Why regularly updated sites are being favoured in the new Google

I’m sure you’ve read enough articles in the last 10 months to know that Google began releasing a new underlying architecture to its search engine aptly named ‘caffeine’ late last year and into the early months of this year.

Since then we have been through the flow on algorithm changes including a major changed nick-named ‘May day” along with regular Google SERP interface changes.

But what have these changes meant in reality?

What I’m going to tell you next are all observations and theories based on the data I see across a wide range of sites I manage and optimise.

Websites that have a small number of pages and or websites that are stagnant are moving down in the rankings, even the sites that are doing regular link building.

From my observations, sites that continue to publish new content or continue to actively update their content are holding or improving on head term rankings and many are seeing sizeable increases in long tail SEO traffic in the last few months as they seem to be favoured more by Google.

The theory behind this is simple. Google has updated there architecture which has enabled them to index most sites on a daily basis. Check your Google Webmaster tools and your website logs and you will get confirmation of this. It’s no longer just the big news sites they hit every day, it’s your business site as well.

So in theory Google are now able to create a change activity log for your website that is updated daily and this would easily allow them to add this activity as an important factor within the many other factors they use within their algorithm. They have long stated they like an up to date website.

But they would now be able to line up your on site activity with your off site link activity to begin making more calculated assumptions as to whether your link growth is natural or paid and thus value or devalue links accordingly. This I believe has started happening over the last two months.

By reading repeated quotes from important people at Google you will hear the theme that they believe the internet has become a bit of a rubbish tip of websites and that they want to focus on sifting out the rubbish so they can focus on the information people really want.

The lesson to be learnt from all this is that we can no longer treat websites as a stagnant brochure. Optimisers out selling one or two page doorway sites on keyword rich URLs are going to need to change tact as these techniques will no longer add value to a website or its traffic. Websites need to be published with a good reason for their existence proven by the activity they produce.

As a website publisher, you need to focus on keeping your website up to date if you wish to remain in the top rankings. Be willing to add additional information, your opinions, customer reviews etc.

This advice is nothing new, but its advice that can no longer be ignored.

Treat your website as a valuable tool for your customers and put in the effort required of anything that will provide you a valuable return on your investment.

If you do this, then people will naturally link back to your website and it will allow you to continue building links through methods such as directories, negotiation & content submissions that still provide value to your site. From my observations, link building via these methods is far more effective on a website that is changing or growing compared to stagnant website and small stagnant sites are the most at risk.

Of course you can  ignore this advice and put all your focus into SEO link building without continuing to update or grow your site, but expect those links to do less and less for you as Google use their improved technology to get smarter at working out what you are doing and what you are not doing.

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Tags: Google caffeine, link building, search engine optimisation
Posted in SEO |

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e-channel Join Fairfax for the Yahoo Soccer Tournament

The 2nd annual Yahoo soccer tournament was held on Wednesday 18 August at the sports centre in Homebush.

An expanded competition this year saw 16 teams compete.

Our Account Manager for Fairfax, Gavin Messenger, was invited to play as part of the Fairfax team in the position of goalie.

Sporting RSVP “I’m so hot right now” shirts the team did remarkably well considering they had not previously played together or had time to practice.

Five fast paced games of fifteen minutes were played with a win & three draws seeing the team go undefeated until the last minute of the fifth game when OMD A finally slotted a goal past Gavin off a corner to see Fairfax narrowly miss out on the final four.

The tournament final was later taken out by eBay for a second year running after a hard fought final ending in a penalty shoot out.

e-channel would like to thank Fairfax for allowing us to be part of their team as well as congratulate eBay on their win.

Yahoo did an amazing job funding & organising the event again this year with everybody having a great time. Good on you Yahoo!

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Tags: Fairfax, Yahoo Soccer Tournament
Posted in News, Search Industry |

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Everything’s Rosie for e-channel search this Valentine’s Day

Search marketing executive Silvi Tiivas recieved a lovely gift box containing 2 dozen red roses. The roses came from Silvi’s client 1300 flowers.

1300 flowers are a national florist for whom e-channel, Silvi, have been managing PPC campaigns for with great success.

The flowers were to thank Silvi for her excellent PPC strategy recommendations and implementation  for the lead up to and including Valentines Day.

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Posted in News, Paid Search, SEM Stuff |

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Google Ad parameters (previously Live Ads)

On the 24^th of November 2009 Google announced a new feature in its v2009API, called Ad parameters. Ad parameters enables you to change numeric information such as prices, discount percentages, inventory level, etc. within an text ad in real time, while keeping the history and statistics associated with the ad.

