SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

---

Google Instant: Fewer Changes to SEO than the Average Algo Update Posted: 21 Sep 2010 12:23 PM PDT Posted by randfish Ugh... Part of me just wants to link to this old blog post and leave it at that. But, since there's actually a bit of data to share helping to show that (at least so far) Google Instant changes less than your average algorithmic rankings update, let's share. 880,000 Search Visits Analyzed Conductor released some nice research from anonymized data of sites on their software platform making a compelling case: If Conductor keeps putting out this kind of stuff, they'll be a "must-read" in no time Hmm... Looks pretty darn similar to me. A tiny increase in 4, 5 and 6 word phrases would seem to go against many of the prognostications and fears that this move would decimate the long tail (though, to be fair, plenty of savvier search folks predicted a slight increase as Google's "Suggest" function would be more obvious/visible to searchers and push them to perform more specific queries). Data from 10,000 More Searches Matt Bennett at MEC blogged some data from 5 sites in his purvue representing about 10,000 searches. He shared this excellent graph (similar to the one above): That's more evidence to suggest this is a very subtle change (if there's any at all) in keyword demand. Google Search Traffic for SEOmoz & Open Site Explorer  While I don't have as much data to share as Conductor, I can show you some tidbits from SEOmoz. Here's SEOmoz.org's traffic from Google in the past week compared to the week prior:   And here's a similar look at OpenSiteExplorer's Google traffic:     There's a suspiciously small amount of change in the keyword demand, and although these are certainly un-representative of the broader web, we can be relatively confident that lots and lots of folks in our industry, performing queries that might lead them to these two sites, have awareness of and are using Google Instant. One change that did catch my eye (thanks to some Tweets on the topic) is that Google's Suggest itself seems to have changed a bit: Hard to complain about that :-) Other Sources Worth Reading on the Topic I was a bit dismayed to see so many in the SEO field taking this as a serious threat or even touting the massive "changes" that would be coming soon to SEO best practices or even search query demand. We're usually pretty good about shrugging off Google's pressbait around technical changes that don't have much of an impact, but this one seemed to have more legs than usual. That said, there are a few pieces I think warrant a read-through (or at least, knowledge of): Google Instant was Actually a Counter to Bing's Advertising Blitz from SearchEngineLand Google Undertand Not Google Instant from Michael Gray 3,000+ Mashable Voters Prefer Google Instant (Slightly) from Mashable Sad to link to this PCMag Retraction Showing Their Tragic Ignorance of Search - they confused SEO and PPC, thought marketers might need to buy ads on partial words ("flow" for "flowers"), etc. Explanation of Ad/Query Triggering (basically it's 3 seconds of inactivity) from AdWords The Complete Google Instant Users Guide from SELand A Great Image from SEOBook showing how Instant further marginalizes the organic results A downloadable spreadsheet from the folks at Seer Interactive that can help you calculate your own data on keyword demand changes Very much looking forward to the discussion, but I'm leaving for Social Media Week Milan and will be hard pressed to contribute at normal levels until my return next week. Until then - Buona notte! p.s. If you have data to share on how Instant has or hasn't impacted your traffic-driving queries, that would be awesome. If you blog/upload it, we'll be happy to update the post with links. Do you like this post? Yes No

You are subscribed to email updates from SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Daily Snapshot: A Surprise Call from the President

