Posted by great scott!We often hear the question, "How can I linkbait for a conservative industry? Doesn't linkbait have to be funny or crude or techie?" We've said it before and we'll say it again, you don't have to be Perez Hilton to do successful linbait. This week, Jane Copland discusses a few strategies to help even the most skeptical folks learn ways to use linkbait to help get some link-love.If you like what she's saying and want to learn more, Jane's going to be speaking about linkbait at SMX London, November 15-16. It's the first London show for the SMX series and it's looking like it's going to be pretty awesome (oh yeah, Premium Members get 10% off of passes). If you go, say 'hi' to Jane and get her a drink, she'll probably need it after her maiden voyage on the speaking circuit.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by rebeccaI'm back in Seattle after a short trip to NYC for SMX Social Media. I live-blogged a coupleof sessionson Tuesday and tried to live blog the "Evangelist - The Marketer's Role in SMM" session, but I lost my post before I published it. (And no, I didn't save it. Yes, I am dumb.) I did cover Rand and Liana Evans' presentations for the Micro Communities sessionfor Search Engine Land, plus there are lots of other recaps there and throughout the web.I think that overall the conference was a success, especially considering it's the first conference I've been to that was explicitly dedicated to social media tips and tactics. Most of the sessions were quite interesting and engaging, with only a couple of presentations that felt a bit overlapping. I got a lot of positive feedback on my presentation, with people telling me that I "woke them up," which I relish in a bit more knowing that Rand spoke before I did. Take that, boss! (Note: I'm joking. Presenting first thing in the morning sucks. I've done it before, and the audience is pretty stiff, so I'm thankful I didn't get Rand's slot. He did get some laughs and kudos, and I am of the opinion that he's definitely a helluva better speaker than I am.)Anyway, I thought the keynote Q&A with Joshua Schachter of del.icio.us and Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon was a bit disappointing--it felt more like a tutorial on how to use their sites and less like honest, valuable feedback for attendees and the questions they posed. I really hate when company spokespeople answer questions with "We'll look into that" or "We can't tell you right now, but it's something I can research," etc. A friend of mine felt that the conference was great for marketers who haven't yet gotten into social media but not as valuable for those who already do social media marketing and want more advanced or expert tips, and I agree with her. A lot of the sessions (mine included) were a great overview of why certain social media approaches (link bait, bookmarking, social media news sites, etc) are valuable to your marketing and branding campaigns. For future social media-centric conferences, I would really like to see more specific or advanced sessions thrown in with the "An Introduction to Such and Such" panels.I have to close by saying that I am extremely proud of my good friend and fellow lady in SEO, Tamar Weinberg. Danny made her speak on the "Extra! Extra! The Social News Sites" panel virtually against her will. I know how nervous she was, but clearly the audience deduced that she knows her stuff because every time I saw her she was answering an attendee's questions about social media tactics. I bet she snagged a ton of business cards. Way to go, Tamar--you've certainly made a name for yourself in the past year, and I'm very happy and excited for you.If you attended SMX Social Media, I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions. What did you like? What didn't you like? What would you like to see more of for the next conference? What would you like to see that's new? How gross was it that while I was in NY my allergies rendered one of my nostrils completely plugged up and the other one inexplicably mucus-free? Did I actually just type that?Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishI'm on a plane from Newark to Seattle. It's late at night, and the first hour was spent on the ground waiting for low CIGS (low ceilings of clouds & rain) to clear. So, while I still have another 4.5 hours in front of me, I'm just grateful to be in the air.The last week was a whirlwind – although that's nothing new. For the last 4 years, the acceleration brought about by my job feels as though it has no end. I'll find myself getting 6 hours of sleep a night (sometimes less), answering 150 emails a day and barely noticing that I'm in a different city every other week. It's a good thing. It feels almost comfortable. Or, maybe, more accurately, it feels good to be uncomfortable – to be challenged.The whirlwind started on Sunday, when Mystery Guest dropped me off at the