A WebmasterWorld thread has pretty sad reports about the current status of Ask.com's web search technology. The thread reports the following issues:
* Search results per page shift between 10 per page and go down to about 5 per page, depending on the page you are viewing.
* Many of the results for one-keyword search terms return results with a matching title tag, exactly - they call this a huge "page-title correlation."
* Many of those results are very outdated, even showing 404 not-found results.
* WebmasterWorld moderated added that many of the binoculars statistical results are outdated, slow or just don't work anymore.
The issue with WebmasterWorld is that you cannot post specific examples.
It is sad to me that whenever I report news or topics related to Ask.com these days, they are always negative.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Why People Fail at Search Engine Marketing
You hear a lot now of days about people saying that they are doing SEO on their site. SEO has become so over used as people start to market their websites. What has become common place is website owners not understanding the fundamental aspects of search engine marketing.
For example you create a commercial and then air it on either national or local television. You get an instant result whether your commercial worked or not. This isn't the case with SEO.
Why most people fail at optimizing their websites is that search engine marketing is lifestyle like good fitness. It isn't just I did one thing now I am done. Have you ever been on a diet for only a month? How did that work? SEO is the culmination of all your work you do on a daily basis.
Before you start paying to do SEO work make sure you are committed to not just the next month or 90 days, but to creating a business lifestyle of daily contributions to your website that never end.
For example you create a commercial and then air it on either national or local television. You get an instant result whether your commercial worked or not. This isn't the case with SEO.
Why most people fail at optimizing their websites is that search engine marketing is lifestyle like good fitness. It isn't just I did one thing now I am done. Have you ever been on a diet for only a month? How did that work? SEO is the culmination of all your work you do on a daily basis.
Before you start paying to do SEO work make sure you are committed to not just the next month or 90 days, but to creating a business lifestyle of daily contributions to your website that never end.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Live Search Is Updating, Expect Ranking Changes
Live Search September 2008 Update Underway from the Search Engine Roundtable reports discussion at WebmasterWorld that Live Search is undergoing a major index and ranking update.
The Live Search results seem to have changed, and webmasters and SEOs are taking notice. I personally noticed referral increases and drops from Live Search on some of the sites I monitor. The update seemed to have started at about 9:30am (EST) yesterday, but we currently do not have any official word from Microsoft on this update.
The Live Search results seem to have changed, and webmasters and SEOs are taking notice. I personally noticed referral increases and drops from Live Search on some of the sites I monitor. The update seemed to have started at about 9:30am (EST) yesterday, but we currently do not have any official word from Microsoft on this update.
Who gives better answers, people or computers? Ask ChaCha
(CNN) -- You're in a bar with a group of friends when an argument breaks out about Neil Diamond's age. Your friend is positive that he's, like, a hundred. You know he can't be more than 70. With no Internet access, how do you find out how old the balladeer is?
Text-message answer service ChaCha, launched in January, has received a product innovation award.
Text-message answer service ChaCha, launched in January, has received a product innovation award.
Click to view previous image
1 of 2
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You can ask the mobile search engine ChaCha. And the answer sent to your cell phone will settle the debate: "Neil Diamond is 67 years old." Your friend now owes you a beer.
Computer-automated text message answer services like Google SMS have been around since 2004. But when ChaCha launched its text messaging service in January, it paired human employees with technology -- a method that has won the company several awards.
ChaCha co-founders Brad Bostic and Scott Jones were discussing the overload-of-information age in 2005 when the idea for their corporation emerged. Every search engine returns thousands of Web sites, but what if you could always get a simple, one-sentence answer to your question?
Users text message ChaCha (242242) on their mobile phone or call 1-800-2ChaCha. The question can be on anything -- from local weather forecasts to who starred in the 1960 suspense classic "Psycho" to how many children Angelina Jolie has now.
Questions are sent to a worker, or "guide," who searches the Internet using sites preapproved by ChaCha. When the guide finds the answer, he or she text messages the user back in less than 160 characters -- all for free. ChaCha's Web site promises answers within "just a few minutes."
"The benefits of having a real person on the other end is that they can save you time by sifting through the results to find the most relevant information," said Brian DeLoach, an independent search engine optimization specialist.
ChaCha announced this week that it now has more than a million users. In the year's second quarter, according to Nielsen Mobile data, ChaCha was the fastest-growing mobile search service.
And ChaCha isn't the only player hoping to carve a piece of the $30 billion online search market. Kgb, an Internet information company, recently launched a beta product that offers a similar service. Kgb, though, will charge 30 cents for each question text messaged to 542542.
"There's a certain frustration, in the Web community, of search engines that give you pages and pages of results," Kgb CEO Robert Pines said. "We've found that if you can actually provide an answer, people will pay for it."
