Big Oak SEO Blog

View a Random Post Plugin for Wordpress

Shell Harris — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:34:34 +0000

Necessity, as they say, is the Mother of Invention.

As your blog grows in size, as it invariably will, your new readers will find it more difficult to know where to start. Sure, reading the most current posts are a given, but what after that? Of course, you should also have a list that displays the most popular posts so the reader can see what your best or, at least, what are the most viewed posts. But you can do a little more and giving the reader the ability to read a random post may be just the trick.

It was with this thought that I contacted a Wordpress Developer, Lee Blue, to develop just such a plugin. And Lee has done a wonderful job. He has provided a simple, yet effective plugin that produces a link that when clicked loads a random post. Not only does this bring to light older posts that may have been overlooked but increases the pages read per visitor, which is always a good thing.

I did try some other plugins that claimed to do what View Random Post does, but none worked in all the browsers under both the Mac and PC operating system. Please try this helpful Wordpress plugin, you won’t be disappointed.

From the plugin site:

This plugin will put a widget on your sidebar with a link to view a random post. There are a few other similar plugins already but we haven’t been able to find any that do exactly what we wanted. We were after a very simple way to put a link in your sidebar which, when clicked, will take your visitor to one of your published posts.

When your visitors click the link to view a random post, the plugin keeps track of all the posts they have viewed via the random post link so that it doesn’t send them to a post they have already seen until they have seen all the posts once. Then it won’t send them to the same post three times until they have already seen all the posts 2 times (and so on).

Download the plugin – View Random Post

PS – Lee has also written a helpful plugin for selling products on your Wordpress blog. This Wordpress Shopping Cart Plugin can be found here: http://www.phpurchase.com/

The Real Time Web Is For Everybody

Shell Harris — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:10:46 +0000

Many internet users believe that the real time web isn’t available to them. If you don’t update on Twitter, post pictures on Facebook, network on LinedIn – people think that they aren’t able to learn and benefit from the real time web. This is not the case – and tons of startups and new websites have launched which require no login, membership, or passwords to access. Below, are examples of how to benefit from these services, right now:

Anyone can search the real time web. You can visit Twitter and instantly perform a search to see what people are saying about a specific page. To learn more about the types of searches that the real time web works best with, this search tips page offers several categories for which to search from. All in all, the best part about a real time search is that its instant. Plus, each day it changes, so a search today will offer different comments and thoughts than a search for the same keyword 3 weeks from now.

If you want to see the hottest trends, head over to What The Trend which will summarize each of the hot topics on the web right now. In a format that can be compared to WikiPedia – the site allows any user to provide feedback as to why a particular topic is trending right now. Every day, something new is a hot trend on the real time web, and anyway can track them at What The Trend or a variety of other sources.

When people share links on the real time web, it is often about topics that are hot right now. Through compiling all of the links shared on the real time web, you are able to see which lends are the most important for a given topic right now. When you perform a real time search at Sency- you will see a tab for today’s most popular links. This will show you the most popular links right now for the keyword you searched for. If you check back a few days later, for that same keyword, new links will probably show up. SO, you can take advantage of the real time web to instantly see what links people are talking about, today, for the subject matter that is of interest to you.

So, familiarize yourself with these tools today, and you will find them becoming useful in your day to day internet browsing.

Evan Britton – Founder, Sency

Image source: http://soshable.com

Meet Amy Vernon: the First Top 25 Female Digg User

Will Paoletto — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:38:15 +0000

Pick a social media site, any social media site. Amy Vernon probably has a presence on it, and a prominent one. She’s a top 25 all-time Digg submitter, a “Super-Mixxer” on Mixx, a power tweeter on Twitter and a highly influential Stumbler on Stumbleupon. She also maintains several blogs, including TVTyrant.com, iMommyTalk.com, and blogs.4bauer.com. Somehow, she still finds time to write for a slew of others, like Burbia.com, and HotHardware.com. Not impressed yet? Consider that she’s also a full-time mom with two kids.

