes SEO more time and capital intensive.  Your choice is to go hyperactive with content, blogging, partnerships, etc or to become dependent on AdWords whose quality is declining.  Barriers to entry are going up folks.

SEO Hacker Prediction

2008 will be the year that hacking and search engine optimization (SEO) collide in a major way. By the end of the year, a nontrivial fraction of blackhat SEO will involve illegally hacking sites for links or landing pages. One webhost will get a significant black eye as hundreds or thousands of customers’ websites are hacked. The growth of illegal-blackhat SEO will leave traditional blackhats with a difficult choice: risk doing something illegal or sit out.

Would you notice if a strange link appeared somewhere inside your website?  How long would it take you to see it?  Hacking is a reality for everyone in our industry at one time or another but this is one that could be difficult to detect.

Matt, why would you use your fame to seed an  idea like this?

AdWords Pollution in Jobs Results

This morning a google search for 'jobs' revealed an astonishing amount of deceptive advertising.  Of 8 visible ads, 4 of them were garbage ads like this one:

Here's the catch, there are no jobs, it's just a ploy to trick visitors into filling out fraudulent education information requests: 

How High Quality Domain Traffic Gets Penalized

This was originally a post about how Google inadvertently penalizes some of the highest quality domain traffic as a side effect of fighting click-fraud and poor quality traffic.  I experienced a textbook example.  Over time, I believe this incentive structure will cause new specialized entities that sell advertising directly to end users to flourish -- this is a deeply interesting phenomenon.