Search and internet marketing news and views http://www.huomah.com 2009-07-04T20:04:31+01:00 http://www.huomah.com http://www.huomah.com/images/M_images/rss.png text/html 2009-07-03T09:08:15+01:00 http://www.huomah.com http://www.huomah.com/Personal/Family-Life/Another-year-on-the-Trail.html 3 years and I still won’t shut up Well it’s that time again… a blogging anniversary. If you’ve ever wondered about the screwed up domain name (HuoMah = FireHorse) be sure to see last years post… (http://www.huomah.com/News/Latest/The-Anniversary-Post.html) We’ve now logged more than 450 posts (yea slowed down a bit) and over 1600 comments (and thousands of spam ones deleted). Over the last year we had more than 85 000 visitors and 130 000 page views (not including the Dojo). We also had more than 2 dozen fine folks as guest riders on the Trail to bring new life to my tired old banter. What is most interesting at the end of the day is the fact that people actually enjoy some of the geekier stuff and come back for more. I’ve done less ranting and more musing and digging than in the past on... text/html 2009-07-02T11:41:08+01:00 http://www.huomah.com http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/Real-time-search-engines-should-SEOs-care-.html The hype and the reality One of the more popular buzz words in search over the last while is ‘real time search’. For starters, that’s a bit of a misnomer; there are NO actual ‘real time’ engines… that’s simply not possible (even Twitter search updates in intervals not entirely ‘real time’). Regardless, people keep getting worked up about this particular area to the point of wondering how it will affect SEO efforts. Last week the folks at Media Post contacted me for some quotable quips (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=108739) for a piece on real-time search and (One Riot’s) PulseRank. They wanted to know if SEOs were considering this the ‘wave of the future’ or something new to the lexicon. For their part, One Riot has said, We believe PulseRank will replace PageRank over time for the real-time Web. The reasons are clear. PageRank... text/html 2009-06-29T19:00:00+01:00 http://www.huomah.com http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/Will-PulseRank-be-the-PageRank-of-real-time-search-.html This is a real-time test!(..please see the update post on Real Time Search Engines (http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/Real-time-search-engines-should-SEOs-care-.html))A few mates and I were discussing the merits of so called 'real time' search engines this morning. You see the fine folks at Media Post had asked me about PulseRank recently (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=108739)and that lead to addressing some of the issues amongst us.To that end we're working on a post that considers some of the inherent problems in the space and why search marketers may not want to be actively targeting such locales at this point... (tho they do make good buzz monitoring tools)....so stay tuned.Oh, and why would I bother writing this post to tell you about it? Because we're testing some 'real time' search engines against the traditional ones you see, so we've launched some content into the wild :0)Be sure to come back later in the week to find out how it... text/html 2009-06-29T09:07:06+01:00 http://www.huomah.com http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/Advertisements-for-Myself-The-SEO-Sales-Conversation.html (the following is a guest post from Todd Mintz (http://twitter.com/toddmintz)) “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you -- tripping on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as Leif the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.”…Hamlet (Shakespeare, not Batista) Recently, I was chatting on the phone with a potential SEO client about some gig work. The conversation was going along fine until (in a roundabout way) he asked me for my “sales pitch” aka why he should use me as opposed to someone else. I... text/html 2009-06-23T08:18:29+01:00 http://www.huomah.com http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/Four-alternatives-to-NoFollow-PageRank-sculpting.html (the following is a guest post from David Leonhardt) I really should preface this post with the caveat that I was never a fan of using the NoFollow attribute on links on my sites.  OK, when NoFollow first came out, I actually loaded one of my sites with NoFollow attributes.  Then logic got the better of me. NoFollow is meant to go on user-generated links, in particular blog comment links, to inform the search engines that the link is not a vote of confidence, not a link the website owner is willing to vouch for.  