Is Google Looking for a Home in Boston?

While there are often rumors of what Google is going to do next, the latest one hits a little closer to home...

It seems that Google may be looking to expand into the Boston/Cambridge area.  Several articles and posts have been written in the past day discussing Google searching for space and posting jobs here in Massachusetts.  Here are a few to note:

• Google Looking to Expand in Beantown?


• Tasty Chowdah: Google Moving Into Boston


• Is Google Planning to Expand in Beantown?

Does Search Engine Optimization Have a Future?

In January, I wrote a post on what topics I felt would become big themes for 2007 in search engine marketing.  I still feel that all of these topics, Web Analytics, Competitive Analysis and Social Media, are all critical to our ability to our being a high value service to businesses and website owners, but I may have missed one important idea that has been building in my mind, probably since before Google's IPO.

What will search engine marketing - or specifically, search engine optimization become, and can it survive as an industry?

In recent months and in various ways, SEO experts have been debating this topic a great deal, whether or not it directly begs the question at hand.  The topic really became visible in late 2006, after Dave Pasternack's article came out questioning the value in SEO.  This conversation escalated through the forums of search discussions and was even addressed by Danny Sullivan in his rebuttal article, "Yes Virginia, SEO is Rocket Science". 

But the debate about what brings value out of SEO has been talked about in our industry before Pastnernack offered his opinion.  In early 2006, Social Patterns asked the question of why "Large SEO Firms Suck?", which emphasized Jim Boykin's thoughts on page tagging as well as Rand Fishkin's conversation with Dana Melick. Clickz contributor Shari Thurow offered a good outline for identifying a well rounded set of skill sets that distinguish qualified SEO professionals from the amateur SEO shop, including usability experience, copywriting and web development/IT expertise. That article came out in 2005, when many people were just realizing that reciprocal links weren't as valuable and maybe you should have more than just your product information on your website for content. 

Within the past couple months, SEOmoz posted a definition of the SEO expert and SEOBook challenged the notion that SEO is the only industry trying to capitalize on a customer base.  Meanwhile, SEO names such as Jim Boykin, Jeremy Shoemaker and Todd Malicoat, "Stuntdubl", have begun embracing social media because they realize that these sites drive traffic, have millions of users and offer a high potential for obtaining inbound links.   These discussions and the visibility of SEO's utilizing new opportunities online all contribute to an existing undercurrent:

What does SEO become in the near and distant future?  Can SEO survive?

Most of my in depth discussion on the topic has been around a local watering hole in Davis Square or at 8PM in the conference room at KoMarketing Associates on a Wednesday when I wanted to home by 7.  Meaning, I haven't been discussing this on a personal level with the aforementioned names above, all of which I read fairly regularly.  I was at the inaugural SEMNE meeting a couple weeks ago and listened to a great presentation by Fredrick Marckini which helped revitalize some of my own thoughts on the business of search engine optimization.

So my answers to the questions above:

• To the second question: "Yes" SEO will survive.
• To the first question (which requires the longer explanation):  SEO will become whatever strategy is required to bring people searching for your product or service, to your website, your contact form, your payment authorization page, your email inbox and your sales staff.   

Marckini stressed the notion of reaching out to vertical markets directly or indirectly related to traditional search engines, such as local search, social media sites and niche search offerings (such as news search, video etc). He suggests this because search engines like Google and Yahoo can only become incrementally better at how they rank and prioritize search results based on variables and factors related to their algorithms.  That comment precludes an assumption that eventually people will no longer use a search engine to find what they are looking for.  In fact, search engines will just become an integrated component of any mechanism/product or service that an individual uses. 

I agree with Marckini's conclusions (which echo other leaders thoughts on the industry). I believe that as long as people are searching for anything, and using Internet technology to do so, search engine optimization will be required, because businesses need to know why search technology ranks or does not rank their information ahead of the competition for whatever mechanism presents search results.  More importantly, as Google, Yahoo and other search technologies strive to integrate themselves into the everyday applications we use, SEO professionals are the ones that understand what factors make or break website visibility in search.

That means that if integrating video tutorials into YouTube brings your business quality traffic, leads, and referrals, it will transcend to how Google values your website overall.  If your images will provide you a growing appreciation from the audience in Flickr, Yahoo will take notice.  If the community at Digg, "Digg's" your articles and information, you will probably generate both traffic and inbound links, which transcend to long-term SEO success.  If your website has valuable content, a user-friendly design and experience,  engages the visitor effectively, and your business is using web analytics to identify statistics like page views, bounce rates and average length of time on site, you have a better shot at succeeding in Google's personalized search. 

