Google Eats Their Organic Search Results

"The future is already here ? it's just not very evenly distributed." - William Gibson

Not only do they monetize via AdWords, but Google has 6 listings in the "organic" search results.

Any Google search engineer care to have a public debate as to the legitimacy of that search result set?

If an SEO gets half of the search results (for anything other than his own brand) he is an overt spammer. If Google eats half of the search results with duplicating nepotism across their own house "brands" then it is legitimate.

Making the above even worse, smaller niche brands are regularly disappeared from Google's index. Google has the ability to redirect search intent to one that is easier to monetize & more along a path they approve of. I was searching for a post John Andrews (webmaster of johnon.com) wrote about Google censorship & what did Google do? They used their power over the dictionary to change the words I searched for on the fly & then promoted their ebooks offering yet again.

Note that listings 1 & 2 promote the exact same book. Google just lists the content they scraped into multiple categories that deserve to be showcased multiple times. How many ways did Google screw up the above search result?

• they auto-corrected the search query to an unwanted alternate search
• in spite of auto-correction, they still allowed their other verticals to be inserted in the results inline right near the top (when rare longtail searches are auto-corrected, one would expect them to be more adverse to embedding such an aggressive self-promotion in the search results)
• they associate content hosted by them as being about their brand simply because they host it (even though that piece of content has no relation to them outside of them scraping it)
• they list it not once but twice, right at the top of the results (even though it is duplicate content available elsewhere & both pages are the same on Google, with the exception of one promoting a recent version of the book & the other page promoting a decade older version of the exact same book)

As a publisher you are *required* to keep spending more money on deeper editorial to avoid being labeled as spam or tripping some arbitrary "algorithmic" threshold. And as you do so, Google is humping you from the backside to ensure your profit margins stay low, scraping whatever they can within the limits of the law & operating the types of websites that would be considered spam if anyone else ran them. Once regulatory pressures or public opinion catch on to Google's parasitic behavior, they buy a brand & leverage its content to legitimize their (often) illegitimate enterprise. :)

Oh, and how about a quote from the Censored Screams book: "censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but, unlike charity, it should end there.?"

Categories: 

google

Source: http://www.seobook.com/google-eats-their-organic-search-results

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Street View hits the stunning Swiss Alps railways

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/ZNK9exKVWzU/street-view-hits-stunning-swiss-alps.html

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What is Killing AOL & Yahoo!?

The Big Portals Can't Grow Ad Revenues

In spite of the transitioning of print Dollars to digital dimes for print media, TV advertising remains healthy and robust. Much like the decline of print media, the flow of brand ad Dollars online is skipping over even some of the largest players, leaving them out of the growth from the shift to online media.

While Yahoo! is still a leader in many categories they are struggling to sell their ad inventory directly & are selling more of it as backfill/remnant inventory. This issue has also hit AOL pretty hard. In spite of acquiring Huffington Post & being willing to sell ads at a bogus $1000 CPM, they are still losing money and their ad revenues were only up marginally.

The Stock Market Values Big Portals at Next to Nothing

Some of the bigger portals are hoping that TV-styled web ratings will lift their ad sales, but I am skeptical & so is the market. AOL's stock was down about 50% over the past month before the recent rally (and half of what was left was cash on the books). Part of AOL's recent stock price recovery is from them announcing a stock buy back. Yahoo! is basically valued at $0 when you back out their cash on hand & investments in foreign assets.

Why Can't the Portals Grow?

Part of the lack of growth in ad budgets for the large portals comes down to hype around mobile (which is now ~ 12% of search ad clicks), Facebook & social media. The brand ad Dollars that are being spent to "look cool" are riding the new fads & trends.

Riding the social hype, now even AdWords ads have a social element to them.

Three other big issues that are impacting the portals (discussed further below) are ad retargeting, custom integrated media buys, and the mixing of traffic quality.

As a baseline to consider how significantly these trends are impacting the big portals are, consider that...

• Demand Media's eHow was hit by Panda
• eHow removed 300,000 pages

... yet their quarterly traffic was roughly flat compared to Q1 & revenue was up 32% year over year. In spite of having a search-first distribution strategy, getting hammered by Panda, and removing tons of content, Demand Media is still growing far faster than AOL or Yahoo! are. Thus it is no wonder that Yahoo! & AOL are not highly valued by the investment community.

