Author Archive for David Montalvo

24
Oct

Do Any of These Duplicate Content Scenarios Apply to Your Site?

By david 0 Comments
Categories: Search Engine Optimization

Search engines dislike duplicate content for a few reasons. One is that major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask aim to provide searchers with a diverse cross-section of unique content, and duplicate content often results in duplicate listings that impair the searcher’s experience. Another reason is that search engines don’t want to spend the resources (bandwidth) on indexing pages that are very similar.

In some instances, pages containing duplicate content are filtered at the time search engine results are sorted, so there is no guarantee as to which version of a page will appear in results and which won’t. Duplicate content may even hinder some sites and web pages from getting indexed by search engines, and there are some cases in which a search engine crawler will stop indexing all of the pages of a site because it finds too many copies of the same pages under different URLs.

While content duplication is sometimes used in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings to garner more website traffic, in most cases it occurs without ill intent on behalf of the site owner or webmaster. The following is a list of duplicate content scenarios that could be burdening your site.

Scenario #1: Ecommerce sites that include product descriptions from manufacturers, producers, and publishers

Product distribution websites often use text from the manufacturer or producer of the product as a description for the item on their own pages. With the addition of the product name, creator, manufacturer, writer, or recording artist appearing on the page, there is a considerable amount of duplicate content on pages that don’t originate from the same website. Here are some examples:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-VGN-TXN15P-B-Notebook-Processor/dp/B000J43MR0
http://www.crowdstorm.com/Sony_VAIO_11_1_Widescreen_Notebook_PC_VGN_TXN15P_B+
2973.html
http://www.clearanceclub.com/products/6495-VAIO-VGN-TXN15P-B
http://www.provantage.com/sony-vgntxn15p-b~7SONN0UX.htm

Scenario #2: Printer-friendly pages

Many sites offer “printer friendly” versions of their content on different pages. Without the application of robots.txt disallow statements or meta “noindex” tags on these pages to keep search engines from indexing them, they may be indexed as duplicate content. See these samples:

http://www.constructionbook.com/xq/ASP/productid.5395/qx/printable_view_produ
ct.htm
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details-print.asp?Ed
pNo=1556143&Sku=H24-PX849%20SB

Scenario #3: Websites that create session IDs

A session ID lets you create customized applications for a more personalized user experience, thus increasing the appeal of your website. A visitor to your site would be assigned a unique session ID which is either stored in a cookie on the user side or is propagated in the URL.

Websites with session IDs serve information in their URLs to track visitors as they go through the pages of that site. When search engine crawlers detect this tracking information they may index the same page several times under different URLs. A good example of this is www.staples.com.

Search engine guidelines advise you to allow bots or spiders to crawl your sites without session IDs that track their path through the site. While this technique is great for tracking individual user behavior, the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Since bots cannot always decipher URLs that look different but point to the same page, the use of session IDs may result in incomplete indexing of your site.

Scenario #4: URLs that include multiple data variables

When multiple data variables exist within a URL, this causes bots to crawl and index the same page under different URLs. Here are some examples of sites that show different data variables in their URLs.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=100
51&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100022126&categoryID=502813storeId=
10051

catalogId=10053
productId=100022126
categoryID=5028 http://www1.macys.com/catalog/index.ognc?CategoryID=30977&PageID=30977*1*24*-
1*-1&kw=Hugo%20Boss&LinkType=EverGreenCategoryID=30977

PageID=30977
LinkType=EverGreen

It is difficult for a search engine bot or spider to crawl the URLs listed above. If this scenario applies to your website, you may want to implement the mod-re-write server settings.

Scenario #5: Pages sharing similar elements

Some websites have elements that are very common from one page to another, such as title, meta descriptions, headings, navigation, and text that is shared sitewide. This can be a problem since bots might consider it to be duplicate content. Beware of this scenario if you own an ecommerce site that includes your brand name and information about that brand in every title on every page of your site. In addition, the use of content management systems that do not allow for distinct meta description tags to be placed on each page of a website can cause a similar dilemma.

Here are two well-known websites that use their brand names on every page:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com
http://www.officemax.com

These five scenarios represent situations in which search engine crawlers may perceive your website to have duplicate content. Although it is probably inadvertent on your part, you should take steps to resolve these issues to ensure that all of your web pages are properly indexed on the search engines.

15
Aug

Search Engine Secrets Revealed

By david 0 Comments
Categories: Search Engine Optimization

While often very complex in their calculations and data processing, the critical operations performed by the major search engines in order to rank websites isn’t as lengthy as one might think. The processes they use to provide relevant results when a web search is undergone can best be described in the following four steps.

