We Do Search Engine Optimization.

During the US presidential debate in New York on October 10 2008 several key topics were discussed including

• Roe v Wade
• Litmus Test
• ACORN
• Joe the Plumber
• Charter and Vouchers

Below is a graph of real time searches on Google following remarks made by Barack Obama and John McCain during their presidential debate. I wonder what a real time Twitter graph would look like?

Google will definitely keep political candidates honest as accurate information is just an internet search away. Im waiting for debates to follow MTV and have a live broadcast chat option to discuss the debate in real time.

Where do visitors to your site come from?

67 percent of search engine users are driven to search by an offline channel (direct mail, print advertising, radio, TV, etc.).

This means that over half of the people that search for information about your products or services were triggered by offline information. Powerful statement for old media.

Search marketers may be ignoring the offline channels that drive users to search engines. 45 percent of search engine marketers do not integrate search marketing efforts with offline channels. Marketers attribute the lack of integration to various factors, including lack of budget and separate people managing search marketing and offline channels. Don’t be part of this major disconnect, improve offline and print marketing to reinforce your online business presence.

The SEO team should be integrated with your print marketing team.

57% of users claim search engines have become more important to their use of the internet over the past year.

72% of the younger age group of 18–24 year olds reported a growth of importance in performing queries on search engines to find information and make purchasing decisions.

This study was researched by iProspect.

It appears Google is going to be transitioning to the Google Suggest format as their new search default. This means that when a user performs a search in Google, Google will use a formula to decide what search phrases the user intends to search.

Obviously any major change to Google’s core search functionality will have a big impact on search engine marketers. Whether it will be a change for the good or bad is still widely up for debate. On the plus side for example, regional sites may see a boon from this as Google will be predicting results tailored to the user’s own region. On the flip side, while 3-4 word keyword phrases will likely see a huge increase in search volume, long tail keywords will not receive nearly as many searches, which negatively effect many sites that receive a great deal of long tail traffic.

New Search Functionality

Another interesting feature of the new Google suggest format will be the drop down mini SERP. This will essentially offer website the best possible search engine position as the mini SERP page will be free of any PPC ads, and top ranked sites on mini SERPs will surely garner a great deal of organic traffic.

Based on Google’s status in comparison to all other search engines, this is going to be a huge move. There’s no doubt this has the potential to completely change the future of search – for better or worse.

One pitfall is a reputation management nightmare.

For example, searching for “Obama” brings up suggest results including “Obama Antichrist” and “Obama Muslim”. These searches may have nothing to do with the person, and a searcher may have never known about potential references to “Muslim” but now they may click to find out. If you have positive results for potentially negative search queries this could be a big benefit.

Another potential problem is negative reviews, complaints or customer service issues. Terminix pest control has had complaints in the past, and they show in the search suggestions:

Users looking for Terminix.com find direct suggestions to complaints, which could potentially be an issue for the corporation.

Google suggest presents unique challenges to search engine optimization companies and I am very curious to see what new SEO tactics arise out of auto generated search suggestions.

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.

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.

Before becoming a Vice President, Melissa Mayer used to be Google’s chief homepage officer and among other duties she answered support emails.

When they were making homepage updates a loyal Googler notified them each time the word count changed, culminating with “61, getting a bit heavy, aren’t we?”

The Google homepage now stands at 28 words, enforced by the Don’t Be Evil dynamic duo Larry Page and Sergy Brin.

The post title is very catchy, Mrs Mayer would be great at SEO link bait: What comes next in this series? 13, 33, 53, 61, 37, 28…

Not counting the title (which has 12 words) this post is 613 words. 613 words to tell us they vow to only make users read only 28.

Strunk & White wouldn’t be amused.

You thought Google was cool for being able to return a set of results for common search engine queries? Google has nothing on the engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence beb-based question answering system START.

The MIT computer engineers have created a usable computer logic system that returns readable answers to natural language questions. See this computer answer the following queries:

Natural Language Questions

• what is the largest city in the us
• tell me about gravity
• how are diamonds formed

HAL has arrived, and he knows what you’re thinking.

Udi Manber, a lead search engineer at Google lists the teams that comprise the search functionality.

He discusses the search quality group, which is responsible for the ranking of search results. He

Web search is the most used Google search service, and the same ranking algorithms are also used with some modifications, for other Google search services, including Images, News, YouTube, Maps, Product Search, Book Search & code search.