Still, people like DeLoach are skeptical about the need for such services. Do ChaCha or Kgb employees actually dig up the right answer, or just pick the first one they find? In other words, do they do what anyone searching Google would do?
"With the rise of Internet-equipped mobile phones, specifically the iPhone, why would I go to ChaCha to search for me when I can just do it myself?" DeLoach asked.
Well, some people use ChaCha for trivia games when they're bored. Others use the service to get jokes or riddles. But the lack of a million search results is most important, Bostic said.
"Regardless of how Internet-capable a phone is, the form factor is small; and while you are on the go, you have no desire to surf," he said. "You want to ask questions and get [quick] answers."
ChaCha's 25,000 guides are mostly college students or stay-at-home moms looking to earn some extra cash. Guides can work whenever they want, anytime of day, for any length of time.
Susan Bowman, a mother of four from Pennsylvania, works for ChaCha because she loves the flexible schedule.
"I'm not really an office-type person," Bowman said. "It kills me to have to sit in a room or a cubicle. I work out of my kitchen with everything around me."
New guides are given tests and put through "Search University" with Mark Malseed, author of "The Google Story." Bostic said that because of this training, ChaCha's accuracy rate is 93 percent. The company has a process for evaluating the correctness of its guides' answers, he said. Some ChaCha employees, however, have complained that company policies emphasized the quantity of answers over quality.
Guides are paid per question, which generally earns them between $3 and $7 an hour. ChaCha guide Joel Brooks was outraged when recent policy changes cut his pay from 20 cents a question to 10 cents a question. Brooks went to the company's online employee forums and found out he wasn't the only one upset.
After once promising employees they could work as much or as little as they wanted, ChaCha announced that only workers who answered at least 300 questions a week would earn 20 cents. After complaints flooded the forums, ChaCha cut the requirement to 200 questions per week, or about six work hours.
"If they hadn't lowered it, I wouldn't be working for them," said Brooks, a University of Michigan student. "But the new quota is much more reasonable."
Bostic takes growing pains like these in stride as the president of a company that answers 10 million questions per month. To boost revenue, ChaCha soon hopes to incorporate advertising into its text-message answers, he said. Bostic also wants to continue focusing on customer satisfaction.
"People know how to ask questions," he said. "It's one of the first things they learn how to do when they talk. What they want is an answer."
Text-message answer service ChaCha, launched in January, has received a product innovation award.
Text-message answer service ChaCha, launched in January, has received a product innovation award.
Click to view previous image
1 of 2
Click to view next image
You can ask the mobile search engine ChaCha. And the answer sent to your cell phone will settle the debate: "Neil Diamond is 67 years old." Your friend now owes you a beer.
Computer-automated text message answer services like Google SMS have been around since 2004. But when ChaCha launched its text messaging service in January, it paired human employees with technology -- a method that has won the company several awards.
ChaCha co-founders Brad Bostic and Scott Jones were discussing the overload-of-information age in 2005 when the idea for their corporation emerged. Every search engine returns thousands of Web sites, but what if you could always get a simple, one-sentence answer to your question?
Users text message ChaCha (242242) on their mobile phone or call 1-800-2ChaCha. The question can be on anything -- from local weather forecasts to who starred in the 1960 suspense classic "Psycho" to how many children Angelina Jolie has now.
Questions are sent to a worker, or "guide," who searches the Internet using sites preapproved by ChaCha. When the guide finds the answer, he or she text messages the user back in less than 160 characters -- all for free. ChaCha's Web site promises answers within "just a few minutes."
"The benefits of having a real person on the other end is that they can save you time by sifting through the results to find the most relevant information," said Brian DeLoach, an independent search engine optimization specialist.
ChaCha announced this week that it now has more than a million users. In the year's second quarter, according to Nielsen Mobile data, ChaCha was the fastest-growing mobile search service.
And ChaCha isn't the only player hoping to carve a piece of the $30 billion online search market. Kgb, an Internet information company, recently launched a beta product that offers a similar service. Kgb, though, will charge 30 cents for each question text messaged to 542542.
"There's a certain frustration, in the Web community, of search engines that give you pages and pages of results," Kgb CEO Robert Pines said. "We've found that if you can actually provide an answer, people will pay for it."
Still, people like DeLoach are skeptical about the need for such services. Do ChaCha or Kgb employees actually dig up the right answer, or just pick the first one they find? In other words, do they do what anyone searching Google would do?
"With the rise of Internet-equipped mobile phones, specifically the iPhone, why would I go to ChaCha to search for me when I can just do it myself?" DeLoach asked.
Well, some people use ChaCha for trivia games when they're bored. Others use the service to get jokes or riddles. But the lack of a million search results is most important, Bostic said.
