Thursday, November 8, 2007

Meta Keywords Tag 101: How To Legally Hide Words On Your Pages For Search Engines

Quoted from http://searchengineland.com/070905-194221.php:
Meta Keywords Tag 101: How To Legally Hide Words On Your Pages For Search Engines
Sep. 5, 2007 at 7:42pm Eastern by Danny Sullivan

Meta Keywords Tag 101: How To "Legally" Hide Words On Your Pages For Search Engines

If there's anything I particularly hate when it comes to SEO, it's the meta keywords tag. I so wish it had never been invented. It's practically useless, yet people still obsess over it. In this article, I'll explain more about why you shouldn't worry about it except perhaps for misspellings, as well as which search engines support it.
The meta keywords tag is one of several of meta tags that you can insert into your web pages to provide search engines with information about your pages that isn't visible on the page itself. For example, my Meta Robots Tag 101: Blocking Spiders, Cached Pages & More article covers how you can use a different meta tag -- the meta robots tag -- to block pages from being indexed. Users don't see this information (unless they look at your source code), but search engines do.

Meta Tags & Your Header


Meta tags go within the header area of your web pages. A typical head might look like this:
Welcome To Shoe Central!
The header is the section that begins and ends . Between those elements, in our example, you have these tags:

Title: The text here becomes the title that is shown in search engine listings, in most cases.

Description: The text here is text that search engines sometimes use as a description for your web page when listing it (a meta tag lesson for another time).

Robots: This particular tag is configured to ensure that the page isn't described using the a description that the Open Directory might have for it (Meta Robots Tag 101 explains this more).

Keywords: This tag is the topic of this article, so read on!


History Of Meta Keywords
I've long written about search engines and meta tags, but I have never been able to pin down exactly who created the meta keywords tag. There's a December 1995 internet draft memo that's the earliest and most authoritative mention of the tag I know of. It says:



The spaces between a comma and a word or vice versa are ignored....


These 'keywords' were specifically conceived for exhaustively and completely catalogue the HTML document. This allows the software agents to index at best your own document. To do a preliminary indexing, it's important to use at least the http-equiv meta-tag "keywords".
Sounds good, right? Like this is designed for the search engines to use? The issue is that HTML specs like these (especially drafts) are not necessarily used by the search engines. They can use them, ignore them or build upon them as they see fit.


As it turns out, several of the major search engines got together in May 1996 to talk about meta data. That meeting gave birth to a common standard for the meta robots and the meta description tags. As for the meta keywords tag, it was discussed, but no specification emerged.
Despite no specification, both Infoseek (later Go.com, these days no longer crawling the web) and AltaVista (now owned and powered by Yahoo) offered support for the meta keywords tag in 1996. If you looked at their help files at the time, they encouraged site owners to use the tag. Inktomi (now owned by Yahoo) also provided support when it began operations later in 1996, and Lycos (no longer crawling the web) added support in 1997.


That year -- 1997 -- was the last year that the meta keywords tag enjoyed support among the majority of major crawlers out there (4 out of 7 - Excite, WebCrawler and Northern Light, also crawling the web that year, did not support it).
Support Dies Off


When new search engines emerged in 1998, such as Google and FAST, they didn't support the tag. The reason was simple. By that time, search engines had learned that some webmasters would "stuff" the same word over and over into the meta keywords tag, as a way of trying to rank better. At the time, search engines didn't rely so heavily on link analysis, so page stuffing like this was more effective. Alternatively, some site owners would insert words that they weren't relevant for.


In July 2002, AltaVista dropped its support of the tag. That left Inktomi as the only major crawler still supporting it, causing me to somewhat famously in the SEO world to declare the tag dead, since it was no longer a major ranking factor for even Inktomi:
Traffick.com's Andrew Goodman wrote recently in an essay about meta tags, "If somebody would just declare the end of the metatag era, full stop, it would make it easier on everyone."
I'm happy to oblige, at least in the case of the meta keywords tag. Now supported by only one major crawler-based search engine -- Inktomi -- the value of adding meta keywords tags to pages seems little worth the time. In my opinion, the meta keywords tag is dead, dead, dead. And like Andrew, good riddance, I say!


