Posted by randfishFor the next few weeks, my blog posts will primarily consist of re-authoring and re-building the Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization, section by section. You can read more about this project here.Part I: How Search Engines OperateThe major global search engines includeGoogle, Yahoo!, Microsoft/Live, Baidu, Naver & Ask.com. This guide primarily covers Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft & Ask - the major engines in the United States and other English language countries. Sadly, we don't have the expertise or experience to offer insight into Baidu (which operates almost exclusively in China) or Naver (Korea's primary search engine).The search engines have several major goals and functions. These include:Crawling and indexing the billions of documents (pages & files) accessible on the Web Providing answers to user queries, most frequently through lists of relevant pages In this section, we'll be walking through the basics of these functions from a non-technical perspective.Crawling & IndexingImagine the World Wide Web as a network of stops in a big city subway system. Each stop is its own unique document (usually a web page, but sometimes a PDF, JPG or other file). The search engines need a way to "crawl" the entire city and find all the stops along the way, so they use the best path available - links:ABOVE:London's "Tube" Serves as an Apt Analogy for the Journey of Search Engines Across the WWWIn our representation, stops like Embankment, Picadilly Circus & Moorgate serve as pages, while the lines connecting them (in black & brown) represent the links from those pages to other pages on the web. Once Google (at the bottom) reaches Embankment, it now sees the links pointing to Charing Cross, Westminster & Temple and can access any of those "pages."The link structure of the web serves to bind together all of the pages in existence (or, at least, all those that the engines can access). Through links, search engines' automated robots, called "crawlers" or "spiders" (hence the illustrations above) can reach the many billions of interconnected documents.Once the engines find these pages, their next job is to parse the code from them and store selected pieces of the pages in massive hard drives, to be recalled when needed in a query. To accomplish the monumental task of holding billions of pages that can be accessed in a fraction of a second, the search engines have constructed massive datacenters, like this onefrom Google in The Dalles, Oregon:The NYTimes covered Google's datacenterin The DallesThese monstrous storage facilities hold thousands of machines processing unimaginably large quantities of information. After all, when a person performs a search at any of the major engines, they demand results instanteously - even a 3 or 4 second delay can cause dissatisfaction, so the engines work hard to provide answers as fast as possible.Retrieval & RankingsFor most searchers, the quest for knowledge begins like this:And ends with a list of relevant pages on the web, returned in order of "importance." This process requires the search engines to scour their corpus of billions of documents and do two things - first, return only those results that are relevant or useful to the searcher's query AND second, rank those results in order of perceived value (or importance). It is both "relevance" and "importance" that the process of search engine optimization is meant to influence.To the search engines, relevance means more than simply having a page with the words you searched for prominently displayed. In the early days of the web, search engines didn't go much further than this simplistic step, and found that their results suffered as a consequence. Thus, through iterative evolution, smart engineers at the various engines devised better ways to find valuable results that searchers would appreciate and enjoy. Today, hundreds of factors influence relevance, many of which we'll discuss throughout this guide.Importance is an equally tough concept to quantify, but search engines must do their best. Currently, the major engines typically interpret importance as popularity - the more popular a site, page or document, the more valuable the information contained therein must be. This assumption has proven fairly successful in practice, as the engines have continued to increase users' satisfaction by using metrics that interpret popularity.So, when you see a page like this:You can surmise that the search engine (in this case, Yahoo!) believes that the Super Hero Stamps Pageon USPS.com is the most relevant and popular page for the query "super hero stamps," while the AP news articleon the topic is less relevant/popular.Popularity and relevance aren't determined manually (and thank goodness, because those trillions of man-hours would require Earth's entire population as a workforce). Instead, the engines craft careful, mathematical equations - algorithms - to sort the wheat from the chaff and to then rank the wheat in order of tastiness (or however it is that farmers determine wheat's value). These algorithms are often comprised of hundreds of components. In the search marketing field, we often refer to them as "ranking factors." For those who are particularly interested, SEOmoz crafted a resource specifically on this subject - Search Engine Ranking Factors(last updated in April of 2007).... and with that, I'm off to bed. Please do share your thoughts in the comments below. Oh yeah - and must read stuff today would probably include:This post on YOUmoz about link juiceasks some good questions (I need to link over to YOUmoz more) The eMarketer study on Word of Mouth(via Justilien) is worth a look The AP reports on global search usage datafrom ComScoreMichael Gray had a great interview on advanced link tacticsAnd, Aaron had a brilliant one with Elifrom BlueHatSEO(another must-read blog)Worried about how Google might improperly penalize your site? Googlers respond to concernsabout a variety of subjects on Google Groups (Go Susan!)Whew... this is a lot of work. What have I gotten myself into?Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by rebeccaAs Rand mentioned in his Rewriting the Beginner's Guidepost, he and I will be speaking at SMX Social Medianext Tuesday and Wednesday. Once again, I will be speaking on the Linkbait panel with my buddies Brent Csutorasand Cameron Olthuis(and with Jane speaking on the Linkbait panel at SMX Londonin mid-November, it seems that Rand has officially passed the Linkbait panel torch to his employees). This will be the third time I'll be speaking on a Linkbait panel. The first time I spoke on it, I provided examples of some of our more successful linkbait campaigns, whereas the last time I spoke on the panel (at SES San Jose), I gave the audience an overview of what linkbait is and why it's important. I've been assigned the same topic for this upcoming conference, but I really want to change things up a bit. I'm not a fan of recycling the same presentation, so I want to come up with something fresh and new that the audience will enjoy.Here's where I seek out the advice of our talented and savvy SEOmoz community. What would you want to learn if you were in the audience during a Linkbait session? What sort of topics do you think I should cover/address? How can I provide both value and entertainment to the attendees? Keep in mind that I only have 15-20 minutes and that Cameron and Brent will likely cover case studies--I just get to present the 101 stuff. Social media is definitely one of the more fun aspects of SEO and Internet marketing, so I'm really looking forward to this entirely social media-focused conference. The sessions should be novel and exciting, and I want to kick ass and take names as well so that Danny won't see me fail, impose a lifelong SMX ban, and reduce me to presenting about how no, I don't work for Googleto my family members in the basement of a Budget Inn.So yeah, any advice or suggestions are welcome. Before I go, Cam pinged me to mention the Internet Marketers of New YorkCharity Party, co-sponsored by Best of the Web. The event is Monday, October 15, at the Town Tavern Bar & Grill, from 7-10 pm. It costs $40 to attend the event, but there will be an open bar plus the door donations will go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Rand and I will be attending, as well as a bunch of other talented SEOs, so if you're attending SMX Social Media, I highly recommend attending the event to both donate to a great organization and to network with some of the finest folks in the industry.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishI recently noted that many sites were once again linking to SEOmoz's Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization, which made me feel guilty. The guide is now almost 3 years out of date, and so much has changed in that time that I feel almost irresponsible having it up in its current format (though I recognize it still can be a valuable resource in some sense).To help remedy the situation, I've had the "re-write the Beginner's Guide" on my to-do list for months, but the project intially required about 100 hours of writing, research, fact-checking, screenshots and graphic creation. I think I'm faster at many of those tasks now, but I'm also far, far busier in my daily life. Thus, my plan is to actually use the blog to rewrite the guide. Here's what I'm thinking:Over the next 3-4 weeks, dedicate the 2-3 hours I spend blogging each night to authoring a section of the Beginner's Guide and posting it on the blog. Solicit feedback from everyone and include those that are valuable in the final version of the guide (with attributed credit). Re-create the guide in a single & multi-page format and 301 all of the blog entries that will be created over the next few weeks (on this topic) to the final version. Keep it 100% free to everyone - no registration required, no premium membership necessary. Obviously I'm open to feedback on this, but this is my take on what might be the best path to pursue.Whenever I write something large or comprehensive (like our premium guides) or when I make a presentation, I always like to create a roadmap. I think it's ingrained in me from middle school. And so, here's my initial stab at an outline:Introduction: What This Guide Can Help You AchievePart I: How Search Engines OperateCrawling & Indexing the Web Retrieval & Rankings How Search Marketers Study & Learn from Algorithms & Patent Applications Understanding the Visuals of Search Results Pages Vertical, "Universal" & Specialized Search Results Part II: How People Interact with Search EnginesSearch Engine Market ShareSearch Engine Usage DataCommercial Activity Driven by SearchPart III: Why Search Engine Marketing is NecessaryLimitations of Search Indexing Technology Competition & Rankings A Constantly Changing Search Landscape Part IV: The Basics of Search-Engine Friendly Design & DevelopmentIndexable MarkupCrawlable Link StructuresKeyword Usage & TargetingTitles, URLs, Meta Data & Semantic CodeCanonical & Duplicate Versions of ContentRedirection, Server & Hosting IssuesPart V: Keyword ResearchHow to Judge the Value of a KeywordKeyword Research SourcesTesting Keyword EfficacyPart VI: How Usability, User Experience and Content Affect Search Engine RankingsWhy "Great" Sites Rise to the TopRecommendations for Usability & User ExperienceContent Strategies for SuccessPart VII: Growing Popularity & LinksLink Building BasicsCompetitive Link AnalysisLinkbait & Viral ContentPart VIII: Search Engine Tools & ServicesSitemaps ProtocolGoogle's Webmaster CentralLive Search ToolsYahoo! Site ExplorerPart IX: Myths, Penalties & SpamCommon Myths & Misconceptions About Search EnginesHow Search Engines Identify Spam Penalty Signs & Re-Inclusion RequestsMeasuring & Tracking SuccessEmploying AnalyticsSite & Brand Metrics from the WebAppendix A: Glossary of TermsAppendix B: List of Additional ResourcesAppendix C: Contributors & CreditsWhat do you think? Am I missing anything big? (besides paid search, which we're not equipped to cover)Other quick news items (all event-centric):SMX is launching South & Latin American events, the first of which are taking place in just a few weeks with SMX Buenos Aires (Oct. 24th), then SMX Santiago De Chile(Oct. 25/26th). Incredibly, Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yatesof Yahoo! (who wrote the freakin' book on Modern Information Retrieval- literally) will be keynoting. Luckily, we've found a friend, Maria Balayan, to cover the Buenos Aires conference for SEOmoz - make sure to say "Hi!" if you see her there. Jane & Gillian will both be speaking at SMX Londonnext month. Gillian will be covering the business issues of running and growing a search marketing firm, while Jane tackles linkbait and viral media promotion. I'll be at SMX Social Medianext week with Rebecca, giving an introduction to SMM and taking a deep look at mirco-communities, then leaving for Stockholm two weeks later, where I'm speaking on a number of panels about all sorts of issues for SMX Stockholm (I kept hearing how fantastic the Stockholm conferences used to be when SES did them with Danny and I couldn't pass up a chance to go). Premium SEOmoz members DO get discounts to all of the SMX shows(include European and South American conferences) - we should have all the updated information about that in the discount store by end of day tomorrow. Also - since most of my blogging is going to be re-creating the guide, this is a great chance for YOUmoz contributions on news items and hot topics to be promoted to the main blog (even more than normal). It also means that I won't be covering a lot of industry news (though I often don't do that anyway), so I suggest if you're not already reading SELanddaily to make it a habit.p.s. I may continue to try to post some links and news items at the bottom of entries as I have above - let me know if you think that's a good idea or not, too.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by Eric EngeIntroduction from Rand:Guest poster Eric Enge (of Stone Temple Media) was gracious enough to contribute an immense effort on this impressive guide. In related news, he's done a brilliant, not-to-miss interview with Matt Cuttsthat was released just tonight. Thanks a ton, Eric - we hope to feature many more of your contributions in the future.Hidden Text is one of the challenges faced by webmasters and search engines. Spammers continue to use hidden text to stuff keywords into their pages for purposes of artificially boosting their rankings. Search engines seek to figure out when spammers are doing this, and then then take appropriate action. For the average every day webmaster, one challenge is that there are many ways to create hidden text unintentionally, and no one wants to be penalized for something they did not intend to do. To start our look at hidden text, let's examine Google's Webmaster Guidelines for hidden text, to see the bottom line: If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages Obviously, this is a fate we all want to avoid. Note the use of the word "perceived" in the above snippet. Doesn't sound like a simple black and white problem, does it? In fact, it's not, so let's look at some of the forms of hidden text.A Few Ways to Create Hidden TextThere are many techniques for creating hidden text. Some of these can be done without the use of CSS, and they are usually fairly easy to detect:Make your text and background colors identical (or virtually identical) - this is the original method used by spammers for creating hidden text. It's easy to detect, and I am not aware of any legitimate use for this technique. Set the font size for text to 0, or to a negative number. This is also easy to detect, and I can't think of any legit use for it either. Use a Noscript tag. Here is some sample code for this:<script type="text/javascript"> <!-- document.write("This text is not hidden") //--> </script> <noscript>This is hidden text</noscript>This is really only "pseudo hidden text". While it's possible to make the text contained within the noscript tags different from what is in the Javascript, about 3% of users will see it, and that's more than enough to generate spam report complaints to the search engines. In other words, stuffing a lot of keywords within noscript tags comes with a fair amount of risk. Text way below the fold. This is also a "psuedo hidden text" technique - that of providing content that is really not there for users. So while it is visible, the text is clearly out of the "action oriented" area of a page, and resides well below the fold, and the user needs to scroll down to see it. The text could well be directly related to the site's basic purpose, and the intent in this case would be that of "keyword stuffing". It's hard to detect algorithmically, but, under human review I would conjecture that it would be seen as a poor quality signal.CSS Based Methods for Hiding TextCSS techniques for creating hidden text are more interesting because they are much harder for search engine crawlers to detect unless they crawl and interpret the CSS. Most crawlers don't do that currently. Here are a few methods for using CSS to hide text:Specify an attribute of display:none. Here is a sample snippet for that:<div class="hiddentext" style="display: none;">This text is hidden </div>When you use display:none, the specified text does not display on the screen, and it is as if the element is simply not there (it has no effect on the placement of any other items on the page). One example use for this attribute is in dynamically creating printable versions of your articles. You can take the existing HTML version of a page, and create a print page by replicating the page, but applying the display:none attribute to the navigation and advertising elements of the