1. Yahoo! Tells Microsoft to Bid $40 a Share

    11 months ago

    Yahoo! shares were trading in the $19 range before Microsoft offered to buy the company for $31 a share. People inside of Yahoo! talked to the NYT and WSJ stating that Monday they will reject the offer and request at least $40 a share. Unless Yahoo! accepts this deal their shares will likely fall, which will lead to lawsuits from shareholders. The one thing that could help Yahoo! unlock greater short term value would be partnering with Google on search. But if they did that, it would suck for SEOs and web publishers…90% of the search market would be controlled by Google, which would give Google even more leverage over content providers.

    For Yahoo! to give Google control of search they would need to curb their ad network, which not only has syndicated search and ad partners, but also powers a lot of arbitrage and direct navigation domain traffic. Yahoo!, being far more desperate for traffic and revenues, likely pays partners a bigger cut than Google does. Yahoo! being in play cuts the value of many thin arbitrage models (like Marchex) because

    • Yahoo! going to Microsoft would make Microsoft /Yahoo a more efficient marketplace and make it hard to arbitrage one through the other
    • Yahoo! Search being outsourced to Google would allow Google to pay publishing partners a smaller piece of the pie and have a tighter control of the ad market. Google recently killed Ask’s sub-syndication deal.

    Marchex posts Q4 results on the 14th. If they underperform they may have to start layoffs, cut their dividend, or start selling off some of their domain portfolio. Assuming names were sold one at a time, in a BuyDomains.com like format, more clean domains on the market would present a great opportunity for SEOs and smaller independent publishers, but they may sell off names in large blocks.

    A side shoot of this Yahoo! in play even is a great blog post by Henry Blodget on how Microsoft’s forward vision on ad supported software is failing to realize the full potential of subscription based software:

    Corporations are shifting to cloud-computing platforms–Software as a Service vendors like Salesforce.com and NetSuite, Google Apps, etc–but, for the most part, they are not shifting to “free software supported by advertising.” On the contrary, they continue to pay fat, per-employee license fees. Even some corporations running Google Apps pay license fees. The fees are lower than the per-seat costs charged by Microsoft, but they’re in the same same ballpark (according to the NYT, big companies pay about $75 per Office seat per year vs. $50 for Google Apps).

    In the current web 2.0 market, far too many start ups are focused on being ad supported rather than adding enough value to be able to sell a service. The easiest way to protect yourself from Google is to create something worth paying for.

    Aaron Wall, business

  2. How to Determine the Effectiveness of Your Internal Link Structure

    11 months ago

    Question: How do I determine how I am best utilizing my PageRank? How do I know if my navigation is successful?

    Answer:

    • Google Webmaster Tools shows your internal link counts to different pages. You can use that to show which pages are being emphasized on a crude level.
    • Optispider ($129) shows on site link structure and compares link text to page titles
    • SEO4Fun has a free PageRankBot tool which shows internal link flow. I think it is a bit complex to set up, but is cool when you get it set up.
    • If you have pages of limited importance but link to them frequently (like sitewide links to your privacy policy, shipping, or about us page) consider using nofollow on those links.
    • Track a few pages of your site with a tool like CrazyEgg to see what links users are clicking on and if you are drawing enough attention to the most important assets on your site.
    • Use data from your web analytics tools to focus more link equity on your most important (highest traffic and best converting) pages

    A few more advanced ideas

    • If your site is large and you keep producing new content, use Google’s date based filters to look for new pages that are of low quality / noisy (like a page dedicated to a photo but with no text on it, or other common duplicate content issues)
    • Use analytics to track how many pages (and which pages) are pulling in traffic. Compare those pages with all the pages on your site to see if you can free up some dead weight, or if you have a valuable section of your site that is not well linked to. You can use Xenu Link Sleuth, a sitemap generator, or data from Google Webmaster Tools to see what pages are linked to (and perhaps getting indexed).
    • If a particular page works well for you consider adding more content to that page to pick up a broader basket of related keywords. If a particular query works well for you consider creating a second page to target that query.
    • If you have a high authority page that links out to many other websites consider adding more internal links to that page to keep more of the link flow internal.

    Aaron Wall, Q & A

  3. Why I Think CJ.com (aka Commission Junction) is a Garbage Affiliate Network

    11 months ago

    I run a good number of websites in a variety of verticals. One of my sites that does exceptionally well in the search engines monetizes poorly with contextual ads and does not yet have the scale to sell direct ads, so I tried integrating affiliate ads on it.

