Search Engine Optimization

This is a comparison of 3 search engine leaders and their ability to blend vertical search elements. Universal searches are conducted through general search box for example: google.com as opposed to video.google.com.

Universal search is the mix of all the searches into a general search. For example “Michael Jackson” gives: news about him, pictures, videos, possible answers and blog posts. Global search is becoming the new standard and is definitely going to affect SEO as it moves further. Domination under different domains is becoming harder, since local businesses are required to stretch themselves and sometimes “pose” in order to get as much business as possible.

We can identify 9 primary verticals that more or less are searched every day. For the purposes of comparison we’re going to exclude web search.

Universal Search

• Local/Maps
• Images
• News
• Video
• Product Search
• Book Search

Universal Results - Local Search Blend

“Edmonton Lawyer”

Edmonton lawyer gives slightly different layout on google.com universal search. Locals are located in the middle with 3 organic listings on the top. It isn’t very clear what is the criteria, but most likely the click through rate. Here is what Danny of SEO Land had to say:

“Notice how the local search box is in the middle of the page? That’s because, at the time, Google decided that after looking at all the various vertical and web search results, local results were fourth in overall relevancy.”

Google.com

“Roofing Company in Toronto”

Google gave universal search results, with 7 local listings on top, followed by 10 regular webpages. On the bottom there is an option to look for more locals. Blended Google search for local businesses features:

• Variety
• Phone Numbers
• Address(need to click)
• Reviews

Google went step ahead and allowed people to review universal search results. This is a very effective approach, in line with ever growing social media. Reviews have been around for quite a bit and Amazon with Shopzilla have showed their effectiveness on user experience and long term business success.

Yahoo.com

“Toronto Pizza”

Yahoo.com does not provide local results for “Toronto Pizza” within its global search blend. We get regular search + Suggestions(”also try”). To get Local we have to go to Yahoo.ca

This is isn’t very practical from user perspective, as there are definitely a number of Canadians who use yahoo.com as opposed to yahoo.ca. With ever growing and aggressive Google, Yahoo shouldn’t let it float. Thought it is a small factor, it partially explians why Yahoo! is in hardship - Google treats it users better, both universal and with little things.

Yahoo.ca “Toronto Pizza”

Yahoo gives 3 local results. Each result leads to Yahoo Locals Page, with address and an option to rate it using 5 star system. 5 Star system can be effective, however reviews would be more on target. People love to engage the web, what is better example then Digg, Reddit and Facebook?

On the bottom we get 3 extra Yahoo Answers results which are quite helpful.

“Edmonton Lawyer” (yahoo.ca)

Edmonton lawyer is identical to “Toronto Pizza” universal search, but with one answer on the bottom instead of 3.

Live.com

“Toronto Pizza”

Both live.com and live.ca do not provide maps of any kind. The first result is from from maps.live.com, but the title does tell much to the average user. Below are regular web results. Though the first result links out to maps, it is not fully featured as a part of “universal search”.

“Edmonton Lawyer”

“edmonton lawyer” search is identical to “Toronto Pizza” in terms of results.

Local Search who is Better in Universal World?

Google by far is the leader. It Offers:

• Variety
• Phone Numbers
• Reviews

Yahoo offers less choices and no reviews, but instead a five star system. I believe reviews are still a way to go and it is going to prop Google in the long run.

Yahoo offers less choice. As from user perspective I am better off with Google.

Yahoo Answers were quite useful. Though I did not have a question in mind, they definitely intrigued me to click on them. Value.

Microsoft is by far the weakest link and is going to get hurt in the future. Local is becoming more and more important and MS better get their stuff straight or it will experience more losses to Google.

Images

Image search in this article implies to blended image search together with regular search, aka - universal search.

Google.com

“Britney Spears”

For Britney search Google gives images right away. It is also followed by news results, followed by web results.

“Britney Spears pictures”

It is identical to “britney spears” search but with different news and websites on the bottom.

Yahoo.com

“Britney Spears”

Yahoo does not show the images, but offers “also try: britney spears photos” which leads to refined search with “britney spears photos” for the keyword, as opposed to linking to the image search.

On the bottom we’re also presented with news line up for Ms. Britney.

“Britney Spears Pictures”

Only refined with the word “pictures” we get the results of full universal search. Yahoo does not feature news about britney for “Britney Spears Pictures”.

I believe Yahoo is going to lose by not featuring pictures for keywords where images do not hurt, but rather add to the overall search experience.

Live.com

“Britney Spears”

As with Google “britney spears” search gives us a number of images, this time 4 as opposed to 2 with Google. On the bottom are links to news just like with Yahoo and Google.

“britney spears pictures”

Identical pictures, different web results and news removed. Live is in line with Google and both win over Yahoo.

Blended Universal Image Search who is better?

Both Google and Live.com offered image results for “”Britney Spears”, while Yahoo limited to “”Britney Spears Pictures”.

Live.com featured more pictures than Google(4 instead of 2), while google put bet on freshness. Instead of showing Ms. Spears pics, Google gave pregnant Britney + more recent pictures, while Live showed old, but relevant pictures.

Both Google and MS did a good job. Term is very general , but effort is on both sides. Yahoo losses in this case, since offering pics for general searches is becoming standard. I believe it will not be long, until Yahoo starts featuring images without “picture/image/pic” keyword in its universal search results.

News

Search is conducted using key phrases that imply to news, but not directly include the “news” in the keyword. News search is done through main portal to test universal search abilities of 3 search engines.

Google.com

“fed cut” -(abbreviation for Federal Reserve Interest Rate Cut)

Google served 3 news pieces + a picture. It also features related articles. Regular web results follow suite.

Publications featured in the news are American, even though my IP is Canadian.

“Iraq”

Iraq search is a little bit different.

Google changes search results from time to time. For example, if you search for the same term, google pay remove PPC, images or change some results to ensure that people find what they need.

First search for “iraq” gave me 3 pictures. (above)

Though that girl is cute, she is irrelevant. People searching for Iraq aren’t looking for dating. Another pic is dead, though it works when clicked on it. This is a problem I’ve seen for some of the images. Third pic gives me what I had in mind.

