seo

Wow. Numbers crunched by traffic and uptime firm Pingdom indicate that Facebook is absolutely crushing the rest of the social Web in terms of monthly page views. With about 260 billion page views, the sprawling social network's page view count is 11 times bigger than the second-place entry, News Corp.-owned MySpace. It's also 59 times higher than Twitter's, which comes in fourth. (Social network and gaming site Hi5 is third; Friendster, which was recently sold to a Malaysian tech company, is in fifth.)

These numbers are a testament to Facebook's phenomenal growth: remember, as late … Read more

Traffic Travis provides a simple set of tools for monitoring the popularity and potential viewings for a particular Web site. With great instructions and an easy layout, this is a fantastic Internet research tool.

The program's interface is impressively professional, with top-notch graphic design, intuitive navigation, and helpful tutorial videos that clarify every point. Traffic Travis provides four distinct functions that allow you to collect data and do research on your selected Web site. The first one searches for popular keywords and competition, and another shows your site's ranking amongst the top four search engines. Yet another tracks … Read more

Online scammers are taking advantage of the public's interest in the Google Doodle to spread malware, a security firm warned on Tuesday.

In so-called "SEO poisoning," scammers use search engine optimization techniques to increase the distribution of malware. They create special malware-rigged Web sites or hide malware on legitimate Web sites they've compromised and then use tags associated with popular search terms to get them listed high up in search engine results.

Typically, scammers capitalize on public interest in news events or celebrities, targeting searches like "Swine Flu" or "Michael Jackson death." … Read more

Large Internet companies spend millions on consultants and technology trying to get their sites to rank among the highest results on Google. Everyone else has to rely on the poor man's search-engine optimization: the link exchange.

If you've ever hung up your own shingle on the Web, you've probably gotten an e-mail to this effect at some point: "Dear So-and-so, I believe your site and mine could benefit from exchanging links." We probably get eight to 10 a week in the CNET News general mailbox, mostly from technology-related companies but occasionally from auto-parts suppliers and … Read more

Updated June 5 10:50 a.m. PST to clarify that scammers were blending their tweets in with legitimate tweets on an already popular PhishTube topic.

Online scammers are targeting people looking for popular topics on Twitter and Google to lure them to Web sites that display fake security warnings and try to sell them antivirus products, PandaLabs said on Wednesday.

This technique isn't new, but seems to be widening on Google and is particularly successful on Twitter where links are spread fast and furiously and people often don't think before they click.

In the Twitter scam, hundreds … Read more

John Gruber of the blog Daring Fireball doesn't like what Digg's doing with its DiggBar, and has come up with a relatively simple way to block it on his own site. By making a small change to his site's PHP files, any shortened DiggURL created for one of his pages will automatically take users to a separate page Gruber has created that chides the company.

In Gruber's opinion, the service, which automatically shortens a site's URL and adds some of Digg's features to the top of the source content, is bad for both users … Read more

You can dig deep into the rankings of search results with SeoQuake, a free toolbar that can help you determine how to better position your Web site and marketing efforts. Analyze page ranks, number of links, and many more details as you unearth a treasure trove of data about site domains and pages.

SeoQuake installs a colorful, data-packed toolbar to Firefox's window. The icons and numbers will be unintelligible to the uninformed user, but users skilled in SEO techniques will immediately appreciate the wealth of detail this add-on provides. Click on any of the toolbar icons while visiting a … Read more

Earlier this year, Matthew Inman had achieved the notable distinction of vaulting a Web site called JustSayHi high into the results for a search on "online dating." But after he expanded his effort to new areas, Google obliterated the site from its search results.

Inman had used an aggressive technique called widget bait to get good search results, but had to scrap a site that had been used for years and start from scratch. He was caught in a gray area in a sometimes-shady industry called search engine optimization (SEO) where it can be tough to distinguish a clever trick from a dirty trick.

It's well known that Google wields tremendous economic power for those trying to use the Internet as a business tool: high search results can send customers to an out-of-the-way bed-and-breakfast. The SEO industry has sprung up to help customers find ways to get their Web sites high in search results, and its practitioners are always testing new methods.

Some "white-hat" methods pose no problems, but others range somewhere between crafty and definitely naughty "black-hat" techniques. Notwithstanding Google's belief that it's not so tough to comply with its guidelines, the trouble for SEO companies is the size of the gray area.

"Eighty percent is in the middle," said Sage Lewis, president of online marketing company SageRock, who believes his industry's reputation suffers as a result. "Some people consider SEOs to be spammers. If there were standards, that could make us more reputable."

Gaming Google PageRank Gaming the system is hardly new to the Internet. The quantity of plumbers with "AAA" in their company names shows how important alphabetical order was in the days when people found services through the phone book.

What's new with the Internet is the global breadth and the technological automation that figures into the search engine business.

Google got its start in search success with an algorithm initially called BackRub, later changed to its current name of PageRank. This technique judges the worth of a Web site based on how many other Web sites include hyperlinks to it, and on the worth of those other sites.

The result in SEO circles has been a wide variety of techniques to build as many of these inbound links. "Everything we do revolves around the power of the inbound link," said Matt Stoddart, executive vice president of sales at search marketing company LinkWorth. "The Web is like a popularity contest. Each inbound link counted like a vote."

Google, which wants to show the best Web results based on content rather than promotional budget, can penalize a site that uses paid links designed to manipulate search results. But links are bought and sold all the time, Stoddard said. … Read more

Earlier this week I talked about how a recession may be the best thing for SEO. Let's revisit that bold statement and also how to make the most out of a downturn in the economy using SEO.

There will be firms and people within the industry that will feel the same pains of a recession that everyone else will. I'm certainly not claiming that you can sit back and coast in to success. In fact, the statement is less about SEO firms and practitioners, and more about SEO as a tool.

If you are in-house and have been struggling to get the resources or attention you need to make SEO a priority, then this may help to increase the urgency of SEO. Or if your firm provides SEO services, then you may be able to use the concerns and challenges that will come with a recession to get the attention of the decision makers to illustrate how SEO may be a more cost-effective solution.

A recession or economic downturn will lead consumers and businesses to reduce their spending as their confidence in the economy, their business, jobs, investments and/or retirement weakens. While there may be a subset of the market that "quits buying," what we are really talking about is a reduction in spending. There will still be necessities and essentials that must be purchased. Beyond that, we may expect to see purchase adjustments or a scaling back.

For instance:… Read more