    When I initially applied for CJ with this site, the advertiser I wanted to partner with rejected my site (I am guessing because there was a new account associated with that site). The traffic quality and relevancy are as high as you can get though. About 3 months later that same advertiser contacted me asking me to join their affiliate program with my search-marketing.info website, which is wildly off topic. I joined the affiliate program and also added my relevant site to the account about two weeks ago. I integrated the offer and waited for the money to roll in. But did it?

    This particular affiliate program was a lead generation program, which I figured had a delay in reporting while the leads were classified and approved. This site is a high traffic site in a big money vertical. The advertiser’s ad was integrated similarly to how it is integrated on other sites still in their program today, and their ad was seen by about 100,000 people.

    I logged in today and still no conversion. Odd. Weeks for an approval? Hmmmm.

    I looked at my invalid clicks report and it said my offer from this advertiser was disapproved. I was not told why, and was not even informed of this disapproval (from the advertiser who approached me) until after I searched out the information.

    Meanwhile that same company is paying search engines thousands of dollars to buy similar traffic to the stream they rejected from me. I know someone in upper management in the marketing department at that advertiser, so I will ping them to see what is up with their affiliate manager, but how many publishers get scammed like this every day? Sleazy workflow their CJ.

    The value add for publishers going through an affiliate network (vs going direct) are

    • having fewer accounts
    • independent reporting (for if you don’t trust the advertiser)
    • the offer data on top performing offers

    But on the down side,

    • many other marketers are looking over the same offers you are
    • some networks (like CJ) require tracking images or other footprints that identify your site as an affiliate site to search engines (and search engines do have algorithms to detect and demote certain types of affiliate sites)
    • communications channels are generally worthless when you add a bulky affiliate network to the mix

    I have had a number of affiliate networks come to me asking me to join them, often offering reduced rates, but I still don’t see their value add, especially after this experience.

    Aaron Wall, business

  4. $100 of FREE Text Links

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  5. Best Designed SEO blog

    11 months ago

    1) http://www.redflymarketing.com/blog/
    I seriosly like this design, ! like the wy that Dave keeps a corporate feel from site to blog, colours make me feel confident in the company in general.
    2) http://www.seobook.com/
    I like the design on this, even stole a colour or two when david naylor was blue and green, big plus here is Aaron book
    3) […]

    Dave Naylor, Fun Stuff

  6. Google to Give Away MP3 in China

    11 months ago

    The semi-legal and illegal spread of copyright information keeps driving value toward the aggregators. Google, which already has a music search service and owns YouTube, is looking to give away licensend music to win marketshare in China.

    From the WSJ

    Vivendi SA’s Universal Music and about 100 other foreign and domestic record labels have been working with Top100.cn, a Beijing-based Web site that currently sells licensed music downloads for 1 yuan (about 14 cents) each, and Google. Together, Top100.cn and Google would provide free MP3 downloads with value added services, people familiar with the plans say. The new search options, for example, promise to give users free access to a database of information about their favorite artists — from concert listings to links to special ring tones.

    If Google licenses lyrics and allows user feedback on songs, they prettymuch aggregated the entire value stream in that marketplace, at least outside of experiencing live music. Fierce competition for attention will drive virtually all publishing models in that direction. What do you offer that is live or that aggregators can’t take from you?

    Aaron Wall, internet

  7. Makeshift Anchor Text… Link Title Attribute vs Image Alt Tags: Which is Better?

    11 months ago

    One of the reasons I was so motivated to change the tagline of this site recently was because the new site design contained the site’s logo as a background image. The logo link was a regular static link, but it had no anchor text, only a link title to describe the link. If you do not look at the source code, the link title attribute can seem like an image alt tag when you scroll over it, but to a search engine they do not look that same. A link title is not weighted anywhere near as aggressively as an image alt tag is.

    The old link title on the header link for this site was search engine optimization book. While this site ranks #6 and #8 for that query in Google, neither of the ranking pages are the homepage (the tools page and sales letter rank). That shows that Google currently places negligible, if any, weight on link titles.

    I have ranked other sites for more competitive queries based exclusively on internal links (without thousands of links from other sites, like those pointing at the SEO Book home page).