Google also featured news from 3 different publications after images.

Second Time I searched for “iraq”, Google left the images, but took away the news. News only appeared after 3 more searches for the same term.

Yahoo.com

“fed cut” -(abbreviation for Federal Reserve Interest Rate Cut)

“Fed cut” on Yahoo features news publications as a number one from Yahoo News, followed by the regular web. News are from 3 sources, US. Yahoo lacks a picture. I found that a picture beside news links gets more attention than traditional text links.

“Iraq”

Iraq Gets me 3 news pieces for Iraq, with a features picture. Yahoo universal search is just as good as Google in this example.

Live.com

“fed cut” -(abbreviation for Federal Reserve Interest Rate Cut)

“Iraq”

Both Searches return 3 news results for the related term, but this time Live has an advantage. It tracks my IP and features Canadian publications as opposed to the American. It’s not much, but it adds a nice personal touch.

News - Global Search

Overall universal news results are standing hand to hand. Google has an advantage of featuring a picture next to the news, while Live shows country specific publications. In the universal search in terms of news serving, Yahoo is a bit behind.

Google also has a tendency of featuring news mixed with regular web, in 3-6th position.

It is also very important to note, as stated by SE Land.

“The centralized system will hit news sites frequently, because that’s what you need to do to keep news content fresh. Blog search continues to take in only whatever is put out in a feed, so that it doesn’t have complete information for sites that use partial feeds. Pages like this only get updated when a regular crawl happens.

That regular crawl, however, can be faster for sites that Google has either algorithmically or with human review decided should be part of its “instant layer.” These are sites where pages are fully crawled within hours or less of posting…”

Since Danny did an article on universal search i decided to Google “universal search”

On Google as #1

I decided to test Yahoo and Live. Yahoo featured SE Land on number 4 spot while Live did not have it. I was also offered related news to the “universal search”, in a regular “3 News Stories Format”.

Though as a searcher I am interested in general news, Google and Yahoo have a major advantage of getting the freshest content indexed in a matter of hours. It also important to note that sites like SE Land, SE Watch, SEO Roundtable, Webmaster World, etc are key to SEO industry news reporting, hence putting more weight on them as opposed to New York Time is crucial to the overall relevancy.

In this example Google is leader, since it featured Search Engine Land on number one spot, followed by Yahoo. MS is loosing out and will need to put more weight on freshness.

To be continued…

Okay so let’s face it. Valentine’s day is around the corner. Valentine’s day usually has a bad reputation for the people who are single and have no one to celebrate with. All the hearts, and teddy bears and chocolates are saturating stores all over. I’ve always though that Valentine’s day should be celebrated by everyone. You don’t really have to be in love to celebrate this sweet sweet holiday. There are hundreds of different things you can do if you are single or a couple or just willing to spend it with friends you love. Here are a few suggestions as to what everyone can do to have a Valentine’s Day to remember.

Single in the city

For the people who are single, there are activities available to you. Research Google and type in “Single’s Valentine” or “meet and greet Valentine” to find activities that allow all single to meet in one place and maybe find their Valentine. This is a great way to meet people who are in the same situation you are in. There are many clubs and venues that provide fun, interactive and exciting events to offer a chance for singles to mingle. Look for local events and research on the internet to find a meet and greet that will best suit you.

Double Trouble

For couples who wish to spend a “low key” Valentine’s Day, jus use your imagination and think outside the box. Fancy dinners and chocolates are overrated. Look for a unique event to take your date. Sometimes, less is more. A simple walk outside or a trip to the museum offers a great alternative for people who want to experience a more intimate day. There are great gifts that can be given that are outside the box. Customizing a mug or writing a poem is a great way to show you care with unique style. Try making dinner at home and getting a nice bottle of wine. Valentine’s day usually means packed restaurants and long waiting list. Stay home and find a unique “love” recipe online. Make it an event to remember by putting some unique effort into your day.

Group Love

If you are a group of friends that don’t have any plans for Valentines day, try organizing a night in with your best friends. You can have a great deal of fun by making fun of the holiday. By researching Google, you will find a bunch of Valentine’s Day activities that are a blast to do. Create the ultimate night in with the people you love the most. By making cakes and cocktails, you can create your own Valentine’s Day evening. All you need is your imagination and the will to have a positive attitude regarding Valentine’s Day.

Now with these three new ways of celebrating valentines day, create your very own event. Everyone should celebrate this day of love and passion, single or coupled up, it is a time to say “I love you”. Be creative and think outside the box to get the Valentine’s Day you’ve always dreamed of.

Danny of SE Land goes into detail discussing the new outlook of Google Universal Search. In the article he covers:

• Web
• Book Search
• Local/Maps
• Images
• News
• Video
• Blogs
• Product Search(Base/Froogle)

You can read the article at Search Engine Land.

Matt Cutts officially recognized Google position 6 filter where websites from #1, #2 spots were switched to #6.

Webmaster World Thread here.

Many were very skeptic about it. SEO Book wrote in detail how #6 filter affected their websites.

Increase Online Revenues.
Expand Your Business.
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Winnipeg

Search Engine Optimization Winnipeg and Manitoba SEO

Having no or little business online can put well being of your business under risk. How you ask? If a competitor is able to dominate top Google and Yahoo positions in your industry, this inevitably leads to substantial growth of revenues.

The increased profits after successful Winnipeg search engine optimization can be used to outpace your business on other, offline fronts.

Whenever people search in your industry, they are either looking for information or are ready to do business. For example, when people search for “lawyer in winnipeg” – what do people intend on doing when they find a website? Most likely hire a lawyer.

If your competition is able to roll out Winnipeg SEO strategies and dominate top Google spots, they stand in far better position both financially and business wise long term. More funds to kill, both for offline and for personal means.

SEO Winnipeg. Radio? Newspapers? TV? Search Engines?

The primary reason for little exposure of SEO Winnipeg is simply because it is fairly new type of advertising. A number of webmasters do not recognize the importance of creating website with search engines in mind. After all – what is the point of your website when no one comes there? There isn’t.

