Ok people, have that cup of coffee, wake up and see if you can figure this one out! I’m doing an off-line to online campaign for one of my clients, CW Jobs, where the off-line ad asks you to Google the phrase “getitornot”. The idea is that the site we created (a just for fun IT test, concept being if you are in IT you “get it” and if you are not “you don’t get it”) would appear 1st and 2nd in the Google UK SERPs. With the title and meta description tag, carrying over from the off-line ad, you still with me?

We chose the phrase “getitornot” (all one word, that’s part of the concept, you get it if you type it all in one word) as it would be “easy” to rank for in a short space of time. Originally we wanted the .com as well as the .co.uk but right before our eyes (and only a week apart) the .com was snatched up (argh!!!). But seeing as the people that bought the .com hadn’t done anything with the domain (except from putting a bog standard Joomla CMS holding page on there) we thought, nah it will be fine, we just want the ranking in Google UK anyway! Right? Doesn’t seem too far fetched!??

Two weeks in, the .com is STILL ranking above co.uk! And I’m banging my head against the wall, WHY oh WHY does this domain rank 1st and 2nd in Google UK?

1. Hosting: the .com is hosted in the US while we are hosting in the UK

2. Content: they have the phrase we are targeting once in the title tag, that’s it, no more content related to the terms (except obviously in the domain itself)

3. They have NO LINKS WHATSOVER, we have nearly 100 links (some not so great, but some good quality links, AND a link from CW Jobs http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/ main site which is a high authority site (albeit the link we got is kind of buried http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/Browse/Browse/BrowseJobs.html ) Anchor text for incoming links varies between getitornot and technical test

4. Age of domain, both domains were bought in the same month (only a week apart) so age shouldn’t have an impact.

5. .Com is surely duplicate content, how many sites must feature the standard Joomla holding page?? Ok yes fair enough our two pages are in theory duplicate contentish, but surely not as much as the .com is with thousands of other sites?

SO, after analysing this to death, and asking a million and one other SEOs, the only thing I can think of being the reason why this damn .com is ranking before the .co.uk is the “power” of the .COM. Which is totally freakin annoying, as you should think a .co.uk and hosting in the UK would be a massive hint to the bots that this site is UK targeted right? Which makes me think….are the Googlebots on crack or something?

Has anyone had any similar experiences where a .com (although hosted in the US with less relevant content and no links) have outranked your .co.uk site in Google UK?

What’s your take on it?

I am a bit of a geek girl. I’m good with computers, the Internet and various other pieces of technology. However, since getting into the tech world and especially since developing a nasty Twitter habit, I’ve noticed a new breed of annoying female that I’d never come across before. If you live out in the real world, you may have seen them on occasion, but they’re everywhere on the web. Outside, where flesh replaces pixels, they’re harder to spot. Enhanced with Ruby on Rails, these women have become the sorority girls of the Internet. Get mad at me for being hypocritical if you like; I’ve probably done some of these things. However, if you must become famous on the Internet, here’s what you have to do:

1. Relate oneself to frosting, icing, cupcakes, muffins or any other variety of sweet confection which one does not actually consume on a regular basis but which is often pink.
2. Pick a blog handle, Twitter name or general online pen-name with care. Is your name Nicole Kent? (I made that name up, in case you’re wondering.) “NicoleKent” won’t do. “jnikkicakecat” would be a far better choice, but for God’s sake, avoid using numbers. No one’s done that since 2001’s Yahoo! chat rooms and you don’t even have Yahoo! saved in your browser’s history.
3. Pretend to be retarded.
4. Talk a lot about Apple products, even if you secretly use a Dell Inspiron 6000 that’s running XP, weighs more than a year’s pile of college text books and is missing its down arrow and F5 keys.
5. Attend a lot of tech-related events to give off the impression that every day of your life is SXSW. Twitter at Michael Arrington and make it seem like he replies.
6. Blog about your diet, which consists solely of tea, sushi and oddities only found at strange markets in Austin and Providence, RI.
7. Reclaim MySpace; Abandon Facebook. If in United Kingdom, flirt with Bebo.
8. Actually change your name. If people find out you’re really called Nicole Kent, things could get ugly. Hint that your name is actually Fairess Sweetakins.
9. Own a regular pet but make sure to point out that it’s not a German Shepherd, it’s a Belgian Malinois. What? I said I was a hypocrite.
10. Practice yoga and meditation in order to forget that 9,280 of your 9,302 Twitter followers are pony-tailed software developers from Omaha.
11. An oldie but a goodie: take pictures and video of yourself from strange angles. It worked on Friendster, it ruled MySpace, it’ll work in the odd life you lead that can only be dubbed Blogtter.
12. Stay the fuck out of politics, unless you’re expressing sexual fantasies about Barak Obama. You risk alienating at least half of your audience no matter what you say, and it’s way more interesting to talk about Wii Sports. The Barak stuff is fine: pony-tailed software developers don’t care if you’re fantasising about Margaret bloody Thatcher, so long as they get to think about you and sex.
13. OMG Digg.
14. Stay the fuck out of coffee politics. Claim that the people at Starbucks have your idiotic drink ready for you before you get there.
15. Choose a yummy sample of generic pop culture phenomena, such as cartoons or musicians, and obsess over them. There’s nothing better than claiming a pop culture mainstay as your own and subtly indicating that it’s far more deep and meaningful than everyone else understands it to be.
16. Learn at least some real computer skills so that you can Twitter about your server from time to time.
17. Write blog posts that consist of less than one-hundred words. In the Twitter culture, no one has time to read 900 - 1,000 word entries.
18. Have an offline friend who is very cool. Talk about the friend a lot online. “Stacey” did this. “Stacey” did that. Elevate “Stacey” to a god-like level for no particular reason at all. Don’t let “Stacey” know.
19. Refrain from talking about “Web 2.0.” It makes you look like a dick. Instead, talk about digital media.
20. Write for a blog called “(Technology-related Subject) Chicks” and wear little shirts with name of said blog emblazened across them, atop the boobs. And be a fuck ton better than the “(Technology-related Subject) Blokes” blog while you’re at it.

