Google has been testing adding more information near search listings, including
- search this site
- inside this site (links to other pages on that site)
- related (links to related sites)

Testing the above, inline query suggestions, including vertical results via Google Onebox, and suggesting specific verticals for the most broad query types allows Google to attack vertical search from many angles.

Suggesting the broadest databases (shopping, news, images) for broad query types allows them to prevent too many large verticals from being created unless their creators do something fundamentally innovative. Increasing minimum bids for low quality ads also filters out some of the arbitrage model.

Query suggestions as you type and inline suggestions guide searchers toward more common (and likely more meaningful) search paths which will - on average - lead searchers to more useful results. They also aggressively aggregate data in some of the larger verticals, which adds value to the top few players they trust while making it harder for new players to spring up in those markets.

By adding more information near regular search result listings (including site search, related internal links and related external links) they only have to get near the search answer without necessarily needing to precisely answer it. Get close enough and then teach people about things like related links and site search and they should be able to get the rest of the way where they want to go.

The search box has the most value per pixel second, and until some major publishers find new monetization models or ways to challenge Google it is obvious that Google is going to keep adding more and more information to their results. Google may even be the one who helps them find better ways to monetize.

Unlike the competition, Google is not afraid to keep pushing the boundaries of their results, even if in the short term those tests lead to lower earnings. Why hasn't Yahoo! done anything with their Mindset search yet?

Once an engine gets enough marketshare there is a virtual endless stream of revenue possibilities so long as they listen to their users.

The value isn't just in the network, but in how quickly and smartly it reacts to changes. Google generally is the king at that.

They lower costs across the board while making information more accessible. Clicktracks now has a free version. If companies like Britannica listen to the advice they are given then Google may have access to encyclopedias of information for free, on top of having the largest userbase.

I think Wall Street is a bit stupid for reacting to quarter to quarter results. I just don't see a way of Google losing at this point. Even if eBay partners with another large player it still does not change the fact that their value add and relevancy is decreasing with each day of non innovation at eBay.

While keeping an eye on general search Google has also refined some of the more important verticals, which allows them to more precisely answer queries for those who care so much that they want to get much closer than just nearly answering the queries. In some of those verticals they are creating new standards for what is important.

You can count on Google hitting the education market hard, from funding literacy to pointing librarians at lesson plans.

From a marketing perspective these changes all add value to legitimacy while making the marketplace and SERPs more relevant. But as Google pushes these types of features they will also create new types of spam. For example, if you can't easily rank #1 for a competitive phrase, but you can easily make Google believe your document is somehow one of the most related documents to what is ranking at #1 that might be a cheap way to garner targeted traffic. Learning how to become related will be exceptionally useful if the current results may not answer the query as well as it should.

Fluid page designs are supposed to be nice, at least in theory, but if you don't control the page presentation it is hard to maximize the advertising offer opportunity and to blend ads into the layout as best you can.

A page width set to 100% gives the ads a relatively small % of the screen width unless the ads are huge, and huge ads get ignored because they scream I AM AN AD.

If the content area is exceptionally wide it makes a page hard to read due to making the eye move further left to right on each line than is comfortable.

If you limit the page width but align it to the left the ads still may not get clicked as much because they may not be viewed as well if they are on either side of the content.

So, to make more bank per page view, it makes sense to set a page width and center the page. If you still want to make the page somewhat liquid but controllable to a maximum width you may want to use max width.

760 px is a common page width. People are migrating to bigger browsers, but more people will also be connecting to the web on mobile devices.

Another good AdSense tip is to match (or nearly match) your text size and font to that of the AdSense ads
font-size:13px
face="arial,sans-serif"
Depending on your ad units sometimes the size may change. If you right click on an AdSense frame you can view the source of that frame to get that information.

Many designers recommends setting text sizes using em instead of pixels.

Via Brickman comes an interesting WMW thread stating Google may be using traffic analysis and user feedback (clickstreams, etc) to help determine the quality of a site.

I have spoke to a well known engineer at another major engine who told me that it plays a significant role in their engine.

It makes sense that they would want to allow users to give feedback, but they wouldn't want to use just traffic analysis, because that would just promote large conglomerate sites and/or stifle innovation across the board (by promoting first movers at the expense of better products that followed).

In the WMW thread Walkman said:

Traffic? This would mean that a search engine is the last to know /show that you're popular.

But when you think about it, hasn't search ALWAYS been this way? Following links that OTHERS PUBLISHED. The links were not only used to crawl, but also a good way to imply trust or quality.

Quality global web search has never been about helping you find stuff first. That is what vertical databases, vertical search services, human editors and reporters are for.

Links to a site without traffic no longer imply the same level of trust that it used to. Sites selling link trading services use sales copy like:

The more websites you can get to link to your website, the higher you will rank in the search engines, guaranteed!

And even the mainstream media is talking about SEO.

