This is a light hearted post. If you want to insult someone here in the UK - you call them a tool.
Andy Beal, Aaron Wall, Bill Slawski, Cameron Olthuis, Christine Churchill, Chuck Price, Jeremy Schoemaker, Jim Boykin, Jim Gilbert, Jill Whalen, Lee Odden, Neil Patel and Todd Malicoat aren't tools. I'm sure they're all very nice people!
I'm being silly, of course. At the most this AdWords creative from Jim Boykin is an illustration of the sort of culture issues a global AdWords campaign can encounter - even if the language, more of less, stays the same.
I initially noticed the AdWord because the author is bidding on SMX as a keyword. That's a compliement to Danny Sullivan, Chris Sherman and his team (they aren't tools either) but if Third Door Media was a client I would encourage them to stop this sort of thing (trademarks and polite 'please stop' emails allowing). You don't want to invest the sort of energy they do in promoting SMX only for a related product, that isn't yours, to come along and ride in your slipstream.
I've not looked at Boykin's Internet Marketing Ninjas videos ($2995 is more than my curisoty budget allows) but - as Andy Beal points out - Jim already has a good reputation in training, and nobody on Jim's ninja list would allow their name to be associated with a poor product. So I'm sure the videos are very good. RustyBrick, who isn't in this set of videos, has also said positive things and Jeff Quip started a popular Sphinn on the news.
My word - a bit of research before posting certainly helps - wikipedia notes that 'tool' isn't just a UK insult as the US army also uses it. The likely first instance of the word being used as a slur may be from 'labor reform resolution drafted by the Female Labor Reform Association in 1845'. Well! We learn something new every day.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Jim Boykin insults Andy Beal, Aaron Wall, Schoemaker, Stuntdubl, himself and others!
Skype Extension and Google Local
People have been noticing that the rather funky Skype extension picks up and converts phone numbers in AdWords and AdSense.
I have to say - thank goodness - Barry Schwartz was around to point to the SEO forum member that this isn't a Google feature! Gosh. I cringe just thinking the question was asked!
I think a great illustration of just how significantly the new Skype feature overlaps with Google is via Google Maps. Check out that map to our brand new (bigger) bigmouthmedia office in New York. Not only is the Skype dropdown on the local list on the left it even sits on the bubble on the AJAX element on the right.
Yeah. I know Yada Yada Marketing seems to be bidding on our brand name. I take it as a compliment.
In fact, I suspect we'll see a mini battleground here. As Map search and Local search heats up and improves there will be a number of companies that'll want to control those phone number clicks. We're also bound to see webmasters, companies and brands who don't want their web pages to be parsed in that way and will be looking for ways to block the effects of the extensions.
P.S. You can get pretty close to the new bigmouthmedia America office via Google Streetview which is also cool!
Friday, December 28, 2007
Wow Barry!
I've seem some pretty impressive moves on LinkedIn before - but Barry Schwartz from SERoundtable will take some beating. I'm not sure how you get 33 updates at once. Run around and be amazingly good at conferences for a month, hand out LinkedIn cards and then approve everyone a month later? Anyway; well done!
You can find me at LinkedIn here. I once had a great scoop - that LinkedIn wasn't selling to Fox but by the time I could break it; it was old news! Darn!
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Barry Schwartz achieves ultimate goal!
I'm so jealous of Barry Schwartz (and a whole bunch other SEMers) as they've made it into a card game.
Just to put this into perspective; I enjoy digital marketing and search enough to truthfully say that "I'm lucky enough to have a hobby as work" but the hobby I share outside the digital word is traditional gaming. Card games are certainly part of that. So what Barry (and the other idols) have managed to do is become so famous at my first hobby that they feature in my second hobby.
Clearly I need to start sending SEOMoz (the creators) gifts or tips or something!
Er. So the title Barry Schwartz achieves ultimate goal! make sense as Barry as achieved what would be my ultimate goal... er, if I'm allowed more than one ultimate goals.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Search Engine Land's Secrets : Mining SearchCap
I really like SearchCap - it's the daily summary of events at Search Engine Land and it includes interesting link finds from around the web.
I've been analysing those link finds. I've looked at three whole months of data! That's a lot. That's 2963 links, excluding links to press release wires and sphinn, and a date range from 1st August to the 31st of October.
In this time Search Engine Land has cited 467 sources! Wow. That's a figure you should use when someone tries to claim that bloggers single source or simple repost news from their RSS reader of a dozen sites.
