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Welcome to the ineedhits Search Engine Marketing blog, where we share the latest search engine and online marketing news, releases, industry trends and great DIY tips and advice.

We encourage you to get involved in our blog community - so share your opinions and experiences by leaving comments on our posts.

If you're looking for help with promoting your website - check out our range of affordable search engine marketing services.

Tuesday, May 13

Google Presentation: "What Google Knows About Spam"

Popular Google employee Matt Cutts has posted his presentation from the recent Web 2.0 expo on what Google knows about spam. The presentation was a keynote speech at the conference and gives webmasters some great tips on how to avoid spam penalties for their sites.

One of the key points Matt makes during the presentation is that search engine optimization is definitely not spam:

"Search engine optimization, the practice of trying to get your sites web site
to rank higher in search engines, is not spam. Google does not hate SEO."

He refers to spam (or webspam) as someone trying to cheat, take shortcuts or break the rules, so that their website shows up higher than it deserves to show up. Some of the common examples he shows are sites using keyword stuffing, repetition and hidden text to try and artificially boost their rankings.

Matt then comments that if you can frustrate spammers (cost them time or effort) they are less likely to spam your website. Finally Matt encourages all webmasters to sign up for Google Webmaster Tools which can help provide notifications to website owners if Google finds any problem with their site.

Labels: Google

Why Google Would Love to Expand with Yahoo!

You may recall the recent partnership between Google and Yahoo!, which saw Yahoo! serving Google paid search ads alongside its own for a period of 2 weeks. The two week trial has now been called a "brilliant test" by Google, who would happily expand the advertising partnership in an effort to prevent Microsoft from renewing their bid.

By making sure Yahoo! does well, Google are effectively preventing the company from falling into the hands of Microsoft, who is eager to join with Yahoo! to seriously compete with Google.

"We were a big partner of Yahoo a few years ago," co-founder Sergey Brin said. "It's great to be working with them again." Google CEO Eric Schmidt also remarked, "We have had a brilliant test which was two weeks long."

All these comments are a strong indication from Google that they would love to further expand the advertising deal and contribute to Yahoo!'s success.

Aside from assisting Yahoo!'s success, the deal also worked out well for Google in another way, with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer commenting that the Google test was one of his reasons for terminating negotiations with Yahoo!:

"In our view, such an arrangement with the dominant search provider would make an acquisition of Yahoo! undesirable to us."

All this means for Google, is that by perusing a long term deal with Yahoo! - they would go a long way towards blocking any further negotiations between Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Labels: Google, Yahoo

Tuesday, May 6

Major Google PageRank Update!

Over the past few days, many webmasters and business owners have reported seeing an update in the PageRank of their websites; as displayed in the Google toolbar. I can also confirm an update has taken place with some of our newer pages registering a PageRank for the first time.

This PageRank update has created a huge stir amongst the search marketing industry, with many reporting that it's the largest PR update we've had for some time. There are a whole bunch of threads going on right now as well as conversion on Twitter about how the update has impacted various websites.

According to reports so far, the update doesn't appear to have impacted rankings too much, just the PageRank value shown in the toolbar. It's important to remember that while this value can give a good indication of your sites progress, the values from toolbar PageRank can be around a month or so old. Google uses real time PageRank values when calculating search results which it releases to the public a month or so later.

Many webmasters, who have had their sites penalized to a PR 0 in previous updates, are reporting small gains of 1-2 points with this latest update. If you've recently launched a new website it also might be a good idea to see how you fared. One of our new sites launched in early March got a PageRank for the first time, so the update must have pulled data from after this point.

As always share your PageRank changes via our blog comments!

Labels: Google

Monday, April 14

Google Spider Searches for "Invisible Web"

On Friday, the Google webmaster central blog announced that the Google search spider will now attempt to fill out web forms to uncover new links and content. Google claims that the technology will help to uncover the "invisible web" that's been hiding from search engines for many years.

The invisible web is a collection of webpage's that have traditionally been hard or impossible for search engines to index. This can be for several reasons including pages that aren't linked from other pages, sites that require a registration/login and content that is generated dynamically. Because these pages are either unlinked, or require some sort of form action to access, spiders such as the Googlebot have been unable to retrieve them.

Now, Google has introduced a new way to find these pages by completing web forms on high quality websites. From the Google blog post:

In the past few months we have been exploring some HTML forms to try to discover new web pages and URLs that we otherwise couldn't find and index for users who search on Google. Specifically, when we encounter a <form> element on a high-quality site, we might choose to do a small number of queries using the form.... If we ascertain that the web page resulting from our query is valid, interesting, and includes content not in our index, we may include it in our index much as we would include any other web page.