Since that time, Inktomi was rolled up into Yahoo, which continues to support the meta keywords tag as part of its Yahoo search engine. Or does it?
Search Engine Rep Confusion


Last month, I moderated my last "Meet The Crawlers" panel for the Search Engine Strategies conference series (Goodbye Search Engine Strategies! explains more about my shift from SES to my own SMX: Search Marketing Expo series). That perennial favorite question came up during the session. Who supports the meta keywords tag?


Sigh. But if this question still coming up wasn't depressing enough, then the search engine reps starting responding with a load of confusion. To paraphrase:
No, we don't support it. Well, we read it. We read it, but it doesn't matter. Actually, maybe we don't read it.


Even Evan Roseman from Google said at one point that Google reads the meta keywords tag, suggesting no doubt to some that Google uses the tag.
To be clear, Google doesn't. I'll prove it further below, but it doesn't, OK?
I gave Evan (hopefully) some good humored hassle afterward for saying this. He's at least the second Google rep to declare this on panels I've moderated in as many years, and the problem is that the engineers (from any of the search engines) often take the question too literally.
Indexing Versus Retrieval Versus Ranking
To understand, let me talk about three different things a search engine does when it crawls and lists your page:

Indexing: This is where the search engine effectively makes a copy of your page. The search engine is going to read and store the HTML content it finds -- all of it. Evan was right when he said that the meta keyword tag is indexed by Google. Google knows that the tag exists and has recorded what's in it. But that doesn't mean it does anything else with it.

Retrieval: This is where the search engine finds all the matching documents relevant for what you searched for. Most of those documents will actually have the words you searched for on them, in the sections that the search engine searches against (there are some exceptions, such as when anchor text is used to find pages. Google Now Reporting Anchor Text Phrases, Google Kills Bush's Miserable Failure Search & Other Google Bombs and Google Declares Stephen Colbert As Greatest Living American explain more about this). While the search engine has recorded the entire page, it won't search against everything indexed for retrieval. In other words, Google will look to see if words you searched for appear in the body area of a document, but it will NOT look in the meta keywords tag for matching words. The keywords tag, while indexed, is not used for retrieval at Google. At Yahoo, it is.

Ranking: This is where the search engine looks at all those documents retrieved for a search and puts them in order of most importance, according to its algorithm. Retrieval (or what information research professionals call "recall") is about finding everything). Ranking (or what the IR folks call "precision" -- see Tim Bray's excellent On Search: Precision and Recall document) is about getting the best stuff up to the top. Yahoo, while using the tag for retrieval, really doesn't assign much weight to it for ranking.


Testing For Retrieval


Back to my panel experience. Since the reps were unclear, I declared to the audience that I'd just go out and test it again myself. It's literally been about five years since I've last tested the tag, because I (and many others) feel it is so useless. There are better things to do with our time. But since that question needs a big old stake to the heart, I rolled up my sleeves and got cracking.


On the Search Engine Land home page, I inserted this meta keywords tag:



I had searched for all of these words on the four major search engines of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask and found no pages that matched. If these search engines made use of the meta keywords tag, I'd know in short order, if my page started coming up.
The tag went up on August 28. I then needed to wait until I could see each search engine had the most current version of my page (Squeezing The Search Loaf: Finding Search Engine Freshness & Crawl Dates explains more on how to do this).


Google: No


It took two days, until August 30, for Google to show the latest version of my page in its index. I searched for each of the words, and my home page didn't come up. The meta keyword tag was not used for retrieval and thus not supported.


Microsoft Live: No


It took five days, until September 2, for Microsoft to show a version of my page with the meta keywords tag on it. As an aside, Microsoft is kind of annoying. It will say something like this in the cached copy of the page:


This is a version of http://searchengineland.com/ as it looked when our crawler examined the site on 9/2/2007. The page you see below is the version in our index that was used to rank this page in the results to your recent query. This is not necessarily the most recent version of the page - to see the most recent version of this page, visit the page on the web.
If you glance quickly at the date, you might think the page has been revisited fairly recently. But as the text explains, it might be older. Indeed, when I looked on September 2 (as is the case today), the copy of the page in the index was as of August 30, as I could tell from the stories shown.


As with Google, I searched for each of the words, and my page didn't come up. The meta keyword tag was NOT used for retrieval and thus not supported.