Today and tomorrow in London at the Russell Square Hotel, the Marketing Optimization Summit is being held. In fact, tonight is a free drinks event called “Web Analytics Wednesdays” which ironically has not been on a Wednesday for a couple of meetings now. As anyone in digital knows, analytics are vital. Conferences about analytics are few and far between so it’s always good to get to the few there are.

SEO Chicks have written about analytics before and we seem to have attracted a readership from among those gathered here. This year, my second year covering this conference as a journalist, I noticed some subtle changes that show just how much of an impact SEO Chicks have had.

Page views and unique users are the traditional measurements of popularity and impact, still used almost to the exclusion of all others by publishers. This metric is very much on its way out and I’m pleased to say I haven’t heard any of the chicks talk about either of these metrics when referring to impact.

Incoming deep links is another measurable calculator of impact. How many people are reading and being so inspired by the content that they cite it and use it as a launching point. Easily accessible, link love is one of the favourite methods of ‘measurement of popularity’ by both SEOs and Google (and arguably by some SEOs because of Google).

Measuring impact beyond the site is often difficult to quantify and a challenge to measure. One measurement is buzz online and SEO Chicks have certainly achieved that, measurable through Google alerts Buzz has been increasing as readership has so when we bring new news online, it now spreads across the web quite quickly. The recent article about certain online marketing practices becoming illegal in the UK is one example.

Progressing beyond the immediately measurable, how do you know when you have had an impact? When a conference offers chocolate. Yes, that’s right, there is chocolate at this web metrics conference. OX2, obviously aware that I was attending and aware of how much buzz on SEO Chicks there is about chocolate, brought boxes of 4 Belgian chocolates for everyone and there will be more at the drinks event tonight. That’s impact!

I was also recognised by a couple of people who read SEO Chicks which was wild. There’s impact as well. People coming to the site, reading the blog posts and remembering what we look like. As a dyslexic, remembering faces, let alone names, is a challenge so I’m always impressed by those who are able to do so.

Why don’t you come down to Web Analytics Wednesday (grab free expo hall pass) tonight (Tuesday night ironically), have some chocolate, grab a drink and say hello. And if you don’t want the chocolate you’ve grabbed, you know you have a willing recipient!

In case you aren’t married to a man who constantly refers to you as a Luddite, let me first explain what a Luddite is, all without going into any sort of intricate detail: it’s someone who doesn’t much care for things that make our lives easier, a person opposed to technological progress. That’s me, many times. It took me years to accept the mp3 format, I still don’t like to use remote controls, I never go through a drive-through, and my attempts to use the self-timer on my camera end up leading to shots of my backside as I walk away in order to get into position. It’s not that I hate these things really, it’s that I just don’t fucking care about them. Yes, they make things simpler, but I can’t be arsed usually.

