Not An SEO Expert

While reading William Rocks blog, I came across a link to this excellent article about the SEO landscape post Jagger. This is the best roadmap I’ve found for Google in the PJ (post-Jagger) world.

Over the past few years there has been extreme growth in the number of general directories. I’m betting that niche directories take over for the next few years. My wife built such a niche directory recently and it just missed the PR update by about a week. That week may well have cost us hundreds if not thousands of dollars between now and the next PR update. If you are a link buyer get the niche links before the rush. If you are a website developer niche directories may well be a nice cash cow for the next few years.

Filed by Bryan at 2:28 am under SEO
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In a New York Times article today Google finally granted a look (not by accident this time) at its Google Base project which is poised to move into the 100 billion dollar a year classified advertising market.

So far the results look pre-alpha but the scope of this project is massive. This puts Google in direct competition with EBay, Monster.com, and just about every newspaper in world among others. And as has been the model for Google already with G-mail, Analytics, and others, the service is free for now.

Half of me wants to go into a rant about Google becoming Big Brother, the other half is cursing for not having bought more Google stock at $85 a share. However you look at it, Google is making some Rockefeller type moves right now.

Filed by Bryan at 2:57 am under Search engine news
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Tim Mayer just posted in the Yahoo search blog that the Y! is making an index change tonight.

“You should see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index. This update will be complete by tomorrow (Monday) morning.�

My main site made a big jump in this update, moving from 20th to 5th for my main keyword phrase as well as some nice improvements on many secondary search terms. I am knocking on wood as I type this, as morning is not quite here yet.

This is the second Yahoo update in the last couple weeks and they’ve come and gone with barely a whisper. The whole of the internet world seems to be focused on the so called Jagger update that Google is still dragging out. The SERPs have changed more on Yahoo over that time period than Google in the markets I follow and yet webmasters and SEOs are fixated on Google datacenter watching. This more than any search engine market share stats should tell you how strong Google really is.

Filed by Bryan at 6:27 am under Search engine news
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Well it sure didn’t take Google long to add Urchin into its growing family of webmaster tools. When the purchase of Urchin was announced in March of this year Jonathan Rosenberg, Google’s vice president of product management said, “This technology will be a valuable addition to Google’s suite of advertising and publishing products.â€? Eight month later we now see the end result.

Google analytics states that it will tell you, “everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. You’ll be able to focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors.â€? And to top it off the service is totally free. This is a service for which Urchin charged $200 a month.

Does this seem too good to be true? I must admit my first response was extreme reservations about allowing Google access to that much data about my website. I have nothing to hide but let’s face it; my job is to fool the search engines. Why give them access to so much traffic information?

But then I told my wife about the service Google was offering for free and expressed my logical distrust of the company trying to corner the market on the world’s information. She promptly let me know that the tin foil was in the second drawer down to the left of sink in the kitchen if I wanted to go ahead and make my hat.

I’m currently paying $99 a month for analytics that do not match what Google now offers for free. I am tempted, but I haven’t signed up yet.

Filed by Bryan at 6:04 am under Search engine news
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For some time now I’ve procrastinated about what the first post on my blog should be about. Sadly, I found out today. I just read a post on Brad Fallon’s blog about the passing of Ken Giddens.

I had the pleasure of meeting Ken in Atlanta at a conference. He was a charming man with a childlike enthusiasm for SEM and SEO. Ken was always convinced that there was a more efficient and effective method just beyond his grasp. He pursued the improved method with joy and vigor. The knowledge that he shared over the course of that weekend stunned me. Not only that one man could have such a unique and effective method, but that he shared that information freely with a smile on his face. As the rest of us, with jaws hanging open, tried to digest the secrets he was revealing, Ken kept rolling out more information seemingly in an attempt to trump himself. There was no one else left to trump.

Ken lived his life by his own rules and truly did beat the system. He will be greatly missed.

Filed by Bryan at 2:00 am under Uncategorized
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