    Does the image alt text carry more weight? In a word, yes. Here is now I proved that to myself through yet another site error. :)

    One of my hobby sites has a fairly flat file structure, and some of the internal pages are somewhat linkworthy. The site was not marketed aggressively and the only sitewide link to the homepage was the logo, which I forgot to put an image alt tag on. Google ranked 2 pages on the site well for the core keyword, but neither of those pages were the homepage. I noticed the lacking image alt tag, fixed it, and within a week my homepage was outranking the other pages.

    If the only link to your homepage is a logo check the source code to verify you are using descriptive image alt text.

    Aaron Wall, seo tips

  8. I think Google killed my link juice

    11 months ago

    I blaming Pilkster You see your post on the Do-follow campaign has implied in the eyes of the search engines that my blog is here to mess with them So I have backed out that do-follow game, of course My posts will be down to me which gets what left of my juice […]

    Dave Naylor, Google

  9. I need to be evil for a while… sorry

    11 months ago

    Ok how many people have seen one.com offering free hosting ..
    Free hosting & domain name. 1000MB and .com or .co.uk domain free for 1 year. Limited time only. Check www.one.com for more details

    if you go for the 4000 meg one it’s free and you get £75 quid in google adwords vouchers.. so worth […]

    Adwords, Dave Naylor

  10. Hey Tamar Weinberg

    11 months ago

    Tamar, are you saying … you have a new weapon in the Online Marketing war, because where I stand you really have..
    If I send you the RSS feeds of my competitors which really on viral marketing can you get a Digg in first just an idea
    DaveN

    Dave Naylor, Digg

  11. How Long Does it Take to Rank in Google? How Many Hours do I Have to Work Each Day?

    11 months ago

    Question: How long does it take to rank a website? How many hour of work do I have to do each day to compete and rank my website at the top of the search results?

    Answer: I get this question almost every day, and it is one of my least favorite questions to answer. So I figured I would answer it as best I can once here, then point people to this page when I get asked again. To compete in competitive marketplaces you have to out-think the competition or invest more than they do. When you start from how little or how quickly you have the wrong mindset. Ask not what your search results can do for you, but what you can do for your search results. :)

    Keep launching quality original content, keep working at brand building, keep making social connections, and watch the traction build. When you are new, can you predict what one idea is going to make the difference? For most people I don’t think so. Some types of success are deliberate, but for most independent webmasters, I think they accidentally step into success by working hard, being ignored, and then watching something blossom that they did not realize the importance of when they first launched it.

    After you have some success then you can engineer further success, but for many it starts out as an accident or a byproduct of constant motion.

    How long does it take to rank?

    If the search results are uncompetitive (use SEO for Firefox to survey the competitive landscape) you might be able to rank in a month even if your site is brand new.

    Is your site brand new? If so, how old are the top ranked competing sites. If they are a number of years old then it is probably going to take at least a year to catch up unless they are bad at marketing and link building or you have a great marketing idea that will help you build many organic links. If the companies that are ranking are multi-billion dollar corporations then you can’t outrank them with a one man website unless your site is integrated into the conversation of that marketplace and/or your site offers valuable tools and/or original linkworthy content.

    If your site is brand new, you probably want to develop links over time in a fairly consistent manner. If you grow x links this month then you want to create x or more the next month. And that number sets the baseline for the following month. Months where you have no viral marketing ideas try to list your site in a few quality directories, join trade organizations, and get other clean links.

    If you are sitting on an older site you may be able to grow links a bit more aggressively, and you may be able to get away with being a bit more aggressive with the anchor text you use in the inbound links.

    In many regional search markets outside of the US the competition is much less fierce than it is in the US, and it is easy to rank for some fairly competitive keywords.

    An exact match domain name may also provide ranking benefits in some search relevancy algorithms, which allows you to rank quicker without needing to build up as much link authority.

    How many hours of work will it take?
    I have ranked sites on 5 hours of work, and I have put hundreds of hours of work into sites that do not rank as well as I want them to.

    • How hard are your competitors working? If you are unsure track their current link count and their link growth. Also look for signs of public relation and the quality level of their inbound links.
    • How big is their head start?
    • How much are they investing?
    • Are there ideas they forgot to focus on?
    • Is your brand more focused than their brand?
    • How much risk are you willing to take?
    • Are competitors weighed down by bureaucracy?
    • Are you more passionate about your topic than the leading websites? Eventually people will discover that, especially if you are not afraid to market yourself.

