We Do Search Engine Optimization.

A day in the life of webmaster support from Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead. Maile filmed her day at the Mountain View Googleplex. I didn’t think video camers were allowed inside Google – when I was there last year they had security searches to make sure no cameras of any kind were brought in.

Nice to see Matt Cutts make a cameo appearance on this video. What is a Google webmaster video without the anti spam king?

The work environment sounds nice, start at around 10 AM and finish around midnight. This schedule is a very compatible with the computer geek/internet addict work environment. Obviously it has served Google well.

Useful tidbits include:

Recent and upcoming releases
* Webmaster Tools API on schedule (this will be cool)
* “Skip intro” in search results (this sounds interesting, like a skip flash intro?)

Two recent spam techniques mentioned in the blogosphere. Brian White, who leads one of the Webspam-fighting groups at Google, explained that one technique is new twist on old idea, both are already handled.

Good to know multiple Googlers are probably reading Shoemoney, Dave Naylor, Quadzilla and probably subscribe to all the SEO black hat forums and training sites.

The Securities and Exchange Commission now officially recognizes public information sharing on corporate websites and online information sharing sites. In a landmark announcement, the SEC now allow disclosure of financial information through corporate blogs.

how companies can use their web sites to provide information to investors in compliance with the federal securities laws, particularly with respect to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

the release addresses antifraud issues that may arise when issuers, their officers, and employees speak on company-sponsored blogs or electronic shareholder forums. In particular, it provides guidance for companies hosting or participating in blogs or electronic shareholder forums about the applicability of the antifraud provisions to statements made by the company or by a person acting on behalf of the company. It also highlights the restrictions on a company’s ability to require investors to waive protections under the federal securities laws as a condition to entering or participating in a blog or forum.

Corporations are no longer bound to traditional media and distribution channels in order to satisfy full disclosure requirements. In the past, disclosure filings were sent through wire services which may charge over $1000 per filing, causing undue financial strain on smaller businesses and reducing the amount of company information available to the general public.

SEO’s are licking their chops in anticipation of being able to sell search engine optimization to corporations as a value added service to replace the bland, expensive, obfuscated wire releases. A good SEO will be able to create a press release that is interesting, useful and most importantly linked to.

Imagine a crafty SEO promoting disclosure requirements on a major social networking site such as Digg.com. In a huge win-win, the SEC regulations are met, the company gets huge immediate exposure, and the benefit of lots of long term backlinks.

Brian Solis wrote a book on the new SEC disclosure regulations in his Tech Crunch blog post. Hopefully most corporations will blog with streamlined information and add a bit of humor and personality to their new personal PR websites.

If you are looking for advice on how not to begin a search engine optimization project, the user SEO Quick Project just created a case study for you.

this job has a 100% chance of failure.

Here is the title of the job listing:

SEO Quick Project – See original job posting at Elance »
Hello, We are looking for help with our SEO project and need someone who can quickly update our site to maximize our upcoming marketing campaign. Cost is a concern but we have two additional projects and would like to use the same provider for each. Our budget for this SEO project is $120.00. We are hoping to complete this within the next week or so. thank … view or apply to job view or apply to job

Problems with this SEO proposal: no budget, no tools, no content to work with, no realistic schedule, no provision for acquiring links.

It is impossible to have anything resembling useful SEO for $120 except an hour of consulting.

It’s amazing the amount of Google executives, engineers and senior staff who have left to join startup internet ventures. Google may be one of the best places in America to work, but it is always more fun to work for yourself or work with no supervision on a project you love.
Computer Scientists Who Left Google

Paul Buchheit – creator and lead developer of Gmail, pioneering Web 2.0, including the idea of Ajax, before the acronym was created. Developed the original prototype of Google AdSense, came up with the company’s unique motto “Don’t be evil” in 2001.
Bret Taylor – Four years at Google, led more than 25 successful product launches, including Google Maps, Google Local, Google Web Toolkit, the Google Maps API, and Google’s Developer product group.

Kevin Fox – user experience designer at Google, designing Gmail, Google Calendar, and the second version of Google Reader.
Sanjeev Singh – Developer of Google Mail and Google Search Appliance. Prior to Google worked at social annotations site Third Voice and a government research lab.

These guys wrote about why Google can’t keep restless computer engineers in the Googly coop.

First!