The most influential site is Search Engine Roundtable (182 posts) which easily beats SearchEngineWatch (105 posts). The top ten sites account for 801 posts and that's nearly 30% of the total. Not bad. I actually have a graph of the longtail (though Microsoft's Excel doesn't name every node on the x-axis). This is a very long graph and you need to click and horizontally scroll to cope with it. 
To get these figures I've done my best to aggregate names and sources. For example, Barry Schwartz is sometimes cited as Cartoon Barry, Wolf Howl could be Graywolf or Micheal Gray, etc.
I'm uploading a bunch of visualisations for this research as they're the best way to get to grips with the data. However, Excel can only map about half of the sources that Search Engine Land actually uses and so graphs like the radar to the left of this have been limited to the top 50 or the top 20.
There are some interesting bits of advice if you're interested in getting into Search Engine Land's SearchCap. Looking at the figures you can see that there are days when the editor (Danny Sullivan, Barry or, I suspect, Tamar giving Barry a helping hand) has made the effort to look around the net for a bunch of new sites or the established information feeders are having a slow day (SMX is on and they're all presenting or live blogging). Looking at this 3 month time period there are days when up to 8 sites make their premier appearance in the list of citations. The good news is that once you have the editors eye you're equally likely to get 2 post mentions as you are to get 1. Furthermore, once you break into the roundup you're likely to get mentioned sometime later that week too.
I'm going to do something crazy and post the whole top 467 list! Are you on it? Here goes!
- 1st - Search Engine Roundtable - 182 posts
- 2nd - Search Engine Watch - 105 posts
- 3rd - Search Engine Journal - 84 posts
- 4th - TechCrunch - 83 posts
- 5th - SEOMoz - 70 posts
- 6th - Search Engine Guide - 62 posts
- 7th - News.com - 57 posts
- 8th - SEO Book - 54 posts
- 9th - ResourceShelf - 53 posts
- 10th - Google Blogoscope - 51 posts
- 11th - SEO by the Sea - 42 posts
- 12th - New York Times - 40 posts
- 13th - Google Operating System - 38 posts
- 14th - Read/Write Web - 37 posts
- 15th - Reuters - 35 posts
- 16th - Online Marketing Blog - 32 posts
- 17th - Bruce Clay - 30 posts
- 18th - Googlified - 30 posts
- 19th - adCenter Blog - 27 posts
- 20th - Inside AdWords - 26 posts
- 21st - MediaPost - 26 posts
- 22nd - Marketing Pilgrim - 25 posts
- 23rd - Forbes - 24 posts
- 24th - Google LatLong - 24 posts
- 25th - Official Google Blog - 24 posts
- 26th - Search Engine Watch Blog - 24 posts
- 27th - ClickZ - 23 posts
- 28th - Digital Inspiration - 23 posts
- 29th - PPC Hero - 22 posts
- 30th - Google Earth Blog - 21 posts
- 31st - InformationWeek - 19 posts
- 32nd - Daily SearchCast - 17 posts
- 33rd - Valleywag - 17 posts
- 34th - Wall Street Journal - 17 posts
- 35th - CNN Money - 15 posts
- 36th - Joost de Valk - 15 posts
- 37th - ViperChill - 15 posts
- 38th - ProBlogger - 14 posts
- 39th - ShoeMoney - 14 posts
- 40th - SEOish - 13 posts
- 41st - SEOptimise - 13 posts
- 42nd - Stone Temple - 13 posts
- 43rd - Inside AdSense - 12 posts
- 44th - Pandia - 12 posts
- 45th - Wired - 12 posts
- 46th - www.10e20.com - 12 posts
- 47th - AdWords API Blog - 11 posts
- 48th - Bob Massa - 11 posts
- 49th - BusinessWeek - 11 posts
- 50th - Googling Google - 11 posts
- 51st - The SEO Scoop - 11 posts
- 52nd - Traffick - 11 posts
- 53rd - Vanessa Fox - 11 posts
- 54th - Ask.com Blog - 10 posts
- 55th - Bill Hartzer - 10 posts