"Regardless of how Internet-capable a phone is, the form factor is small; and while you are on the go, you have no desire to surf," he said. "You want to ask questions and get [quick] answers."
ChaCha's 25,000 guides are mostly college students or stay-at-home moms looking to earn some extra cash. Guides can work whenever they want, anytime of day, for any length of time.
Susan Bowman, a mother of four from Pennsylvania, works for ChaCha because she loves the flexible schedule.
"I'm not really an office-type person," Bowman said. "It kills me to have to sit in a room or a cubicle. I work out of my kitchen with everything around me."
New guides are given tests and put through "Search University" with Mark Malseed, author of "The Google Story." Bostic said that because of this training, ChaCha's accuracy rate is 93 percent. The company has a process for evaluating the correctness of its guides' answers, he said. Some ChaCha employees, however, have complained that company policies emphasized the quantity of answers over quality.
Guides are paid per question, which generally earns them between $3 and $7 an hour. ChaCha guide Joel Brooks was outraged when recent policy changes cut his pay from 20 cents a question to 10 cents a question. Brooks went to the company's online employee forums and found out he wasn't the only one upset.
After once promising employees they could work as much or as little as they wanted, ChaCha announced that only workers who answered at least 300 questions a week would earn 20 cents. After complaints flooded the forums, ChaCha cut the requirement to 200 questions per week, or about six work hours.
"If they hadn't lowered it, I wouldn't be working for them," said Brooks, a University of Michigan student. "But the new quota is much more reasonable."
Bostic takes growing pains like these in stride as the president of a company that answers 10 million questions per month. To boost revenue, ChaCha soon hopes to incorporate advertising into its text-message answers, he said. Bostic also wants to continue focusing on customer satisfaction.
"People know how to ask questions," he said. "It's one of the first things they learn how to do when they talk. What they want is an answer."
Friday, July 11, 2008
Boot Camp for Google Analytics
Did we say, "Boot Camp for Google Analytics?" How does that work, one might ask? Do I have to get up at 5am to have someone yell at me about goals, funnels and filters, now repeat! Get that bounce rate DOWN mister! Conversion rate UP, lady! Now give me 5 industry benchmarking metrics and hit the showers.
Whoa, whoa...not at all...
It's more like boot camp for your online-marketing brain muscle, highly enjoyable, in an idyllic New England setting, with the coolest folks around. Get into scary good shape (knowledge-wise) with the Online Marketing (OM) Boot Camp, hosted by EpikOne and co-sponsored by Google at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont.
For four days (June 17-20), you'll learn how to use the latest Google marketing and analysis products, get informed about the online advertising industry, and network with Google Analytics experts. Instructors include Google's own analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik, Ben Bullock and Alex Ortiz from the Google Analytics team, and Justin Cutroni, Seminars For Success instructor and author of Google Analytics Short Cut.
Our users often ask us about training opportunities, and this is a great one for both beginners and advanced users, including agencies. The boot camp has various course levels on topics such as Adwords, Google Analytics and Website Optimizer.
Day 1 is a thought-leadership summit where attendees will hear analytics evangelists speak and enjoy a cocktail networking opportunity in the early evening. Days 2-3 will encompass various course levels of Google product training taught by industry experts.
Only 70 seats are offered for this education-only camp, so you'll get lots of discussion and hands-on training. For more information and to register, visit www.OMBootCamp.com.
Posted by Eva Woo, Google Analytics Team
Whoa, whoa...not at all...
It's more like boot camp for your online-marketing brain muscle, highly enjoyable, in an idyllic New England setting, with the coolest folks around. Get into scary good shape (knowledge-wise) with the Online Marketing (OM) Boot Camp, hosted by EpikOne and co-sponsored by Google at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont.
For four days (June 17-20), you'll learn how to use the latest Google marketing and analysis products, get informed about the online advertising industry, and network with Google Analytics experts. Instructors include Google's own analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik, Ben Bullock and Alex Ortiz from the Google Analytics team, and Justin Cutroni, Seminars For Success instructor and author of Google Analytics Short Cut.
Our users often ask us about training opportunities, and this is a great one for both beginners and advanced users, including agencies. The boot camp has various course levels on topics such as Adwords, Google Analytics and Website Optimizer.
Day 1 is a thought-leadership summit where attendees will hear analytics evangelists speak and enjoy a cocktail networking opportunity in the early evening. Days 2-3 will encompass various course levels of Google product training taught by industry experts.
Only 70 seats are offered for this education-only camp, so you'll get lots of discussion and hands-on training. For more information and to register, visit www.OMBootCamp.com.
