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Popularity: unranked [?]

Posted by randfish

We’re just not getting any visitors from the search engines…

I probably hear that line 30X or more each week - over email, in phone calls, in conversation, on forums, etc. and to tell the truth, it would be really handy to have a resource I could point folks for some self-diagnosis. If only there were some type of medium that I could publish on… one that would be accessible on some sort of computerized system… maybe a net of interconnected pages… one the whole world could access… like a… world… wide… oh, hang on a tick.

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Popularity: unranked [?]

Introducing Answer Sniper

I just came across AnswerSniper, a $147 software product created to help you find open questions to answer on Yahoo! Answers by keeping you up to date with the latest open questions for keywords you select. Can you imagine paying for software for the privilege of finding questions that need answered, and then trying to be the first person to answer each of them?

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Popularity: unranked [?]

Posted by rebecca

Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week:

Two star links:

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Popularity: unranked [?]

Posted by randfish

I’ve talked in the past about the various possibilities of the future of search engines and the biggest threats to Google’s dominance, and today I’ve been able to follow up on some of that prodding into that “vertical search fracturing” possibility.

iMedix is one of the more exciting vertical search engines on the market. Not only are they a recipient of the Best New Startup Award from the Crunchies, they’re also very highly regarded in the marketplace by a lot of smart players. Not everyone’s a fan, but they’re in an area of high opportunity and have executed remarkably well from both a development and marketing perspective.
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Popularity: unranked [?]

Posted by rebecca

Sorry this roundup is delayed. I had the damn thing about 60% completed earlier today, but then Mel brought in a pig full of beer, which we proceeded to drink during lunch. A couple of glasses later, I returned to my desk and inadvertently hit whichever combination of keys on my keyboard is the equivalent to the “Back” button on my browser, thus losing my post. After work, I went to the liquor store (wow, all this talk of alcohol sure makes me look like quite the drunkard…) and, after making my purchases, was prevented from entering the store’s parking garage because two car thieves were getting busted by four squad cars’ worth of police officers. Then, once I finally started to hunker down and get some work done, Jane distracted me with something horrible. Thanks, Jane.
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John Battelle riffs on how Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL are screwing up by following in Google’s footsteps trying to create huge ad platforms, while ignoring their brand ad strength. And AdAge asks if we may one day see a web free of push display ads.

If traditional ads become less effective, we will still end up trusting ads that are links that look just like content. How to article linkbait, user generated content, and 100% blended affiliate links now make up the Mahalo business model. Which is really no different than the affiliate marketing Jason despises. That really puts a new perspective on somebody lashing out at SEOs and affiliate marketers before creating something that aspires to be more polluted.

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Popularity: unranked [?]

Posted by randfish

Let’s try a little excercise…

Common features of spam domains include:

Long domain names .info, .cc, .us and other cheap, easy to grab TLDs Short registration period (1 year, maybe 2) High ratio of ad blocks to content Javascript redirects from initial landing pages Use of common, high-commercial value spam keywords like “mortgage,” “poker,” “texas hold ‘em,” “porn,” “student credit cards,” and related terms Many links to other low quality, spam sites Few links to high quality, trusted sites High keyword frequencies and keyword densities Small amounts of unique content Very few direct visits Very few links sent out in (non-spam) email to the site Registered to people/entities not associated with trusted sites Not frequently registered with services like Yahoo! Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Central or Live Webmaster Tools Rarely have short, high value domain names Often contain many keyword-stuffed subdomains More likely to have longer domain names More likely to contain multiple hyphens in the domain name Less likely to have links from trusted sources Less likely to have SSL Security certificates Less likely to be in directories like DMOZ, Yahoo!, Librarian’s Internet Index, etc. Unlikely to have any significant quantity of branded searches Unlikely to be bookmarked in services like My Yahoo!, Del.icio.us, Faves.com, etc. Unilkely to get featured in social voting sites like Digg, Reddit, Yahoo! Buzz, StumbleUpon,  etc. Unlikely to have channels on YouTube, communities on Facebook or links from Wikipedia Unlikely to be mentioned on major news sites (either with or without link attribution) Unlikely to register with Google/Yahoo!/MSN Local Services Unlikely to have a legitimate physical address/phone number on the website  Likely to have the domain associated with emails on blacklists Often contain a large number of snippets of “duplicate” content found elsewhere on the web Unlikely to contain unique content in the form of PDFs, PPTs, XLSs, DOCs, etc. Frequently feature commercially focused content Many levels of links away from highly trusted websites Rarely contain privacy policy and copyright notice pages Rarely listed in Better Business Bureau’s Online Directory Rarely contains high grade level text content (as measured by metrics like Fleisch-Kincaid Reading Level) Rarely have small snippets of text quoted on other websites and pages Cloaking based on user-agent or IP address is common Rarely contain paid analytics tracking software Rarely have online or offline marketing campaigns Rarely have affilliate link programs pointing to them Less likely to have .com or .org extensions Almost never have .mil, .edu or .gov extensions Rarely have links from domains with .edu or .gov extensions Almost never have links from domains with .mil extensions Rarely receive high quantities of monthly visits Rarely have visits lasting longer than 30 seconds Rarely have visitors bookmarking their domains in the browser Unlikely to buy significant quantities of PPC ad traffic Rarely have banner ad media buys Likely to have links to a significant portion of the sites and pages that link to themExtremely unlikely to be mentioned or linked-to in scientific research papers Unlikely to use expensive web technologies (Microsoft Server & Coding Products that Require a Licensing Fee) Likely to be registered by parties who own a very large number of domains Unlikely to attract significant return trafficMore likely to contain malware, viruses or spyware (or any automated downloads)

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Popularity: unranked [?]

Posted by randfish

Before I was inundated with the responsibilities of running a company and managing a few hundred emails a day, I used to spend a lot of time testing theories about how the search engines handled certain elements on a site or page. I’d test the engines to find answers to questions like:

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Popularity: unranked [?]

Here are some interesting articles I recently came across.

Tapping into unconventional link attributes - tips to evaluate the value of a link, including the fresh boost and the actual lasting value of the link. Beet.tv NYT report - Google traffic to NYT has doubled since unlocking their archivesMicrosoft Continue Reading »

Popularity: unranked [?]