If you’re looking for a web analytics program but don’t want to use Google Analytics, you might want to give CrawlTrack a look. This web application goes beyond simple analytics to help secure your website. Let’s take a closer look. CrawlTrack is a web analytics and security web application for PHP-MySQL powered websites. It is similar to Google Analytics in the way that it tracks visitors and traffic sources.
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Website-Promotion-Help/CrawlTrack-Tips-and-Techniques-for-Webmasters/

Yahoo’s line of thinking with regards to the big Microsoft/Yahoo search and advertising deal is that it will benefit both Microsoft and Yahoo’s advertisers, as well as consumers and publishers. It will benefit advertisers because it will increase search volume, with results from both Bing and Yahoo being taken into consideration.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/03/09/yahoo-on-microsoft-deal-benefits-for-advertisers-consumers-publishers

Earlier today, Google chief economist gave a presentation to an FTC workshop on the changing economics of the newspaper industry. We all know that newspaper ad revenues have been falling off a cliff for years. Many media companies blame Google and are trying to put the genie back in the bottle with partial metered models for online news.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/09/google-hal-varian-news-never-made-money/

Real-time search results are an extension of Google’s Universal Search Results, and are triggered algorithmically based on query volume. When a topic or keyword reaches a predefined frequency, then Google’s algorithm automatically begins using the real-time search page. Real-time search results include news headlines, blog headlines, and a scrolling widget with social media comments along with Google’s regular results. Time stamps are included with all of these additional pieces of data so that users can choose the timeliest results.
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/25877.asp

A topic that has been discussed extensively by some people in the SEO community is the notion that having a W3C compliant web site is either critical to SEO or it’s not. If the goal is to ensure that a client site has the best possible chance at it’s highest organic rankings, then we need to acknowledge that even just factoring in Google, there are about 200 indicators to consider.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/w3c-validation-for-seo-myth-and-reality/18566/

The .com TLD works for both the www and non-www version of the site.  But to be sure that you do not have an indexing problem, use a 301 server side redirect to force the non-www version to the www version.
http://www.bing.com/community/forums/t/657920.aspx

Microsoft is formally launching its much improved MSN portal today. There are lots of  interesting elements to the site, including the “local edition,” which is basically a collection of persistent Bing search queries presented in a structured and browse-able way.
http://searchengineland.com/new-msn-out-of-beta-driving-nearly-50-percent-of-bing-queries-37638

Doing math through a search engine isn’t new. One of Google’s earliest parlor tricks was allowing people to enter math problems into its search box and get answers. You can do a wide range of functions using the Google Calculator.
http://searchengineland.com/math-engines-for-multiplying-mixed-fractions-its-wolfram-alpha-over-google-bing-37653

Pagination, the practice of segmenting links to content on multiple pages, affects two critical elements of search engine accessibility. For many years, Google’s recommended that pages contain no more than 100 links (internal or external) in order to make it easy for spiders to reach down deep into a site’s architecture. Many SEOs have found that this “limit” isn’t hard and fast, but staying within that general range remains a best practice. Hence, pages that contain many hundreds or thousands of links may inadvertently be hurting the access of search engines to the content-rich pages in the list making pagination essential.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/pagination-best-practices-for-seo-user-experience

Most everyone who optimizes for Google Local (aka Google Maps) is familar with David Mihm’s excellent and oft-referenced Local Search Ranking Factors. In that document, and in many places where local results are analyzed, it’s clear that getting your business/website into more listings, in a consistent fashion is a very good thing. Yet, somehow, this obvious tactic has gone missing from many GG Local optimization recommendations. Either that or it’s so obvious that no one feels the need to mention it. Whatever the case, it’s available now.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/one-dead-simple-tactic-for-better-rankings-in-google-local

Google’s latest endeavor, Living Stories, is perhaps their most interesting and daring yet. A global study recently found that the age of the average Internet user is 28 years. It has also been found that those in their mid- to late twenties don’t really read newspapers anymore. Even worse, online newspapers are severely struggling to draw readers in and generate any kind of revenue. None of these facts deterred Google from teaming up with The New York Times and The Washington Post for Living Stories, which according to Google is “an experiment in presenting news designed specifically for the online environment.”
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-News/Googles-Living-Stories-the-Final-Nail-in-the-Coffin-for-Paper-Media/

From Facebook to Twitter to You Tube, there’s no limit to the number of social networking sites that can be leveraged to interact with customers and prospects, and build positive brand awareness. In order to expand your network, LinkedIn marketing efforts – like anything else – must be promoted in other channels. Include a link to your profile on your website and blog, in individual blog posts, in email signatures and even on business cards. Be sure to optimize your profile for important and relevant keywords. Allow enough of your profile to be public so search engines can rank that content accordingly.
http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/03/linkedin-marketing-tips/

Speculation abounds that Apple’s patent-infringement lawsuit is really a proxy for a war against Google as the two Valley behemoths find themselves in increasing competition. The patent-infringement lawsuit Apple filed against HTC on Monday caught the entire industry off guard, and has left plenty in the tech press and blogosphere accusing the firm of using HTC as a proxy to attack Google, widely seen as Apple’s real enemy.
http://www.internetnews.com/mobility/article.php/3868976/Is+Apple+Taking+Aim+at+Google+With+HTC+Suit.htm

The standoff between Google and the Chinese government took another turn this weekend, with state officials saying that the search giant had not come forward with a formal complaint about the hacking attacks that prompted it to threaten to shutter its operations in the country. “If Google decides to continue its business in China and abides by China’s laws, it’s welcome to stay,” he said, adding that if the company decides to pull out of the country, “it must go through certain procedures according to the law.”
http://www.internetnews.com/government/article.php/3869291/China+Claims+Google+Didnt+Report+Hacking+Attack.htm

