4 years geeking and still yakking away!

Another year has passed which means it's… blog-iversary time. If you’ve ever wondered about the screwed up domain name (HuoMah = FireHorse) well....

Huo Mah (or Ma) = Ho-ma : (or if you feel adventurous = Who-oh-ma) - It means of course; Fire Horse - and the Blog, inventively enough; the Fire Horse Trail

It stems from my years as an avid practitioner and student of the Martial Arts and Chi-kung. It is merely my Chinese astrological symbol – more on that here.  This should also help clear up my penchant for eastern flavours and honorable offerings as well….

Anyway... on with the party!

To date we've put in some 500+ posts from myself and the guest bloggers and over 3800 comments. Over the last year we had more than 160 000 (unique?) visitors and over 200 000 page views (not including the Dojo).

"I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit, I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”" - - Hemingway

 

Some high points of the last year

SEO Training Dojo – probably the biggest news, not to mention labour of love, was the launch last fall of our ass kicking SEO community. And the best part? I have probably learned more than I have taught. If is nothing short of AWESOME (inside joke). Here's our mantra!

More SEMMY awards! - We (myself and Dojo peeps) had 14 SEMMY nominations and I was fortunate enough to win in the 'Technical SEO' category... which was super groovy!

WebMaster Radio – I managed more appearances there including once on SEM Synergy and Webcology a few times (3 on each total now)... Which is always a blast. I hope to do more again soon. (it also got me thinking... more on that shortly).

Trail on the grow – another, more recent development, is the addition of new full time writers here on the trail. I am quite stoked about the move and look forward

We Gypsies get around – I have also been writing in a few places including Search Engine Journal, SEO Bullshit, WordStream and coming soon, Search Engine Land. A huge thanks to those folks for having me on!

SEO Dojo Radio - we also recently decided to get vocal with the (Dojo Radio) SEO podcats which was born from the members prodding. We used to hang on voice after Friday Chat and peeps thought our ramblings would be worth sharing (crazy nutters they are). So we are 7 weeks into that experiment.(check it out)

And really, so much more. It might be my advancing age or just the massive amounts of 'awesomeness' that surrounds the place, but I am sure there more I've forgotton. Ultimately what is life without people? The ultimately goodiness that was the previous 12 months...365 days...8760 hours..525 600 minutes... is the great people I have met, and old friends enjoyed. WAY to long a list to put here.. but ya'll just make it worthwhile (and thanks to those special ones that pick me up when I want to give it up)

Popular Posts

Here are some of the more popular posts from the year that was... No, not ordering by what I liked, this is what was getting the most interest;

My Big Ass List of SEO Blogs – man, what a poor choice in title's. Ever since I have been getting search referrers for 'big ass' related queries...sigh.

The SEO guide to Google personalized search – an entry that seems almost an annual thing for me. We looked at how personalization works and where it is headed.

18 Must Follow Link Building Experts on Twitter – this was one of the most popular posts, and short and sweet at that! Much thanks to Melanie on this one.

Google re-ranking and personalized search study– this was a post where we went over some of the data from our last round of research into Google flux and personalizations. And have no fear, we're currently organizing round 3!

Google Analytics tips for SEO – while not really my forte, it was part of a 3 part series I had on some GA goodies for the SEO world. Certainly an area everyone should be up on by now.

YouTube Optimization and Universal Search – is a post from Terry that is still one of the best of it's kind. If you aren't up on Video and Universal, this is a great place to start.

SEO Benchmarks and KPI – back to the data again huh? Here we have a compiled list of measuring metrics that the entire SEO Dojo gang worked on a while back. Great stuff there is deffo strength in numbers! (get it?)

Understanding linking intent; the spam connection – one of the few geeky posts borne from patents/papers to actually make the list of 'most popular' posts from the last year. Come on folks, I know it's boring, but there is GOLD in them thar hills!

Facebook and SEO – and of course, how could this one miss even if it just pood poo'd the whole thang? It has search AND social in it... duh... no brainer. But I did actually anjoy the ride... A worthy addition.

And there are some of the more popular posts from the past year. I say 'popular' because I can't really choose my favs since they're like children to me; I love them all euqally.

Looking ahead

It’s a safe bet that the Trail will continue to be active with more uber search geekiness and plenty of new guest riders to keep it interesting. While there isn’t as much ranting going on a there once was, surely something in this whacky industry will get me going at some point as well.

Thanks again to all the fine folks that have supported us, the thousands that promoted the trail and of course the MANY wonderful peeps I have encountered over the years, (easily the best part o’ blogging).

Cya next year…same time, same place – m’kay?

Is it relevant yet?