1. Ad Retargeting

Between contextual ad targeting & ad retargeting advertisers have many options to reach their audience without paying premium ad inventory rates to show up where they are less relevant.

At first I thought ad retargeting would lift CPMs as another ad channel to compete for inventory. For smaller sites about knitting or celebrity gossip it probably does, but for "premium" media that is way overpriced, it does the opposite. At first this hit some of the sorta b-list sites but not the big portals, then over time that trend grew and it eventually even consumed the big portals.

Google took ad retargeting mainstream. At first advertisers bid artificially high for this traffic, based on its perceived value, but since these advertisers were largely only competing/bidding against themselves & these ads can appear anywhere, many have now figured out that they can significantly cut their bids & still get plenty of exposure.

Some ecommerce websites not only do ad retargeting to people who visited their website, but some go so far as to target the individual products you looked at or put in your cart. You may not notice the trend if you are shopping for things you purchase (as a reflection of our identity we generally tend to perceive the things we like as being normal & as being more widely popular than they are), but if you shop for something out of the blue then the ads that follow you are far more noticeable.

Sometimes I buy a gag gift to give away before the real gift so as to sorta mis-set expectations & see a range of responses. :)

When I was buying a 4th anniversary gift for my wife, while shopping online I joked with a friend about how ugly & over-the-top some of the Zales items were. Those items then started to follow me around the web in banner ads!

What is more valuable than seeing a person putting an item in a shopping cart is seeing the actual items a person has already purchased. Amazon suggests related products on their web pages, sends personalized "you might like" email recommendations, and is leveraging their data to build a distributed ad network:

Amazon will now use its huge supply of data to pool consumers into buckets based on the products they looked at or purchased on the retailer's website. The company will help advertisers reach these consumers with targeted media, using behaviorally targeted display ads to drive them to
any URL.

There are many other technologies & business models built off of retargeting: some businesses try to rent a pixel on 3rd party websites, some analytics services respawn cookies, Akamai's CDN offers pixel-free tracking, Facebook's like button collects data even if you do not click on it, and 3rd party social media "add to" buttons collect & sell similar data.

The shift to mobile will only further improve ad retargeting. Digital receipts are becoming more popular and Eric Schmidt wants to be in your pants.

2. Integrated Media Buys

WebMD

WebMD has sponsored sections where you go from information to self-quiz right into integrated custom ad channels tied directly to the disease.

Blog Sponsorship

Pay Per Post sort of took the low road in their marketing approach with getting exposure on blogs. ReviewMe (which I co-founded & sold my share in many years ago) intended to take a somewhat higher road, but perhaps didn't attract as much brand attention as we had hoped for, at least not initially.

More recently many of the online blogging communities have become custom ad networks. Want to reach moms? P&G did a deal with BlogHer & it was popular enough that there are blog posts and videos about it.

YouTube

Shortly after watching a Youtube video about sugar and insulin I soon saw the following YouTube experience, with an ad over a video & another related ad unit off to the right

Taking the "be the content rather than the ad unit" one step further, YouTube has done custom ads for Nintendo, where the entire Youtube website interface reflected the game.

Tipp-Ex also had a popular viral YouTube ad.

Google's Nikesh Arora gave a speech where he mentioned that WillItBlend blends in product placements for $5,000.

3. Watering Down of Network Quality

Some of the ad networks backfill with scam "inventory" (like Yahoo! Search or Looksmart were famous for doing with "search" ads).

That mixing in of slop traffic only further drives down network pricing, but that only becomes such a big issue because of the other above changes. Part of why the fraudulent "inventory" on ad "networks" is appealing is that there is likely a far higher markup by the ad agency than there is when buying premium ad inventory.

"We just got u 34 trillion ad impressions...and these are 1/5th the cost of the other ones" sounds efficient & appealing. They can mystery meat up the margin a lot higher on the junk than they can on the premium & they can mix in enough ad retargeting into the aggregate buy so you don't know where the performance came from, but it looks ok in aggregate (so long as you don't look any deeper).