Only recently, Winnipeg SEO started surfacing into corporate and small business world and those who notice it first are going to gain an immense advantage. People are quite tired of being bombarded by advertisements on every corner of their lives, their BS meter are honed and trained. People can spot notes of hype in a nanosecond. There isn’t much effectiveness in newspapers and TV ads as there used to be. Advertising budgets are shifting globally.

People do not want to be sold, anywhere. This is the biggest gap that PR and marketing agencies fail to recognize. Pushing at people isn’t as effective as letting them come themselves, when they want to and when they are ready to buy. Though a number of agencies are taking advantage of SEO in Winnipeg as well as globally, many keep their heads in the sand, ignoring SEO Winnipeg.

For the regular business owner, the bottom line make a difference. It is the effectiveness and factual revenue measurements that counts. The return on investment and the profit margin that needs to be calculated and measured, to the last grain.

What are the Advantages of SEO Winnipeg?

• Surpassing competition with additional revenues, that can be used for offline strategies.
• Surpassing competition online and dominating internet market in a specific niche.
• Faster business growth and expansion due to higher number of generated leads and new customers.
• Affordability of new, before unavailable assets, such as bigger house, new car, bigger office.
• A 24/7 sales person, which does not need to be fed, or paid. It is there, working and capturing prospects.

Possibility of tapping into new revenue stream, growing business and surpassing competition not only online, but in offline fronts, because:

• SEO provides online visibility.
• People find you online and use your products.
• People enjoy your products and pass the word to their friends offline.
• Friends pass the words to theirs and so on.
• The link chain reaction

It is the word of mouth marketing and by dominating online, you double the amount of free word of mouth advertising.

It returns to you in increased leads and profits.

Where to Find Qualified Search Engine Optimization Professionals?

Search Engine Optimization Company or SEO Expert is number one company in Canada. We back it up.

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We are the best and our services are geared towards getting you profits.

We can yapp about great customer service or our values, but you want results and want to get things done. We do exactly that on top of the customer service and a little more.

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In an article on SE Land "Data Privacy Day," Bush Admin Launches Internet Monitoring Initiative Greg Sterling mentioned new US initiative to spy on US citizenry by monitoring internet.

Quote SE Land:

And given that today is Data Privacy Day, it’s somewhat ironic that the Bush administration is pushing a cyber security initiative that would greatly expand its ability to spy on American online activity and data collection. According to the Wall Street Journal:

"President Bush has promised a frugal budget proposal next month, but one big-ticket item is stirring controversy: an estimated $6 billion to build a secretive system protecting U.S. communication networks from attacks by terrorists, spies and hackers . . ."

Translation from Newspeak: We’re using the excuse of terrorism to get rid of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We’re going to spy on you more extensively, those who dissent will be named terrorists.

Of course the US is not the only country. As the result of London bombings, UK has become the number one surveillance society in the world, right from the pages of George’s Orwell 1984.

There are millions of CCTV cameras across Britain, with face recognition and licence plate reading software. Soon to come identity cards that require more then 40 pieces of identification including eyes scans, DNA samples and fingerprints. Whenever people use Subway cards, each and every move is tracked. Whenever people walk on the street, each and every trip is documented and filed onto individual profiles. Banking info, phone conversations, emails, browsing history, trips within the city, subway, buses, food, purchases – all tracked and documented, in the name of security.

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." - 1984

Since internet has no censorship mechanisms, it has served as a great tool to people and its well being is critical to the future.

It is nice to see SE Land pass a line or two, hinting to the cause. Aaron Wall of SEO Book drops a couple of lines from time to time as well.

Though SEO blogs aren’t the best fitted place, people do what it takes to spread the word.

The importance of strategically structuring your content to suite the web.

Website useit.com conducts eye tracking experiments which measure attention and reading patterns of participants.

One of the major key point that Jakob Nielsen states:

Most website users don’t read all your words

Visitors:

• scan the text
• pick out headlines
• highlighted words
• bulleted lists
• links

Online people read differently, you have to write differently.

3 design elements that are most effective at attracting eyeballs:

• Plain text
• Faces
• Cleavage and other “private” body parts

People do not read majority of the websites, they Scan in an “F” pattern.

Images below show visitor reading pattern of a regular webpage(courtesy of useit.com)

From the examples above we can areas of most attention are:

• Headlines
• Area beneath the headline
• Left part of the article

It is essential to get your point across in that space.

Benefit headlines, facts, informal format is key to sparkling interest in an article.

Pages must broken down into small chucks, or bullets points presented outline biggest fact/benefits.

Another set of images concludes that people scan page in “F” manner.

E- Commerce platfrom eyetracking measurement.

Search Engine Eye Tracking Measurement(Google)
First 4 results get the most attention.

About Us eye tracking F pattern

People Scan in “F” Manner

As presented in the test, people tend to scan in more or less “F” manner, throughout pages.

This is what useit.com had to say:

…In our new eyetracking study, we recorded how 232 users looked at thousands of Web pages.

• Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F’s top bar.
• Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F’s lower bar.
• Finally, users scan the content’s left side in a vertical movement. Sometimes this is a fairly slow and systematic scan that appears as a solid stripe on an eye tracking heat map. Other times users move faster, creating a spottier heatmap. This last element forms the F’s stem.

From the test conducted by useit.com we come up with the following conclusions.

…..Users first read in a horizontal movement….

As on the images above, upper part of letter F represents a headline (<H1>) area - it is the most readable part of the page. It is crucial to the well being of conversion rate to:

- Make it informal
- Relevant
- Benefit Laden
- Keyword Rich

Number of challenges arise:

From SEO perspective, keeping keyword relevancy

From marketing making it benefit spoken, getting reader intrigued to read on.

From user experience - including enough information about the rest of the content, product.

Being the first place to be read, structuring strategic headlines is essential to success of a landing page. It is also important to remember, as stated by useit.com:

Guideline #19: Don’t use clever phrases and marketing lingo.
Guideline #63: Limit font styles and other text formatting.
Guideline #91: Don’t look like an ad.