Your Daily Snapshot for Wednesday, September 22, 2010   Video: A Surprise Call from the President In March of this year, Gail O'Brien was diagnosed with high grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. She had no health insurance. Thankfully, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan was established thanks to the Affordable Care Act. As a result, Gail now has insurance that will pay for her treatments and is responding very well. Last week she got a surprise call from President Obama.  Watch what happened. Today's Schedule Today, the President will hold a backyard discussion on health care reform and the Patient’s Bill of Rights at a private residence in Falls Church, Virginia. In the afternoon, the President will travel to New York City for the UN General Assembly. He will deliver remarks at the Millennium Development Goals Conference at the United Nations Building. All times are Eastern Daylight Time 9:30 AM: The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing 10:00 AM: The President meets with senior advisors 10:35 AM: The President drops by a meeting with insurance commissioners 11:45 AM: The President holds a backyard discussion on health care reform and the Patient’s Bill of Rights   (audio only) 12:00 PM: The Vice President attends an event for Senator Blanche Lincoln 2:45 PM: The President departs the White House 3:00 PM: The President departs Andrews Air Force Base en route New York 3:55 PM: The President arrives New York City, New York 4:30 PM: The Vice President hosts a Medal of Valor ceremony with Attorney General Eric Holder 4:45 PM: The President delivers remarks at the Millennium Development Goals Conference   (audio only) 6:15 PM: The Vice President and Dr. Jill Biden host a reception in honor of the 16th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act 6:35 PM: The President delivers remarks at a DSCC/DCCC event 7:30 PM: The President delivers remarks at a DSCC/DCCC dinner  Indicates Events that will be livestreamed on WhiteHouse.gov/live. In Case You Missed It Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog.  50 States, 50 Stories – New Health Care Website Launches Today Assistant to the President Stephanie Cutter unveils a new website that provides critical information on the Affordable Care Act, including stories in every state that detail how reform is already strengthening the health care system in your state. Awarding Chief Etchberger the Medal of Honor The Vice President was also present as the President awarded Chief Master Sergeant Richard L. Etchberger, U.S. Air Force, the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry. Chief Etchberger received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroic actions in combat on March 11, 1968, in the country of Laos. Republicans in Congress Push to End Consumer Protections, Let Wall Street Run Loose Deputy Communications Director Jen Psaki discusses the Congressional Republicans' hopes of repealing Wall Street Reform. Get Updates Sign up for the Daily Snapshot Stay Connected     Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr iTunes         This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Manage Subscriptions for e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Sign Up for Updates from the White House Unsubscribe e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com | Privacy Policy Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog

---

Can Google Detect an Affiliate Website Posted: 21 Sep 2010 08:29 AM PDT One of the questions that often comes up is does Google hate affiliate websites, and are they penalized in the algorithm? I’m also quite sure Google has an idea at what point, whether by percentage or by total number of links, that a site becomes an affiliate website … The answer to that is slightly nuanced but, for simplicity’s sake, they don’t hate affiliate websites. Nor have I seen any evidence that shows affiliate sites are penalized. What Google does hate is thin affiliate websites with little or no trust. However, a better question to ask is can Google detect affiliate websites, and can they make it harder  for affiliate websites to rank … ? But those are entirely different questions. If you’ve read the leaked quality rater guide from 2009, you’ll see that Google has set up lot of hurdles specifically making it harder for affiliate websites to “pass” the sniff test. One of the quickest and easiest ways that Google can determine an affiliate website is through “naked” links to common affiliate programs like Linkshare, CJ, ShareASale, and others. But, really, how good can Google be at detecting those links? Well, here’s a publicly available free tool put out by Sitonomy that checks what types of programming tools are being used by a website. Now if the folks at Sitonomy can detect that 4% of the* links on a page are from CJ, I’m positive that Google can as well. I’m sure Google can tell on page level throughout the site and the site as a whole. I’m also quite sure Google has an idea at what point, whether by percentage or by total number of links, that a site becomes an affiliate website. It would also be fairly easy to say, once you cross that threshold, you need a higher level of trust to rank for competitive terms. This is one of the reasons I strongly disagree with Lori Weiman, who says affiliates should never cloak links. UPDATED: the % is total links scanned not just links on the page, my bad. So what are the takeaways here: Use a tool like Sitonomy to check your most important pages and see what they are able to find as far as affiliate links Look into redirection tools that mask your links, and make sure you block them from search engine spiders Obfuscate some of your other links as well even if they aren’t affiliate links: people should always be unsure of your intent Always make sure you comply with FTC regulations for disclosure. If needed, use a nice non-machine-readable graphic for maximum stealthiness photo credit: Aditya Rakhman This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review. Can Google Detect an Affiliate Website Related posts: The Affiliate Marketing Newbie’s Guide To Finding Niches When I started out in internet marketing, I browsed around... Cloaking Affiliate Links, How and Why Today’s topic is one that gets asked about pretty regularly,... How to Be Crafty and Mask Affiliate Links Fine since Matt started this whole thing on hiding links... Is My Website Banned in Google? One of the more difficult problems to diagnose is has... Google The Double Standard of Being an Authority Website If you’ve ever been to search engine conference and attended... Advertisers: Text Link Ads - New customers can get $100 in free text links. BOTW.org - Get a premier listing in the internet's oldest directory. Ezilon.com Regional Directory - Check to see if your website is listed! Page1Hosting - Class C IP Hosting starting at $2.99. Directory Journal - List your website in our growing web directory today. Content Customs - Unique and high quality SEO writing services, providing webmasters with hundreds of SEO articles per week Majestic SEO - Competitive back link intellegence for SEO Analysis Glass Whiteboards - For a professional durable white board with no ghosting, streaking or marker stains, see my Glass Whiteboard Review Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services KnowEm - Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites. Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts. TigerTech - Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

