Search Engine Optimisation

Well earlier this week (13th July 2010) ComScore released it’s June 2010 search engine statistics. ComScore release these figures once a month, they use an ever changing formula to create more and more accurate results. The statistics are in essence related to the number of searches conducted by each search engine. So what did the results say?

Well as expected, Google top the chart – with 62.6% of the current market share, a loss of 1.1% from May 2010. Google was then followed by Yahoo! (18.9% up 0.6% from May). In third place was Bing (formerly MSN) with a growth of 0.6% taking Bing to an ever growing market share of 12.7%. In fourth remains ASK search network, at 3.6% and with no change from the previous month. Finally, in fifth is AOL who suffered a loss of 0.1% taking them to just 2.2% of the search market.

So what does this all mean?

Well clearly it means that the search market is changing, no longer is MSN (now bing) the stick in the mud that wouldn’t change. But the important thing of note here is that Bing continues to grow, and with Bing taking over the search functionality of Yahoo! later this year, Bing (using todays figures) would have a market share of 31.6% – a truly staggering thought and something that I believe means now is the time to take note of Bing (and not to wait several months) for SEO’s. So with this in mind, it is now time to Love the Bing.

But it isn’t just SEO’s that need to take note it is other search engines, and this is something Google are already doing (almost in fear it feels). With lasts months role out of background images, Google made a move to be “more like” Bing – but after much uproar in the first few seconds of being live, Google decided unlike Bing having a default image wasn’t a good idea and it is now optional.

The one thing the results do not show is that the world is showing an exponential growth of mobile search. With the advent and influence of the iPhone, Blackberry and Android’s of the world this isn’t going to slow down any time soon and is a huge target market. However, without specific results we can only presume that search is in the same proportions – though I know at least in the UK blackberry (and anyone on the Three mobile network) searches are defaulted to Yahoo!, android in 90% of cases I believe are pointed at Google (the creators) … as for apple I also see these guys using Google … So sorry bing but you need to get up and make some deals – message here is if your mobile focused target Google mobile and Yahoo mobile.

See the official ComScore standings here.

Now there are many many SEO and general Internet Marketing myths that are floating around, and have been since the dawn of time. (Ok, dawn of the internet). Today I want to take a look at 15 of the most annoying myths, these are all a complete pile of poop.

Generally you will be told these via huge adverts on a website or over the phone when someone is cold-calling you to try and sell you a service – beware of these commission monkies.

So the 15 Myths which are a load of <insert naughty word> are:

1. We’re endorsed (or work with) Google / Bing / Yahoo.
2. Google Analytics spies on you, don’t use it.
3. Your PageRank (PR) is your search rank (or is highly related too).
4. You should have as many meta tags as possible.
5. Having country specific site’s (in different languages) creates duplicate content.
6. URL’s rank higher if you end them in .html
7. Trading (buying/selling) links increases search rank.
8. Linking to google.com will help your search rankings (or PR).
9. SEO is a one-time activity (or once per year).
10. SiteMaps aren’t for users.
11. There is no need to link all pages, spiders will find them via your XML sitemap.
12. Placing links in tiny (almost invisible) text at the bottom of  a page is effective for ranking.
13. Using an submission site to X thousand “search engines” is good for site ranking.
14. Hyphenated domain names are amazing for SEO.
15. Keyword Density = High Rankings

_{This post is sponsored by UKHost4U the UK’s premier hosting solution.}

Are you the owner or person responsible for a website? Is the website being beaten to the top of Google or Bing by your competitors? Does the search market look scary? or maybe you’ve been trying for months but just can’t seem to get ranked by the search engines?

If you’ve answered “yes” to any of the above then here’s some good news for you!

SEOAndy today are introducing a new service, THE SEO CLINIC

Want to know more about the SEO Clinic? Click here

Over the past few month’s I’ve come across many a site with this issue, and the website owner always always says the same thing … (and its right to an extent) … we are the brand leader, bringing something new to the market and want to be seen for x, y and z … and to emphasise this we want it over 3 or 4 websites or sub-domains … but we want the content to be pretty much the same… but content duplication isn’t allowed by the search engines.