page. It's a great technique that allows you to algorithmically create print pages for your articles quite easily. This technique is also used legitimately for the creation of menus, such as DHTML menus. Specify an attribute of visibility: hidden. Here is a sample snippet for that:<div class="hiddentext" style="visibility:hidden">This text is hidden </div>This technique varies from that of display:none. While it also makes the text invisible, the space that the text would have occupied is still used up in the page layout. The space simply shows up as a blank area. Use the z-index command to place your text on a layer below the currently viewable layer. The z-index command is just like any other property. Here is an example of what this could look like:.hiddentext{position: absolutetop: 120px;left: 250px;z-index: 0;}.visibletext{position: absolutetop: 120px;left: 250px;z-index: 1;}The "visibletext" div is visible simply because it has a greater z-index than the "hiddentext" div. Of course, it does not take too much of a scan of the CSS to detect this technique. Fahrner Image Replacement. This is usually done using CSS to place the image over HTML text. It works simply because the text does not appear to be invisible when you scan the HTML. However, after the text is drawn, if you place an image over the same spot, the text will be covered up by the image. One potential legitimate use for this is to make the text available in HTML for the visually impaired, and for search engines, while rendering a better looking version of the text in an image. Susan Moskwa at Google commented on a Google Groups thread about this and said "if your intent is purely to improve the visual user experience (e.g. by replacing some text with a fancier image of that same text), you don't need to worry." Use CSS to position the text off the screen. Sample code would look as follows:.hiddentext{position: absolutetop: 0px;left: -5000px;}This is another oldie, but goodie. A revised version of this would be to define a label for a table, so that the table is easier for people using screen readers (with impaired vision) to use:.hiddentext{position:absolute;left:0px;top:-500px;width:1px;height:1px;overflow:hidden;}This variant can then be used as a class for label tags within a table. The result is therefore accessible to screen readers, but does not clutter up the screen for users who have normal vision. However, while the intent may be pure here, there is a risk of the search engines misinterpreting your intent. Flash based methods for hiding textScalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR). sIFR is a technique that uses Javascript to read in HTML text and render it in Flash instead. The essential fact to focus on here is that the method guarantees that the HTML content and the Flash content are identical. One great use for this is to render the text in an anti-aliased font. This can provide a great improvement in the presentation of your site. At a recent Search Engine Marketing New England (SEMNE) event, Dan Crow, head of Google's crawl team, said that as long as this technique is used in moderation, that it was OK. However, extensive use of sIFR could be interpreted as a poor site quality signal. SWFObject. Unlike sIFR, this method does not guarantee that the HTML and the content in the Flash are the same. SWFObject does not reference the text in the HTML at all. It simply draws a pre-compiled Flash movie in place of the HTML. At the same SEMNE event referenced in the prior point, Dan Crow indicated that this technique was "dangerous". Even though this technique could be used for entirely legitimate reasons (e.g. the same purpose as outlined for sIFR above), there is no way for Google to detect that. Worse still, since an approved technique exists, it just looks bad when you use an unapproved technique. Unintentionally Creating Hidden TextThere are a few ways that this happens. One of the most common methods is that your Content Management System (CMS) has some of these techniques built into it. This is actually quite common. In particular, some of the CSS based methods are used by CMS systems. For example, many CMS systems use the display:none technique to to implement drop-down menus, or other widgets that the user clicks on that then "expand" to display more text. Tab folders would be a great example of this. Sometimes the display:none technique is used in user generated content systems where the page normally shows the number of comments on a post, but chooses to suppress the text "0 Comments" in the event that no comments have been made yet.Another common way that people create hidden text occurs when they start providing enhancements for the visually impaired. As with the example provided above of using hidden lables within a table, it comes about because you are trying to place text in a place that will make it look cluttered to a user with normal vision. The solution people use to serve both audiences is to hide the text from the sighted users.Detecting Hidden TextSo how does Google do at detecting all of these types of hidden text, and telling whether or not the purpose is a legitimate one v.s. a illegitimate one? A recent post titled Number One on Google Using Hidden Textgives you reason to think that it's not as simple as it sounds. That noted, there are some techniques that Google has clearly labelled as bad, or intuitively just seem bad. These are: White text on a white background Setting the font size to 0, or a negative number SWFObject Specify an attribute of visibility:hidden Using the z-index command - someone tell me if I am giving this technique a bad rap, but it smells like trouble to me Just stay away from these techniques, because by using them you are simply asking to get slapped. There are some methods that could be abused, but may be OK in some cases:Use CSS to position the text off the screen. This is one of those things that can be abused, or could be used