You are subscribed to email updates from Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

You Should Hear These Stories

Good morning, Six months ago, Gail O'Brien didn’t know whether or not she would be able to treat her cancer.  Betsy Burton wasn't sure if she could afford to keep paying the skyrocketing premiums for her employees' health insurance. Paul Horne was struggling to make ends meet after his prescription drug coverage hit the "donut hole."   The thing about these stories is that they could happen to anybody.  Millions of Americans -- maybe even you or someone you know -- have been struggling for years with our broken health care system.  These stories are what inspired me to fight for the Affordable Care Act and made me so proud to sign this landmark legislation into law six months ago.   Every day, I hear from Americans like Gail, Betsy and Paul, and a few of these folks have stepped forward to bravely share their stories with the entire country. Take a minute to hear what they have to say: The Affordable Care Act is already making a difference in the lives of millions of Americans.  And starting tomorrow, the Patient's Bill of Rights goes into effect, ending some of the worst abuses of the insurance industry and putting you, not your insurance company, in control of your health care.   Here's what the Patient's Bill of Rights means for you:  No more discrimination against kids with pre-existing conditions.  Insurance companies can no longer bar families from purchasing coverage because of a child's pre-existing condition.  No more lifetime coverage limits. Insurance companies can no longer put a lifetime limit on the amount of coverage you can receive.  Young adults can now stay on their parent's plan.  Young adults can stay on their parent's health insurance plan up to age 26 if their job doesn't provide health care benefits -- a huge relief for many parents and recent college graduates. Free preventive care.  If you join or purchase a new plan, the insurance company will be required to provide preventive care like mammograms, colonoscopies, immunizations, pre-natal and baby care without charging you any out of pocket costs. Freedom to choose your own doctor. If you purchase or join a new plan, you have the right to choose your own doctor in your insurer network. No more restrictions on emergency room care. Insurance companies will not be allowed to charge you more for out of network emergency services if you purchase or join a new a plan. This is a long-overdue victory for American consumers and patients.  For years, millions of Americans have been at the mercy of their insurance companies as they jacked up rates, denied coverage or dropped patients all together.     Now, some opponents of this reform have pledged to "repeal and replace" all of the progress we've made over the past six months.  But I refuse to go back to the days when insurance companies could deny a child health care due to a pre-existing condition or impose a lifetime limit on care for a cancer patient.  Those days are over. The Affordable Care Act provides basic rules of the road that make our health care system work for consumers.  It cuts costs and will help us begin to get our fiscal house in order.  And most importantly, it provides Americans with the peace of mind that their insurance will be there for them when they need it. To learn more about the Patient’s Bill of Rights and the Affordable Care Act, visit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform Sincerely, President Barack Obama   P.S. Last week, I surprised Gail O'Brien by calling her at home.  You can see what happened here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform

This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com. Unsubscribe e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com | Privacy Policy Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

Seth's Blog : Dissatisfaction guaranteed

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Dissatisfaction guaranteed

Great brands are built on dissatisfaction. After all, if you are satisfied with your Revlon makeup or your Nike sneakers or your iPad, why would you buy another one? Satisfied means done, finished, I don't need any more.

In fact, most great commercial (and non-profit, and political) brands create a cycle of purchase based on ever-greater dissatisfaction with what we've got.

  • Email to a friend • •

More Recent Articles

• Do you actually care about privacy?
• The forever recession
• Questions or answers
• Are you responsible for what you market?
• The power of buttons and being normal

Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.

---

Click here to safely unsubscribe now from "Seth's Blog" or change your subscription or subscribe

---

---

Your requested content delivery powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 9 Thoreau Way, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA. +1.978.776.9498