As SEO rapidly becomes a core task for local business owners, there’s a new temptation to build advertising messages or tracking mechanisms into business listings on the web. Typically, this might mean adding a slogan or campaign tagline to a business name or changing an office address to appear local to more customers. Unfortunately, this misguided enthusiasm can negatively impact the way search engines rank local business listings based on variations in company name, address and phone number (NAP, for short).

Business listings—name, address, phone number—are a company’s fingerprint and single unique identification point—much like an individual’s social security number. If businesses don’t manage their listings consistently across the web, a company could be walking into an identity management problem.

Although some might think adding multiple names or phone numbers to a business listing will increase real estate space on the web, the truth is variations can have an acutely long-term and far-reaching negative impact on a businesses’ online presence. It can even result in a business being delisted by a search engine.

Here are a few important rules for you to remember about your online business listings. These rules are for local business listings, but you can find broader SEO tips for your web site on SearchEngineLand’s Local’s Only columnist Andrew Shotland Local SEO Guide.

Rule #1: Don’t change a phone number in your business listing to evaluate metrics. Do not change your company phone number within a business listing. Although call tracking measurement is important for advertising, remember that your online business listing is not an advertising channel. If a business modifies or adds a different phone number to the foundational layer or the index of local search, search engines will view the business differently and the company will risk being delisted by search sites, including Google’s Local Business Center.

What some businesses do not realize is that if Google finds duplicate listings for a business, they may be deleted or merged with a “similar” looking business listing within the index until further verification takes place to identify the accurate listing. This can take several weeks. Again, a business listing should be a brick or foundation piece and you should layer your marketing on top of it. If you have to add an alternate phone number to your business listing, make sure it is clearly marked as a secondary number so that a duplicate listing isn’t created.

Rule #2: Do not add seasonal keywords to a business name—or any keywords for that matter—to a business listing. A leading financial services company recently tied seasonal keywords to their business name, changing their corporate name for online listing and SEO purposes. The company suffered disastrous results in Google Maps as well as other search engines because duplicate business listings were detected. They were delisted from Google’s Local Business Center for a lengthy period of time because of this change, hurting their local search web presence, fragmenting their reputation and compromising their identity in the long run.

Adding or changing keywords is similar to Google finding various phone numbers for a business at a single mappable address. Changing or adding to a business listing can disturb the linking structure that puts a businesses’ name in the search engines’ rankings, which ultimately puts a company in front of potential customers.

Also, if you are hiring branding agencies, SEM marketers or public relations agencies to raise online visibility, make sure that they understand that your NAP is your local search identity and should remain unaltered in their promotional efforts. Seasonal keywords, products carried, services offered and the keywords that describe your business are essentially important, so provide appropriate keywords within your listing by adding them below your NAP to help drive search results.

Rule #3: Do not add a duplicate address to a business listing to appear local to more consumers. Some businesses trying to market to multiple areas in a region might think that by adding additional addresses to appear uber-local will generate more customer calls.

Not so fast—this seemingly smart trick can create confusion in local search by creating multiple identities for your business location making it difficult for search engines and your customers to find you. It also fragments your reputation by allowing conversations, ratings and reviews about your business to be stored and distributed with a “fabricated” location. It is crucial to have one business address so that the major search engines—especially when dealing with long tail queries—can find all relevant information about your company. Multiple locations appearing within a single listing will only create noise and fragmentation that search engines choke on.

It is crucial that a business owns its name, address and phone number in as many places as possible and keeps listings consistent for all search engines and data providers. Don’t confuse business listings with advertising. Instead, create a solid foundation. Give search engines the ability to aggregate as much consistent content as possible about your business. That in turn, will give your business maximum online visibility.

Marshall McLuhan was the Canadian educator, scholar and philosopher who popularized the term “global village” way back in the hippie sixties. He coined the phrase in reference to the effects of mass media on the world, in that it enabled people to instantly experience the effects of their actions on a global scale.

At the time, most people were probably more concerned with skipping the light fandango than fretting over the mass-communication musings of Mr. McLuhan. Today, McLuhan’s observations seem more than a little astute, given the proliferation of the internet across the globe.

Digital technology has shrunk the world—time and space no longer inhibit real-time communication like they once did. A business in Uptown Chicago can communicate just as easily with the UK as they can with downtown. A simple laptop and broadband internet connection can reduce oceans to streams, making online marketing one of the most powerful sales channels available to 21st century business.

But the unity of the market in the global village breaks down when it comes to language: there is no universal language.

English may have emerged as the de facto language of international business and, subsequently, the web, but any organization that is looking to make serious inroads into foreign markets shouldn’t allow the fact that many foreigners speak English obscure the following facts:

• Asia accounts for over 40% of the world’s internet users
• China has 30% more internet users than the US
• 75% of the world’s population speaks no English at all
• Internet users are four times more likely to buy from a website in their native language
• People search the internet in their native tongue

Online marketing and SEO go hand in hand. With international markets, localization is an obligatory addition, given the cacophony of cultural and linguistic complexities that come into play.

Take French for example. In France, dîner is “evening meal,” but in French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland it means “lunch”. Similarly, déjeuner is “lunch” in France, but “breakfast” in Belgium and Switzerland.

There are clear differences between standard German and Swiss German too. For example, the Swiss don’t use the “ß” (Eszett) symbol, choosing to use “ss” instead. And Switzerland sometimes uses a different grammatical gender to that in Germany (e.g. “das E-Mail” instead of “die E-Mail”). There are many such examples from within Europe alone that help to highlight the importance of following a strict localization strategy.

When launching a foreign language website, it goes without saying that you should always use a professionally qualified translator who is a native speaker not only of the language in question, but the precise country variant too. Now we can talk search.

Keyword translation

Research from eConsultancy has shown that more than half of European marketers planned to increase their SEO activity this year. When converting this activity onto the international arena, however, there are a few issues to be wary off.

As a general rule of thumb, translating keywords is a bad idea. Even if a search term is correctly translated, it may not be what people use to search for a product or service locally.

The term “car insurance,” for example, ranks highly on Google. A correct translation of this into French is “l’assurance automobile.” However, by checking the keyword tool on Google France, it’s clear that most consumers search with “assurance auto” or “assurance voiture” instead. You can avert a major SEO travesty by carrying out just a little research.

With some languages, English keywords can be imported directly. In German, English words are often used with regards to technical and web-based terminology. Terms such as “web design,” “web designer” and “design web,” for example, rank very highly on Google Germany’s keyword tool, meaning a business that ranks highly for those terms in the US or the UK would be fine to import them straight into their German language website. But the business would need to have this checked by a native German speaker first.

Language, SEO and the web

If any persuasion is needed as to the wisdom of adopting a proper multilingual marketing strategy, consider this: English may be the dominant language of the web in terms of content, but over fifty percent of all Google searches are in languages other than English. This figure is likely to rise as online populations grow far quicker in foreign language-speaking emerging markets such as China and Russia, than in the west.

This creates a great opportunity for international marketers. Because online competition for key search terms in foreign languages is much less fierce than in English, many businesses find that they can attain lucrative high positions on country-specific search engines, with much less effort than in English.

If this tells you anything, it tells you this: a multilingual marketing and localization strategy should underpin any international campaign, with SEO playing a pivotal role.

It pays to address the linguistic and cultural complexities that come with targeting foreign markets and you must speak to customers in their own language. By using inappropriate style, terminology and grammar, key messages are often lost and overall confidence in a brand diminishes.

Marshall McLuhan was ahead of the game in realizing the changes that mass media would bring to the world’s consciousness. But language is one of the last remaining barriers in creating the global village he envisaged.

Search conferences are an excellent opportunity to connect personally with representatives from Google, as well as Yahoo and Bing, for advice and assistance with SEO issues. With our SMX East search engine marketing conference starting tomorrow in New York, I thought it was a good time to list my personal thoughts on the right and wrong way to approach them.