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is testing a new TV programming search service with Dish Network: The service—which runs on TV set-top boxes using elements of Google’s Android operating system—allows users to search content from Dish as well as other Web video, like YouTube, and to personalize a lineup of shows, according to these people.
http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-tv-search-service-with-dish-37572

Google has announced a new tool called Google Public Data Explorer that’s now available in Google Labs. The tool is a follow-up of sorts to last year’s announcement that a limited amount of public data would be used in response to certain Google.com search results.
http://searchengineland.com/google-adds-public-data-search-tool-to-labs-37554

SenSEO is a Firebug FireFox addon (this means you have to install FireBug to use it) checking important on-page-SEO criteria and calculating a grade of how good the current site fulfills these criteria. The tool adds one extra tab to FireBug window which allows to inspect the current page. The first thing to do is to identify a keyword (or a key phrase) to inspect the page against it. Just type in the search box and click “Inspect SEO Criteria.”
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/on-page-diagnosis-with-senseo-firefox/18227/

The search giant opens up with more details as to just how its cloud-based Google Apps suite recovers from disaster. Google is revealing more information about how the company secures information for users of its Google Apps suite, specifically its ability to handle outages — with claims of uptime and failover performance that could make any enterprise IT manager jealous.
http://www.internetnews.com/storage/article.php/3868796/Google+Highlights+Disaster+Recovery+Offerings.htm

Microsoft released its advance notice for next week’s “Patch Tuesday” bug fixes and, for a change, system administrators should have a fairly peaceful week, since there are only two bugs ranked as “important” to patch this time around. In order to make life a little easier for system managers, Microsoft releases all, or most, of its monthly bug fixes on the second Tuesday of the month — thus, it’s called “Patch Tuesday.”
http://www.internetnews.com/software/article.php/3868801/Microsoft+Only+Has+Two+Bugs+to+Squash+for+March.htm

The latest survey by the Anti Phishing Working Group shows that organized phishing syndicates are working all the angles to get their hands on the most valuable data. High-profile cyber attacks on major corporations and government agencies are not only becoming more common, but, as eSecurity Planet found, also tailored to specific individuals who have been electronically stalked for months or even years. And even though popular social networking sites, payment processors and major e-commerce sites still remain in serial phishers’ sights, smaller e-tailers, local banks and off-the-beaten-path manufacturing firms are the new targets of choice.

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3869006/Phishers+Targeting+More+Online+Brands.htm

The news that Google is buying DocVerse is now official. The reasons why Google bought this small company can be learned by taking a look at the people who started this small company out of Seattle. DocVerse understands the challenges of working on deeply collaborative technologies. That’s a goal for Google as it continues to develop Google Apps. The DocVerse application installs a lightweight plug-in that is installed in the background of the user’s machine.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/03/wy-did-google-buy-docverse.php

Crawling and indexing issues can really put a damper on your efforts to rank well for a variety of competitive and non-competitive terms.  Solving indexing issues is definitely an important step towards increasing your keyword ranking footprint.
http://searchengineland.com/solving-website-indexing-problems-36856

One more piece of news from the “Ask the Search Engines” session at SMX West on Thursday: Yahoo and Bing are in the midst of discussions to decide the future of Yahoo’s popular Site Explorer SEO tool. Yahoo’s Arnab Bhattacharjee told conference attendees that the two companies are now going through discussions on how to transition from being competitors to the new situation where Bing will power Yahoo’s algorithmic search results, and that Site Explorer is part of those discussions.
http://searchengineland.com/bing-yahoo-discussing-future-of-yahoo-site-explorer-37408

The number of backlinks that you’ll need will depend on the quality of the backlinks you get. For example, if you a get a do follow link on the homepage of google, you’ll be in the first position for that SERP as soon as the index next updates. That’s not very realistic though, those kind of links aren’t readily available. You’ll probably need hundreds, or even thousands of quality backlinks of all different kinds of quality to come close to the number 1 spot.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1714549&page=8

Both content and links are required for a website to rank well in Google. If you have good content and have done your on-page optimization well you can expect to rank well in yahoo and Bing, but google takes into account backlinks more.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1717529

It always seems to be SEO vs. PPC. Both of them vying for attention and trying to take all of your advertising dollars. When it comes to SEO, sometimes it’s hard to know which keywords are the best ones to optimize for. This is where you can bring in PPC and specifically Adwords. So many SEO’s scoff at PPC, but they often forget some of the simple benefits any SEO campaign can gain from a small $50 spend in PPC.
http://www.seo-scoop.com/2010/02/26/using-ppc-to-boost-seo-campaigns/

To quantify keyword difficulty, you will associate it with the keyword searches; the higher the keyword search volume, the more competitive the keyword, in most cases. We can look not only at the amount of search volume, but also the number of indexed pages in Google containing the exact term. The higher the number of competing pages, the more the keyword would tend to be competitive.
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Choosing-Keywords-Help/Keyword-Difficulty-vs-Size-of-Domain/

Effective search engine optimization is equal parts art, science, and EXPERIENCE. Search Engines have become very adept at listing fresh content. The Search Engine Marketing community used to say wait 90 days to see the results. Some changes can occur much more quickly now. Personalized search also throws a large monkey wrench into seeing changes in the SERPs.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-wins-sins-joe-laratro/18335/

Google announced a pretty cool feature that most of us Android phone users would surely find useful and innovative – gesture search. Basically, what this does is to free you of the task of typing your search terms. With gesture search, all you have to do is to draw alphabet gestures on your Android phones homescreen. Gesture search will then suggest search terms based on what you’ve drawn.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-launches-gesture-search-for-android-2-0-phones/18428/