Teams Within Search Quality

• Core Ranking
• International Search
• User Interfaces
• Evaluation
• Webspam

These core teams manage billions of web pages and millions of daily searches

Google Ranking Philosophy

1. Best locally relevant results served globally
2. Keep it simple
3. No manual intervention

This is a very good PR piece published by the search team. Points 1 & 2 are true and correct, however point 3 ‘No manual intervention’ is false. Google hand edits results all the time. If you do a competitive keyword search on Google it is likely some results have been omitted by humans.

The Google Search Blog discusses details of Google Ranking intricacies and how hundreds of search engineers manage the Search Engine Results Pages.

How many ways can you spell one term? The business of using SEO to rank for misspelled words is huge.
Google jobs has the post for spelling variations of Britney Spears pop star online searches.

Each of these variations was entered by at least two different unique users within a three month period and was corrected to ‘Britney Spears’. Searchers used 593 different variations searching for this female pop singer.

488941 britney spears
40134 brittany spears
36315 brittney spears
24342 britany spears
7331 britny spears
6633 briteny spears
2696 britteny spears
1807 briney spears
1635 brittny spears
1479 brintey spears
1479 britanny spears
1338 britiny spears
1211 britnet spears
1096 britiney spears
991 britaney spears
991 britnay spears
811 brithney spears
811 brtiney spears
664 birtney spears
664 brintney spears
664 briteney spears
601 bitney spears
601 brinty spears
544 brittaney spears
544 brittnay spears
364 britey spears
364 brittiny spears
329 brtney spears
269 bretney spears
269 britneys spears
244 britne spears
244 brytney spears
220 breatney spears
220 britiany spears
199 britnney spears
163 britnry spears
147 breatny spears
147 brittiney spears
147 britty spears
147 brotney spears
147 brutney spears
133 britteney spears
133 briyney spears
121 bittany spears
121 bridney spears
121 britainy spears
121 britmey spears
109 brietney spears
109 brithny spears
109 britni spears
109 brittant spears
98 bittney spears
98 brithey spears
98 brittiany spears
98 btitney spears
89 brietny spears
89 brinety spears
89 brintny spears
89 britnie spears
89 brittey spears
89 brittnet spears
89 brity spears
89 ritney spears
80 bretny spears
80 britnany spears
73 brinteny spears
73 brittainy spears
73 pritney spears
66 brintany spears
66 britnery spears
59 briitney spears
59 britinay spears
54 britneay spears
54 britner spears
54 britney’s spears
54 britnye spears
54 britt spears
54 brttany spears
48 bitany spears
48 briny spears
48 brirney spears
48 britant spears
48 britnety spears
48 brittanny spears
48 brttney spears
44 birttany spears
44 brittani spears
44 brityney spears
44 brtitney spears
39 brienty spears
39 brritney spears
36 bbritney spears
36 briitany spears
36 britanney spears
36 briterny spears
36 britneey spears
36 britnei spears
36 britniy spears
32 britbey spears
32 britneu spears
29 britent spears
29 brittnany spears
29 britttany spears
29 btiney spears
26 birttney spears
26 breitney spears
26 brinity spears
26 britenay spears
26 britneyt spears
26 brittan spears
26 brittne spears
26 btittany spears
24 beitney spears
24 birteny spears
24 brightney spears
24 brintiny spears
24 britanty spears
24 britenny spears
24 britini spears
24 britnwy spears
24 brittni spears
24 brittnie spears
21 biritney spears
21 birtany spears
21 biteny spears
21 bratney spears
21 britani spears
21 britanie spears
21 briteany spears
21 brittay spears
21 brittinay spears
21 brtany spears
21 brtiany spears
19 birney spears
19 brirtney spears
19 britnaey spears
19 britnee spears
19 britony spears
19 brittanty spears
19 britttney spears
17 birtny spears
17 brieny spears
17 brintty spears
17 brithy spears
17 brittanie spears
15 brinney spears
15 briten spears
15 briterney spears
15 britheny spears
15 britneny spears