This is no different than email co-registration & incentivized leads being mixed in with quality SEO & PPC driven leads. Backfill with junk to increase volume, but mix in enough of the good stuff to keep the aggregate performance high enough to still make it worth doing, all the while arbitraging the value of existing brand strength & the additional yield from retargeting.

4. Search Engines as Stealth Web Portals

Want local? Use Google Places. Want video? Watch Google's YouTube. Looking to buy something? See the item listings in the search results. Need a stock quote? Its right in the search results.

A lot of the general purpose generic traffic that helped subsidize the large portals is now being ate by search engines like Google & Bing that are putting more data directly into the search results. This trend is even more significant than it appears on the surface when you consider investments in 3rd party companies that are arbitraging the search results (like Whaleshark Media), the inclusion of custom ad formats & lead generation funnels in the search results, and tests of vertical refinements currently being built out (in travel, deals, games and social networks like Google+).

5. The Next Big Issue? Author Identity & Retaining Talent

Services like Klout aim to create a currency out of a person's influence, which helps advertisers figure out who they should pitch.

Google's weighting on domain authority to some degree locks authors into their current jobs by making it hard for a new site to build up the initial momentum needed to become profitable. Google has implemented rel=author as a way to experiment with creating an author ranking system. If they are successful with it (and share author ratings publicly) that will give the most successful individual authors more leverage over the networks they write for, which in turn would only further weaken the big broad portals by making it easier for authors to jump ship and do their own thing.

As online advertising technology continues to advance, on the next leg down a lot of the of the big media companies will see talent flea. They saw what was coming, but couldn't change.

"They [AOL] absolutely have some core assets, but I think you would have a hard time finding someone who would describe them as a 'must buy,'" says Craig Atkinson, chief digital officer at PHD, the media-buying unit owned by Omnicom Group Inc. - source

Categories: 

internet

Source: http://www.seobook.com/what-killing-aol-yahoo

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Online Media Buyer / SureClick, LLC / Washington, DC

SureClick, LLC/Washington, DC (Virtual)

Online Media Buyer (Direct Response Marketing)
SureClick, LLC

Do you have what it takes to develop and direct results-driven marketing campaigns? Are you goal oriented and experienced in online marketing? Do you set high expectations and engage tough problems head on? Do you possess excellent client relationship and analytical skills? Do you enjoy continuous development and refinement of marketplace knowledge and online dynamics? Do you continually help clients realize greater value from their online marketing campaigns? Do you have the experience to innovate and lead new marketing approaches and techniques that work cross-functionally with technology? Are you a creative problem solver? Do you have a �??can do�? attitude? Are you looking to play a key role in building a business that is committed to its people, partners and clients?

If you are an experienced Online Media Buyer and answered yes to these questions then we are interested in having you join the team. You will work directly with Account Managers and Management of SureClick. Founded in 2000, we provide pay-for-performance Internet marketing campaigns to clients nationwide. Focused on national brands with a direct response focus we provide a total outsourced solution for clients with large campaign management needs. We focus on building lasting profitable relationships through a referable client experience that achieves predictable, transformational campaigns.

The Opportunity
SureClick is actively recruiting for an Online Media Buyer. Reporting directly to the company's executive team, the Media Buyer will be responsible driver in developing our performance-based media buys. Through leveraging our high volume of targeted in-market consumers, you will set up campaigns on consumer-based brands in the health verticals. This position is 100% ROI-focused and metrics-driven

The Media Buyer will have a distinguished track-record of prior vendor relationships that can be leveraged from the outset of her/his employment. The media buyer will have a firm grasp of SureClick's service offerings and be driven by performance-related metrics.

The Media Buyer will enhance SureClick's commitment to exceeding partner expectations and fostering profitable media buys that consistently meet or surpass its marketing goals. As the SureClick executive for Media, the Media Buyer will accomplish this by optimizing existing campaigns, anticipating vertical needs, and innovating new solutions that maximize both vendor and SureClick ROI.