airport. I have a consistent pattern when it comes to business travel. I'm almost always making presentations, and since I despise presenting material I've already used before, I force myself to make new slides, new “decks” (apparently this is what important business people like me call Powerpoint files) for every speech. It's probably not the most practical thing, but I like to think that I'm not just presenting for the audience, I'm doing it for myself, too. If I get bored with my material, how can I be excited to share it with them?I board the plane early and read until we're in the air and “approved” to use laptops. The book is pretty awful, although I don't know that yet. I'm still in the honeymoon phase of it, when the writer was putting forth a real effort. But, at 20 minutes into the flight, I grab my Dell and start turning the outlines I've emailed to Karen into presentations. I can't grab screenshots from the web, which are an essential, but I can figure out what I need on each slide, and that will save me a lot of time later on. I also have my collection of vector illustrations in Flash, including Googlebot, Yahoo! monster and crudely traced representations of people to combine with arrows and thought bubbles. These I can do on the plane.In 1997, when I started working on the web professionally (sort of), I fell in love with Flash – the animation, the sound, the unbridled, free-of-tables formatting made me a fan. For almost 4 years, I worked in Flash – building ever more complex animations and designs. Then, one day, I read Don't Make Me Think, Steve Krug's masterpiece on web usability. I haven't built a Flash website since, and the world is probably better off for it. My artistic ability suffers from a lack of... let's say talent.But Flash has served me well – the palette tools and my familiarity with the layers and systems for creating basic designs means that I can now use it as a Photoshop substitute, never having had the patience to learn that program.Later in the week, as I'm giving my hour-long session on the Essentials of Social Media Marketing, I'll marvel at how I raced through 113 slides in 50 minutes. The Guy Kawasaki, 10-20-30 philosophyjust doesn't work for me. Luckily, the audience seems to like it, too. Karen hasn't sent me my feedback scores yet, but based on the in-person chats I've had with attendees, it went pretty well. I guessed right that Danny's new SMX Social conference would draw a savvy crowd, so even though my job was to present an introduction to the material, I raced through it, tried to present it in an entertaining way, and, hopefully, educated the stragglers of the group while I was at it.After the session is over, I get to watch my co-worker Rebecca give her presentation on Linkbait. When I started speaking at search marketing conferences, I was 25 years old, and one of the youngest people in attendance, nevermind on stage. Rebecca's in a similar spot, although the crowd at SMX, both on and off the podium has plenty of early-twenties professionals. I think it's her sarcasm and her fearlessness to reference off-color and pop culture influences that helps her connect with the crowd. She's young, but she's capable, and she's got a few years of experience and a number of noteworthy success stories under her belt. I wish she could be more confident sometimes, but once she settles into the role, she performs well, and I think I'm the only one who notices that her voice is just a little bit off. Besides which, at her age, I was still designing websites in Flash for clients who paid $1,000 for a month of work.Personally, I feel like I've always been too young. At five years old, I felt a little too young to travel across the country by myself on a plane (ironically enough, taking the same route I'm taking now). At 12, I skipped a grade in school and felt too young to be with the older kids. The next year, I'd repeat the grade at a new school to help make up for it. At 18, I lived in Prague for 4 months during my freshman year at UW. I was lonely and confused and awkward, but at least I picked up some Czech and developed a lifelong love for Pilsner Urquell (which thankfully found its way to US supermarket shelves just a couple years later). At 25, standing in front of an audience of 300+ in San Jose, I felt pretty good about my presentation on search algorithms until the first person from the audience came up after the session and asked how old I was.Rebecca's wrapped up and I'm at lunch with Michael Gray. I love the way he talks – his cadence and thick Long Island accent are a prefect match for the content of his rants against Google's latest policy. I hate to run, but I have to meet with a client all afternoon. Thus, it's onto the 1 train to Chambers street, where, with the help of a brusque policeman, I find the 7 World Trade Center building, get a badge from security, and ride elevator bank D up some 3 