Search Engine Optimization

• Google Changes Universal Search
  Universal Search has changed the way we view search engines and even the act of searching. Now Google has changed the way video shows up in the Universal Search results.
  (tags: search searchengines google News)
• YOUmoz | Is SEO a Service?
  YouMoz member MikeTek writes: “SEO” has become a catch-all of sorts. As a result the term can be unclear, perhaps even meaningless. Not because there isn’t such a thing, but because there is no clear understanding, no central definition of the term.
  (tags: seo searchengineoptimization searchengines article)
• The Fire Horse Trail: Evolution and the Art of SEO
  Great and insightful blog post by David Harry.
  (tags: seo search internet)

Aaron Wall, author of the infamous SEO Book, wrote a great post on Search Engine Land how you can rank quickly in the major search engines with your spanking new website. Here is the summary:

• Use the less popular version of a keyword.
• Use many keyword modifiers.
• Mix up your on page optimization.
• Go deeper than the competition is going.
• Move away from the commercial keywords.
• Buy traffic.

I have to admit. I am not the biggest fan of optimizing Flash websites. There are tons of blog posts which have written extensively how to SEO Flash. We all know the reasons: The search engines don’t know how to crawl these kind of sites, they eat up too much bandwidth, they have a slow load time, they’re CPU heavy etc.

From today there will be less headaches for SEOs and more love for Flash - supposedly.  Google and Yahoo announced that they will be able to crawl Flash websites - thanks to Adobe. Apparently the software company has created a special Flash player which will aid the search engine in crawling the web content.

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Another day. Another overwhelming amount of interesting blog posts about Search Engine Optimization. Many good articles. Here are my picks my today’s Top 10:

- Search Insider: Digital asset optimization: The inevitable evolution of SEO
DAO = Next generation SEO. A new buzzword. Certainly the evolution of SEO, according to Andrew Hazen. It’s all about moving the focus of optimization efforts from the page text to more relevant assets, such as images, audio and video. Very interesting.

- Simon Shandler: Advanced SEO: Siloing Content
Bruce Clay’s famous Siloing website structuring strategy - explained in simple words.

- SEOMoz Daily SEO Blog: The Evil Side of Google? Exploring Google’s User Data Collection
Great and frightening post what methods the Big G uses to get data.

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“The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition.” Henry David Thoreau

Big stories, smaller stories, industry conferences, algorithm changes, new partnerships, astonishing stats, lawsuits and scandals - online search, Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing are fast-pasted industries with a wide range of news stories on a daily basis. Here a few (of many) articles and blog posts I found interesting: continue

Former newspaper colleagues always ask me: Why should we do Search Engine Optimization? We heard of this online marketing method - isn’t it kind of sleazy? And isn’t that a threat to our journalistic integrity?

I usually ask back: Well, doesn’t your marketing department promote your newspaper in ads, TV commercials and on billboards? Are you sure that’s well spent money in the digital age? And why shouldn’t you spend your advertising money where the eyeballs of your readers are - the world wide web? continue

I recently found this list online with the 50 most expansive Adwords. There are probably updated versions out there in the meanwhile, but I found it interesting that keywords from the loan, insurance and auto business are ranked so high.

I remember all the buzz around “mesothelioma” being the most expensive term (around $70), but that must been a while ago (now the estimated average CPS is only between 19 und 28 dollars, according to Google). Here is an excerpt of the list with the Top 15:

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Getting into the holiday spirit, I decided to use Google Universal Search in order to find any indication if Los Angeles - the town I live - has the slightest chance against infamous christmas-y New York.

Like many others who love L.A. I get shocked when December approaches and I become aware that this city doesn’t have a official Christmas tree. But one can still hope…

Google’s universal search (meaning the inclusion of any keyword-related results, such as pictures, books, news stories etc.) for “New York Christmas” not only lists nice pictures of Christmas trees in the “Big Apple”, but also news stories about Billy Joel’s anti-war Christmas single.

And some New York residents actually OBJECTING a public Christmas tree!

What about the “Los Angeles Christmas”? Oh my, the search results paint a sad, sad picture. No L.A. related Christmas photos, no YouTube videos, no relevant books. Nothing. Zilch.

The only Lala Land relevant Christmas ‘universal’ search result is a news article about “24″ TV star Kiefer Sutherland who will spend Xmas in prison for his second arrest for drunk-driving!

Depressing - but so L.A.!!

Well, there were gazillions of search news out there todays, but I thought these were some of the most interesting insights:

- With 20 billion to 35 billion worldwide searches in 2006/2007, search growth is as strong as ever. (Via ClickZ)

- Google remained in the top spot for search queries in the United States, accounted for 64.49 percent of all searches (Hitwise)

- More than $14 billion has been spent online during the holiday season-to-date - a 17 percent gain compared with the corresponding days last year. (via MarketingVox)

- Nearly 400 million Google search referrals are to its own multimedia properties. (via ClickZ)

- Local search is expected to grow from rougly $2.5 billion today to $5 billion in 2008. (via SearchEngineLand).

- In the third quarter of this year, more than one of four clicks on ads running on content networks like Google’s AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network was fraudulent. (via Mediapost)

- The caches of major search engines are still providing a safe hiding place for malicious code. (Computerworld)

- Google will very soon begin treating subdomains not as separate domains, but the same as subdirectories. (via Webmasterworld)

- Search Engines can help you to find a “dead” spouse. (via SearchEngineLand)

- And last, but not least: Larry Page, the world’s only remaining bachelor Google billionaire, is getting married today. (via ABC News)

Congratulations, Larry! Hope your first child will have cute googly eyes!

I am certainly not the only one who always gets a lot of useful information from Aaron Wall. Besides his great blog, he regularly posts informative videos on YouTube. In this one he gives some awesome advice how to create Google and SEO friendly page titles. I especially liked modifier tip.