15 brittamy spears
15 brittmey spears
15 brytnei spears
15 btirney spears
15 rittney spears
14 brinet spears
14 britneyy spears
14 britten spears
12 beritney spears
12 bretiny spears
12 briatny spears
12 brieney spears
12 brinany spears
12 britaany spears
12 britan spears
12 britine spears
12 britnea spears
12 britnes spears
12 britnez spears
12 britnny spears
12 brittenay spears
12 brittneys spears
12 brittony spears
12 brteny spears
12 btitany spears
12 btittney spears
12 btriney spears
12 btritney spears
12 rittany spears
11 braitney spears
11 brettney spears
11 britamy spears
11 britery spears
11 britnary spears
11 brittent spears
11 bruttney spears
11 pritny spears
10 bitaney spears
10 brenty spears
10 bristney spears
10 britay spears
10 britinny spears
10 brittaany spears
10 brittanys spears
10 brittini spears
10 brittniy spears
10 brtieny spears
10 brutany spears
9 bitteny spears
9 brinttany spears
9 britanay spears
9 britinany spears
9 britn spears
9 britnew spears
9 britneyn spears
9 britrney spears
9 brtiny spears
9 brtittney spears
9 brtny spears
9 brytny spears
9 rbitney spears
8 birtiny spears
8 bithney spears
8 brattany spears
8 breitny spears
8 breteny spears
8 brightny spears
8 brintay spears
8 brinttey spears
8 briotney spears
8 britanys spears
8 britley spears
8 britneyb spears
8 britnrey spears
8 britnty spears
8 brittner spears
8 brottany spears
7 baritney spears
7 birntey spears
7 biteney spears
7 bitiny spears
7 breateny spears
7 brianty spears
7 brintye spears
7 britianny spears
7 britly spears
7 britnej spears
7 britneyu spears
7 britniey spears
7 britnnay spears
7 brittian spears
7 briyny spears
7 brrittany spears
7 brttiney spears
7 btiteny spears
7 btrittany spears
6 beritny spears
6 bhritney spears
6 birthney spears
6 breathney spears
6 breaty spears
6 bretany spears
6 briatany spears
6 brint spears
6 britenney spears
6 britian spears
6 britinty spears
6 brititney spears
6 britnsy spears
6 britrey spears
6 britsny spears
6 brittine spears
6 brittnry spears
6 brittsny spears
6 brtanny spears
6 brtittany spears
6 bruttany spears
6 brytany spears
6 btitny spears
6 pretny spears
6 ritany spears
5 bbritany spears
5 bbrittney spears
5 biitney spears
5 bitny spears
5 breathny spears
5 breney spears
5 brethney spears
5 brettny spears
5 bridny spears
5 brigney spears
5 briittney spears
5 brinaty spears
5 brinay spears
5 brinetty spears
5 brinitty spears
5 brinny spears
5 brintery spears
5 britary spears
5 britbney spears
5 brithany spears
5 britieny spears
5 britiey spears
5 britnt spears
5 britnys spears
5 britrny spears
5 brittenny spears
5 brittnee spears
5 brittnt spears
5 brney spears
5 broitney spears
5 brotny spears
5 bruteny spears
5 btiyney spears
5 btrittney spears
5 gritney spears
5 spritney spears
4 bittny spears
4 bnritney spears
4 brandy spears
4 brbritney spears
4 breatiny spears
4 breetney spears
4 bretiney spears
4 brfitney spears
4 briattany spears
4 brieteny spears
4 briety spears
4 briitny spears
4 briittany spears
4 brinie spears
4 brinteney spears
4 brintne spears
4 britaby spears
4 britaey spears
4 britainey spears
4 britinie spears
4 britinney spears
4 britmney spears
4 britnear spears
4 britnel spears
4 britneuy spears
4 britnewy spears
4 britnmey spears
4 brittaby spears
4 brittery spears
4 britthey spears
4 brittnaey spears
4 brittnat spears
4 brittneny spears
4 brittnye spears
4 brittteny spears
4 briutney spears
4 briyeny spears
4 brnity spears
4 brtteny spears
4 brttiany spears
4 bryney spears
4 brythney spears
4 brytne spears
4 brytni spears
4 brytnie spears
4 bvritney spears
4 dritney spears
4 priteny spears
3 beittany spears
3 bichney spears
3 biritny spears
3 birnety spears
3 birny spears
3 birteney spears
3 birthny spears
3 birtiney spears
3 birtteny spears
3 birttny spears
3 bitanny spears
3 bitheay spears
3 bithey spears
3 bitrney spears
3 breinty spears
3 brethny spears
3 bretne spears
3 bretniy spears
3 brettine spears
3 brighty spears
3 brihney spears