    Ask not what your search results can do for you, but what you can do for your search results. :)

    Aaron Wall, Q & A

  12. Survey Says… Please Help Make SEO Book Better :)

    11 months ago

    Hello kind reader of SEO Book. I am trying to add some new features to the site and wanted your feedback to help make the site better. Please fill out the following survey to help make this site better reflect what you want from it.

    15 quick questions including name and email (and both of those are optional).

    Aaron Wall

  13. Why AdSense Earnings Are Sharply Dropping

    11 months ago

    WebmasterWorld has another thread about lowering AdSense prices.

    When the economy is good and advertisers have robust ad budgets, an ad network might be willing to sell them whatever they are willing to buy. If the advertiser wants to overpay for some ads and associate that spend with branding then so be it. But when the economy slows down, the ad marketplace needs to separate the best ad inventory from the weakest ad inventory to protect the rates of their best ads.

    From Google’s perspective, search is the golden goose tied directly with conversions. Syndicated ads, which can lead to conversions, may often carry a premium price based on branding value. Here are some of the forces that might be lowering AdSense earnings

    • Some brand advertisers cutting their ad budgets, trimming brand related ads before they cut direct response ads.
    • Those brand ads being replaced by less trustworthy ads from smaller advertisers who bid less and are less likely to get clicked on.
    • Google changing the clickable region of AdSense ad units.
    • Google lowering the estimated value of content clicks to help protect the value of search clicks and shift more of their network spend toward search.

    Given Google’s market dominance over the contextual ad market there is virtually no floor to how low they can price AdSense ads on non-premium publishing partner websites.

    I have one site where the ads are AGGRESSIVELY integrated into the content, where that site gets thousands of search driven visitors per day in a big money vertical. That site has a CPM rate which is roughly equal to what one to two clicks would cost if I had to buy that traffic from Google directly (rather than me arbitraging their organic search results then selling that traffic). Clearly there has to be a better way to monetize that site. The ad prices are so cheap that I would be the buyer if I had a higher value model in that space.

    If you have been using AdSense as a business model now is a great time to create new revenue streams and test shifting from an AdSense ad seller to an AdSense ad buyer.

    Aaron Wall, contextual advertising

  14. Digg just listen to your People

    11 months ago

    so the Top Diggers and Social Media Marketers have got their runderwear in a twist, when Kevin Rose announced some algorithm changes the top diggers complained and planned a boycott, As if that would ever happen, you see the top Diggers are just like SEO’s. For years I have been a Live.com stalwart promoting and […]

    Dave Naylor, Digg

  15. Selling Ads Without a Precise Brand = Bad Business Model

    11 months, 1 week ago

    JP Morgan Chase published a research on internet companies titled Nothing But Net [PDF], hyping the future of web ad growth.

    Yahoo!, a leading internet brand (a brand that means nothing) is up for grabs. The NYT, a generalist news company, is also seeing their stock tank, in spite of a market leading position in their vertical.

    As large media sites open up to user generated content they are going to keep losing brand and value to niche channels owned and operated by people who are so passionate about their subject that their brands have purpose and lasting value.

    Aaron Wall, business

  16. Google Shares Drop Yahoo Rise

    11 months, 1 week ago

    Google’s share price drops….meanwhile Yahoo is on the up…..

    Dave Naylor, Google, Yahoo

  17. Sponsored Links

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    Google

  18. Social Media Marketing (SMM)

    11 months, 1 week ago

    Hey Dixon, thankyou for the remind I was asked today about SMM, and to help a client that we have just started doing seo for, I personally think they have gone for one of the best in the industry but time will tell,
    anyways the real story here is that has Dixon pointed out on his […]

    Dave Naylor, Fun Stuff

  19. The Mighty Boosh Series 3 out now on DVD

    11 months, 1 week ago

    If you don’t know what the Mighty Boosh is .. then dam you haven’t lived ..

    ( link to BBC)
    Howard and Vince still working in Naboo’s second hand shop in Dalston, which gives Vince the opportunity to try on some new outfits and wigs! while Howard try to sell his Jazz !
    Dave

    Dave Naylor, Fun Stuff

  20. PopCrunch Video Shoutout

    11 months, 1 week ago

    Sure I go and write yesterday that I’m not going to be posting and somebody puts something up that makes me laugh. Popcrunch puts out a video today where Sugarrae, Matt Cutts and I get a mention, hang through till the last 30 seconds

    Sponsor: Constant Content
    www.Constant-Content.com
    Related PostsClever Video Adsense IntegrationSome of my colleagues have seen […]

    Michael Gray, video


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