URL Shrinkers – When, Where and Why to Use Them

Last week Jane posted a must-read overview of various URL shorteners and WebproWorld.com forum thread discussed the SEO benefit of TinyURL and similar services (there is no SEO benefit by the way). I think this is hot enough topic to discuss it at SEJ also.

Why URL Shortening Services Exist?

• For usability purposes: most people are more inclined to click a shorter URL (example: email clients will break a too long URL up by line making it less clickable);
• New technology oriented: with social networking or “microblogging” sites (e.g. Twitter and Plurk) that have strict character limits per message, URL shorteners allow to send over long URLs or say more within one message.
• To disguise destination links: to mask affiliate links or ad-tracking codes.

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SEO Is Like the Doctor, War and Cricket

Today I want to share something on SEO. Here I am comparing SEO with Doctors, Farmers, War and Cricket.

• SEO is like Doctors
• SEO is like Farmers
• SEO is like War
• SEO is like Cricket

[Note : This is a fun Friday piece from Gunjan, it may not be the best grammar, but the comparisons are cute - Loren]

SEO is like the Doctor:

Why I am comparing them with Doctors? There are so many similarities in SEOs and Doctors. Doctors analyzing the health of the Human body. While SEOs analysing the health of the Website like how much pages site have, how many back links site have, how many years old website, What is PR of the website etc.

After the analysing the health of the human body doctors gives the medicine or treatment and after the analysing of website SEO gives the treatment to website like need to increase back links, need to change meta details, need to change content etc. Sometimes the doctor can see the result of medicine if that medicine is not effective for that human then the doctor will change the medicine.

Same is the case of SEO they will also see the result of their work after some times. If that treatment is not effective for website then they will start other treatment or experiment. Sometimes for doctors some of diseases are new and there are no medicines for that disease, same in case of SEO sometimes there are some of issues are new and may be there are no cure.
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2 Desktop Tools to Help You Manage Your Keyword Lists

I have previously covered ways to organize your keyword list depending on your purposes. Still there is no limit to improving your organizing skills. Besides, key terms are so numerous and diverse that I for one can spend hours trying to manage them to full potential.

So, as usual, to find new ways to organize your keywords and more options to get help with the overall keyword research, I turn to 2 desktop tools – both offering handy keyword list managing options. (more…)

Search In Pictures: Marissa Mayer’s Birthday, Jenga At Google & 49ers With Yahoo

In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Click to continue reading…

Web Analytics For (SEM) Dummies Part 3, And More

In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today’s in-depth look, “web analytics for (SEM) dummies part 3: online resources to learn more, a free tool to double-check your Google Analytics implementation” and this week’s free tips and tools.

Click to continue reading…

Obama Vs. McCain: Paid Search Keywords

Valleywag (using data from Hitwise) posts about the paid search campaigns of the two major US presidential candidates, over the past 12 weeks. The post shows a list of the actual keywords being used by the campaigns.

It’s a fascinating look into their “offensive” and “defensive” strategies concerning paid search.

Click to continue reading…

SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 19, 2008

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on
Search Engine Land and from other
places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• 
  Obama Vs. McCain: Paid Search Keywords
  Valleywag (using data from Hitwise) posts about the paid search campaigns of the two major US presidential candidates, over the past 12 weeks. The post shows a list of the actual keywords being used by the campaigns. It’s a fascinating look into their “offensive” and “defensive” strategies concerning paid search….
• 
  Web Analytics For (SEM) Dummies Part 3, And More
  In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today’s in-depth look, “web analytics for (SEM) dummies part 3: online resources to learn…
• 
  Search In Pictures: Marissa Mayer’s Birthday, Jenga At Google & 49ers With Yahoo
  In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more….
• 
  Yahoo Modifies Search Monkey Layout
  Yahoo has announced that they have changed the Search Monkey enhanced results template to a new layout. Here is a before and after shot:…
• 
  SMN Webcast: Timely Advice on Winning the Budget Battle
  Next Tuesday’s Search Marketing Now webcast is a timely one – and one that could help you justify and secure the search marketing budget you need. The topic is “Selling Your Search Budget: Timely Advice for Winning the Budget Battle,” and it will take place at 1 PM Eastern on…
• 
  Interbrand Ranks Brand Value: Coke Number 1, MSFT Number 3, Google Number 10
  BusinessWeek and Interbrand have come out with their latest ranking of the value of global brands. The big winners, in terms of positive change in the value of the brand, were Google, Apple and Amazon in that order. The greatest losers included Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Ford and Gap….
• 
  Google Pirate Search & Talk Like A Pirate Day
  Today is the official day for Talk Like a Pirate Day. Many tech companies and personalities like to mention the day, in some way or another. Google wrote about their Google Pirate Search, as shown above. Dogpile’s dog dressed up for the day. Facebook, as TechCrunch reports, has pirate…
• 
  Google’s “Submit Your Content” Page Changes Into Content Central, One Stop Shopping For Publisher Advice
  In the old days, getting listed on Google just meant having a web site. These days, you can get in by selling products through a virtual store, by having a book, by having a small local business that’s listed in a yellow pages directory and many other ways. To…
• 
  SearchMe Launches Mobile Engine
  Visual search engine SearchMe launched a mobile (WAP) version of its site today at the Mobilze conference in San Francisco. The results offer a thumbnail of each site, as well as a URL. On a smart phone with a larger screen, this is a helpful presentation of results. An iPhone…
• 
  Now Blogging: Google Cofounder Sergey Brin
  Sergey Brin becomes the first of Google’s three major executives to begin blogging. Spotted via TechCrunch, his blog at too.blogspot.com covers today his personal experience of being at risk for Parkinson’s Disease. In his first post, he explains the name of his blog:…
• 
  Search Engine Rap Battle
  Beu sent me a link to the Search Engine Rap Battle. Basically rappers go out it, mocking each other, as if they are Google, Yahoo and MSN. Google vs. MSN, MSN vs. Yahoo and Yahoo vs. Google. You can check out the videos and vote for the winner at searchenginerapbattle.com….