  1. Send out the Web Crawlers
    Search engines use invisible “bots” or “spiders,” which are really programs or automated scripts, that browse (or “crawl”) the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. Search engines use spidering as a means of providing up-to-date data. This type of technology is necessary because the rate at which people create new Internet documents greatly exceeds any manual indexing capacity. In fact, an estimated 20 billion web pages exist, and search engines have crawled about half of them.
  2. Index the Pages
    After a spider crawls a web page, it makes a copy of it and adds it to its database. This process is known as indexing. With so many search queries submitted each minute, it is very important that search engines are steadfast in their index management so that they can search and sort billions of documents in fractions of a second.
  3. Process Queries
    Search engines process hundreds of millions of search queries every day. When someone keys in a search term and clicks “Search,” the engine retrieves from its index all of the documents that match the query. It determines a match by finding the same terms or phrase entered into the search bar. Entering a multi-word phrase by itself can return literally millions of results, but entering that same phrase in quotes can greatly narrow the results, giving the user a more accurate listing of websites that relate to their particular search.
  4. Rank Pages
    A very closely guarded mathematical equation, called an algorithm, is employed by each search engine to determine how to sort and rank search query results. This algorithm allows the engine to rank the most relevant web pages first, and the rest in descending order of importance to the user.

What You Can Do for Your Website: Avoid Speed Bumps & Walls

You may not know it, but you could be hindering or preventing your website from being crawled by search engine spiders. As spiders crawl the web, they rely on the architecture of hyperlinks to find new web pages and revisit those that may have changed. Complex links and deep site structures with little unique content may act as “speed bumps” in the process by slowing down the spiders. Even worse, data that cannot be accessed by web crawlers are really like “walls” in that they completely prevent your web pages from being ranked.

Beware of the Following “Speed Bumps”:

  • URLs with 2+ dynamic parameters; i.e. http://www.url.com/page.php?id=4&CK=34rr&User=%Tom% (spiders may be reluctant to crawl complex URLs like this because they often result in errors with non-human visitors)
  • Pages with more than 100 unique links to other pages on the site (spiders may not follow each one)
  • Pages buried more than 3 clicks/links from the home page of a website (unless there are many other external links pointing to the site, spiders will often ignore deep pages)
  • Pages requiring a “Session ID” or Cookie to enable navigation (spiders may not be able to retain these elements as a browser user can)
  • Pages that are split into “frames” can hinder crawling and cause confusion about which pages to rank in the results.

Beware of the Following “Walls”:

  • Pages accessible only via a select form and submit button
  • Pages requiring a drop down menu (HTML attribute) to access them
  • Documents accessible only via a search box
  • Documents blocked purposefully (via a robot meta tag or robots.txt file)
  • Pages requiring a login
  • Pages that re-direct before showing content (search engines call this cloaking or bait-and-switch and may actually ban sites that use this tactic)

In order to avoid the above pitfalls and ensure that your website’s contents are fully crawlable, be sure to provide direct, HTML links to each page you want the search engine spiders to index. Remember to make every page of your site accessible from the home page, since the home page is usually the place spiders begin their crawl. It’s also a good idea to add a sitemap to your website in order to increase its navigation.

08
May

Using Local Search to Generate Sales Leads

By david 0 Comments
Categories: Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization

Think of it as an upgrade from the often pricey, frequently overlooked, and increasingly outdated YellowPages ad. Since many small companies do not have the resources to track clicks and would prefer to create sales leads in person or via telemarketing, local search engines offer a more practical option than Google’s AdWords and Yahoo’s AdSense.

Individuals in the 18-35 age range are several times more likely to turn to the Web for information on their surroundings than they are the YellowPages or even 411 information providers. That demographic is widening daily as folks of all ages are going online more than ever before. With the rising popularity of handheld PDAs, it’s probable that local search engines will soon become the most relied upon providers of information on local businesses.

While it is not necessary for a company to have a website in order to take advantage of local search, some businesses invest in basic websites consisting of just one to five pages and list them in the local search engines. For example, let’s say you own a hair salon in White Plains, NY. In an effort to increase business, you decide to have a template website created that provides some background information about your salon, its services, hours of operation, and some pictures of your salon and examples of your work.

Once your website is complete, you list it with a few of the leading local search engines. The benefit is that when someone visits one of these sites looking for a “hair salon in White Plains NY” the person will find your website, have the ability to see what kind of services you offer and other important information about your business, and will hopefully follow up with a visit or phone call your establishment.