Another technique that can be useful is putting <H2> subheading right below the <H1> headline. This will:

• Give you more room to communicate the message
• Give higher chances of raising the interest
• People are more likely to read it since it is located in the most readable area
• Keyword Opportunity

…users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F’s lower bar…

This area is perfectly designated for bullets, passing a message of value and highlighting the most important information about the product. Since bullets are one of the most favorable online elements, they are suited perfectly for the task. Bullets are:

• easy to read
• scanner friendly
• pass important information in short bursts

A short, 3-4 sentence opening paragraph followed by bullets will be the most effective. After the bullets it also important to state the most important information or pass the most important benefits to the prospect.

Finally, users scan the content’s left side in a vertical movement.

As the headline, subheading and opening paragraph made their impact, users will be likely to read the most unreadable areas, which represent the vertical downward movement on the letter “F”

At that point, most of the readers simply skim through the page in a couple of seconds. It is essential to: have plenty subheadings (H2), break text into blocks no longer the 2-4 sentences, as long paragraph are rarely read on the web, unless the content is extremely unique.

If a call to action needs to be in place, highlighting it with a separate “Fill out an Application” or “Apply Now” located on the left side is going to be the most effective.

It cannot be placed in the hottest reading spots, since prospects need to get a message of value first, before seeing the “apply” button.

Placing the “apply” button on the left side(down the F line) within the following paragraph, will make the prospect stop in tracks(if its notable). As he stops, it is essential to shot bullets, making sure he gets more information about the product being offered.

It is also important to bold and highlight important words and content, as it creates interest and is more likely to be read as opposed to unformatted text.

Eye Tracking Conclusion:

Internet is completely different medium. Writing for the web is nowhere close to the offline world as stated many times by many prominent people. There is no room for warm up paragraphs(unless there is a dedicated readership) or smart talk.

Getting to the point and passing the benefits in a scannable format is key to raising CTR both from organic and PPC traffic.

To find out more about eye tracking go to http://www.useit.com/eyetracking/

3 Major search engines have experienced a significant decline in their stock.

As reported by Search Engine Land:

The chart above covers the past month and shows Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT) against the NASDAQ, over the past month. Of the three, Google’s had the greatest decline, down 19.5 percent. Yahoo’s just behind at 18.5 percent, with Microsoft at about 12.5 percent. The NASDAQ overall is at 15.5 percent.

Detailed Stock information on Google Finance:

Google

Yahoo

Microsoft

This may be a reflection of continuing US economic hardship, as many state it has already entered into a recession. Gold on the other side has experienced a tremendous growth over the years, as chart below shows, its value grew from $600 to current $880 dollars per once in 2007 alone. If the down slope of US recession continues, gold is bound to skyrocket onto record altitudes, while major currencies are under a threat of loosing their value.

European Parliament is still holding off Google DoubleClick deal, this time on privacy issues.

The hearing was arranged to discuss the potential privacy implications of Google’s proposed DoubleClick acquisition, as well as wider privacy concerns surrounding Internet data. Privacy advocates and campaigners from numerous organizations were present, expressing concerns surrounding Google’s potential dominance of the Internet advertising industry and the huge amounts of consumer data the company has access to. – Clickz Network

On December 20th 2007 FTC approved the purchase, giving Google green light on the purchase.

Though it seems Google is facing some opposition with the acquisition, deal will go through as enough time passes by.

As response to proposed acquisition, Microsoft was forced to buy Aquantive. Aquantive and DoubleClick are direct competitors.

Some of the companies under Aquantive are listed here, one of which made my eyebrows go up with - “Huh”. You can check it here.

Yahoo has officially confirmed its 2008 update.

Welcome to our first weather report of 2008. Over the last few days, we’ve been rolling out some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms. While we expect the update will be completed soon, as you know, throughout this process you may see some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index.

A number of people have already spotted it long before the official line and SEO roundtable drew a line 4 days earlier.

Discussion at WebMaster World.

More on Yahoo.

Blogosphere is exploding with reports of upcoming Yahoo layoffs ranging from hundreds to 1.500 in order to increase Yahoo’s bottom line, as the layoffs will save approximately $150 million, making greedy wallstreeters happy.

Yahoo! has staggering number of visitors, but it fails to make most of them.

Yahoo stated that it will no longer spread its efforts and will focus on its it key areas in near future.

I sense Googlers are quite happy an Mountain view, as their biggest search rival bends on its knees in order to stay up in the game. Will Yahoo stay here? As many have speculated, Yahoo might outsource its search to Google and cut even more jobs as a way to stay in the stock game, but this will not likely happen as Yahoo search is pretty good, at least better then that of Microsoft. Yahoo got a streamlined supply of loyal visitors, so it is going to be a player for a bit.

Is there a way to identify a reputable search engine optimization company?

Good reputation can make a difference of increased profits, added traffic and timely optimization, while the bad guys in some cases, will optimize for words that no one is searching, counting on people who do not entirely understand search.

If you are looking to a hire a company, in efforts to increase you profits, read on.

Here is a couple of tips that will help you spot a reputable SEO.

How does the company rank itself?

This is a very important factor. Think of it this way – if a company is doing search engine optimization, a reputable SEO will rank well on Google(since Google is the biggest) If they cannot show up on Google themselves, how can they make it work for you?

Look at a couple of terms. Go Google.ca and try a couple of common, SEO terms in order to spot reputable search engine optimization companies.

• SEO
• Search Engine Optimization
• Search Engine Optimization Company
  Search Engine Marketing
• SEO Marketing
• SEO Marketing company
• and so on, do a couple of mixes

Those showing up on the top will be the best and the most reputable search engine optimization companies in the industry. Why? Because SEO is a very competitive field. There are thousands of companies and all of them optimize their own sites, for the same terms, meaning, it when it comes to optimization, the words like SEO, Search Engine Optimization are the most competitive keywords.

If a company can rank well for those keywords, on the first page, it is a best indicator that this SEO company is reputable and can be trusted.