Any good search engine, such as Google or Bing, has “editorial” or “organic” or “natural” listings. These are listings that appear without anyone paying for them. They are provided as a core product of that search engine, in the same way that a newspaper has a core product of writing stories about topics it believes are of interest to its readers, rather than to its advertisers.
http://searchengineland.com/does-sem-seo-cpc-still-add-up-37297

Today: SEM Still Excludes SEO; Inclusive Definition An “Alternative”. Some of the damage was reversed in July 2009. Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites  by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.
http://searchengineland.com/how-wikipedia-turned-ppc-paid-search-into-sem-37300

There are numerous posts on PPC vs SEO, who gets more money, and all that mumbo jumbo. One thing that they do have in common is the infamous and often feared Google ban/penalty. The new Quality Score system has penalties built in that reflect in your quality score for a keyword. The lower your quality score, the more potential there is for higher costs and lower placements. That is the equivalent of a sudden drop in rankings.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/penalties-bans-and-paid-search/18320/

The best way to reduce bounce rates and design a path of least resistance for members and customers is to offer something they want. While others prioritize member acquisition in order to build an early product test case, Sean Ellis has a slightly different philosophy. Ellis has worked with companies like LogMeIn and Xobni to produce scalable marketing programs. Before tweaking design and funnel optimization, Ellis takes pride in the fact that his successes have been built on establishing a core value to users.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/03/conversion.php

Today Google is announcing a new feature in search that makes it easier for you to mark and rediscover your favorite web content — stars. With stars, you can simply click the star marker on any search result or map and the next time you perform a search, that item will appear in a special list right at the top of your results when relevant. That means if you star the official websites for your favorite football teams, you might see those results right at the top of your next search for [nfl].
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/stars-make-search-more-personal.html

Google “personalizes” as much as 20 per cent of your web searches, according to Mountain View software engineer Bryan Horling. Speaking this afternoon at the search-obsessed SMX West conference in Santa Clara, Horling – a developer with Google’s personalized search team – said that up to one in five searches are tailored to the user’s particular location, web history, or online contacts. “As it stands today,” Horling explained, “between these three techniques, just about every user who’s engaging with Google search today is affected.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/03/google_personalized_search_explained/

Juniper Research has come out with more analysis that shows just how big the mobile enterprise market will be for cloud computing. According to Juniper, the advent of collaboration tools will mean that 130 million enterprise workers will use the mobile cloud by 2014. The steep climb will be in part due to the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings from companies like Google and Microsoft.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2010/03/how-many-enterprise-workers-wi.php

Yahoo has scored a spot as the default search engine on the new Motorola Backflip, AT&T’s first phone using the Android operating system. The web site Android and Me quotes this hands-on report from Engadget: Yahoo has replaced Google as the default search provider throughout the phone. It’s crazy: the home screen widget, the browser, everything’s been programmed to use Yahoo.
http://searchengineland.com/att-picks-yahoo-over-google-to-provide-search-on-first-android-phone-37181

Google’s SEO Report Card is an effort to provide Google’s product teams with ideas on how they can improve their products’ pages using simple and accepted optimizations. These optimizations are intended to not only help search engines understand the content of our pages better, but also to improve our users’ experience when visiting our sites.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/googles-seo-report-card.html

Speaking today on CNBC, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said that Yahoo would “absolutely” consider a buyout offer from “any company at the right price.” According to paidContent, Bartz later qualified her comments to indicate that she’s not actively looking for a buyer, and that if she were in charge of Yahoo when Microsoft made its original offer, she would’ve taken the deal.
http://searchengineland.com/bartz-says-yahoo-would-consider-buyout-37157

The popularity of social networking sites on the Internet offers not only opportunities for friends to meet again online, or get in touch with your old classmates and office mates, but a new opportunity in the field of search engine optimization strategy. Getting links using the targeted anchor text pointing to your websites, or at least earning a link, is one of the most important search engine ranking factors. That’s not only true for Google, but also for other big search engines, like Bing and Yahoo.
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Website-Marketing-Help/Social-Networking-SEO-Tips-and-Techniques/

According to the policy, you are allowed a maximum of three AdSense ads per page. Therefore, to maximize the clicks, you need to utilize the maximum three ads per page, if possible. However, depending on your layout, using the maximum number of allowable ads might clutter a page. So you will need to add more content (500 words minimum per post), so that content will still receive more emphasis as opposed to the ads.
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google-Optimization-Help/Beyond-Keywords-Increase-Your-Google-AdSense-Revenue/

Nicole Wong, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, spoke today about China, the Internet, and censorship, and by way of recap, said, “The attack on our corporate infrastructure and the surveillance it uncovered – as well as attempts over the past year to limit free speech on the Web even further – led us to conclude that we are no longer willing to censor our results in China and we are currently reviewing our options.” This should provide some reassurance to free speech advocates who feared Google was backing down from a fight (and/or trying not to abandon a potential profit center).
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/03/02/google-reiterates-unwillingness-to-censor-results-in-china

Whether you choose to use spreadsheets, or PowerPoint presentations, or a high-gloss full color bound book isn’t ever as important as the quality of the information you provide within the document.  So be sure to focus more on the quality of the content.  Just like you’re doing for the actual SEO for your client sites. One of the most challenging aspects of getting new clients to understand how serious the work is to come, is to get them to wake up to the competitive landscape.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/anatomy-of-a-hands-on-seo-audit-part-2/18362/

