Follow the Clicks:
ClickTracks hiding links on customers sites? Ouch. Seems a good number of companies are becoming a bit more carefree with their SEO techniques. What will search companies do when ethical SEO is seen as nothing more than an arbitrary label? DaveN suggests that traffic may well pattern how upcomming search algorithms view links.

Random Blog Posts:
Not sure how long this free random blog post tool will be online for. On the free content front, the US government has some free RSS feeds and so does the BBC.

Dogpile to World:
Meta search is still relevant. Of course, their Missing Pieces study (2 page PDF) forgot to mention that if you search for something like SEO 17 of the top 20 DogPile listings are paid ads, and you will still end up with missing pieces ;)

Their study may have been a bit more accurate if they compared pay per click ads, since those dominate the DogPile search results.

Scoble:
link spammer?

Normal Linking:
MartiniBuster issues 3 lashes with the cane.

Censoring Search Results:
Danny Sullivan on Google & Web Position Gold

Consider this. Until earlier this month, WebPosition was owned by WebTrends, in turn owned by NetIQ, a publicly listed company in the US. Now it's owned by Francisco Partners, another publicly listed company. The purchase was announced March 28 and concluded May 3.

Now you're an investor wondering about this sale. You decide to research some of the products. You turn to your trusted research tool, Google. You do a search for one of the products you've heard about, WebPosition. And you can't find the official site about it?

That's relevancy? That's serving the user? That's organizing the web's information? And that's defending Google because it somehow stopped all the other resellers showing up in its editorial results as well as the ads Google itself accepted?

302:
Google still having some problems?

ContextWEB:
shakey TOS

Heather Lloyd Martin is a well known SEO copywriter. I have been meaning to read her Successful Search Engine Copywriting ebook for a while and finally did. On to the review... Things I liked about Successful Search Engine Copywriting:

• Focuses on writing for humans instead of writing exclusively for bots.

• Focuses on importance of keyword phrases over words, citing resources which show that most search queries are longer and more specific, and going through examples showing why those types of queries convert better.
• Quotes Greg Boser a good number of times on competitive analysis. As always his answers are insightful & suscinct.
• States importance of building credibility with content.
• Covers the page title tag and meta description in depth.
• Offers good tips on helping marketing, IT, & legal departments play well together. Answers many common what if conflict problems you can have working with a company.
• Gives many tips on hiring and working with an SEO copywriter.
• Covers XML data feeds in depth, including who they are best for and when to use them.
• Quick and easy to read. Uses many analogies which parallel many off the web concepts.
• The interviews at the back of the ebook add a good amount of value and cover many other search related topics.

Things I Thought Could be Improved:

• Talks about how to get Google to craft a good description display, but does not mention that sometimes they match up with your page description if the exact search query exists in the meta description tag.

• States tricking engines is unethical & expensive. In some cases this is true, but in others it is fast and cheap. It is all about determining your risk profile and goals. There is no universal right or wrong way to do SEO.
• Does not discuss term weight, latent semantic indexing, or how search systems normalize page copy length. All of which are interesting issues related to SEO copywriting. Perhaps the lack of mentioning these was due to trying to keep the guide fairly non technical and easy to read.
• At one point the guide said "Optimizing for one keyphrase is considered spam, and search engines don't like it." While I have not been involved with SEO as long as she is I disagree with that. Being focused is important, but if you write naturally many modifiers and semantically related terms will end up in the copy. I think it is impossible to write naturally and not cover many related keyword phrases.
• There are a couple contridictions. In her example meta tag she stated that it weighs in at 191 characters and the meta description tag should be around 200 characters, but not exceed 300. Later she offered information from Jeremy Sanches, which states that meta description tags should not exceed 170 characters.
• I am very anti paid inclusion (XML feeds). That does not make either of us right or wrong on the topic, but since it went cost per click generally I consider paid inclusion a last resort.
  
• Does not talk much about social aspects of the web, and how content can be link inspiring or how people can create content based around important social ideas or linking opportunities.

Overall I thought the ebook was pretty good for those looking to learn about SEO copywriting. If you have to work with large companies and learn a few tips about how to get various departments to work together then that info covers the cost of the book. I also thought some of the interviews added good information as well.

Successful Search Engine Copywriting does not cover all SEO topics, but covers SEO copywriting fairly in depth, and costs $97.

From the release:

InfoSearch recently introduced a content licensing model that allows its clients to license the content, generally for a one year period, with renewal rights at the conclusion of the license term. Further, InfoSearch is gradually transitioning the current traffic model through its www.articleinsider.com network from a fixed CPC (cost per click) rate to a bidded CPC rate. After these new initiatives are integrated into the existing business model, the Company expects that they will provide continued revenue growth over the longer term.

