Central Perk

sâmbătă, 18 februarie 2012

Location: A Ranking Factor in Organic SERPs

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 03:07 AM PST

We're all familiar with: personalization, SPYW, and the mix of organic + local + shopping + news etc. we call "universal search". Today, we're going to talk about the results that APPEAR to be pure organic, ignoring AdWords, Google Places results, image, news, video, shopping, social influenced results, etc.

Now, looking just at these ordinary organic results, you might expect that if you're signed out, cookies blocked, pws=0, and a ski mask on, you'd get the same results for a given search as you see from any one of a number of rank-checking tools.

But you'd be wrong. Well...in some cases, you'd be wrong. If your location is set (auto-detected via your IP address, or set manually by you), in some cases Google is using your location as a ranking factor.

Mini glossary

Before we dive into some examples, allow me to fabricate some terminology so we're all talking about the same things:

pure organic - this is what I'm calling the regular organic, non-Google-Places results that do NOT appear to be location-influenced
local-ish: this is what I'm calling the regular organic, non-Google-Places results that DO appear to be location-influenced

Now let's look at some examples

For each, we're going to look at the results for our location set to three US cities: Portland, OR; Chicago, IL; Brooklyn, NY. To set our location, we'll use the "Change Location" option in Google's left menu:

Set location in Google search

First, we'll start with a search phrase that we'd expect to have a strong local bias in Google Places results.

Search term: "thai restaurant"

Let's start with Portland, OR:

SERPs for thai restaurant, with location set to Portland

As expected, there's a lot of Google Places results there. But look at result #1: Typhoon. It's got reasonable PA/DA, but not enough to rank nationwide (unlike oshathai.com and sawatdee.com, which rank on page 1 if you set your location to "USA"). It's a Portland restaurant--Google might know this because of its Google Places page; also, it's got Portland in 2 of the footer links. No hCard markup on the address itself anywhere on the site however.

The 2nd result happens to be near Portland, but really located in Beaverton, and is ranking simply because of a near-match domain, in my opinion (it ranks #2 if your location is set to "USA"). Just to be sure Google wasn't still using my IP address and geo-locating me in Portland when I specified my location as "USA", I had Dr. Pete confirm this from his cave in Chicago (thanks Pete!).

In Dr. Pete's honor, we'll look at Chicago next, for this same term:

SERPs for thai restaurant, with location set to Chicago

Now this is getting a little more interesting. Results 1, 3, and 4 are clearly not there because of a Google Places page, but rather, because on-page factors would make the page do pretty well if we'd actually typed in "Chicago thai restaurant", i.e. with the location name behaving like any other keyword. Result #2 is most likely there because of its Google Places page: it's an all-Flash site, with no mention of Chicago anywhere in the HTML; and, of course, Google's helpful "show map of..." link is a clue :-).

Just to be certain, I peered into the guts of a number of these all-Flash restaurant sites using FlashProbe to see if there was location-specific text in there....and for most of them, found nothing of significance.

Next up: Brooklyn.

SERPs for thai restaurant, with location set to Brooklyn, NY

Google Places results all up top, then the rest of the page is all local-ish results. The menupages.com result is clearly not Google-Places related but has "Brooklyn" all over the page, whereas most of the rest must be getting identified via Google Places as "Brooklyn" doesn't appear on their websites at all.

Next, let's look at a search for "auto parts", where you might imagine that what's going to be useful to the user is going to be a mix of the national parts websites and also local parts stores.

Search term: "auto parts"

First up: Portland.

SERPs for auto parts, with location set to Portland

As expected: dominated by about an even mix of Google Places and pure organic. But the last two are local-ish: the first could either be Google-Places influenced, but more likely it's a near exact match domain if you considered the city name to be one of the search terms. And a near exact match page title doesn't hurt either.

Back to Chicago now:

SERPs for auto parts, with location set to Chicago

Conclusions

For some search phrases, the results that we've come to think of as "pure organic" are heavily influenced by location, in addition to the Google Places results.
There are at least two factors that Google is using to rank local-ish results:
1. the name of the searcher's current location is found in traditional on-page areas (page title, body text, etc.), and
2. because the Google Places page indicates the location matches the searcher's location.
Clearly the mix of ranking factors for Google Places and local-ish organic results is quite different, as in general, we're seeing the local-ish organic results NOT match the top local results from Google Places.
Certain search terms generate a higher % of local-ish results than others, just like certain search terms generate a higher % of image, or news, or video, or shopping results, BUT the mix of non-local organic and local-ish organic results varies not just by search term, but also by location.
It seems that it's more about a page's overall score in the ranking algorithm getting bumped by either being local (via Google Places) or containing the user's location name in traditional on-page elements, rather than slots in the page 1 results being set aside for local-ish results for a given term.