How transparent is it?

Assuming you’ve done some research and spotted a couple of companies. What is the next step to make sure it has good reputation?

Shoot a couple of emails to different companies, see what they answer. Most will ask for your website, keywords and so on. It is a good idea to include that in your email. See what they will answer.

If they call you or offer you to call them, go ahead and do it. SEOs are quite busy, conversation puts a face to the company and saves time. Look at what they state. Ask for some referrals and examples, if SEO is reputable they will gladly provide a ton of examples to you.

Take one of them and try to get into contact with the owner of the site they optimized. Though it is not always possible, as they are busy too, it is still a good idea to give it a shot.

• You find out first hand
• Share positives and negatives that will help you decide

Will the company guarantee it will not jeopardize your website?

This is known as Black Hat SEO in the circles. The use of techniques which will ban your site, in some cases permanently from Google. Make sure that reputable SEO company will give you a guarantee it will never use such techniques. If you want more safety, fax them a letter and ask for a signature next to a guarantee, since if your operation relies heavily on the internet you cannot afford to be banned from search engines.

Are they willing to meet you?

And the last, but no least. Is the company willing to meet you face to face. A reputable search engine optimization company will be more then happy to show you their office, introduce staff and tell you all pros and cons of SEO. Optimizers love talking about optimization and if they do it with you, that’s a very good sign.

We wish you luck in finding reputable search engine optimization expert.

www.searchengineoptimizationcompany.ca

• #1 on Google.ca for SEO out of 182,000,000 results
• #2 on Google.ca for Search Engine Optimization out of 66,400,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for SEO Expert out of 1,290,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for Search Engine Marketing out of 51,300,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for SEO Services out of 7,980,000 results
• #3 on Google.ca for Search Engine Marketing Company out of 152,000,000 results
• #2 & #3 on Google.ca for SEO Company out of 3,500,000 results

A number of reports on Webmaster World and Digital Point forums suggest that Yahoo is updating its algorithms.

Digital Point:

“I’m seeing frequent changes in my sites rankings on Yahoo..
My sites have been jumping pages for 4 days now..
Anyone else experiencing this?”

“Hello, Yes, I saw changes… something is updating right now… “

“First time we are getting some good results from yahoo.”

“something good i smell … my yahoo traffic going high for about 3 or 4 days”

WebMaster World:

“Just recently they started to slip and now they are completely gone, as if I am getting penalized.”

Rest of the thread is a bit of topic though.

Nevertheless, it seems that Yahoo is rolling out some new updates, a bit later than Google’s Page Rank update.

Read about Yahoo! laying off staff and outsouring its search to Google on our second blog.

We all know that people shop more and more on the Internet before going to retailers in person. It’s a good way to save money and time, because shoppers know exactly where to go to get the best price for what they’re looking for.

This tendency of online ‘window-shopping’ make consumers experts at analyzing products. Retailers realized that some shoppers now know more than salesmen on the floor!

What does this mean for retailers? In the near future, they will have to make sure to hire expert salespeople who knows every characteristics of the products they are selling, as well as answering the technical questions consumers may have. If retailers don’t take this tendency seriously, they might end up with unsatisfied clients and lose their credibility.

A came across a very interesting website, which lets you lend money(from $25) to people living in countries with bad economic conditions, such as Africa and a part of the Middle East.
To find out more, please check our second blog that details on how to lend.

SEO Marketing Future

Where will SEO be in five, ten, fifteen years?

Tricky question.

To predict the future of SEO we need to understand the following points.

• SEO is powerful
• It is way more powerful then Yellow Pages, Paper/Magazine ads, Radio Commercials and in some niche fields. SEO outranks TV.
• SEO is expensive. Marketing campaigns come at stiff prices ranging at five digits, something that keeps the industry spinning very effectively for many years.
• SEO is new. Though SEO, which was considered spam back in the day is still in its earliest years in comparison to dinosaur newspapers and long presence of radio and TV.

There is no definitive formula. There are major guidelines, however, there is no textbook that teaches SEO and predicts its future developments. Search engines adjusts the algorithms every so often, there is simply no way of documenting it long term and for the future. Even SEO rock stars disagree on many points:

Google Search Engine Raking Factors
Link Value Factors

Though they agree on major point and factors, there is a lot of uncertainty on many smaller things. Nevertheless all of them work. This can be explained by stating that there a few ways to SEO. Different businesses require different approach.

• Some might go for content development, community driven SEO, that is getting free links and referrals by building communities. For niche industries and bigger ones.

• Hard link building and on page SEO.

• Niche SEO, long tail keywords, lower demand, but many landing pages, that combined, give plenty of traffic.

SEO is still not valued for what it is. Many people have old mind frames. Kind of like my grandma saying: “How do you listen to that music?” Beautiful tunes they are, but she won’t get it.

So knowing all that, what is the future of search engine optimization and where is going?

The Corporate future of corporate SEO.

Lets look at the what big names are doing.

Many corporations have got themselves in-house SEO, or planning to get search engine optimization teams in the future. We cant say that all of them do it wrong, but a post from SEO book highlights some of the mistakes.

"…I quickly found out that corporate bureaucracy and office politics prevented me from implementing many of the most cutting edge techniques that would have given sportsline.com the competitive advantage it needed to set itself apart in the organic space…"

"…Both from a site-side and link-building perspective, the workload is extremely heavy, often forcing SEO employees to choose between quality and timely delivery of recommendations…."

"…Add a high level of competitiveness among agencies and the result is a high level of turnover and relatively low number of truly qualified applicants. And did I mention the endless stream of meetings, calls, presentations, and contractual legwork?…"

Due to the bureaucracies of corporate world, we cant say everywhere, but I suspect in many places, search engine optimization does not get the treatment it should, both and now and in the future.

What does this mean for the future of SEO? Truly qualified professionals will prefer to run their own operations, with no strings attached, charging their own decisions, working on their projects and clients.

The “know how” crowds will stay independent now and in the future, simply because they have:

• More freedom, not tied to demands of corporate madness.
• Have high chances of making a good and more then comfortable living working themselves.

