I'm on my way to the Search Engine Marketing forum, but I figured I'd leave you guys with a quick update before it starts.
Link Arrangements. I attended the Advanced Link Building Forum, where Debra Mastaler, owner of
http://www.Alliance-Link.com, told us, "Get to know your stats. Find out who's visiting you, visit those markets and get link arrangements." Thanks for the advice, Debra!
After I finished reporting live yesterday, I tried to meet up with Danny Sullivan, but I was unable to because he was just too cool for school -- everyone and their brother was trying to get a spare moment with him ;) Instead, I spent the evening hanging out with Jill Whalen, owner of
http://www.HighRankings.com, Dan Thies, and a few others. We relaxed in the restaurant bar of the Hilton, where we bought a few drinks, told a few sheep jokes, and had plenty of algorithm discussion.
I stayed until about 9:30 or 10:00 -- I would've stayed later but things were starting to get a little salty; Jill was on her second Bloody Mary and everyone was drinking a lot of wine. It was time to call it a night... but what a night it was!
Dan Thies offered some of his theories on the new Google algorithm. He's seen evidence of new topic sensitive page rank, using applied semantics that study the relationship between words, between search terms, and keywords appearing on sites.
He also talked about the existence of a possible dictionary of search topics. His reasoning behind this theory is that some search terms haven't dropped at all on Google, and he believes these are the terms in this so-called dictionary. My understanding is this is a sort of directory and the terms that didn't drop are at top of directory listings in a sense. Dan sees this as a possible aspect of Google's new algorithm -- not whole thing, but a part of it.
He gathers all this just from his own observations on rankings. Basically, he's reverse engineering based on search results and data he collects. Let me tell you, after hanging out with Dan, I am convinced that he could be a rocket scientist! He's one of the most intelligent people I know.. and he's also a big fan of WebProWorld!
Check out some of his posts here.
Froogle and Google. You may have noticed that Froogle listings now appear in Google search results. Both Dan Thies and Danny Sullivan have the same basic theory behind this. The thinking is Google are trying to push Froogle as the commercial search tool while Google will be the more informational search tool -- no surprise, eh? This would make Froogle the shopping portal and Google the information portal. To me, this means it would become even more important to get your site listed in Google. What do you think?
A few sources (who are going to remain anonymous) casually informed me that Greg Boser, president of
WebGuerrilla LLC, and Brett Tabke, editor of
http://www.WebmasterWorld.com, were both big time se spammers once upon a time, and some of their practices are still not completely ethical. Rumor has it that they were both big cloakers before being caught by Google. This is interesting information because earlier in the day Greg was giving advice on how to make the way your sites are connected appear organic when they really aren't.
What are your thoughts on this?
Google Adwords. According to Dan Thies, two weeks of testing on Google Adwords can tell you far more than WordTracker in regards to keyword research. Dan says Google is delivering fantastic information in regards to Adwords campaigns.
Be careful. "Traffic through organic listings can cost more than traffic through paid listings," he warns. Why? Because you spend more time on organic listings.
"Search term research must be based more on what searchers are doing than what search engines are doing," Dan says. Be aware that searchers often do not carry a dictionary, and are therefore prone to spelling words wrong. Andy Beal, VP Search Marketing,
http://www.KeywordRanking.com and
http://www.ProRanking.com, WebSourced, Inc, offers some great advise on accounting for misspellings: in organic listings, write (for example) "sometimes spelled as..." and then insert misspelling of the term. That way, you will receive more organic traffic. Great idea, Andy!
I'll check back with another update soon...
Adwords, Froogle, & Google - Day 2, 11:20 AM
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