dozen stories. I'm meeting with the publishers of Inc & FastCompany to talk about something new they've got cooking up, but when I arrive, all I can do is stare at the view.Far below, cranes and bulldozers are clearing earth, moving steel and preparing the ground for the site of what will be the tallest building in New York. Far off in the distance, my friend Kate points out the Tapanzee bridge. She tells me that as they tear down the floors of the adjacent, asbestos-afflicted building, the view becomes ever more magnificent. There's undoubtedly sadness here, but there's also the promise of something new, something incredible, something that can serve as a symbol of renewal and triumph over adversity. I think someone far wiser than me once said that America is both cursed and blessed by its short memory. I can't think of a more appropriate symbol of that sentiment that what I'm looking at now.Three hours later, I'm stepping off the 1 train and hiking back to the hotel. After a couple hours on email, I'll join some friends for dinner, where we'll bump into Garret Camp, the founder of StumbleUpon. Together, we're amicably kidnapped and carted in a cheap limousine (they're about the same price as a cab when you have this many people) to midtown, where we smoke cigars in a bar that almost throws us out for being underdressed (I'm in a suitcoat and jeans).It's after midnight when I get back to the hotel, and outside I meet up with Guillaume– my great friend from Montreal. I can tell he's upset that we haven't seen much of each other this trip (and probably won't since he's going back to Quebec the next day). Guilt is a constant at events like this – and I'm more sensitive to it than most. After all, it was only a couple years ago that I dined by myself most nights at a conference, hung out alone in the bars and hoped that someone I'd recognize would come along and chat. When I'd make a friend, I'd feel that same pang of envy when I'd see them coming back from a late night on the town with a crowd of compatriots. Luckily, Guillaume's surrounded by people, so I feel a bit better when I beg forgiveness and ride the elevator up to my room.Sleep is a constant problem for me. Unlike Danny Sullivan, I can't stay out until 3am, then arrive bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning at 8. My sleep requirements have always been high, and without 7 hours, I start to look and feel like some sort of SEO zombie, cursed to optimize SERPs and feed on brains. I'm constantly waging a battle against the blog – where I know that if I don't produce something new and something worth reading every night, I'll lose readers.It's a fact. Looking at our visit and subscription stats, you can see the pattern clear as day. If, on a given Monday-Friday morning, nothing new has come out on SEOmoz, our feed subscribers go down some fractional amount, our daily visit numbers drop 15-25% and we have fewer signups for accounts and fewer premium membership signups. Conversely, when I put something truly excellent on the blog, the positive results are equally visible. Visits are up, links are up, premium signups are up and all is right in the world.But, the toll is heavy. Most nights I'm home in Seattle, I start formulating the blog post I want to write on my walk home from work. It usually takes me about 20 minutes to traverse the 1.1 miles from my apartment to the office – a saving grace, since I almost never go to the gym or use the elliptical machine I bought last December. From 6-10:30pm, I play husband (even though technically I won't become one until next summer). Mystery Guest works out, or does laundry or watches TV (when she's had a really tough day) and I cook. I'm by no means a gourmet, but I'm competent about 70% of the time, and I push myself to try new things, work with good ingredients and generally get better at preparing food. By 11pm, though, it's back to the computer and onto the blog (once I wrap up another 40 emails). If I'm lucky I'll spit out something in an hour, and can go to sleep by 12:30am. If I'm stumped, or take on an overly ambitious post, I'll be up until 2am or later.This happens tonight in New York. I've just finished the post on the Visuals of the Search Results, but it's 2am and I have to be up at 7:30 tomorrow. Morning comes and sure enough, my eyes are dry & red – probably exacerbated by the cigar I had last night. There's no time to waste, but time gets wasted anyway as I discover my room's iron is out of order and have to call down for a new one so I can get my shirt done in time to leave. I wanted to take the subway, but am forced by tardiness to hail a cab. I'm meeting with the NY Jets organizationon 57th street to talk about their search strategy. Thankfully, the meeting is great, mostly due to the incredibly friendly and receptive people I'm meeting. After the meeting ends, I whiz back to the conference, just in time to grab