Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Service

Google has a new robot.txt Tool.

Google released a new tool that will automatically create robot.txt file. The tool can be found at Google Webmaster Central.

Robot.txt is a file that allows or disallows search engine spiders to certain parts of the website. It also blocks indexing website with a command:

User-Agent: *

Disallow: /

There is no need for robot.txt file if you want your website indexed, however, if there are some pages that you require excluding, Google generator might help. The commands are very easy to grasp, but some webmasters are apparently terrified of the process so it helps.

You can read full review on search engine land.

Some Interesting Facts About SEOs

SEO Moz recently released a report that surveyed 3000 search engine marketers. Here are some fun facts:

Most SEOs are self taught individuals.

It seems that most SEOs do not make much and have a modest income. It is also wise to say that those who really rip it are the minority who probably would not have time for the survey.

Half of SEOs seem to be using nofollow to sculpt pagerank, while other half ignores it. This is either an indicator that one half is very careful and organic or just lacks knowledge.

You can see the full survey over here at SEO Moz.

Be careful if you have Adwords

To all webmasters who have Google Adwords account(PPC). Rusty of Search Engine Roundtable reported phishing attacks coming through email to the Adword users:

Phishing is a form identity theft, whereby hackers pose as official companies and ask to confirm private and financial information, taking you to a fake page that looks like the official website. Once you enter or “confirm” information, it is send to the hackers server.

Phishers may ask for:

• Credit Cards
• Social Security
• Account Password
• Address, Full Name, Bank Account

Anything that the real company will ask you during the registration is usually requested by phishers during the fraud. The recent Google email looks like this:

“Dear Google AdWords Customer!

In order to update your billing information, please sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com, and update your billing information. Your account will be reactivated as soon as you have entered your payment details. Your ads will show immediately if you decide to pay for clicks via credit or debit card. If you decide to pay by direct debit, we may need to receive your signed debit authorization before your ads start running, depending on your location. If you choose bank transfer, your ads will show as soon as we receive your first payment. (Payment options vary by location.) Thank you for choosing AdWords. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team

————————

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message. If you have any questions after following the steps above, please visit the Google AdWords Help Center at https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=8336&hl=en_US to find answers to frequently asked questions and a ‘contact us’ link near the bottom of the page. ”

Beware

I Have visited this link in order to test the fake page. This is the warning that FireFox gave me, even though the page is dead:

I did the same with Internet Explorer, but never got any type of warning.

If you are using Internet Explorer be very careful, as it is not as good as the Firefox. You can get Firefox here.

Search engine industry is changing with more emphasis on local search and social media. Google showed the world the power of a good idea and honed it’s algorithms, now venture capitalists want a bite.

In 2007 Google Unveiled what is now known as Universal Search. It is the blend of different verticals into search results such as images, local, news and video.

Searches that specify local points(Toronto, Ottawa)now return results from Google Maps. Danny at Search engine land did a review of universal search on Google. Yahoo also took a step, but not as aggressively as Google.

Video Ads

Another step are video advertisements served as pay per click results. Google notified the industry they’re working towards developing a video adverting platform. The first break was in the summer of 2007 when Google tested with displaying video advertisement on top of it’s search results.

The more recent occurrence is by Yahoo. it displayed a video advertisement sponsored by Honda for keywords: “shop honda”. Read in depth here.

Video ads are still in their infancy, but search engine industry is moving towards monetizing the practice.

Microsoft vs Google

The biggest names steering search engine industry are Google and Microsoft. Though Gates does not have much search share, Microsoft is aggressively moving towards getting more. The biggest proof is the bid on Yahoo for 45 Billion.

MS also swallowed Aqantive, which serves graphical ads for total of $6 billion, while Google purchased DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. Microsoft also made purchases that relate to pay per click , search and analytics:

• Fast Search & Transfer, Oslo, Norway. - January 8, 2008. $1.3 billion - Enterprise Search Company [4]
• Rapt analytics tools

So far Microsoft focused on buying valuable advertising assets and technology leads, but it failed on the most important factor - algorithms. Google outpaces all players in search engine industry with some of the most sophisticated algorithms and ultra emphasis on user experience, while MS simply wants a big chunk of the pie and is willing to pay for it. not a Good strategy. We must also consider the bad name on Microsoft, as many look down on anything that comes out from the company.

