----------------------------------------------------------------- SearchReturn Discussion List "Understanding Internet Search Technology" ----------------------------------------------------------------- Moderator: Published by: Disa Johnson SearchReturn http://www.searchreturn.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- May 18, 2006 SearchReturn Issue #064 ----------------------------------------------------------------- SEND POSTS: ----------------------------------------------------------------- Refer a friend: http://www.searchreturn.com/subscribe.shtml ----------------------------------------------------------------- .....IN THIS DIGEST..... // -- CONTINUING DISCUSSION -- // "Textbook SEO" ~ Mike Grehan ~ Moderator Comment // -- ESSENTIAL NEWS -- // "Danny Interviews Matt Cutts At Googleplex" "New Google Ad Delivery Option" "Google Powering Up Mobile Search In Japan And Asia" ----------------------------------------------------------------- // -- CONTINUING DISCUSSION -- // ----------------------------------------------------------------- ==> TOPIC: Textbook SEO "But textbook SEO ain't dead (but neither is it a guarantee)." From: Mike Grehan Danny, Just to be clear, I never, ever said textbook SEO is dead. In fact, it seems to have gone unnoticed that I was asking for reader feedback to a question I posed. Not a statement. "I still hear from people all the time who simply made HTML title tag changes and saw traffic increases. That's text book SEO. It's also the bedrock for further success." And when commenting on "textbook SEO" you may also note I never mentioned title tags, anywhere. I believe that, in order to be sure to be considered as a candidate page, a title tag is a darn' good idea. And sure, there may be some businesses online which are perfectly happy with the marketing equivalent of foraging in the woods for berries i.e. tail terms. But when you're up against the marketing equivalent of blood thirsty, Velociraptor type companies that know exactly where the meat is, it's a very different ball game. Because I talk to a lot of clients (many times even competitors' clients) I get the "they told us we need this tag and that tag on every page, thousands of them and we still don't rank anywhere." As my colleague Jim Banks said recently, in the SEO game there are those who are far too quick to prescribe, without conducting a thorough diagnosis to discover what really is the cause of the client's pain. Does anyone agree with me that this conversation has pretty much worn out? It's over a month since that column was published. My next column is titled "The PageRanki Code". And in it, I explain how Larry Page is actually the illegitimate child of Professor Jon Kleinberg, who actually never did invent hubs and authorities. This can be proved by looking at a Google lava lamp for long enough, while smoking a certain substance. Secret, mystical references will suddenly become clear and... Hugs to you all - even Dan Thies! Mike. Moderator Comment: A client seeking search advice is not an expert, and should never be mistaken for one. Far from foraging for berries, tail terms typically make up a healthy portion of site traffic, (often some of the best traffic a site has). For example, Tim O'Reilly posted his tail term findings regarding book sales as reported by Nielsen Bookscan, and compared data with statistics from access logs at O'Reilly's own Safari Books Online and Google Book Search, (this study was done in defense of Google and the copyright lawsuit by the Author's Guild and Association of American Publishers). http://www.searchreturn.com/digest/refs064.shtml "With Google Book Search, which has even older books, the effect is even more striking. 27% of page views come from books generating only 2% of unit sales, and fully 47% come from books generating only 9% of unit sales!" This is substantial. Nearly half the page views at Google Book Search is "raw, unprompted search activity." "You can guess that we'll soon be bringing back older books for download sales or print-on-demand!" - Tim O'Reilly. Stay Tuned, -SearchReturn ----------------------------------------------------------------- // -- ESSENTIAL NEWS -- // ----------------------------------------------------------------- ==> Danny Interviews Matt Cutts At Googleplex http://www.searchreturn.com/digest/refs064.shtml Essentials: Matt Cutts and Danny Sullivan talk frankly and podcast as part of a special edition of The Daily SearchCast. Matt reveals that reinclusion through Google's Sitemaps service can be more effective, (since you've authenticated ownership over the domain and are thereby granted more trust for reinclusion). BigDaddy has had the effect that reciprocal link sites (and sites with only a few inbound links) are getting crawled less. Google is working to get the [site:] query more accurate. Tail term tip: "You can find a way to almost double your words with industry slang" from examining server access logs. Keyword density is a ranking factor, but there's not much power associated with it for Google rankings. The "server crisis" is not a serious issue for Google Web search. "A common misconception is that everything is mixed together." ----------------------------------------------------------------- ==> New Google Ad Delivery Option http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060518-092801 Essentials: Google AdWords now provides advertisers with the ability to better control how their impressions are published throughout the day. When advertiser's daily budget maximum is set to a point where the budget is exhausted in the morning, advertisers miss the opportunity for afternoon and evening impressions. For those that want to day-part and capture that audience, but don't have the software resources, the new option can spread impressions throughout the day for you. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ==> Google Powering Up Mobile Search In Japan And Asia http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060518-102746 Plus... http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060518-091741 Essentials: Google will provide mobile search applications for Japanese mobile operator KDDI. The deal may include desktop applications for enhanced services. Also, Google is in talks with China Mobile. Google's Eric Schmidt and China Mobile's Wang Jianzhou have met at least twice, and apparently share the vision that mobile device access in China may turn out to be the primary access mode of the population, turning cell phones into "a new kind of Internet search engine." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stay Tuned. 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