Yahoo: Yes


It took two days, until August 30, for Yahoo to have my latest page. Searches there did bring up the home page for all words. So the meta keywords tag IS used for retrieval.


Ask: Yes


Ask took the longest to show the most current version of my page, not reflecting the changes until today. Actually, when I look at the cached copy even now, it says that the page is from August 13 and uses a redirection URL rather than my http://searchengineland.com address.
Still, I can tell Ask has a version with the meta keywords tag on it since I'm getting back my home page when searching for words in that tag. As with Yahoo, the meta keywords tag IS used for retrieval.


Should You Use It? Sure, For Misspellings


So there you have it -- half of the major crawlers (Yahoo & Ask.com) DO support the tag. Should you begin using it? My advice would be only for misspellings and really unusual words.
As explained, the tag can help with retrieval. A word in the tag is treated as if it were a word visible on the page itself. Now that's handy for misspellings. For example, say you're writing about Basset hounds. You suspect some people might misspell the name as Bassett hounds, adding an extra T. You could misspell the word yourself on the visible page, but that makes you look bad. You could insert the word and then try to hide it using CSS styles or putting it in the same color as the page background. But this type of "hidden" text is generally against search engine guidelines.


Enter the meta keywords tag. Just do this:



Now you've got the misspelling on your page in a "legal" means that will be read by Yahoo and Ask. You're still out of luck for Google and Live.com, but two out four ain't bad.


But I Want To Rank!


What about ranking better with the tag. I mentioned already that many experienced SEOs don't find it useful. Believe me, if just putting a single word into that tag was going to rank your page better, everyone would be doing it. Instead, search for anything on Yahoo or Ask. You'll see plenty of pages ranking well for words without those words appearing in the meta keywords tag. And if you do see the words in the tag, it's more due to coincidence -- the words also appear in the body copy, in the title tag and often in links pointing at the page. The words in the meta keywords tag aren't the primary reason the page is ranking well. Promise.
Back to our Basset Hound example. Sure, you can add the correct spelling to your meta keywords tag. Go ahead, if you want. Just understand that it is not likely to make you rank any better than if you didn't include it at all. Moreover, beginners are especially likely to spend far too long worrying about getting the "right" words in the meta keywords tag rather than just writing good body copy.
Comma Conundrum


One of the most common questions I used to get way back in the old days was over using commas in the meta keywords tag. Consider these options:















Sigh. See why I hate this tag so much, when I've had to deal with people wondering about commas and spaces and variations like this. Let's take it from the top, as to the motivations behind these versions:

This is someone who thinks that each word should be on its own, separated by a comma and with a space in front of the next word.

This is someone who thinks that getting rid of the spaces means they can squeeze in more words.

This is someone who thinks that if there are particular phrases they want to be found for, those phrases should be together and set off by commas.

As with three, but losing the spaces to squeeze in more words.

Similar to three but thinking you don't need commas at all.

This is Mr. or Ms. Paranoid. They're concerned about saying any word too often. So they lose the commas, restrict repetition and hope that proximity will help (IE, put "basset" behind "hound" rather than in front and maybe you'll still show up for "basset hound."


Which way should you go? I'd suggest number three, for these reasons:

Yahoo has long recommended using commas and in particular supported them as a way to separate out distinct terms for those in their paid inclusion programs. I'll update this page with the latest advice, but commas still seem to make sense.

Spaces just make things look nicer, and you shouldn't be shoving a ton of terms in the tag anyway. How long is too long? No idea! In the past, the search engines just wouldn't index content beyond around 250 to 1,000 characters. Maybe I'll test this in the future.

You do want phrases kept together. "bassett, hound" is probably going to be seen as "bassett hound" anyway, but why risk it?


Other Uses
I mentioned that misspellings were a key use for the tag. You could also use it for synonyms. For example, if you have a page all about shoes and you never say "footwear," you could put that word in your tag. However, it's far better if you just find a way to make use of the word in the body copy itself. That text is retrieved by all the major search engines, not just some.
Aside from synonyms, perhaps you have a page that's all Flash or all images. Use the meta keywords tag to describe the page. Just remember that you're still not likely to rank better than other pages that have textual information. Search engines are textual creatures. Give them what they want.
Some Official Guidelines
The W3C has guidelines (and here) in HTML 4.0 about meta data and search engines, while the XHTML specs don't get into it at all. Ignore the specs. YES, IGNORE THE SPECS. Some of them are wrong; some are outdated. The only thing I can see that they explain is the difference between these:







See how the second tag ends /> rather than > in the first? As best I can tell, this is because a meta tag is an "empty element" in XHTML, where there's not a "start" and a "finish" (as with a paragraph element:

is the beginning, with

the end). Empty elements in XHTML need that /> format.
I haven't tested things without the />, but there are so many (so very, very many) pages out there not following that syntax that it is virtually certain Yahoo and Ask will read the tag either way. Doing it fresh? Do it /> style. But don't go back and start changing things.
Aside from that, if you want to know how a search engine deals with meta data officially, you go to the search engine itself. Ask's webmaster guidelines don't mention the meta keywords tag, so that leaves Yahoo:

Yahoo Quality Guidelines: "Metadata (including title and description) that accurately describes the contents of a web page." This is telling you don't lie with your keywords. Don't insert words that aren't somehow related to the topic of your page.

How do I improve the ranking of my web site in the search results?: "Use a 'keyword' meta-tag to list key words for the document. Use a distinct list of keywords that relate to the specific page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords for every page." Note that it doesn't say you'll automatically rank better by doing this. Also, unique words for each page would be my advice, as well -- but do NOT worry if you decide to use the same set of key terms on each of your pages. It isn't that big of a deal.


Looking for the exact format that you should use for the meta keywords tag from Yahoo? You know, commas, spaces and all that. Sorry -- they don't provide it, which is another sign you're probably worrying too much about it.
Freaked? Skip It
Overall, here's the best advice I can offer anyone dealing with this tag. If you begin to feel confused, concern, tired or uncertain when pondering it, SKIP THE TAG ENTIRELY. It's not going to hurt you to not have it, and it's not worth the time fretting about it



Nick Eubanks Media & Marketing To Overhaul all Site Graphics

I'm ery excited to announce a new functionality and capability within the team. After a long overdue wait, and some much needed classes the whole team has been brought up to speed on the usefulness and capabilities of some very advanced graphic software/tools. I look forward with great excitement to see the high level designs that will be created in the near future.

Friday, November 2, 2007

AdMob Offers First Facebook Mobile Advertising Solution

Quoted from http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/01/admob-offers-first-facebook-mobile-advertising-solution/:

AdMob Offers First Facebook Mobile Advertising Solution

AdMob Offers First Facebook Mobile Advertising Solution

Duncan Riley

10 comments »

San Mateo based mobile advertising solutions provider AdMob has announced AdMob for Facebook Mobile, a mobile advertising solution for developers of third-party Facebook applications.

AdMob has enabled optimized mobile ads for Facebook Mobile, which developers can use to monetize their mobile applications. Developers can start showing ads and earning money immediately.

AdMob for Facebook Mobile is said to be the first monetization solution for Facebook Mobile developers. AdMob is now serving 1.5 billion ads a month, up from the 1 billion they were serving when we first wrote about them in August.

AdMob Investors include Sequoia and Accel Partners and management includes staff previously with eBay, YouTube and Google.

More Ad Network Deals—Specific Media Raises $100 Million, AOL Close to Buying Quigo For $300 Million

Quoted from http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/01/more-ad-network-deals%e2%80%94specific-media-raises-100-million-aol-close-to-buying-quigo-for-300-million/:

More Ad Network Deals—Specific Media Raises $100 Million, AOL Close to Buying Quigo For $300 Million

More Ad Network Deals—Specific Media Raises $100 Million, AOL Close to Buying Quigo For $300 Million

Erick Schonfeld

6 comments »

The frenzy around online ad networks never stops (maybe because there are so many of them). This morning, Specific Media, announced a whopping $100 million investment by private equity firm Francisco Partners. This follows a $10 million venture round last June led by Enterprise Partners. Specific Media is the fourth largest ad network in terms of audience reach, according to comScore (after Advertising.com, Yahoo, and ValueClick). The 130.7 million people it reached across the Web in September was just below the 133.5 million reached by publicly-traded ValueClick, which has a market capitalization of $2.6 billion.