a hot dog from a street vendor and make it my talk on Micro Communities.I'm on the panel with Liana Evans, and in the past, we've had our differences. However, a week before the show and after a rather painful blog post, we shared a few emails and a phone call. Talking to Liana, I realize that she's got some very valid points, and that I owe her a serious apology. She's more gracious than I could hope for, and by the time we see each other in New York, we break out in smiles and hugs. As much as I love the Internet as a medium, there's no doubt that the lack of human contact can make for bad situations sometimes. It's something I'll have to work on – especially since I'm terrible at not taking things personally.Micro Communities is a hit. From all the notes I can see the audience taking, I know that there's a lot of new information. Liana follows up my broad overview with a specific example of how she used social media marketing to micro communities and achieved great success for a client in a very competitive industry. It's the perfect counterpoint, and the audience is overrun with questions, so much so that Danny has to cut us off with a half dozen hands in the air. After the session ends, Liana and I field individual questions for the full 15 minutes. I'm thrilled when I can refer a gentlemen seeking services to Liana's company – KeyRelevance– which has been on our Recommended List since its inception.I want to stay and see the other panels, especially the advice from Jon Hochmanon Wikipedia, but I've got a prior commitment. I walk down to SoHo – about 20 blocks and buy some presents to bring home to Mystery Guest. After so many trips to New York, I'm a seasoned veteran, and after three short stops, I catch the subway up to the meat-packing district and walk back to the conference, where I'm just in time to hear the last session of the day wrap up.I spend some time chatting with Andy Greenberg from Forbes, whose demeanor is the complete opposite of every other NY reporter I've ever met. He's a pleasure to talk to – warm, engaging, utterly fascinated by social media & SEO and genuinely curious. He mentions that an article on using Digg to reach Google is almost certainly part of his agenda for the week and sure enough, 2 days later, there it is.I don't know that I've ever handled public relations and press relations properly. Every time I talk to someone in PR, they always ask about our agency and are shocked to hear that we've never engaged one. In deeper conversations, I've heard tell that PR folks can help turn a short piece into a long piece (with a photo), turn a piece of advice into a sure mention in a story and even pitch the mainstream media to help attract coverage. It's something I need to look into, as press is something we'll need if we want to reach our goals for expansion. We've been lucky so far, but it would probably be hypocritical to think that we can manage PR ourselves as well as we could with a talented agency or even a consultant. After all, what is SEO if not public relations for the web?With the conference over, I hop in a cab with my luggage and head for Museum Mile. In rush hour traffic, it's a 50 minute trip and I arrive at 92nd and 5th at 6:40, 10 minutes late for the lecture I'm attending with my grandparents. Luckily, it turns out to be the best part of the day, and maybe my favorite part of the trip. Camille Pissarro's great-grandson is speaking about the famous impressionist painter and his relationship with a contemporary and peer, Paul Cezanne.I love this. I grew up in Seattle, but would spend at least 2-3 weeks every year in New Jersey with my grandparents, and we'd frequently drive into the city to visit museums and attend plays. My family was never wealthy, but two seniors and a student (especially with my grandmother's NYTimes subscriber's card discount) was a perfect way to spend an inexpensive day in New York. Museums are great equalizers – school kids from Harlem and jewelry-clad Upper East Siders co-mingle brazenly, appreciating beauty in their own personal ways. There were certainly ages where I didn't appreciate it, but even just out of high school, I can recall loving museums, galleries and exhibitions wherever I traveled. Seattle's own dismal fine arts scene only heightened the experience.Pissarrowas born to Sephardic Jews on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas (where I believe SEOmoz's own Jane Copland still holds several swimming titles) and emigrated to France at a young age, but retained his Danish citizenship (as St. Thomas was a colony of Denmark). Our lecturer regales us with a passionate, and clearly personal, examination of how the artist's life influenced his art and its shocking break from the standards of the age. An hour and a half flies by, and I find myself wishing he had more slides to show and more stories to tell. As we leave, my grandfather, SEOmoz's Si