Key Responsibilities (other duties may be assigned, as needed):

* Own all aspects of online media buying , including financial management for all campaigns, partner relationship management The media buyer represents SureClick's senior management on a day-to-day basis with the partners and within SureClick.
* Helping to drive SureClick's online media buying and customer acquisition strategy by developing and managing profitable buys for multiple internal brands and advertisers
* Managing the creation and execution of campaigns that exceed business goals
* Driving and optimizing key traffic and revenue metrics - including CTR and conversions - through targeting and creative optimization
* Prospecting for new publisher and media buying opportunities
* Managing CPM, CPL, CPA, CPC, Social Media, SMS and CPV campaigns, and in addition reviewing backend performance to ensure specific eCPA and profitability goals are being met
* Developing strong relationships with current and new publishers to continually test and optimize campaigns
* Having the desire to constantly learn and expand your knowledge from leading minds in the online marketing world!
* And other

Desired Experience & Qualifications:
* Bachelor's Degree
* A minimum 5 years' demonstrated success in performance-based online media buying
* 2+ years of lead generation
* Strong analytical abilities
* A self-starter who thrives under pressure in a fast-paced, changing environment
* A passion for media buying and online marketing, pride in your work and a drive to succeed
* Must be an exceptional communicator, an excellent negotiator, a good listener and leader who can quickly grasp the essence of a partner's challenges and understand its market opportunities.
* Bright, dynamic and articulate, with excellent written and verbal communication skills, he/she will have the presence and confidence to influence decision-makers at executive management levels.
* Experience at managing a large advertising budget
* Demonstrated success in managing high-volume media buys for consumer audiences
* Exceptionally-detailed knowledge of metrics, ROI analysis
* Expert knowledge of top display, retargeting, and online media publishers, networks
* Highly motivated and resourceful individual who can consistently innovate creative solutions
* A leader that understands how to drive team results and work effectively in a fast paced, evolving organization
* Able to receive and assimilate feedback on many fronts; capable of changing direction often and with ease
* Consistently organized with extreme attention to detail



SureClick's compensation and benefits packages are industry-competitive; specifics will be based on candidate experience and expertise.

Company Background
SureClick, LLC has quickly become an industry leader by creating innovative, scalable, pay-for-performance programs that dramatically reduce our clients' customer acquisition costs and deliver ROI instantly. Our direct marketing focus allows us to create imaginative, creative designs that help our clients achieve their marketing goals.
SureClick specializes in harnessing our marketing, design, and technological expertise to generate leads and revenue for our clients by creating innovative, scalable, pay-for-performance marketing programs that deliver real results and measurable return on investment.

Company Purpose and Core Values
SureClick's Purpose:
TO SERVE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE

SureClick is built upon a set of Core Values:
* We are INTERESTED and CONSISTENT in all that we do. We create experiences that result in meaningful relationships.
* We have a POSITIVE �??CAN DO�? attitude. We face challenges head-on and understand that everything is possible.
* We embrace CHANGE for results and realize that for things to change first I must change.
* We are REFERABLE. Our actions and words support the referability habits in our daily lives.


Apply To Job

Source: http://jobs.searchenginejournal.com/job/online-media-buyer-washington-dc-virtual-sureclick-llc-9fb85efa67/?d=1&source=rss_page

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Google+ Doorway Pages / Scraper Site

Another friend sent me a message today: "just got a whole swathe of non-interlinked microsites torched today. Bastard! Just watching the rank reports coming in..."

I haven't seen his sites, but based on how he described them "whole swathe" I wouldn't guess the quality to be super high. One thing you could say for them was that they were unique.

Where putting in the effort to create original content falls flat on its face is when search engines chose to outrank aggregators (or later copies) over the original source. The issue has got so out of hand that Google has come right out & asked for help with it.

The big issue is that Google is often the culprit. Either indirectly through their ads programs & algorithmic biases or more directly through the launch of new features.

When Google launched Knol I was quick to flame them after I saw them ranking recycled content on Knol ahead of the original source. The Knol even highlighted similar works, showing that Google allowed Knol to outrank earlier sources of the same work.

In a recent WebmasterWorld thread Brett Tabke stated that Google is putting serious weight on Google+:

Some Google+ SEO factors now trump linking as prime algo ingredient. Google+ is already and clearly influencing rankings. I watched a presentation last night that definitely showed that rankings can occur from Google+ postings and photo's with no other means of support.

As Google+ grows - so will Google's understanding of how to use it as rankings signals.