Google claims the technology should help to increase exposure for sites that use <form> elements on their webpages. Popular Google personality Matt Cutts, has also given a great rundown of how this technology can improve web coverage for businesses with many country specific websites.

If you've experienced some unusual crawl patterns on your site, let us know if you've got any new pages indexed. If not, G-Boost is a great way to get these tricky pages indexed by Google in only 7 days and comes with a full money-back guarantee.

Labels: Google

Tuesday, February 19

Poor More Likely to use Yahoo!, Rich use Google

Hitwise have released some data comparing various socio-economic factors from users of Google and Yahoo!. The research shows a younger, less affluent group of searchers use Yahoo!, while the richer, older audience prefers Google.

The graph demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of the two search engines with the Y axis representing Yahoo! and the X axis representing Google. The top left hand box represents unique strengths for Yahoo! search, and vice-versa. The bigger the bubble, the more likely this group has spent $500 online.

As you can see, Google's relative strengths (bottom right) indicate that those from "affluent suburbia" are most likely to be using Google, and there is a good chance they have spent over $500 online. This is in stark contrast to Yahoo!'s strengths of "struggling societies" and "blue collar backbone".

While this data isn't exclusive, it does give an interesting insight into the user base of both search engines. Small business owners should consider this type of demographic research when choosing which platforms to run their paid search campaigns. For example, advertisers targeting a younger audience may want to reconsider their choice of search engine and give Yahoo! a try.

Labels: Google, Yahoo

Monday, February 18

Video Ads Now in Google Search Results

Google has announced that advertising on the Google results page may now contain video. Google claims the addition of video advertisements reflect the evolution of the once sparse Google results page.

Google already integrate video into regular search results as part of 'universal search', but have not done so in advertising on the site. Marissa Mayer, Googleâ€™s vice president of search products and user experience, said that text only ads werenâ€™t as effective on pages with video and images as our eyes automatically navigate towards the image.

Google claims the ads should not be intrusive at first and will simply use a 'plus box' to signify a video is available. Google already use the 'plus sign' in regular search results to indicate a map or image is attached to a specific listing.

Advertisers will not pay any extra to put video in the ads for now, with the bidding to work like a regular text ad. However advertisers must pay each time the video is watched, regardless of whether the user clicks through to their site.

The use of Video in ads gives business owners some branding power they never had before. Traditionally it's been hard to run a pure branding campaign using AdWords, as it's very focused on click-through and sales. Now, with the release of video ads, advertisers can pay to have their brand exposed to millions of users through video, without any necessary focus on the conversion rate to sales.

Labels: Google

Monday, January 7

Google Boosts the Ranking of New Webpages - Users Take Advantage

Google recently celebrated the New Year and 25 years of TCP/IP internet with a new logo which linked to the search query "January 1 TCP/IP". This unintentionally exposed a feature of the search algorithm which artificially boosts the ranking of new web pages.

The changes were first reported on the "Google Operating System" blog, which claims the artificially high rankings are a result of Google's ability to rapidly index new web pages. The post explains that new pages can't rank because they obviously have no backlinks etc, so Google artificially inflates the rankings of the recently-created pages based on historical data and the small amount of information collected.

Ryan Durk recently exploited this feature by creating a blog which was highly optimized for the query "January 1 TCP/IP". As featured on Aaron Wall's blog, Ryan first registered the blog january-1-tcp-ip.blogspot.com and optimized the title to "January 1 TCP/IP". He then created some keyword targeted content and monetized the blog with Google Adsense.

After social bookmarking and promoting the website on Digg.com, Ryan grabbed the top spots for "January 1 TCP/IP" on Google.com:

"My site grabbed rankings at 1, 2, 3 and 4 within 2 hours and maintained spots 1, 3 and 4 until sometime Wednesday. As of right now, it has received over 2000 Diggs and 300,000 page impressions"

Because this search query was linked straight from Google's homepage, Ryan received a huge amount of traffic for an otherwise obscure search term.

The Results? The site received over 300,000 unique hits of traffic converting at below half of a percent. That's roughly 1500 conversions. Not bad for a couple of hours work I'd say.

Labels: Google

Friday, September 21

Google Gets More Social - New Google "Shared Stuff"

Google have just released another tool to make it easier for users to collaborate and share online. In a quiet (by their standards) launch, they've added Google Share Stuff to their social arsenal.

Google Share Stuff (not the most exciting of names) allows users to easily share content they uncover online via a simple bookmarklet that can be stored in a browsers' links toolbar.