Competition is stiff these days. It’s getting harder and harder to achieve optimal search engine rankings, at least without professional help. So how to compete in a space where it might not be feasible to increase rankings for your most competitive keywords? Believe it or not, there are actually plenty of ways to leverage existing visibility to increase traffic.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-without-the-seo/18339/

For online marketers, optimizing for social media has become not just interesting, but a must. All major search engines have embraced social media. And with Google incorporating Facebook content into its real time results the integration of social media and search is a fact.
http://searchengineland.com/marketing-with-social-media-try-some-local-european-networks-36945

The Google keyword ad server allows advertisers to specify (e.g., for purposes of targeting) one or more countries in which their ad may be served. This permits ads to be served to particular users who presumably speak and understand a particular language. Unfortunately, however, many businesses have only a regional or local reach.
http://searchengineland.com/has-google-just-patented-geo-targeting-37111

A study of 2,168 HubSpot customers shows that businesses that published at least 5 blog articles in the last 7 days draw 6.9 times more organic search traffic and 1.12 times more referral traffic than those who don’t blog at all. A good company blog is an exceptionally powerful SEO weapon.
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/seo-benefits-of-blogging-more-search-traffic/2867/

You SMM efforts should complement your SEO efforts. Choosing one over the other will turn out to be nothing so much as a mistake. Continue building links and optimizing your site while you build your presence in social media.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/do%E2%80%99s-don%E2%80%99ts-of-social-media-marketing/18292/

Google has just acquired another company as announced by the company’s official blog. It’s Picnik, a fun, online image editor that was founded in 2005 and since then become one of the most feature-rich online image editor partnering with various photo uploading sites including Flickr. Picnik claims of millions of visitors monthly, which is probably one of the reason why Google acquired it. While Picasa Web Album is a pretty good photo uploading site, tying up with Picnik could add some luster to Google’s photo sharing site.

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-buys-online-image-editor-picnik/18353/

Twitter has just announced a number of partnerships with a companies engaged in “real-time search and discovery”. According to the blog post, the company is “happily turning the Firehose on for some new partners focused mainly on exploring the incredibly rich field of real-time search and discovery.” The full spectrum of data available in the “Firehose” was previously only available to Yahoo, Google and Microsoft. With this announcement, Ellerdale, Collecta, Kosmix, Scoopler, twazzup, CrowdEye, and Chainn Search will all join on as partners with Twitter and have access to the entirety of Twitter’s data stream in real time.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_turns_on_the_stream_for_big_and_small_alik.php

Microsoft announced today that Bing is just now supporting query history in its Autosuggest feature. In other words, if you have your search history enabled, Bing will incorporate past queries you’ve made into the suggestions.

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/03/01/bing-suggests-queries-based-on-search-history

A while back, WebProNews had a conversation with RateItAll President Lawrence Coburn about how the long tail of search is getting more competitive. Companies like AOL and Demand Media are working on dominating long tail searches with content across a broad scope of article subject matter.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/03/01/seo-and-quality-key-to-competing-in-the-long-tail

The Pew Internet project has just released a lengthy report on online news consumption entitled Understanding the Participatory News Consumer. There are no search-specific findings; however it appears from the survey data that “portal websites like Google News, AOL and Topix are the most commonly used online news sources, visited by over half of online news users on a typical day.”
http://searchengineland.com/pew-portals-most-commonly-used-news-sites-37069

Microsoft goes on to complain of “Google business practices that tend to lock in publishers and advertisers and make it harder for Microsoft to gain search volume.” What these regulators and competition authorities need to determine is whether Google is doing anything affirmative or specifically to harm competition or competitors.
http://searchengineland.com/admitting-role-in-google-anti-trust-complaints-microsoft-complains-of-google-lock-in-37009

Newsrooms are cutting staff and reporters and editors are hard pressed to do more with less. Tools like search engines and social media make available a tremendous amount of information in real-time.  The news world is a world of deadlines and it would seem the use of search and social networks to source experts or people/companies that fit a story angle would be ideal. Even respected news organizations like the BBC are encouraging their journalists to embrace social media.
http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/02/journalists-search-social-media/

If you’re using Google Analytics and are new, learn both the basic and deeper functionality, such as creating advanced segmentation. It’s critical to understand your tool before you get into creating reports. Inevitably after making reports questions will arise asking for specifics, so you’ll want to know how to answer them. Smashing Magazine has a fleshed out guide to Google Analytics that will give you a crash course in the app.
http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/02/web-analytics-reporting/

The major news networks are all covering the disaster in Chile, and Pacific reaction to the tsunami warnings, via social media feeds from residents in the Chilean area, and tweets from Hawaiians and locals from other Pacific islands. Twitter is tracking the Tsunami warnings with the hashtag #Tsunami. Looking at the Twitter results, we can see that the Hawaii Red Cross is proactively reaching out to native Hawaiians via Twitter.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/tsunami-warnings/18279/

Although Google’s undoubtedly best known for dominating the traditional search market, the company’s no slouch when it comes to mobile. New stats from Opera indicate that Google has a huge lead over its closest rival, and that its other well-funded competitor barely enters the equation.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/25/google-trounces-yahoo-bing-in-mobile-search-report

Now Google’s real-time search results include (as listed by Danny Sullivan) Facebook, MySpace, Twiter, Google Buzz, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca, TwitArmy, Google News links, Google Blog Search links, new web pages, and freshly updated pages. At this point, Google generally only shows the real-time results for newsy/trending topics.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/25/your-facebook-page-is-in-googles-real-time-results-now

Information architecture supports findability and usability. It can also support organic SEO practices related to on-page content and word usage. Information architects use terms such as taxonomies and semantics to help describe what they do. Simply put, they organize categories of information into something that makes logical sense. A usability oriented person is interested in the same thing because words can create momentum or promote frustration.
http://searchengineland.com/its-a-fatal-mistake-to-copy-successful-web-sites-36855