Several local search engines have popped up during the past couple years, with the most prominent being Yahoo! Local, Overture Local Match, Ask Jeeves Local, and AOL Local Search. Other sites like CitySearch and AOL’s Digital City have been in on this action for well over a decade now.

Overture’s Local Match allows advertisers to target customers in specific regions or local areas. They can select a geographic area surrounding their business (a radius ranging from 0.5 to 100 miles) and bid on keyword phrases relating to their products and services. The payment structure for Local Match is on a cost-per-click basis. In other words, the advertiser pays the bid amount after a prospect clicks on the advertiser’s listing. In addition to Yahoo Local’s free listings, they also offer Enhanced Listings that allow advertisers to pay a monthly fee in order to provide additional information such as the company’s tagline, a business description, promotional offers, photos, and testimonials.

Local search is especially helpful for those who do research online and plan to buy offline. Searchers have the ability to gather the information they need to visit local businesses for the product or service they are interested in. In addition, for those companies that have intricate e-commerce websites, local search caters to the individual who wishes to shop online, but wants to know that the business they are dealing with is nearby in the event they need to return an item or have a customer service issue.

An estimated 10-20% of searches contain local modifiers that can be interpreted as the user seeking some type of local information. When bidding on local search terms, it is important to understand the user’s intent. The goal is to provide the user with highly relevant results, in this case geographically targeted and pertaining to their specific key word or phrase.

04
Apr

You Have an Online Reputation to Uphold

By david 0 Comments
Categories: Internet Marketing

Do you know what your customers, ex-employees, and competitors are saying about you? The Internet allows information to travel faster than the speed of sound, so it’s important that you’re paying attention to online conversations about your company. Anything posted on the Internet about you can have a huge impact on how people view your organization.

When it comes to establishing and preserving your company’s online image, a good, quality website is just the beginning. A great beginning no doubt, but there are a wide range of other things to consider.

Today’s smart consumers use the web to make buying decisions. They do this by first researching a brand by reading reviews and getting opinions from other people who have purchased your product or service. With the explosion of blogs, forums, and message boards, consumers have easy access to posting and reading free information on the web. Without spending a dime, they have the ability to sound off about essentially anything they feel like, and people are reading. All you have to do is enter a search term about a brand and you’ll likely come up with pages of results.

Why not try searching your own brand? Look beyond your own website listings and find out what others are saying about you. Are there any negative listings saying bad things about your brand or your company? Listening to what they say gives you an opportunity to perform damage control so that you can ensure a positive web presence for your business.

Here are some steps you can take to uphold your company’s online reputation.

Step 1. Monitor what’s being said about you.

Assign someone at your company to be in charge of performing regular Internet searches for your company. It can be difficult to continuously monitor everything that is being said on the web, so you need to establish an early warning system to alert you of all news relating to your brand. You can set up free Google and Yahoo Alerts to catch the use of your company’s name in the news. In addition, you can use sites such as Feedster and Technorati to see what’s being said about you in blogs. The person in charge of this important task should track for all names associated with your business, including brand names, company names, product names, and key employee names.

In addition to self-tracking, you should look at other information such as competing brands and organizations, industry terms, as well as general industry news. If your company has an individual in charge of public relations, he or she is the ideal person to handle this online reputation management. However if you do not and cannot afford to hire a PR professional, assign the task to another trustworthy individual.

Step 2. Participate in the discussion.

You have the power to influence online conversations by becoming actively involved in them. Your participation will give you the opportunity to improve the perception of your brand. Take an active part in your industry conversation by becoming a regular contributor to blogs and forums within your industry. Besides blogs, you can lead the conversation about your brand on forums, consumer opinion sites, consumer complaint sites, and social network sites. By being honest and responding directly to critics, you’ll build trust in your audience, even if the truth is negative. If a blog or forum includes inaccuracies about your brand you should send them clarifying evidence and ask them to remove the error.

Step 3. Develop your online assets.

First, make sure your corporate website is fully search engine optimized and appears at the top of results lists for your name and your brand. Also consider creating a corporate blog if you do not already have one. There are many benefits to this kind of forward thinking.

It is important that you publish all of your company’s corporate communications on your website. This type of information can include press releases, articles, testimonials, case studies, and white papers. Optimize these pages for the search engines as well. Submit your press releases to online wire service to ensure maximum visibility, and optimize the releases for your company name and brand.

If you do not already have a paid search campaign in place, it is a good idea to start taking advantage of Pay-per-Click advertising. Include a listing for your company name and/or brand. The combination of high organic listings and PPC ad presence will help you to dominate your search engine space and counter the efforts of competitors who try to infringe on your trademark.