I’m not a search engine representative, but I know a number of them and have talked with many about the interactions they have with people at conferences in the 10 years I’ve been programming such shows. I think my tips will help, and perhaps they’ll inspire actual search engineers and representatives like Google’s Matt Cutts to put together his own.

1) Catch Them At A Session: Looking for a search engine rep? Check the agenda, and find the sessions they’re speaking at. Remember, not everyone from Google deals with SEO issues. Don’t go to a panel on paid search and expect the Google speaker to address your SEO issues. Find an appropriate session that’s dealing with SEO. At our show this week, such sessions include:

• Ask The Search Engines: Best Practices Edition
• Duplicate Content Issues: The Search Engine Edition
• Maps, Maps, Maps! (Local Search SEO)
• Pumping Up YouTube (YouTube SEO)
• Universal & Blended Search Opportunities (SEO into blended/vertical search)
• CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & SEO
• Meet & Eat Networking Lunch Tables

Other shows have similar sessions specifically about SEO issues. Review a show’s agenda. Read the session descriptions to see if they involve SEO. Look for sessions with the major search engines represented, and you’re on the right track.

2) Make Your Problem Relevant For Everyone: Often search panels have an open Q&A period. If you’re having a particular SEO issue, that’s an opportunity to get your question in front of a representative. It’s fine to talk about your specific issue. For example, if you feel you’ve been penalized, ask how you or others can request a review. But….

3) Do Your Homework: In the example above, asking how to get Google to review a penalty is a terrible question. That’s because if you’d done your homework, you’d have discovered that Google has tools to tell you if you’ve been penalized as well as to request reinclusion. Don’t ask what you can find out online. Make your questions count. In the situation I’ve described, you should have already checked to see if a penalty has been reported and filed a reinclusion request if so. If you’re still having problems, THAT’S the question you put to the rep. “I’ve done all that Google advises, but I still think I’m being penalized. What do I do next?”

4) We Can Talk About That Offline: If you give a search rep a stumper — like the above “I’ve done everything you say, now what” question, you might have stumped the speaker. Almost inevitably, they’ll still want to help. That’s not just for good PR. They actually do discover problems within their own systems by investigating site owner problems. If you’ve stumped them, you’ll probably get a response along the lines of “Let’s Talk About that Offline.” Congrats. You just won a golden ticket for special attention. Hang on to that, you’ll use it after class.

5) Move On, Already: If you haven’t gotten a satisfactory answer, don’t keep hammering away. Asking a short follow-up for clarity is fine. But not letting go of an issue, and continuing to ask, ask, ask loses you friends in the audience plus the sympathy of the rep. If you’re still not happy — and you didn’t get the “let’s talk offline” invitation — then simply say you’d still like to know more, but perhaps you both can follow up offline. Watch the look of relief that will flow across the search reps face. And get your business card ready….

6) See Them After Class: When the session ends, the representatives typically stick around to answer some additional questions. This is a prime opportunity. Sit up front, so that you can immediately get to the stage ahead of the inevitable rush. Usually, speakers will remain in their seats at the speaking table. Just line up right in front. Don’t go onto the stage. Don’t be that person. No one likes that person. If you weren’t at the front, eventually the reps will have to leave the stage. Let them. Often they’ll move out of the room, so that another session can begin, but they may linger in the hallway. That’s a sign they’re still willing to take questions. But if they start to move — if they give subtle hints like “I’d love to stay more, but I have to go,” hand them your card (more prep on that in a minute) and let them go.

7) Be Brief: It’s your big moment. The rep’s all yours. So tell them your issue. Be brief. Explain the situation clearly. Imagine you had to tweet it in 140 characters. Listen to their response. If you have a follow-up, also keep that brief, and keep it to just one. You’re not alone in wanting access. Don’t be a speaker hog.

8) Leave Your Diagram At Home: Is your problem or issue so big that you’ve drafted a diagram? Forget it. Seriously, don’t show up with a convoluted diagram of how you want to cross link 50 different sites car rental sites, each one targeting a different US state, but you’re worried there might be a spam issue. Diagrams scream out that you’re overthinking your SEO efforts. They scream out you’re not someone with a question that can be dealt with in a few minutes. And they make search reps want to run screaming from you, trust me. If you’re thinking SEO that much, you don’t want a search. Instead, find one of the many good SEOs who are speaking. And consider booking a consultation with them. It’ll likely be money well spent.

I also ran this point past search conference speaking veteran Matt Cutts, who added:

It’s true that a diagram on the fly is probably a warning sign, but I welcome people who have thought hard about an issue and walk up and say “The spam report form only allows N characters, so I brought you this in-depth report.” Or “I wanted to give you this reconsideration request where I documented all the ways we’ve tried to clean up our site.” I don’t mind taking printed material and carrying it back to the team to check out.

That said, handing over a 25 page report is probably still overkill :)

9) Your Business Card Is Your Friend: Got a complicated question? Again, tell the rep what the issue is briefly, but say you understand that it might take more time than they have now and ask if they’d like to contact you to learn more. Then give them your business card with a short summary of the issue on the back. Move along. You’ll be appreciated for having been reasonable, and people who do this DO get follow up contact. If you were one of those “let’s talk offline” folks, say that. Literally say — “you wanted to talk offline about my issue. Please contact me when you’re ready.”

10) Don’t Expect Their Contact Information: You can a search engineer or representative for their business card or email address, but don’t expect it nor insist upon it. Search reps tend to be rather protective of their information, mainly because once they help someone with a problem, they sometimes find the same person then decides they’re a well to tap for any issue in the future — and they just don’t have the time to do one-on-one like that. There’s also an issue that if they give their contact details to someone, that person in turn might give it to a friend, and so on. That leads to another tip. If you’ve been trusted enough with a search rep’s contact details, don’t start handing it out without permission.

11) Fess Up & Clean Up Your Mess: If you think you have a penalty — and are pretty sure why, such as for buying links or having spamming content, be sure to have done everything you can to clean things up before asking for help. And fess up to everything you’ve done. Nothing will lose potential support more than having a rep hear your “I did nothing wrong” story, take the time to investigate your issue and then discover plenty of evidence you were knowingly violating guidelines.

12) Hallways & Other Encounters: You’ll find reps outside formal sessions, such as just wandering in hallways, having lunch or sometimes at their company’s booth, if they have one on the expo floor. All the rules I’ve mentioned above apply. Be brief, have a business card ready, etc. If they’re working a booth, ask away — that’s what they’re there for. If you catch them outside a booth, be polite. If they’re walking, don’t try to stop them. They’re probably going somewhere. You might ask if you can “walk and talk.” If they say yes, keep it brief. If they look at all uncertain or say it’s a bad time, don’t try — give them a card. If they’re talking to someone, don’t interrupt. Stand off in view, so it’s clear you’d like a moment but not so close that you’re eavesdropping.

13) Let Them Rest: Reps often attend parties and networking events. It’s fine to approach them at these times. But be especially brief. Ask if they have a moment, and stress you’ll be brief because you know they’re out trying to relax. Because, you know, they are. The reps are human, and after answering a huge number of questions in a day, sometimes they need a break. Have that business card ready. Another tip. Don’t talk shop. You’re at a social event. Socialize about something other than search. You’ll have a nice conversation and perhaps build the foundation for future talks about search.

14) Don’t Monopolize: Don’t monopolize a search rep’s time. For one, there are many other people trying to talk to them. Similar to Mike Arrington’s advice on how to interact with speakers at a conference, if you see the rep looking around a lot, they’re probably aware of other people behind you also wanting a chance to talk. Also to Mike’s advice, don’t assume that trying to spend as much time as possible with the rep will make for a better relationship. It can have the opposite effect. Many SEOs do form good relationships and even friendships with search reps, but these don’t happen because someone tried to force it.

