The Internet Marketing Center

Mischievous Big Daddy!

2008-03-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

Once again Big Daddy (you understand whom I’m referring to; i.e. Google) has become mischievous. The reason is Search-within-Search tool. So far as the Google users are concerned, there should not be any problem as Google has been prioritizing its users the most. But what is about the Web Publishers? They are once again left to wonder how this new feature can turn out to be profitable for them. The same fate once again: little agitation, little support and many neutral big guns. Google knows quite well how to impose things. Let’s find out what exactly Search-within-Search tool is and how it works. Here follows the snapshot:

You can see a sub-search box just below the top result for “Best Buy” key phrase. This allows users searching within a particular site without visiting the site directly. This enables users easier a bit in finding required information from a particular website just a simple and graphic less pages. Sounds pretty smooth! But the irking issue is not this aspect of the tool rather the ads that come along with the secondary search results (NB: Secondary Search Results do not comply with the Google shows on SERPs along with the other primary results rather you should consider this LITERALLY.) Here follows two comparative snapshots which will show you the After and Before SERPs by using Search-within-Search tool.

After Search:

Before Search:

The problem is not with the Google users, but the problem is with the After Search-within-Search SERPs. You can clearly see the sponsored results along with the results ONLY from within www.BestBuy.com. No businessman would prefer to allow his competitors opening shops next to his/her outlet. Obviously the loss would be of the businessman. That’s why some online retail sites have strongly shown their agitation against Google’s such Search-within-Search features. But there are other retail owners have been closely monitoring the feature. So let’s see how things come up in the near future. Whether Google would omit the feature as it has done with “Supplement Results” or retain further.

Track Your Online Campaign Effectively!

2008-03-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

HI Friends,

I'm back with a brand new topic and that is "Conversion Tracking". Don't get confused that I'm talking about PPC/CPC/CPM. It is all about SEO and ethical internet marketing. Most of you has been doing link campaigning for quite a sometime and we all are well aware of the fact better search engine ranking can be achieved by obtain as many quality back links to the optimized site as we can. There are several strategies we adopt to maintain the quality and quantity of a link building campaign and in this process we overlook certain strategies that have really a great potential to drive to your traffic. But on the other hand they won't help you in improving you search engine ranking. For example, we can consider social bookmarking, blog comment posting and commenting on various relevant forums. These sources really have a great potential to drive major direct traffic to your site and if the campaign managed properly, then we can make the most out of this. Let's discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of some of these wired out SEO strategies.

Advantages:

Social bookmarking, blogging & commenting to various blogs, replying forums are some of the popular ways of digital activities. Social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, stumbleupon.com, clip marks and so on, have got immense popularity and have millions of users to their credit. Users sign up and start sharing their favorite digital resources with other users as well as with all the internet users, too. So if you have something interesting and scholarly and think the information should be shared with others, then social bookmarking sites are the best internet resources to target at. Blogging has revolutionized internet. It is the significant part of the Digital Freedom as bloggers step forward to share whatever they like. Bloggers do add a personal touch to their information and as a result people take maximum interest in chasing the resources. People read blogs and maintain blogs and do comment on the posts. When I searched for "site:blogspot.com" I found 126,000,000 pages indexed by Google and in Yahoo! the number is more exciting as it is 282,000,000. So if you don't have your blog in of the blogging sites like blogger.com, wordpress.com, livejournal.com or any other popular blogging site, then it is the right time to get into the business. Forums as we know the popular way of discussing issues, problems and facts online. They are a bit orthodox, but effective way of clarifying doubts and resolving issues. Forums are the most reliable online sources where people seriously involve getting help basically. There is no place for casual or personal conversation and every forum user is an expert in his/her own field. You can start a thread putting a question or an issue and thus get solutions and suggestions from other users as replies and vice versa. So these are the advantages that I've discussed so far. Let's go to the disadvantage section of the above things.

Most of the SEO experts believe links with [rel="nofollow"] has no value for a website as a link with such an attribute never crawled by search engine algorithm. Yes...of course they are right, but I would like to put a simple question: Why should a website be optimized? The answer is very simple, "of course for TRAFFIC." The search engines might be the best ever source for targeted traffic, but blogs, forums and social book markings can drive a good number of traffic to your website, although they won't help your site achieving better ranking in search engines. Because most of the blogging sites (including social book marking and forum) sites do add NOFOLLOW attribute to the hyperlinks especially created in the comments part just to stop link spamming. But you can still exploit this part for better traffic. We are really unaware of this fact, because we never track how many clicks exactly the site receives from such links. Here I would like you to give some insights and tips that could really help you in tracking clicks properly from such link campaigning.