Search Engine Optimization - Beyond 2007

As long as people are searching for something, using Internet technology, there will be a need to understand what the mechanisms are that prioritize search results. Search engine optimization becomes a practice of understanding where not only users, but users potentially interested in your information, will be online, what sites they visit, where their questions are being answered and what tools they are already using to find information like yours.  As technology evolves and changes, our job as SEO professionals is to identify and utilize the emerging tools and resources available that will drive traffic, visitors and improved search engine rankings to your website.  People will not stop searching, but the sources of information that influence results will.

Alexa Data - Additional Support Skewing It's Accuracy

We frequently talk about the inaccuracies of Alexa data when looking at their reports and information presented.  While Alexa can be a reasonable benchmark for establishing some form of search visibility, it should not be maintained as an authoritative source of information, because the data is heavily skewed towards toolbar users and their demographics and preferences, etc.

Here are two recent posts supporting this statement from well known (and respected) folks at our favorite little search engine.  The original is on Peter Norvig's website and further expanded on by Matt Cutts on his blog last night.

How ‘Local’ Can Google Local Search Get?

For a while now we have been seeing little maps, phone numbers and addresses appear in Google’s search results.  Sometimes they would show up and sometimes they wouldn’t, leaving us to wonder just what Google was up to.  Well as it turns out they are on their way to taking over the world.  Okay maybe not, but they are in fact entering the world of localized search.

Posted on the Google Blog Monday,Google gave details on where and when local businesses and services would appear in the search results.  Every time a user searches for a place, business or other location specific information, Google will show a map, provide contact information and in some cases (mainly businesses) present reviews. 

It seems as if it was only a matter of time before we heard about this.  SEO’s have been helping sites optimize for specific locations for years and sites like CitySearch and AOL’s CityGuide have made their names and money from providing users with information on restaurants, bars and attractions in every major city across the United States. 

The only real question I have about this, is how accurate can the Google database be?  Are they gathering their information from the yellow pages?  Are they out trolling the streets taking notes?  Can Google really give results for every small town across the U.S?

I don’t know the answer to this yet but I did a try searching for the dry cleaners in my hometown.  (Quick background - my hometown of Avon, NY is extremely small and barely constitutes a suburb.  We have two stoplights, three banks, three gas stations and no Wal-marts.  We do however have a McDonald’s and a Dollar Store).  The surprising thing was, Google not only gave me the name and location of the one dry cleaner we have, but they offered me directions. 

Congrats to Google on this.  Just one more way to increase your search traffic and one more hurdle we in the search marketing industry have to jump.

Google Infrastructure Update Underway

Matt Cutts' recent blog post indicates that there will be some visible updating to a few key Google numbers we like to look at (most of the time :-))

• PageRank is being updated in the Toolbar, which also will reflect search results around the "link:www.domain.com" and "site:www.domain.com" numbers.
• Issues with supplemental results should be corrected
• Most importantly (IMO), he also writes to indicate (and validate) a key point about "data pushes" to public search results.  These happen more frequently than before - every 1-2 days in comparison to a 3-4 week timeframe in the past.  While this should not affect keyword rankings over the long-term, we've definitely noticed more fluctuation on a regular basis, and this information supports the observation (and why it is happening).

To illustrate how this can affect search results, we recently wrote a post reviewing SEO Spyglass.  This post currently ranks #1 in results for "review seo spyglass" and "review of seo spyglass" as of 1/11/2007, but was just recently #9 in results (Tuesday - 1/9/2007 actually).  The greater point here is that as more users review this tool, or write about it, you should see our rankings drop over the long term  - unless - we take active effort in building our own presence for that keyword online through link outreach. 

This example is being used to illustrate the fact that what used to be something you could gauge (more or less) on a monthly basis may actually fluctuate weekly, or even daily if you check it that much.

Keyword - Competitor Link Building Example

We apologize for the inconvenience but have removed this link building tactic from the archive.  Make sure to check out our search engine marketing blog for more strategies and information on SEO, PPC and social media.

Is Google Using Santa as "Updatebait"?

In the SEM industry we have been hearing a lot about the term “linkbait”.  What is the definition of linkbaiting? What makes a good linkbait?  Why is one topic more “link worthy” than another?  While there has been a lot of discussion as to what linkbaiting really consists of, it basically comes down to more people linking to your site because of something you create/post. 

Is it possible that Google has come up with such a thing as an “updatebait”?

Okay it sounds a little silly, but it seems Google has found a clever way to get users to upgrade to Google Earth Version 4.  And who better to help them with it than jolly old Saint Nick himself? 

For the past couple of years people have been able to watch Santa make his famous journey on Christmas Eve using Google Earth.  By simply downloading the Santa Tracker, you could sit at your computer and follow Santa on his magical sleigh ride.  If you were lucky and behaved all year, he might even stop at your house (ok I made that part up). 