So what do I do with this information?

Directory-type websites: you've got a shot at ranking your city-specific pages...even if the user doesn't type their city name in as part of the search.
Local businesses: tune your pages for your city name as well as doing your Google Places page properly (but do NOT put your location name in your Google Places category), as you've got a shot at 2 listings on page 1: a Google Places listing, and a local-ish listing.

I look forward to seeing ideas/theories in the comments that are different from, crazier than, and more accurate than mine. Thanks to David Mihm, Tom Critchlow, Tom Anthony, Wil Reynolds, Carson Ward, Kate Morris, and Pete Meyers for their thoughts and research.

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Weekly Address: Continuing to Strengthen American Manufacturing

Your Daily Snapshot for
Saturday, February 18, 2012

Weekly Address: Continuing to Strengthen American Manufacturing

President Obama describes a series of steps to strengthen American manufacturing and create jobs here in the United States.

Watch the weekly address:

President Barack Obama tapes the weekly address at the Boeing-Everett Production Facility in Everett, Washington, Feb. 17, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Weekly Wrap Up

A quick look at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov:

National Medals of Arts and Humanities: Extraordinary Americans who have excelled in the arts and humanities throughout their careers—from philosophers to sculptors—joined the President and First Lady at the White House on Monday for an occasion they look forward to every year: awarding the National Medals of Arts and Humanities. The honorees’ contributions, the President noted, “[H]elp guide our growth as a people. The true power of the arts and the humanities is that you speak to everyone.”

Surprise!: As White House visitors stepped into the Blue Room on Thursday during a public tour, they were greeted by unexpected guests: the First Lady and the Obama family’s canine, Bo. Reactions ranged from shock and excitement to overwhelmed—watch the meet and greet here.

From One VP to Another: After accepting an invitation from Vice President Biden, Vice President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China spent Tuesday morning at the White House to attend a series of meetings with Administration Officials including the President. His visit to Washington, D.C. also included a meeting at the Pentagon and a U.S.-China Business Roundtable at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among various other events.

Master Lock: The President headed from Washington, D.C. to Wisconsin on Wednesday to visit with Master Lock workers and talk about his plans to boost American manufacturing—something Master Lock is familiar with; the company has discovered that it can actually save money by keeping production facilities in the United States and bringing jobs back to America.

What $40 Means: In December of 2011, we asked Americans what $40 meant to them, and tens of thousands of Americans answered—$40 is a tank of gas, a co-pay for a doctor’s visit, a prescription medicine, a pizza night with their family. Their voice made a difference then and now—on Friday, lawmakers extended the payroll tax cut through the rest of 2012, in addition to extending critical unemployment benefits. You can watch this video to meet some of the tens of thousands of Americans who courageously shared what losing an extra $40 per paycheck would mean for them and their family.

787 Dreamliner: On Friday, the President visited the Boeing assembly facility in Everett, Washington to announce new steps to help promote American manufacturing and increase U.S. exports, following his outlining of a Blueprint for an Economy Built to Last. At that very facility, the 787 Dreamliner, the world’s most advanced commercial airplane, is assembled—nearly 8,000 people are directly employed in building it.

2013 Budget: On Monday, President Obama announced his budget for the 2013 fiscal year in Annandale, Virginia. This year’s budget reflects the President’s firm belief that our country has always done best when everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules. The budget continues our commitment to keeping that promise alive by creating an economy that’s built to last—with good jobs that pay well and security for the middle class. To read the complete budget, you can download the PDF here, or get an on-the-go copy for your Nook.

West Wing Week: Your guide to everything at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Check out the video.

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Link Building – a Helpful Guide to Prospecting and Analysis

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 05:54 AM PST

Creative Link Building, Link Prospecting or even Link Scouting – call it what you will, the premise is the same: you are looking for opportunities to build links.

Over the years there have been many different ways that people have been doing this; one of my personal favourites is using Majestic SEO and Open Site Explorer. However useful this is, I still find it time consuming and painful, until thankfully along came Linkdex which came and helped ease the pain.

However helpful these tools have been in aiding my link building efforts, it is important as part of any SEO link strategy to think outside the box and establish links where your competitors are not present.

Like many others I am sure, I find quality link prospecting to be a slow process, and knowing where to begin is the hardest and most frustrating. Hopefully, though, after reading this you’ll be able to analyse quicker and build better quality links.

