SEO Blogs

Last Friday it seemed like the whole blogosphere was abuzz with the news that Google unveiled its new Google Sitemaps service, a free inclusion service where you publish an XML file of your site pages to Google so its spider can get a better sense of what to crawl of your site. This is good news, especially for dynamic sites that aren’t getting fully indexed. I appreciate Google once again showing its thought leadership. Not only is Google giving webmasters a new way to relay information about their site structure information to its spiders, but it’s sharing this new technology with the other search engines by releasing the protocol and code as open source.

This all sounds wonderful, but there are 2 quite major problems with Google’s approach.

• First, it doesn’t solve the duplicate pages problem that a great many dynamic sites have. Even the Google Store suffers from this (which I blogged about previously but here’s a more recent example of a Google Store product page being duplicated times in Google’s index). The Google Sitemaps protocol does not provide a way for webmasters to convey which pages are duplicates of other pages. A site that gets crawled incorrectly by Googlebot, due to superfluous or non-essential parameters/flags being included in the URLs of links on the pages, will continue to get crawled incorrectly. An “Official Google Sitemaps Team Member” states that the sitemap XML file will merely augment their crawl, it won’t replace existing pages in the index:
  

  This program is a complement to, not a replacement of, the regular crawl. The benefit of Sitemaps is two fold:
  – For links we already know about thro our regular spidering, we plan to use the metadata you supply (e.g., lastmod date, changefreq, etc.) to improve how we crawl your site.
  – For the links we dont know about, we plan to use the additional links you supply, to increase our crawl coverage.

  The high-level Google engineer who goes by GoogleGuy in the online forums explains Google Sitemaps in this way:

  Imagine if you have pages A, B, and C on your site. We find pages A and B through our normal web crawl of your links. Then you build a sitemap and list the pages B and C. Now there’s a chance (but not a promise) that we’ll crawl page C. We won’t drop page A just because you didn’t list it in your sitemap. And just because you listed a page that we didn’t know about doesn’t guarantee that we’ll crawl it. But if for some reason we didn’t see any links to C, or maybe we knew about page C but the url was rejected for having too many parameters or some other reason, now there’s a chance that we’ll crawl that page C.

  So, the way I read GoogleGuy’s explanation, if pages A and C are essentially duplicates of each other, with A containing an additional superfluous parameter in its URL (like sortby=default or lang=english), then BOTH could end up in Google’s index. Thus, Google Sitemaps won’t reduce the amount of duplication in Google’s index; in fact, I believe it will increase it.

  Duplicate pages, on its own, may not sound like a problem for webmasters as much as it is for Google itself, which has to dedicate additional resources to maintain all this redundant content in its index. However, it does have serious implications for webmasters, because it results in PageRank dilution ?Į where multiple versions of a page split up the “votes” (links) and PageRank score that a single version of the page would aggregate.

• This brings me to the second, related problem with Google Sitemaps: it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the phenomenon of PageRank dilution. PageRank dilution results in lower PageRank, which in turn results in lower rankings. For example, consider that the above-mentioned Google Store’s product page (the “Black is Back T-Shirt”) is in Google’s index 5 times instead of just once. So each of those 5 variations earns only a fraction of the total potential PageRank score that it could have earned if all the links pointed to a single “Black is Back T-Shirt” page.Google Sitemaps needs to provide a way to convey, or to sync up with, the site’s hierarchical internal linking structure, so that it’s clear which pages should get how much of a share of the PageRank flowing into the site’s home page. Since the primary holder of PageRank score is the home page (that is, after all, the page that most everyone links to), it’s up to the site’s internal hierarchical linking structure to pass the PageRank of the home page to the rest of the site. As such, a page that is 2 clicks away from the home page will get a much larger share of PageRank score passed on to it from the home page, versus a page that is 5 clicks away from the home page.

Here’s how I suggest both of the above issues be rectified: by extending robots.txt with some additional directives that specify:

• which parameter in a dynamic URL is the “key field”
• which parameter is the product ID and which is the category ID (specifically for online catalogs)
• which parameters are superfluous or that don’t signficantly vary the content displayed

Armed with this information, Googlebot will be able to not only eliminate duplicate pages but also intelligently choose the most appropriate version to save in its index and then associate with that page the PageRank of ALL versions of the page. The days of session IDs killing a site’s Google visibility would be over! Google admits in its Sitemaps FAQ that session IDs are still a problem even with the advent of Google Sitemaps:

Q: URLs on my site have session IDs in them. Do I need to remove them?

Yes. Including session IDs in URLs may result in incomplete and redundant crawling of your site.