Well ok it is true the you can be penalised for content duplication over one or more websites seen to be related, mainly via an IP address or similar domain or as a sub domain (which Google is known to treat as a different domain) … So I here you ask how can I be saying you can do it right … how can you legitimately duplicate content over websites and domains … well it is fairly easy

The answer is “cross domain canonical tagging”

By now we should all be using the meta tag canonical – aka telling the browsers and search engines the content originates at this websites and location … it is all your content and not taken from else where. (if not take a quick look on Google for it).

Now to use content from one site on another you need to show that you accept the origins of the content as not being on your site and being from another URL. This can be done on any element using the tag rel=”canonical” – so links, images, block quotes, data tables anything with any attribute (including a full DIV) can use this tag and search engines will pick it up.

Still have questions? Please do ask them below or twitter me @andykinsey

Now lets face it Yahoo isn’t that big of a deal really…we all know shares plummeted and the company didn’t make much money. Right now lets look a little deeper into this… Yahoo made plenty of money through its Paid-Ads … but not enough. They never truly made PPC pay for them, nor any of their other ventures, geocities closed last year and yahoo games seems to be unable to hold its ground with the likes of Facebook Applications on the seen. The money they have generated over the past few years haven’t paid the bills and salaries of the company… so why on earth would Microsoft want to buy them?

Well here is the answer:

In 2002 Yahoo acquired Overture… a leading paid-internet-advert company… thier 2002 annual report reads:

Overture Services, Inc. is the global leader in Pay-For-Performance search (also known as paid search) on the Internet. Overture’s search service is comprised of advertiser’s listings, which are screened for relevance and accessed by consumers and businesses through Overture’s affiliates, a network of Web properties that have integrated Overture’s search service into their sites or that direct user traffic to Overture’s own site. In some cases, consumers and businesses access our search listings directly at our site. The search listings are ranked by the advertisers’ bid; the higher the bid, the higher the ranking. Advertisers pay Overture the bid price for clicks on the advertisers’ search listing (also known as a paid introduction, click-through or a paid click).

Sounds alot like Google Adwords doesn’t it… and it is. Google is generally credited with the creation of these services and pioneering the technology behind it…quite correctly too. However Overture was the first company to realise the niche and further to this they even managed to patent certain principles behind Paid Advert Placements (PPC), this was granted in 2001 by the US Patent office. The ’361 patent effectively granted Overture the right to monopolize the lucrative US paid-search market and subsequently dictated the evolution of the global paid-search market.

After getting the ’361 patent, Overture wasted no time going after its paid-search competitors and quickly mobilised its lawyers to corner the paid-search market. Initially, Microsoft, Yahoo, and most of the other paid search players chose to license the ’361 patent. However, Google and Miva (a small paid search operator formerly known as FindWhat) chose to challenge the patent in court. In doing subsequently Overture sued them for Patent Infringement.

The challenge of the ’361 patent made a lot of sense as Overture was demanding hefty fees for the patent’s use. Overture’s financial statements from 2002 indicate that the company on average retained 38 percent of ad revenue generated by its paid search ads at customer websites. Microsoft and Yahoo were two of Overture’s biggest customers in 2002 and were responsible for 60 percent of Overture’s revenue that year.

Overture reported a huge growth in 2002, so they began to look for a suitable buyer. With Googles growth enormous in the PPC industry and the anticipation of Yahoo & Microsoft surpassing overture in rolling out their own PPC solutions like Google. Overture did own ’361 patent and could use it to block Yahoo and Microsoft but the patent was being challenged in court. Any setback in court would have destroyed Overture, and on account of the questions surrounding the ’361 patent filing, the company had good reasons to expect a less than favorable outcome in court.

Overture initally began with marketing itself to Microsoft, however Bill Gates hugely miscalculated the worth of overture and the need for the Patent they held. Bill Gates rejected the deal out of hand on the basis it was patent play and they couldn’t enforce the ’361 patent on grounds of anti trust … they couldnt afford the court battles it may cause. With Microsoft no longer in the picture Overture was in essence driven to Yahoo and they ahd no worries about snapping up Overture. It wasn’t long before they enforced the patent after the purchase in 2003 for around $1.3billion. The purchase price amounted to more than 8.5 percent of Yahoo’s valuation at that time, though yahoo considered this a snip at half the price for controlling the PPC industry.

