Archive for the ‘Google’ Category

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Ok, so I’m an awful blogger. I’m making myself write a post no matter how uninteresting it is just to get myself kick started. < - great example of how not to keep your readers interested in reading on.

I'm a big fan of the suggestions that pop up in most search engines when you start typing. It's a great feature that should have been implemented a few years ago. Surprisingly, Google was especially slow to adopt search suggestions, but as usual they did it a little better (by including an estimated search count, etc). Sadly, rumor has it that search count won't be published much longer (it's not in the screenshot). One thing that did catch my attention was when highlighted links started showing up at the top for certain queries. At first I thought it was a new form of monetization they were testing out, but these links aren't ads. Google is trying to point you to a specific domain if your query leads them to think you are looking for a specific website. So as evident in the my screenshot Google's best guess for the search "lime" is limewire.com

Check out this Search Engine Land article for info.

Bryan Phelps has ranked #1 for “utah seo” for the past few days. He recently posted about it and seems to be surprised by the results.
Obviously this isn’t some huge dent in the internet marketing world as the search phrase barely gets any traffic. And that limited traffic is most likely composed of others in the field, but it’s still interesting to discuss.

Bryan’s site was started early 2007. He posted about random topics early on. Then, about a month ago he changed his title to “utah seo specialist” and was able to acquire some links. Now for the past few days he’s been ranking over firms that have put much more time into their rankings. Some of these firms were ranking well because of content (blog posts, age, good internal linking/cross site linking, etc – the guys at MWI always do well in these areas, especially blogs), while others are using purchased links plus the other stuff (check out the sponsored links at SEORoundtable. Utah firms have a strong presence there.

Will Bryan stay on top?
I highly doubt it. (Bryan, can we still be friends?)
In the past year I’ve seen many in the top spot including Vizad, Chris Sandberg, 97th Floor,MWI and UtahWebServices. In the end, the firms will knock Bryan down.

Which practices will win in the end?
Some of the search engines have come out and said they don’t like the paid link route and have even provided ways for others to report them. I personally don’t buy links for my own sites, but I’ve never reported anyone and never will.

I’ve enjoyed following the competition for the key phrase “utah seo”. It will be fun to see what happens next. For now Bryan Phelps is the champ. (Don’t let it get to your head or you could find yourself the newest member of the OrangeSoda link building team ;-) )

Update – 8/10/2007 – BryanPhelps.com fell to #2
HA HA

I’m looking forward to attending SMX Advanced on Monday and Tuesday. I was just looking through the agenda and realized Matt Cutts will be offering a Q&A. According to the who’s coming list there’s a limited amount of SMX Advanced attendees so I could actually squeeze in a few questions. I know I’ve had countless questions for the guy in the past, but I’m drawing blanks at the moment. If you’ve got some questions shoot me an email. I’ll post some notes after the conference.

It appears SMX Advanced tickets are sold out, but SMX general Expo tickets are still available. Anyone else from Utah going? It’s always nice to go to a networking party with someone that’s not there only for the free booze. ;-)

Google 49.93%
Yahoo! Web Sites 12.21%
Google U.K. 9.50%
MSN 6.89%
Google AdSense for Content 3.31%
Google Canada 3.28%
AOL 1.47%
Ask 1.17%
Google Germany 1.02%
Yahoo! Web Sites U.K. 0.95%
MSN U.K. 0.91%
AOL U.K. 0.71%
Google Italy 0.62%
Google India 0.60%
Dogpile 0.57%
Google France 0.52%
Google Spain 0.49%
Google Netherlands 0.39%
Google Sweden 0.33%
Google Venezuela 0.32%
Google Ireland 0.29%
Google New Zealand 0.25%
AltaVista 0.24%
Google Belgium 0.23%
MSN Australia 0.21%
Froogle 0.20%
Google Poland 0.20%
Yahoo! Web Sites Canada 0.19%
Google South Africa 0.17%
Google Japan 0.15%
Microsoft Live Search 0.15%
Search.com 0.14%
Google Switzerland 0.13%
Yahoo! Categories 0.13%
Excite 0.12%
ThomasNet 0.11%
Yahoo! Web Sites Australia 0.10%
Google Austria 0.10%
Google Finland 0.09%
Overture 0.09%
Google Norway 0.09%
Google Israel 0.08%
Netscape 0.07%
Google Portugal 0.06%
Google Romania 0.06%
Yahoo! Web Sites Mexico 0.06%
MetaCrawler 0.06%
Yahoo! Web Sites Singapore 0.05%
Mamma 0.05%
Yahoo! Web Sites France 0.04%
Open Directory Categories (dmoz.org) 0.04%
Lycos 0.04%
MSN Spain 0.04%
All the Web 0.04%
Google Indonesia 0.04%
MSN Sweden 0.03%
Google Russia 0.03%
MSN New Zealand 0.03%
HotBot 0.03%
Ask U.K. 0.02%
TOnline (Germany) 0.02%
Google Bulgaria 0.02%
Yahoo! Web Sites Italy 0.02%
Yahoo! Web Sites Germany 0.02%
Yahoo! Web Sites Spain 0.02%
Google Lithuania 0.02%
Go Network (Infoseek) 0.02%
Viola (France) 0.02%
Yahoo! Web Sites Argentina 0.02%
MSN France 0.02%
MSN South Africa 0.02%
Yahoo! Web Sites Spanish 0.02%
AltaVista U.K. 0.02%
MSN Germany 0.01%
AltaVista Sweden 0.01%
Google Kenya 0.01%
AOL Canada 0.01%
Looksmart 0.01%
MSN Netherlands 0.01%
MSN Norway 0.01%
Goo (Japan) 0.01%
AOL France 0.01%
MSN Singapore 0.01%
MSN Denmark 0.01%
MSN Brazil 0.01%
Yahoo! Web Sites Brazil 0.01%
Yahoo! Web Sites India 0.01%
Yahoo! Categories U.K. 0.01%
Yahoo! Web Sites Japan 0.01%
FreeNet (Germany) 0.01%
MSN Belgium / Dutch 0.01%
Yahoo! Categories Canada 0.01%
Excite U.K. 0.01%
Yandex (Russia) 0.01%
AltaVista Italy 0.01%
Google China 0.01%