So best SEOs will probably stay independent in the upcoming years. There is too much dough to be made for a true expert to work for salary(unless of course companies beat it).

SEO awareness

Like all good things, it takes some time for someone to recognize them. A good example was given by one of the bloggers(cant recall who):

Me Rephrasing:
"SEO is like electricity, they ignored it for some time, but then it bit them. Those who jumped on the train established their grounds, old coal lovers ether disappeared or took heavy hits."

And it did take some time. A lot of time. So will SEO. In this case however, search engine optimization wont break TV hypnosis, but it is already hurting newspapers, magazines and other printed media. (combined with PPC and other internet advertising).

It will take a lot of viral referrals for search engine optimization to gain more future ground, but it is something that is surely and steadily going on right now. A lawyer will recommend optimization to his dentist and so on. It is a slow, but sure process.

As more people recognize it, SEO will become harder and harder to avoid. As more companies outperform their rivals, their secrets will eventually become self evident/

There is also the young crowds factor. Many generations are growing up digitized, so search eninge optimization can be easily accepted.

Google is taking steps to educate young graduates about search engine marketing.

"The Google Online Marketing challenge seeks to turn college and business school students into search marketers (in most cases local). We wrote about it when the program was announced. Google says that there are now 724 teams in the US (two weeks before the competition begins) and there appear to be many around the globe as well."

SEO future as a university course?

Will optimization be ever taught in colleges and universities?

That was a question that Search Marketing Sage asked:

"Today I was fortunate enough to speak to an Internet marketing class at my alma mater, James Madison University (JMU — Go Dukes!). While search engine marketing is only a component of this class, it’s nice to see that some colleges and universities are beginning to understand the importance of Internet marketing in general as its popularity continues to rise at the cost (often) of traditional marketing media, such as print, radio and TV.

However, JMU is more the exception rather than the rule. Many candidates I interview for positions at Search Mojo have little or no exposure to Internet marketing through their college studies. This begs the question: Why are so many universities failing to cover such a popular, growing and effective area of marketing?

I think the answer is simply this — search engine marketing, as well as Internet marketing in general, change at such a rapid pace, it’s difficult for the professors to even keep up. As a search marketer reading this blog now, you’re likely doing your daily download of search marketing news and tips. And perhaps you only focus on search marketing. For professors however, they may teach many subjects in a particular field, such as market research, buyer behavior, etc. as well as Internet marketing. Internet marketing may only be one area they have to keep abreast on."

So the biggest issue for teaching search engine optimization is its pace. There is simply no way to document it. No way to predict the future of SEO industry. Who will be next after Google? Will there ever be? What will be the next big algorithm? What will be the algo tweak in a month? How do non search portals affect SEO?

SEO may be taught in colleges on larger scale in the future, but only the basics, most likely mixed with the rest of internet marketing.

There is another solution that a bright minds might do – developing online, updated courses for anyone who wishes.

As the search enigne optimization industry moves forward onto the future, so does exposure to knowledge. As of now, the only way to learn SEO is by reading a number of websites and forums. The only people who took time to write SEO manuals are Aaron Wall of SEObook.com and Rand Friskin of SEO.org. They both capitalize on the knowledge, so with time we will most likely see more people coming up with their own books and sharing the knowledge, hence spreading the word around more.

I think optimization will never be taught in universities, apart from basics. There is simply no program that envisions algos and many other factors, however we will see more and more material available online.

Community is what keeps optimization rolling. The sharing of knowledge via blogs and forums, between the pros and beginners is what gets search engine optimization out there. It will most likely stay that way as it is the only way for optimizers to keep up the skills. I share what I find - you do same. We both benefit. It will stay that way.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and their roles in SEO.

Of course SEO wouldn’t have any future if it wasn’t for the search engines, but one thing is true – no matter the search engine, as long as they exist there will be sleepless souls testing and honing their sites in efforts to crack the algos.

Google drives SEO for today, but it wouldn’t matter if Google will there tomorrow, as long as there are search enginea, SEOs will have a future.

Google strategies 2007 and Google financial outlook for 2007

Google is the most powerful online corporation. With 60% of world’s search share and 90% domination in some countries, Google continues steady conquest of the virtual world. What started as a university project by two of its founders, Sergei Brin and Larry Page, now generates over a billion dollars every quarter and employs over 15.000 people.

	Larry Page, Sergei Brin and Eric Schmidt

2007 was a very successful year for Google. Numerous acquisition, new project rolled out, increased revenues and skyrocketing share jumps. There is no question that Google is the fastest growing company in the world and it repeats a legacy that once belonged to Microsoft.

The outlook of Google acquisitions and Developments in the year 2007.

Some of Google’s purchases were justified, some of them did not do much for the company, however to better understand Google, its acquisition and development strategies let me run a quote from this wonderful article:

“Since Google has the search engine advantage, they know where web traffic is going before anyone else. Their boots crawl the web to discover trends, in addition to indexing keywords and content. Sometimes this leads Google to aggressively bid for a company, while competitors are left scratching their heads in bewilderment.”

We can see some it below.

March 19th 2007.

Google Acquires Adscape Media.

Adscape Media is an advertising company which successfully developed a way to show in game advertising without interrupting the game play. It seems as though Google was looking to expand its advertising efforts into the online gaming world. It is not clear where this project went, since Adscape Media gives "server not found" error. Regardless whether the project is still under development or whether it was dropped, this was a strategic acquisition with the intent to secure its standing as the biggest internet advertising platform as well as being one of the first companies cashing, in a potentially profitable field.

April 13, 2007

Google Inc. announced a definitive agreement to acquire DoubleClick Inc. Google ambitions were withheld by the FTC(Federal Trade Commission) until December 20th 2007.

FTC which is charged with protecting American consumer rights, had the following concerns:

• Consumer privacy
• Lack of competition as a result of the purchase.

December 20, 2007 Federal Trade Commission Closes Google/DoubleClick Investigation and gives green light to the purchase. Read more about Google/Double Click below.