If in the end, you don’t get time with a search rep, don’t be offended. There can literally be over hundred or more people trying to catch them over the course of a conference. You might also have unlucky timing, catching them as they’re trying to prep for a panel or perhaps when they’re trying to catch up on work back at home base (just like everyone else, they have jobs with needs that don’t wait just because they’ve gone to a conference.

There are other ways to contact reps, of course. Google maintains an official group for webmaster issues, as does Bing. Google Webmaster Central has a variety of tools allowing webmasters to diagnose their sites, as does Bing Webmaster Center. Yahoo has advice and a support form here. Representatives also frequent forums such as our Sphinn social news site and WebmasterWorld. Check those out, if you don’t have an opportunity to meet a rep in person.

Finally, there are plenty of panels where you’ll find search representatives from the paid search side of the house. I haven’t covered advice for these reps primarily site owners and marketers dealing with paid search issues often find it much easier to get help. You’re paying for those ads, so the search engines put plenty of routes out there (and kudos for them putting so much out on the “free” side, as well). Still, general courtesy and tactics above outlined for search reps on SEO issues apply to paid search reps, as well. Heck, it’s good advice for approaching any speaker.

Google Sidewiki is a new feature being added today to the Google Toolbar that allows anyone to leave comments about pages as they surf the web. Love something you’re reading? Hate it? You can share your views with others who visit the page and who also have Sidewiki enabled. Share, that is, if Google thinks your comment is good enough.

NOTE: Sidewiki is set to launch at 8am Pacific Time today. This post was originally scheduled to go live then, but the news started leaking out. The Sidewiki link above should start working then.

There have been any number of similar tools like this over the years, so many that I’ve lost track of their names (Third Voice was one — thanks, Ethan Kaplan). None really caught on. But this is Google, with millions of toolbars installed. That’s no guarantee of success that Sidewiki will get used, but it’s certainly worth sitting up and taking notice of. Below, how the Sidewiki system works.

Sidewiki Phone Home

To use Sidewiki, you have to get the latest version of the Google Toolbar for either Internet Explorer or Firefox (Google Chrome isn’t yet supported). For it to work, you have to enable the “enhanced” version of the Toolbar:

This means allowing the toolbar to report back to Google about all the pages you view. If Google doesn’t know the page you’re visiting, it can’t send back any Sidewiki information that’s available.

It’s not new for the toolbar to send information back to Google, if certain features are enabled. It has operated this way for nearly a decade, for anyone who uses the toolbar for PageRank viewing. Those using the toolbar as part of Google’s Web History feature also let information flow back. In all these cases, information only flows back if the user expressly enables the toolbar to do so. Don’t like the idea of Google tracking what you view via the toolbar? Then don’t enable the enhanced features. Also see Google Search History Expands, Becomes Web History for more about toolbar tracking and privacy issues.

You’ve Got Sidewiki!

Comfortable with tracking? Then here’s what you see with Sidewiki enabled, when you come to a page that has Sidewiki information associated with it. In this example, the Google home page itself:

See that little note bubble that the arrow is pointing at? That tiny sliver of a border, along with the bubble, lets you know that Sidewiki information is available. If you click bubble or the >> tab, the Sidewiki panel opens up like this:

Behold, comments! The comments are being shown within a separate browser window. They’re not overlaid onto the original page, as some tools have done in the past or still do. Nor is the page framed. The page URL doesn’t change. The browser just opens up a different window alongside the original page, where related Sidewiki information is shown.

All Comments Are Not Created Equal

What comments are shown, and in what order? Google secret sauce time. The official line is this:

Using multiple signals based on the quality of the entry, what we know about the author, and user-contributed signals such as voting and flagging, we work hard to ensure that only the highest quality, most relevant entries appear in the sidebar. Most of the engineering work for Sidewiki was dedicated to this ranking algorithm.

When I talking with Google about Sidewiki, they gave me a few other factors, such as:

• Use of sophisticated language: “This page sucks” isn’t sophisticated; think complex sentences and ideas. Apparently, Google has a language sophistication detector now, and one that works in the 14 different languages that Sidewiki supports.
• User’s reputation: Are your comments being voted up or flagged down?
• User’s history: How long have you had a Google Profile? How long have you been commenting?

ProfileRank

See that mention of Google Profiles in there? Got yours yet? If not, read our past article, Hoping To Improve People Search, Google Launches “Profile Results”. It covers how Google Profiles were expanded earlier this year, and what you can do to improve yours

Just as Google gives any page on the web a PageRank score that reflects its authority, so too does each Google Profile page have its own form of what I’d call either “personal PageRank” or “ProfileRank,” when it comes to the Sidewiki system. Those with more ProfileRank have a better shot of their comments appearing. ProfileRank alone isn’t enough, however. The content of the web page, the quality of the comment and many other factors are taken into account.

Unfortunately, you have no way of knowing your ProfileRank. For example, look at my Danny Sullivan profile, and there’s nothing that indicates the degree of reputation I carry within the Sidewiki system. That’s something Google said they’d consider changing, when I raised it, but there are no immediate plans to do so.

Profiles, by the way, are supposed to reflect all the comments a particular person has made. When I looked during testing, these weren’t showing, so I don’t have a screenshot example. But this is supposed to be activated when Sidewiki goes public.

Comments & The Quality Threshold

As discussed, Google spent a lot of time trying to figure how to rank the comments that are shown. Moreover, not all comments even make the cut. Some pages might not show a Sidewiki tab, even if there’s Sidewiki material, unless that threshold is reached. Similarly, some comments might not be shown until readers “Next” their way deeper. Those deemed of lower quality get flagged, as shown below in a further example from Google’s home page:

Sorry, Mike.

Also be aware that you’ll always see your own comments, regardless of the threshold factor. If you want to see what others view, sign-out of Sidewiki. You’ll still be able to see Sidewiki information when signed out. You just won’t be able to add new material, and your own material won’t be elevated to the top.

If At First The Comments Don’t Succeed, Try Showing Blog Posts

Since the system is brand new, to help jump-start its usefulness, Google may show related blog entries for a page that lacks comments. You can see this in the example below for the Twitter home page:

The first three results all seem decent enough, but the fourth? Odd. And later in my testing, that one dropped out. Still, I have a personal reason to think the system behind selecting blog posts to show isn’t that great.

When looking at blog posts about Bing, Sidewiki listed only one item worth showing:

OK, that’s legendary tech columnist Walt Mossberg making the cut. No complaints there. But when you drill further into more comments:

You get multiple posts from TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb, as shown above. Those are great sources, but why not some variety?

Keep drilling down into more comments, and you get some different sources but not one single article from Search Engine Land about Bing. We’ve written some of the most extensive coverage about Bing that’s out there. None of our posts make the cut at all?

First, Google told me this:

The idea is that we recognize that blogs are another great source of informative and helpful content, so we try to include blog posts when we determine they are relevant about a particular URL. This is done algorithmically, and we use the same algorithm for ranking blog entries as we do for user entries. Right now since there are so few user entries, the majority you will see browsing the web are blog entries, but that shouldn’t be the case after many people are contributing content.

Uh huh. I pressed further. Give us some factors that might be at play here, please! The immediate thought that came to my mind was that because Search Engine Land doesn’t serve out a full text feed of our stories, we might be hurting ourselves against other sites. Yes, Google confirmed that was part of the issue. Google also added that user feedback from the “Useful” also has an influence.

The Useful Buttons

Select any Sidewiki entry, and you’ll see that you’re asked if the entry is “useful” along with a Yes / No choice.

You can also see the total number of votes. In addition, if you think a comment is out-of-line for some reason, you can select the “Report Abuse” option.

Making Comments

So how do you actually put your thoughts out there? Easy. When you come to a page, click on the Sidewiki button, which will make a comment entry window open:

Once done, save your entry, and that’s it. You can embed links using HTML code (they’ll be nofollow ones that don’t pass link juice). You can also drop a YouTube link into a comment, and a video embed frame will automatically be generated.