On the (possible) acquisition front, ad-targeting network Quigo might be bought by AOL for $300 million, according to Kara Swisher. Quigo provides contextual ad-targeting for many media Websites, including ABCNews.com, CNNMoney.com, Forbes.com, and USAToday.com. This would certainly be in keeping with AOL’s strategy to build out its Platform-A advertising network, even as it takes steps to allow consumers to opt out of such targeting. Quigo won’t confirm the rumor. But it didn’t deny it either. I called up Quigo CEO Michael Yavonditte earlier today to ask him about it. His non-response: “There are rumors that we are going public, there are rumors that we are going to be bought. We don’t comment on stuff like that.” Sounds like he is keeping his options open.

(Disclosure: I am a former employee of Time Warner, which is the parent of both AOL and CNNMoney, and I own Time Warner stock.)

Specificmedia Website: http://specificmedia.com Location: Ir vine Founded: 1999 Total Funding: $110.00M Specific Media is the 4th largest ad network by audience reach according to comscore. It follows AOL's advertising.com, Yahoo and ValueClick. Learn more Quigo Website: http://quigo.com Location: New York Founded: 0000 Total Funding: $5.00M Quigo is an ad-targeting network that provides contextual advertising services for many large media websites including ABCNews.com, CNNMoney.com, Forbes.com, and USAToday.com. Quigo is a direct competitor to Google's contextual advertising program, Adsense. Quigo is rumored ... Learn more

 

Checkmate? MySpace, Bebo and SixApart To Join Google OpenSocial (confirmed)

Quoted from http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/01/confirmed-myspace-to-join-google-opensocial/:

Checkmate? MySpace, Bebo and SixApart To Join Google OpenSocial (confirmed)

Checkmate? MySpace, Bebo and SixApart To Join Google OpenSocial (confirmed)

Michael Arrington

163 comments »

Google may have just come out of nowhere and checkmated Facebook in the social networking power struggle.

MySpace and Six Apart will announce that they are joining Google’s OpenSocial initiative. Silicon Alley Insider reported the MySpace rumor earlier today. We’ve confirmed that from an independent source, as well as the fact that Six Apart is joining. Per the update below, Google has also confirmed Bebo is joining.

Google will be making an announcement today. MySpace and Six Apart join Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle as announced Google partners. No word on whether MySpace will continue with efforts to complete its own recently announced platform, but the answer is probably yes. They are likely to simply do both (Update: see below).

Suddenly, within just the last couple of days, the entire social networking world has announced that they are ganging up to take on Facebook, and Google is their Quarterback in the big game.

Update (12:30 PST): On a press call with Google now. This was embargoed for 5:30 pm PST but they’ve moved the time up to 12:30 PST (now). Press release will go out later this evening. My notes:

On the call, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said “we’ve been working with MySpace for more than a year in secret on this” (likely corresponding to their advertising deal announced a year ago).

MySpace says their new platform efforts will be entirely focused on OpenSocial.

The press release names Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING as current OpenSocial partners.

We’re seeing a Flixster application on MySpace now through the OpenSocial APIs. Flixster says it took them less than a day to create this. I’ll add screen shots below.

Here’s the big question - Will Facebook now be forced to join OpenSocial? Google says they are talking to “everyone.” This is a major strategic decision for Facebook, and they may have little choice but to join this coalition.

Bebo has also joined OpenSocial.

Google Back Link Update? Google Blog Search Link Command Slow?

Quoted from http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/015201.html:

Google Back Link Update? Google Blog Search Link Command Slow?

November 1, 2007

Google Back Link Update? Google Blog Search Link Command Slow?

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that Google has also done a backlink update recently.

Now, I think most people in this forum thread are talking about the link:www.domain.com command when searched at Google.com. That backlink command is known to just show a sampling on one's backlinks and no the full set of backlinks.

If that is the case and people are noticing a change (or increase) in the number of backlinks reported, then there is not much to those numbers. I personally would ignore such an update. What you do want to look at are your backlinks reported in Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer.