But there’s more to the Vernon story. In 2008, she became the highest ranked female Digg user ever and today stands at number 19 according to SocialBlade. Recently, I caught up with Amy so I could learn about her rise to social media “maven-hood.” We also chatted about the one topic that no discussion with a top 25 digger would be complete without: the precise direction of social media (skip to the last question if you can’t wait).

Since Digg supposedly caters to a mostly male demographic, many are surprised to learn that a female has broken into the top 25. Do you think the type of content that becomes popular on Digg these days is slowly changing to cut across more demographics than it has in the past, or do you think the kind of stories that become popular are pretty much the same as they were, say, three years ago?

I think the key word there is “supposedly.” Things that are popular on Digg tend toward stuff guys (particularly geek guys) like, I guess – computers, gadgets, science fiction, Megan Fox, boobies – but for the most part, it’s about quality content.

I’m also a huge sci-fi and tech nerd, so I have a lot in common with a lot of the folks on Digg.

But, yes, there are more and more women on Digg all the time. You now might find a story about parenting on the front page where you wouldn’t have even a year ago. Even sites like Divine Caroline, Limelife, Women’s Day and Elle have had a reasonable amount of success on Digg over the years because the content submitted was interesting on a universal level.

When I look at your body of work and then realize that you’re also a full-time mom, the first thing I wonder is, how in the world do you have time to juggle everything. About how many hours of work would you say you put in during the course of a day?

It’s hard to quantify. Most of the time I’m awake, I’m doing something that is related to or considered work. But I can take breaks whenever I need or want to.

Some people were happy to see Digg’s shout feature eradicated. Others felt helpless–like the rug had been pulled out from under them. What did you think about Digg’s decision to remove the shout feature? Did you endorse its sudden death?

There were definite problems with Digg’s shout system. But I think it was a mistake for a social media site to eliminate the most social feature it had. There’s no way for users to communicate with each other directly on Digg itself. By the time it was gone, I probably used it more to just say hi to friends than anything else.

When people were going away for a few days, or behind, they’d just send a shout to their friends to update them. Now, you have to go elsewhere, to sites that have nothing to do with Digg — Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, IM — to communicate with other users. If someone’s a brand-new user to Digg, it’s hard for them to find a way to communicate with older users.

What do you think of the new Digg advertising system that allows Diggers to vote ads up that they like? Are you ok with it?

I’m fine with that, really. Digg has to make money, right? So they make it from ads. A lot of Diggers I know have AdBlockPlus anyhow, and so don’t see them – and Digg kindly made sure ABP would work on those ads. I sometimes vote on the ads, even. I’ve both dugg and buried ads, in fact.

Do you think the Diggbar helps or hinders the user experience?

When it first came out, it was a fabulous addition. You could send out the digg link in a Tweet or post it to your Facebook page and it was accessible both to your friends and followers who were Diggers and to those who were not.

But when Digg changed it so that you only got the frame if you were signed in to Digg and to a Digg landing page if you were not, well, it became useless to many Diggers, including myself. Diggers are only a small percentage of people whom I interact with on Twitter and Facebook. I refuse to send out links that force readers to click yet another time to get to the actual content.

When Digg banned the top five power user Zaibatsu, he took a big chunk of Digg’s audience with him to Twitter. In measurable ways, this was a game-changer. Do you think it’s wise of Digg to ban major players like Zaibatsu and Supernova17, or do you think Digg is better off in the long run taking a more hands-off approach?

I think Z’s move to Twitter was compounded by Digg’s decision to remove shouts and move communication to Twitter and Facebook. Those two things definitely had a measurable effect. I can’t say whether it’s “wise” for Digg to ban major powerusers or not, because I wasn’t privy to that decision-making and don’t know the full story. What I’ve heard doesn’t make sense, certainly. I think the main problem is that some people are banned for the same things that other people have been given second chances for.

