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Top 5 Worst of Search For May

Published by Ehren Reilly May 18th, 2007 in Search Marketing, Organic Search, Paid Search, Google, Yahoo and Text Ads. 0 Comments

This is the first in a monthly series of posts highlighting the humorous, ridiculous and absurd in the world of search engine listings. In an age of automated keyword research and campaign management, with rich internet technologies evolving faster than the people who use them, some weird, funny stuff is bound to happen. And of course, I, spending my days trolling search engine results pages, tend to stumble upon some very “special” listings. Actually, a big part of my job is making sure paid search ads are clear and relevant, and organic “snippets” are accurate, informative and appealing to users. This month’s Top 5 Worst of Search column features listings for sites that, well, apparently don’t have anybody doing my job.

Based on a vote taken among my esteemed panel of expert colleagues, top five Worst of Search winners for May are:

#5 — Ad agency Hill Holliday with “…Boston. I can’t get enough of their fleece jackets.”
Keyword: Hill Holliday Boston
Engine: Google

Reason for Problem: They forgot to put meta description tags on their home page, so the snippet contains a random chunk of text taken from somewhere on the page, instead of a description of their business.

#4 – E-retailer ShoppingPage.us with “Looking for Dangerous Drugs? Save!”
Keyword: Dangerous Drugs
Engine: Google

Reason for Problem: Their automated keyword research tool went looking for keyphrases with high search volumes, without a human being checking to see what the phrases actually mean.

#3 – Anti-smoking campaign The Truth with “The page you are looking for might have been removed…”
Keyword: thetruth.com
Engine: Google
Note: This site has well-funded TV campaign that directs users to the website. At the time of this screen shot, the site was not down — only the search engine listing was “down.”

Reason for Problem: They modified their site architecture without putting up redirects, and their site got crawled during the transitional period. The problem won’t be corrected until the next time the site is crawled.

#2 — E-retailers Smarter.com, BizRate.com, and Shopzilla.com with “Find and Compare Prices on blood in dog stool”, “Find Bargain Prices On blood in dog stool” and “Save On bright red blood in stool!”, respectively.
Keyword: Blood in Stool
Engine: Google

Reason for Problem: Their automated keyword research tool went looking for keyphrases with high search volumes, without a human being checking to see what the phrases actually mean. “Blood in stool” is a serious medical condition, not a type of furniture. “Blood in dog stool” is a veterinary condition, not a dog-related retail item.

And finally…Drumroll, please…the worst search engine listing of the month was…

#1 — Antihistamine eye drop Pataday with “Contact me when this site is live.”
Keyword: Pataday
Engine: Google

Reason for Problem: As with the Hill Holliday listing above, the page is missing a meta description tag, and apparently contains no readable text of any kind that pertains to the brand.

See you next month with more idiocy.

Have a favorite listing of your own? Send us a link to it or instructions on where to find it, and we’ll consider it for next month’s Top 5 Worst of Search list.

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Search Matters Weekly Search Hotness

Published by Francis Skipper May 16th, 2007 in SEO, Organic Search, Google, Yahoo, CPC, Search News and Search Matters. 0 Comments

Normally I just post search links here with the exaggeratedly plain title “Search Matters Weekly Search links”. Well, you know what? We need to add a pinch of SEO spice to this weekly mélange of tasty Search goodness, so I’m going to try out some cinnamony sweet new titles and, in the spirit of freedom and randomness, split test them for click through rate, analyze the search traffic and normalize a curve to display the overall success of each AMAZING!, INFORMATIVE!, COMPELLING! title. Then I’ll Digg/Netscape/Stumble upon it for days.

Of course there have to be limits; being an SEO I wanted to lead with “Weekly Britney Spears Nude with Free Viagra wearing Cheap Rolex’s LINKS!”, but that one didn’t make it past the whiteboard (even though I used 3 different colors. Some people just have no vision). So, here’s the weekly search marketing hotness:

Nothing like a little conspiracy theory to get my blood pumping. I’ve seen the grassy knoll at Mountain View, people. Get out your tin foil hats and read about the TOP GOOGLE CONSPIRACIES. (Valleywag)
Can you really make money with auction ads? Grab your monocle and top hat and learn about the Southeby’s of ad widgets. (SEOmoz)
Is linkbaiting ethical? I guess that’s just dust on my white hat over there. (SER)
Somebody’s suing Yahoo for defective ad technology. Maybe they should have thought about that before they wrote crappy creatives? (ClickZ)
For Google 2.o, Google plans to index every piece of information ever created in the universe and provide them in one completely confusing SERP. Or something. (SEL)