A note about PPC ads and trademark infringement: If you take advantage of Pay-per-Click advertising, you should be aware of the dangers of trademark infringement. 20% of all online searches are for actual brands. Companies often bid on the brand names of their competitors. So if a searcher types in your brand name in a search engine, they could get results that include ads for your competitors. They might click on your competitor’s ad thinking it’s related to your website, which is a form of bait and switch. You can control this when advertising on Yahoo and MSN, as they offer you the opportunity to prohibit others from bidding on your trademarked search terms. At this time Google does not offer this option. It is highly recommended that you perform regular searches of your brand name and report violators to the appropriate search engine.

The key to managing your online reputation is persistence. You must constantly monitor and take the appropriate action to uphold your company’s image. Only you have the power to prevent the loss of business and ensure the ongoing success of your organization.

05
Feb

The Panamazation of Paid Search

By david 0 Comments
Categories: Internet Marketing

First announced in April 2006, Yahoo’s “Project Panama” promised a revamped paid search engine marketing platform that would eliminate its “open auction” structure in favor of the invisible bidding format already in use by Google, MSN, and Ask. Yahoo began Panama’s launch in December and plans to have all of its clients utilizing the new platform by the end of February.

We understand why Yahoo had to remodel its search platform. And it sounds like they’ve made some nice improvements. The comprehensive dashboard, practically instant ad activation, testing capabilities, ad grouping, and scheduling features are just a few of the many new additions Yahoo has made to its platform. However the jury is still out, as many of Panama’s new features have generated mixed reviews thus far. Here are the major changes Yahoo’s PPC clients will face:

Account Dashboard - Although shocking at first, Yahoo’s new account dashboard promises easier management and better visibility and control over your campaigns. Your new dashboard will feature a performance overview complete with graphs and a customized “watch” list of your top campaigns.

Ad Activation - In what might be the most attractive new feature for Yahoo’s PPC clients, ads will go live within three to five minutes instead of three to five business days as was standard on Yahoo’s old platform.

Ad Testing - Advertisers on Yahoo will now have the ability to test drive their advertising messages in order to improve the quality of their ads. This means you can easily determine which messages perform best with your target audience.

Geo-Targeting - Yahoo now allows advertisers to target by location, narrowing ad distribution to cities and surrounding areas. When done correctly, this can help improve your ROI.

Campaign Scheduling - With the promise that you’ll more efficiently manage your ad spending, Yahoo now offers users the ability to control the timing of their campaigns with optional date scheduling.

Ranking - In the same way that Google’s AdWords works, Yahoo will now factor in the ad’s quality as well as the bid amount. The old system awarded the highest position to whomever paid the most for it. Now they will consider how well the ad actually performs along with actual bid amount for each ad.

Ad Groups - Keywords can now be grouped according to a common subject, so that keywords in groups can now be served with multiple ads. Hopefully Yahoo is right and this will save advertisers time setting up and monitoring their campaigns.

Reporting - Instead of pre-defined reports, Yahoo now offers reports that are customizable in order to deliver marketers more information that really matters to them.

After a rough go in 2006, obviously Yahoo’s intent is to make their pay per click advertising program more attractive and easier to use for advertisers, thereby retaining its current client base and attracting new ones. Panama’s initial announcement pleased investors, but is it enough to pull Yahoo out of the woods? We’ll just have to see what the outcome of 2007’s transition period brings.

19
Jan

The 80/20 Rule of Search

By david 0 Comments
Categories: Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization

There is a new concept being talked about in the web marketing industry. This new paradigm, dubbed the 80/20 rule of search, has sprung out of the realization that many of the earlier beliefs about search engine marketing are no longer true, or perhaps were never true in the first place.

When they were first introduced to search engine marketing (SEM), many marketers believed that with this innovative new concept, web marketing could be handled solely through the use of technology, and that human interaction wasn’t necessary in producing successful online campaigns. However, after results fell short time and again, these marketers were forced to take a second look at their original ideas.

Marketers are now learning that words like “autopilot” and “set it and forget it” are no more than advertising ploys used by companies that simply don’t understand what it takes to manage search effectively.

The new belief is that for SEM to live up to its promise, it is time for a completely new model - the 80/20 rule of search. The idea behind this rule is that:

  • 20% of the success of a paid search program is rooted in technology; and
  • 80% of the success of a paid search program is derived from a human component.

