I recently overheard (hence the reference to ‘grapevines’ in my title ;o) two interesting facts about how Google evaluates the legitimacy of a site. So – being a more of a marketing orientated person than an SEO one, I wanted to put the two out there and see if anyone can offer to shed a bit of light over the reliability of this info: Is it true that if Google sees more than 88 outbound list on a single domain, they are likely to consider it a ‘scraper’ site? Now, I presume that it would also depend on a combination of a few other factors – like the age of the domain… But can you confirm or deny the essence [...]
Archive for October, 2007
Accuracy: It’s Not Just A Song By The Cure
If you’ve ever extolled the virtues of the total accuracy of online metrics to anyone, you’ve been guilty of lying and you’re going to burn in hell. I’ll be there too though, so try and find some good indie music and maybe some cheese dip and try and drag those along. In web metrics, discrepancies abound. If you’ve ever run two sets of metrics on the exact same data, you’ve most likely received two totally different sets of numbers. There are reasons for that, of course, but they may not make sense to someone who isn’t overly technical (or bright, like many of my past clients.) So when we’re telling someone that yes, he or she should funnel more cash [...]
SEO is like buying a house whilst PPC is like renting, or is it?
Although I’m principally a big SEO fan I also value Pay Per Click and I really do think it’s a market for both, and in some cases the two markets have a totally different audience. In my personal experience I would always recommend for any new clients to start off doing both, for many reasons: #1 – Keyword and ad testing Pay Per Click allows you the best and most in-depth keyword research for you to implement in your organic optimisation. It can also give you an advantage in terms of message testing through the ads, and implementing this throughout your organic optimistation. #2 – Different audiences Now this might sound crazy, but I have been known to run PPC [...]
- October 19th 2007
- 4 Comments »
Why Am I deCabbit And What Does It Mean?
Today seems like a good day for a bit of silliness with almost no link to SEO at all.� As with all things in my life, there is a link to SEO anyway, despite its tenuous nature. Japanese animation, Pioneer and cabbits are inexorably linked for me.� While some may enjoy other anime (and I am a huge fan of �Bubblegum Crists�, �Ranma �� and Lodoss Wars�), I love �Tenchi Muyo�.� In this series there is a character that is small, cute and furry called �Ryo-oh-ki� http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryo-Ohki .� Now, Ryo-oh-ki�s name possibly translates as �something small that has the potential to be big� which is fitting since she can change from a small cabbit to a really big spaceship. Now, [...]
Is There An SEO Shibolleth?
First off, a few bits and bobs that may seem irrelevant to SEO but really aren’t… A shibolleth is a word, behavior, or certain language used to determine whether or not you belong to a certain group…this is a fairly simplistic definition but it’s basically a method of classification. And no, it’s not something they say in the theme song to Laverne and Shirley. While I was in London last week, I went to the Tate Modern. There’s a crack in the floor there, which is an art installation by artist Doris Salcedo. Funnily enough, several people have actually fallen into said crack. Seriously. It’s a giant crack running through the floor, symbolizing the divide between groups. Which groups? Any, [...]
- October 17th 2007
- 2 Comments »
Online and Offline Must Coordinate
Chocbait may have been a miserable failure but coordinating your online and offline marketing activities never is. It is easy to become so close to an offline project that online is forgotten and landing pages for various campaigns are not in place in time to benefit the offline marketing push. Large or small, most businesses engage in both online and traditional offline marketing. Magazine ads, TV ads, local paper ads, bookmarks, flyers and related marketing materials could be easily co-ordinated with your online offerings. To use the example of a small shop in a town – The shop has an online store where they sell the higher volume goods and sometimes have their “one offs” online but the shop front [...]