legitimately for improved the experience of users with impaired vision as we discussed above. Use a Noscript tag. There is a real application for this to deal with those users who have Javascript disabled. This is about 3% or so of the web surfing public. Text way below the fold. As note before, it is not really hidden text, but it's intent is not good, and it's likely to be seen as a poor quality signal. Specify an attribute of display:none. This technique certainly can be abused, but it is also commonly used for many types of things as a coding technique with legitimate intent. Fahrner Image Replacement. I have listed this technique here, even though the Google Guidelines identify this as a no-no. However, one cannot overlook the comments by Susan Moskwa above. sIFR. The beauty of this is that it by definition shows the same text as the HTML, but still, use it in moderation. How you get discoveredPutting keywords unrelated to the rest of your content is a sure flag Putting too many keywords in your "legitimately" hidden text. Too much text in there in general could inspire someone to take a closer look Use a legitimate technique, but use it too much, so it raises an "investigate me" flag Use an edgy amount of hidden text in seemingly legitimate ways, but then also participate in several other edgy techniques. This will also raise an "investigate me" flag. Have a competitor report you. It is in your competitor's interest to do so, and it happens all the time. Google guarantees that all authenticated spam reports are reviewed. Have your site reviewed by a human. However, this happens, there is no upside to this, only downside. Google's Position on Hidden TextIt's always good to start with the Google Guidelines for Hidden Text, but you need to look a bit deeper than that. Note the Berghausen, Dan Crow, and Susan Moskwa comments I have referenced above, as well as these statements by Googlers:In the following Google Groups threadGoogler Susan Moskwa had this to say: Of course, as with many techniques, there are shades of gray between "this is clearly deceptive and wrong" and "this is perfectly acceptable". Matt did say that hiding text moves you a step further towards the gray area. But if you're running a perfectly legitimate site, you don't need to worry about it. If, on the other hand, your site already exhibits a bunch of other semi-shady techniques, hidden text starts to look like one more item on that list. It's like how 1 grain of sand isn't noticeable, but many grains together start to look like a beach. Related to this is a recent posting by Matt Cutts on ThreadwatchIf you're straight-out using CSS to hide text, don't be surprised if that is called spam. I'm not saying that mouseovers or DHTML text or have-a-logo-but-also-have-text is spam; I answered that last one at a conference when I said "imagine how it would look to a visitor, a competitor, or someone checking out a spam report. If you show your company's name and it's Expo Markers instead of an Expo Markers logo, you should be fine. If the text you decide to show is 'Expo Markers cheap online discount buy online Expo Markers sale ...' then I would be more cautious, because that can look bad.And, in my most recent interview with Matt Cutts, we spoke about hidden text. Typically with hidden text, a regular person can look at it and instantly tell that it is hidden text. There are certainly great cases you could conjure up where that is not the case, but the vast majority of the time it's relatively obvious. So, for that it would typically be a removal for 30 days.Then, if the site removes the hidden text or does a reconsideration request directly after that it could be shorter. But, if they continue to leave up that hidden text then that penalty could get longer. SummaryAll these statements suggest that Google does try to detect intent, and is not going to ban a site solely because of someone using hidden text in a way that appears to be legitimate. This does open the door to those who want to abuse this. If someone stuffs a few words in a bit lf legitimate looking text here or there, it's hard to detect algorithmically. However, this is a trap door and an accident waiting to happen. Many webmasters who choose to walk the line on this technique may well be walking the line on other techniques. Google, and the other search engines, relay on this to out real abusers. Also, competitors are anxious to expose those sites that are over the line.Witness the commentary in my recent interview with Matt Cutts. We talked about a blog post that a relatively little known blog about a competitor ranking for the term access panel using hidden text. Matt Cutts had picked up on this quite quickly, and Google was prepared to take action on it. However, it turns out that the site that was "outed," responded and removed the hidden text, so as Matt indicated in our interview, he removed the offending text. The point is that your competitor wants to report you for doing bad things. That motivation should be a strong deterrent to abusing these techniques.Ultimately, intent is one of the most important factors. Don't use these techniques to abuse the system. Too much of a good thing turns into a very bad thing. Also, use them in commonly used ways. This is no time to invent some novel new way to apply hidden text to making your site design snazzy or better. For better or worse, doing something unusual, even if your intent is pure, is just asking for trouble. While the search engines want to treat your site appropriately, you make it harder for them by inventing new and unusual coding techniques. Stick to the methods that are commonly in use by others, and you will be better off. In addition, even if your use is completely legitimate, you still need to use any hidden text techniques in moderation. Extensive use of any technique, even in perfectly legitimate ways exposes you to risk. This may by wrong or unfair in some ways, but it's