Need to change your comment? Use the edit option at the bottom of the entry:

You can also delete it using an option also at the bottom.

In addition to commenting on a page, you can also comment about particular parts of a page. For example, say there’s a quote on a page you’re viewing. You can highlight the quote, then make a Sidewiki entry that’s associated with just that text. Then there’s some further magic. If that quote appears on other pages, your comment will be associated in the right place on those pages as well.

Sharing Comments

Each comment exists as a standalone URL, such as this one I made about the Twitter home page. Anyone can read Sidewiki entries, even if they do NOT have the toolbar. In fact, Google encourages that the links be shared. At the bottom of each comment is a share option. When selected, this allows you to copy a link to the entry, email the link, or send the link to Twitter or Facebook.

Page Owner / Site Owner Comments

Not so thrilled with the idea that people might leave comments on your site? I suspect many will be uneasy about this, especially if competitors begin link dropping.

Unfortunately, there’s no way you can block the comments from being displayed. You can, however, claim the first comment for yourself. If you’ve verified ownership of a site through Google Webmaster Central, then you’ll see a special notice whenever you comment on one of your own pages:

Tick the box, and your comment will come above all others. If you’ve shared ownership of your site with several people, then any of them will also see this option.

How about making your comment long so that you push off all others? That won’t work, as Google condenses comments and adds a “more” link when there are more than can be shown. However, in addition to making an official top-of-page owner comment, you can also make additional comments that will be interspersed according to the comment ranking algorithm.

Comment Envy

As I wrote this, I kept having to stop myself from writing Searchwiki rather than Sidewiki. SearchWiki, released almost a year ago (see Google SearchWiki Launches, Lets You Build Your Own Search Results Page), is a system designed to let people leave comments associated with search results pages. Since that time, the system seems to have gone nowhere. I seldom encounter people saying they’re using it. Soon after it launched, working with Enquisite, I found practically no traffic was being driven to Search Engine Land from pages where we had good SearchWiki representation.

In short, SearchWiki feels like a dud. Google Knol launched last year was designed to promote high quality authorship. Despite fears it would be come a new Wikipedia, it also largely feels like a dud. A system inviting people in the news to comment on Google News certainly was a dud, being closed in July after running for nearly two years.

Sidewiki feels like another swing at something Google seems to desperately desires  — a community of experts offering high quality comments. Google says that’s something that its cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted more than a system for ranking web pages. They really wanted a system to annotate pages across the web.

Of course, there’s a way this already happens, through existing commenting system that many sites have. Google may produce unease in some quarters by pushing its own would-be universal commenting system (through an API, anyone can have Sidewiki comments be embedded into their actual pages). Others tired of moderation and spam fighting may feel relieve that Google might provide more relevant comments.

Certainly Google’s goal is to be something more than another commenting system.

“I think we would have failed if people were using it to say ‘Obama sucks’,” said Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google.

That’s not to say the system is meant to promote pro-Obama comments! Rather, the hope is to produce more intelligent and thoughtful comments regardless of a particular position about Obama or any other topic.

“If those are the comments we’re surfacing, [Sidewiki] wouldn’t be that much different than much of the web. What we’re really trying to do is add value from people who really know what they’re talking about,” he said.

For more, see related discussion on Techmeme here and here.

In the world of B2B marketing, what would you say your customers want most from you? Some of the obvious things include quality products, great service, reasonable prices, and solutions that increase profits.

But, what would they really want if they could have anything from you?

How about more customers?

Many companies do support their resellers in some manner, including funneling prospects to them.

Whether your company has a reseller support program or not, there are two very important assets that are probably being underutilized for this purpose—your website and your search engine rankings.

It’s not hard to imagine how you can enhance your website to deliver leads to your customers. By creating a “vendor locator” application on your website you could help visitors find services and products related to your business offerings. Take it one step further and you can use your status as a “trusted source” to gather lead information and allocate leads among your key customers appropriately.

If you are like most companies today, you are likely spending some time and effort optimizing your site for search engine rankings and/or spending money on search engine advertising programs. Companies that are successful in their SEO efforts have one more tool in their marketing toolbox than they might have thought about: leveraging “tertiary” keywords—keywords that are relevant to your website but aren’t “core” search terms—for the benefit of their customers rather than for the direct benefit of the company itself.

A great example would be a manufacturer of printers. Let’s say 3-D printers. While the company likely does not offer “printing” services, it is reasonable to expect that the company’s website could rank high in search engines for “3-d printing.” Much of the SEO effort that a company engages in will produce rankings for these types of tertiary keywords. The traffic that is generated to the website for the “printing”-related keywords may not generate much in the way of sales, but that traffic can be converted into leads for the company’s customers (and used as a selling tool when presenting to prospects).

A smart manufacturer of specialized printers may already have a tool on its website for users to find printing service providers in their area that use the company’s equipment. A really smart company would consider adding a means for users to submit a request for a quote or similar contact request. The printer manufacturer could supply those leads to selected customers that sign up for the program. This would be an excellent sales tool for sales representatives to use in the field when highlighting everything that their company does to support its customers.

Here are 10 other similar tertiary keyword concepts that would fit this model for manufacturers or wholesalers of:

• Air conditioning/HVAC equipment = air conditioning, central air
• Art frames = framing, custom framing
• Construction equipment = construction, construction companies, excavating
• Data security technology = data security companies/consultants
• Environmental testing products = environmental testing, air testing, mold testing
• Industrial gases – neon gas, helium, carbon dioxide (dry ice)
• Packaging equipment = packaging, packaging companies
• Paints = paint, painting
• Prototyping equipment = rapid prototyping
• Warehousing equipment = warehousing, warehouses

Use your SEO investment, and search presence, to increase customer loyalty and acquire new customers. This line of thinking can also help you increase your Internet marketing budget as you discuss the sales benefits with management.

As if SEOs don’t have enough things to worry about already, add malware to the list. Why does malware matter to SEOs? If the site you are working on gets infected, its search traffic will plummet. Search engines attempt to remove infected pages from their search results, or they label them with an ominous warning, such as This site may damage your computer.

Back in 2008 Google reported that malware infected pages had increased to more than 1% of all search results. Google posted a malware statistics update last week. Malware infections have more than doubled since April 2009. Search results containing a url labeled as harmful have remained level in the range of 0.5% to 0.9%, an improvement. While the web as a whole has become more dangerous, Google’s been doing an even better job clearing their search results.

I know one reason why there’s been a dramatic rise in malware on the Web since April. A nasty malware attack has been targeting web developers to steal their passwords. Stolen passwords are used by the bad guys to automatically deploy iframe injection attacks to innocent web page.

If you access web sites via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), this attack is targeting you. All you need to do is browse an infected page using an insecure browser. Badware will be deployed to your machine, and it will find the files used by FileZilla, or possibly other FTP programs to store passwords, and silently send those files back to a server in China. Then an automated bot attack will use FTP to edit your web pages, infecting them with malware. Then your sites will drop out of the search results. Can you image the uncomfortable conversations when all your sites get hacked at once and you have to admit responsibility?

What can be done to reduce this risk of search Armageddon?

1. Use a more secure browser such as Chrome or Firefox with the NoScript add on for routine browsing.
2. Don’t use any FTP program that stores passwords locally in plaintext, such as FileZilla. To date, Dreamweaver has not been reported to have been compromised. Dreamweaver encrypts passwords and stores them in the Windows registry.
3. Consider using a Mac or Linux instead of Windows. As the most popular operating system, Windows is the most popular target for attacks.
4. Make sure your machine and server are fully updated and patched. Turn off unnecessary services and software to reduce the attack surface.
5. Register your site with Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Center. Check regularly to see if there are any malware reports (or other issues) with your sites.
6. If you suspect a malware infection, check Unmask Parasites,
7. View your site’s reputation at McAfee SiteAdvisor.
8. Reduce the number of people and computers that have access to your web server.
9. Keep a backup copy of your web pages. In case of infection, it’s a race to see if you can fix the site before search engines (and users) discover the problem and dump you.
10. Choose the hosting provider that has the quickest response time, not the cheapest price. If your site gets hacked, you may need their help to change all the passwords.