April 20th, 2007

Google Inc. Announces Acquisition of Tonic Systems Inc.-DJ

Tonic System Inc. was a startup company, developing office presentational software. Tonic Software was used to unveil Google Presentation, which is a direct competitor to Microsoft Power Point.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets is a rival to Microsoft Office suite, however it had little luck in terms of getting people to use Google instead of Microsoft. Google Docs is popular among students, who cannot afford to buy expensive software, however, I believe Microsoft made Office easy to crack, making sure that the young crowds stay with Microsoft, even if it’s a free download, as in the long run it keeps bigger customer base in tact.

June 4th, 2007

Google Inc. Buys FeedBurner-DJ

Google buys Feed Burner for $100 Million Dollars US. Feedburner is a feed management software that allows to track, analyze and monetize blogs, podcasts and news feeds. The Acquisition allowed Google to expand its AdSence network into the blogosphere even deeper and also to control one of a kind feed analysis software, similar to Google Analytics.

June 5th, 2007

Google Inc. Purchases Start-Up PeakStream Inc.

PeakStream was developing software for programming multicore CPUs. At the core of Google - stand server farms running hundreds of thousands of computers and storage units. Google took the step to incorporate chip management in house. The financial details were not disclosed.

July 17th 2007

Google Plans Search Service for Mobile Content

"Google Inc. is developing a new search service for cellphones that will help consumers find and buy ringtones, games and other mobile content as the Internet company pushes more deeply into wireless, people familiar with the matter say." - WSJ

This one of the first, officially announced steps by Google to expand into the wireless world. This was later followed by a string on new developments that made it obvious - Google is hoping to be key wireless player in years to come.

September 10th, 2007

Google Inc. Buys Jaiku

Jaiku is a mobile social networking site, which confirmed Google’s ambitions for wireless world.

November 5th, 2007

Google Launches Android, an Open Mobile Platform

Initial interest was later confirmed by a big move to expand into hand held devices. Android is an open source Operating System for smart phones a PDAs. To capture as much market as possible and to generate the best mobile OS system, Google announced it will give out $10 million in rewards to people who develop the most useful and the most unique software for Android OS. This send flares through coding community as young blood threw themselves onto non stop shifts, in the hopes of getting a piece of the pie. From strategic perspective, Google has made the best choice, since open source is really hurting Microsoft and has brought some of the best software such as Firefox and Ubuntu. Having unique applications on its OS will only encourage people to use the Android aka G-Phone.

Android also challenges Microsoft in the mobile market, as MS has a lot of influence with the Windows Mobile platform. If all goes as planned for Google, Microsoft will suffer dire consequences in the wireless OS market, as its product not only lacks innovation, but performs very poorly.

November 30th, 2007

Google Will Bid in FCC Spectrum Auction

Google made a big move to bid on 700 Mhz Wireless spectrum that finally confirmed it is going for mobile full throttle. Google Inc has around $12 billion cash on hand and stands very high chance of winning the bids.

“We believe it’s important to put our money where our principles are, consumers deserve more competition and innovation than they have in today’s wireless world. No matter which bidder ultimately prevails, the real winners of this auction are American consumers who likely will see more choices than ever before in how they access the Internet.” - Eric Schmidt, CEO

From the statement made by Eric Schmidt:

"consumers who likely will see more choices than ever before in how they access the Internet"

We can guess that in the case Google wins the bidding it will most likely equip the network with 3G wireless access and service people as the wireless internet provider. It is not clear whether Google will expand into the voice industry, however, we can be sure that internet service is on top of Google’s list. If Google is to challenge names such as A&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, it stands a very high chance of success. G has all the brand power, mobile platform in progress and is the most darling guest of non competing businesses.

Bidding starts January 27th.

December 20, 2007

Federal Trade Commission Closes Google/DoubleClick Investigation - Google Purchased DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion

After eight long months in review, FTC gave google a go ahead on DoubleClick. DoubleClick is an online advertising agency serving graphic ads throughout vast internet spaces. The purchase got the biggest Google rival Microsoft quite nervous and it aquired Aquantive for $6 billion. Aquantive is a direct DoubleClick rival as both companies serve the same dish. The acquisitions only demonstrate the seriousness and the magnitude of the wars between two heavy weights.

Google has got a lot of support from Apple, IMB and other smaller names, while Microsoft has no support with many wishing it went down in flames. Nevertheless MS has virtually unlimited pockets and will continue to fight for dominance.

December 13, 2007

Google announces it is testing Google Knol

With immense popularity of Wikipedia, Google decided to move towards developing direct rival to Wiki, codename Knol. The concept is similar to that of Wikipedia, but with only one author per article, but as many articles as anyone can write on the same topic. The philosophy is that people will vote the best articles up while burring spam. It also provides Google with more options to run PPC, as instead of 1 page it can have 10 pages running ads on the same topic. So far online community is not very happy about the project, as many state that the big platforms are slowly taking over smaller guys.

Knol will not likely be as popular as Wikipedia, but if it launches, many authors will write and Google will allow to link out(most likely with "nofollow").

Google Financial Outlook 2007.

Google Inc Public, NASDAQ:GOOG

Google Stock prices, 2007

For more information about Google Stock pricing Visit Google Finance.

Google Board of Directors:

• Dr. Eric Schmidt, Google Inc.
• Sergey Brin, Google Inc.
• Larry Page, Google Inc.
• John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
• Ram Shriram, Sherpalo
• John Hennessy, Stanford University
• Arthur Levinson, Genentech
• Paul Otellini, Intel
• Shirley M. Tilghman, Princeton University
• Ann Mather

For information About Google Management chain visit Google Corporate Information.

Ask.com is being suited for clickfraud. Slightly Shady SEO reported an email that landed in his inbox, stating that lawsuit is being prepared against Ask.com

Clickfarud is the action by competitor companies, where the competitor clicks on text link ads and depletes the advertising budget of the competitor. Since the victim pays for each click that he gets, his budget for the day can simply run out, living more room for competitor.