Things in the Local Search space are out of the control of the typical small business owner; even if they know about the Google Local Business Center, Yahoo Local Listings, or Bing Local Listing Center, they’re only covering half their bases (according to last year’s 15 Miles survey.) And other portals and data companies typically don’t push updates live with the same alacrity as Google and Bing.
http://searchengineland.com/local-search-complexity-smb-frustration-36839

Google added the ability to refine your searches with the “Nearby” tool in the Search Options panel. One of the really helpful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don’t have to worry about adding “Minneapolis” to your query and missing webpages that only say “St. Paul” or “Twin Cities.”
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/refine-your-searches-by-location.html

Mobile search continues to explode. According to eMarketer, mobile search spending will grow 81% over the next two years. So there’s no better time to get a jump start on your mobile search campaigns.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/5-steps-to-launching-a-mobile-search-campaign/18153/

Search engine optimization is never in a void. It is never a best case scenario. As long as there are budgets (clients, in-house, agency) there are going to be limitations to any SEO program. If you read the blog-o-sphere, took some courses, no matter how you keep on top of things, it is generally the whole ball of wax approach. This can be a flawed business model.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-priorities-%E2%80%93-task-roi/18196/

If you travel much and still need to keep your blog active, you will definitely find these tips useful: they will show you how to post to your blogs from email (and thus from your mobile phone). You can use the huge advantage of Posterous is that you can email it anything – text, photos, mp3’s, videos, documents – and it will automatically uploaded and posted to your site.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/3-ways-to-blog-from-your-email/18020/

Yahoo has announced a fairly substantial overhaul of how Yahoo Answers looks and works — and as a semi-regular user of the site. The primary functional changes involve a new set of navigation tabs and a new way of browsing the categories on Yahoo Answers. Yahoo has also changed the general look and feel of the site, and made backend upgrades, as well.

http://searchengineland.com/yahoo-answers-gets-a-new-look-36895

Chinese scientists say their research will be dramatically compromised if Google shuts down its search engine in China. One scientist says it would be like going blind: “If I lose Google, it will [be] just like a man without his eyes.” Another says it “would be like life without electricity.”

http://searchengineland.com/losing-google-chinese-scientists-say-like-going-blind-36890

Companies like Google, Facebook, MySpace, etc. couldn’t let users upload content, which essentially means social media couldn’t exist. User-generated content couldn’t exist. That’s why Google is not only upset about the ruling against its

Google announced via Twitter, that public status updates from Facebook are now included in the search engine’s real-time search feature. That means the largest social network in the world is getting play in Google’s real-time search alongside Twitter, MySpace, and others.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/25/your-facebook-page-is-in-googles-real-time-results-now

It is not a good blogging objective to earn a massive amount of Google AdSense income. In that situation, a blog is NOT a content-based blog; rather, it’s more of an affiliate blog which can be classified as “spam” in an extreme case.
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google-Optimization-Help/How-to-Increase-Google-AdSense-Revenue/

Twitter seems to be getting on every search engines lately. It has already struck deals with both Microsoft and Google whereby Twitter streams will be integrated into search result pages. And now, it just agreed on a content sharing deal with Yahoo.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/yahoo-twitter-agree-on-content-sharing-deal/18184/

Facebook Insights shows demographic details and interactions on your pages BUT limited to show information of fans only. It is far less sophisticated and comprehensive when compared to the free Google Analytics. One of the limitations of Facebook Fan pages is that you can only run limited Javascript on it and Google Analytics needs Javascript code included to correctly track visitors.
http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2010/google-analytics-for-facebook-fan-pages/

Simply sharing your location has simply become a way of sending out a generic query, and local businesses have some tremendous new opportunities as a result. Potential customers sharing their locations means businesses can provide a real-time call-to-action to get them inside their establishment while they’re nearby.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/24/why-even-local-search-is-becoming-more-real-time

Consumer Watchdog today called on the Justice Department to guarantee that its ongoing antitrust probe of Google’s business practices include an investigation into if the company is manipulating its search results to favor its own products. The nonprofit advocacy group said it sent a letter to Christine Varney, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Division, after news that the European Commission had received three complaints against Google alleging the company manipulated search engine results in an anticompetitive way.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/24/advocacy-group-asks-doj-to-probe-google-search-results

The outer web is where the best practices of landing page optimization and post-click marketing shine. Users have more flexible expectations on landing pages, especially when responding to specific, targeted offers.
http://searchengineland.com/the-5-rings-of-conversion-optimization-36205

B2B marketers work hard to target the right keywords, create compelling ad copy, and drive potential customers to click on their ads, all with the hopes of capturing them as a lead. But unfortunately, conversion rates often fall short of what they could be. Desperate to make up ground, many B2B marketers ramp up their paid search spend to drive more traffic, and in doing so, end up maintaining their dismal conversion rate.
http://searchengineland.com/5-landing-page-tips-to-boost-your-conversion-rate-36395

Google specifically scroll different websites according to their business logic. As per Google rule, it keeps details on number of times it found fresh content on any particular website. If any website update content within a span of 2-3 days, then google crawler will frequently visit that website. Google search crawler is thirsty for good content and is always in search of those websites which produce quality content on regular basis.
http://www.submitexpress.com/bbs/about74792.html&sid=c0dd61e2ed2608cf587e211bdec3c92d

Content optimization is not the only way to optimize landing pages. In fact, when it comes to boosting your conversion rate, it may not even be the most effective method.
http://www.submitexpress.com/bbs/about75041.html&sid=c0dd61e2ed2608cf587e211bdec3c92d