Yahoo’s Overture acquisition completely cornered Microsoft in the paid-search market. Microsoft had been licensing the ’361 patent and in doing so it had admitted to the patent being valid. Microsoft could still challenge the patent in court but it did not have a good case. Yahoo now effectively dictated what Microsoft could and could not do in the paid-search market. Microsoft’s only hope was the challenge to the ’361 patent by Google and Miva.

Unsuprissingly the outcome of the court proceedings wasn’t in the favour of Microsoft. In a rather mysterious and shady deal Google chose to settle with Yahoo. Google claimed to have won royalty free use of Yahoo’s paid search patents for around $300 million in stock… though Googles official figures seem to show only $30 million was spent on the settlement. The remainder was considered (probably for accounting reasons) as compensation to yahoo for its trouble.

Miva, the other ’361 patent litigant, persisted with the litigation, and the case eventually went to trial in April 2005. In May 2005, the case resulted in a mistrial after a jury failed to reach a verdict. It was found 6 claims made my Miva were invalid during the trail, the jury was indecissive. Judge Cormac was in a position to dismiss the major claims of ’361 patent, and there were reports in the media that he was inclined to do just that. Additionally, Judge Cormac was reported as favoring Miva in the inequitable conduct dispute about the ’361 patent. Yahoo could have appealed an unfavorable ruling but such a ruling would have been a massive setback nevertheless.

With the prospect of more court proceedings Miva and Yahoo also settled out of court. Miva ended up paying Yahoo $8 million in cash and undisclosed royalties. Again, inexplicably, Yahoo insisted on getting royalties from a marginal player when it allowed Google to use the ’361 patent royalty free.

The Miva settlement is all the more interesting because it directly contradicts Google’s claims of having settled with Yahoo for $300 million in stock with no ongoing royalties. (The settlement amounted to roughly $30 million according to Google’s own financial statements.) Both companies’ business models depended on having access to ’361 patent, but Miva’s was less dependent on account of its having acquired paid-search assets overseas where the ’361 patent could not be enforced. More importantly, Miva settled from a position of strength as Yahoo could not afford to have major claims of the ’361 patent dismissed, but Google settled from a position of weakness as its IPO was at stake when it settled. Even ignoring the massive competitive threat Google posed to Yahoo, Google’s settlement should have been at least two orders of magnitude bigger than Miva’s on account of Google’s size, growth potential, and weak bargaining position.

Microsoft’s subsequent experience with its adCenter paid-search product outlines just how extreme and damaging Yahoo’s control over paid-search became. Microsoft began with roll outs in france and singapore followed by the UK in June 2006 … it was not available at this point in the US. Microsoft attempted to pay $1 billion in cash for access to the yahoo owned patent. However Microsoft wanted some very specific terms, it came as no suprise when this was rejected by Yahoo. The money Microsoft offered may have been good in the short-term but it was questionable if Yahoo could have stayed independent after losing its search assets. However Yahoo arranged a better deal with Google who now co-owned yahoo’s search assets and also helped improve the ROI of yahoo paid search.

Surprisingly, Microsoft instead of proposing a more competitive deal has been busy trying to subvert the Yahoo Google deal by raising antitrust concerns, and even seems to have succeeded at getting the US courts to investigate this deal… the deal was delayed until the investigation was complete however.

Microsoft was completely aware of the ludicrousness of its attempts to buy Yahoo’s paid-search assets and Microsoft’s earlier acquisition bid seems to have been an attempt to soften up Yahoo’s opposition to a paid-search asset acquisition. Microsoft’s publicized $31 a share bid was preceded by an unpublicized $40 a share bid in January of 2007. The initial $40 bid seems to have conveyed the message that if Yahoo refuses to let Microsoft co-own paid search, it can expect a public bid from Microsoft at some inopportune time. Yahoo responded to the threat by handing over the CEO job to Jerry Yang, a founder and a major shareholder, and attempting to shore up its share price by cost-cutting. Of course, this did not help and eventually Yahoo’s share price fell to a point where Microsoft felt that it could make a safe play for Yahoo’s paid search assets. This opened the door to much trouble and more changes within Yahoo management – as microsoft had wanted. In doing so Microsoft hoped this would force Yahoo into their hands.