Most of you are well aware of Google's AdWords program and its usefulness. In April 4, 2005, Google introduced conversion tracking facility for the non-AdWords campaigns. As MarketingVOX informs, “Google recently introduced a ‘cross-channel conversion tracker’ feature to AdWords that allows search marketers to track the campaigns for both Google and non-Google advertising in the same interface. Google sets up a network of tracking URLs that advertisers use in their non-Google campaign (Google's page on the new feature specifically mentions its arch competitor Overture). Google then keeps tabs on conversions across the entire campaign.

The new feature gives Google some competitive visibility into how well its own advertising does relative to other media options. It may even contribute data on useful and relevant pages that might not yet be in Google's web index, or placed highly enough in the ranks.

The new feature's release comes just at the time Google bought log analysis software firm Urchin, reportedly in order to offer the tracking services to its search advertisers - still another source of information that would inform Google about the still vast number of pages, traffic and relevance that exist outside the Google web economy.”

I’ve just given a slight twist to this Cross-Channel Conversion Tracker option of AdWords. The objective is to systematize the internet marketing that is more aimed at increasing traffic than search engine ranking. Obviously the target is social book marking, comment posting to various blogs and forum posting. Here Follows the STEPs that you need to follow:

STEP 1

Log in to your AdWords account; if you don’t have any AdWords account then Sign Up now and never forget to choose the Standard Edition.

Click on the Conversion Tracking tab to create Cross-Channel Conversion tracking code for your site. You can download the PDF guide to create Cross-Channel Conversion for your campaigning.

The general steps are

Choose channel

Provide details

Insert code and URLs

Test setup

In the Choose Channel Section, you need to choose Other online ads, then click the Continue button and assign a name to the Campaign name and put the URL that you want to drive traffic in the Destination URL field (NB: Destination URL is the URL/web page to which your links point to). Once you are done with this section will provide you a JavaScript code. As per Google, “This is slightly different from the Google Site Stats code that you've pasted into your conversion pages, but the set-up process is the same. First, make a backup copy of your landing page before adding the code. Then, insert (or ask your technical team to insert) the entire block of code. Finally, keep a copy of the code in a file for reference.” Select your language and the code will be like this:

In the next step you will get one Tracking URL (one like in the following picture) that you can use while creating hyperlinks while commenting blogs, book marking or replying forum threads.

For targeted traffic and better conversion, you need to use your experience as an SEO expert. Collect as many theme related blogs as you can and start commenting blogs. Right comments (50-100 words) and create hyperlinks using the Tracking URL. Thus you can use the same tracking URL or can create separate campaign for individual campaigns for Social bookmarking sites and forums sites. The more wide and particular, you become in your campaign, the comprehensive and elaborate report you would get from this. You can get details of your traffic, clicks and conversion right one the Campaign Summary page.

I’m sincerely looking for your comments and feedbacks on the post. Please share this posting with your friends. Keep visiting the blog as I’ll be back with another such interesting posting next time.

Till then good bye. This is Amit Mishra, Signing out

Google's "Florida" Update

2008-02-07T07:44:00.000-08:00

On November 16th 2003, Google commenced an update (the Florida update) which had a catastrophic effect for a very large number of websites and, in the process, turned search engine optimization on its head. It is usual to give alphabetical names to Google's updates in the same way that names are given to hurricanes, and this one became known as "Florida".

In a nutshell, a vast number of pages, many of which had ranked at or near the top of the results for a very long time, simply disappeared from the results altogether. Also, the quality (relevancy) of the results for a great many searches was reduced. In the place of Google's usual relevant results, we are now finding pages listed that are off-topic, or their on-topic connections are very tenuous to say the least.

The theories about the Florida update

The various search engine related communities on the web went into overdrive to try and figure what changes Google had made to cause such disastrous effects.

SEO filter (search engine optimization filter)
One of the main theories that was put forward and that, at the time of writing, is still believed by many or most people, is that Google had implemented an 'seo filter'. The idea is that, when a search query is made, Google gets a set of pages that match the query and then applies the seo filter to each of them. Any pages that are found to exceed the threshold of 'allowable' seo, are dropped from the results. That's a brief summary of the theory.

At first I liked this idea because it makes perfect sense for a search engine to do it. But I saw pages that were still ranked in the top 10, and that were very well optimized for the searchterms that they were ranked for. If an seo filter was being applied, they wouldn't have been listed at all. Also, many pages that are not SEOed in any way, were dropped from the rankings.