Remember, getting indexed only gets you to the party, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be popular at the party. Google Sitemaps may help you get more pages indexed, but if those pages all have a PageRank score of 0, then what was the point? It’ll be like sitting along the wall the whole time with no one asking you to dance!

GravityStream, our SEO proxy technology (the concept of SEO proxies is explained in my article in Catalog Age last October) deals with PageRank dilution by distilling URLs in links into their lowest common denominator and replacing them on the proxy. We’ve found that, even as Googlebot gets more aggressive at spidering dynamic sites with complex URLs and starts indexing one of our clients’ sites more fully, our proxy still has a major leg-up on the native site that it’s proxying. For example, our GravityStream proxy of PETsMART.com is #1 in Google for “best pet toys”, and yet the corresponding page on the PETsMART.com native site is nowhere in the first 10 pages of results even though it is indexed. Until Google extends Google Sitemaps to deal with PageRank dilution, I’d expect that a GravityStream proxy will still trump a native site, even if it’s using Google Sitemaps. That means that currently, despite Google Sitemaps, GravityStream still plays an important role for online retailers. Nonetheless, it’s my sincere hope that Google takes my feedback on board and reworks their protocol!

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You can’t just ask a Search Engine Optimization vendor if they are ethical. Of course they will say “yes.” So if you are shopping for some SEO help, how do you screen out the baddies?

A while back I blogged about how to be objective with your SEO vendor selection, but I didn’t specifically cover how to screen out the unethical ones. I will do that now.

First off, interview the vendor extensively. Get them to explain the techniques they will be using. A “yes” from them to any of the following questions is a warning sign:

• Do your techniques involve any kind of deception?
• Do you use proprietary techniques?
• Do you use doorway pages or anything similar?
• Do you do deceptive redirects?
• Have you ever had sites banned?
• Do you offer rank guarantees? (You can?Ĵt guarantee something you have no control over. The only way you can get a guaranteed rank is through pay-per-click.)
• Do you send email to prospects with whom they do not have a prior existing business relationship or permission from those prospects in advance? (If so, that’s spam! Never do business with a spammer.)

During your discussions with the vendor, if they describe their SEO tactics as short-term, you might want to reconsider. SEO, when done right (i.e. when following “best practices”), has long-term sustainable impact ?Į for years, in fact. For proof, just read this.

After you’re done quizzing the vendor, talk to their clients. Ask those clients:

• Does your SEO vendor teach you how to fish, or do they always do the fishing for you?
• Have your traffic and sales gone up a lot because of the vendor? If so, do you believe the increase to be sustainable?
• How long have you worked with the vendor? How long do you plan to continue working with them? Any idea what the vendor’s client churn rate is?

Then you’ll need to do some of your own investigating. Check the HTML code on their clients’ sites for hidden text, hidden links, and so forth. Also examine what their clients’ websites are serving to the search engines. There are a couple different ways to view a website through the eyes of a search engine spider: one is through a Firefox browser extension called User Agent Switcher; the other is through the cached version of the page that was indexed by the engine, available from the Cached link in the search results. Compare and contrast the page meant for the search engines to that corresponding page off the native website as seen by a normal visitor. If the content served up to the search engines is something completely different than what is served up to visitors, then they are spamming. Things to look for when making your comparison: if the title tag is significantly different, and if keywords have been stuffed into the body copy, the meta tags, and into parts of the website to help the version that was shown to search engines rank better. Finally, search the online forums and SEO directories like SEOPros.com and SEOConsultants.com with Google for complaints about the vendor.

Got any horror stories or lessons learned to share from dealing with a less-than-stellar SEO vendor? Post a comment.

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Outdoor equipment and clothing company REI used SEO to boost its sales after seeing its competitors achieve consistently higher rankings in the search engines than they were.

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PPC and natural search engine marketing initiatives, when properly executed, can drive tremendous growth in traffic, sales and conversion rates.

• Hear from leading marketers about what’s gone right, what’s gone wrong, and opportunities that still remain.
• Gain valuable insights on the processes behind systematically optimizing an e-commerce site and effectively launching and scaling a PPC program.
• Learn best practice approaches.
• Understand the metrics that matter. And learn from two of the best in the business.