As the web becomes more dangerous, customers become more suspicious, reducing opportunities for everyone. Please do your part to make the web safer, and to reduce your risks.

As Google has grappled with newspapers firing rip-off accusations at them, one of the key responses has been from Google’s Marissa Mayer. A move to “living URLs” would drive them more traffic, she’s said, talking about it twice this past month. But such a system won’t work unless Google News fundamentally changes how it handles news content. Below, a further look, using the current news about California fires as a living example of what can and can’t be done with living URLs.

The Living URL Concept

Mayer is Google’s vice president of search product and user experience. She testified (PDF, or CNET has a summary and full-text in HTML) to the US Senate about the living URL idea back in May. She spoke about it again at a conference in Aspen this month plus at a session I attended at Tim O’Reilly’s Foo Camp yesterday. I expect to talk to Marissa about her idea in more depth, but the core of it seems to be this:

1. Any news story lives at a single URL
2. If there are updates to a news story, you update the original story at the original URL, rather than write a new story

The second point is hard for a journalist like me to get my head around. I don’t write for Wikipedia, which is what Mayer seems to want, Wikipedia-like stories that are constantly updated. I think I’d go insane trying to constantly edit some general story about “Google” given all they do and all that happens to them on a regular basis. Even trying to maintain a “Google Web Search” story would seem difficult.

I’m still pondering the idea, however. And as I’ll explain, I’ve just experimented with it for one story, which in turn illustrates how this won’t work well with Google’s current system.

By the way, in Mayer’s system, readers would benefit because they could subscribe just to get updates to a particular story. New information would flow to them in some way, a “hyper personalized newsstream” with logistics to be worked out. The “old news” background you’d already read in he past wouldn’t get in the way. She believes someone will make this happen, even perhaps Google except. As she said yesterday at Foo Camp, “Maybe we’ll do this. We’re certainly interested in the space.”

That’s what might happen in the future, maybe. Let’s talk about the now, and how newspapers cannot do what she suggests, plus what they CAN to do kind of get there under the current system.

I Smell Smoke

By accident, I now have a system that tells me whenever there’s a fire in California. Back in October 2007, I wrote an article called Mapping The Southern California Fires that highlighted a number of maps that were published via Google Maps. The maps pinpointing the many blazes happening back then, as well as evacuation areas and other information.

That article quickly ranked in Google News and generated traffic. As it aged, it dropped out of Google News but still was relevant for some key fire-related terms in Google web search because of the many links it had gained. Anytime there’s a fire, there’s a spike in searches for these terms, and I see that article suddenly gain new traffic. It’s like a personal alert system for me.

For example, yesterday, searches for “california fires map” made it into the “Hot Trends” section of Google Trends:

In a search for that phrase, california fires map, my article shows up in the top results:

Now, it would be bad for the user clicking to that article if the information was still only from October 2007. But it’s not. Since that time, whenever major new fires have erupted, I’ve written a new article about current fire maps and postscripted over from the original October 2007 story.

Over time, from oldest to newest, I’ve written these stories:

• Mapping The Southern California Fires (Oct. 2007)
• Malibu Corral Fire Maps: Burn Area, Evacuation Centers, & More (Nov. 2007)
• June 2008 California Fire Maps (June 2008)
• Los Angeles & Southern California Fire Maps: October 2008 Edition (Oct. 2007)
• Maps Of Fires In Southern California: November 2008 Edition (Nov. 2008)
• California Wildfires: August 2009 Edition (Aug. 2009)

Covering fire maps isn’t the primary job of Search Engine Land, of course. There is a search aspect to this, but for me, it’s almost more of a public service role I’ve fallen into. I live in Southern California. I want to ensure my fellow residents can figure out what’s going on, as well as their friends and relatives who are concerned (often people assume all of “Los Angeles” is on fire without realizing just how big Southern California is). I know these stories will periodically pick up traffic, so I want to ensure people get to useful information if they come to them. Also, as I cover at the end, ironically I sometimes have a much better round-up than local news or government sources.

Update Madness

Complicating the task is that each new article I write might rank for different terms. For example, a search for los angeles fire map brings up my October 2008 story in the top listings, like this:

As a result, each time I write a new story, I have to go back and make sure all the old stories point to the newest one, in order to best serve those reaching them. It’s a pain. If only I had a single URL that was all about California fires!

Well, I sort of do. Each story at Search Engine Land gets put into a category. These stories all go into the Disaster Search Engines category. While you can find a link to this category at the bottom of any of the fire stories I’ve written, busy people anxious to get the latest news probably don’t look very closely. So this month, after doing my latest round-up, I added a note to the top of all the old articles like this:

The postscripting and notes like this have generally worked. I can tell from my stats that even if an older story pulls in clicks, there’s a wave of people moving to the areas I point at to get the latest news.

Doing The Living URL Story

Now yesterday, after hearing Mayer speak, I was in the airport waiting for a flight home from San Francisco when I could see fires were flaring once again. I’d just written a piece earlier in the month already covering August fires. As part of that, I included a number of general resources people could use to find information about fires in the area if new ones broke out. But I thought I’d go a step further. Rather than my category page being a “living URL” for fire news, could I do this with my August story?

My old opening paragraph had been:

Yes, parts of California are burning again — and the map makers are at work. Via Google’s Lat Long blog, there’s a new comprehensive map of the Lockheed Fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains. More on that below, along with other resources to monitor as fires inevitably appear elsewhere in the Golden State.

Now I changed that to:

Yes, parts of California are burning again — and the map makers are at work. Fires are often breaking out, so at the top of the story, maps to places currently in the news. Below that, general resources to check since this page was last updated.

The goal was to save people from being confused by the older fire information. Then I put all the “news” of the most current fires at the top, followed by the general resources, then kept the old information below:

I felt pretty good about this. Even if new fires broke out (and they already have since I did the update), I knew that the general or “evergreen” resources would help people get to good sources of information.

Living URLs Are Old News To Google News, And That’s Bad News

Ah, but the downside. Most important, the story was originally written on August 18. Even though it was updated, Google News doesn’t care. As far as it’s concerned, this is now an aged, older story that doesn’t have as much oomph when competing against newer ones. Yes, it still gets Google News traffic for some terms. But that will rapidly drop off as time passes. None of my older stories rank within Google News, which seems to have about a 30 days timeframe for what it considers “news.”

If I were to use Mayer’s “living URL” model, this page would be the only one I have about Southern California fires. Because I’d keep updating it on the same URL, despite the changed content, Google News would still consider it old. It simply could not compete against fresh content on Google News.

In addition, it wouldn’t compete against very specific terms. Right now, one of the biggest blazes is the Station Fire. That fire name didn’t exist until a few days ago. It’s a popular term people searching for. To rank, you really want to help yourself by including those words in the article’s HTML title tag (which typically reflects the article’s headline). But if you change the headline, potentially you don’t continue ranking for other terms in Google News. More important, changing the headline won’t help since Google News probably won’t come back to see your new headline anyway.

Of course, I could have a new “living” article all about the Station Fire, which would include maps. As part of that article, I could link to my “living” article about wildfire maps in general. Then I could also hope people see the links and get to what they wanted. I could do the same for all other files. When I’m done, then I’d be Wikipedia. Or not, because two weeks after I put my August 2009 story up, they finally produced their own “August 2009 California Wildfires” page that doesn’t link to any master page. Mahalo lacks interlinking, also.