Other Search Engines

Ask.com has around 4% share and continues to hold it. Dogpile, MetaCrawler and Lycos seem to exist by sharing 1% of search engine industry market, with Dogpile and Metacrawler feeding Wordtracker database - a key word research tool that search engine optimization industry relies on.

Other notable contender is Wikipedia, who launched socially maintained search - Wikia Search. So far the index is very dirty and does bad job on serving search results.

EU recently gave US$152 to develop a ultra search engine that will index video, audio, images and text.

Other smaller names such as Cha-Cha and Mahalo.com are human powered, using real people to conduct searches and edit the index. Though the idea seems bright, it hasn’t found much appeal, as people respect the efficiency of advanced algorithms.

The search engine industry is headed for tough battle with 3 Major players: Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. The question is whether there will be 3 or 2 as MS bids on Yahoo.

The biggest changes are:

Local Search and a new aggressive player - Microsoft.

SEO Expert is a professional search engine optimization and marketing firm offering full suite services including SEO website design. Please explore our website if you would like to find out more.

Website Design Services Include:

[following SEO web design practices only outline general guidelines]

• Clean Search Friendly Coding

  From the ground up, we ensure that website follows World Wide Web Consortium design guidelines. We code in strict HTML code and CSS layout making it easier for search engines to scan through the website and extract vital information for search rankings.

• Search Friendly information Structure

  Advances search engines such as Google place weight on informational structure design of the website(links, navigation, site maps). Clean, relevant, keyword rich structure can drastically affect search rankings. We ensure that your website is build from its fundament to satisfy search engine requirements, increasing chances of hitting top spots.

• Content Creation

  As we design your website, we ensure that the written content contains all of your main and secondary keywords in elements such as: h-tags, metadata, page titles, navigation, link anchors, written text.

• Link Popularity Building

  Building a website from the ground up is a challenging search engine optimization and web design task, as new website is unfamiliar to search engines, hence it lacks a required “trust element” to be featured among top results. We gradually build up links pointing to your website increasing the “trust element” and ensuring that your website will maintain top position, regardless of competition or big search engine changes.

As a professional search engine marketing and search engine optimization web design company we ensure that your newly build website ranks high for targeted keywords. Be it new or old domain. We will also assist in picking a right domain name if you haven’t done so, as domain age and domain keywords play a role in search ranking algorithms(i.e. “optimization.ca”)

SEO Expert Company

SEO Expert is a Canadian SEO web design company servicing Ontario, Quebec and other Canadian Provinces. Our websites rank amongst top results for some of the most competitive keywords. You can find out yourself here: www.searchengineoptimizationcompany.ca

Please Get in Touch With Us

Good Luck from SEO Expert.

MIcrosoft announced it will purchase Rapt Inc. - a provider of online advertising serving Wallstreet, NY types and other big names.

This only indicates how serious Microsoft is about making it in the search game, as it’s MSN/Live search engine failed to deliver the plan.

Microsoft was also in talks with Yahoo for the first time. It is reported Microsoft discussed it’s vision of the purchase, while SE Land comments: Yahoo did not have much to say.

Many state that the takeover is inevitable.

European commission gave $152 million to joint partnership of companies including France Telecom and Thomson to develop an advanced multimedia search engine. The search engine will index images, video, sound and traditional internet, providing robust search to individuals and professionals.

This shows the real juice of search and money to be in text ads, as Euro burocrats want to cash in on the pig pie that Google dominates. Though investment is hefty, they have a long run ahead. Giants such as Microsoft are struggling with their engine, so the European search project will need a lot of time, innovation and tweaking in order to a get slice.

It is said that approximately 1% of search market is equivalent to 1 billion dough - who wouldn’t want a piece?

There’s also new cold war on the horizon for the video search and better image spidering, as current image search relies on text and good old links. The ones who can crack video spidering will see billions in rewards and it seems some cigar smoking Euro commissioner wants some special interest on it.

Nevertheless, competition is always good as it keeps all sides nervous. What happens when there’s no competition? Microsoft. So bless the Euro Commission.

Search Engine Optimization Information

Looking for some search engine marketing information, techniques and tips? Stop right there. We’ve got what you need.

Here we list some of the SEO information presented by the brightest minds in search engine optimization. Let’s shoot:

The Anatomy of a Search Engine - You’re after Google right? Start with from the ground up.

General SEO

• Beginners Guide

  If you’re not sure where to begin it’s a wonderful place to start.