Posted by Eva Woo, Google Analytics Team
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Does keyword density matter in Google Search
The question was asked if keyword density was important in search results. The quick answer is yes. Keyword density is the number of times a specific keyword is used on an entire page. The bigger question is there a minimum or maximum amount of times that you want to use a targeted keyword in a particular page.
When looking at keyword density there is no magic number. How could there be? Let’s say the magic number is 10 times for a specific keyword. If this were true then ever person wanting to rank for that term would use it 10 times and then how would Google understand who to rank.
To determine what is the right now number for a keyword, we have to look at many factors. If you want to rank for “I like Authority SEO blog posts” you probably only have to put that phrase in the title. Though if you want to rank for highly competitive terms like supplements, seo, or watches, you need to do more than just add it a few times in one page. The more competitive the term the more you need a site dedicated to that term.
The true number for keyword density is an ebb and flow depending on the term targeted. What is important is pay attention to how you are using your targeted term and how your rankings are being affected. There are also many other more important factors that can affect a term’s rankings, so don’t put everything in that basket. The goal is always just to do it better either lower or higher than the next guy.
When looking at keyword density there is no magic number. How could there be? Let’s say the magic number is 10 times for a specific keyword. If this were true then ever person wanting to rank for that term would use it 10 times and then how would Google understand who to rank.
To determine what is the right now number for a keyword, we have to look at many factors. If you want to rank for “I like Authority SEO blog posts” you probably only have to put that phrase in the title. Though if you want to rank for highly competitive terms like supplements, seo, or watches, you need to do more than just add it a few times in one page. The more competitive the term the more you need a site dedicated to that term.
The true number for keyword density is an ebb and flow depending on the term targeted. What is important is pay attention to how you are using your targeted term and how your rankings are being affected. There are also many other more important factors that can affect a term’s rankings, so don’t put everything in that basket. The goal is always just to do it better either lower or higher than the next guy.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
What is Google Personalize Search
There is a lot of buzz about Google’s efforts on personalizing search results. Though it is a phrase being kicked around, most people don’t know what personalize search means, and why it is important.
Why do I need to know what personalized search is?
Personalized search offers search results that are more relevant to each individual searcher, or that is the goal any way. Google uses past search behavior to better understand what websites and information is important to each user. With personalize search two users will get different results from typing in the same keyword.
Take the word personal trainer and type it into the Google search bar. Personalize search will give different people different results. You may think why would that be good. Well a broad word like personal trainer could be an individual looking to hire a personal trainer, a personal trainer looking for training ideas for clients, or an individual who wants to get certified as a personal trainer. In theory if Google based on past behavior knew more about what you were looking for it could tailor the search results to sites that would interest you.
Why are search engines moving to personalize search?
The goal of search engines like Google is to make search results the most effective for its consumers. Personalize search may allow people to find the information they are searching for faster and easier.
Right now search engines treat each search as a separate event. Personalize search may make it easier to find the information you are looking for with less searches as you narrow down the keywords you are using.
There are some concerns on personal privacy though it looks like personalize search is on its way and here to stay.
How does Google do personalize search?
Google’s personalize search comes from a startup company Kaltix which Google bought in 2003. Personalize search works by creating multiple website relevance rank lists, and then tailoring each list to interest of different people.
Google’s personalize search is learning about your patterns based on every search query you do. Using profiles that it creates, Google will use your past behavior to attempt to send you more relevant websites specific to you.
Why do I need to know what personalized search is?
Personalized search offers search results that are more relevant to each individual searcher, or that is the goal any way. Google uses past search behavior to better understand what websites and information is important to each user. With personalize search two users will get different results from typing in the same keyword.
Take the word personal trainer and type it into the Google search bar. Personalize search will give different people different results. You may think why would that be good. Well a broad word like personal trainer could be an individual looking to hire a personal trainer, a personal trainer looking for training ideas for clients, or an individual who wants to get certified as a personal trainer. In theory if Google based on past behavior knew more about what you were looking for it could tailor the search results to sites that would interest you.
Why are search engines moving to personalize search?
The goal of search engines like Google is to make search results the most effective for its consumers. Personalize search may allow people to find the information they are searching for faster and easier.
Right now search engines treat each search as a separate event. Personalize search may make it easier to find the information you are looking for with less searches as you narrow down the keywords you are using.
There are some concerns on personal privacy though it looks like personalize search is on its way and here to stay.
How does Google do personalize search?
Google’s personalize search comes from a startup company Kaltix which Google bought in 2003. Personalize search works by creating multiple website relevance rank lists, and then tailoring each list to interest of different people.
Google’s personalize search is learning about your patterns based on every search query you do. Using profiles that it creates, Google will use your past behavior to attempt to send you more relevant websites specific to you.
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