Before the “big ban” of late summer/early fall 2008 (there was one big banning in August and then several smaller follow-up group bannings in the months following), people were given second chances sometimes if they were found to have used scripts and promised they’d never, ever do it again. When the big Ban Hammer came down on a huge swath of Diggers, however, no such allowances were made. Was that fair? No. But life often isn’t.

I have seen Digg give other people second chances before. In fact, I was banned for about an hour one day because a post I submitted from a legitimate site linked to a site where an item could be purchased. It didn’t occur to me that there was a problem with submitting it (it was a purse where the handle was a knuckleduster). And I had no financial stake in the item, either. I just thought it was cool. Once Digg told me the problem and I promised to never submit that kind of post again, I was reinstated.

After that, if I had any question whatsoever, I either avoided submitting it, or e-mailed Digg support to ask if there was a problem with it, if I just reallllly wanted to submit it. A few times they suggested the post in question might not be proper material to submit; other times they told me they saw no problem with it.

Look – Digg can’t be too hands-off. They have a TOU and have to enforce it. It’s really just a matter of consistency and of being willing to work with those who violate the TOU to give second chances when appropriate.

You’re a founding partner of iMommyTalk.com, a vlogging site where you post videos. If this site had a mission statement, what would it be?

Well, our tagline on all our videos is “Where mommies talk and we listen.” The idea is to start conversations with our community, but in a more personal way than just a regular blog. They’re one-person vlogs where we discuss a topic and ask for our viewers to put in their two cents. We’d love for more users to post their own videos on the site, too, which they can do. We’re still sort of in a soft launch, though, as Donna Chaffins (the founder and CEO) and I have rather hectic lives. As most moms do.

Some people build niche sites with an exit strategy planned right from the onset. They know what large sites or companies would be interested in buying them. Others know exactly who they want to ask for venture capital when their site reaches a certain milestone. What would you like to do with iMommyTalk? Any epic goals?

Sure, we’d love to make money from the site. In fact, I think one of our videos made a whopping 15 cents! (Can you buy anything for 15 cents anymore?) But for now we’d really like to share our experiences – as two relatively “regular” moms, in two-parent families. Not rich, not poor. We’re not incredibly snarky or polished. We’re just like our audience. We just want to connect with them and hopefully help put things in perspective for people. Our vlogs have ranged from how to deal with mommy guilt to whether it’s appropriate to ever drink in front of your children.

Stumbleupon has made some drastic changes lately. Are you a fan of the new Stumbleupon?

Well, to me the most significant change is in sharing, and I am a big fan of that. When SU first made the change from its previous incarnation to what’s now being called “Old StumbleUpon,” I and many others cheered the newfound ability to share en masse – send a post with just a few clicks to all our followers. But that quickly became a nightmare. I know people who soon unfollowed everyone because they wanted to use SU as it was meant to be used – to stumble onto new, interesting sites. If you have 99 shares in your Stumble bar at all times, you’re never experiencing the true enjoyment of the site. Then it just becomes a chore.

That said, SU did need to make it so you could share items with more than one person at a time. I just posted a blog item about Lost. If I had a dozen or so followers whom I knew liked Lost, I might want to send it to them to make sure they saw it. And chances are, they’d want to see it. But that’s not how it was being used. Now, you have to click on everyone’s name to send it, so hopefully that’ll make people less like to share everything with everyone.

Sometimes I just quickly cycle through my shares because it becomes overwhelming and I can’t look at it all. I stopped using the “share all” on a regular basis long ago, using it only perhaps once a week or if I was going to be out of pocket and wanted to let everyone know I wouldn’t be around to see their stuff.

Have you caught NComment’s comic strip portrayal of Digg? What do you think of his analysis?

I can’t believe NComment finally finished Part II! I don’t mean it really as “finally,” because I can’t even fathom how much work all that detail took. I’ve looked it over two times, and will have to look another time for all the little bits, such as the “TechCrunch” candy bar by “Arrington’s,” written in the same script as Nestle’s (have to look REALLY close).