There have been additional reports of Google Blog Search not return recent backlink counts for specific URL checks. For example, an article I wrote yesterday, shows 0 backlinks in Google Blog Search, click here to see. This appears to be a small, temporary issue in Google. I suspect it will be fixed shortly.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

10 Useless SEO Worries

Quoted from http://searchengineland.com/071101-085057.php:

10 Useless SEO Worries

Nov. 1, 2007 at 8:50am Eastern by Stoney deGeyter

10 Useless SEO Worries

I often feel sorry for small businesses. I do. Too often they don't have the funds, time, or resources to investigate things as thoroughly as they should. Unlike larger businesses with deep pockets, small business can't hire first-rate, high-end SEOs to do all the right things for them. All too often they have to rely on the free advice on blogs, forums, and social networking sites—and then do all the worrying themselves. If they are in a slightly better position, they might be able to pawn off some of that worry to an SEO which they have not fully vetted, and who may end up taking their campaign in the wrong direction. But that leaves them with entirely new things to worry about.

Spending nights worrying about an SEO campaign can eat up a lot of energy that the small business would be better off applying to other areas. But with so much information out there, it's hard to know what's what. The SEO industry tends to thrive on extremes. We create lists of things that absolutely mustbe done and lists of things that absolutely must not be done. But far too often, within either of those lists are things that simply don't matter at all. To provide a bit of middle ground to all the extremes, here are things that you simply do not need to spend more than a half a second fretting over:

10) Focusing on number one rankings

Are we still obsessed with getting #1 rankings? Number one rankings aren't all they are made out to be. This is especially true when dealing with broad, non-targeted phrases. Listen, top search engine placement is great, but there is so much more to obsess over. How about focusing on site conversions and usability? How about branding? How about improving your web site and services so you actually deserve that #1 position?

The thing we hear most often from small businesses is that being on top is the only way to drive traffic. That is so not true anymore, especially within the context of social media. There are so many more ways to drive traffic to a web site. Yes, search engines are one of those ways, but they are not the only way. And yes, the exposure you get from a top ranking is great and all, but the fact is that unless you truly deserve to be there (and this can be determined by as much of what happens offline as on), you're just not going to be able to displace a competitor that has been firmly established in that position, especially on competitive phrases.

So, no need to worry about that #1 ranking. Just get your site optimized and work on delivering targeted traffic to a high-converting web site. Focus on that and someday the #1 ranking may follow.

9) Obsessing over PageRank

You gotta love an industry that tells people they should ignore page rank but suddenly obsesses over it when Google does a number with their little green bar on high profile sites. But we all need to know why these things happen, right? Fair enough. It is important to know why certain things are happening so you can make sure you're not doing anything to violate the search engine guidelines. But after that, it's time to just let it go.

The fact is, tool bar PageRank isn't much of an accurate measure of anything. It's fine to consider in context, but really, does it matter if your site goes up or down a PR level? Is it worth the effort to move your site from a PR3 to a PR6? In a word: no.

PageRank is simply an effect, not a cause. Focusing on PageRank is useless. However, if you focus on creating a valuable site that others think is worth linking to and shopping at, then you'll see your little green bar grow bit by bit. People don't convert or not convert based on PageRank. They do based on the quality of the site.

And while we're at it, let's talk about "leaking" PageRank. Listen, of all things to worry about, PageRank leakage isn't one of them. If you want to link out to sites that you feel are valuable to your visitors, then do it. If you're linking for the sake of linking, then don't. It's a simple as that.

8) Worrying about who is linking to you

This one isn't a complete throwaway, because you should pay attention to your incoming links. But for the most part, there isn't a whole lot you can do about who does or doesn't link to you outside of implementing a reciprocal link campaign. And for the most part, who's linking to you is not going to hurt you. But there are some exceptions, so again, do keep an eye on these things from time to time but don't obsess over them.

If you find sites linking to you that you don't want to be associated with, the best you can do is to politely ask them to remove the link. If they are a spammer, chances are you'll never get a response. But sometimes you might, and you might even succeed at getting a link you don't like removed. But it's rare that that happens. And search engines understand this and act accordingly.

7) Worrying about what anybody else says (including me)

SEO opinions are like elbows—everybody has at least two, and each is on the opposite side of the issue! (I refrained from using the analogy about everybody's opinions stinking. You're welcome.) Seriously, you can't spend your time worrying about what SEO experts say and who contradicts them. Or about who's right and who's wrong. I'm not saying that you shouldn't read any information on the various sites frequented by the SEO community. I'm just saying take it all with a grain of salt. If you find someone that you tend to agree with based on your own experience, then go ahead and put a bit more stock into what that person says. But don't take it as gospel truth and always be open to different schools of thought.