What You Will Need Beforehand…

Before finding these links, you will need the following extensions installed to your Google Chrome Browser:

SEOmoz
Scraper

Step 1 | Change Your Google Search Settings

The first step is to change your Google Search settings, you will want to show 100 results per page rather than the standard results of 10. This can be changed in the search settings as shown below:

Step 2 | Knowing Your Operator Queries

I discussed in a previous blog post of mine last month how to understand Google operator queries, and how they can help you better in the art of SEO. The truth is that knowing these queries will help to aid you quicker in filtering and analysing useful link prospects.

Let's take an example. With it being the start of London Fashion Week today, let’s say I was on the lookout for guest blogging opportunities to share the world of how great Holly Fulton’s and Dion Lees’ Show Spaces were. I would be thinking about different search query strings that would accept guest blogging opportunities, such as:

“write for us” OR “guest post” “fashion”
inurl:blog "write for me" OR "Guest Writer" "fashion"

Step 3 | Start Looking for Links

Once you have the extensions, configured your Google search settings and have narrowed down your search results with better defined operator queries, you can start link prospecting.

After displaying your search results, highlight the title tag from the listing and scrape the results using Scraper as shown below:

Once you have scraped the results, you should export them into a Google Docs file for analysis and research. What you have now is a highly relevant set of sites to look at when building links.

Step 4 | Analysis and Research

The next step is for you to analyse and take note of the root domains using SEOmoz toolbar. Once you have, I would recommend filtering them to make the largest at the top and start prospecting.

Step 5 | Engagement and Action

Finally, after having filtered the prospective links, it's all up to you to go about and building the links! Good luck!

Seth's Blog : Transparent or translucent?

Transparent or translucent?

There's an argument for transparency. If you make it easy for people to see right through you, the thinking goes, you are easier to trust.

The market, though, often seeks out the translucent. Things that glow. We're drawn to the glow, to the illumination and warm feeling it brings.

We'd like our tools and our replaceable institutions to be transparent. We want the bank and the radiologist and the tax man to be totally clear and invisible, so they can get out of the way and we can focus on what's true.

But the brands and experiences and legends that lead to stories and affection and connection--it would be better if they glowed instead.

• Email to a friend •

vineri, 17 februarie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Battle Over EU Airline Tax Risks "Carbon Trade War"; US Congressman Equates Tax to " Barbary Pirates for Safe Passage"; Insanity of Cap-and-Trade Revisited
German President Resigns; Major Embarrassment to Chancellor Merkel
Gallup Reports Unemployment in February Increases to 9%, Up From 8.6%; Underemployment Increases to 19%

Battle Over EU Airline Tax Risks "Carbon Trade War"; US Congressman Equates Tax to " Barbary Pirates for Safe Passage"; Insanity of Cap-and-Trade Revisited

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 09:40 AM PST

Led by the US and China, 26 nations are now protesting the EU's airline carbon tax, and a outright Carbon Trade War Edges Nearer.

An alliance of countries opposed to a carbon tax on airlines is threatening to tear up trade deals with the European Union and impose new taxes on EU carriers, in a sign the world's first carbon trade war is edging closer.

A meeting has been called for next week by the 26 countries that have been fighting to stop Brussels' charging airlines flying in or out of the EU for their carbon emissions.

China has already told its carriers to ignore the EU legislation which took effect from January 1 and US legislators are attempting to push a similar measure through Congress.

Retaliatory Measures Considered

Re-open existing trade agreements in sectors other than aviation to put "pressure on EU industries".
Impose new charges on European airlines flying into non-EU countries.
Suspend current and future negotiations about EU airline requests for new routes or airport destinations.
Review important bilateral aviation agreements with individual EU states.
Enact legislation banning their airlines from complying with the EU law.

Airline Tax Background

For background on the airline carbon tax, please consider Emissions: Rivals dig in over EU carbon trading scheme

The European Union has decided that from January 1 2012, any airline flying into or out of the EU will be charged for its carbon pollution.

That is due to aviation being brought into the EU's six-year-old emissions trading scheme (ETS), a system that obliges companies to pay for permits (or allowances), each equal to one tonne of carbon dioxide, to cover their annual emissions.

The decision to extend it to companies outside the bloc – foreign airlines – is the EU's most ambitious move yet to force the rest of the world to comply with its environmental rules.

The ATA [American Transport Association] estimates the scheme would cost US airlines more than $3.1bn between 2012 and 2020, though some analysts say the costs will be lower.