the world we live in. Being morally right, but banned, does not help anyone at the end of the day.Sources:14 ways to use hidden textCan I hide text in HTML to get a top ranking?Invisible Content Just for Screen Reader UsersText Replacement With Flash - Dangerous?Googler Berhausen's comments in Google GroupsGoogle Okays Hidden TextGoogle Offers Advice on Flash Web Sites & SEODo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishBryan Eisenberg pinged me this week and asked if SEOmoz would participate in their latest contest - "My Hyperlink Can Beat Your HyperLink." It's not just fun, it's participatory, engaging, and incredibly valuable - both from a learning perspective and for the winner. Here are the details:Just comment on this post or the ones like it at Copybloggerand Grokdotcom (coming soon), linking us to the landing page you want tested and telling us why you should win.Judges Brian Clark, Rand Fishkin& Bryan Eisenberg will choose 5 winners.To be eligible, contestants must have clear metrics and analytics in place, the ability to test (Google Website Optimizer is free, so no excuses), and the willingness to implement our suggestions.Contestants must have enough traffic to yield valid test results.For each of our winners, the judges will select a single link to be tested, then agree on three variationsof that call to action (a.k.a., anchor link).I think Bryan and the FutureNow crew are a bit frustratedby the research from MarketingSherpa studyshowing that "click here" was the most effective anchor text for inducing a click-through. (Off topic - If the web were to revert to a "click here" based link structure, it certainly would have an interesting impact on how the engines interpret anchor text.) Their experience suggests that there may be much better text to use when requesting a click, and it should be terrific to see how their testing works out.So - in the comments on this post, link to your landing page of choice and Bryan, Brian, and I will review them, choose a few, and we'll watch as the Eisenbergs work their magic and educate us all in the process.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by shor"Anything with a halfway interesting story about how an upstart like Facebook will beat Google will get listened to if for no other reason than to argue about it." - Robert ScobleTo test Robert's theory and to offer some belated support to his Google killers, we're going to get this party started with the story of a little Korean website that could.Outside of its native country, there are few people who have heard of Naver, a Korean web portal that launched back in June of 1999. Despite the presence of Yahoo, Google and rival Korean search engines, today Naver is the undisputed king of Korean search, enjoying  +1 billion daily page views and an astonishing +77% search market share. Naver is a David and Goliath story well worth studying and there are bloggers betterqualifiedto talk about the history of Korean search so to cut a long story short, a significant part of Naver's success is derived from two services.1. Knowledge iNis a 'knowledge search' service - essentially the Korean version of Yahoo! Answers but predating Y! Answers by three years. Users ask questions and other users that answer are rewarded with 'knowledge points'. Its database of over 75 million articles is 10 times the size of the entire Wikipedia database. 2. Integrated search service - there's no doubt South Korea is switched on, boasting an incredibly high broadband penetration rate and a very sophisticated online userbase. However, even Google is irrelevant when there are no documents for Googlebot to crawl and index. Back in the early days of the Korean Internet, there simply were not enough Korean language documents to answer queries so Naver began paying content providers a fee to create a walled garden of content. Seven years before Google or Ask's universal search, Naver was already algorithmically serving up a mash-up of search results from their bucket of 'collection' databases.Korean web 2.0 observer Chang-Won Kim believes Naver has created a benevolent cycle.Naver, as the go-to guy for both user aggregated content and vendor aggregated content, has made it seamless and natural for South Korean content providers to place all their content on the site. What can we learn from the South Korean search industry?Yahoo! In Pole Position For Once?When Yahoo! Answerslaunched in December 2005, few analysts foresaw the upside in a Q+A service that tapped into Yahoo's almost half a billion global users. Within two years, Y! Answers has accumulated over 95 millionregistered usersand is one of a few good news stories to come out of Yahoo on a quarterly basis. Let's not beat around the bush. Like Naver, Yahoo has the 'ecosystem' to make knowledge search THEsearch experience that online users are looking for. Mahalo provides hand-picked results from a small team of writers, Yahoo Answers provides hand-picked answers from millions of users. Which place would you turn to first, especially if such a search were already seamlessly embedded into your social network (hi Yahoo! 360)? Figure out how to best mash-up Yahoo Answers into Yahoo! Alpha, take it mobile with Yahoo! oneSearch, and we might just have the Naver of the Western world.Facebook Could Really KillHurtTickle GoogleOkay, snap back to reality. Yahoo! has thus far sucked at integrating their myriad properties and we also know that Yahoo! 