I think it will be fun to watch to see what they can make of it.

They have over $4 million in the bank and are cashflow positive, but:

• business models like Constant Content may squeeze out the marketability of the content leasing business model

• making their ArticleInsider network an open auction goes against their primary selling point of a low fixed cost. I can't imagine current customers will be pleased with the transition.

  After they do make the transition they become a second (or third) tier PPC service. Looking at how some of those search stocks are doing in the market with lowering bid prices and marketshare makes you wonder how this helps them.

• after you reach a point in market saturation there are some topics which are not as profitable to create content for. what then?
• I think creating services or multiple compelling channels that keep consumers wanting to come back is a far better longterm model than profiting from static content.
  • the direct channels get direct traffic and search traffic

  • the direct channels are more likely to build natural linkage data
  • the direct channels, which frequently update, give people an excuse to come back and view more content & ads

It is interesting watching InfoSearch, because I think their business models & being a public company show the constricting forces placed on most all SEO business models.

Search Engine Spam Workshop:
List of some of the presented papers. I will likely review some of those pretty soon.

What Every Good Marketer Knows:

People are selfish, lazy, uninformed and impatient. Start with that and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.

more from Seth

Mobile Social Software:
Google buys Dodgeball.com. see also: The Significance of "Social Software"

New Google PR Blog:
Marrissa Mayer's blog

If Search Engines Could Read Your Mind:
an interesting article by Chris Sherman. here is an exerpt:

We'd much rather waste time scanning results and clicking back and forth among less-than-useful pages than craft a really good query or use search refinement tools.

But while we're doing this, the search engines are observing our behavior, and learning from our fumbling activities.

SEO Press Releases:
a fun one :)

The relevance of "relevance":

• thread at SEW

• NanoContext
• RustyBrick rates search relevancy, although the data might be biased by the people who take the test (likely SEOs) here are some early results

Yahoo! Music:

Visitors to Yahoo's Music Unlimited will pay $6.99 a month for access to Yahoo's 1-million-song library. That's less than half what Napster and Real Networks' Rhapsody charge for similar services that permit the transfer of songs to portable music players. source

FindWhat:
down to $4.30 per share. other small search providers continue to hurt as well.

Gooooogle:
outgrowing coolness and forgetting their core products?

War a theme for everything?
New UK based search blog by Neutralize: Search Engine War. BTW, the new Legos Star Wars video game is amazing.

Time Management:
Creative Commons flash file

SEO Multitool:
GoLexa (sorta like a combination of Google & Alexa data with links to other stuff like WhoIs & IP Address) from Fantomaster

Google AdWords 123 is a 115 page affiliate marketing ebook by Greg Heslin. While he uses AdWords as the theme & title, the book is more of a beginners guide to affiliate marketing.

Things I liked about Google AdWords 123:

• Focuses on consumer groups and how consumers think instead of focusing just on keywords. for example:
  • items which would be ordered discreatly (due to embarasement or the like) with little free information on the web is a good thing to sell.
• he is willing to go agains conventional marketing gurus a few time, explaining his reasoning when he does
• he has a long history in marketing and covers tips such as Attention, Interest, Desire, & Action
• points out how to find good sales letters (looking for things like personal experience)
• pointed out some free quality resources that I have not seen mentioned elsewhere. a few examples:
  • LexFN

  • Keyword Typo Generator
  • Affiliates Alert
• Does not sugar coat things or make them seem too complex. Gives the exact way he figures out what to bid.
• his guide walks users through setting up their first campaign. He also reminds them that some people may take up to 20 tries to find a profitable product & helps them determine if or when they should pause or delete a word or campaign.
  

Things I thought could be improved with Google AdWords 123:

• The book uses affiliate links. I think these are part of the reason why it is cheaper than many similar competing ebooks, but sometimes authenticity of recommendation is questioned when affiliate links are used. A while ago some people complained to me when I used some of them (and so I quickly removed the ones I used).

• Does not recommend creating separate campaigns with lower bids for content ads. Content ads will typically less have less implied demand and value than search ads.
• does not talk about dynamic keyword insertion, which is huge for helping ads appear relevant and encouraging high clickthrough rates.
• points out that software automation is important for effectively using time, but does not point out keyword combination tools such as GoogEdit, ThePermutator, or this one.

Overall I thought it was a pretty good ebook, and at under $50 it was well worth it. Visit the Google AdWords 123 website to learn more.