- 56th - BlogStorm - 10 posts
- 57th - Cre8PC - 10 posts
- 58th - InsideGoogle - 10 posts
- 59th - John Andrews - 10 posts
- 60th - Pronet Advertising - 10 posts
- 61st - Rimm Kaufman - 10 posts
- 62nd - Yahoo Search Blog - 10 posts
- 63rd - AIM Clear Blog - 9 posts
- 64th - Bloomberg - 9 posts
- 65th - E-Consultancy - 9 posts
- 66th - Hakia Blog - 9 posts
- 67th - Matt Cutts - 9 posts
- 68th - Search Marketing Standard - 9 posts
- 69th - Cartoon Barry - 8 posts
- 70th - Fantomaster - 8 posts
- 71st - GigaOM - 8 posts
- 72nd - Google Maps API Blog - 8 posts
- 73rd - Greg Boser - 8 posts
- 74th - LinkJuicy - 8 posts
- 75th - Official Google Webmaster Central Blog - 8 posts
- 76th - PC World - 8 posts
- 77th - Silicon Alley Insider - 8 posts
- 78th - Times Online - 8 posts
- 79th - Wolf Howl - 8 posts
- 80th - Ad Age - 7 posts
- 81st - Askville Blog - 7 posts
- 82nd - ComparisonEngines.com - 7 posts
- 83rd - David Dalka - 7 posts
- 84th - Eric Goldman - 7 posts
- 85th - John Mu - 7 posts
- 86th - Jonathan Mendez's Blog - 7 posts
- 87th - Official Gmail Blog - 7 posts
- 88th - Reviewlicious - 7 posts
- 89th - SEO Speedwagon - 7 posts
- 90th - Site Visibility - 7 posts
- 91st - Techipedia - 7 posts
- 92nd - The Guardian - 7 posts
- 93rd - The Register - 7 posts
- 94th - WebProNews - 7 posts
- 95th - Yahoo Publisher Network - 7 posts
- 96th - Inside Google Book Search - 6 posts
- 97th - Lifehacker - 6 posts
- 98th - LiveSide - 6 posts
- 99th - mashable.com - 6 posts
- 100th - orkut Blog - 6 posts
- 101st - Performancing.com - 6 posts
- 102nd - SEO Fast Start - 6 posts
- 103rd - Shimon Sandler - 6 posts
- 104th - Small Business SEM - 6 posts
- 105th - venturebeat.com - 6 posts
- 106th - Yodel Anecdotal - 6 posts
- 107th - eKstreme.com - 5 posts
- 108th - Financial Times - 5 posts
- 109th - Google - 5 posts
- 110th - InfoWorld - 5 posts
- 111th - Jim Boykin - 5 posts
- 112th - John Battelle's Searchblog - 5 posts
- 113th - Karl Ribas - 5 posts
- 114th - Los Angeles Times - 5 posts
- 115th - Mercury News - 5 posts
- 116th - San Francisco Chronicle - 5 posts
- 117th - Search Marketing Expo Blog - 5 posts
- 118th - SiteMost - 5 posts
- 119th - SmartMoney.com - 5 posts
- 120th - Webware - 5 posts
- 121st - Wired Blogs - 5 posts
- 122nd - ZDNet - 5 posts
- 123rd - AdWeek - 4 posts
- 124th - Andrew Girdwood - 4 posts
- 125th - DMOZ Blog - 4 posts
- 126th - Google Analytics Blog - 4 posts
- 127th - Google Code - Updates - 4 posts
- 128th - Google Public Policy Blog - 4 posts
- 129th - Hitwise - 4 posts
- 130th - Jennifer Slegg - 4 posts
- 131st - Live Search Blog - 4 posts
- 132nd - Locally Type - 4 posts
- 133rd - McAnerin Muse - 4 posts
- 134th - Pacific Epoch - 4 posts
- 135th - Paid Content - 4 posts
- 136th - PPC Discussions - 4 posts
- 137th - Red Herring - 4 posts
- 138th - SeattleTimes - 4 posts
- 139th - SEO Beginning Podcast - 4 posts
- 140th - The Link Spiel - 4 posts
- 141st - YouTube Blog - 4 posts
- 142nd - AllThingsD - 3 posts
- 143rd - AP - 3 posts
- 144th - Chicago Tribune - 3 posts
- 145th - Compete Blog - 3 posts
- 146th - eWeek - 3 posts
- 147th - Google Gears API Blog - 3 posts
- 148th - Google Mashup Editor Blog - 3 posts
- 149th - Google News Blog - 3 posts
- 150th - Inside Facebook - 3 posts
- 151st - Micro Persuasion - 3 posts
- 152nd - National Post - 3 posts
- 153rd - Oilman - 3 posts
- 154th - Paul Kedrosky - 3 posts
- 155th - Robert Scoble - 3 posts
- 156th - San Jose Mercury News - 3 posts
- 157th - Search Engine College - 3 posts
- 158th - Search Engine Strategies - 3 posts
- 159th - Techdirt - 3 posts
- 160th - Telegraph - 3 posts