SEO is done for one reason — gaining the attention of the search engines. You want your site to appear in results when certain keywords are typed into search engine browsers,

There really is only one way to react to personalised search [besides encouraging people to jump through hoops and volunteer to search for you in Google rather than simply typing in your web address] and that is by improving the quality of search listings to maximise click through rates. This should be part of your SEO task list already, but it is now more vital than ever to ensure that your search listing is as enticing as possible to ensure you get that first click.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/writing-for-attention-ammunition-for-personalised-search/17968/

By applying the long-tail concept to driving website traffic, you can achieve greater traffic by leveraging multiple sites, instead of just the 3 major search engines. Here is a great place to start to find the most important and highly visited sites on the web.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-leverage-traffic-besides-using-organic-search/18100/

Keywords and search queries are two very different entities. While keywords are the inventory an advertiser buys, search queries are the actual words people type into a search engine. The distinction is important, because search queries typically cover a significantly longer tail than keyword buys, and there is a lot of value in mining search engine query data.
http://searchengineland.com/short-vs-long-tail-which-search-queries-perform-best-36762

Google’s massive computing power and bandwidth give the company an undeniable edge. Some observers say it’s an advantage that essentially prohibits startups from trying to compete. But Manber says it’s not infrastructure alone that makes Google the leader: “The very, very, very key ingredient in all of this is that we hired the right people.”
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_google_algorithm/all/1

Yahoo’s been busy in Nebraska. This week, the company announced the opening of both a data center and a call center in the state, and apparently the celebration was a big deal, with Jerry Yang and several high(-ish) ranking politicians all showing up. One possible interpretation of all this activity is that Yahoo’s very optimistic about its future even as Microsoft’s stepping in to influence the search and advertising side of things.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/18/yahoo-opens-data-center-call-center-in-nebraska

Google continues to invest in DoubleClick, the ad management system it bought in 2007 for a whopping $3.1 billion. Today Google released a major upgrade to the ad server that includes a new interface and new features designed to make it easier for publishers to manage ad campaigns across multiple Web sites, including when they want them to appear.
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3866486/Googles+DoubleClick+Ad+Server+Gets+Major+Upgrade.htm

Optimizing for Yahoo is not going to be limited to showing up in Bing’s results. That’s not to say that showing up in Bing’s results won’t have its advantages for Yahoo search, but there is a lot more going on at Yahoo than that. The company has been stressing that it is still very much focused on search, and under the deal with Microsoft, Yahoo will still be controlling the user experience at Yahoo.com.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/22/will-bing-powering-yahoo-make-seo-easier

Microsoft has spent a lot of money promoting Bing since its launch, and Bing’s usage has grown by millions of people since then, but it still has a long way to go to reach the top of the search market share mountain. Google is still sitting comfortably atop that mountain of course, but Google doesn’t really have to lose for Bing to win.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/18/why-bing-may-be-on-the-road-to-incredible-growth

If “Content is King” and “Links are Queen” when it comes to SEO, ecommerce sites must be like America – no king and no queen (but there is opportunity)! To put it another way, the typical medium or large e-commerce website faces substantial challenges to SEO – both from a content and a link perspective.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/7-ways-to-beat-the-challenges-of-seo-for-ecommerce/18057/

The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently undertook a massive task (for the fourth time): predicting the future of the internet. Combine the sense that generally, searchers seem to assume high ranking results are truthful ones with the data showing that searchers trust organic results more than paid ones and a clear case emerges for an investment in organic search for overall brand credibility.
http://searchengineland.com/the-future-of-the-internet-search-looks-bright-36585

Google confirmed two different discussions taking place in the webmaster and SEO community over the past few days. The first is that MySpace results are now included in Google’s Real Time search results feature. In addition, Google launched real-time search in Russian and Japanese.
http://searchengineland.com/google-adds-myspace-to-real-time-results-images-site-command-updates-36657

In a recent study conducted by Conductor, Inc reveals that although Fortune 500 companies spend a massive amount of online spend on paid search, their organic search results perform very poorly. Only 2% of the domains (not companies) surveyed showed a significant number of their terms in the top results. All of these positive domain scores were offset by other owned domains with significant visibility issues.
http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2010/02/half-of-fortune-500-have-no-natural.html

There’s no perfect length for a blog post. It’s like the idea of keyword density in SEO; there’s no magic number for keyword density on a web page, and there’s no magic number for how long your blog posts should be.
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/how-long-should-a-blog-post-be/2817/

Press releases are just another version of article submission. But the main differences are news will be taken from main sites to blogs, feeds and other smaller news networks, so if your news is a good one you will get lots of links. Press releases will bring more (more than double) traffic than articles. Articles will do best with link building, but if you are good at press releases, the same kind of link building can be done here also.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1698995&page=2

Google announced a new Android application called Google Shopper. Shopper lets you find product information quickly by using your phone’s camera. It can recognize cover art of books, CDs, DVDs, and video games, along with most barcodes.
http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/02/shopping-smarter-with-google-shopper.html

No matter how popular Gmail is, not everyone is still aware of what he can do with it. Search option is one of the most awesome features of the service which (together with some external utilities) is a great fun to use.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/3-gmail-search-tips-you-will-be-thankful-for/17726/

The big mobile search engines are still serving up old-fashioned lists of desktop (i.e. full web) search results on touch devices. They are assuming that the full desktop web page is the best result for every search. Search engines that can crawl and index the touch-friendly web will improve upon today’s mobile search services in four crucial ways.
http://searchengineland.com/touch-phones-changing-the-way-we-search-36556