Fishkin, fills me in on the details of the Dreyfus case (which Pissarro's great grandson mentioned but did not elaborate on), an infamous tale of antisemitism and corruption late in the artist's life.The next night, we'll see Henry VIin a playhouse at Drew University in NJ, and despite the 3 hours of patricide, fratricide and homicide, love every minute.Thus ends a week in New York. I'm only 100 emails behind and I don't have to blog tonight. Next week I've got 3 phone calls, a couple lunch meetings and a video-over-Skype interview. We've got 2 clients who need site review reports, a new contract to get out to the Jets and 3 presentations to build for SMX Stockholm. That, and we're hiring 3 new positions. To quote Rick Moranis; “No, no, no. Light speed is too slow.”Do you like this post? YesNo

  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.How People Interact with Search EnginesOne of the most important elements to building an online marketing strategy around SEO and search rankings is feeling empathy for your audience. Once you grasp how the average searcher, and more specifically, your target market, uses search, you can more effectively reach and keep those users.Search engine usage has evolved over the years, but the primary principles of conducting a search remain largely unchanged. Below, I've listed the steps that comprise most search processes:Experience the need for an answer, solution, or piece of information Formulate that need in a string of words and phrases (the query) Execute the query at a search engine Browse through the results for a match Click on a result Scan for a solution, or a link to that solution If unsatisfied, return to the search results and browse for another link OR Perform a new search with refinements to the query When this process results in the satisfactory completion of a task, a positive experience is created, both with the search engine and the site providing the information or result. Since the inception of web search, the activity  has grown to heights of great popularity, such that in December of 2005, the Pew Internet & American Life Project(PDF Study in Conjunction with ComScore) found that 90% of online men and 91% of online women used search engines. Of these, 42% of the men and 39% of the women reported using search engines every day and more than 85% of both groups say they "found the information they were looking for."When looking at the broad picture of search engine usage, fascinating data is available from a multitude of sources. I've extracted those that are recent, relevant, and valuable, not only for understanding how users search, but in presenting a compelling argument about the power of search (which I suspect many readers of this guide may need to do for their managers):An April 2006 study by iProspect & Jupiter Research (PDF) found that:62% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page of results, 90% within the first three pages. This is higher than in 2004, when 60% chose results on the first page, and much higher than 2002, when only 48% did. 41% of search engine users who continue their search when not finding what they seek report changing their search term and/or search engine if they do not find what they're looking for on the first page of results. 88% report doing so after three pages. 36% of users agreed that "seeing a company listed among the top results on a search engine makes me think that the company is a top one within its field." The November 2005 PEW Internet & ComScore Study (PDF) mentioned above revealed:On an average day, 60 million people use search engines Search engine usage rises with both education levels (27% of those without a high school diploma vs. 55% with a college or graduate degree) and income (29% of those earning less than $30,000 vs. 52% of those earning $75,000+) An August 2007 Foresee/ACSI Report for eMarketer (Link) remarked:75% of search engine & portal users were satisfied with their experiences In a breakdown by property, 79% of Yahoo! users, 78% of Google users, and 75% of both MSN & Ask.com users reported being satisfied Comscore reported in August of 2007 (Link):The number of search queries performedon the web grew 2% from 2006 to approximately 10 billion searches per month (across all engines) Google owned the lion's share of searches with 55.2%, Yahoo! had 23.5%, Microsoft had 12.3%, and Ask.com had 4.7% (AOL, which shows Google results, clocked in at 4.4%) A Yahoo! study from 2007 (Link, PDF) showed:Online advertising drives in-store sales at a 6:1 ratio to online sales Consumers in the study spent $16 offline (in stores) to every $1 spent online Webvisible & Nielsen produced a 2007 report on local search (Link) that noted:74% of respondents used search engines to find local business information vs. 65% who turned to print yellow pages, 50% who used Internet yellow pages, and 44% who used traditional newspapers 