- 161st - Threadwatcher - 3 posts
- 162nd - Twitter Blog - 3 posts
- 163rd - Vnunet.com - 3 posts
- 164th - Washington Post - 3 posts
- 165th - Web Analytics World - 3 posts
- 166th - 97th Floor - 2 posts
- 167th - ABC News - 2 posts
- 168th - Ars Technica - 2 posts
- 169th - Ask Kalena - 2 posts
- 170th - Between the Lines - 2 posts
- 171st - bigmouthmedia - 2 posts
- 172nd - Bill Tancer - 2 posts
- 173rd - Blogger Buzz - 2 posts
- 174th - Bloglines Blog - 2 posts
- 175th - BtoB Magazine - 2 posts
- 176th - Carnage4Life - 2 posts
- 177th - Channel Register - 2 posts
- 178th - Chris Pirillo - 2 posts
- 179th - Closed Loop Marketing - 2 posts
- 180th - ComputerWorld - 2 posts
- 181st - comScore - 2 posts
- 182nd - Copyblogger - 2 posts
- 183rd - David Naylor - 2 posts
- 184th - Digg the Blog - 2 posts
- 185th - DM News - 2 posts
- 186th - Docuticker - 2 posts
- 187th - Download Squad - 2 posts
- 188th - Economist.com - 2 posts
- 189th - Engadget - 2 posts
- 190th - Evil Green Monkey - 2 posts
- 191st - Facebook Developers News - 2 posts
- 192nd - Fast Company - 2 posts
- 193rd - Google AJAX Search API Blog - 2 posts
- 194th - Google Docs & Spreadsheets Blog - 2 posts
- 195th - Google Health Ads Blog - 2 posts
- 196th - Google Photos Blog - 2 posts
- 197th - HighRankings - 2 posts
- 198th - JenSense - 2 posts
- 199th - Jeremy Zawodny - 2 posts
- 200th - Joseph Morin - 2 posts
- 201st - juberjabber - 2 posts
- 202nd - Jupiter Research - 2 posts
- 203rd - Justin Davy - 2 posts
- 204th - MacWorld - 2 posts
- 205th - MarketingVOX - 2 posts
- 206th - marketmou.com - 2 posts
- 207th - MarketWatch - 2 posts
- 208th - Mike Blumenthal - 2 posts
- 209th - Muhammad Saleem - 2 posts
- 210th - news.com.com - 2 posts
- 211th - Official Google Checkout Blog - 2 posts
- 212th - Official Google Mac Blog - 2 posts
- 213th - Opera Developer Community - 2 posts
- 214th - PC Magazine - 2 posts
- 215th - Portland SEM Professionals Blog - 2 posts
- 216th - Radar Online - 2 posts
- 217th - Reflections of a Newsosaur - 2 posts
- 218th - Rev2.org - 2 posts
- 219th - Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog - 2 posts
- 220th - Search Engine War - 2 posts
- 221st - Search Marketing Gurus - 2 posts
- 222nd - Search Pulse - 2 posts
- 223rd - Searchnewz - 2 posts
- 224th - SEC - 2 posts
- 225th - SEM Geek - 2 posts
- 226th - SEM Portland - 2 posts
- 227th - SEO Home - 2 posts
- 228th - SEO Montreal - 2 posts
- 229th - SiteProNews Blog - 2 posts
- 230th - Skrentablog - 2 posts
- 231st - Squareoak - 2 posts
- 232nd - Stuntdubl - 2 posts
- 233rd - Tamar Search Blog - 2 posts
- 234th - TorrentFreak - 2 posts
- 235th - Tropical SEO - 2 posts
- 236th - Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search - 2 posts
- 237th - USA Today - 2 posts
- 238th - Yahoo Local Blog - 2 posts
- 239th - 24/7 Wall St. - 1 post
- 240th - AccuraCast - 1 post
- 241st - Adotas - 1 post
- 242nd - AFX - 1 post
- 243rd - AIMS - 1 post
- 244th - All About Microsoft - 1 post
- 245th - Alt Search Engines - 1 post
- 246th - Altogether Digital - 1 post
- 247th - Andy Beard - 1 post
- 248th - Assetbar - 1 post
- 249th - Australian IT - 1 post
- 250th - billing.tmcnet.com - 1 post
- 251st - blog.flickr.com - 1 post
- 252nd - Blogger Blog - 1 post
- 253rd - BloggingStocks - 1 post
- 254th - Bloglines News - 1 post
- 255th - blognation UK - 1 post
- 256th - blogs.cnet.com - 1 post
- 257th - blogs.msdn.com - 1 post
- 258th - Blue Hat SEO - 1 post
- 259th - boston.bizjournals.com - 1 post
- 260th - Brad Geddes - 1 post
- 261st - Brisbane SEO Blog - 1 post
- 262nd - Business Standard - 1 post
- 263rd - Campus Technology - 1 post