Some people will claim that using searcher feedback as a baseline to help determine site quality is nonsense, but most of those people are probably launching new brands off of their old brands and current popularity, which make them much more likely to instantly get significant traffic / mindshare / linkage data.

It is easy to learn from your own SEO experiences, but it is also easy to extend what happens to you as to be the way things happen everywhere, even if that is not the case.

I don't think Google would want to base a ton of the overall relevancy algorithm on site popularity (and clearly they don't since the top results are not always the most popuar sites), but they can and may use traffic patterns and searcher feedback to filter out junk sites. And it may help certain types of link spam stick out (ie: a site that just picked up 50,000 backlinks but few of them drive any traffic) may be a red flag for spam.

Couple some of the temporal ideas with power laws and much of the spam should be pretty easy to detect.

Google talk recently even started redirecting chat URLs through Google.com. Do you think they would do that without reason?

You can get burned if you do it too often, but if you call others out you can get easy links.

This is pure horseshit. One surefire indicator that something is rotten in this particular pulpit is that Mark's "oops, sorry" Bob's column contains no links. In fact, his columns never link to any external sources of information. Isn't it remarkable that someone who writes a weekly column for the Internet never links to anyone else?

Notice the post also has an update with another link in it. You sometimes can even leverage another person's story about someone else being full of it for a strong link of your own. Of course sometimes you can get even more by being a contrarian to the contrarian.

Also worth noting that outbound links are perhaps the single cheapest form of marketing available to someone new to the WWW who is trying to break into their field. All the blog tracking and link tracking tools make the self agrandizing must-track-myself even more pervasive. That makes it easier to break into a field by making sure the right eyes see it when you agree with industry leaders, and more importantly, when you do not.

People who say hello through a topical post or a link are far more likely to get a receptive reply than lamers asking for links to spammy ad cluttered sites at hello.

With Zeal recently closing (I think Looksmart are dumb to have closed it) some people have recently been questioning the value of directories.

$hoemoney recently had a mini interview of a few SEOs asking if they are still relevant. The general consensus was that if the directory sends traffic then it is a good link to buy.

I think that is a good rule of thumb, but I am also a bit more aggressive. I still buy a few links that I figure won't drive much traffic, largely because I think they still work well in Yahoo! and MSN. Having said that, I think there are certain quality signals or anti-quality signals that it helps to look at.

• Is it ranking in the SERPs? - If a site ranks well in the search engines it stands a good chance to be trusted by them. Plus even if those links do not count to help boost your ranking they still can drive direct traffic. I frequently see directories like Business.com and JoeAnt ranking in the search results.

• Do they sell direct links? - Direct links are more likely to be taken as editorial votes of quality. Some redirected links may still count, but many of them will not.
• How frequently is their site crawled? - You need to check and see if the category pages are being cached in Google, and how frequently they are cached. If their pages are not getting cached or have not been cached for 6 months then the odds are pretty low of that link carrying much weight.
• What is the quality ratio? - Does it list anyone who pays? Or do they hold sites to some quality standards? Do they categorize sites properly? Or do they sell links to anyone in any category, even if it is the wrong one? Does each page have unique content? Are most pages empty - adding nothing but clutter to search indexes? If they do not help engines categorize the web (ie: no editorial value) then eventually the engines are not going to trust their votes.
• What is the ad ratio? - Are all the listings paid? Or will they list some useful sites without payment? Does the site look like it aims to serve end users? Or does it look like it exists just to get AdSense ads or affiliate ads indexed?
• Do they sell outbound sitewide links? - Prettymuch the equivalent of selling out - when a directory puts sitewide outbound links on their site (especially if those links are to junky sites) the odds are pretty good that the links are not going to count much.
• Is it decrepit? - Directories which have 50% of their links broken or pointing at URLs that have been purchased by spammers or domainers are not going to pack as much punch as sites which have few broken links. I recently bought a 25 page directory that has not been updated in a couple years, and it had about 400 broken links in it. Not good!
• Does it have unique content? - Is it a DMOZ clone? Are its listings manually compiled and unique from what is offered at other directories?
• Is it relevant to my site? - Many small niche directories can drive decent value due to offering decent co-citation data and having exceptionally relevant traffic streams.

Bob Mutch recently rated 40 top directories based on their age, how many edu and gov links they have and whether or not they are listed in DMOZ and Yahoo!. I would contest that WhatUSeek isn't a real directory, ISEDB is a directory of search engines and directories, and that Vlib.org should be counted as a directory, but other than those minor points this is a pretty cool study.

I think the inbound link profile is a good starting point for rating (when you add it to the other criteria I mentioned above), but what I think is even more interesting is how quickly they fall off in the quantity of quality links. After DMOZ solved the general directory problem and Google solved the search problem no general directories were able to get many citations. That sorta shows the importance of market timing.

