In the midst of choosing an SEO vendor to advise or implement search engine optimization for you? Don’t base your decision on just a ‘gut feel’. Effectively separating the wheat from the chaff requires that objective rather than subjective criteria be used. These include:
- PageRank scores
Review PageRank scores of your candidate SEO firms’ home pages and their clients’ home pages. PageRank is Google’s scoring system for importance; it’s logarithmic like a Richter scale. Check PageRanks with the Google Toolbar. If you don’t have the Google toolbar installed on your browser, it’s probably easier just to use the free service at http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-lookup/. Probably more enlightening however is to use the Google Directory to check PageRanks, because then you can see where they sit in comparison to a bunch of competitors in that same category, since the sites on each category page are listed in order of PageRank score. To do so, go to http://directory.google.com and type in the name of the business into the search box (e.g. “Netconcepts”), then when you find its listing in the search results, click on the category name (e.g. “Computers > Internet > … > Designers > Full Service > N”). Look for that company’s listing on that category page. Hopefully it’s near the top, and hopefully the little green bar in the left column is more green than gray.
- Rankings
Get a list of keywords from the SEO firm that they consider important to their business. Get a list of keywords from them that are important to their clients too. Check where they rank in Google for those keywords. If you have time, check rankings in Yahoo too (Yahoo has 32% market share, Google has 45%). Then, and here’s the important bit: check how popular those keywords are with searchers, using the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool at http://inventory.overture.com (or better yet, on WordTracker.com if you have a paid subscription to it). If the keyword is searched on infrequently, then a high ranking for that keyword is not so impressive.
- Evidence of thought leadership
Everyone claims to be a thought leader. A true thought leader, however, demonstrates this through such things as:
- known reputation in that topic area by other thought leaders you know and trust
- number of published articles written in that topic area
- the caliber of those articles
- number of conference presentations given in that topic area
- the caliber of those presentations
- number of books written that adequately cover that topic area
- the caliber of those books
- the extent to which they are quoted in the media in that topic area
- a well-read, well-linked, and oft-quoted blog (web log)
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A couple months ago I shared one of my Google secrets, since that secret no longer worked. 
Specifically, it was how to obtain a list of the most important web sites according to Google.
Now, surprisingly, this little trick appears to work again (it stopped working in 2003), thanks to a bug introduced into Google’s algorithm. Two months ago, a search for http would have revealed results like HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol Overview and Welcome! - The Apache HTTP Server Project. Today, these sites appear nowhere near the top of the results. Instead, the top results are occupied by a “who’s who” list of highly important web sites — sites that don’t include the word http anywhere in the text of the page.
As already noted by blogger Nathan Weinberg, this same phenonemon occurs when you search for www.
One thing I found curious is that http and www Google queries return different results. Now these results are NOT in order of PageRank score, at least not the PageRank scores as revealed by the Google Toolbar. You can verify this to be the case yourself simply by using SEO Chat’s PageRank Search tool. Indeed, it’s a well-known fact within the SEO community that the PageRank scores served up by the Google Toolbar servers are not the actual PageRanks used by Google in the ranking algorithm. PageRank debate aside, perhaps this list offers us a (now) rare glimpse at some of Google’s Chosen Ones — the most important sites on the Internet according to Google.
What makes me say this is due to a bug in Google? For one thing, these results are NOT relevant to the search query. Secondly, I’ve uncovered another bug newly introduced into Google’s algorithm, namely that the inurl: query operator does not work properly, and I think these two bugs might be related. For an example of this second bug in action, search Google for site:blogs.msdn.com scoble inurl:msnsearch and the top search result is currently blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/archive/2004/11/10/255417.aspx. Note there’s no msnsearch in that URL!
I’ve compiled a list the top 1000 results for each of the two queries for your convenience. You’ll see, they do vary quite dramatically:
(more…)
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US telecommunications giant Verizon already has 5 million pages in Google and 7 million pages in Yahoo! but Netconcepts President Stephan Spencer says there is room for improvement. It is all about making sure every page is indexed by the search engines as his company devotes six team members to the job.
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It seems a small tick-box is causing a few ructions in the world of Google Desktop. Which tick box you may ask? The one where Google Desktop, by default, indexes secure web pages.
This ‘feature’ of Google Desktop results in GD indexing and caching secure files such as internet banking pages and web-based email pages that are viewed by the user. The index isn’t providing the passwords to access these, but the pages viewed by the user once the password prompt is passed.
These cached files have previously been somewhat buried in windows, but with them easily available to GD there are obvious security concerns. For example, try a search for ‘compose’ on Google Desktop if you have used web-based email recently and you may be surprised at what GD indexes and caches.
While the tech news sites argue over whether this is or isn’t a security threat, it’s clear Google overlooked an obvious user concern when they left that GD option on by default.
It makes one wonder what secrets may be buried deep in the Google web index, just waiting for some intrepid searcher to discover!
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Verizon’s Superpages.com may be #1 in the search engines for online shopping, but Netconcepts feels there is room for improvement. The company has scored a deal with the US telecommunications giant to improve its rankings in the search engines.
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MarketingProfs virtual seminar series — online (webcast)
Imagine an online ad that costs you nothing per impression, guarantees both a local and worldwide audience actively seeking your products and services, and offers 6 times the click-through rate of a banner ad… a search engine listing.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the ultimate targeted, low cost and high return weapon in the e-marketer’s promotional arsenal.
Learn how to maximize your reach through the “organic” (unpaid) results in the search engines:
- Which search engines to target
- Keyword research tools and tactics
- Writing copy that “sings” to the search engines
- Benchmarking against your competitors
- Link building strategies that work
- Optimal search engine architecture
- Best practices to emulate
- Scams exposed
- Case studies - including the “inside scoop” on what worked and what didn’t
- Making your e-commerce or database-driven site “search engine friendly”
- Measuring the return on your search engine marketing investment
- Developing a search engine marketing plan
- Criteria for selecting a search engine marketing agency
- Online tools and resources
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Links are important to Google, Yahoo and MSN in determining where your site is placed within the search results. The more links, the better you will do.
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There is a tactic called Google bombing whereby linking to a site with particular words in the link text can get a site highly ranked for those keywords in the search engines, including Google, Yahoo! and MSN. One of the most famous Google bombs was George W. Bush’s biography page …
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“We felt that Netconcepts’ understanding of search engine rankings would give Superpages.com a distinct advantage over other online directories.”
“My job is to make my boss look good, and when SecureWorks hired Netconcepts for SEO I expected them to make me look good - and they definitely did.”