20% - Technology’s Role in the Process

There are three areas where technology is crucial in search engine marketing:

  1. Gathering and sorting huge amounts of data from numerous engines. This includes information on impressions, clicks, number of conversions, and dollar value of conversions. All of this gives us the ability to capture information for every keyword/search engine combination.
  2. Calculating important ROI metrics based on the data collected such as ROAS (Return On Advertising Spend); CTA (Cost To Acquire); CPL (Cost Per Lead); and CPO (Cost Per Order).
  3. Producing a wide range of reports, including top-level summary reports, detailed trend analysis, grouped keyword analysis, and individual keywords.

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The Other 80% - The Role of Human Intelligence

The 80% human component in the equation consists of marketers who interpret data and market conditions to make the best possible bidding decisions. These qualitative contributions involve developing expansive and relevant keyword sets as well as call-to-action marketing communications. They also include creating succinct landing pages that meet the expectations of search engine users and set consumers on the conversion path.

Keyword Development
Automated tools can certainly offer ideas for keyword development, but intuitive thinking is an essential factor in developing a robust keyword list. Just a few of the various issues to consider are product and brand names, synonyms, misspellings, singular and plural forms, features, benefits, and competitors.

Search Term Copywriting
Writing ads for search engines involves a combination of art and science that cannot be emulated by technology. One must adhere to the strict rules enforced by search engines while still drawing the reader in with a tempting promotion. Successful ads accomplish two goals: 1) encourage customers to click on your ad rather than your competitors’ ads, and 2) discourage non-qualified consumers who are not interested in your product or service. This task is not easy given that it must be achieved with three lines of text and no graphics.

When the proper marketing communication strategy is applied, the highest quality site traffic is delivered to your website with the greatest likelihood of conversion.

Destination Page Analysis
One of the biggest and most frequent errors made by companies in paid search engine marketing is consistently sending all searches to their home page or to pages that are totally irrelevant to the search term. Today’s web-users expect relevant information when they click on an ad, and when they do not receive it they quickly move on to their next option, which is usually your competition.

Review of Multiple Variables When Making Bidding Decisions
Each company must establish its own complex set of rules in making bid and position decisions. It is important to remember that being #1 isn’t always the right choice; often times dropping down in position makes more sense. Bid setting is not just about price, it’s more about relevant position. There are multiple variables that must be reviewed prior to making bidding decisions. Marketers must analyze the types of competitors listed above and below them on a search engine, the various marketing messages of competitors, the ROI effects of raising bids and conversely, of lowering bids, they must perform a historical position analysis, and they must consider the impact of affiliates, resellers and other third parties.

Conclusion
While the all-technology solution for paid search is clearly enticing because it involves less work and seems more cost-effective, the reality is that today’s technology is only capable of covering 20% of the requirement for an effective campaign. Technology is limited because it relies solely on quantitative factors and is unable to consider qualitative factors such as consumer search intentions, marketing copy triggers, and irrelevant landing page content.

That’s why it is imperative that the other 80% of a successful SEM program includes the human element. The result is a powerful combination of the complex intelligence of the human brain and cutting-edge technology. Apply this rule in your online marketing endeavors and you’ll soon benefit from the truly extraordinary power of the web.

12
Jan

The Inside Scoop on URL Canonicalization

By david 0 Comments
Categories: Search Engine Optimization

Canonicalization is the process that search engines use to determine the best URL or website address when several different choices exist. This is a common issue that is predominantly related to home page files at the root level. For example, to a web user, the following URLs all appear to be the same:

www.yourdomain.com
yourdomain.com
www.yourdomain.com/index.shtml
yourdomain.com/default.asp

However, search engines view the above URLs as different pages. Web servers see each URL differently and treat each independently, therefore each of the above URLs could display different content if desired. When a search engine attempts to “canonicalize” a URL, it seeks to choose the best page to represent the website.

The simplest way to discover if you are experiencing this issue would be to perform a search using part of the content found on your homepage. If more than one result appears on the search engine result pages, you may want to correct the issue using a 301 redirect on your web server. The 301 redirect will instruct the search engine as to which URL you desire to be “canonical.” In addition, this 301 redirect will permanently readdress to the specified URL, as seen in the sample below:

When a user types this address into their browser:

www.yourdomain.com

The 301 redirect will redirect any request to the specified address:

www.yourdomain.com

I have seen countless websites displaying the same content on two or more different URLs. Search engines penalize websites that feature duplicate content, causing problems and poor performance for the site owners in obtaining organic rankings. Ironically, most website owners aren’t even aware of this problem and if they are, they don’t know it pertains to their sites.