86% surveyed said they have used the Internet to find a local business, a rise from the 70% figure reported last year (2006) 80% reported researching a product or service online, then making that purchase offline from a local business A study on data leaked from AOL's search query logs (Link) reveals:The first ranking position in the search results receives 42.25% of all click-through traffic The second position receives 11.94%, the third 8.47%, the fourth 6.05%, and all others are under 5% The first ten results received 89.71% of all click-through traffic, the next 10 results (normally listed on the second page of results) received 4.37%, the third page - 2.42%, and the fifth - 1.07%. All other pages of results received less than 1% of total search traffic clicks. In addition to these statistics, research firm Enquiro conducted heatmap testing with search engine users (Link) that produced fascinating results about what users see and focus on when engaged in search activity. Below is a heatmap showing a test performed on Google. The graphic indicates that users spent the most amount of time where the colors are hottest - in the red, orange, and yellow sections of the page.This particular study perfectly illustrates how little attention is paid to results on the page vs. those higher up, and how users' eyes are drawn to bolded keywords, titles, and descriptions in the organic results vs. the paid search listings.For those who are interested, a terrific collection of additional data from studies, surveys, and white papers can be found on SELand's Stats & Behaviors page.All of this impressive research data leads us to some important conclusions about web search and marketing through search engines. In particular, we're able to make the following assumptions with relatively surety:Search is very, very popular. It reaches nearly every online American, and billions of people around the world. Being listed in the first few results is critical to visibility. Being listed at the top of the results not only provides the greatest amount of traffic, but instills trust in consumers as to the worthiness and relative importance of the company/website. An incredible amount of offline economic activity is driven by searches on the web.As marketers, the Internet as a whole and search, specifically, are undoubtedly one of the best and most important ways to reach consumers and build a business, no matter the size, reach, or focus.  I'm feeling a bit spent tonight, so despite the need for some refinement, and the fact that I should really put the search process into a visual flowchart, I'm hitting the deck. Tomorrow when I do this, I'll try to report some news as well :-)Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by rebeccaI'm working on a site review for a client, and I was checking to see how well the site was indexed across the major search engines. Normally we do a site: command and skip to the last page of results to get as accurate a count as we can; however, MSN's count is a little puzzling. When I first performed a count, it said the client's site had 180 pages indexed (it's a brand new site). Jumping to the 10th page, however, changed the count to 100, and I couldn't see any results beyond page 10. Furthermore, when I tried to go back to previous pages, the count remained at 100. What happened to 180?I'll use SEOmoz as an example. Searching for "site:seomoz.org" returns 94,500 results: Once I go beyond the 100th page of results, however, I'm automatically taken to the 100th page, where it says "Page 100 of 1,000 results":If I go back one page to 99, it changes again and says there are 94,400 results:The counts are the same regardless of whether or not I'm logged into Live Search. Why severely neuter the results after a certain page? I can understand only showing 100 pages of results, but other search engines don't cut off the pages *and* drastically alter the count after a certain page. This is all very perplexing to me, as I haven't noticed this until now. Has anyone else experienced this with MSN?Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishI've gotten a few emails asking if I'd be willing to do a blog post thread similar to Shoemoney's Ask Questions& Get Answersseries. I've actually been meaning to put this up earlier, but keep running into other posts I'd like to author.So, today, feel free to leave any questions in the comments below regarding:SEOmoz's BusinessThe WebsiteAnything to do with SEO or Internet Marketing in GeneralMy Background or Personal LifeOther mozzersI can't promise that I'll tackle every question, and I may try to request clarifications in the comments. My goal would be to close this thread sometime tomorrow night and answer the questions then, for release on Friday.