We are not playing Google+ because we want too - we are playing Google+ because we have to.

I read that sorta half hoping he was wrong, but know he rarely is.

And then today Google hit me across the head with a 2x4, proving he was right again.

Business Insider is not some small niche site that Google can justify accidentally deleting from the web with 2 clicks of a mouse, yet when I was doing a *navigational* search, trying to find a piece of their content I had already read, guess what popped up in the search results.

Yup. Google+

What's worse is that isn't from a friend, isn't from the original source, is the full article wholesale, from Google Reader, and the source URL has Google's feedproxy in it.

If Google wants to add value to the ecosystem & insert themselves as a new layer of value then how can we do anything but welcome it. However, when they want to take 3rd party content & "wrap it in Google" it is absolutely unacceptable for them to outrank the original source with their copy of it, even if they feel the deserve to outrank it & have made multiple copies of it.

On large complex system I get that some advice will be self-serving and progress often comes with bumps and bruises.

But Google's dominance in search coupled with their dominance in display (from owning DoubleClick & YouTube) has led competing portals to team up to try to compete against Google with display ads.

And, if the big portals are struggling that much, then at the individual publisher level, how do you profitably produce content when Google takes your content & ranks their copy ahead of yours?

Categories: 

google

Source: http://www.seobook.com/the-doors

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Celebrities Killed The SEO Star

As the co-founder of an SEO Consultancy, my biggest hurdle in business is finding more staff. Clients are lining up at our door, we have no trouble there, it's finding the staff to work with them that becomes the issue. This may not sound like the worst dilemma for a business to face, especially during the current global economic decline, but the causation is a matter of great concern to me as both an SEO and a businessman.

Ayima's company structure is such that only highly skilled SEOs make it through to our interview stage and yet even then, less than 5% meet our skill requirements. This isn't me being picky, misjudging characters or sourcing bad candidates - this is a knowledge pandemic that is spreading through our industry. We've started apprenticeship programs to teach eager candidates from the ground up, but this can take several years to generate the finished article.

After looking back at our past 30 interview candidates, my opinion for the reason behind this issue may not be a popular one. I believe that celebrity SEOs, brands and blogs are feeding a generation of untested and poorly trained search marketers, who pass themselves off as SEO experts. I will of course explain my positioning?

The Pander Update

Some high profile SEO bloggers recently ceased client work and personal projects, in order to appear impartial and trustworthy to their community. This makes sense at first, after-all, who wants to use a link building tool operated by someone working for one of your client's competitors? It does however bring to light 2 much larger issues;

1) a reliance on tertiary information for SEO analysis, and
2) a reliance on search engineers to provide fresh and exclusive information/data.

Some SEO information sites may argue that they have access to the Web Analytics accounts of their partners and that they do study index changes, but nothing replaces the value of following a handful of websites every single day of the year. An absence of "boots on the ground" leads to misinformation and a distancing from the SEO practices and concerns that really matter. This in turn results in an information churn which newbies to the industry naturally perceive as important.

Moving away from servicing clients or running in-house/affiliate projects also causes a financial flux. Revenue no longer relies on problem solving, but on juicy search engine spoilers and interviews. Search Engines are businesses too though and it's in their best interest to only reward and recommend the publishers/communities that tow their line. A once edgy and eager SEO consultancy must therefore transition into a best practice, almost vanilla, publisher in order to pander to the whims of over-eager search reps.

How do we expect the next generation of SEO consultants to analyse a website and its industry competitors, when all they've read about is how evil paid links are and how to tweak Google Analytics?

I could directly link the viewpoints and understandings of some recent SEO candidates back to a single SEO community, word for word. They would be horrified to see the kind of broken and malformed SEOs that their community has produced.

OMG, Check Out My Klout

It's true that social media metrics will become important factors for SEO in the future, but this certainly does not negate the need for a solid technical understanding of SEO. Getting 50 retweets and 20 +1's for a cute cat viral is the work of a 12 year old schoolgirl, not an SEO. If you can't understand the HTML mark-up of a page and how on-page elements influence a search engine, pick up a HTML/SEO book from 2001 and get reading. If you don't know how to optimise site structure and internal linking, read a book on how the web works or even a "UNIX for Dummies" manual. If you're unable to completely map out a competitor website's linking practices, placement and sources, set up a test site and start finding out how people buy/sell/barter/blag/bate for links.