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Ex-Yahoo’s UpTake Gets Million Second Round For Travel Search, paidContent.org
• Changes in Phoenix, Official Google Blog
• Facts about our Yahoo! ad deal and competition, Google Public Policy Blog
• Google’s ‘Smart Grid’ idea? Get the govt to pay for it, The Register

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Building Bridges… Data Updates Making a Difference, MapQuest Blog
• Google Maps Adds Streets to Israel & Mobile Coming Soon, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Maps now using TeleAtlas data exclusively, Mike Blumenthal
• More Detailed Arctic Ice Melting Animation in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog
• Outlining Postal Delivery Areas On Virtual Earth, Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
• Update on Using GPS for Tracking in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog

Link Building

• Whiteboard Friday – Developing a Link Hook, SEOmoz

Paid Search & Contextual

• Understanding Visitor Behavior – The adCenter Analytics Path Report – adCenter Analytics Blog, adcentercommunity.com
• Google’s Chinese Wall Between AdWords Ads & Organic Search Results Disappears*, SEO Book
• Politics: What John McCain and Barack Obama are buying on Google, Valleywag
• Rallying Cry for Display Ads, Wall Street Journal

Searching

• Google Stopped Censoring Human Rights Watch in China, Google Blogoscoped
• The Future is Yahoo the Platform, Mashable
• Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google), Read/Write Web

SEM Industry

• "Live" (Search) from Safeco Field, Live Search
• Navaneeth Kishor: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop
• Rhea Drysdale Joins We Build Pages, We Build Pages
• SEO Is Like the Doctor, War and Cricket, Search Engine Journal

SEO & SEM

• 2 Desktop Tools to Help You Manage Your Keyword Lists, Search Engine Journal
• Getting to Know Local SEO, Search Engine Watch
• How Does Social Media Affect Search?, Online Marketing Blog
• Updated Google Patent Hints At Linkage Penalties and Site Expiry, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Changes Afoot, Twitter Blog
• New FriendFeed design launched… with an exciting new feature!, FriendFeed Blog
• Trends on Twitter, Twitter Blog
• Could Social Media Be the Google Killer?, Search Engine Watch
• StumbleUpon Changes, 3 Dog Media
• Yahoo Launches Social Network – In India, TechCrunch

Web Analytics

• Linking External and Internal Search Terms in Google Analytics, SEO Speedwagon

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Google Search Engine Optimization Obsession
• Real SEO Ethics
• Rhea Drysdale Joins We Build Pages
• Google News & Indexing Old Stories As New
• Link Building Via Blog Comments
• The one thing all super affiliates have in common
• How to Hire a SEO Firm – According to Google
• SEO Ethics Are In The Eye Of The Beholder
• Setting and Managing Expectations for Marketing Campaigns
• SEO vs Tynt: Storm In A Tea Cup 2.0?
• PPC Management: Keyword List Expansion + Negative Keywords

Google Pirate Search & Talk Like A Pirate Day

Today is the official day for Talk Like a Pirate Day. Many tech companies and personalities like to mention the day, in some way or another.

Google wrote about their Google Pirate Search, as shown above. Dogpile’s dog dressed up for the day. Facebook, as TechCrunch reports, has pirate talk in their translation tool. FriendFeed has a special logo for the day. The Search Engine Roundtable has a special theme live. And I am excited to see what Matt Cutts is preparing for the day.

But companies that participated last year and have not yet posted anything this year include Ask.com and Yahoo’s Flickr.

Click to continue reading…

Interbrand Ranks Brand Value: Coke Number 1, MSFT Number 3, Google Number 10

BusinessWeek and Interbrand have come out with their latest ranking of the value of global brands. The big winners, in terms of positive change in the value of the brand, were Google, Apple and Amazon in that order. The greatest losers included Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Ford and Gap.

The methodology for ranking the brands is described below.

Click to continue reading…

SMN Webcast: Timely Advice on Winning the Budget Battle

Next Tuesday’s Search Marketing Now webcast is a timely one – and one that could help you justify and secure the search marketing budget you need. The topic is “Selling Your Search Budget: Timely Advice for Winning the Budget Battle,” and it will take place at 1 PM Eastern on September 23.

We’ll explore how to sell others on your search strategy and the budget that goes along with it. Our speakers, Aaron Goldman of Resolution Media and Eli Goodman of comScore, will discuss how you can use hard, actionable search data to size your market, define and reach your target audience, and set and sell your search marketing budget.

Whether you work in-house and need to justify your spending to upper management, or you’re an agency or consultant who needs to sell your budget to client — this webcast will show you some proven approaches to help you get what you need.

The webcast is free and includes a live Q+A with speakers at the end of the presentation. Register here.