There was a further bid to Yahoo by Microsoft Rejected (of a reported near $50billion in january 2008) as Google continued talks with Google… this explains why the deal fell through. Google does have a perpetual royalty-free license, but $30 million was not all Google paid for the license. Evidently, Google is hiding some material terms of its patent settlement with Yahoo from the general public and its investors. Google had a legal obligation to disclose anything material that was likely to influence its future business operations, but Google’s management subverted that obligation. It seems that the terms Google did not disclose were covered by a “grace period” of several years during which Google got free use of the patent, and escape clauses; so back in 2004, Google’s management under pressure of an imminent IPO convinced itself that the terms covered by the grace period were unlikely if ever to come into play even after the grace period ended, and so were immaterial and did not need to be disclosed. The thinking at Google must have been that either the ’361 patent is not going to hold-up in court, or Miva is going to extract a good settlement out of Yahoo triggering escape clauses in the agreement, or somebody else is going to get a good deal out of Yahoo.

The problem for both Yahoo and Google is that Microsoft wants to force itself into the deal. Microsoft knows that it can block any compensation deal between Yahoo and Google by beating up the antitrust drum. Microsoft is using this as leverage to goad Yahoo into selling its paid-search assets. Essentially, Microsoft has conveyed to Yahoo that there can be no payday for Yahoo if Microsoft does not get Yahoo’s paid-search assets, but if Yahoo acts sensibly Microsoft can conveniently look the other way when Google comes knocking with the ransom.

The google “deal” was abandoned by Yahoo and Google over this antiturst threat.

So thats the history and the why… and so to today.

Microsoft’s Bing search engine will power the Yahoo website and Yahoo will in turn become the advertising sales team for Microsoft’s online offering. Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer said the 10-year deal would provide Microsoft’s Bing search engine with the necessary scale to compete. “Through this agreement with Yahoo, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers, and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company”.

In return for ceding control of its search engine, Yahoo will get to keep 88% of the revenue from all search ad sales on its site for the first five years of the deal, and have the right to sell adverts on some Microsoft sites.

“This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo, our users, and the industry. And I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of internet innovation and development,” said Ms Bartz (YAHOO CEO)

Read more about todays deal.

Where does this leave SEO and what about this Google access to the patent? … well lets just see over the next few months… If anything happens I will report it here for you.

We’d love to here what you have to say on this deal

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Back to the series of how to Get to number one on Google … and I know somethning of a myth I want to share with you… Using PPC can and will effect your search rankings …

Dispelling the myth: PPC, whether Google Adwords or not, does not and will never effect your search engine ranking results.

So with that sorted I here you ask why am I writing this article… well the answer is quite simple. Since september I’ve put this off, PPC is something that requires a lot of experience to comment on properly. It requires a real in depth knowledge to be able to share the secrets of PPC. I’ve supplied clients with Google Adwords, Yahoo Services and more recently Live Adwords (now bing) over the past few years, i’ve never given away any real information about how it works nor how best to approach Pay Per Click advertising… until today. Today I give you… the 5 SIMPLE steps to PPC Success.