VentureBeat reports Twitter has increased their traffic by 9 percent from December to January. After deeper insight from ComScore and Hitwise, it appears that most, if not all, came from Google. When Google added real-time results to their search interface in December, it had a major impact on people discovering Tweets in the search results. Google will show real time results from Twitter and other sites based on if that is a trending (hot) query.
http://searchengineland.com/twitters-traffic-up-9-thanks-to-google-36509

With the imminent release of the Apple iPad, the publishing industry is about to take yet another giant leap into the digital space. Just as with the iPhone, the tablet will not support Adobe’s proprietary format. The pad instead favors the potent HTML 5 standard for interaction and H.264 or MPEG-4 for movie viewing. And in the process you’ll likely increase the SEO of your site.
http://www.searchmarketingstandard.com/optimize-website-preparation-ipad

Some WordPress websites are hosted in a very limited environment that won’t allow the creation of more than one database. However, creating multiple databases can be useful for diverse WordPress applications (such as having a separate MySQL database for English language content and another for customized French-based content).
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/WordPress-Database-Tutorial-Security-Backup-and-Efficiency-Tips/

Some tips for getting traffic towards website or blog is including subscription on blog page. It helps people to get updates from your blog, so that they can visit your blog again and again whenever you update your blog page. Another one is video distribution which has now become one of the most lethal weapon for attracting people. Share your video on all video sharing platforms with a link back to your blog page. Using numbers in title of the post generates good traffic too.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1698301

A comment from DigitalPoint forum says that regardless of the PR of the site (which is just for showing the authority – not for SERPs) the best thing is to put single key phrases with url (like ‘SEO Services’ and so than putting ‘SEO Services with guaranteed results’). But there is a small difference in this. If you put ‘SEO Services’ alone (the keyword alone) you will get extra weight there but SEs point only for the exact keywords (searches for ‘SEO Services’ alone) and if you put the entire phrase like ‘SEO Services with guaranteed results’ there is a chance to get more pointing towards your site than the other, but here the weight of the link will be comparatively less.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1698995

There are no doubts that reviews effect ranking factors on the major search engines, as well as a number of IYP’s (Internet Yellow Pages). This issue has a very high “agreeance” among local SEO’s. “Yahoo Local has said there’s a threshold for the number of reviews and that once you reach that threshold, the reviews begin to factor into your rankings. Reviews are a very good trust factor to prove the validity of a business, but they can be semi-easily fabricated by guys with black hats and dark sunglasses. At this current time, and for the foreseeable future, reviews affect rankings.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/an-extremely-nifty-guide-to-reviews-and-local-search/17853/

Despite spending millions of dollars on paid search, Fortune 500 companies continue to fail when it comes to natural search visibility. That’s the conclusion of “Natural Search Trends of the Fortune 500: Q4/2009,” the latest study released today by Conductor, a New York-based SEO services/technology firm. Collectively, the Fortune 500 spent about $3.4 million per day on more than 97,000 keywords, but they show up in the Top 50 of natural search results for only 25% of those keywords.
http://searchengineland.com/fortune-500-still-clueless-about-seo-36420

Microsoft and Yahoo announced today that they have received clearance for their search agreement, without restrictions, from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission, and will now turn their attention to beginning the process of implementing the deal. Implementation of the deal is expected to begin in the coming days and will involve transitioning Yahoo!’s algorithmic and paid search platforms to Microsoft, with Yahoo! becoming the exclusive relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers globally.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Yahoo-and-Microsoft-to-bw-2356666634.html?x=0

Michael VanDeMar has documented possible evidence that Google is using fake referrers, possibly to detect forms of spam. Michael said the GoogleBot is being cloaked and is sending fake referrers for keywords the site is not related to and has no chance in ranking for. Bing has been doing this for years, fixed the issue several times, but it does appear Bing is no longer creating this fake referrer in webmaster’s log files.
http://searchengineland.com/is-google-referrer-spamming-to-detect-spam-36453

According to a forum, IP plays an important role but not the whole sole factor for SEO. Getting a host from target market would help a great deal but if not, it won’t affect in negative way.
http://www.submitexpress.com/bbs/about395-0-asc-15.html&sid=0bd406fb55df31668f32ffec0ed3aea4

Submitting RSS feeds is a good way to increase your subscribers, visitors who visit the concerned directories may enjoy reading and thus decide to visit the parent websites. Advertising your RSS feeds can actually help your search engine rankings, both inadvertently and directly.
http://www.submitexpress.com/bbs/about89763.html&sid=0bd406fb55df31668f32ffec0ed3aea4

Conversions are king. But to take your PPC campaigns to the next level in 2010, you must go beyond measuring traditional conversions (lead, transaction) and start measuring (and achieving!) new goals – from social media engagement, to RSS subscribers, to inbounds. A popular best practice for PPC landing pages is to create a multi-step landing experience that segments the visitor according to their audience segment or offers of interest, and subsequently delivers more relevant pitch and information.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/10-types-of-landing-page-goals-for-ppc-campaigns/17849/

There’s a reason why vanity URLs, personalized profile pages and recommendation systems are so popular. To a customer or site visitor, there’s nothing more interesting than themselves. In order to close deals, sales people need to know as much as they possibly can about a potential customer. Genius.com works with companies to generate leads through web analytics, visitor profiling and contact / point-of-sales services.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/02/humanism-sales-conversion.php