Here is the Copy of the proceedings from Slightly Shady SEO:

—————————————————————————————————-

Subject: Click Charge Settlement
Legal Notice:
If you purchased online advertising from IAC Search & Media, Inc. and/or Ask Jeeves, Inc. (collectively “Ask”) between August 1, 2005 and the present, you may be a class member in a class-action lawsuit, Lane’s Gifts and Collectibles et al. v. Ask Jeeves, Inc. et al., Case No. CV-2005-52-1, in the Circuit Court of Miller County, Arkansas. This notice advises you of your legal rights.
You should review the detailed Settlement Notice as soon as possible, as there are several important deadlines that you must meet to take certain actions in connection with a proposed settlement of the class action lawsuit. Your legal rights are affected whether you act or do not act. The deadline for filing an objection or excluding yourself from the proposed settlement is February 2, 2008, and the last day to file a claim under the proposed settlement is February 2, 2008. For further information, please refer to the Settlement Notice.
The Settlement Notice informs you of the Court’s certification of a class for settlement purposes; the nature of the claims alleged; your right to participate in, or exclude yourself from, the class; a proposed settlement; and how you can claim an award of advertising credits under the settlement or object to the settlement.
The proposed settlement will provide advertising credits to class members who certify that they were the victims of “click fraud” or other invalid or improper clicks on online advertisements purchased from IAC Search & Media, Inc. and/or Ask Jeeves, Inc. on or after August 1, 2005.
The proposed settlement will resolve claims that IAC Search & Media, Inc. and/or Ask Jeeves, Inc. breached its contracts with advertisers and violated other laws by failing to adequately detect and stop “click fraud” or other invalid or improper clicks on online advertisements.
If you are a member of the class, your legal rights are affected by whether you act or do not act.
For a copy of the Settlement Notice, click on the link, or visit the case website at www.AskSettlement.com.

—————————————————————————————————-

Ask.com is the fourth biggest search Engine in North America with around 4% market share. Ask.com is wholly owned by IAC.

Chinese Blogger was beaten to death by Chinese military police for attempting to record a protest on his cellular phone.

Full report on Techcrunch.

Chinese government has been repeatedly exposed engaging in dehumanization activities, as its ruthless police state crushes all forms of dissent. China has a complete grip on its internet infrastructure and Chinese internet acts as the separate entity to the world wide web. Any anti government statements, either in chats, forums or blogs are tracked, authors ether imprisoned or killed.

In the world of unending spin, internet has served as the exposure window contrary to the “official line”, however China and its martial law system is able to keep a tight grip on free speech of its populous. Lets hope that Chinese protesters can fight off their freedom with time.

As mentioned in the previous post, it seems that Google rolled out its 2008 January page rank update.

Digital point forums members are reporting PR updates on their websites. You can read it here.

Webmaster World members also noted changes in page rank, you can read detailed posts over here.

Barry Schwartz of SEO Roundtable reported page Rank Update for DMOZ directory as well on the overall Page Rank update.

There is still silence from Google or Matt Cutts, but due to the magnitude of reports it is obvious that PR update is being rolled out by Google.

P.S.

Page Rank for www.searchengineoptimizationcompany.ca  is currenty at 5 as it was before.

There seems to be a lot of buzz around new Google Page Rank update. Though not yet confirmed, many webmasters are noticing changes in their pagerank.

Last update rolled out at the end of the November, primarily targeting link selling websites.

Major SEO publications have not picked up on it yet and will probably stay quiet until Monday, however here are some forum recaps and comments that people experienced. If it isn’t a major page rank update, at the very least it is a select PR adjustment.

Webmaster Word Forums:

- "My site went from a PR4 to a PR0 overnight. It wasn’t just the index but every page on the site."

Digital point Forums:

- "My graybar site went to 3, so it’s definitely happening."

- "My Webdirectory MainPage doesn’t change. But my submit.php went 0 to 3"

- "My forum jump from N/A to PR2 today. However, nothing happen with the main site yet or maybe I get the same PR’

- "My site when from PR2 to PR3."

Another Thread on Digital Point:

- "Yey yey.. mine is now at pr4 from pr3"

- "My site jumped from PR2 -> PR3 .. actually smartpagerank’s toolbar shows me 3 .. but digpagerank shows me 2 still .. so i don’t kno =P"

Continued with more then 20 page rank update reports

Apart from speculated pagerank update, Google seems to be tweaking its SERPs.

Digital Point Thread:
- "I saw a huge jump from position 9 on first page to 2 for my top two keywords and then dropped again (still on first page though). Others seem to be jumping all over."

- "Yeah, a couple of my sites are starting to have their PR jump around. An update may be coming."

- "I’m seeing serps going all over the place not seeing any change in pr though."

Though this is not confirmed, at least the pagerank issue has critical mass in place as of 11.01.2008

It may a little while for the official statements to break out, but the digital point forums have been swarmed with page rank update threads. This PR update will most likely be a regular roll out, while the previous one was targeted at a very specific group.

Does Page Rank matter?

It seems that PR does not have as much weight as it used to. First off, because Matt stated it usually represents past data, secondly it doesn’t affect the actual search placement. Page Rank in itself is an invention by which Google calculates the incoming links(site value), but due to a number of factors, public toolbar version of pagerank has lost some of its weight.

A number of websites selling links used and continue to use PR as an indicator of the website ranking power, so page rank has weighty marketing value.

Apart from link market, Page rank stays an important indicator to many people, as some of the digitalpoint forum participants put it:

- "customers have Google Toolbar installed, and when they don’t see the green bar - they think the site is new and not trustworthy…"

- "You just hit the nail right on the head with a very big mallet. Twice.
It’s a known fact if users have the Google Toolbar installed and see the exact same product on two sites, exact same price including delivery, the consumer will always buy the product from the site with PageRank. It’s a fact."

Regardless, Page rank always manages to send storms through SEO community. Whether PR has weighty value or not, stays a fierce debate of viewpoints, but a tweak from 5 to 6 definitely adds that classy touch, especially in the eyes of savvy customers.

We will definitely update on the upcoming PR development that will unfold over the weekends.