1. Lesson 1 – Learn and refer to the Google Adwords Learning Center … its pretty much the holy grail of Pay Per Click advertising. It will take you through everything you need to know and a little bit more besides.
2. Lesson 2 – Research is paramount to success, this is not just an hour looking at what others are doing, its an on going process that you should eventually be doing subconciously. Much like an SEO will make judgements within seconds of landing on a web page as to whether it is a good page for seo, you should be able to tell when you do a search on google how much its costing, if its successful and more. Look for good, cheap and more so effective keywords that are commonly used and will drive traffic.
3. Lesson 3 – Never run on autopilot… if your silly and want to loose thousands of pounds a day on non-existant traffic… feel free too, if you want to be successful then control everything you can. AP is fine in some smaller cases where the monthly limit is a couple of hundred, with bigger clients this can lead to disaterous results and the client walking away with a 20k hole in thier pocket (he says having just read a few case studies of what not too do!).
4. Lesson 4 – Brand Name bidding is stupid… people know who you are so don’t do it, and don’t do it on someone elses name… its not worth the hassle it can cause. People know who you are, they know your brand name and trust it so stop wasting your money on this futile bid for success.
5. Lesson 5 – Finally, Update Update Update… gradual changes are the major key to success each day or even hour tweek your keywords & bids, find the most effective schedule, keywords and more so those which give you most conversions. (Another error is pulling reports on CTR and not on conversions as you should be doing!) Conversions are the ultimate, without them you are wasting your money
6. Lesson 6 – Yes thats right I lied… just like the majority of people who call you up asking if you would like PPC. Lesson 6 is simple … PPC should ONLY be used in line with good seo, where you are in a HIGHLY competitve market and may struggle to get to number one on google.

So there it is … fairly simple right… well it can be if you get it right or choose the right SEO firm to help you on your way.

Anything else? mmmmm well yes but lets just say giving away too much drives clients away.

Want to ask a question? Leave a Comment Below.

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Number one seems to distant? Go for number two surely thats easier to achieve?
Wrong! … Always aim high and you will receive the rewards you deserve!
Number One IS achievable… if your website is built correctly that is.

The Building Blocks

In this post I will be examining what the fundamental building blocks of a successful website (in terms of how it is created) are, now this list can of course be expanded to such a degree you would be required to be a professor to understand it, However… this is the building blocks… and I will keep it a little less than complicated, and hopefully Jargon Free!

• Structure of the site – This is fairly simple to understand, not so easy to implement (in some cases). You should look to create a clear and understandable hierarchy, Where each (and every) page has at least one link from another page on the site. Unless your some kind of magician having a “stand alone” page will do you no good as a search engine won’t find it… nor will other users more to the point! – It may help you to have a set “drawn sitemap” from day one of your ideas conception, this will evolve but the main branches will mean you have some structure.
• Short Urls - Keep your url’s fairly short, forexample you don’t need the whole date in the URL who would ever remember that and the rest of your url? – Most CMS’ provide this functionality.
• Structured of the Page - Now this again is fairly simple… until you put it into practice. Use a “perfect page” structure, and remember to try and keep code Semantic (this means clean and validating code).
• Use the attributes – most “objects” on a page have tags / attributes associated, they are there for a reason, so use them. For example images have the alt attribute (the most important one that you should be using), this is used as an alternative text if the image isn’t viewable for any reason or if the user is using a screen reader, it is very important for user accessibility.
• Create a sitemap – this is basically a directory of your important pages. put it in your main directory and submit it to the search engines. But a word of warning… exceeding 100 links may cause some suspicion … be careful.
• Submit your site – No matter how much I say this to people they never do, they always think that by some magic they will be linked to and search engines will pick them up. They won’t! so submit each and every new URL you have to the search engines – here start with google.
• Content is King – I’ve wrote so many articles on this in the past year or so, so heres a few links for you. The Golden Ratio – Making Copy Pay – SEO Tips – Copy – SEO Tips – Page Content
• Quality Links are Vital – Now if you are involved in running a website you will no doubt have recieved an email or two from companies (usually based in india) who want to “link exchange”, they go on to explain how links are a key part of how search engines rank a site… well yes but its not the whole story as you will have gathered from my previous article “getting to number one on google“. So here is what google looks for in a “good quality” link; Trust (is the linking site trusted by the web), Relevancy (is the link out of place in the content of the page or site), Anchor Text (what text is used to link to you… click here doesnt rub well) and Quantity (the number of links on the page and/or site linking to you… is it a link farm?). Its not worth persuing these links generally…unless you get really lucky and the site has a huge PageRank and when you check it out it is a real site with relevancy to your content!

This is the second in a series of Articles about “getting to number one on google” – today we have focused on what your website should be… next time we look at PPC and other off-site techniques.

If You have ANY questions please leave them below and I will be happy to answer them for you.

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