Stuart Larkins, Vice President Partner Services, Performics
Brian S. Klais, Vice President eBusiness, Netconcepts
Nathan Miller, e-Commerce Marketing Manager, Northern Tool & Equipment
Jennifer Rodriguez, Manager Online Customer Acquisition Programs and Strategy, Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI)

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Here’s a startling bit of research, done by EmailLabs and written up in MarketingSherpa, for all of you folks responsible for crafting email campaigns and newsletters:

This [past] fall tens of millions of emails from permission mailers were tested for a brand new metric: actual read time.
Turns out 15-20 seconds was the average. Consider the last email campaign or newsletter you sent. Could a typical reader skim the entire thing, digest the graphics, and decide to click on the best item for them in just 15-20 seconds?

Yes, people. You read that right. The read time of your precious prose is, on average, a lousy 15 seconds… 20 seconds, tops!

You labor so hard over that e-newsletter: spending countless hours writing it, then perfecting it, then testing it, then further refining it… and to what end? The bloody inconsiderate recipient spends a mere 15 seconds absorbing it! How rude!

So, what to do? Email marketers must become masters of the 15-second soundbite. The conventional wisdom in email marketing of short sentences, short paragraphs, placing the call-to-action so it appears above-the-fold in the preview pane, etc. etc. just won’t come close to cutting it any more.

Based on this study, I’ve been totally rethinking how we’re doing our regular “communiques” to our clients & partners. Perhaps we should ditch our current approach of a roughly-monthly, short-and-sharp 400-word e-newsletter? I think we’ll test another approach: where I strive to deliver a single idea or tip that offers real value to the recipient and coaxes that person into engaging in a dialogue with me — within a mere 80 words! (This paragraph, including this parenthetical note, is 80 words.)

Bite-sized chunks of relevant advice, personalized to that individual client’s situation, sent on more regular intervals than our current “communique”… Sound like a plan? (Actually it sounds like an extranet blog, but done less frequently and delivered via email instead of RSS.)

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It’s critical that you as a legitimate marketer dissociate yourself from the rising tide of spam - not just in the inbox but in the search engines as well.

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My friend and colleague Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing Blog posed an interesting question to me and a small group of other bloggers whom I hold in high regard (Tris Hussey, Paul Chaney, Wayne Hurlbert, Yvonne DiVita, and Dana VanDen Heuvel). Her question was this:

What is best practice for scheduling posts?
If you’re not going to post 5 days a week, should posts be scheduled consistently for the same days of the week e.g., if you’re posting 3 times a week Monday-Wednesday-Friday? How do you feel about mixing up posting days? One week post M-W-F and the next week post T-TH-F. Or does it really matter? For the most part are the only blogs that are doing a consistent schedule the networks?

What a great question! And what great answers from the group. So great, in fact, that it evolved into a podcast group Skype-conference call that we conducted just yesterday. The 53-minute audio recording should be ready soon. I’ll post it when it is.

In the meantime, my take on the issue is this: as far as retaining your readers, frequency is not nearly as important as recency. A couple weeks of inactivity makes the reader feel like nobody’s home. Conversely, having the latest post be only a day old makes the blog appear “fresh”. Personally, I don’t like keeping feeds in my newsreader that haven’t had recent activity.

It also depends on the type of blog you have. A “writer’s blog” (as defined by Seth Godin) doesn’t need the same level of recency or frequency as a “news blog” (also defined by Seth in the same post).

Relevance overrides both recency and frequency. Searchengineblog.com recently posted (paraphrased) “I’m going to stop posting about SEO for several months but I’ll post about my vacation”. Making such an announcement wrecks even more havoc on recurring readership levels than two months of inactivity, because the blogger is in a sense inviting his readers to unsubscribe from his RSS feed. After all, how many of them would want to read irrelevant I’m-touring-the-world posts? My guess, in this time-pressed world of ours, is not very many.

As far as gaining new readers, the trick is getting noticed by the “connectors” (using Malcolm Gladwell’s terminology) in the blogosphere and then getting them to link to you. Again, this isn’t necessarily an issue of frequency. One blogger could post to his/her blog once per week and be more successful at getting coverage by A-list bloggers than a prolific blogger who posts many times per day. This could be achieved a number of ways. Linking to other bloggers can get you noticed by them. Mentioning their names could get you noticed by them (see my recent post where I described the name dropping tactic). Already having some of them as friends helps too.

A lot of the blog entries floating around in the blogosphere strike me as “filler.” I strive to have this blog be filler-free. I only blog when I have something I believe to be valuable for you, my dear readers. I won’t blog about “Adobe acquires Macromedia” unless I can come up with a unique angle that would deliver real value to marketers who read my blog. Unique commentary, I believe, is key to the value proposition. Last week for example I blogged about “how to search engine optimize your podcasts” - something I believe has not been adequately addressed by bloggers. This I’m hoping will get some coverage in the blogosphere because of its uniqueness. “News blogs” can get away with less unique and practical posts than “writers blogs”, but they tend to make up for it with volume - increasing the frequency.

