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 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 is based on the number of links to a page or a specific URL builds over time, as people link to pages. It provides the searcher with the "authoritative answer” --
These are some bold statements and yet another in a long line of self professed ‘Google Killers’ – but is there credence? We’re going to look at the world of real time search and see if there really is anything to be looking at (as SEOs)… care to come along?
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 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 all works out (exciting ain't it?)
“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 don’t think my answer was particularly compelling…not because I didn’t have a good answer for him but because I had several answers that got jumbled together in a form of verbal mush. Since blogging gives me an opportunity for a “do-over” (a technique I’ve used before), I would like to recast my answer in a more powerful manner…
(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 worthy of a penalty for trying to manipulate search engine results in a sneaky way.
Despite this caveat, many websites engaged in what became known as “PageRank sculpting” -- carefully placing NoFollow attributes on some internal links (such as to pages like contact, about, terms, etc.) in order to squeeze more link juice to pages (such as product, pages, sales letters, landing pages, etc.).
Well, given all the hub-bub over Matt and the magic NF tag, I shall simply direct you to a post here on ‘sculpting’ 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) 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 is web spam. I have started a comprehensive list of web spam approaches and resources - look for that soon as well.
One reasonably well known fella in this area is a gentleman by the name of Dr. Marc Najork (spam assassin at Microsoft Research).
Understanding Web Spam
When you have the time, listen to it entirely – know this my spunky optimizers, good intentions and all, you are the enemy to some search engineers…
Search Engines