While there are many quality links that are not from a .gov or .edu TLDs, I think those are a good proxy for overall link quality. Notice how quickly the .edu count falls off. That is why the top directories may be worth $300 for a listing...they are trusted quality links.

The quick fall off in legitimate citations is why some types of link spam are easier to detect than many people think. When they manually build links many of the links they accumulate are outlier low power links, often ones sharing similar link profiles with each other.

What General Directories Provide Great Value?

I liked the ones I left linked above. There are a few others that are decent as well, but the broader I make the list the more likely I am to eventually promote sites that are doing lots of spammy things, like whoring out their sites to AdSense or sitewide casino links.

I see a couple of the unlinked directories listed above ranking in the SERPs for a broad range of queries, but some of them may not exercise much editorial control, and will eventually lose some of their authority.

For the sake of MSN and Yahoo! I still do submit to a number more directories than just what is listed above. The number depends on the field, but if the business is going to be a web savvy business that can afford to create strong brands and/or useful content then they will also have many links from outside the directory sphere.

Topically Relevant Directories:

It is hard for me to list quality topical directory examples because:

• if you do not know a topic then it is hard to judge quality

• directories change over time.

For example, I used to always use a certain directory as an example of a quality directory, but now that there are off topic airline ads on the home page and too much AdSense ads I don't put as much stock in it.

Think Local:

Some local directories are way under priced and of high quality. Quality local directories tend to drive significant hyper targeted traffic.

A few other things to consider when registering with directories:

• I use Roboform to submit my sites, but mix up my link anchor text and descriptions (especially since some search engines have certainly looked at word relations outside of on-the-page content and anchor text).

• If your market is competitive and your site is new you will also need to get other types of links if you want to rank in Google
• mix your anchor text
• if brand name is keyword rich make sure you also try to get a few variations in your listing titles outside of your brand name such that if you push the brand hard and cause significant natural linkage it won't cause your link profile to look wonky due to too much similar link text.
• If your brand is not generic it may only take a couple links for you to rank at or near the top of the search results for it.
• A Yahoo! listing or DMOZ listing may be worth 20 or more links from lower quality directories.
• Each good link you get allows you to get many junky links without it really hurting you (say ~50 or so - depending on industry)

How Different Search Engines Count Directory Links:

Yahoo! and MSN still tend to count directory links (including low quality directory links) far more than Google does.

For a new one page flash site I got about 50 directory links in a couple days a while ago. It competes for a basket of low traffic $3 per click terms that can cost about $600 a month ranking at about #2 on the PPC ads.

In Google 2 weeks after I started link building the site ranked in the top 10 across a wide array of terms from this basket of keywords. After about 2 months without additional link building the site's rankings in Google dropped off. After that they have started to slowly improve.

Yahoo! took a bit longer than Google to react, but once it did and I went to #1 I stayed there almost every day for the last 5 months.

MSN reacted about as quickly as Google, perhaps even a few days quicker. Outside of a few fluctuations it has ranked fairly consistantly at #1.

The client ranks #1 for their brand name and related terms in all major engines. They probably would rank a bit better in Google if I got those links over time and showed consistant growth, but considering how cheap I sold those services for I am still certain they have an exceptionally strong ROI, and I am certain their ranking will rise over time if we put more effort and resources into SEO.

Why do People think Directories are Becoming Irrelevant?

• As a business model directories do not work well unless you are hyper focused or have significant authority to leverage. (Unless you are selling PageRank to naive webmasters who have yet to learn much about SEO or get burned by shady directories.)

• As more people write and compile information the quality of information needs to be better to be link worthy.
• Most directories (especially most paid directories) do not add much context as to why a particular site is important, useful or worthwhile.
• People do not give out links as freely as they once did. It is hard for a directory site to be viewed as link worthy as they were in the past, thus they do not get as much authority to pass on.
• Active channels, such as topical weblogs, tend to drive far more traffic than most fairly static directory sites.
• Google's algorithms are improving. They are getting better at scrubbing link quality and filtering out duplicate or near duplicate content.
• Most general directories are useless spam.
• Couple improving search algorithms with social bookmarking sites and they make the job of professional catalogs and archivists less relevant, except perhaps for ultra niche categories that are not well cited.

Why is the Business Case for Directories Falling Apart?

• Many of the reasons listed above (market hypersaturation, lessening authority, other content types - like blogs and wikis - are fighting for the same audience, improving search quality, bottoms up social systems).

• Directories create inefficiently priced marketplaces.
• Most directories drive so little traffic and value that it is hard for them to make their marketplaces more efficient.

There is Still Some Value in Directory Links:

In conclusion, I still like a number of directories, but sometimes it helps to drill down to look at relevancy more than just buying any old link. I also think that even if some of the mid to low quality directories do not offer lots of value in Google they still help with the other engines. Another added bonus of building links from directories and other sources is that they can inflate your link count to help discourage competition and/or pollute your link profile to make it hard for competitors to see what all links are helping your rank where you do.