Finally, posting too frequently increases the ephemerality of your blog posts. Mike Davidson made the insightful comment:

“The relative importance of the feed vs. the site depends almost entirely on the ephemerality of the posts. Scoble?Ĵs posts are extremely ephemeral because he a) has so many of them, and b) only comments briefly on each item. Their place in history is rather fleeting, in other words. In the case of a more traditional blog, you have far fewer posts with more in-depth writeups. In this case, the site is of utmost importance and the feed is merely a notification technology.”

With all that said, Wayne Hurlbert has an interesting case study to share of how he doubled his blog traffic by doubling the number of posts per day from one to two. Have a read. (Paul Chaney makes the point that “every blogger is different, the way we write is different, and our personalities are different,” so there’s no right or wrong answer here and of course your mileage will vary.)

Bottom line of all this: the blogosphere is still the Web and the basic online marketing principle of testing everything, rather than just believing whatever I say, still applies.

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As a follow-on to yesterday’s post about getting your blog noticed by influentials, i.e. A-List bloggers, I thought I would describe a scenario just recently presented to me.

I have been asked by analyst Shar VanBoskirk of Forrester Research if I would be willing to blog about their upcoming boot camp on integrated marketing on May 5. It’s a full-day intensive workshop being held at their offices in Cambridge. I said “Sure, I’d be happy to mention it, but I don’t think it will get picked up by other bloggers and thus it won’t spread through the blogosphere.” So the effectiveness of such a promotion strategy is limited.

A-List bloggers, like everyone else, are forever tuned in to the station “WII-FM” - What’s In It For Me. As such, Forrester’s message would be much more contagious, if there was a “free prize inside,” so to speak, for the bloggers who read my boot camp “plug.” In other words, the way to spread the word about the Forrester boot camp is for Forrester to make an irresistible, exclusive offer to bloggers who blog about the boot camp.

For example, what if Forrester gave away some exclusive piece of research that normally only their clients have access to? It doesn’t have to be an entire report, just something exclusive and something bloggable. Like a “scoop” on an upcoming report. Or a synopsis of key points or perhaps a mini report. Now what if the bloggers who blog about this integrated marketing boot camp get access to this exclusive information as part of the deal? In fact, what if Forrester Research turn this into an ongoing program, kind of like how Microsoft is wooing influential bloggers with their “Search Champs” program (where they hand-pick influencers and fly them to Redmond to wine-and-dine them and to discuss how Microsoft might improve their MSN search engine).

Hmm… “Forester Research Champs.” Sure, they’d be buying off bloggers. But everybody would win, including blog readers. Bloggers get access to exclusive research early and often - as long as they agree to blog about Forrester. It is an interesting proposition. Forrester, what do you think?

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Public relations in the blogosphere seems to operate under a new set of rules than traditional PR. With traditional PR you hire a PR firm that has relationships with various journalists and media. With the new PR, you start your own blog (assuming of course you have something worthwhile to say) and you work to become one of the blogging elite. The goal is to get the more influential bloggers to notice you and blog about you. You wouldn’t just leave this to chance; you’d help the process along. If, for example, you want to catch Scoble’s eye, then you would say something interesting that somehow relates to Scoble and work in a mention of his name. Scoble, like many other bloggers, follows what’s being said about him in the blogosphere by subscribing to a PubSub search results feed for the word “scoble.” If Scoble likes your post, you could end up with a mention on Scoble’s link blog or, better still, on the Scobleizer blog.

Imagine telling a PR person 10 years ago that, in the future, the way to catch the eye of various journalists is to become a journalist yourself and then write about THEM, that PR person would think you were off your rocker. My, how times have changed!

As an up-and-coming blogger, you might be tempted to brown-nose the A-List bloggers. Don’t kiss up to them, but don’t denigrate them either. This isn’t necessarily a hard-and-fast rule, just a suggested guideline. Some bloggers are quite open to being taken to task. They even encourage it.

There is a line of course that shouldn’t be crossed. Always act in good taste. Scoble himself described, during our MarketingProfs Thought Leaders Summit last month on business blogging, how it really isn’t a “line,” it is more like a “membrane.” There is give-and-take, and flexibility with what’s ok to say in your blog and what’s not, particularly as you build rapport with different bloggers in the blogosphere and you build up your reputation. But don’t push too hard or too often, or that “membrane” may rupture!

Now I wonder if Scoble will blog about this post…

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