Before Google launched Ad parameters Adwords users had to delete the old ad and write a new one every time they wanted to update information such as price or quantity in their ads, resulting in the ads losing their Quality Score and performance history.

The announcement of the launch of Ad parameters was no surprise to e-channel search. In fact, we have been working with Ad parameters (previously known as Live Ads) for several months while it was in beta test. We are absolutely thrilled to see it graduate from beta.

Ad parameters is now an included feature in our propitiatory campaign management software, Dynamic Creative^TM, enabling the software to automatically build and update dynamic ads.

Below is an example of the type of ads we can create with Dynamic Creative^TM:

Hong Kong Flights

Fly from Sydney to Hong Kong for $521,

Act Now, Only 5 Seats Left.

www.flyflyfly.com

The results speaks for themselves, by including Ad parameters in the ads the CPA for one of our largest clients active in the travel industry has decreased by 69%  at the same time as the CTR has increased by 600%.

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Tags: Ad parameters, Dynamic Creative, e-channel search, Live Ads
Posted in SEM Stuff |

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e-channel search ranked number 43 in Deloitte Technology Fast 50

e-channel search has been ranked number 43 in Deloitte’s prestigious Technology Fast 50 Australia 2009. Deloitte Technology Fast 50 is a program that recognises and profiles fast growing technology companies. The program, which has been running in Australia for 9 years now, ranks the 50 fastest growing public or private technology companies, based on percentage revenue growth over three years (2007 to 2009).

Read the full report here: http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Australia/Local%20Assets/Documents/news-research/Press%20releases/Tech%20Fast%2050/Technology_Fast_50_Australia_2009.pdf

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Tags: Deloitte, e-channel search
Posted in SEM Stuff |

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Search Advertising is the Most Cost Effective

Marketers and advertisers, ever wonder where you should be investing your marketing or advertising dollars? Search advertising is definitely one that you should put it into your marketing mix and invest heavily as search advertising has been proven to be the most cost effective method of advertising (Piper Jaffray Study). The study shows that the cost per lead from the search engines is a fraction of the cost of email marketing, direct mail, online banners or yellow pages.

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Tags: search advertising
Posted in Paid Search, SEM Stuff |

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PR drives up to 80pc of content: The Australian

A University of Sydney study reported in The Australian’s media section this morning says it’s a myth that journos don’t use PR and press release content to generate their stories - instead, 30-80% of content comes from PR efforts.
The article also reports it’s a myth that PR people don’t spin - or to put it another way, it’s true that PR people spin, when directed to do so by their clients. (You always hope that readers are smart enough to see that, equally, journalists work under the instruction of their editors. They have to espouse the party line they don’t always share and sometimes put a negative spin on stories just to increase their newsworthiness.)
The study’s author, Jim Macnamara, says: “PR is a fact of life. Journalists should recognise it as an important communication channel and not deny it. And if there is PR material being used, it should be open and transparent.” Couldn’t agree more - the more quality PR, the better the relationship with the journalist, the better you become as reliable and trusted a source as any other.  Bloggers themselves have become both a source of news and a publishing vehicle for PR - there’s another debate in the making.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25422943-7582,00.html?from=public_rss

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Tags: Australian Media Alliance, media release, Public affairs, public relations, Social Media
Posted in Social Media |

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Why I’d rather pay for news than some devious premium text message I didn’t ask for

Google and other companies that aggregate content without paying a fee have been likened to “parasites… in the intestines of the internet” by Wall Street Journal editor Robert Thomson.  Talking of parasites, I recently got a phone bill for $50 of ‘premium messages’ that I tracked back to a quiz I answered on Facebook. So I have paid $5 a throw for some total crap I didn’t want. These two might appear unconnected, but I want to draw attention to the irony that we consumers are willing to pay millions and millions of dollars for mobile texts while refusing to pay a few cents for professionally produced online news.
It has always struck me as unfair that media companies pay their journalists to produce content while the aggregators simply swipe it, stick a few ads round it, and reap the rewards.   Journalism at its best exposes injustice and produces in depth analysis, but think about the cost, say, of sending journalists into Afghanistan or Timor.    Finely crafted writing doesn’t come cheap.  But is anyone out there willing to pay for it?
I agree with Google CEO Eric Schmidt that newspapers need to innovate more to turn their news-making machines into profit centres. He suggests mobile as one path, and I’m guessing that means on-phone subscriptions for web-based content. If the price was right and I had the right device (which I don’t because I’m still paying for my last phone, and my kids’ phones), and it was easy to view on the screen, yes, I probably would pay to consume high-quality news on my mobile.
But I don’t want to pay through the nose for spurious, uninvited text messages…..  I’d much rather pay News Ltd for some decent reporting than some smutty text-messaging company who hijacked my details through some fineprint on Facebook….