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Búsqueda hispána: “El que llega primero al rio bebe agua limpia”

Published by Erica Estevez May 16th, 2007 in Search Marketing, Organic Search, Search Engines, Hispanic Search and Búsqueda hispána. 0 Comments

Como Latina y parte del equipo de Calatyst, me ha llamado mucho la atención el hecho de que muy pocas industrias, hayan tomado ventaja del mercado Hispano que tan rápidamente va aumentando

En 2002 se hizo oficial la estadística que posicionó, a la comunidad Hispana como la mayor minoría en los Estados Unidos, y creanme cuando les digo que la mayoría gastamos más de lo que ganamos.
Entonces me pregunto, por qué cuando voy a Google y busco información en Español acerca un producto determinado termino buscando en Inglés porque no encuentro nada.

Por ejemplo he buscado en Google información acerca de “tratamiento para la conjuntivitis” y “Tratamiento para la presión alta” y no he encontrado ni siquiera un solo resultado con el nombre de un medicamento.

Esto se puede deber a una serie de motivos. Pero el primero que viene a mi mente es el siguiente: El Español es un Idioma muy amplio y las culturas muy variadas, lo cual hace difícil la creación e implementación de campañas estratégicas para penetrar en este mercado, y la inversión podría resultar no tan exitosa.

Por otro lado –más positivo- en mi opinión la audiencia Hispana no está tan saturada de campañas de comercio electrónico como lo está la audiencia de los Estados Unidos lo que hace la competencia menos reñida y por ende más oportinidad de éxito para los pioneros.

Como me decía mi abuela: “El que llega primero al rio bebe agua limpia”.

English version after the jump…
Continue reading ‘Búsqueda hispána: “El que llega primero al rio bebe agua limpia”’

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Search Matters Weekly Search Links

Published by Francis Skipper April 4th, 2007 in SEM, Organic Search, Google, Search Engines, CPC, Adsense and Search News. 2 Comments

There are a lot of hot search topics going on this week from litigation, to PPA, to Google’s right hand not know what their left hand is doing. Try to keep up.

Google’s Website Optimizer is now out of beta in into …whatever Greek letter comes after beta. Is it cloaking? Is Google so big that they can’t see that this may violate their own TOS? (SEW)
Think just because you have a PPC ad running that you should open a Swiss account for all that sweet ROI. Think again. Here are some steps to make sure you’re getting quality clicks not just quantity. (Search Engine Land)
SEO can save your business and your marriage. Well maybe just your business. But your wife seems nice. (SEOmoz)
Get Gmail Paper! It has everything that regular Gmail has but now you can fill your Costanza wallet with your archives. Never delete a thing! (Google, via Matt Cutts)
Don’t ask Seth Godin to be on your Blogroll (kidding). Reciprocal linking is sooo high school. (SEL)

Enjoy the links. The snarky comments are mine, not the erudite and totally serious authors to whom I have linked.

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The Google is Coming. The Google is Coming.

Published by Francis Skipper March 27th, 2007 in SEO, SEM, Organic Search, Google, Search Engines, Blogs, Local Search and Search News. 0 Comments

Like the last invaders from back in ‘75 (Seventeen Seventy Five that is), it seems that Google, a new dreadnought, has its sights on Boston and they’re planning on more than a fortnight’s stay. Amidst not so subtle clues, like job listings for Google and YouTube for the Boston area and search insider gossip, the one if by land two if by sea warning may be a moot point for this invasion; a move that may bring some much needed tech juice to the flagging overpriced economy of the city known for its chowder, funny accents and dirty, dirty water.

Google, one of the tech world’s hottest companies, is scouting for a major location in Boston or Cambridge.

Cambridge is likely at the top of Google’s list as it looks to establish a major presence near Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in one of the nation�s top pools for technology talent, executives said.

“It’s just further evidence of the world-class labor resources we have in our area,” said Robert Richards, president of downtown Boston commercial real estate firm of Richards Barry Joyce & Partners. “We are not the cheapest place to do business, but many people feel we are the best place to do business.”
(source)

Expensive? As anyone from Cape Cod will tell you in their Black Dog T-shirt, and best Kennedy accent, “Why be cheap, when you can be rich?” All kidding aside, Boston is an extremely expensive market in which to live and even more so to do business. Google has long proved the old idiom that bigger is better and that money can buy anything, (they’ll definitely get a bungalow on Nantucket) so what better place to ~~invade~~ set up shop, than Beantown USA. Continue reading ‘The Google is Coming. The Google is Coming.’