• Beginners Guide Continued
• Beginners Guide part 1 continued
• SEO Ranking Factors

  Search engine optimization professionals got together and shared their fruits of power with the common man!

• Sculpting Your PageRank For Maximum SEO Impact

  How to use nofollow tag? It was invented for the purposes of keeping away blog spam but SEO professionals found a difference use for it.

• Successful SEO site in 12 months

  Webmaster World discussion. Member shares his SEO secrets.

Links

• Link Value Factors

  A must read.

• Link analysis done right

  How to look at competition and link partners during link building campaign

• 131 Link Building Strategies

  Some link building strategies from SEO professionals. A bit outdated, so beware.

• Advanced Link Building Strategies

  Link Building Strategies by SEO Moz

• How do you choose your URL file names?

  Webmaster World forum discussion on choosing link filenames and the right approach to it.

• Link Building Secrets Revealed by SEO Pros

  A PDF file detailing link building tactics

Keyword Research

• The Long Tail Theory

  SEO consulting agency reveals its keyword research tactics in a PDF format

• Some Keyword Research Tips

  An everyday SEO details and shares keyword research Strategies

Tools

• What Tools do SEOs Use?

  Ever had that question? Barry answers it.

• Keyword Research Tool List

  All the tools you’ ever need

• Google Adwords

  KeyWord research from Google

• SEO Book Tool

  Keyword research tool from SEO superstar Aaron Wall

• Yahoo Search Marketing

  Keyword research from Yahoo. Keep following instruction un till you get to the tool.

• A round up of Link Building Tool

  Link building tools from SEO pros. They won’t get automatic link, but assist in link building process

Good Luck.

Rel nofollow link anchor tag was invented by Google to fight blog spam. Whenever applied, Google bot discards the link, page rank is not passed and the link itself is not saved.

Pagerank is the primary formula used by Google to access quality of the page. It works as this. Flowers.com homepage has a pagerank of 6 and 12 links on it. Links on that page will share the pagerank and get an equal chunk of it. In our case, the pagerank that will be passed to each link is 0.5(12/6).

The use of nofollow in Sculpting Pagerank(as coined by Matt Cutts) is useful on passing internal pagerank.

Most of the time, all of the internal links will point to the homepage, giving your homepage highest pagerank. Since the formula is uniform, it applies to internal link structure as well. If your homepage links to non-important pages, such as “Privacy Policy” “About us” or other pages that you do not want to rank on search engines, link juice is being wasted on those pages(remember, it is divided equally). It is best to apply no-follow on those pages.

This way you will be passing more link juice to other, more important pages, as Google will discard the links with rel nofollow attribute. The end result is more pagerank on more importnant pages and higher search rankings.

This can applied throughout the entire site on internal pages.

Having optimized your website - don’t stop at it. Add new content. Look at it like an ongoing process. If you hired an SEO Expert for the actual optimization - you can add on top of it by writing your own articles and creating separate pages.

Who knows better about your business than you do? Who knows better about industry? Definitely not your SEO company. Though company writers try to stay on top of it, sometime an insightful article on something intriguing to your audience is better.

Do not look at it as a chore. Do it twice a week or once a week for 500 words. The point is to stay consistent. When Google bot comes, it has a question - is there anything new over here? If it sees new content, it’s an indicator that the site is active and that value is added on constant basis. Google’s mission is to drive relevant value to the visitor and the more you help it the more Google will give it’s love. Of course there’s many other factors, but content is one of the jewels in the crown.

Some Tips how to Write SEO Friendly

We already discussed how to find topics and what software to use for publishing, lets touch some of online copywriting.

People do not read once they land on your page. They - scan through the text. Here’s a good example:

You are reading a book: read - read - read - backup to re-read a difficult passage - read - read - lick thumb to turn page - read - read - read - and so on.

If you are reading a website: scan - read - click - scan - click - scan - read - read - click - scan - click - type - click - type - click

People engage on web. They are in a hurry. So breaking down your content in scanable blocks is essential to maintain the reader.

• Use short paragraphs
• Use Emphasis(bold, italics, colour)
• Headlines to Break Ideas
• Introductory Paragraphs
• Bullets to attract attention
• Link that engage

A well formatted page should be easy to scan through. If reader is interested he’ll stop and give you a shot, while untargeted traffic is unimportant.

You can get some good tips on writing online over here.