Jim Hedger

What is the difference between a sub-domain and a sub-directory? In the electronic eyes of GoogleBot, not much though one is easier for the bot to deal with and the other is (in certain circumstances), easier for a webmaster to deal with.

Two days ago I was performing a rather dull set of SEO experiments when I noticed something very disturbing. While testing Google’s SERPs against keyword phrases inserted into the Metamend Facebook profile, I found a Chinese SEO company had completely stolen the Metamend source-code, images and all. The Chinese firm, Okwoo.com had slightly altered and translated the site-text into a Chinese language but had left blog postings (many of which I wrote) in the English language they were originally written in. It’s called site jacking and it happens more often than a reasonable person might realize.

For the past six or seven years, one of the most dominant factors in determining page or document placement has been an evaluation of incoming links. Google pioneered the method, known as Pagerank, in its original algorithm and has refined it ever since. The recent flap over Pagerank revaluations might provide SEOs a broader hint at changes happening behind the scenes at Google and other major search engines. While unintended, Google might be signaling a step away from Pagerank as a primary means of recommendation and valuation.

Imagine yourself as an SEO servicing a fairly large client or business. The client has tens of thousands of unique URLs in their domain(s) and more content than you can reasonably shake a magic wand at. To make matters more complicated, they are getting creamed by their competition under their most important keyword phrases on Google. They want you to turn their situation around and it has to be done within their concept of a reasonable time period.

Sometimes the world acts in mysterious ways. For most SEOs and their clients, “the world” has traditionally been defined by the Top10 placements found on the front pages of Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. Sometimes the world is just not big enough.

As sure as the sun shines behind the clouds on a rainy day, a major shake-up in the search marketing industry is coming soon. The signals are being sent and received through-out the various sectors of search and online marketing. Change in any marketplace, when it does come, is often swift, brutal and merciless. For some SEO practitioners, this one will be especially so. While the search marketing industry has been bracing for change for at least a year, the movement is now picking up speed and gathering momentum. As SEOs, our working-world is going to look very different this time next year.

The PPC networks collect an enormous amount of data detailing the characteristics of each and every click-through. Unfortunately, they do not provide advertisers with enough information to fully analyze their online advertising spend. To make matters a bit more confusing and potentially costly, industry estimates of invalid click activity and outright click fraud range from the 0.02% rate of click fraud claimed by Google to the 15.7% most recently claimed by Click Forensics. Clearly there is a need for clarity.

Search marketing has rapidly morphed from the simple days of altering Titles and Tags to today’s extremely complicated, statistic driven sector. The sites we work on today contain a wide variety of file-types and are often far larger than sites were a few years ago. Similarly, the compilation of search results is now based on several off-page factors that can only be measured and massaged as opposed to the performance of relatively easy on-site alterations. In short, the work-load involved servicing each client has increased significantly. That’s why there are a growing number of tools search engine optimizers use in the course of their daily toils.

Google Vice President of Engineering, Udi Manber gave a short outline of challenges Google faces in a 15 minute presentation at the Supernova 2007 conference. Billed as a conference examining “…the effects of an increasingly connected world on business, life, and public policy”, Supernova looks to be as much a conceptual show as it is a technical one.

Websites are increasingly designed to be used within a content management system (CMS) in order to make simple tasks easier in order to allow general office staff to make text, pricing and other basic updates. That makes it fairly easy for the office to run its website without relying on the original design company or the transitory IT skills of individual employees.

I am finally back in Victoria from SES Toronto. I’ve had a few days to contemplate the experience, (which was wonderful) and to think about the state of Canadian search marketing, (which isn’t). It feels odd writing the word “the state of” in relation to the search marketing sector in Canada. For the most part, the word up here is “provincial”.

As a lifestyle, entrepreneurialism has always demanded the self-employed be prepared to wear many hats. Business owners often perform executive, sales, managerial, productive and janitorial tasks on daily basis, partly due to pride of ownership and sense of excellence, and partly because technology allows them to. While this gives owners a better sense of all aspects of their businesses, it can also cloud their critical judgment and decision making abilities.

Three major events took place on, at, or around Google last week any one of which could radically change the company and its relationships with its users, advertisers, and ad delivery partners. Two of the events will have long lasting effects Google’s look and operation while the other has a direct effect on the public’s perception of Google as a trustworthy company.

An interesting stat was released by the B.C. Regional Science and Technology Network yesterday. A report it commissioned revealed that revenues generated by the south-island tech community surpassed those of the tourism industry making high-tech the leading economic driver in Greater Victoria in 2006.

I spent the past week in San Francisco attending the ad|tech SF07 conference. Billed as “The Event for Interactive Marketers”, ad|tech is among the largest and most influential online advertising shows anywhere. ad|tech is serious business. The show presents a heavier atmosphere than Search Engine Strategies, WebmasterWorld’s Pubcon, Affiliate Summit, or other search marketing focused shows do.

Internet visionary and Google evangelist Vint Cerf says cell phones are going to drive future growth of the Internet. As part of a much longer conversation with reporters in Bangalore India, Cerf suggested that mobile devices, primarily cell phones, will push programmers to design for handheld units.

Late last week, Google introduced personalized search results for all Google account holders. Whenever they are logged into a Google service, sites that they find popular are weaved into organic search results. While Google users might not notice effects immediately, over time the contents of their personal Google Search History files and Google Bookmarks will be used to determine search rankings based on each users unique profile.

Google has moved to close a hole in their ranking algorithm known as Google or Link Bombing. The technique allowed webmasters to produce results based on numerous incidents of links pointing to the same document sharing the same keyword-charged anchor-text across as wide a number of sites as possible.

Your basic website was built two years ago. It drives enough traffic to make the effort of upkeep worthwhile and acts as a handy reference guide for your customers and sometimes for your staff. Having optimized and maintained your website by working on the titles, tags, content and links, you have achieved relatively good search engine rankings.

There have been a number of articles about basic SEO in first week of 2007. Why the sudden interest in SEO, especially after six months of SEO-slamming?