- 264th - Catherine "Cat" Seda - 1 post
- 265th - CBC - 1 post
- 266th - CenterNetworks - 1 post
- 267th - Charlene Li - 1 post
- 268th - Chilling Effects Clearinghouse - 1 post
- 269th - Chris Boggs - 1 post
- 270th - Chronicle.com - 1 post
- 271st - CNBC.com - 1 post
- 272nd - Coding Horror - 1 post
- 273rd - Cre8asite Blog - 1 post
- 274th - Cre8tive Flow - 1 post
- 275th - CRN - 1 post
- 276th - Cshel - 1 post
- 277th - Daggle - 1 post
- 278th - Dairies Around The World - 1 post
- 279th - DamnDomainer - 1 post
- 280th - Dan Skeen - 1 post
- 281st - David Airey - 1 post
- 282nd - David Weiss - 1 post
- 283rd - Deutsche Welle - 1 post
- 284th - Dexterity Media - 1 post
- 285th - Digg - 1 post
- 286th - Distilled - 1 post
- 287th - DomainTools - 1 post
- 288th - DoshDosh - 1 post
- 289th - Editor & Publisher - 1 post
- 290th - Ego Food - 1 post
- 291st - E-Marketing Performanc - 1 post
- 292nd - Engine Ready - 1 post
- 293rd - Eric Enge - 1 post
- 294th - eWhisper.net - 1 post
- 295th - Fathom SEO - 1 post
- 296th - F'dGoogle - 1 post
- 297th - FierceIPTV - 1 post
- 298th - FirstMonday - 1 post
- 299th - FTC - 1 post
- 300th - Gadood - 1 post
- 301st - Geeking with Greg - 1 post
- 302nd - Gnucitizen - 1 post
- 303rd - Google Custom Search - 1 post
- 304th - Google Desktop APIs - 1 post
- 305th - Google Reader Blog - 1 post
- 306th - Google SketchUp Blog - 1 post
- 307th - Google Web Toolkit Blog - 1 post
- 308th - googlewatch.eweek.com - 1 post
- 309th - Graphing Social - 1 post
- 310th - Green Marketing Blog - 1 post
- 311th - Groklaw - 1 post
- 312th - Groundswell - 1 post
- 313th - Gspy - 1 post
- 314th - Guardian Unlimited - 1 post
- 315th - ha.ckers.org - 1 post
- 316th - Half's SEO Notebook - 1 post
- 317th - Hamlet Batista - 1 post
- 318th - Hindustan Times - 1 post
- 319th - Hotmail Blog - 1 post
- 320th - HTML Goodies - 1 post
- 321st - IEEE Spectrum - 1 post
- 322nd - I'm Not A Doctor - 1 post
- 323rd - InfoToday - 1 post
- 324th - INQUIRER.net - 1 post
- 325th - Inside Google Desktop - 1 post
- 326th - Intrapromote - 1 post
- 327th - Jabz - 1 post
- 328th - Jack Humphrey - 1 post
- 329th - Jason Bartholme - 1 post
- 330th - Jewess - 1 post
- 331st - Jill Whalen - 1 post
- 332nd - JLH Design - 1 post
- 333rd - John Honeck - 1 post
- 334th - Joost - 1 post
- 335th - Kevin Lee - 1 post
- 336th - Lee McCoy - 1 post
- 337th - LinkedIn Blog - 1 post
- 338th - Linux Insider - 1 post
- 339th - Live Maps Blog - 1 post
- 340th - Lost Art Of Blogging - 1 post
- 341st - Mad - 1 post
- 342nd - Marketing Piranha - 1 post
- 343rd - Marketing Week - 1 post
- 344th - MarketingSherpa - 1 post
- 345th - MarketingShift - 1 post
- 346th - Media Info Center - 1 post
- 347th - MediaWeek - 1 post
- 348th - Mercury News - 1 post
- 349th - Metaversed - 1 post
- 350th - Middle East Times - 1 post
- 351st - Mike Grehan - 1 post
- 352nd - Mike Nott - 1 post
- 353rd - Mike The Internet Guy - 1 post
- 354th - Mitt Romney - 1 post
- 355th - MSNBC.com - 1 post
- 356th - Multilingual Search - 1 post
- 357th - Natural Search Blog - 1 post
- 358th - Netcraft - 1 post
- 359th - News & Observer - 1 post
- 360th - news.zdnet.com - 1 post
- 361st - Newsknife - 1 post
- 362nd - NewTeeVee - 1 post
- 363rd - NMA - 1 post
- 364th - nvestor's Business Daily - 1 post
- 365th - Official Google CPG Blog - 1 post
- 366th - Official Google Enterprise Blog - 1 post
- 367th - Ogle Earth - 1 post
- 368th - Ogletree - 1 post
- 369th - Omniture - 1 post
- 370th - One Man's Blog - 1 post
- 371st - ONLamp.com - 1 post
- 372nd - OUT-LAW.COM - 1 post
- 373rd - Page Zero Media - 1 post
- 374th - PC Advisor - 1 post
