SEO Tips & Search Engine Tips

SEO Old Timer Tips:
An Old Timers Perspective...from SEGuru

Search Engine Old Timer Tips:
Recently a friend of mine bought me a copy of A Theory of Indexing by Gerard Salton. It is a 50 page book from 1975 with lots of charts and math, but in those few pages it has a ton of information about many of the ideas which current search technologies have been built upon.

I am probably going to have to read it again because it was so dense with information and had lots of math that was a wee bit above me the first time around, but to anyone interested in learning about search technology it is a great book...much like Mike Grehan's.

A Theory of Indexing talks about a ton of interesting things like:

  • signal to noise

  • inverse document frequency
  • discrimination value
  • and lots of other stuff

Here is a small bit I learned from the last few pages...

If words exist in a high % of the total documents in a document collection then they are not usually going to be good at discriminating which documents are relevant for a particular query (since they appear in too many documents).

If words exist is a low % of the total documents then they are not usually going to be good at discriminating which documents are relevant for a particular query (since they appear in so few documents).

Words with a mid range document frequency are better discriminators.

To make better use of words that appear in a high % of the total documents you can combine the words into word pairs or triples - which will have a lower frequency and may be better at descriminating document relevancy.

To make better use of words that appear in a low % of the total documents you can cluster the words into groups via the use of a thesaurus - which will have the net effect of creating higher frequency word classes / clusters - which may be better at descriminating document relevancy.

Page Hijacking, Blog Ethics, Iraq Pictures, Bubble Wrap

Google Lecture:
Video: Eric Schmidt Lectures at Stanford's Business School

From the 101 Collection:
Page Hijacking 101: by Lots0

Oldie but a Goodie...
Why work output related bonuses do not work

SEO Articles:
I wrote a few more new SEO articles. I certainly feel a bit less original than I did at points in the past. Its like the more I learn the more I realize there is so much more to learn...

If you find my articles boring then you can have...
Hours of Fun:
with Bubble Wrap <-- cool

Interview of Tim Converse, MSN Search Beta Rank Checker, Google Grants Amnesty

For the Search Geek in YOU:
An Interview with Tim Converse (of Yahoo! Search) he talks about getting rid of "spam" via content classification.

For the Rank Cheker in You:
MSN Search Beta Rank Checker (found from SEW Blog)

Amnesty International:
Google Grants Lots0's sites amnesty for giving Google some hijacking examples.

Lots0:I don't think that is unreasonable to ask for a guarantee that the domains will not be banned or penalized because of THIS issue. I understand that other issues may still cause a ban or penalty and I never asked for a domain to NEVER be penalized/banned (would be nice though), I would just like to see some type of assurance on this issue.

GoogleGuy:Sure, I'll promise that no spam-related action will be taken based on the reports. If months later, the domain comes up for review for an unrelated reason, then that's a different matter, but I'll instruct whoever collects the feedback to only use it to check out how we pick canonical pages.

by the way, here is the cool official Amnesty International site.

New AdSense Blog, Cheap Keyword Tip, Greg Boser Retires from WMW, a Forum for Forums

New AdSense Blog:
Jennifer Slegg created JenSense, which is a blog about AdSense and contextual advertising.

Cheap Keyword Tip:
From keyword guru Dan Thies...

BTW, there's a free PPC tip there for all of you drug pushers, bid a nickel or a dime for "hereviagra" and you'll get all the traffic you can handle, dirt cheap. In fact, "heresearchterm" is a nice cheap target for Adwords across the board.

Retirement:
Greg Boser retired as admin of WMW. I finally met WebGuerrilla in person at the Las Vegas WMW conference. He is the no BS type, and if I wanted to buy SEO services he would be one of the few people I would contact.

A Forum for Forums
A while ago The Forum Zone launched as a place to help forum owners learn together. The cast and crew from SearchGuild also recently launched a forum for forum mods and admins by the name of ForumSpeak.

Its Beginning to Look a Lot Like:
Christmas. All the Amazing Rain will turn to snow.

ThreadWatch Premium, SearchGuild Chirstmas Competition, Yahoo! Hand Coding

Changes Afoot:
ThreadWatch to make a premium service. Feel free to float Nick some dough if you like his site :)

Please Vote:
Shall SEW forums allow sig links? So far yes is winning 10 to 1. Scaling a community is just plain hard, and I have been super impressed by how liberal SEW forums have been so far.