This also applies to how I do SEO, in many instances. You know all of the blog posts where people talk about their favorite Firefox add-ons, or link building tools that they can’t live without? Have you ever seen my name on one of those? Hell no. I don’t use the Adwords API because I’d rather manually make changes, even though it takes me forever and the system crashes half the time on me. I don’t think that I have ever used any sort of coding software that writes even a fraction of the code for me, and I usually come up with new keywords based on nothing more than looking at a site and talking to a client (unless I’m instructed otherwise). So far it’s working out quite well…

I in NO way mean to say that using these types of tools is a bad thing; it’s just not as necessary as it might seem if you only took the sheer amount of online space devoted to SEO helpers into account. If you’re running a giant amount of PPC campaigns, you’d probably be quite stupid not to figure out some way to make things easier, obviously. The same holds true for link building…when you’re working on a massive link building campaign, it might really be nice to not spend all your time manually checking for contact information on each site. However, for a lot of us, the reliance upon things like this could mean that we’re becoming SEO tool operators, not SEO innovators.

Many times when you see a huge push in technology, you soon see the backlash. Can we thus expect to see a return to the old way of doing things, without a plethora of SEO tools that can do all of the grunt work for us? Admittedly, even WITH using these tools, there’s still a ton of grunt work involved in SEO, unless you’re lucky enough to have a masochistic underling who enjoys being whipped. Sadly, I don’t, as the advertisement for that position has not yet been publicly posted. Naturally I’ll be handwriting it and physically delivering it to all of the local papers for publishing…ok I’m off to churn butter and sing gospel songs now.

Earlier this year I was shortlisted for the “Blackberry Woman in Technology Awards” in the category “Best Use of Technology by under 30 year old woman”.

Last night the award ceremony took place at the Mariott Hotel Grosenvor Square in London. Me and my junior SEO, Rebecca, got to the hotel early to get all dolled up like
cinderella! We then went downstairs to the prestigious award ceremony. A few glasses of champagne and cheeky cigarettes later (not so classy!) we sat down for a 3 course meal. We were sat with a group of people from Blackberry (RIM) and Vodafone, and they were the loveliest people! Especially Harry Clark (Relationship Director Vodafone/RIM), he listened to my nervous babble for hours during dinner and topped up my glass with wine……ehm Harry it’s your fault I’m soooo hungover today? Beverly Knight was doing the entertainment after the award as well, which was awesome..

The Blackberry Woman and Technology Awards launched three years ago and focuses on honouring the achievements of women both within and beyond the IT sector. And help inspiring women choosing a career within Technology.

The award ceremony was very well organised (well done Claire!) and was very classy, it was amazing to be in the room with so many high powered and inspirational women (I know it’s soppy but this is the kind of thing I have always dreamt of). I have always believed that woman are just as good at Technology as men, and I believe the reason there is still a male dominated sector is not because women don’t want to, it’s more likely to be because it IS a male dominated sector and insecurities are more likely to creep up. Woman are more humble and modest, we need to stand tall and be proud when we do something well. Speak UP! Don’t be afraid to brag, if you don’t ask you don’t get.

It’s so important not to get discouraged. Don’t be afraid of what people might think, or what you look like – believe in yourself and what you are saying! If you feel you are being judged, shake it off, keep going! Fuck em, people can judge you, but don’t let anyone define you, define yourself!

Now the power to the woman speech is over, sorry, had to be done though! I can finish off by saying:

I WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The prize was: A designer glass bowl, a new Blackberry Smartphone and £2,500 worth of training (I’m going to use the money on programming courses!!)

I really want to thank ALL the SEO Chicks and Chicklets for all you have done on this blog and in the industry. You all inspire me to continue kicking ass!

Update: People have been asking me about photos, so here are a couple very fuzzy ones =)

Myself and Rebecca sipping champagne - oh ja!

And the Winner Is

Getting my Award - Totally stoked

I’ve been to two search marketing conferences in the past month and asked the crowd the same question at each show. The question was about a real-life example of the bait ‘n switch. There are a few different levels of bait ‘n switch and you’ll come across differing opinions as to which are ethical and which aren’t.

Level One
Popular content is moved via a redirect from its original location to another location on the same site. The content doesn’t change. This barely counts.

Level Two
Popular content is moved via a redirect from its original location to a different site. The content doesn’t change.

Level Three
Popular content is moved via a redirect from its original location to another location on the same site. The content is noticeably different.

Level Four
Popular content is moved via a redirect from its original location to a different site. The content is noticeably different.

By noticeably different, I mean that it no longer represents the content to which hundreds or thousands of independent websites originally linked. As linkers, we take this risk whenever we link to something that we don’t control; however, there is an inherent understanding that people won’t change the content and “force” us to link to something which we didn’t intend.