Barbary Pirates for Safe Passage

China told its airlines to ignore the tax, and Republicans in Congress seek to pass similar legislation.

"The ETS scheme is equivalent to the paying of ransom to the Barbary pirates for safe passage" said Chip Cravaack, the first Republican since 1947 to win Minnesota's 8th congressional district.

Insanity of Cap-and-Trade Revisited

For further discussion of the absurdities of carbon tax trading and credits for renewable energy, please see ...

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

German President Resigns; Major Embarrassment to Chancellor Merkel

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 07:28 AM PST

The German presidency is little more than a symbolic position, nonetheless, the announcement by German President Christian Wulff that he will resign is a major embarrassment to German Chancellor Angela Merkel who hand-picked Wulff as president.

Spiegel Online reports Wulff Announces He Will Step Down

German President Christian Wulff resigned from office after prosecutors stated a day earlier they would seek to have parliament lift his immunity. Prosecutors wanted his immunity revoked so they could formally investigate allegations he accepted favors during his tenure as governor of the state of Lower Saxony. At the center of the probe are allegations that a film producer had paid for a vacation in a luxury hotel for Wulff during his time in office in the state.

Speaking nearly a half hour after Wulff's resignation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared before reporters to say she had received Wulff's resignation with "great respect and deep regret." The chancellor also noted that the development underscored the strength of the German legal system because it showed that all people are treated equally, regardless of their position.

Merkel said her coalition government would approach all political parties in an effort to find a "joint candidate" to replace Wulff.

The development is likely to cause embarrassment because Wulff is the second president after Horst Köhler to step down during her term. The chancellor handpicked Wulff to run as Köhler's successor after his sudden resignation in 2010. Even after his selection, Wulff was weakened going into the presidency because it took three rounds of voting in the Federal Assembly before he was ultimately elected.

Financial Times reports that Merkel cancelled a meeting scheduled with prime minister Mario Monti in Rome on Friday in the wake of the announcement by Wulff.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Gallup Reports Unemployment in February Increases to 9%, Up From 8.6%; Underemployment Increases to 19%

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:54 AM PST

The latest Gallup survey finds U.S. Unemployment Increases in Mid-February

The U.S. unemployment rate, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, is 9.0% in mid-February, up from 8.6% for January. The mid-month reading normally reflects what the U.S. government reports for the entire month, and is up from 8.3% in mid-January.

US Unemployment Rate, Monthly Averages

Gallup also finds 10.0% of U.S. employees in mid-February are working part time but want full-time work, essentially the same as in January. The mid-February reading means the percentage of Americans who can only find part-time work remains close to its high since Gallup began measuring employment status in January 2010.

Percentage of Workers, Working Part Time but Want Full Time Employment

Seasonal forces typically cause unadjusted unemployment rates to increase at this time of year. In this regard, some of the sharp increase Gallup finds in unemployment and underemployment may result from seasonal factors. Although the government seasonally adjusts the U.S. unemployment rate, and the workforce participation rate could decline, it still seems likely that the BLS will report an increase in the seasonally adjusted U.S. unemployment rate for February.

Regardless of what the government reports, Gallup's unemployment and underemployment measures show a sharp deterioration in job market conditions since mid-January.

BLS Numbers Not Realistic

Gallup only polls those 18 and above while the BLS includes 16 and above. Given teenage unemployment, this would (or at least should) artificially lower unemployment numbers for Gallup. Yet, Gallup is higher, way higher when one considers underemployment.

Fundamental and Mathematical Case for Structurally High Unemployment for a Decade

As I have said many times, the BLS numbers are simply not realistic for many reasons. For further discussion please see ...

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

sâmbătă, 18 februarie 2012

Location: A Ranking Factor in Organic SERPs

Location: A Ranking Factor in Organic SERPs

Mini glossary

Now let's look at some examples

Search term: "thai restaurant"

Search term: "auto parts"

Conclusions

So what do I do with this information?

Weekly Address: Continuing to Strengthen American Manufacturing

Link Building – a Helpful Guide to Prospecting and Analysis

Link Building – a Helpful Guide to Prospecting and Analysis

Seth's Blog : Transparent or translucent?

Transparent or translucent?

More Recent Articles

vineri, 17 februarie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

sâmbătă, 18 februarie 2012

Mini glossary

Now let's look at some examples

Search term: "thai restaurant"

Search term: "auto parts"

Conclusions

So what do I do with this information?

More Recent Articles

vineri, 17 februarie 2012

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

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