Tis the Season:
To make up for all our faults and show our love by buying tons of gifts...and then pay off more credit card debt <-- that credit card debt crap is evil. (Aren't I a Screwdge?)
Not to worry, because SearchGuild Clause looks to help one person find that perfect gift.

Writing Search Engine Friendly Content:
Danny Sullivan talks about how Yahoo! Search hard codes search results.

Google Spam Reporting, What Links are Important?, Total Optimizer Pro Linking Tools

Subscriptions:
Are usually not worth it...even if they are free.

Snitch Squad:
Google to hire remote quality raters. A while ago I was naive enough to think that spam reporting was generally worthwhile, but usually it has no effect and if it does then you are working for another company free of charge.

Google stands behind the branding / marketing angle of letting the democratic nature of the web determine relevancy, but just like all other engines they hand edit at least some search results. At least 9 time out of 10 people reporting spam would be far better off focusing thier time on making their own sites better instead of worrying about competitors.

Make content, socially interact, buy / rent / trade links...there are lots of things you can do to make progress. Even if you tell on someone today odds are that another site will replace them tommorow. Just make a kick ass site and get the links required for a search engine to understand that your site kicks ass.

Scaling Out PPC:
Is Search Sustainable? NFFC plays devils advocate with the PPC gurus.

What Links are Important?
Everyday someone has a "the sky is falling" post about how smart search algorithms are and how some links do not count at all. Recently WebmasterWorld hosted one about BlueFind. SearchEngineWatch hosted another thread where the author was determined to speak his own outcome when he started the thread. My good buddy Lots0 shot him down in post 25:

I just watched a page climb to page one for a VERY VERY competitive keyword, using ONLY guest book links with keywords in the anchor text... And No I am not going to give you the URL in a public forum, unless you want to send me about $25,000 first (expected first quarter earnings for this page). ...
I don�t know why some people want to give google more credit than they are due. I have seen many many people come on a forum like this and make all these statements about what google does or does not do, usually most all of these statement are FALSE.

My own opinion, I think some people want google to be some super all knowing, all powerful search engine and that this super search engine should be able to do all, even if at this time most of the things that some of these people think google does are technically impossible.

Also this idea that everyone that works at google is smarter than the rest of us, I find insulting. I have been pitting my wits against the �google super search engine� and their �super brained� employees for years... and winning (as have most of the folks around here).

Hi-jacked domains:
Google is having a few problems.

Linking Tools:
WebmasterWorld has a good thread about building a linking tool. Also I recently got to try out Total Optimizer Pro, but left for Vegas and have been playing vacation too much. I will hopefully have more time to review it soon, but I am starting to think that much of the best link building software will probably be custom developed software.

Eloquent Forum Spamming: a how to...

Step 1: Merchandise - create a product to sell or signup for an affiliate program or 2 if you are in a rush.
Step 2: Distribution Channels - get a long list of forums (like the list located here: http://www.spiffysoft.com/myposter/boards.php)
Step 3: Create a script - categorize your channels and create a script that will spam bomb the same question to a ton of different forums.
Step 4: Signup - create your accounts with a generic name.
Step 5: Post - try the script out. start marketing.
Step 6: Get Busted - ooops, that is not part of the plan. But it happened here

One thing many people miss is that many people who run forums are technically gifted, well socially connected, and know a ton about the web.

Its much easier to spam forums more naturally if you do it on a small scale in small groups. Its even easier to do well longterm if the people who are running the forums like you.

I originally found the reference to this clown move on Threadwatch. Chris from SearchGuild has identified the mystery poster.

One wonders why he did not password protect his page or register his domains via proxy? How long did he expect to get away with this? The same guy created SEO tools and certainly has to expect this to hurt his inbound link popularity...

bragadocchio also threw out a good resource link "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way" in the Cre8asite thread where he busted newsguy.

How Yahoo! Handles Meta Refresh, Manipulating News Search Results, Why the Web is Cool...

Refresh:
Not sure if anyone posted this anywhere, but I think Yahoo! reps reported how they treat meta refreshes at the WMW search conference. I think they stated:

  • Meta refreshes of less than a second are to be treated by Yahoo! Search as a 302 redirect.