If I place NoFollow links to some of my own pages, what does that tell the search engines? I won’t vouch for my own content? I don’t understand simple coding? I am trying to manipulate the search engines? At best, the site comes off as low-trust; at worst, as... text/html 2009-06-19T08:31:26+01:00 http://www.huomah.com http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/Listening-to-the-Spam-Assassins.html Well, given all the hub-bub over Matt and the magic NF tag (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/), I shall simply direct you to a post here on ‘sculpting’ (http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/PageRank-Sculpting-its-all-old-school-baby.html) the day before the whole thang hit the fan. One should always relied on more statistical approaches to site architecture…nuff said. As for me, I’ve noticed a few other things in between the dramas that are actually noteworthy... but that will have to wait for next week… For now, while this video (from Matt Cutts; spam assassin (http://www.huomah.com/news/latest/matt-cutts-releases-software.html)) has some of the usual stuff, I submit to you; There’s gold in them thar’ hills!! Next week, we’ll look at something that’s more interesting from all of this…. SEOs = Baaaad M’kay? Another interesting area that I have been digging in since we last talked about search engines thinking of us as adversaries (http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/SEOs-are-not-Criminals.html) is web spam. I have started a comprehensive list... text/html 2009-06-09T12:48:05+01:00 http://www.huomah.com http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/SEOs-are-not-Criminals.html They are the enemy Hi there… my name is Dave, and I am an algoholic… The other day someone asked me via instant messenger about some patents for an area one particular SEO was doing some research in. After suggesting a few patents and research papers and chatting, they asked, “don’t you get nasty emails from the search engines because you pick things apart?” That’s a pretty interesting question because much of the time search optimizers tend to see themselves as facilitators. They don’t seem to understand the true nature of our relationship with search engines. We are not partners my friends, but we aren’t viewed as criminals either… we are in truth, the enemy. The oddity continued when 'Lisa the Outspoken' had her bubble burst to find SEOs weren't held in high regard (http://outspokenmedia.com/seo/google-profiles-seo-as-criminals/) (jeez Lis' ya coulda come to me...woulda' set ya straight).... text/html 2009-06-02T08:53:14+01:00 http://www.huomah.com http://www.huomah.com/News/Marketing-News/The-Greenpeace-PageRank-Lottery.html Innocent mistake or blatant manipulation? Ok, where’s a Googler when ya need one? Can someone please page the link police to the customer service area please? I have a question…. In particular a little campaign Green Peace is running (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it-challenge/kuniaki-nozoe-fujitsu#take-action)which makes some bold statements in order to purposely ‘Google Bomb’ or at least dominate the space of a particular CEO all in plain SEO-speak! There is simply NO way that this is a legitimate tactic... you tell me what U think, m'kay? Here’s the speech (emphasis mine); “Play for traffic Greenpeace webpages are often #1 or #2 in web search engines like Google and Yahoo for popular environmental keywords, because people link to us about those topics. With your help we can make this webpage the first thing Kuniaki Nozoe sees when he Googles himself! To make it more... text/html 2009-06-01T07:49:03+01:00 http://www.huomah.com http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/PageRank-Sculpting-its-all-old-school-baby.html Matt Cutts talks about internal linking I was getting things together for our SEO newsletter today and came across a video from everyone’s favourite ‘breath of fresh AIR’, Matt Cutts (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/). The topic at hand was about PR sculpting (or soiling - more on that soon). There were a few things in this brief snippet that I felt worth talking about… The question at hand was; “ What are your views on PageRank sculpting? Useful and recommended if implemented right, or unethical?” video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4IE4WLPLZQ)) Right away he talks about it being your right to do as you please with your website, including controlling “how the PageRank flows around within your site”.  For those that are still unconvinced that PR truly does flow around a site, it should clear that up for ya. He then mentions that it “is not the first thing that I would work on”. That... text/html 2009-05-26T10:45:35+01:00 http://www.huomah.com http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Algorithm-Matters/Looking-under-the-Hood-SEO-Geeks-Resource-Library.html Over the last while I have been collecting a wide variety of search engine patents and information retrieval research papers. It's all part of the ongoing obsession... (http://www.huomah.com/dojo/seriously-obsessed-search-geek.html)Over the last few years more than a few times I hear from folks looking for search related research/patents; it's became time to start a reference library. Time permitting I am looking to add more and more resources for those looking for some 'SEO Higher Learning (http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Algorithm-Matters/SEO-Higher-learning.html)' - Why does it matter? It is an important part of being in the world of SEO - in truth, 2/3rds of the acronym. To me, there is an evolution to consider (http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Learn-SEO/Evolution-and-the-art-of-SEO-.html) as SEO is not Dead (http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/The-evolution-of-SEO.html) as some believe. When one starts to look at potential factors affecting search rankings (http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/Search-Geeks-Guide-to-Ranking-Factors.html), understanding search engines better is an obvious point of hypothesis genetics. The foundation of your search optimization concepts, programs and analysis is...