By clicking on the bookmarklet, users have the choice of sharing the content by:

email
listing on their "shared stuff" Google page
posting it to various social networks (facebook, digg, del.icio.us et al.)

The bookmarklet concept is nothing new, as social bookmarking has been prevalent for years and there are many "more comprehensive" multi-bookmark tools available. The "shared stuff" page is where it gets a little more interesting.

Google users now have a page where they can store all the websites, articles and other content (similar to Google Notepad), with the aim focused on sharing. The items shared on these pages can then be added to iGoogle (Google's homepage service) and subscribed to via RSS.

It'll be interesting to see how Google leverages the content saved in Google Shared Stuff, as it's yet another way for them to let users help classify and place relevance on net content. Will it have an impact on the rankings in their SERPs? time will tell - seems like some R&D is in order...stay tuned.

Labels: Google

Tuesday, July 10

Yahoo! and eBay present the 'eBay Toolbar'

Fans of eBay and Yahoo! will be delighted with the release of a new eBay Toolbar, featuring Yahoo!
Offering 'essential' features such as the Account Guard and My eBay, the toolbar also enables users search functionality to find items in eBay.com, eBay Express, eBay Motors, Half.com and more. The most popular Yahoo! features such as Yahoo! Mail, Search Web and My Yahoo! round out the offerings of the toolbar. Devoted eBay users will find this free tool an exciting way to keep and eye on the latest buying and selling activities on their favourite items, while offering powerful web search capabilities!

It will be interesting to see whether the eBay Toolbar is simply a natural development in the relationship between eBay and Yahoo!, or whether eBay are deliberately slighting Google, after their recent 'quarrels'. eBay advertising on Google is worth as much as 25 million dollars per quarter - money that Yahoo! would be eager to receive, should eBay ever choose to send Google a 'stronger' message!

Labels: ebay, Free Tools, Google, Yahoo

Tuesday, June 19

Google Vs. eBay - It's War!

Internet auction site eBay has decided to pull all their US search ads from Google, a shocking move by one of the company's largest AdWords clients. The move is a response to Google's planned disruption of 'eBay Live' an annual event for eBay sellers.

The partnership between Google and eBay has been on the rocks since the launch of Google Checkout, an online payment system that directly competes with eBay's PayPal. Tensions reached boiling point early last week when Google planned a "Let Freedom Ring" party on the same day as eBay Live, the premier annual event for eBay sellers. Reporters are calling the Google party a 'guerilla marketing tactic' aimed at building support to encourage eBay to make Google Checkout available.

However, the unusual move by Google backfired when eBay decided to pull all their search ads from Google's US search engine. eBay is one of Google's largest AdWords clients bidding on thousands of words such as 'ipod', 'shoes' 'dvd' and more. The timing of the move has left many wondering if this is the end for the Google eBay partnership, but eBay spokesperson Catherine England says this is simply not the case,

"The reality is, this is something we do all the time. We always experiment with our marketing mix on eBay. We turned off our advertising through AdWords to see how it affects that."

Google apologized by canceling the event last Wednesday, from the Google checkout blog:

"After speaking with officials at eBay, we at Google agreed that it was better for us not to feature this event during the eBay Live conference."

While Google's aggressive marketing may have ruffled a few feathers at eBay, I expect the auction giant to resume ads on Google shortly. After all, it's a mutually beneficial relationship for both companies. Google gets the money while eBay gets a lot of traffic.

Labels: ebay, Google, Google AdSense

Monday, June 11

Google Takes Up Anti-Trust Battle over Microsoft Vista

Is this a case of Anti-trust deja vu? Search giant Google is taking Microsoft to case over its new Windows Vista operating system, claiming the operating system unfairly inhibits users from using alternative applications.

Cast your minds back to the late 90's and you will recall a similar case involving Microsoft, and then browser competitor Netscape. Claims were raised that the pre-installed Internet Explorer browser disadvantaged other internet browser manufacturers. Back then, the courts found in favor of Netscape, which was then owned by AOL, but the damage was done, and Internet Explorer went on to become the leading browser, leaving Netscape in the shadows.

Google are threatening to take on Microsoft again in the Anti-trust arena. Google are alleging that Windows Vista places other desktop search applications at a disadvantage, as Vista comes with its own desktop search function, and changing the Microsoft default is difficult to action.

This isn't the first time Google has threatened to take on Microsoft over unfair competition. When Microsoft launched IE7 with MSN Search preinstalled, Google waved the anti-trust flag. But this ongoing anti-trust sledging match is starting to wear thin.