Video of online social media commenters overtaking the boardroom. When the anonymity of the internet becomes real life anti-social you get a mix of anarchy and entertainment.

Comment from the Digg: “All those comments that you’ve buried… what if those people all worked together?”

Video originally on CollegeHumor.com, which tries to include tons of hidden spammy links in their swf embed code. Shame on you College Humor.

What do you get when you combine Google search engine and Digg social voting: Giggle. There is a strong possibility the Digg users will have their usernames transferred to Google accounts.

I can’t wait to see the uprising on digg when they realize all their voting and browsing history will be transferred to Google, and Google will use this to their advantage. Users have a history of mob like behavior and are prone to shooting first and asking questions… someday.

Some possible name mashups:

• Diggle
• Giggle
• Doogle
• Gigg
• Googg
• Goig

Google has ad technology to pinpoint the best ad to the right user, so they must believe they can pay for this acquisition in a few years.

The purchase price is reportedly 200 million which is approximately $66 for every registered user, assuming there are 3,000,000 digg users. For comparison, AOL paid about $40 for every Bebo.com user and eBay purchased the social networking site StumbleUpon for about $45 million, valued at $20 per registered user. The big difference is it is extremely difficult to monetize StumbleUpon.com, while digg.com has lots of advertisements.
Diggers must click on a lot of ads – oh wait no they don’t.

Currently Microsoft is providing ads to Digg, but this should immediately change with a Google takeover.
As reported by TechCrunch and commented on by scores of excited, nervous, hyped, curious, incredulous and indifferent blogs.

Where are the Google haters? If you are furious about this deal we want to link to you.

Digg is currently the 115th most popular site on the internet according to Alexa. Digg traffic is extremely volatile, dropping over 100% last month before rebounding.

Alexa.com graph showing Digg’s popularity

Social Media Club Los Angeles technology business networking group. This group has 122 confirmed members so far and should be worthwhile event. This month’s meeting will feature a panel of industry professionals and practitioners who will discuss principles of navigating through and participating in the social web. The panel will explore social media and the potential effect on daily life, business and markets.

local social media rock stars: Brian Solis, Robert Richman, Michael Dorausch and Nicole Jordan.

Mahalo.com social search engine is hosting this SoCal tech event. Very nice to see an increase in Southern California technology networking. Heavybagmedia.com is handling PR for this event and you can contact jackie at heavybagmedia.com for more SMC details.

Host: Social Media Club Los Angeles
Type: Meetings – Club/Group Meeting

Date: Monday, July 28, 2008
Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm

Location: Mahalo
Street: 902 Colorado Ave.
City/Town: Santa Monica, CA
Map

.FAIL

Something is very fishy with the .me domain name registration system. Individuals who have signed up and paid for .me names are not receiving them. Multiple people have even been approved and charged for the same domain name!

Most of the really good names were registered by Afilias. There are super shady registrations where it appears that Afilias pre-registered all the good domains April 29, 2008. Afilias got a deal on all the premium .me names they wanted.

What is even more shady are the trademark dates. Trademarks were done in the year 1900, signed and sealed the same day. Very interesting. A company that was founded in 2000 received trademarks 100 years before their incorporation, and the Afilias.com trademarks were approved faster than any other trademark in history.

Domain registration for bite.me
registered: 4/29/08
trademarked applied: 1/1/1900
trademarked registered: 1/1/1900

Domain registration for mobile.me
registered: 4/29/08
trademarked applied: 1/1/1900
trademarked registered: 1/1/1900

Here is an available name: Do.me

do.me domain name available

but do.me is not available for registration on enom.com

Gogaddy has the same problems with the .me registration

It seems that the .me registrar wants to use their auction system to sell names themselves at an increased price. Most domain names in the .me auction start at $75 but have gone for a lot more topping out at $3605 for lastminute.me

Boy lots of people have been experiencing problems with the failed .me domain name registrations.

Advertisers using PPC search services think their ads must be in
the top position in order to make the most
money, but this is a novice point of view.

The ad in the first position is more likely to receive compulsive clicks that don’t convert and at the same time, cost more.

Advertisers in the #1 position
pay top dollars with the highest cost per
click to receive traffic that does not convert. Pay per click bidding for #1 results in overbids for inflated keyword prices.

Do not bid for the #1 position, set your cost per click so the ad displays
above the fold: the level where a user is not required to horizontally scroll to see your ad. Generally, the first 5 ads are displayed in the right column. The number of paid search ads displayed depends on the screen resolution of the user.