Living URLs = Topic Pages = Existing SEO Best Practices

Still, the living URL idea makes sense — it’s just not really that different from what savvy search engine optimization people already do. You have a page for each topic you hope to rank for, full of good content. For news sites, these topic pages are often links to all their past stories. If you want to get fancy, you can add some evergreen/general content to the top of those pages. Our keyword research category page is an example of this.

For me, if I were really into covering California fire maps, I’d make a special category called “California Fire Maps” or whatever seemed to be the most commonly used term. I’d move some of my general content into that area, then have my individual stories follow.

I’m not THAT much into it, though I might do it in the future, because as I said, it’s sort of a side area I’ve stumbled into serving here. Of course, the real place that should do it for these types of topics are the newspapers — the same audience that Mayer is aiming her suggestions to.

The Los Angeles Times & Living URL / Topic Page Failure

Over there, it’s a nightmare. I want to scream, because I’ve messaged the LA Times in the past about this, and I’ve even spoken on the topic (see Quick Tips For Newspapers & SEO). They have old content that ranks for fire-related terms that doesn’t point over to the new stuff.

Case in point: los angeles fire map on Google, which is currently number 24 on Google Trends. Note the two URLs from the LA Times:

The first is a fresh map (the best map fire-map roundup out there, by the way). This listing wasn’t showing up when I looked yesterday. Instead, what I got was only the second listing, an LA Times map from 2008:

Search for southern california wildfires, and you also get that map coming up on its own. It’s a terrible experience. No date, and places are pinpointed that aren’t currently burning.

The LA Times does have a “living URL” for all its coverage. For example, on the LA Times home page, it’s right at the top:

Go to a story about the fires, like this one, and it also appears:

So why’s the LA Times not ranking for california wildfires? It’s hard to say. I know in the past, the Times wasn’t doing a good job having these types of pages. When I spoke, this was one of the things I talked about. I was also frustrated that last November, I couldn’t find a list of all its current election endorsements. I kept getting to a page of old ones. If I search for “la times election endorsements” today, I end up at a page of last Novembers endorsements, not any from the most recent elections in California. Going to the home page of the editorial section is no help, either.

So maybe this topic page is relatively new and still needs time to earn a reputation with Google. The HTML title tag currently reads “L.A. Now | Wildfires | Los Angeles Times.” Since the page already ranks for “wildfires” on Google, adding the word “California” to wildfires might make the difference. Perhaps 112 external links to the page just aren’t enough. The LA Times is pushing the living URL page on its Twitter account — perhaps that might help down the line.

As you can see, topic pages aren’t guaranteed to be sure hits for newspapers. Even if they were, there’s another concern that it’s probably not in the user’s interest that we end up with five Wikipediapapers that dominate all the top results on Google in the way Wikipedia already does. But certainly it’s something for newspapers or any news sites to consider. It’s something everyone can do better out, including us here at Search Engine Land. It’s all too easy to get lost in the reporting of the current story and not think about what happens to that story once you’re done.

Fixing Google

Let’s also not forget that Google could do with a little advice of its own. Having done so many searches for fire information over time now on Google, I repeatedly see it leaving stories up in the top results that are no longer relevant. For california fire map, it points in the top results to this map from California’s state fire agency — a map from 2008. That’s bad relevancy on the part of Google.

Meanwhile, those who want to find user-generated maps of fires on Google maps still face some of the frustrations I covered in my San Francisco Oil Spill Maps & Wishing For Better Community Map Search Tools article of 2007.

Yes, at least now I can search just for user-generated content, using a drop-down box added in 2008. But without a sort-by-date option, that’s kind of useless to find the latest maps. Adding to the mess are the junky blog posts on fire-related terms that get into Google Blog Search, even with the default “sort-by-relevancy” enabled.

Fixing The Public Agencies

In covering this, I also have frustrations with the various cities and fire agencies. People want maps. I can see this, because they’re arriving at my site. But the agencies themselves sometimes seem lacking.

For example, in my update yesterday, I was having to explain why the city of Los Angeles’s fire department had no news of some fires. This is because the city only covers a small part of Southern California. But many people don’t know this. I was pleased today to see that the LAFD seems to have added some language about this on its blog.

Still, why isn’t there a better master map for the entire state to use. Can’t the cities interlink more with each other? And La Canada Flintridge, I know your city is facing this terrible disaster, but you had no map of the evacuation areas on your web site yesterday. Just textual guidance in PDF format! Not to mention updates that, because you use frames, can’t be bookmarked for other people to share (unless you know how to get the URL, which I do — here). At least you link to the LA Times map today.

Living URLs Depend On Google

Overall, the “living URL” idea sounds compelling at first glance. But for newspapers to give up individual articles in favor of one “master” piece per topic that’s constantly updated, Google would first have to make some fundamental changes. In the meantime, there’s much that can be done to ensure you have both “topic” pages that serve to consolidate readers looking for content in general as well as individual articles that serve particular breaking stories. Ideally, these both work together.

No discussion of social media’s effect on organic search results is complete without considering Facebook’s well-laid play for “search” domination, in a closed-loop-members-only end run around Google’s public algorithmic crawl.

With 250 million users, the recent purchase of friendFeed and newly offered ability to search at macro and/or granular users’ network levels, Facebook’s internal community-search platform may well threaten other search models by sheer magnitude of participation and users’ trust of their friends, extended networks and themed groups.

Why SEO for Facebook is now crucial

Whereas most SEOs think “Google” and other mainstream engines when gauging the effect social media profiles on organic SERPs, Facebook is quickly becoming a massive walled-garden parallel organic internet. Think Facebook internal search results won’t matter? Think again and start “optimizing.”

According to its publicly released statistics, Facebook claims 120 million of its registered members log in at least once each day. Every month friends share 1 billion photographs and 10 million videos. In any given week users post over a billion content blocks, news stories, links and blog posts. There are over 45 million active user groups. Little-to-none of Facebook’s is activity is indexed by Google and other mainstream engines. It’s easy to see why Facebook’s members-only organic search results deserve attention!

At the root of this new consideration is the reality that Facebook is now allowing users to search the last 30 days of their news feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by friends and the Facebook pages of which they’re fans.

Check out my personal Facebook search results (from among friends) for “Indian food.”  I see my friend Reem ate Indian food  for lunch.

If other users have chosen to make their content available to everyone, you also will be able to search for their status updates, links and notes, regardless of whether or not you are friends. Search results will continue to include people’s profiles as well as pertinent Facebook Pages, groups and applications. Also note the cool ability to filter your personal  “search visibility” by various Facebook internal channels: links, status updates, wall posts and notes.

There are  commercial results in my Facebook wide “everyone” SERPs from a restaurant promoting their participation in the San Francisco Food Festival.

Here’s another commercially-tinted result, R2 Indian Buffet. The listing was was sourced from R2’s Facebook Indian Buffet page.

Look at these 2 results for the search “seafood in New York.” Chef Andrew Hunter’s listing comes as a result of his using the words “seafood & New York” in the most current wall post.

Next, Andrea Cohn’s profile comes up #2 for “seafood in New York.  She’s promoting the Bongo seafood lounges, in West Village and Chelsea, with a wall post of  a martiniboys.com listing. Facebook is showing the title tag of the Bongo post Andrea bookmarked.

One other important observation: Bing is the official Facebook “web results” search engine. With the recent Microsoft/Yahoo deal Bing will be also be powering Yahoo. Consider the branding and traffic implications of Bing powering Facebook behind the garden wall, especially when one click actually takes users to Bing.com.

Ten Facebook SEO tips

1. Search results continue to include people’s profiles as well as pertinent Facebook pages, groups and applications. Therefore what you’ve done to date still works. The gravity of Facebook groups, which some thought lame, will increase as Facebook internal search is adopted.