3 brihtney spears
3 briiney spears
3 briitnay spears
3 brineny spears
3 brinte spears
3 brintiney spears
3 brintneey spears
3 brinttney spears
3 brirany spears
3 brirtny spears
3 brisney spears
3 britainny spears
3 britaniy spears
3 britanu spears
3 britanyy spears
3 britatny spears
3 britdney spears
3 britemy spears
3 britenty spears
3 brither spears
3 brithne spears
3 brititany spears
3 brititny spears
3 britiy spears
3 britmeny spears
3 britneeey spears
3 britnehy spears
3 britnely spears
3 britnesy spears
3 britnetty spears
3 britnex spears
3 britneyxxx spears
3 britnity spears
3 britntey spears
3 britnyey spears
3 britterny spears
3 brittneey spears
3 brittnney spears
3 brittnyey spears
3 brityen spears
3 briytney spears
3 brltney spears
3 broteny spears
3 brtaney spears
3 brtiiany spears
3 brtinay spears
3 brtinney spears
3 brtitany spears
3 brtiteny spears
3 brtnet spears
3 brytiny spears
3 btney spears
3 drittney spears
3 pretney spears
3 rbritney spears
2 barittany spears
2 bbbritney spears
2 bbitney spears
2 bbritny spears
2 bbrittany spears
2 beitany spears
2 beitny spears
2 bertney spears
2 bertny spears
2 betney spears
2 betny spears
2 bhriney spears
2 biney spears
2 bintey spears
2 biretny spears
2 biritany spears
2 birittany spears
2 birittny spears
2 birnty spears
2 birtey spears
2 birtheny spears
2 birtieny spears
2 birtnay spears
2 birtnet spears
2 bitnet spears
2 bitttany spears
2 bnrittany spears
2 bntney spears
2 bpitney spears
2 brandi spears
2 brattney spears
2 breanty spears
2 breany spears
2 breittany spears
2 brently spears
2 brentney spears
2 brethany spears
2 brethine spears
2 bretnty spears
2 bretty spears
2 brianey spears
2 briatney spears
2 brickney spears
2 bridnea spears
2 brieatney spears
2 brientny spears
2 brietnet spears
2 briettny spears
2 briey spears
2 brighney spears
2 brigtney spears
2 brigtny spears
2 briiny spears
2 brindey spears
2 brindy spears
2 bringney spears
2 brininy spears
2 brinitey spears
2 brinsley spears
2 brinthey spears
2 brinthy spears
2 brintiy spears
2 brintneys spears
2 brintry spears
2 brinyey spears
2 briottany spears
2 brirrany spears
2 brirreny spears
2 brirtany spears
2 brirttany spears
2 brirttney spears
2 britain spears
2 britane spears
2 britaneny spears
2 britania spears
2 britann spears
2 britanna spears
2 britannie spears
2 britannt spears
2 britannu spears
2 britanyl spears
2 britanyt spears
2 briteeny spears
2 britenany spears
2 britenet spears
2 briteniy spears
2 britenys spears
2 britianey spears
2 britin spears
2 britinary spears
2 britmy spears
2 britnaney spears
2 britnat spears
2 britnbey spears
2 britndy spears
2 britneh spears
2 britneney spears
2 britney6 spears
2 britneye spears
2 britneyh spears
2 britneym spears
2 britneyyy spears
2 britnhey spears
2 britnjey spears
2 britnne spears
2 britnu spears
2 britoney spears
2 britrany spears
2 britreny spears
2 britry spears
2 britsany spears
2 brittanay spears
2 brittang spears
2 brittans spears
2 brittanyh spears
2 brittanyn spears
2 brittany’s spears
2 brittanyt spears
2 brittanyy spears
2 brittary spears
2 brittenie spears
2 brittenty spears
2 brittinney spears
2 brittley spears
2 brittn spears
2 brittnery spears
2 brittnety spears
2 brittney’s spears
2 brittneyu spears
2 brittnsey spears
2 britttaney spears
2 britttny spears
2 brittyney spears
2 brityne spears
2 briyany spears
2 brlttney spears
2 brotaney spears
2 brotany spears
2 brottney spears
2 brriney spears
2 brrittney spears
2 brrtney spears
2 brthney spears
2 brtianny spears
2 brtineys spears
2 brtittny spears
2 brttiny spears
2 brtttany spears
2 brydney spears
2 brynty spears
2 brythey spears
2 bryttney spears
2 btiany spears
2 btirtney spears
2 btitiney spears
2 btittny spears
2 btritany spears
2 buttney spears
2 grittney spears
2 prietny spears
2 pritany spears
2 prittany spears

Its likely that these stats are released without Google’s permission, as they have demonstrated a closed source position on internal statistics.