Well it seems that Google's realtime search is growing up. Although the name might be misleading as it seems to only search Twitter. But the question remains, does it matter? Will it have an impact on search and SEO? I decided to poke around and see for myself just what we have here... so mount up folks and we'll go for a ride.

UPDATE; Tony let me know in the comments that it is also picking up FB,as well as FriendFeed (here) They just seems to have less weight. I also noted that a 'site' operator also works;

...anyway, on with the journey...

As any long time readers of the Trail would know, not only do I have an obsession with search engines, but also search evolution. One such evolution over the last few years we've seen the rise of Real Time and Social Search engines.

Google got into the RTS (real time search) last year and as of yesterday, it found it's own home as a vertical. But the question remains, is it relevant and what does it mean to search professionals?

This week's edition of SEO Dojo Radio is now up for all to enjoy! Ok, fine, might not be ALL that exciting, but we're still having fun with it. This week the regulars are back and in fine form. We got into a few things including;

• Link Ponds – I bet you don't know what those are do ya? Well neither did we.
• Pseudo Search – which is Google's new implicit site searches. Interesting stuff.
• Inadequate search content and Demand Media (and related patents)
• FaceBook Places – because we're just a social bunch
• You Tube paks – Terry, the 'Universal Warrior' will give us the low down
  

Talking content strategy

In the second portion of the show we have Gabriella Saninno, of Level 343, stopped in to talk to us about content development/strategy.

As many of you might know we Dojo folks are big on content centric SEO programs, great stuff all around! It was a good show and I would DEFINATELY go and give it a listen NOW!

Take your skilz to the next level

Yes, I'm going there. Bear with me, this is not another one of those typical clueless 'SEO is dead' articles. I've riled against articles proclaiming the death of SEO often enough that if I really were to embark on that journey I'd have to tattoo the word 'hypocrite' on my forehead. I just wanted to get your attention. Ok?

But I am, in a way, predicting the death of SEO. But not as a solitary thing - it's not just SEO that's going to die. It's the whole World Wide Web as we know it.

A look at how they see your blog

Have you ever wondered how Google Blog search works? Considered what elements might be different or relative to the regular organic search? Well, a recently awarded patent to Google had me thinking of digging deeper into it all.

Now, as is always the case with patents, we must consider that this was filed in 2005 (as was the sister patent which was awarded in 2007). That means that much of this was likely already in place at that time. But it still makes for some interesting reading towards understanding how Google has gone about the world of Blog search.

The patents in question are;

Indexing and retrieval of blogs
Filed Sept. 13 2005 – Awarded July 27th 2010

Ranking of blog documents
Filed Sept. 13 2005 – Awarded March 15 2007

Google Buys Like.com: Product Search Engine to Power Commerce Search Platform?

Enlarge Announcement

In an announcement on the Like.com homepage the product search engine disclosed they have been acquired by Google. This is not the first time the two have negotiated, however, Munjal Shah was then the CEO of Riva. Google intended to buy Riya in 2005 for facial and text recognition that enabled intelligent sorting of untagged photos. In 2006 Riya was unable to monetize a  planned launch of a visual search engine with support for object recognition. and in a post on Typepad Munjal Shah disclosed a decision to focus on more lucrative search,

I’m sure you’ve heard this more than once, but you can’t have a one-sided relationship. Period. If you’re guilty of trying this method with your website, where does it leave you? Back to the Internet black hole of never being seen again.

Let’s think this through, shall we?

Dear Website Owner –

After visiting your site three whole times, I have to say it’s over. I’m sorry, I know it hurts, but all you ever want to talk about is you. I have feelings; I’m not just a visitor number. If you’d only asked how I felt once in a while... I know way more about you than I ever wanted to, but you obviously don’t know anything about me.

Signed,

Disillusioned Potential Customer

Get over yourself

“Me me me, us, us, me, the company, you should hire us.”

Sadly, this is how many websites read. They don’t reach out to the consumer in any way until the very end. While it may not read this way to you, anyone who happens to stumble across your virtual doorstep will quickly stumble back the way they came. On the other hand, an excellent consumer-focused website can have them pulling up a chair, kicking their shoes off and staying awhile (hint – you want them to stay awhile).

Facebook Adopts the Google Buzz Strategy

It seems that the Facebook is copying the strategy Google employed with their Buzz product. To Google's credit at least they didn't use the same name for what is essentially the same service. Both "Places" services on these Internet Bohemoth's identify a Place. In Google's case it is information about a Place. In the case of Facebook it seems more about stalking people in a Place but it also sounds like it could be part of their monetization strategy if they charged
for 'checkins' at businesses.