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Tags: AAP, AP, mobile, news aggregation, SMS, text messaging, Yahoo
Posted in News, Social Media |

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Trial by social media: Hanson et al

In response to the call last month by Victorian police to stop internet blogging about the alleged Victorian bushfire arsonist:

When the alleged Victorian bushfire arsonist was outed with his photograph published on Facebook and numerous blog posts, did the social network and possibly the self-publishers breach a court order that prevents media discussing the case? Should social networks be subject to the same conditions as other media publishers and broadcasters?

By revealing the accused’s identity, the Facebook posts could jeopardise his right to a fair hearing. The reason the law binds traditional media is that prejudice could result in a guilty man walking free, or an innocent being found guilty.

Some social network operators claim speaking freely is the right of their members and equate it to catching up with a mate in the street. The reality is that social networks are as public as your local newspaper.

Take another recent high-profile case: when purported pictures of Pauline Hanson turned out to be fakes, people asked, ‘have the media gone too far?’ This highlighted two issues:
1.    The individual’s moral right to privacy: were these tacky 30-year-old images in the public interest?
2.    What are Pauline’s legal rights? If the pictures were published on a social network, what would be her legal rights then?

These two cases open us all to the possibility of being victimised for a crime we did not commit, or being subjected to embarrassment or harassment if inaccurate or sensitive information is published, either online or offline.  Proving false accusers are wrong in court is costly and, sadly, even if you win, mud sticks.

Without regulation, social networks can become a great playground for bullies - and they already are to a degree. Just ask Jodie Melbourne of CQR Consulting, a white hat hacker who is crusading against cyber-bullying.

Even if you lead a pristine existence, would you want your entire private live opened up for all to see, from birth to grave, whether by writing, image, video or sound, without your permission?  The whole issue of privacy, online and offline, reminds me of the Ben Elton book Blind Faith, which paints an ugly picture of a world where it’s illegal NOT to expose every moment of your life publicly.

Whereas smaller social forums have tended to be self-policed by their members, the mega-networks have much bigger challenges.  I believe that if they can’t control malicious or illicit content, they will eventually implode. There will be more and more cases of inaccurate opinions and indiscreet pictures taken in private circumstances — leading to legal challenges and a mass turnoff by people who want to keep their private lives private.  The Twitter network has some precedents - there already are laws governing harassment by text message.

The “Wild West” feel of social networks is exhilarating; suddenly we don’t need to rely on third party media channeling our opinions. But both advocates and owners of social networks who feel they have a right to freedom of speech at any cost are heading down a slippery slope.

COPYRIGHT© 2009

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Tags: journalism, loral papworth, social networking
Posted in News, Social Media |

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Spreading sunshine with search-engine friendly PR

Hi - I’m new to e-Channel’s blog so first a bit about me: I’m a journalist with a background that covers everything from Australian Women’s Weekly to The Australian newspaper’s Tuesday IT section, Vacations Magazine (travel writing - those were the days:-)) to Cosmopolitan to the Toronto Star.  I founded a service called NewsMaker last year to help marketers and PR dudes give their clients added value with every PR campaign - Google News Indexing, SEO, social media as well as traditional media distribution services.  Here are my favourite tips to help you get started in maximising every word in every press release while increasing your Google quality ranking:

Top Ten Tips for Successful Online Publicity

The following tips for writing online press releases will help generate buzz about your products and services across the web, driving traffic back to your website and creating a direct channel to journalists, media outlets and customers.

1. Use major keywords in your heading and first paragraph - these are often all that will be picked up by Google and other News Indexing services
2. Proactively share your news using the share and RSS buttons on press release websites
3. Don’t use “you” and “your” or “I”, “we” or “our”, unless it’s within a quote - your press release should be written in the third person so it doesn’t sound like an advertisement
4. Make your headline meaningful to media and search engines - don’t be too clever
5. Keep it short - Google will not index news item that are too long
6. Make your press release relevant to news or trends - get the message across succintly in headline and first par
7. Make sure you have good landing pages on your website relevant to your press release - otherwise you are missing an opportunity
8. Proofread your release and make sure it’s of a press-ready standard; your release could end up anywhere and you don’t want to spread an unprofessional image of your company (or yourself)
9. Use free online press release services tagged with relevant keywords to make it easy for people looking for your products/services to find them - this is the cheapest, easiest free publicity you will find
10. If you’re new to online press releases, post older material first then work your way up to the present so you have a good history online, driving incremental (long tail) traffic back to your website.

Cheers,

Little Miss Sunshine

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Posted in SEM Stuff, SEO, Social Media |

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