I haven’t met a single person yet, Digg, Reddit, Mixx, whatever, who didn’t think it was just spot on. It highlights all the problems with all the sites – and of course they all have problems. All the little things that make Digg goofy – all the memes, the inscrutability of the algorithm – are also what make it so addictive and lovable.

I can’t wait for part three, but I hope it doesn’t take eight more months.

However, if it does, I’m sure it’ll be worth it.

Where do you see social media in exactly five years–just kidding. I’m not going to ask you that; it’s a contrived question and unfair to throw a crystal ball at someone and ask them to read it. Let me ask you this instead: if you were building a social media site, what would you make its defining characteristic?

The main thing any social media site needs to insure is quality control. You can’t let the spam take over. I think Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit have such strong communities that were developed before spam started taking hold that it’s not as much of a problem on those sites. The community takes care of knocking those submissions down.

I think if a site could combine editorial controls with social voting, it could really take off. Original content, vetted and then voted on, with the most popular posts rising to the top. Hey, scratch that – I didn’t say anything. I think I need to go find a site developer.

You can follow Amy Vernon on Twitter at @AmyVernon and read her blog at amyvernon.net.

Seo Predictions for 2010

Eric Gehler — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:58:38 +0000

SEO Predictions for 2010

Another year of search engine madness is about to come to a close. In 2009 we have seen the Google search engine display many variances and ranking fluctuations. So before we put on the swami cap and bring out Nostradamus SEO quatrains into the light, let’s recap some of the major Google changes and initiatives.

In 2009 The Google Search Engine:

Put more weight toward the keywords in the domain. In fact, keyword-rich domains could achieve top 10 rankings in less competitive phrases just on the weight of the domain name and a few onsite optimization tweaks.

We saw Google increase the visible space for the Adwords Sponsored PPC displays. The money maker for Google is encroaching more and more on the organic search results territory.

We saw name branded companies get extra weight in the organic results, not from normal SEO algorithm enhancements and features, but from manual Google manipulation.

Searchers’ IP addresses were instrumental in displaying Google Local results for major keyword terms in various 1 box or 4 box positions in the organic search results.

Customized Search and IP captured-related searches made search results for the unknown more focused on what you have visited in the past rather then the “true” organic listings.

The introduction of Caffeine by Google displayed more real time results from news, Twitter, Facebook and other sources and was displayed in various locations on the organic search results page.

There were many other factors that changed in 2009, but the ones above are the most prevalent (in our eyes) and affect the potential customer click through rate.

Now for the 2010 predictions:

With the introduction of the Caffeine Google Search Engine enhancements and the ability to display real time results, and more of the old “Universal Search” parameters of images, news, videos, et al. traffic from first page SEO results will decrease for organic results if you are not in the Top 3 for that respective search term.

Google will be displaying so much more data and manipulating the organic displays with their data enhancements that normal percentage click through traffic for front page results positions of 4-10 will dramatically decrease. Here’s what this should mean to the average reader and company: it’s time to increase your SEO budget now rather then be caught with your search engine traffic results in the gutter and scrambling to attempt to catch up.

Social media’s impact on search results will be misguided. Many will attempt and are attempting to divert budgets to create social media campaigns to attract visitors and catch the wave of potential search traffic. Organic search results in the future will display social media mentions in a live format. However, they will only be displayed for milliseconds as their display order is chronological. Link values from social media campaigns will have little impact on the organic ranking results.

Social media done correctly and for branding awareness and bringing like-minded people together is a great concept and can improve your marketability. But in terms of SEO rankings, the affects will be dismal at best. Your ROI will be your measuring tool to determine if social media is effective for you or not.

Google will continue its push to become a Broadcast Network for the Internet.