2. Facebook gives us some clues regarding its algorithmic ranking factors.  Read it and understand. Stay up to speed on changes in the Facebook blog, as they will certainly occur.  Hopefully as Facebook grows they’ll make a search quality team ambassador available like Google’s Matt Cutts and Bing’s Sasi Parthasarathy. As people learn to spam these results, Facebook will react and SEOs will want more information.

3. In addition to wall posts, think SEO in tendering status updates, links and notes. You never know who will find it, searching for whatever.

4. Wall-post external content like blog posts and news should be optimized for important keywords, especially the content’s title tag.  If possible post content where the call to action and/or contact information is actually in the title tag. This gets your pitch to the search results as opposed to requiring a second click through to a profile page.

5. If you want your promotional data indexed in the wider Facebook, outside of your friends, make sure you select “everyone” in privacy settings > search. Though it’s possible users might not be happy if they were aware, existing accounts default to “everyone,” understanding this is a cool inside tip for early success.

When “everyone” is selected, others may see your data regardless of whether or not you are friends.  Reciprocally, users should uncheck if they want to exclude their profile from wider Facebook SERPs.   It would not be surprising if users protest when folks start to discover that all of a sudden some of their personal sharing is visible to everyone.

7. Remember that it’s not only wider (non-friends) Facebook search that matters. Your friends, friends of friends, networks and networks of friends are likely to trust you a bit more since you’re “local.”  It’s fascinating to extrapolate the implications of a “trusted local personal search network.” As a user or searcher, be aware of how Facebook search privacy settings function.

8. Seek advice from other tools Facebook gives us regarding users common social graphs. Lexicon, which is about to get deeper, and the Facebook paid search platform offer cool insight regarding what’s hot.

9. Contribute continually.  A good portion of the physical search results are comprised of social graph points generated within the last 30 days.

10. Be there or be square! Stay tuned for attributes, in and out of Facebook, may factor in the search results as Facebook evolves.

A crucial new channel for search marketers to master

All of this has potentially massive repercussions for how marketers view Facebook chatter.  By really digging deep into how Facebook is searching internal content, you’ll be tapping into the next level of the web’s development, uncovering a gold mine of data about what people are talking about, what they like and dislike, and how they are influencing the opinions of others. This is clearly an important search frontier.

Dig around. Learn the specifics in form and functionality of Facebook’s newly enhanced organic search results. In order to “optimize” for Facebook internal search, it’s important to learn precisely what areas of participation to focus on for the most influence. Facebook gives us a bit of ranking criteria information regarding how the engine is wired. Facebook groups will matter more than before, as a result of the new search algorithm, if & when Facebook internal search achieves wider adoption.

As always in social media marketing, leveraging friends’ (and your own) recommendations, without being a spammer, is sticky business.  Follow the timeless axioms of social media participation. give more than you take by contributing unselfish & recurrent content recommendations for others to consume. Be holistic in how you promote your own content and (as always) think in terms of supporting the community first.

The “Kay Bailey Hutchinson for Governor Official Website” put up by “Texans for Kay Bailey Hutchison, Allan Shivers, Jr., Treasurer” over the weekend in support of Kay Bailey Hutchinson for Texas governor was briefly in Google but now appears to be completely missing. Huh.

Odd since Bing seems to have indexed it just fine, although the snippet looks a little odd.

Let’s take a closer look at the site.

Looks OK. Maybe it’s all in images or JavaScript or something and Google is having a hard time extracting content? I’ll just take a closer look with web developer toolbar. I’ll disable CSS and…

Oh. Wait.

Do you think all those hidden keywords revealed when CSS styling is disabled might have anything to do with it? I speculated yes when first writing this piece, and after it was posted, I got this confirmation from Matt Cutts, head of the spam team at Google:

Google did take action on this site for hidden text. Hidden text is a violation of our quality guidelines. We’ve removed the site from our index and tried to contact the site maintainers by email to explain that the hidden text was the cause for the site’s removal from our index. We also recommended that the webmaster remove all the hidden text and file a valid reconsideration request. More information about requesting reconsideration of a site can be found here.

Hiring an SEO firm is just like hiring any other service for expertise that you lack. Since you by definition don’t have the expertise, how do you know if they’re doing a good job? Well, Texans for Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Allan Shivers, Jr., Treasurer, today you’re getting a free crash course in SEO evaluation.

Understanding hidden text

Hidden text is not only against the search engine guidelines and can get you banned, but is amateur and lazy. It’s like hiring a painter to paint your house and having them show up and throw a bucket of paint in the general direction of your walls.

You might find Google’s webmaster guidelines on the subject helpful:

Hiding text or links in your content can cause your site to be perceived as untrustworthy since it presents information to search engines differently than to visitors. Text (such as excessive keywords) can be hidden in several ways, including … Using CSS to hide text… If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages. When evaluating your site to see if it includes hidden text or links, look for anything that’s not easily viewable by visitors of your site. Are any text or links there solely for search engines rather than visitors? If you do find hidden text or links on your site, either remove them or, if they are relevant for your site’s visitors, make them easily viewable. If your site has been removed from our search results, review our webmaster guidelines for more information. Once you’ve made your changes and are confident that your site no longer violates our guidelines, submit your site for reconsideration.

It’s quite possible Google has even told you about this hidden text problem. Create a Google Webmaster Tools account and verify ownership of standbykay.com. You may have a message waiting for you.

Hidden text is also frustrating for the users you’re trying to attract and may cause them to get irritated at your site and leave. Let’s say, for instance, the site does indeed rank for “what is a keg”, as it apparently is trying to do. What exactly do they expect searchers who reach the site to do? The site doesn’t actually answer the question of what a keg is. Do they think that all these keg definition-seekers are going to get distracted and decide to abandon their beer research efforts and become political activists?What other searches are they apparently targeting?

• texas bbq pit texas smokehouse
• chicken fried steak recipe
• debachary [sic] definition
• gambling addiction
• houston rockets
• why do we have knees

Why do we have knees?!!!

According to the Austin American-Statesman, which alerted us to this situation, the campaign has no intention of the removing the hidden text:

Hutchison’s campaign spokesman, Jeff ] Sadosky and other campaign aides said this afternoon that only the two phrases using “rick perry gay” will be removed because they won’t play into the campaign’s future messages.

[Note: At 2:22pm Eastern, it appears all of the hidden text is now gone.]

The explanation is that software is creating the lists of phrases based on search volume and is intended to help direct online advertising efforts. If that’s indeed the case, wouldn’t the list be more easily managed as an offline report than as text hidden inside source code of a web page? Just saying. [Can you tell I'm not buying it?]

Which brings us to the next lesson in the SEO crash course.

Understanding keyword research

Sure, there are sophisticated and expensive keyword research tools that provides lots of awesome information, but I’m venturing a guess that you’re more in the beginner stage, so you’ll do just fine with the free stuff. And as a bonus, the free tools give you files you can open in Excel rather than store the data in the source code of your site! The campaign said the software helped them figure out what else those who were searching for “Rick Perry,” “Kay Bailey Hutchison” and “Texas” were looking for, so let’s do the same, shall we?

Google AdWords Keyword Tool - this is the old standby, and it’s pretty solid and useful since it’s based on Google searches. And hey, it even lets your sort by search volume!

Tip: “Texas” might be overly broad as you’ll likely get a lot of untargeted traffic. You might want to stick with more relevant keywords, such as “texas politics” or “texas governor race”. A more targeted set of keywords can give you lots of other valuable information, like that opposing candidate has more searcher interest:

Google Insights For Search -This cool tools lets you compare search terms and zero in on specific regions (such as just Texas) and specific time frames (such as the last 90 days).

Wordtracker Keyword Questions – this new tools uses ISP data to generate a list of questions people are searching for related to keywords. Using this tool, we find that perhaps Texans for Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Allan Shivers, Jr., Treasurer has been doing a few searches of their own.