360 hasn't really taken off.Q+A is a social network. People ask questions and other people answer. At 45 million users, Facebook is a social network that has a critical mass of answerers. While Facebook already has question apps (eg. Slide's My Questions), we're talking about taking it to the next social level where Q+A becomessearch. Picture this - a large search box at the very top of every Facebook page. Type in a query into the box and you'd be taken to Facebook's very own database of answers (aka search results). If the database does not provide an appropriate answer to your question, hit the submit button to make your query public and wait for Facebook users to provide the best answer. For example, if you chose to follow a particular category like 'animated movies', you'd be able to see new 'animated movie' questions in your Facebook news feed...Could you see a better way to procrastinate on Facebook than to help fellow Facebook users while earning yourself some glory?Facebook's fantastic usability (compared to existing social networks) is a clear reason why they could very quickly own this space despite Yahoo's huge head start and Google's intention to free the 'social graph'. A Q+A service would also mesh well with Facebook's current walled garden philosophy...butthe only problem is, and it's a big one, without the benefit of Naver/Google-style content databases, Facebook users would still be relying on Google or another search engine to help reference their answers.Where does this leave us?Kill Nothing But TimeIs Facebook an actual Google killer or just an accomplice? Is Google the next Google killer? Will Yahoo turn around 360 and make Yahoo! Answers the way to search? The answer is no current social network has the complete package required to replace Google:Reach & Scalability= ability to answer long tail questions and provide fast response times.Usability= robust spam/moderation, ease of contribution.- Google has search databases (blog, book, maps, video, etc.)- Facebook has social usability (and ability to wall-in content)- Yahoo has Y! Answers and, unlike Google, a web portal presence- Ask used to have Jeeves' answering service (and Google had Google Q+A), but it did not scale well Think of it this way - today's search engines answer three basic questions:1. Transactional questions: "Where can I buy the latest Buffy figurines?"2. Navigational questions: "How do I get to the Toys R Us website?"3. Informational questions: "What are the operating hours for toy stores in Seattle?"But there is one type of question that they can not answer.As Yahoo's Bradley Horowitz said,"Yet there is a subtle but profound limitation to “web search” as currently realized: search engines can only return results that… well… you know… exist."Surely a searchable social network-based Q+A service would be able to answer all four types of questions?Any Questions? Technorati Tagsnaver, google, yahoo, microsoft, facebook, yahoo answers, knowledge in, scoble, ask, universal searchDo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by great scott!Hey Gang,After a brief departure (in which Jeff aptly covered Whiteboard Friday duties) I'm back to present you with this week's WBF. This week, Rand discusses some of the unique ways to implement links on your sites (and others) beyond the standard-issue text link; including the pitfalls and benefits of each. Why bother, you ask? Well, sometimes, depending on content, it can seem a bit, shall we say, unusualto put a text link on a site. These methods provide you with some options and a bit of diversity in how you implement (or request) links on sites.For those of you who've asked, here's a screen cap of this week's Whiteboard, in all its glory:Technorati TagsSEOmoz, Rand Fishkin, Whiteboard Friday, Links, iFrame, CSS Overlay, Image LinksDo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by JacI have a humble request. Fall has come, so I am back in school for the last year. I enrolled in a magazine writing class because I thought it would be fun. So far it has not been fun at all, but our first assignment is to profile a person, business, or organization. I lovingly think of SEOmoz as all three, in a way, and I knew right away that I wanted to do my article on it. One of the points of my article will be that SEOmoz is revolutionary in its accessibility. Prove me right by helping me to answer the following questions. I would be very grateful. We are also encouraged to submit these articles to various magazines, so you never know where your luminous words may end up (though I would definitely let everyone know if that becomes the case!). I’d love to hear from staff members and anyone, really.Why hasn’t SEOmoz taken the format of a forum or implemented one on their site?What will SEOmoz be like in ten years?Are SEO “newbies” encouraged to use the site? Will they always be?Is SEOmoz moving to pioneer a standardized SEO certification course? Or should SEO be an undergraduate degree soon? (There was some talk of this post-SEO Quiz)If everyone had to name a single element that makes SEOmoz so rewarding to read and participate in, what would that be?Don’t feel limited to these questions. Feel free to use this space to reflect on all things SEOmoz. I appreciate everyone’s time. Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishThis morning, Andy Greenberg wrote an article for the front page of Forbes' technology section - Google Purges the Payola. The article focuses on the ongoing battle between search engines and paid links - a battle that most see as unlikely to ever end:To most users, the difference between sponsored links and advertisements is a blur. Take, for instance, the online site for the British magazine, New Scientist. Near the bottom of the New Scientisthomepage are "sponsored links" that launch the curious to odd destinations including teeth whitening sites or German language sites that sell women's shoes--places that are probably only marginally interesting to most New Scientistreaders.In the byzantine coding world of search engines, however, the mere existence of such links bumps up the placement of those particular teeth and shoe sites when someone types "white teeth" or "schuhe" into Google's search engine.Search engines hate this kind of paid-for popularity. Google's Webmaster guidelines ban buying links just to pump search rankings. Other search engines including Ask, MSN, and Yahoo!, which mimic Google's link-based