Many in the industry view Google as a Search Engine with products and services to display websites and enhance a webmaster’s efficiency. Unfortunately, that view is misguided. In 2005-ish this prediction was made, and every year Google positions itself away from a Search Engine environment and into a source to view data online. The broadcast network business model is like the major television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC Fox etc.) that display shows to attract viewers. Commercial advertisers pay for that model.

Google will continue to promote, provide, and display data to attract viewers. They are targeting IP addresses to identify your location. They have brought the Google iPhone application to capture your mobile consumption. Google wants to know as much about you as it can so that it can tie advertisements directly to you. In terms of advertising dollars, knowing you can get your message directly to a “buyer in need” rather then a “channel surfer” will pay huge dividends in the end.

As Google continues to move forward and push the envelope of data distribution, Search Engine Optimization will become more target-focused. The ROI in SEO is up for grabs and will remain significant, as long as your budget, focus and SEO company can see the big picture and be able to adapt.

You Love Me, You Really Love Me

Shell Harris — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:32:46 +0000

It’s not that we at Big Oak don’t know that our clients appreciate all of our efforts to help with their rankings, but every once in a while they do something that really drives it home for us. Such an occasion presented itself today.

With Christmas and New Years just around the corner, what should show up at our offices but a gigantic fruit basket from Empire Covers, a client of ours specializing in car covers and accessories. Attached was a card letting us know how much they appreciated all of our hard work in the previous year and how they looked forward to working with us in the coming year.

This is certainly the season of giving, Empire Covers has given us a great present – appreciation. Thanks to the entire staff of Empire Covers for the fruit basket and thanks to all of our clients for another great year with us at Big Oak.

Sency, a New Way to Search

Shell Harris — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:41:47 +0000

I was contacted by the founder of Sency, Evan Britton, and he asked if we would take a look at his search engine. I did and found something interesting – real time search results for what is being said about the search term you type in. What is interesting is the fact it pulls in tweets about your subject matter as well as websites. It also gives you the time the search term was last mentioned. I saw times ranging from 1 minute ago to 2 days ago show up on the first page of results.

Time will only tell how useful this will be for search marketing and for the general populace.

Here is Evan’s “elevator speech” about Sency. What do you think, is it viable?

The real time web is hot because users want to know what is happening right now. Many startups are making an impact in this space, today, we will discuss what Sency is up to…

Sency offers a real time web search engine which is fast and easy to use. It breaks out results into both what people are saying and what today’s most popular links are. Sency also shows the source, so that you can see whom is writing the respective message that you are reading.

The main differentiator that Sency is bringing to the table is the two widgets it has created. The content feed for websites (http://sency.com/feed.php) will bring real time results for any keyword that a website or blog wants to stream. The popular links feed (http://sency.com/linksfeed.php) will allow any website to display today’s most popular links for any given keyword…

It is interesting to see several new startups on the real time web. Sency hopes it can make an impact in this space.

5 Reasons Twitter is Not Worth Your Dime or Time

Shell Harris — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:02:20 +0000

It is no secret that Twitter is viewed as both marketing secret weapon and marketing bust. As a social networking tool, it has promise but what about Twitter as tool for increasing your business?

With the recent news announcements that Twitter is worth in excess of $1 billion amidst rumors of potential takeover and flotation deals, let’s take a look at why Twitter may not be worth the dime your company is looking to pay for increased web sales and exposure.

The internet and e-business is accepted as being a great way of doing business – costs are cut, geographical boundaries are overcome, new routes to market are uncovered and smaller companies are provided with fewer barriers to entry and get to compete with much larger companies on a level playing field.

BUT…there has to be a but!

The decisions you make when it comes to mounting marketing campaigns and establishing connections with customers and prospects, the established principals of offline, real-world marketing still apply.

So is using Twitter the most effective use of your company’s marketing dime?

TV Dominates the Internet in Ad Spend

Traditional, “old” media still represent better value for money when it comes to turning marketing dollars into solid sales numbers. This may seem out of sync with our perception of the internet – the internet dominates the news, it is cutting edge and at the forefront of developing new markets and ways of doing business but let’s take a hard look at the underlying numbers.