  • Meta refreshes of greater than a second are to be treated by Yahoo! Search as a 301 redirect.

Google Local:
goes global

Froogle Wishlist:
make your wishlist today...

Message Management:
Amazon Simple Queue Service

Cost Per Click:
Graphs and article showing where the best reported return is based on CPC. Generally low cost ads provide the best return at #1 and as the cost gets more expensive it may make a bit more sense to rank at #2 or #3.

Track Stuff:
Google News to RSS (found on Blogoscope)
PubSub

Quote Stuff:
Lyrics are expensive :(

Write the News:
Gaming Google News is really really easy (many people were doing it before the election too).

You can broadcast any message you like...fast and cheap. Many people will probably make bank releasing holiday shopping news press releases.

Watch What You Write Though:
Internet Archive pages are admissable into evidence

Inspiring:
I read tons of information about the web and perhaps spend too much time on it. Right now I am kinda sorta on vacation, and yet at 5am I can't help but want to read and learn about the web. Adam Bosworth has an amazing post which explains exactly why I like the web so much and why I want to learn so much more about it.

My general take on his artilce is: software, languages, systems, communities, personalities and business models which are flexible, honest, accept feedback, are grounded in humanity, and are easy to use will spread faster and be more successful than those which do not have those traits.

From his article:

The value is in the information and its ability to be effortlessly aggregated, evaluated, filtered, and enhanced. ... The currency of reputation and judgment is the answer to the tragedy of the commons and it will find a way. ... I find this deeply satisfying. It says that in the end the value is in our humanity, our diversity, our complexity, and our ability to learn to collaborate. It says that it is the human side, the flexible side, the organic side of the Web that is going to be important and not the dry and analytic and taxonomical side, not the systematized and rigid and stratified side that will matter.

If you only ever read a few articles about the web and its underlying technologies this should be one of them.

Also if you have not yet took a peak at The Tradgedy of the Commons you can by following that link :) I have glanced at it a few times, but hope to fully read it today.

Economic Problems?
The goodness of the web may not be enough to avoid extreme economic problems. The fall of the dollar could hurt bad. Only time will tell if / how we will evolve. Meanwhile, we shall enjoy the tax breaks.

Transparent Search Engine Business Models

Google created the PageRank and Google Toolbar as a smart marketing ploy, but for the most part they speak in ways which intentionally convolute their actual ranking criteria.

Yahoo! has tried to be a bit more open with Yahoo! Shopping doing link renting / SEO for their own sites and the Yahoo! Search blog referencing and communicating with SEO industry members.

MSN Search Beta went one step further than Yahoo!. They not only link off to SEOs on their blog, but they also brought some SEOs in on developement of their search engine.

Bill Gross recently released Snap, which was founded on the idea of a 100% transparent search engine.

Lycos and Ask Jeeves (1 page PDF) are going one step further by selling SEO services. Is there any better way for a search engine to throw their credibility in the dumpster?

forum threads covering Lycos & Ask Jeeves:

Overture & MSN Extend Partnership, Google Scholar Search, SEO Secrets

The Ruling Class:
NFFC is the David Beckham of SEO?

Auctions Expert...
knows how to make bank from click fraud, says Google.

While We are Selling...
google founders selling stock

Give it away, give it away, give it away now
Perfect 10 is in a sea of distress,
unimpressed by Googles information access.
porn is free
porn for me
say hell yes :)

Google Scholar:
New Google Scholar Search. Andrew Goodman has an interesting post about Google Scholar.

Toolbar
for your site. free and customizable.

Deskbar:
Google Deskbar API

The Best SEO Secrets:
are kept secret...says Nick W

MSN + Overture:
Partner up for another year.

Link Building Info:
Andy Hagans has a new site offering link building tips.

Scoop:
A while ago a sketchy self proclaimed "white hat page generator" (www.metawebs.com) hit the market. I do not know a ton of programming, but Dan Thies, one of my well respected SEO friends sent me an email stating:

It took me about 15 minutes to write a Google API app with PHP to fish these out of the SERPs, using a very small list of seed terms (<20 words). I stopped it after a while, but it's like shooting fish in a barrel to find these "unfootprintable" pages. It will get even easier as these sites get indexed, because it increases the odds of a "hit" when searching for them.

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