 More Fuel For The 'Are Directories Still Worth It' Debate
SEO Roundtable
Google recently updated its Webmaster Guidelines -- removing the line that suggested submitting a site to directories like Yahoo and DMOZ. "As you can imagine, this has set an early spark of flames through the SEO/SEM community," says Barry Schwartz, picking up a number of the discussions for this post.
Google's official stance is that directory links are still valuable ... somewhat. "I wouldn't necessarily assume that we're devaluing Yahoo's links, I just think it's not one of the things we really need to recommend," said John Mu, in a Google Groups thread. "If people think that a directory is going to bring them lots of visitors (I had a visitor from the DMOZ once), then it's obviously fine to get listed there. It's not something that people have to do though."
The ensuing discussion crosses a number of forums, including Sphinn and Search Engine Watch, with many readers equating the change to Google finally addressing the hypocrisy of penalizing Webmasters for buying links (and the link sellers themselves), while still advocating usage of fee-based directories like Yahoo. - Read the whole story... The U.S. Dominates Search, But Europeans Want In On Their Own Terms
Pandia Search News
The Web is global, and therefore, so is search. But everything about the search industry, from technology to marketing to overarching trends, is dominated by companies based in the U.S., and an EU think tank recently got together to discuss ways to bolster innovation, thought-leadership and corporate development, European style.
One of the topics discussed was Google's global footprint, and whether it was a "near-monopoly" that made it hard for strong European alternatives like Exalead to succeed. Google's representative argued that the company couldn't just be considered a U.S. entity anymore -- after all, a majority of its paid and organic traffic now comes from outside the U.S., and the company has a number of international hubs.
The Pandia Search wrote a position paper to help foster the dialogue. "The traditional argument of supporting R&D and innovation in order to develop European alternatives to a U.S. hegemony makes less sense in a world where more and more of the European companies are acquired by Non-European firms," the team said. "Instead of focusing on the development of companies owned and controlled by Europeans, the objective should be to develop Europe-based search engine technology clusters that generate innovation in general." - Read the whole story... Google Maps Gaining Ground, But MapQuest Still On Top
Hitwise Intelligence
Cowen & Co. recently ranked Google Maps as the best online mapping tool in terms of quality -- but when it comes to traffic, AOL's MapQuest is still king. Nearly half of all map-seekers head to MapQuest, according to Hitwise stats, and about a third head to Google Maps. That leaves just a fraction of the traffic for Yahoo Local, Live Local and Ask Maps.
Heather Hopkins poses the question of why so many users still flock to MapQuest, given what some call Google's superior interface. Part of it is likely habit -- as MapQuest is the original online directions and map provider -- and recently, the company revamped its homepage and added new features. "Since then the site seems to be getting a lift in visits," Hopkins says. "As you can see from the week ending 6th September 2008, visits have been increasing steadily."
Meanwhile, map-based traffic to Google also continues to increase, fueled by both paid and organic search efforts. "Google.com is sending more traffic to Google Maps for high volume generic search terms and for variations on the MapQuest brand name," Hopkins says. The giant is also paying for more map-based traffic. "In the past four weeks, 23.31% of Google Maps' search traffic was paid compared to 12.19% for MapQuest," she says. - Read the whole story... Ask Revamps, Streamlines Interface
Search Engine Land
Ask has revamped its interface -- for the 11th time, according to Barry Schwartz -- dropping the third panel (remember Ask 3D?) in favor of an interface that's easier to read and to use. Keeping in line with changes the company announced earlier this year, the engine will also feature more question-and-answer style results, called "Q&A pairs."
CEO Jim Safka said that this focus actually makes the engine about 30% faster than it used to be, as the technology doesn't have to parse as many individual pages and keywords; it can just pull in structured content from Ask's syndication partners like Yahoo Answers and WikiAnswers instead.
Nice changes, but Schwartz doesn't think they'll make that much of a difference. "After seeing it, I personally still do not consider Ask.com to be a core search engine and thus do not consider them to be in the race with Google, Yahoo or Microsoft," he says. "In fact, I find it interesting that Ask.com is bring back the Jeeves approach, which failed back then - but they hope will work now." - Read the whole story... Still More Tips For Choosing A Domain Name
SEO Book
Aaron Wall gets into domaining, noting the top three factors to think of when choosing a name -- brand, rankability and linkability.
Branding means choose a name that's easy to remember, and search for. "It is easier to build links to branded domain names," he says. "People take these names more seriously [than] keyword-keyword-keyword-keyword.com, which looks spammy and isn't fooling anyone." The downside to choosing a branded domain is that it will likely be more expensive to own and to drive paid search traffic to.
Meanwhile, rankability and linkability come in next, and are tied to the keywords within your domain name. "Take your chosen keyword, and simply add another word on the end," Wall says. Think SeoBook, Travelocity and Citysearch. "These words have SEO value built into them, because people are forced to use your keywords in the link," he says. "Also, Google (currently) values a keyword within the domain name for ranking purposes. Finally, such a name retains an element of unique branding." - Read the whole story... |
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2 comments:
A TRAI release states broadcasters have agreed to adopt a non-discriminatory price regime on the composition of bouquets and pricing of channels for IPTV services. Broadcasters have also broadly agreed that the rates of bouquets and a-la-carte rates of pay channels offered for IPTV services would be same as being offered to DTH operators, i.e., at fifty percent of the rates applicable for cable TV networks.
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albertjames
Social Media Marketing
I disagree with the second point: existing broadband connections are not critical for IPTV; that’s like saying that DTH will struggle because people don’t have the dish already in their homes. There is wireline telephone infrastructure already in place, and the carrier provides the wire for IPTV along with it. The real issue, as I’ve said before, is about marketing and policy. CAS deadlines are slipping away, and one doesn’t know yet how IPTV will be governed; so there’s barely any deployment, and almost no marketing. For consumers, there are only two choices - DTH or CAS. No one knows about IPTV.
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ages
Internet Marketing
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