The average American adult spends almost 121 hours a month watching television but internet usage is dwarfed, coming in at only 30 hours a week. Given that the average adult is only going to spend a fraction of that 30 hours using Twitter, if at all, it is clear that spending your marketing budget on Twitter will be nowhere near as effective as investing in TV airtime.

Search Engines Dominate the Internet and Twitter is NOT a Search Engine

Search engines dominate how users find products and services and any other information on the worldwide web. Internet ad spend is concentrated upon search engine marketing and gaining rankings for their respective web sites in order to drive increased traffic which can be converted into sales.

Twitter is not a search engine – it is a real time communication tool with limited functionality.

Twitter has long been an outsider that has gained a following because of its quirkiness, but the platform has long suffered from service issues and up-time reliability (Hello, Fail Whale!). In other words, users have fallen in love with it but it doesn’t always work!

Controlling Social Media Campaigns is Like Herding Cats

Twitter's phenomenal growth has stalled recently. Why?

Twitter forms one of the main platforms for Social Media – online interactions and information sharing form the currency of these platforms but introducing your marketing and sales material is similar to gatecrashing someone else’s party! The idea that monetizing all those eyeballs using social media and Twitter is based on nothing concrete –which is why there is so much furor over the $1 billion price tag – there is no proven marketing model so how can Twitter attract your ad spend to begin with (which in turn is the basis for the company valuation). The graph above is from compete.com and shows the obvious flatline on twitter. What happens when the inevitable decline begins as users tire of the limited interaction and businesses divert ad spend elsewhere?

The Twitter Bounce Rate is >90%

In simple terms – the bounce rate is how many messages or emails are returned unread.

If 90% of Twitter users are “bouncing” mail and messages, less than 1 in 10 are valid or open to receiving messages – this makes merging and purging your mailing lists look like an exercise in gold mining – just imagine if you had 9 out of 10 direct mail pieces returned to your company!

Twitter Spam

We’ve already mentioned that Twitter attracts the quirky and the social environment is extremely quirky and subject to cult and herd-like mentalities. It is easy to be tagged as a “spammer” if you are simply posting messages which are effectively only, “Look at Me!” Twitter spam is a real problem as the medium is deluged with online marketers – just look at many of the companies which are active on Twitter – generally they are selling health and vitamins, sex or get rich quick schemes, and frequently all three!

We may be playing the devil’s advocate here and Twitter is an easy target, but there are often good and valid reasons for being an easy target. Will Twitter ever become a useful tool or will it just be something to pass the time for 140 characters? What do you think?

Of course, if you are Alyssa Milano, forget everything I said.

And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter.

Thanks to GraphJams.com

Big Oak Moves to New Offices

Shell Harris — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:26:48 +0000

Most of walls in our new offices are bare, except for George’s – he has a swanky setup going with mood lighting, and the foyer is empty at this point. We don’t entertain many customers in our office space as they prefer we come to them or else a phone call made, so furniture in the foyer is something for next month. But we are moved in, our FIOS connection is humming along at a blistering 25,000 kbps and it is all our space, so we are a happy SEO company now.

I’ve always wanted to have our own building and our sign on the door and finally that is the case. It only took six years to get to this point, but it was worth it.

The move went well and we are here for the next three years so we plan to stick around. If you are in Richmond, VA and would like to drop by, please do. The fridge is full of sodas and we have a crushed ice option on the fridge door so cold beverage are available.

We are also back in the Richmond proper, so to speak, so our address is once again a Richmond address.

Big Oak SEO
3781 Westerre Parkway
Suite C
Richmond, VA 23233

Just glad to be somewhere where I control the thermostat.

SEO as Part of Your Brand Strategy

Alyssa Duvall — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:28:54 +0000

A new LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Poll had some interesting insights into the minds of advertisers. When asked how they used Internet advertising, 79% said as a branding device. This number was higher than the 65% who said they use Internet advertising to drive information-gathering for an offline transaction or the 58% who use it to drive online transactions. Simply stated, advertisers in this survey are using Internet advertising more for brand recognition than to get people to buy. Interesting.