Searchterm list
People realized that this seo filter was being applied to some searchterms but not to others, so they decided that Google is maintaining a list of searchterms to apply the filter to. I never liked that idea because it doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. If an seo filter can be applied to some searches on-the-fly, it can applied to all searches on-the-fly.

LocalRank
Another idea that has taken hold is that Google have implemented LocalRank. LocalRank is a method of modifying the rankings based on the interconnectivity between the pages that have been selected to be ranked. I.e. pages in the selected set, that are linked to from other pages in the selected set, are ranked more highly. (Google took out a patent on LocalRank earlier this year). But this idea cannot be right. A brief study of LocalRank shows that the technique does not drop pages from the results, as the Florida algorithm does. It merely rearranges them.

Commercial list
It was noticed that many search results were biased towards information pages, and commercial pages were either dropped or moved down the rankings. From this sprang the theory that Google is maintaining a list of "money-words", and modifying the rankings of searches that are done for those words, so that informative pages are displayed at and near the top, rather than commercial ones.

Google sells advertising, and the ads are placed on the search results pages. Every time a person clicks on one of the ads, Google gets paid by the advertiser. In some markets, the cost per click is very expensive, and the idea of dropping commercial pages from the results, or lowering their rankings, when a money-word is searched on is to force commercial sites into advertising, thereby putting up the cost of each click and allowing Google to make a lot more money.

Comment on the above theories
All of the above theories are based on the idea that, when a search query is received, Google compiles a set of results and then modifies them in one way or another before presenting them as the search results. All of the above theories are based on the premise that Google modifies the result set. I am convinced that all the above theories are wrong, as we will see.

Stemming
Finally, there is a theory that has nothing to do with how the results set is compiled. Google has implemented stemming, which means that, in a search query, Google matches words of the same word-stem; e.g. drink is the stem of drink, drinks, drinking, drinker and drinkers. So far, this is not a theory - it's a fact, because Google say it on their website. The theory is that, stemming accounts for all the Florida effects. Like the other theories, I will show why this one cannot be right.

Evidence

There are a number of evidences (Florida effects) that are seen in the results, but I won't go into detail about them all. One piece of evidence that everyone jumped to conclusions about is the fact that you can modify the searches to produce different results. For instance, a search for "uk holidays" (without quotes) shows one set of results, but if you tell Google not to include pages that contain a nonsense word, e.g. "uk holidays -asdqwezxc" (without quotes), you will get a different set of results for some searches, but not for others. Also, the results with the -nonsense word looked the same as they were before the update began, therefore they appeared to be the results before a filter was applied.

This is what led people to come up with the idea of a list of searchterms or a list of money-words; i.e. a filter is applied to some searches but not to others. It was believed that the set of results without the -nonsense word (the normal results) were derived from the set produced with the -nonsense word. But that was a mistake.

What really happened

Although Google's results state how many matches were found for a searchterm (e.g. "1 - 10 of about 2,354,000"), they will only show a maximum of 1000 results. I decided to compare the entire sets of results produced, with and without the -nonsense word, and compare them to see if I could discover why a page would be filtered out and why other pages made it to the top. I did it with a number of searchterms and I was very surprised to find that, in some cases, over 80% of the results had been filtered out and replaced by other results. Then I realised that the two sets of results were completely different - the filtered sets were not derived from the unfiltered sets.

The partners in each pair of result sets were completely different. The 'filtered' set didn't contain what was left from the 'unfiltered' set, and very low ranking pages in the 'unfiltered' set got very high rankings in the 'filtered' set. I saw one page, for instance, that was ranked at #800+ unfiltered and #1 filtered. That can't happen with a simple filter. It can't jump over the other pages that weren't filtered out. All the theories about various kinds of filters and lists were wrong, because they all assumed that the result set is always compiled in the same way, regardless of the searchterm, and then modified by filters. That clearly isn't the case.

In it inescapable that the Google engine now compiles the search results for different queries in different ways. For some queries it compiles them in one way, and for others it compiles them in a different way. The different result sets are not due to filters, they are simply compiled differently in the first place. I.e. the result set without the -nonsense word, and the result set with the -nonsense word are compiled in different ways and are not related to each other as the filter theories suggest. One set is not the result of filtering the other set.

The most fundamental change that Google made with the Florida update is that they now compile the results set for the new results in a different way than they did before.