AOL is continuing with its push to create content on a massive local scale, according to a story by the Silicon Valley Insider. The story says that AOL is looking to “expand Patch, its network of local news blogs, from 30 sites to ‘hundreds’, by the end of 2010.” AOL recently announced a similar 0-to-60 sort of initiative with its attempt to cover every single band at this year’s South By Southwest festival with its content distribution project Seed. Patch is a “hyperlocal” website that offers news, photos and videos, discussions and information about local businesses.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_new_aol_local_reporters_covering_your_neighbor.php

Google views its relationship with Apple as valuable and does not see any reason for that to change, even with the rumors Microsoft’s Bing may replace Google search on the iPhone. Vic-Gundotra “Apple is a very close and valuable partner and we’re very excited about the relationship we have with them today. We have no reason to believe that’s going to change,” said Vic Gundortra, Vice President, Engineering, Google, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/15/google-views-apple-relationship-as-valuable

Microsoft has unveiled its Windows Phone 7 Series, a new mobile platform. The phones will bring Microsoft’s XBox Live service and its Zune music and video experience together on phones. Microsoft says this will provide one-click access to search from anywhere on the phone. A special implementation of Bing search also provides intent-specific results, depending on the type of query, the company says.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/15/will-windows-phone-7-help-bing-market-share

Hubpages is extremely useful according to a comment from DigitalPoint forum, as their internal linking structure makes it pretty easy to get PR2 or even PR3 hubs without building any real backlinks on your own. Just note that hub quality and tags are important. Each hub should be between 800 and 1500 words. A single hub is more valuable link-wise than several articles (usually, since you won’t have to build it up as much.) Also make sure to link all the hubs together.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1698558

Google News ranks stories in two distinct ways. An oversimplification of this process is that a story rank is first applied which identifies the story topics that are most talked about across the web. Then, once the most popular story topics are identified, each cluster is displayed in descending order based on relevance and interest in the topic.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/getting-started-with-google-news

The analytics ninja is not dead, but with Avinash talking more about SEO analytics and SEOs like Rand talking more about web analytics, 2010 has brought with it increased cross-pollination between analytics experts and SEOs. If you’re running an offline campaign, such as a magazine ad, a business card run or a billboard creative, you’re not going to want to use the long URL builder parameter. In order to keep your metrics from being skewed as a result of page load times, you’ll want to implement using a 301 redirect, rather than using meta refresh.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-analytics-tracking-code-basics-and-time-saving-plugins

The inside knowledge of a business as an in-house SEO may make you a lean mean SEO machine ranking for any industry keyword you choose but your ideal visitor may not even know your industry. You need to know who this visitor is and what language he uses to see real results.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/lose-the-jargon-talk-street-and-gain-visitors/17788/

In December, Google announced plans to implement the MySpace Real-Time Search API, which would push publicly available updates from our users to Google in real-time. The implementation is now LIVE on Google and couldn’t be more excited to be the first social networking platform to light up real-time integration with Google.

http://myspace.tekgroupweb.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1150

As a web marketer who is requesting high-quality links from the gatekeepers of academic sites, understanding the lingo and professional culture of the academic world can greatly improve your success rate. Although the red tape and hesitation around outbound linking in the academic world can be challenging, the response and linking rates from .edu contacts can increase dramatically with some subtle tactical changes.
http://searchengineland.com/how-to-improve-edu-link-requests-using-academic-metaphors-34472

Google has a new program that allows local businesses to get paid listings that appear within what’s known as the 7-pack of local listings. In The Trouble With Google’s Yellow Pages Experiment from Silicon Valley Watcher, Tom Forenski, notes: Prior to this, the results were separated. Sponsored links were always on the right, and the main search results were ‘organic,’ they were listed on how relevant they were to the query — not because of payment.
http://searchengineland.com/google-blurs-the-line-between-paid-unpaid-results-again-36268

Running giveaways online typically offers a few different opportunities. It can attract links from authoritative sites and a variety of domains. They can also be great for data collection – it’s fine to ask the entrants for their email address and whether they’d be happy for you to send them emails again in the future.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/running-giveaway-competitions-for-links-and-seo

For most search marketers, optimizing landing pages means A/B testing and multivariate testing (MVT). It means using tools such as Google Website Optimizer to experiment with different arrangements of a page or different variations in the content of a page – to maximize its conversion rate. But content optimization is not the only way to optimize landing pages. In fact, when it comes to boosting your conversion rate, it may not even be the most effective method.
http://www.submitexpress.com/bbs/about75041.html&sid=c4249db6ca427798dd44afa46011c6cd

Logically, older links are less likely to be spam-links, so they probably should have more value. On the other hand, the efforts of gaining a spam-link are inversely proportional to the PageRank of the linking page. The age factor is more significant for low-PR links, while high-PR links are much less affected.
http://forums.seochat.com/google-optimization-7/link-age-299673.html

The rumor that Google might build a data center in Australia has been circulating for some time. Deepak Ramanathan, the head of Google’s enterprise marketing arm in the Asia-Pacific region, recently spoke at an event in Sydney. Renai LeMay reported that people representing several Australian corporations expressed an interest in Google Apps while there.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/15/google-again-linked-to-australian-data-center-plans

Yahoo emphasized it’s committed to continuing research and development in search and to bringing out new services. While both Bing and Yahoo search will run off Microsoft’s back end, each company will control its own front-end user experience. Part of that effort is focused on retrieving the most relevant search results, including a selection of images and videos and social media content from Twitter.
http://www.internetnews.com/search/article.php/3864321/Yahoos+Message+Were+in+the+Search+Fight.htm

According to data from Compete, Facebook has become a bigger traffic source than Google for some sites, and for many others, it is right up there with Google as a major traffic source. If it can drive the traffic, then that means the people are already at Facebook. You can be on Facebook without having your own website.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/15/is-it-becoming-less-critical-for-businesses-to-have-websites