- 375th - Pennsylvania State University - 1 post
- 376th - Pipes Blog - 1 post
- 377th - Pocket SEO - 1 post
- 378th - PPC Lab - 1 post
- 379th - Practical Ecommerce - 1 post
- 380th - Pubcon Blog - 1 post
- 381st - Quick Sprout - 1 post
- 382nd - radar.oreilly.com - 1 post
- 383rd - RB Digital Rodeo - 1 post
- 384th - Reality SEO - 1 post
- 385th - RentVine.com - 1 post
- 386th - reportonbusiness.com - 1 post
- 387th - ResearchBuzz - 1 post
- 388th - Rhea Drysdale - 1 post
- 389th - rizzn.com v11.1 - 1 post
- 390th - Royal Pingdom - 1 post
- 391st - roySchneider.com - 1 post
- 392nd - Salon - 1 post
- 393rd - San Jose Business Journal - 1 post
- 394th - Scott Hendison - 1 post
- 395th - Screenwerk - 1 post
- 396th - ScrippsNews - 1 post
- 397th - Scripting News - 1 post
- 398th - Search Engine Blog - 1 post
- 399th - Search Engine People - 1 post
- 400th - Search Tools - 1 post
- 401st - SearchRank - 1 post
- 402nd - Seattle 24x7 - 1 post
- 403rd - Seeking Alpha - 1 post
- 404th - SEM Scholar - 1 post
- 405th - SEM Spot - 1 post
- 406th - SEO 2.0 - 1 post
- 407th - SEO Brien - 1 post
- 408th - SEO Consultants - 1 post
- 409th - SEO Egghead - 1 post
- 410th - SEO Refugee - 1 post
- 411th - SEO Trends - 1 post
- 412th - SEO Wife - 1 post
- 413th - SEOCO Blog - 1 post
- 414th - SEOdisco - 1 post
- 415th - ShadyKing - 1 post
- 416th - shanghaiist.com - 1 post
- 417th - Shylock Blogging - 1 post
- 418th - SiteLogic - 1 post
- 419th - slashdot.org - 1 post
- 420th - smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com - 1 post
- 421st - Small Business Hub - 1 post
- 422nd - Snowboard John - 1 post
- 423rd - Social Media Explorer - 1 post
- 424th - Sugarrae - 1 post
- 425th - Sydney Morning Herald - 1 post
- 426th - Technology Evangelist - 1 post
- 427th - Technology Review - 1 post
- 428th - Technovelgy - 1 post
- 429th - Text Link Center - 1 post
- 430th - The Agency Blog - 1 post
- 431st - The Canadian Press - 1 post
- 432nd - The Dalles Chronicle - 1 post
- 433rd - The DigitalGrit Blog - 1 post
- 434th - The Korea Times - 1 post
- 435th - The Mobile Gadgeteer - 1 post
- 436th - The New York Observer - 1 post
- 437th - The Onion - 1 post
- 438th - The Organic SEO - 1 post
- 439th - The Pownce Blog - 1 post
- 440th - The Red Tape Chronicles - 1 post
- 441st - The Sun Chronicle Online - 1 post
- 442nd - The Unofficial Facebook Blog - 1 post
- 443rd - TUAW - 1 post
- 444th - Twist Image - 1 post
- 445th - US News - 1 post
- 446th - Utah Search Engine Optimization - 1 post
- 447th - V7N Blog - 1 post
- 448th - Virtual Hosting Blog - 1 post
- 449th - Wiep.net - 1 post
- 450th - Windows Live Blog - 1 post
- 451st - Wireless Business - 1 post
- 452nd - www.btobonline.com - 1 post
- 453rd - www.fathomseo.com - 1 post
- 454th - www.internetnews.com - 1 post
- 455th - www.kxan.com - 1 post
- 456th - www.labnol.org - 1 post
- 457th - www.localseoguide.com - 1 post
- 458th - www.pubcon.com - 1 post
- 459th - www.ranksmart.com - 1 post
- 460th - www.sagoodnews.co.za - 1 post
- 461st - www.webbedmarketing.com - 1 post
- 462nd - www.webwereld.nl - 1 post
- 463rd - Yahoo Research - 1 post
- 464th - Yahoo Widgets Blog - 1 post
- 465th - Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog - 1 post
- 466th - Yahoo! Video - 1 post
- 467th - The Venture Skills Blog - 1 post
The graph above shows the inclusion rates of the top 20 contributors. As you can see; it's fairly spiky. Simply put on some days SearchCap includes more citations than on other days. There are days when the top feeders dominate the SearchCap and provide, between them, nearly 90% of the links.