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishThis morning brings news from around the web of losses to the Google Toolbar PageRank (the little green pixels displayed in the toolbar) for a myriad of sites. The best coverage I've seen comes from Andy Beard, as well as SEJournaland SELand(which has a comprehensive list of sites discussing the update).I've gone through many of the threads and tried to pull together an accounting of websites that have been "reportedly" affected by the update. Hopefully, by collecting this data, and combining it with reports in the comments, we can have a relatively comprehensive view of the landscape and make educated guesses and hypotheses as to the root causes:www.autoblog.com PR6 > PR4www.forbes.com PR7 > PR5www.engadget.com PR7 > PR5www.problogger.net PR6 > PR4www.copyblogger.com PR6 > PR4www.joystiq.com PR6 > PR4www.tuaw.com PR6 > PR4www.searchengineguide.com PR7 > PR4www.seroundtable.com PR7 > PR4www.searchenginejournal.com PR7 > PR4www.johnchow.com PR6 > PR4www.quickonlinetips.com/PR6 > PR3weblogtoolscollection.com PR6 > PR4andybeard.eu PR5 > PR3www.volodymyrzablotskyy.com PR4 > PR2daily.stanford.edu PR9 > PR5www.thecrimson.com PR8 > PR4www.statcounter.com PR9 > PR6www.washingtonpost.com PR8 > PR5www.blogherald.com PR7 > PR4www.seopedia.org PR6 > PR5weblogtoolscollection.com PR6 > PR4www.masternewmedia.org PR7 > PR4www.sfgate.com PR7 > PR5www.suntimes.com PR7 > PR5www.seo-scoop.com PR6 > PR3spap-oop.blogspot.com PR5 > PR4Onemansblog.com PR8 > PR5My personal opinion is that these losses are primarily a result of Google's continuing public relations campaign against paid linking. However, I'm certainly open to other interpretations.Please do leave comments with any sites you know of that have been affected (or information about any of the sites I've listed above that may be inaccurate). Collective data is probably one of the best ways we can assess the situation.Also - at SEOmoz, through our many tools, we have access to tens of thousands of toolbar PageRank scores for different domains. I've asked Jeff & Mel to run through those and request the new data as of today to attempt to identify the quantity of loss. We WILL NOT be exposing individual domains (unless they've already been outed elsewhere - as above), but we can provide an overall snapshot about raw percentages, etc. Jarrod Hunt noted in a comment herethat he had seen a PageRank drop across the web, not just on sites selling links, and this should be a good way to verify whether our data matches his.p.s. Please note that I'm not trying to "out" anyone for selling links. In fact, I believe there may be sites on that list that have never engaged in paid linking of any kind! I'm merely trying to document PageRank changes for collective study.p.p.s. As Duncan Riley noted on Techcrunch, the AOL-owned Weblogs, Inc. blog network appears to have been affected, while Techcrunch's blog network and rival Gawker media have not.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by Mel GrayHowdy!This is my first post and I aim to make it count, so I'll spare you a lengthy introduction. My name is Mel and I'm from Texas. I came on board at SEOmoz just shy of two months ago, and it has been nothing short of a life changing experience.I couldn't be happier working with a team of folks who don't just know what they're doing, but have a damn good time doing it.  In my short tenure here I've been given the opportunity to work with a wide variety of very cool technologies alongside some very cool people. One of those technologies is called Ferret.This varmint not only makes for a delicious roadkill quiche, but is also a heckuvagood information retrieval tool.Some of you premium members may have noticed that we silently rolled out the ability to search the Q&A archives a little over two weeks ago.  This search is powered by the aforementioned rodent, alongside another nifty little tool named Ruby(more on this in future posts). Using Ferret gives our Premium users the ability to quickly and easily search through past Q&A discussions. It even has its own query language, which is very similar to Google's syntax.Try it out for yourself - Querying for seowill return one set of results specifically about SEO, while querying for seo AND keywordswill return an entirely different set about both "seo" AND "keywords". Users also have access to other familiar search operands such as NOTand OR.We're currently working on a bagillionsuper secret projects that we'll be using to not only improve this search feature, but also other areas of the site as well.  