That's what all the previous theories failed to spot. The question now is, how does Google compile the new results set?

Back in 1999, a system for determining the rankings of pages was conceived and tested by Krishna Bharat. His paper about it is here. He called his search engine "Hilltop". At the time he wrote the paper, his address was Google's address, and people have often wondered if Google might implement the Hilltop system.

Hilltop employs an 'expert' system to rank pages. It compiles an index of expert web pages - these are pages that contain multiple links to other pages on the web of the same subject matter. The pages that end up in the rankings are those that the expert pages link to. Of course, there's much more to it than that, but it gives the general idea. Hilltop was written in 1999 and, if Google have implemented it, they have undoubtedly developed it since then. Even so, every effect that the Florida update has caused can be attributed to a Hilltop-type, expert-based system. An important thing to note is that the 'expert' system cannot create a set of results for all search queries. It can only create a set for queries of a more general nature.

We see many search results, that once contained useful commercial sites, now containing much more in the way of information or authority pages. That's because expert pages would have a significant tendancy to point to information pages. We see that the results with and without the -nonsense word are sometimes different and sometimes the same. That's because an expert system cannot handle all search queries, as the Krishna Bharat paper states. When it can't produce a set of results, Google's normal mechanisms do it instead. We see that a great many home pages have vanished from the results (that was the first thing that everyone noticed). It's because expert pages are much more likely to point to the inner pages that contain the information that to home pages. Every effect we see in the search results can be attributed to an expert system like Hilltop.

I can see flaws in every theory that has been put forward thus far. The flaw in the seo filter idea is that there are highly SEOed pages still ranking in the top 10 for searchterms that they should have been filtered out for. The flaw in the LocalRank theory is that LocalRank doesn't drop pages, but a great many pages have been dropped. The flaw in the list of searchterms is that if a filter can be applied to one searchterm, it can be applied to them all, so why bother maintaining a list. The flaw in the money-words list idea is that, if it ever came out that they were doing it, Google would run the risk of going into a quick decline. I just don't believe that the people at Google are that stupid. The flaw in the stemming theory is not that Google hasn't introduced stemming, it's that the theory doesn't take into account the fact that the Florida results set is compiled in a different way to the -nonsense set. Stemming is additional to the main change, but it isn't the main change itself.

The expert-system, or something like it, accounts for every Florida effect that we see. I am convinced that this is what Google rolled out in the Florida update. Having said that, I must also add that it is still a theory, and cannot be relied upon as fact. I cannot say that Google has implemented Hilltop, or a development of Hilltop, or even a Hilltop-like system. What I can say with confidence is that the results without a -nonsense word (the normal results) are not derived from the results with a -nonsense word, as most people currently think. They are a completely different results set and are compiled in a different way. And I can also say that every effect that the Florida update has caused would be expected with a Hilltop-like expert-based system.

Where do we go from here?

At the moment, Google's search results are in poor shape, in spite of what their representatives say. If they leave them as they, they will lose users, and risk becoming a small engine as other top engines have done in the past. We are seeing the return of some pages that were consigned to the void, so it is clear that the people at Google are continuing to tweak the changes.

If they get the results to their satisfaction, the changes will stay and we will have to learn how to seo Google all over again. But it can be done. There are reasons why certain pages are at the top of the search results and, if they can get there, albeit accidentally in many cases, other pages can get there too.

If it really is an expert system, then the first thing to realise is that the system cannot deal with all searchterms, so targeting non-generalised and lesser searchterms, using the usual search engine optimization basics, will still work.

For more generalised searchterms, the page needs to be linked to by multiple expert pages that are unaffiliated with the page. By "unaffiliated" I mean that they must reside on servers with different IP C block addresses than each other and than the target page, and their URLs must not use the same domain name as each other or as the target page. These expert pages can either be found and links requested or they can be created.

Latest

8th December 2003

Since soon after the Florida update began, some pages that disappeared from the results have been returning. In some cases they are back at, or close to, the rankings that they had before Florida. In other cases they are quite highly ranked but lower than before. Day after day, more of them are returning.

I put this down to Google recognizing that Florida caused a sharp decline in the quality (relevancy) of the search results. It appears that they are adjusting the algorithm's parameters, trying to find a balance between the new page selection process and good relevancy. In doing so, some of the pages that were dumped out of the results are getting back into the results set, and they are achieving high rankings because they already matched the ranking algorithm quite well, so once they are back in the results set, they do well in the rankings.