search rankings, also discourage buying and selling links. But as Web commerce has boomed, so too has the value of links--for everyone, including Google. And that's lead to innovation--or from Google's perspective, scams.Tonight, as I was answering emails, I opened up some tabs and hit the "stumble" button - admitedly, I love StumbleUpon and the wonderful corners of the web it brings to me - and noticed an odd pattern. The first site I reached had this in the bottom right-hand corner:Wow... Paid links - and sure enough, no "nofollows" on those suckers. Well, I thought, maybe it's just a coincidence. I kept stumbling.The next site up had this in the footer:No way! It's using a Wordpress theme that's been "sponsored" by a web hosting outfit. The theme links back to the creator, but the ICDSoft link is pointing to their site and has the link title as "web hosting by ICDsoft." Crazy coincidence? Yeah, probably, but I decide to start tracking as I'm stumbling - maybe it'll make for a good blog post (whoa... did Rand just break the fourth wall?).Site #3 had this in their sidebar:Links to Feng Shui and SEO Services without nofollows - why am I not surprised?Over the course of the next 20 minutes, I stumbled another 16 sites, and found 6 more that featured the kinds of links that might fall under the heading of "Google Payola." Check it out:There on the top is an advertising link without a "nofollow" on it. Who knows? Maybe the two sites are owned by the same people, or the site wants to give them editorial endorsement, too - totally possible, but very hard to tell. The next site, as you scroll down, shows a lot of questionable links (though again, hard to tell if they're truly "Payola").Next up is a blog with a cute design and a post on Feedburner. But, on the sidebar:BTW - From what I can see, Bizrate.com's links in their marketplace widget are direct and passing juice. And they're ranking pretty well for those four phrases on Google right now.Next up we've got another site that looks pretty suspicious (just from the layout) and has a lovely list of very "run, don't walk" type links at the very top:Then there's a blog with a nifty post on must-know Latin words and expressions: All well and good except... Look at the four image links in the top right-hand corner - nofollow's? Nope.The next site has a pink theme to raise awareness for breast cancer - which is terrific. In fact, I don't even see any bad sidebar links. But, then I scroll down a bit more and see a familiar badge:I personally think PayPerPost and other pay-to-blog services are terrific so long as they're disclosed. In fact, I'm thinking about using them for SEOmoz's premium content one of these days. However, they do certainly fit into what Andy discussed in his piece for Forbes and Google has railed about them in the past, so they probably come under the headline of "Payola," too.Of course, finally, I had to come full circle. There's a large number of odd pages on Forbes.com and since this has been reported several times in the SEO world previously (and Google's probably removed the link value at this point), I figured it's fine to mention. Basically, on the bottom of many pages at Forbes, you get a drop down menu that looks like this:Forbes' Special Advertising DropdownThe problem is, when you look at the code of the site, you see this:Forbes Noscript Tag ContentThe pages they link to look like this:Forbes' Mesothelioma Attorney PageWhile there's an obvious indication at the top that it's a sponsored page (much like a sponsored section in a magazine), the links aren't "nofollowed" which I'm guessing is why the pages don't appear in Google's index (though Yahoo! and MSN both have all the ones I checked).I suppose you could call that irony.My point with all this isn't to "out" sites for selling links - no way. I've encouraged some of our clients to purchase links in the past and I suspect I'll do so in the future (though we generally try to be extremely careful about it). I personally think selling links and making a living off the gap in search technology is neither evil nor illegal (though I do think there's usually smarter ways to go about it).What I'm really trying to show is what an immense quantity of websites are engaged in link practices that Google would consider "un-trustworthy." Yet, as you can clearly see in the search results of thousands of commercially competitive terms, paid links still rule. I think Danny Sullivan summed it up best in the Forbes article:"Google will never be able to stop paid links altogether," Sullivan says. "They'll stop the obvious stuff. They'll create a climate of fear and a sense of responsibility. But some will still get through." And so long as "some" get through, the economy of paid links will continue to generate revenue for a massive subsection of the web. The search engineers certainly have their work cut out for them if they want to tackle this problem in a scalable fashion.p.s. One final frustration - I would have loved to link out to some of the sites that I posted about, but I'm seriously concerned about the "bad neighborhoods" phenomenon, which is frustrating. I hate worrying about whether or not a link from SEOmoz is going to hurt our rankings (as something has with this page) or if the engines might remove our ability to pass linkjuice if we're not careful where we link. There's got to be a better way, right?UPDATE From Rand: Although I'm still conflicted as to whether it's the right thing to do, I've removed the references to the actual sites in question. It certainly makes the blog post less powerful and doesn't nearly illustrate the hypocrisy of the engines' positions on paid links (as showing the site helped to illustrate how many high quality, legitimate sites that probably have never heard of Matt Cutts or the guidelines for paid links engage in this behavior). However, I'm trusting Donna Fontenot'swisdomand pulling the specifics.Do you like this post? YesNo