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SEO for Events and Seasonal Promotions

Published by Sherwood Stranieri February 21st, 2007 in Search Marketing, SEO, SEM, Organic Search, Google and SEO Best Practices. 0 Comments

Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has a lot of strengths when compared to other marketing channels. SEO can build long-term equity for a website, providing a cost-effective supplement to paid search ads, media buys, and many other forms of online advertising.
But one area where SEO traditionally fell short is with seasonal or event-driven promotions. SEO practitioners know that preparing a website to rank in search results can take a lot of time and effort. And even after the changes are made, the search engines still need to digest the new pages and adjust rankings accordingly. Because of this lag time, SEO isn’t usually considered a front-line technique for promotions that come and go.

Continue reading ‘SEO for Events and Seasonal Promotions’

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What is Social Media Optimization?

Published by David Wilson November 22nd, 2006 in Search Marketing, SEO, SEM, Organic Search, Search Engines, Blogs, Social Media, Yahoo, MSN, Personalized Search, SEO Best Practices and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Social Media Optimization is a concept that is making its way into mainstream marketing publications. Social Media Optimization or SMO is a concept coined by Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. In his 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization, Rohit explains that:
“The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.”
Social Media Demographics
A common misconception about popular social network sites like MySpace, is that they are the domains of the teens and preteens. A recent comScore study found that as MySpace and the social networks grow and become more mainstream, the demographics change as their reach extends into a greater part of the population.

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Best Practices for Integrated Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Published by Ehren Reilly October 22nd, 2006 in Search Marketing, SEM, Organic Search, Paid Search, Search Engines and SEO Best Practices. 0 Comments

As advertisers increasingly seek to synchronize their pay-per-click and organic search engine marketing campaigns, a new strategic discipline is emerging-integrated search engine marketing. The goal of an integrated SEM campaign is to deliver better overall ROI than search engine optimization and pay-per-click campaigns would have yielded independently. This article outlines the opportunities that are unique to integrated SEM and the best practices that can exploit them to maximize ROI.

Treating the Search Results Page as a Distinct Medium

We generally refer to pay-per-click advertisements as “media”, but is organic search engine optimization (SEO) a “medium”? Not really, most would call it a “process”. Still, SEO is an effective marketing tool because it helps to deliver a message to an audience. And a message must be delivered via a medium. So, what is the medium through which SEO functions? The search engine results page is a medium of its own.

This is, of course, also the medium through with pay-per-click works. When web users submit a query, search engines return to them a single HTML document that they view all at once, which contains a mix of natural and paid listings. The users then consume this document by reading various portions of it and eventually clicking on a link. Users interact with search engine results pages holistically, so integrated SEM campaigns should plan and strategize holistically for this medium.

How to get the most users from the search results page to the advertiser’s site at the least cost is a complex problem, involving many variables, but it is nonetheless a single problem with a single optimal solution. Maximizing ROI across the campaign as a whole involves co-optimizing the pay-per-click and SEO campaigns on a variety of factors.

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Reaching the US Hispanic Market with Healthcare Search Marketing

Published by Frank Antonellis June 22nd, 2006 in Search Marketing, SEO, Organic Search, Healthcare, Search Engines, Blogs, Personalized Search, Pharma, SEO Best Practices and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Many healthcare companies recognize the US Hispanic market as a growing part of their business and online strategy, and their websites are slowly beginning to reflect this. Although this is considered a major step toward successful marketing to the US Hispanic audience, providing a Spanish sub-section of a website or dedicating a few pages of content to this population may not be enough to translate into impressive results.
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What is Personalized Search?

Published by Jason McGovern April 4th, 2006 in Search Marketing, SEO, Organic Search, Healthcare, Google, Search Engines, Yahoo, MSN, Personalized Search, Pharma and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Put most simply, personalized search is the delivery of search engine results that are uniquely tailored to both keyphrases and individual searchers. For example, in the early days of search, everyone searching for the phrase “AMD” would get the same results, whether they were interested in silicone chips or semiconductors, or age-related macular degeneration. With personalized search, the search engines are beginning to gauge a user’s intent and differentiate between those users looking to invest in AMD, the searchers looking to buy AMD chips, and those looking to care for their eyes.How are search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask able to provide these customized search results? By tracking their users’ behavior online. Search engines have access to a wide range of user data, including search history, bookmarked pages, and more, that allows them to gauge a searcher’s “intent”.

Continue reading ‘What is Personalized Search?’

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