Internet advertising does offer the opportunity to target an audience based on the content on a page or website. Say a user is on About.com getting information on how to find a part-time job; it would make sense for them to see a banner ad for a site like SnagAJob or CareerBuilder. But not all ad networks can be so granular or have corresponding advertisers thus, while reading about part-time jobs, a user might also get banner ads for toothpaste, gift cards, or paint.

And what if the user hasn’t gotten to About.com yet? What if they’re using Google or Bing to find information? Or, let’s say, they read the About.com article and now want more information so then they go to a search engine. Wouldn’t it make sense for SnagAJob or CareerBuilder to be present in the search engine results thus giving that user another chance to see the brand and click to the website?

Search engine optimization (SEO) gives brands the ability to be found at that crucial point at which someone is actively looking for information (not just passively reading an article). And your site’s content is always a good match with what the user searched on because Google wants to provide relevant search results.

So let’s say, going back to the part-time job example, the user was actually reading an article about part-time jobs for stay-at-home moms. A narrowly focused banner ad talking about part-time jobs and written for a stay-at-home mom audience would be a great match. But would a banner ad be that specific? Not likely. However, if the user went to a search engine and did a search on “part-time jobs for stay at home moms” (very specific and long-tail, no doubt), the pages in the results would be tailored for that search. And hopefully SnagAJob and CareerBuilder would have a page about that topic for the user to read along with the About.com article.

One of the benefits of SEO is targeting by geographic location which can be harder for Internet advertising – even though some networks will target ads based on IP address (which can be spotty). Sure, SnagAJob could put a banner ad on the website of a local TV station or internet portal – but that is a lot of stations to contact and rate cards to evaluate. However, if a user searches on “Wichita part-time jobs” it’s simple for SnagAJob to have a page about that topic with a listing of part-time jobs in the Wichita area that then is found in Bing’s search results.

If you’re an advertiser thinking about how to get more brand exposure online, consider SEO for your website. The search engines are another place for users to find your brand.

Photo by Danard Vincente

Will Yahoo Site Explorer (as we know it) go the way of the Dodo Bird?

Will Paoletto — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:00:58 +0000

Now that Microsoft will power Yahoo! Search for at least the next ten years, many SEOs (and people who love backlink data in general) are wondering aloud whether the current incarnation of Yahoo! Site Explorer, which shows more backlink data than any available tool, will die right along with Yahoo’s search technology.

If Yahoo is going to farm out all of their search technology–and lay off many engineers in the process—it is logical to assume that Yahoo! Site Explorer will also evaporate. I can’t imagine why anyone, expect Microsoft, would take pleasure in this. But what Microsoft needs to understand is that this doesn’t have to happen. Microsoft can surprise everyone by stepping up to the plate and showing more Bing backlink data. If they did, they would win many fans not only in the SEO community but in every community that values the freedom of information. Ultimately, Microsoft should want their search technology to be loved by all people, not hated by SEOs who will blame them for the destruction of Yahoo’s backlink information.

Thankfully, Bing won’t be fully integrated into Yahoo! search for 24 months. Microsoft has a lot to think about over those months. Do they want to embrace openness as Yahoo has for many years by showing hordes of information about the links going to the sites in their index? Do they want to reap the benefits of lifting the veil of secrecy on the backlink information they’ve gathered? Or do they want to be more like Google and show precious little information about the sites in their index?

Microsoft’s search market share will only jump to about 28 percent in the U.S. after their Yahoo integration is complete. If I was them, I would want to please as many people as possible, not enrage them by completely dismantling a superior product.

We’ll see what Microsoft decides in the next 24 months. What direction do you think they’ll go in? Is the slow, inglorious death of the Yahoo! Site Explorer tool inevitable?