Here’s another tip! You can use these keywords in the actual copy of the website. It can help you not only be more visible in search engines, but also have deeper engagement with your consituents! How awesome is that. If you want to know what people are searching for, why only use that for ad targeting, when you can use it to understand and reach your audience more generally? For instance, people are apparently asking the question “why is Kay Bailey Hutchison running against Rick Perry for governor of Texas?” Add a page to the site with frequently asked questions, add that one, and answer it.

Understanding basic SEO

Texans for Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Allan Shivers, Jr., Treasurer, there’s another problem with your SEO. Not only does the site have elements that will get it banned, the site doesn’t have thebasic stuff that can help you be found. Let’s run down just a few of them.

Extractable text- None of the visible text on the page is viewable by search engines! (Kinda funny, huh. None of the visible text is viewable, but all the hidden text is.)  It’s all hidden in JavaScript. With images and JavaScript turned off, the page looks like this:

I should clarify, it’s not that none of the text is visible. “Political ad Paid for by Texans for Kay Bailey Hutchison, Allan Shivers, Jr., Treasurer” shows up just fine. So anyone looking for political ads paid for by (etc.), just might find the site. Well, if it wasn’t banned by Google for hidden text, of course.

Meta tags – The keywords, robot, and revisit-after tag are completely ignored in this context. So I hope you didn’t pay very much for someone to include them. The description tag is fairly important as it’s your one and only chance to provide a compelling marketing message in the search results to motivate a searcher to click over to the site. Was “Kay Bailey Hutchison – Running for Texas Governor” the most inspiring message you could come up with? Video – Don’t autoplay video when the page loads. That’s not really an SEO thing. Just an annoying-the-hell-out-of-me thing. More to the point, add at least a caption above or below the video. Add some descriptive text. Something that lets the search engines know what it is.

Canonicalization - it sounds like an advanced SEO tactic, but it’s actually a foundational element that even the most novice SEO should know. www.standbykay.com and standbykay.com both resolve to the site. One should 301 redirect to the other.

Duplicate content – Texans for Kay Bailey Hutchison, Allan Shivers, Jr., Treasurer also runs another site, texans.forkay.com. (Why the subdomain? No idea.) They also own texansforkay.com, which has a JavaScript redirect to texans.forkay.com. First lesson in redirects: always go with a 301 redirect.

The bigger issue is why two sites that have exactly the same purpose? So far, standbykay.com doesn’t have much content (and only one page), but the bulk of it is that dang autoplaying video, which is the same video featured prominently on the texans.forkay.com home page.

That leads me to think that any expansion of standforkay.com might use other content from texans.forkay.com. That’s another way to ensure the new site won’t rank in search engines, as they don’t want to list the same content multiple times. Any good SEO firm should ask why you need another site and work closely with you to define differentiation — a different purpose, audience, and goals.

But wait? What’s this? kayfortexas.com? That appears to be an exact duplicate of texans.forkay.com. Studying up on that 301 redirect is probably a really good idea.

I hope Texans for Kay Bailey Hutchison, Allan Shivers, Jr., Treasurer enjoyed this crash course in SEO. If you found it helpful and are want a second lesson, might I suggest Google’s informative Requesting reconsideration of your site.

As the web evolves, marketers must find creative solutions to engage customers with their websites and brands. Today, customers are no longer satisfied with consumption; they increasingly expect to be involved in the production of what they buy (or watch), turning them into “prosumers.” As Tapscott and Williams described in their enlightening book, Wikinomics: how mass collaboration changes everything, we have entered the era of prosumption. So how can marketers best take advantage of the voice of the customers, often referred to as user-generated content (UGC)?

UGC is not a passing fad, nor is it only for kids. Take a look at these stats from eMarketer:

What follows are some examples on how UGC can be used to improve both organic search results and conversion rates of a website (see other examples in this previous conversion-driven SEO post).

The benefits of user generated content

UGC can benefit a company in several ways. It enriches websites with precious (and free) content that feeds search crawlers. It is a source of information for newcomers, a place where they can understand products and read about how real people (not marketers!) are taking advantage of them. UGC is a forum for marketers to get feedback and ideas from customers and answer their questions. And finally, UGC is a mechanism that helps create a sense of community, a place where customers feel like stakeholders, a piece of website where they rule.

Amazon pioneered UGC, one of the earliest sites to introduce ratings, reviews, lists, customer images, tags, discussion forums, author blogs, and the list goes on and on. A very interesting UGC effort that Amazon recently launched lately is the Vine program. Since reviewers have been “donating” their time for years (and it looks like it helps selling products), which offers an additional incentive to write reviews for “trusted” users. Vine reviewers receive a monthly newsletter with merchandise to be launched in the next few weeks. Participants can choose a few items and get them for free! The Vine project shows how much Amazon values UGC.

UGC Challenges

Whenever a website launches with UGC areas, it runs the risk of being attacked by competitors or unscrupulous people. It also loses the power to control every single word published on the site. The best approach to handling this challenge is to provide robust usage guidelines to contributors, and to actively moderate UGC. An excellent example of UGC guidelines is offered by the BBC, which provides very comprehensive UGC guidelines for all their web properties.

Measuring the impact of UGC

You can apply similar metrics to UGC that you might use when evaluating your SEO efforts. There are four main areas in which to focus.

• Content quantity. How many pieces of content have users contributed? Are there many people contributing to the website? Or does the UGC area of your site look like an abandoned castle?
• Content linkability. Is UGC helping me to interlink my content? Good examples are tags, which help linking similar content and provide an excellent way for customers and crawlers to navigate the website.
• Content strength. Are visitors using the keywords I am targeting? If so, where? How can I promote these areas?
• Brand awareness or conversation with marketplace. What are visitors saying about your products or site? Are they happy? If not, why? This can become very clear when analyzing product ratings and reviews or website feedback.

You can analyze all the metrics proposed above by using a very interesting and powerful text analysis tool: Leximancer. It also provides some very neat graphs!

Leximancer makes it possible to analyze how often specific keywords are mentioned in any text. In addition, it is possible to find the linkability between keywords used in the text. Using this type of information it is possible to analyze, for example, if specific brands/products are linked to positive or negative terms. It is also possible to analyze the relationship between content and how visitors think.

In the screenshot below (see interactive version here) we can see the interface and the kind of info Leximancer provides. The example analyzes all US presidents’ inauguration speeches into meaningful “themes” (circles), “concepts” (colors) and their associated relationships.

As an example of how Leximancer can provide meaningful metrics on UGC, I analyzed analytics guru Avinash Kaushik’s blog, Occam’s Razor. We looked at all the comments on his blog (without scanning personally identifiable data apart from Avinash’s own posts). The first number I saw was astonishing: Avinash had written 187K out 398K words on the blog, less than 50%!

We analyzed the blog comments using Leximancer’s conceptual map and drew several interesting conclusions. In comments, visitors are using very positive terms like “great post” or “interesting read.” Meaning that Avinash is doing a good job engaging his community. We can also see industry terms such as “conversion rate,” “vendor experience” and “understand site.” This means that users are enriching the pages with targeted content.

In the short analysis above we saw how to measure all four metrics for UGC effectiveness proposed here: Content quantity, content linkability, content strength, and brand awareness.

However, one aspect not discussed above is how to use text mining to moderate your UGC. In conceptual maps, I have seen more than once (though not on Avinash’s blog), themes that relate to adult content. The tool helped me find, in a site with several million pages, where I was being attacked by abusers. This method is very helpful to keep an overall and drill-down view of the UGC being published on a website when you have minimal resources for moderation.

Concluding, leveraging user generated content is an advanced technique to improve a website conversion rate and, in parallel, its SEO efforts. And as we can see below, the UGC market is rapidly increasing both in number of users and in revenue to websites making use of it.

Full slides for this presentation below:

Note: This article was based on a presentation given recently at the Emetrics Summit. Full slides for this presentation are available here: UGC – Measuring The Voice Of The Customer

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