Being in the top 3 results is even better, as it receives increased exposure on Ask.com and AOL.

The second, third, and fourth positions only marginally differ in their ability to drive traffic, and will cost much less.

Here is the one condition which differs from the above advice.
If there are only 1 or 2 competitors for a keyword, you want to be number 1.

With few advertisers, it is likely you’ve discovered a relatively obscure keyword,
which is GOOD for your business.

It is often much cheaper to get that top position and second, the obscurity means your traffic is likely very targeted.

The traffic is more pinpointed, and you will have very few compulsive clicks from tire kickers. With specific keyword searches, the top position very valuable. This is similar to type in traffic where a user literally types in their question into the address bar, hoping for the correct result.

This is the long tail, and long tail keywords are hard to find because they are often longer and receive much less traffic. Most keyword research tools will miss them, it takes creative keyword research to find quality 4+ word keyword phrases.

Combining the results of these obscure keywords will result in well-targeted traffic ready to spend money at
your site.

Happy bidding.

Scammers will never cease trying to give the Search Engine Optimization industry a bad name. One of my clients received a ‘bill’ from an SEO firm called Domain Listing Services claiming annual website submission services. The charges are $185 for 5 years.

How many unfortunate people have been defrauded from scams like this? Domain Listing Services may as well be a Nigerian 419 scam. I love how a service line item claims ‘Optimized title and meta tags’. How can this be done without website ftp access?

Here are some tips to spot frauds:

• Legitimate companies always use a personal email address, not a free service from hotmail.com
• A real SEO firm will have its own domain name
• Professional SEO’s have references, reports and certifications
• Search engine submission is not a service that will help you. Only editing page content and acquiring links will get you better placement.

SEO Email Solicitation Below:

From: Domain Services [mailto:domainnst654@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2008 3:25 PM
To: Client
Subject: Domain Notification: This is your Final Notice of Domain Listing
Importance: High

DOMAIN LISTING SERVICES
8171 Yonge St. Suite# 149
Thornhill, ON L3T 2C6
Canada
FINAL NOTICE
(Please make necessary changes)

ATT: client
ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT
client
owner@site.com
123 main st
san francisco – ca 90130 – us,
,
www.site.com

DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES:
Premium Package

ANNUAL WEBSITE SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION
FROM AUGUST 1,2008 THRU AUGUST 1,2018
OR
FROM AUGUST 1,2008 THRU AUGUST 1,2013

TOTAL

$295.00

$185.00

SUBSCRIPTION INCLUDES:

* Custom keyword research
* Optimized title and meta tags
* Submission to 900 search engines and directories
* safe follow-up re-submissions every 3 months
* Helpful professional support

THIS IS NOT A BILL. This is a solicitation. You are under no obligation to pay the amount(s) stated unless you accept this offer.
Domain Name

www.sites.com Amount

Requested Reply

July 14th,2008

THIS NOTICE IS A SOLICITATION AND A RECEIPT OF PAYMENT WILL CONFIRM YOUR ANNUAL SUBMISSION
*100% SATISFACTION IS GUARANTEED OR YOUR MONEY BACK
Please select the number of years you would like to signup for
[ ] 10 Years ………. $295 (Best Value, Most Recommended!)
[ ] 5 Years ………. $185

If you have other domains you may list them below (please send a separate check for each domain and write your domain name on the memo section of the check)
Other domain(s) __________________ , __________________ , __________________

Total $ _______

________________________________
Signature

________________________________
Date

Payment by Check or Money Order
Print and mail a copy of this order form along with a check or money order to the address listed below:
Domain Listing Services
8171 Yonge St. Suite# 149
Thornhill, ON L3T 2C6
Canada

Please do not forget to include a copy of this order form with your payment!

www.site.com

By accepting this offer, you agree not to hold DLC liable for any part. Note that THIS IS NOT A BILL. This is a solicitation.
You are under no obligation to pay the amounts stated unless you accept this offer. The information in this letter contains confidential and/or legally privileged information from the notification processing department of the Domain Listing Services Inc.
This information is intended only for the use of the individual(s) named above. Email domainlistingservices@hotmail.com if you do not want to receive further updates from DLC.
If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents for this letter is strictly prohibited.

* 100% satisfaction guaranteed, you may request a refund within 30 days if your are not satisfied with our services.