Let's face it - when you're one of the most successful tech companies in recent history, and you have a serious grip on the search advertising market, the likelihood of the DOJ (department of justice) finding in favor of the claims is unlikely. The legal system is more likely to view the claims as a school yard tantrum.

It's reached the point where Google needs to consider setting up its own operating system, or partner with another company to gain default rights on their platform. Their recent deal with Dell, which sees Google Software pre-installed, is more likely to successfully combat any disadvantages that Microsoft Vista might present.

With all the recent rumors about Google and Apple partnerships, a Google based operating system might not be far off...

Labels: Google

Updated: Google Webmaster Guidelines - More Details on Quality

Google have just updated their webmaster guidelines to provide even more information for website owners looking to follow Google best practices. Google inclusion is a vital source of exposure and traffic for many websites, so understanding and adhering to the Google Webmaster Guidelines is critical for all website owners - especially those just starting out.

Matt Cutts announced the overhaul to the webmaster guidelines, or more specifically the quality guidelines, at Danny Sullivan's recent SMX conference in Seattle. Google had obviously been working on updating the guidelines for some time, but considering the spate of questions Matt received in the previous days Q&A session, the release of the update was perfect timing.

While I recommend everyone head over to Google Webmaster Help Center and have a read of the complete guidelines (worth a re-read if it's been a while), I have provided some quick reference links below to the quality guidelines and the expanded information that Google has just added.

Quality guidelines - specific guidelines

Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
Don't use cloaking or sneaky redirects.
Don't send automated queries to Google.
Don't load pages with irrelevant keywords.
Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
Don't create pages that install viruses, trojans, or other badware.
Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

If a site doesn't meet our quality guidelines, it may be blocked from the index. If you determine that your site doesn't meet these guidelines, you can modify your site so that it does and then submit your site for reinclusion.

IMPORTANT NOTE: While Google suggests that once you've remedied any guideline wrong doings, you can submit your site for reinclusion, the time to get re-listed in their index can take as long as it did to get included in the first place (2-3 months for some sites). So it's a simple lesson - avoid the penalty in the first place.

Labels: Google

Tuesday, June 5

Privacy Concerns - Have Google Caught You On Camera?

We have all been wowed by the new Street View functionality in Google Maps - I was thinking of the great benefits this could have for local businesses - potential customers can now visit your storefront before they ever see you in person! Others, however, are increasingly concerned about the privacy issues this new service raises.

For those who aren't yet aware of the service, Google Street View offers 360 degree panoramic images of various streets around several major U.S. capitals, and Google hopes this will expand to include other cities, and even countries.

Privacy issues have been raised as, unlike Google Earth, Google Street View enables you to make out individuals, sitting in parks, on their verandahs, going into shops and so on. Does anyone have the right to photograph us and post our picture on the net - Google say 'yes', as all the images were taken in "public areas".

Lars Rasmussen, the Google Developer responsible for Street View states

"...these are all images that anyone could go out and take with a camera. We do take great care that if someone did feel their privacy was invaded, there is a way that they can easily tell us about it and we'll remove it right away. But all the pictures are taken in public areas where anyone could go [and] take a picture."

The hunt is now on for the funny, weird and wonderful pictures of people caught in the wrong place or time, in an awkward moment or doing things they just shouldn't! Dare I say that this could be attributing to the concerns, as we all start to wonder whether we could be caught on camera in a compromising position!

Labels: Google

Yahoo! Admits Search Defeat to Google?

Yahoo!, one of the biggest names in online search has said that personalization is now more important than search, in what some are saying is an admission of defeat to Google.

The comments came from said Tapan Bhat, vice president of Yahoo!'s personalized home page at the Next Web conference in Amsterdam.

"The future of the web is about personalization. Where search was dominant, now the web is about 'me.' It's about weaving the web together in a way that is smart and personalized for the user"

Although Yahoo! has talked about developing a more personalized web before, the statement is the first public admission from the company. The remarks were seen by many as an admission that Yahoo! can no longer compete with Google in search and instead have decided to shift their focus.

Deborah Schultz, a Silicon Valley-based marketing consultant gave one of the conference keynote speeches and had this to say about the comments.

"They're basically admitting defeat." "They've realized they can't compete with Google on search."

When asked to clarify his statement to the Times Online , Bhat said, "We're not admitting defeat. Search still matters, but we need to be providing a wrapper around search to turn the info search offers up into something more useful."

So what does this mean for us? While the ultimate goal of personalization is to deliver more relevant results to each user, I can't see it replacing search all together. I think the two combined can form a healthy mix to assist everyone find relevant information online. What do you think? Let us know via our blog comments!

Labels: Google, Yahoo