You may be thinking at this point, "Rob, I already know this - why are you telling me?". Well, the sad fact is that many SEOs, with several years of experience at major and minor agencies, fail to show any understanding of these basic SEO building blocks. There are SEOs who can't identify the H1 on a page and that seriously consider "Wordle" and "Link Diagnosis" as business-class SEO tools. It used to be the case that candidates would read Aaron Wall's SEO Book or Dan Thies' big fat Search Engine Marketing Kit from cover-to-cover before even contemplating applying for an entry level SEO role. These days, major agencies are hiring people who simply say that "Content is King" and "Paid Links are Evil", they have at least 50 Twitter followers of course.

"Certified SEO" is NOT the answer

In most other professional industries, the answer would be simple - regulate and certify. This simply does not work for SEO though. I die a little, each time I see a "Certified SEO" proclamation on a r�sum�, with their examining board consisting of a dusty old SEO company, online questionnaire or a snake-oil salesman. A complete SEO knowledgebase cannot be taught or controlled by a single company or organisation. No one in their right mind would use Google's guide to SEO as their only source of knowledge for instance, just as no self-respecting Paid Search padawan would allow Google to set-up their PPC campaigns. Google's only interest is Google, not you. Popular SEO communities and training providers have their own agendas and opinions too.

I do however concede that some learning should be standardised, such as scientifically proven or verified ranking factors. Just the facts, no opinions, persuasions or ethical stances.

My Plea To You, The Industry

I plea to you, my fellow SEOs, to help fix this mess that we're in. Mentor young marketers, but let them make up their own minds. Put pressure on SEO communities to concentrate on facts/data and not to be scared by controversy or those with hidden agendas. Promote apprenticeship schemes in your company, so that SEOs learn on the job and not via a website. Encourage people to test ideas, rather than blindly believing the SEO teachings of industry celebs and strangers.

An experienced SEO with, what I perceive to be basic skills, isn't too much to ask for is it?

Categories: 

internet

Source: http://www.seobook.com/celebrities-killed-seo-star

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How to Communicate in Twitterbites For Re/Tweet-Friendly Blog Posts

by Stoney deGeyter

Social media has changed the way we work, think and communicate. It must also, therefore, change the way we write.

Throughout history, communication has evolved. Common vocabulary has gone from "thou" to "you" to "u", and in some cases, to "fu!"

Once common words change spelling, meaning and even become obsolete. (Anyone remember wearing "slacks"?) New is the new old.

Soundbites have become essential to anyone wanting to make a point. If it can't be said in nine seconds, you're SOL!

I think it's policy that no policy is good policy unless it can fit on a bumper sticker.

Paragraphs in old books sometimes go on for pages. Paragraphs today are usually no more than a few sentences.

Even long chapters appear too difficult for our quick-takeaway minds to absorb. Why else would Dan Brown be so popular?

We've been spoiled by social media. Some might use a different word. #ruined

In the internet age, we have to look beyond the 9 second soundbite and start thinking in 140 character twitterbites.

We must communicate in standalone points. Anything more than 140 characters can't be tweeted. (120 for retweets.)

If your point is tied to larger concepts that can't be quickly summarized, it's difficult to get it socialized.

We have to write--and often even speak--in a way that allows our thoughts to be socialized as easily as possible.

Instead of just getting your post title tweeted by a few, isn't it better to get your point retweeted by many?

Tweeting a post title is cool and all, but if you can make your point in a tweet, well, you made your point.

Post titles say, "This might interest you." Twitterbites say "Here's a good point."

Twitterbites pass your "authority" without someone having to be read (or scan) your entire blog post.

Do twitterbites prevent clicks? No more than free SEO advice loses clients. Sounds good in theory but doesn't pan out.

You don't have to blog in exact twitterbites, but the more you provide, the greater opportunity for re/tweets.

The more re/tweets your twitterbite gets, the greater the exposure, and more your authority builds. #allgood

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Source: http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/how-to-communicate-in-twitterbites-for-r.php

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