I thought it might be interesting to look at SEOmoz and see how their inclusion has been over the last three months. Does it fluctuate? Yes, it does, but no more than any other site.
Gosh. There are some caveats here. There is an acceptable degree of error here. If this was a work project one of our Search Analysts would have done this, this would have been checked by another before being given to whoever requested the research in the first place (and may be checked again by their line manager). None of that happened here (no work resources was wasted on this project! :) ) so I've bound to have put a tally wrong here or there - but, as a whole, this is accurate enough research.
Update Barry suggested it would be nice to see what the average citations per day was - the answer is 40.8. It's rare to find a site get more than 5 citations. Search Engine Roundtable tends to pick up about 4% which is about 10%.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
O2 commissions made-for-mobile drama series
O2 is a big mobile carrier in the UK. They have the iPhone contract. They're part of Telefónica.
O2 has just signed one of their first (probably of many) made-for-mobile content deals. I blog about this with this with Tuesday's post questioning whether content or communication is king on mobile.
Certainly it seems that O2 are lining up their ducks. iPhone users might ask; "Now what?" after they've played with the device and it might just be that a mobile drama series will suit that big screen very well.
Big names are involved in the drama (which will be called Cell) - Endemol UK and Mobstar Media. Endemol are the people behind the infamous Big Brother TV show. I've never watched Big Brother but I may watch Cell just so I can be part of the premiere.
Do you know the big problem with being clever and calling the series Cell? That's right - it'll be a bitch to rank for. If you search for [O2 Cell] or [Endemol Cell] you'll get a bunch of results about mobile/cell phones.
I'm on O2 so my mobile will be able to get this. I'm interested in how they're going to announce this to me. An SMS seems most likely. If you're not on O2 - fear not - the series will be shared with other providers and aired online after O2's customers have had the first chance to view it.
Is this a first? Not really. It just seems like another significant step forward and another increase in the heat around mobile content and mobile marketing.
It's worth noting that Endemol is doing pretty well with its mobile content. They've already had a fly-on-the-wall mobile series which followed the pop band the Sugababes.
One thing I've noticed is that many SEO blogs aren't covering the growth of mobile content very well. This is will be partially due to the differences between European, American and Canadian mobile usage. European mobiles (oh, I mean; cell phones) tend to be closer in technology to the latest Asian mobiles (or are a Nokia or Sony Ericsson in the first place). A high percentage of European users are pretty close to being mobile power users too.
My prediction for bloggers most likely to cover this story are: Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim as the site does well to cover a broad range of digital topics and Barry Schwartz who may well have an iphone tag on his personal blog.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Why SearchEngineLand and SERoundtable are heavy hitters
Look at my subscription trends. Brand Republic dominates. Brand Republic is closely followed by the ever cutting The Register and then, after a gap, Search Engine Land.
Okay. That's a big gap. Search Engine Land does not compete with the high volume, high quality professional sites... but compare it to TechCrunch. Search Engine Land, with Danny Sullivan at the helm, out posts TechCrunch who have just hired Heather Harde from Fox to act as CEO. If Danny is the CEO of Search Engine Land he's also the MD and editor in chief. That's a lot of responsibility and you would have to admit that he does very well.
Of course, at Search Engine Land there are other passionate and intelligent contributors - you'll have noted that I've come to really rate Bill Slawski and Barry Schwartz. You know Chris Sherman is a power of support behind the scenes. Slawski does quality. Schwartz seems to dedicate himself to writing about breaking news. A review of my trends shows that he has two - Cartoon Barry and SERoundtable - in my list. That's some achievement!
Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, of course, does well as does UK favourite E-Consultancy. It's a shame that there isn't an US equivalent of E-Consultancy as I find myself only able to review the high level agency activity and the blog level SEO activity. I'm not sure how to classify Marketing Pilgrim. It seems bigger than a blog but also more personal than a news site like Search Engine Land or The Register. However I classify the site - I do get a positive and up-to-the-minute vibe from the site.
What Search Engine Land and SERoundtable do (and bare in mind that Barry Schwartz contributes to both) is to dedicate ample resources to monitoring the internet. They have people watching the Key Influencing Forums and Blogs (*gasp* social media optimisation) and have resources enough to post quick and intelligent replies.
Monday, March 12, 2007
WebProNews: the Return
I had a number of motives when I set this blog up. One of my motives was to rant my frustration at a number of SEO forums and publications. On the publication front I found it intensely annoying that so much poorly written, wrong, speculation presented as fact or just cliquey back-scratching.
Back in 2005 I let loose on WebProNews and an article about “Google Bowling". The article exposed a "loophole" wherein competitors could, as easy as pie, buy a lot of links to your domain and knock you out of Google. Yeah. Right.
It seems like WebProNews has been my whipping boy of rushed and commercial content for years… but I need to set the record straight. In the last few quarters WebProNews has really been winning me over. I've seen a real shift from quantity over to quality.
One of WebProNew's biggest successes has been the appointment of staff writers. Not only can the staff writers actually write – but they are much less partisan than many other contributors. In particular I'm fond of David Utter's articles. Utter writes well. He finds interesting issues to right about. He tends not to write with bias. Utter also writes frequently.
Right now, WebProNew's front page is dominated by David Utter stories.
There are still some things about WebProNews that I would rather change. I dislike the way adverts/advertorials are mashed into the news archive section. I want to use the news archives! I think WebProNews still suffers from authors that clearly have an axe to grind. You can spot this lot because they tend to talk about the same issue or keep on citing the same site/blog/company. The axe grinding effect magnifies when other authors start quoting the axe grinders own blogs.
WebProNews has a strange relationship with some of my other news sources. I would classify Search Engine Land as a competitor to WebProNews (give me brand guidelines and I'll get the spacing right!). Nevertheless, it was Search Engine Land and the daily Search Cap which pointed me at WebProNews today. We have this situation because each of the two news sites get most of their news content by watching what is breaking elsewhere on the internet and by writing it up. Search Engine Land's advantage is that people will news will tend to come to Danny Sullivan first to share it and that whatever Barry Schwartz says can often be influential enough to become news – increasingly the same is true for Bill Slawski.
Google News has the concept of a "Hub". If you're in Google News (and there are less people in Google News than with #1 rankings that they are proud of) and have News Crawl errors you can download the report. The downloaded xls is a little different from the web report and contains the additional Hub column. It's always good to know if Google News considers you a “news hub" or not.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Will General Atlantic buy an SEO firm?
I know "two moves" does not make a trend but let's pause and examine what the private equity firm General Atlantic have been doing lately.
Three days ago they announced that they're going to buy Network Solutions. It's a shame we don't get to find out how much Network Solutions is worth.
At the start of the month General Atlantic took a big chunk of the independent creative agency AKQA. I was fortunate enough to watch Michael de Kare-Silver present to a small audience once. He's good. You know you're in for a good presentation when the presenter produces two powered speakers and the video intro begins to roll.
If there is an investment firm who might be eying up an SEO agency then it is likely to be General Atlantic.
Are they a stalking horse? Could there be others?
Back in January Gord Hotchkiss mused whether SEO agencies were attractive for acquisitions. The conclusion seemed to point towards an uncertain new future. Personalised search worries people. However, full search agencies are about traffic and conversions rather than just position. The future for the best full search agencies is rosy.
In the same article Hotchkiss cited Aegis' acquisition of iProspect for $50 million. People remember the iProspect deal because it was the first big one.
Over at Search Engine Land it was Barry Schwartz who broke the news of the bigmouthmedia merger. The figure he went with was £150m. That's $300m today or about six times the iProspect deal. One again, "two moves" doesn't make a trend but this is certainly an increase. The bigmouthmedia deal wasn't a full service agency grabbing at search, it was one set up by Carlyle, who dominate private equity and was with Global Media another large SEO agency.
Carlyle is a trend setter. They are involved in deals involving SEO agencies and so others - players such as General Atlantic - are certainly considering similar moves.