When the content doesn’t change, I don’t see anything wrong with changing its location. Within reason (commercial reasons included), moving content around makes little difference. Sometimes, a corporate website isn’t the place for linkbait or viral content, but once a social media campaign is complete, the content can be moved to a place on a company’s premier site. The Lenovo Tapes are a good example of this: originally displayed on a separate domain and purposefully disguised as being amateur, the page was eventually moved to Lenovo’s UK site. Sticklers for web etiquette still mightn’t like this, especially if they have a problem linking to corporate domains. However, I see no problem with this type of tactic and if you do, you should avoid linking to anything, ever.

Stickier situations come about when the content changes. If Lenovo had 301 redirected their linkbait to a products page, the situation would be entirely different. I fell for such a tactic recently and it was about this situation that I posed my question to two SMX crowds this April.

Last year, I was writing away at SEOmoz, as I’m prone to do, and I came across a benign but amusing piece of linkbait from a Floridian limousine company. They were featuring pictures of beached limos. Limos that have tried to drive over steep hills in towns like San Francisco and have become high-centred. Nice. Limousines are obscene. Who doesn’t find beached limos funny?

I linked to the linkbait. I used their most important keyword, “limousines”, in my anchor text. I was perfectly aware that the content was developed with links in mind, but being an SEO and having created similar commercially-minded content, I didn’t have a problem throwing them a followed link. Good on them; they topped Reddit and gave a few thousand people a giggle. Much later, I wanted to use this example in a presentation to highlight how boring businesses with mediocre websites can take advantage of social media. I went back to my own post to find the limousine company’s link.

I ended up at the Miami limousine rentals page, undoubtedly the company’s most profitable market.

Is that okay? Would I feel fine about doing this myself? Should I remove my link at SEOmoz? I felt that I should; however, I forgot to actually do it. I was distracted, probably by something shiny. The link was never removed and never nofollowed. I have the tab open to do it right now, but as per usual, I’m in the middle of a glass of Pinot and will probably forget again. Anyway.

I posed the question to the crowd at SMX Sydney: should I remove the link? Eighty percent of the crowd raised their hands. What an honest bunch of convicts. Either that, or they were just trying to impress us. I flew back to the U.S. and did nothing. A week later, at SMX Social Media in Long Beach, I asked the crowd the same question. Eight people put up their hands. The L.A. crowd didn’t see anything wrong with a 301 redirect being used in this way.

What do you think? I will probably amend the post to nofollow the link and add a note about how the content has changed. Personally, I wouldn’t use a redirect in this way: to me, a 301 should really indicate that a piece of content has moved permanently; doing this changes the content entirely. And it’s not like I’m the most morally upstanding member of society, either. Isn’t that right, Julie?

We had a discussion - one that ended up being around 250 comments in length - at SEOmoz last month about the ethics of widget-bait. Rightly or wrongly, a former colleague of mine is suffering from Google’s crackdown on such practices. How tough would it be for a search engine to recognise the bait ‘n switch and devalue its worth?

I have just decided that every SEO Chicks post I write will conclude with my most entertaining piece of Gmail Adsense from the recent past, as I was quite pleased with that particular post. Here is today’s offering: I always enjoy humour in my email advertising, especially of the self-deprecating variety.

Until next time!

This week I noticed a lot of great things happen in the social media space. Many yummy, tasty social media treats! Since Tuesday, different Ice Cream franchises have been offering special discounts or free ice cream through the Blogosphere, Facebook, and Twitter.

• Tuesday, April 29th= The Annual International Free Cone Day @ Ben & Jerry’s. - It was pretty impressive to me that Ben & Jerry’s bought a Facebook gift to be distributed as the free gift of the day.

Additionally, they did a great job at outreach as I spent the day seeing millions of pictures of the lines that were circling around the block for ice-cream. I looked at massive amounts of Twitter posts where people tweeted the participated location and the wait time. With all of the social effort put into this campaign, it was a huge success. But in other Ice-Cream regards, it seems like Ben & Jerry’s knows what they are doing.

• Weds, April 30th = Baskin Robbin’s 31 Cent Scoop Night- Not as impressive as Ben & Jerry’s campaign but still took a decent Facebook initiative. It’s Event Page has over 350,000 RSVPS (maybe’s, not attending, and attendees). That is a huge amount of engagement. They are also donating funds to a Fire Fighters charity and only having the promotion for 5 hours.

• Thursday, May 1st= Carvel launches it’s new Drink Flavors with Free Drinks.- This campaign was not executed too well. While, yes I found the event listed on Facebook, it was realy nowhere else. I did find a bunch of boring PR about the new flavors they are promoting, but no creative, no engaging interactive applications, nothing. Their website is not too helpful either, it does have a call out on the homepage, but the CTA links to basically nothing. Seems like Carvel was not completely prepared to launch this campaign but decided to jump on the bandwagon of Ice Cream promotions week.

I hope everyone has enjoyed their Ice Cream treats this week!