Reminder
Don't forget that all this is just theory, but what we see happening does appear to fit an expert sytem, although there can be other explanations. We can be sure that Google compiles the results sets in different ways depending on the searchterm, and that the Florida results are not derived, via one or more filters, from the -nonsense results, but we can't yet be certain that an expert system is used to compile the Florida results set.

22nd December 2003

Google has now dealt with the -nonsense search trick of seeing the non-Florida results, and it no longer works. It doesn't mean that they are not different to the Florida results; it's just that we can no longer see them.

5th January 2004

Dan Thies, of Seo Research Labs, came up with the interesting theory that the Florida changes are due to Google now using Topic Sensitive PageRank (TSPR). His PDF article can be found here. It's an interesting theory because, like the 'expert system' theory, it would cause Google to use 2 different algorithms depending on the searchterm used. To date, it's the only other theory that I believe has a chance of being right.

MySpace - Explore The New Way Of Online Marketing !

2008-01-22T08:02:00.000-08:00

Many people want to begin online marketing strategies but have no idea where to start. One great way to begin your endeavors for developing an online wealth production system is to utilize the powerful social networking entity known as MySpace. MySpace can save you tons of time, energy and money in the process of branding yourself and/or your business. Branding means everything in marketing online. You have to establish yourself as an expert with integrity.

MySpace can help you achieve your goals because it gives its 50,000,000 viewers a day a chance to get to know you. You can show them your picture. You can upload videos. You can talk to them and tell them about what you're offering them. When people can get a look at you and listen to you speak to them, it goes a long way in establishing your online presence. Here are some useful tips to help you make the most of MySpace:

1) There are a lot of spaces to choose from on MySpace. Make your stand out!

a) Use pictures and videos.

b) Speak with enthusiasm and apparent expertise.

c) Don't try to sound smarter than you are; just be yourself.

d) Don't try to be too funny.

e) Create catchy, not offensive titles for your videos and pictures.

f) Be real. Be honest.

2) Create more than one profile. Maximize your potential to be viewed by diversifying the viewers ability to access your material.

3) Remember that people want to know that you are real. They need to know that you're not trying to scam them. So don't.

4) Look at this exposure for what it is: a chance to develop your online presence with integrity and honor. Anything that you do online becomes a part of permanent Internet history. Do not minimize the importance of that.

5) Prepare at least a rough script to ensure the flow of your videos. Don't put videos out where you're stuttering and stammering over your own words. Know what you're going to say before you say it and practice beforehand.

6) If you have any reservations of whether or not a video is good, scrap it and make a new one. Don't put out trash.

MySpace is a powerful tool that can help you a lot to achieve your Internet marketing goals. 50,000,000 visitors a day is an incredible opportunity for exposure. Maximize your potential to benefit from this publicity by engaging and intelligent approach.

How To Become A Certified Internet Marketing Expert

2008-01-02T10:35:00.001-08:00

With the growing competition among businesses and rapid growth in the number of people aspiring to become successful entrepreneurs, it seems that it is inevitable not to involve the help of internet technology with every business out there in order to take off or reach its maximum revenue potential.

Because of this, the demand for internet marketing experts nowadays has indeed become significantly high. However, business owners are rather careful in finding and choosing the right company or individual to hire for such service. The most popular and fastest method of promotion or effective advertisement on the net according to marketing experts is the PPC or "Pay Per Click Marketing".

If you consider yourself an expert already when it comes to advertising on the internet, then you should definitely be good at pay per click marketing - if not, then you can't really be that good after all. Unlike other forms of internet advertising, PPC marketing is by far very efficient and cost effective if performed well by an expert. Business owners want quick results and immediate proof that the services they are paying for are indeed worth their time and money.

Google is the biggest and most popular search engine company at the moment that is offering pay per click advertising, next is Yahoo then MSN. Right now, it is reported that google gets the majority of people doing searches or inquiries online. This means that becoming a google PPC marketing expert will give you a big reason why business owners would want to hire your services for them. However, you have to prove that you are indeed a Google marketing expert to prospective customers.

To prove you are an expert, you have to be a qualified google advertising professional. There are few requirements to achieve this status. First, you should have your own "My Client Center" account with google. Second is, you should have managed at least one adwords account in your MCC account for 90 days. Third, you should have at least a total spend of $1000 to your account during the 90-day period. Lastly, you should pass the google advertising professional exam after meeting those prior requirements.

Once you accomplish all the said requirements including passing the professional exam, then you will receive your seal of being a qualified google advertising professional. This seal is surely a proof of being one internet marketing expert yourself.