This year Google has taken that tactic and expanded it.  Not only can you watch Santa fly around the world on Christmas Eve, but you can visit the 3D North Pole and search the Earth for the twelve presents he has hidden each day leading up to Christmas.  The kids can have fun looking at the reindeer and finding Santa’s gifts all while learning at the same time. (The clues are trivia questions about the city the present is located in) 

So what is the catch?  Well in order to do this you have to have downloaded the latest version of Google Earth.  Enter the concept of “updatebait” - Update Google Earth and watch Santa trek across the planet.

I really do think this is a great marketing tactic and I gotta wonder how many people have either downloaded or updated Google Earth because of it.  It also has me questioning if this is something other software vendors can do - Give users an incentive to update or download your product aside from the fact it’s new. 

Think of the possibilities, “Receive special messages from the Easter Bunny, just by downloading IE 7”.

Splogging Turns To New Methods of Spam Tactics

The "State of the Splogosphere Part IV" gives us some hope that the continued problem of spam generation of blogs may be getting solved by the big blog search engines such as Google Blog Search and Technorati.  While it is far from complete, at the least, the engineers of these search tools are recognizing the issues and addressing them as best as they can (as echoed by Matt Cutts on Saturday).

Of course, that only means that the spammers use alternative methods to driving artificial links - comment spam has taken on a whole new meaning.  Even in our blog, which received little traffic, we end up filtering out comment spam on a regular basis.  I can't imagine authoring a blog with thousands of subscribers and manually filtering out the junk they receive.  What does this mean for the future of the social network?

My opinion is that social networks need to look at better filtering technology to get rid of the junk.  WordPress TOS clearly defines their intolerance to spam on their hosted servers and it can only be a matter of time before plugins are created to filter self-hosted blogs using the open source technology as well.  But the WordPress team eliminates blogs on their network that do not conform to guidelines as well - this is not just an empty statement.  The other blog software providers should be doing the same as well as the social network providers and "enablers" such as Technorati, Digg and YouTube.  If they do not, the greater danger is that they become useless or untrustworthy.  Think about how many web directories there are on the Internet that have so little value to the user.  The same may just as likely be said about Article Directories and Press Release syndication services. 

There is a reason that Google remains at the top of search technology today - because they care about the search results that they show and continue to find ways to update their algorithm to eliminate the misuse of web technology tactics designed to "game" their results.  But more importantly, perhaps they realized the fickleness of the web user, and the fact that by not doing this, the world of Internet technology easily allows their competitor to provide a better user experience and ultimately a better website.  The same needs to happen in the environment of the social network, and probably much sooner than later.

Google "Isonic" - SEO Hits the Mainstream

Search engine optimization hits the mainstream on ESPN's Mike & Mike in the Morning.  In between light jabs and sports commentary, a quick (commercial) reference was made to the sound quality of the Polk Isonic Audio System this morning. In a rather subtle, yet distinct move, the call to action very effectively tells the radio listener, "just Google 'isonic' to learn more about the Polk audio system. 

Brand Positioning and SEO
How does a brand become a household name?  We already know that popular shows such as Sex and the City, through the casual conversation of "Google this" or "Google that" have brought the Google brand name to the mainstream market.  The Mike & Mike in the Morning show claims thousands of listeners every morning through 700 affiliates. Listeners that may or may not be technologically savvy in terms of demographics. While most listeners are familiar with Google, do they specifically associate a keyword with Google?  With a brand? With being able to use a keyword to represent a brand?  I'm not sure of the correct answer here. 

The keyword "isonic" had somewhere around 1000 and 1500 keyword searches last month, a reasonable number, but not extraordinary (primarily because it lacked mainstream awareness).  Once a term or keyword association hits the mass media, or is representative of a company, brand name or product, keyword popularity improves and ultimately, the SEO landscape gets more competitive. Brand names such as "John Deere Tractor" or terms such as "search engine optimization" would have no competitive significance to the market if there were little mainstream significance. In another week, it's plausible that a dozen websites may feature the keyword "isonic" in their content, in order to maximize their presence online through search results as Mike Greenberg (possibly) continues to promote the Polk Audio System. 
Just Google "Isonic". 

Latest Search Market Share Report

According to a report released Monday by Internet metrics company comScore, Google and Yahoo gained slightly in overall search market share (0.3 and 0.1% respectively), while MSN dropped by 0.2%.  As of October, Google now processes 45.4% of all searches on the Internet.  Yahoo ranks second at 28.2% and MSN a distant third at 11.7%.  Holding their own, Ask.com sits at 5.8%.

I personally can't help rooting for Ask.com to overtake MSN by the end of Q1 2007 (of course this statement brings a recent post in SEOMoz to mind).