And, speaking of other areas of the site... We've rolled out a new tool this evening!It's called the Term Target Tool!... Before anybody starts up with jokes about the south, hear me out.Even though the term target tool is still using the same ole button, under the hood it's a got a brand new engine (we had it parked up in the yard on cinder blocks and everything). We felt that "targeting terms" didn't really fit the bill as to what the old tool really did.The old tool was used mainly to "extract" terms, i.e. users would input a a url and get back a list of keywords that appear to be targeted at search engines. This is why we have rebranded it as the Term Extractor Tool(which, non-coincidently, rhymes with tractor). You can access the old tool by clicking on its shiny new button:Now that I've covered the switcharoo we've pulled, I think I should take a moment to explain what the new tool does.Have you ever wondered how your web page would perform if it had to take a midterm? We sure have! Now you can have a report card of how well your page is doing with keyword visibility. No need to feed your page "study pills" to get ahead.  Instead feed the tool your page (along with the keyword you're targeting) and you'll get a banana sticker, like the one below!You'll also be treated to a brief critique of the what, the where, and the why your page either excelled or fell behind.Things are beginning to move very fast here at the Mozplex (from breakneck to light speed).  With each new feature we roll out, our library of tools will grow exponentially.  This is why it's very important that if you happen to find a bug or problem with any of the new stuff, you report it to our development team via sitesupport@seomoz.orgI'm looking forward to doing some really cool stuff here in the future and even taking the time to explain how we're doing it.  As of now, I'm still living in the present, so I have to get back to work on making that future happen.  If anybody has any questions or comments between now and then, by all means, let us know :)UPDATE: Thanks to all our astute readers who pointed out some areas of the term targeting that needed some polishing.  We have just rolled out a number of bug fixes and are now grading on a curve ;)  If anyone runs into any other problems or has anything constructive to offer, please let us know.  -MelDo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishThis week, along with the Whiteboard Friday video, I've also included a pair of informative and hopefully, entertaining, charts. The video discusses why some companies in more conservative sectors or with more traditional ideas about marketing and PR shy away from social media and blog engagement, despite the many benefits those arenas can bring. It's a critique we hear not only from clients, but also at conferences and over the web, as SEO firms offering SMM find themselves pitching to un-receptive ears.  In the video, I reference a study that Malcolm Gladwell covered on recognizing emotion through facial expression. It's a great read if you've got the time (he also covered it in his book, Blink). And below are the two charts - first, one that displays the relationship between tact and courage over various methods of communication:And, next, the chart showing the scatterplots of validity/accuracy of information online and offline:Obviously, there are exception to both of the rules presented by these charts, and I'm drawing very general conclusions.Quick note- tomorrow I'm leaving for SMX Stockholm with Mystery Guest. Hope to see many of you there - look for more contributions to the blog and Whiteboard Friday from other mozzers in my absence.p.s.For those who might not be familiar, the gentleman on the far extreme for Validity/Accuracy of Material is Edward R. Murrow. Awards for journalistic integrity and quality now carry his name.UPDATE:Scott left this comment below which I believe provides incredible insight about the value of this material:I agree in general with what Rand is saying in this video/post and always find the phenomenon quite spectacular as it's quite the opposite of what would 'make sense' in terms of communication (especially business/reputation related communication). People seem to have the least tact and the highest degree of bravado (attitude?) and confrontation in the leastephemeral media: email and comments/posts.  If you communicate something controversial or offensive in face-to-face or phone conversation (wiretaps not withstanding) any recitation of your statements can be embellished, sure, but they also can't be proven or easily distributed. Electronic communication, on the other hand, provides an easily disseminable means to  prove your statements as well as a permanent (possibly public) record of what you've said and your tact/style/attitude in how you've chosen to engage a conflict, question or other interaction.My point? This video points out something valuable not just for pitching clients. Be mindful of the persona you create through your own social media interactions. People who've never met you (but may, including clients) have no other basis on which to judge you and, in lieu of actions, your words can speak very loudly and be difficult to deny or retract. Do note that the graphs above are meant to illustrate an opinion (see our disclaimer), not show actual data or facts.Do you like this post? YesNo