Remember, experience is the best teacher. And I mean your experience, not only someone else's. You can only gain knowledge from others, but you can never know what actually works or doesn't work until you go out and do it for yourself.

6) Obsessing over Microsoft/Yahoo/Ask rankings

Before you get your panties in a bunch over this one, let me put it into context. Each engine has different algorithms and therefore each will rank a page differently for the same keywords. Is it smart to work on getting your site ranked on MSN, Yahoo, and Ask? Sure, absolutely. But never at the expense of your Google rankings. Never. While different algorithms are employed, they all tend to run off the same basic premise: a good site will rank well, regardless of the algorithm used to evaluate it.

Don't think that you need to optimize a page for each search engine. It doesn't work that way. Just do good optimization and all engines will rate you accordingly. Now, you should be concerned about making sure each engine finds your web site and that it is relevant for your key search phrases. But don't make drastic changes to your pages because Ask or Microsoft has you at page 2 while Google has you at the top of page 1. Not unless you absolutely know those changes won't cause a drop in your Google rankings. If you're uncertain, or if you make those changes and see Ask move up and Google move down, by all means change it back. It's just not worth it.

I'll finish up next week (you can thank me with lavish praise and links.) We'll keep going down the list until we hit the number one thing that a small business should absolutely never be worried about. Ever. Stay tuned.

Stoney deGeyter is CEO of Pole Position Marketing. The Small Is Beautiful column appears on Thursdays at Search Engine Land.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

CO-ED Magazine » Facebook Music is Coming!

Quoted from http://coedmagazine.com/entertainment/Music/3400:

CO-ED Magazine » Facebook Music is Coming!

Facebook Music is Coming!

October 31, 2007 – 12:35 pm, By Steve - Seton Hall University

 

As reported earlier this year, Facebook has been rumored to announce an online music service to compete with iTunes and MySpace in the near future.

This just in: the “Facebook Music” platform will serve as the social networking giants first step into the music space.

The new platform is set to be announced at ad:tech in New York City next week. Leading up to this announcement Facebook has been holding top-secret meetings with high-level representatives at each of the four major music labels.

Here’s how it works:

Major and independent label artists and will register their sub-domain name through Facebook. Like “www.facebook.com/insertbandnamehere” for example.

On this page Facebook users will be allowed to become “fans” of the artist and connect to the media hosted on the “artist page.”

In the first generation of Facebook Music “fans” will be allowed to listen to artist’s music, watch videos, upload pictures, add music to their page, receive tour information and interact with other fans. Online music moguls, be warned.

Future generations will come quickly and allow unprecedented targeted marketing, ad buys and media promotion. Facebook is developing artist specific sales widgets to allow for music sales through the site as well.

This is only the first generation of Facebook Music and Zuckerberg has stated that users can expect future developments that include a head-on assault on iTunes and MTV, possible intergration with the iLike application and the ultimate goal being to consume MySpace Music - Tom Anderson’s bread and butter.

Google Announces the OpenSocial API

Quoted from http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/10/google-opensocial-api-launch.html:

Google Announces the OpenSocial API

Google Announces the OpenSocial API

 

Google has announced OpenSocial, a new open API for social networks. The new standard will allow developers to create Facebook-like apps on any social network site that implements it with the same calls.

The open API will have three parts

 

  • People
  • Storage
  • Activity stream

All of these calls will have a GData counterpart and they will use HTML and Javascript only. Google is considering adding OAuth (Radar post) to the API.

On Thursday the following links should go live:

 

Google's launch partners are hi5, iLike, Slide, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning and SixApart (the largest). Check out Techmeme, Techcrunch, and the New York Times for more coverage.

Google will be holding the first of their developer CampFires at the GooglePlex this Friday to explain OpenSocial. A CampFire is Google's new method of disseminating information to developers. These events will be invite-only and will include about thirty developers. Video of the event will be available in the days following.

Google's OpenSocial API will gain traction with a lot of social networks, but I doubt that we will see Facebook or MySpace supporting it. Both are large enough to require their own API. I'll be curious to see how each site extends the OpenSocial API and how that affects adoption and app creation.

Patrick Chanezon, a Google evangelist, will be giving a technical talk on the OpenSocial API Tuesday, November 6th (next week) at the Web 2.0 Expo Berlin.