My wife and I are meeting some friends tonight. Any recommendations?

Working on a large multiple-subdomain project. This is great advice from Rand and the gang at SEOmoz.

What Social Signals Do Google & Bing Really Count?

Dec 1, 2010 at 12:55pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Both Google and Bing have added many social search features over the past year. There’s also been talk about using “social signals” to help rank regular search results. But are either of the major search engines actually using those social signals to rank regular search results? A bit, they tell me. In particular, your stature on Twitter could help influence how a page ranks in web search.

I gave Bing and Google six questions about how they use social data from Twitter and Facebook. In particular, I wanted to know how that data influenced regular web search results, not the impact it has on the dedicated social search tools they have.

Social Search Ranking…

For example, both Google and Bing offer a way to see results that are written by or shared by your friends, search that’s directly influenced by people you know:

• Bing’s Facebook Liked Results
• Google Social Search

Both Google and Bing also offer a way to see content being shared in real time on the social networks:

• Bing Social Search
• Google Realtime Search.

The links above take you to our past coverage of these dedicated social search services, explaining how they gather content from social networks and leverage social signals from those networks to help decide what should rank well.

…Isn’t Web Search Ranking

What happens within those social search tools is completely different from what happens when you do an ordinary web search, where Google and Bing try to decide which pages to rank tops from the billions they have indexed from across the web.

For example, Google uses more than 200 different “signals” to decide how rank those pages, in response to any search. Some of these signals are well-known, such as:

• PageRank, how authoritative a page is deemed to be
• Anchor text pointing at a page
• HTML title tag, and whether the words you searched for appear within it

There are many other factors beyond those I’ve listed. Bing also uses a complex recipe — or algorithm — of signals to determine rankings.

What’s not clear is whether social signals have been included in this mix. For example, both search engines have ways to determine if someone seems to be an “authority” or a trusted figure on Twitter, which they use within their social search features. But for web search, if that person tweets a URL, does the URL get a boost because a human authority pointed people at it?

Web Page Authority Vs. Human Authority

That’s how it works when it comes to web pages. Some pages are deemed more trustworthy than others. If those pages link to other pages, then what they point at gains reputation in Google and Bing’s ranking systems.

To some degree, “humans” on the web have pages that already represent their authority. For example, my Twitter page has a Google PageRank score of 7 out of 10, which is an above average degree of authority in Google’s link counting world. Things I link to from that page — via my tweets — potentially get more credit than things someone whose Twitter page has a lower PageRank score.

(NOTE: PageRank scores for Twitter pages are much different if you’re logged in and may show higher scores. This seems to be a result of the new Twitter interface that has been introduced. I’ll be checking with Google and Twitter more about this, but I’d trust the “logged out” scores more).

PageRank, Meet SocialRank?

Time for some “Buts.” Twitter also uses what’s called a “nofollow” tag that prevents links that are tweeted from getting credit. Hang on to that thought.

The bigger “But” is that even though my page has a PageRank score, it might still be useful for Google (or Bing) to give me something like a “SocialRank” or “HumanRank” or “AuthorRank” score independent of that. This would be a way for them to know how much authority that people — rather than pages representing people — have on social networks, and to let those people have a signal that influences rankings.

Who You Are On Twitter Counts

Enough with the background. Are they doing it? Yes, at least for Twitter. Both Google and Bing tell me that who you are as a person on Twitter can impact how well a page does in regular web search. Authoritative people on Twitter lend their authority to pages they tweet.

When it comes to Facebook, Bing says it doesn’t try to calculate someone’s authority. Google says it does, in some limited cases. However, I’m double-checking on this, as I think that might not be correct.

No Nofollow For The Twitter Firehose

Remember that whole “nofollow” thing I mentioned earlier? This is a way for anyone to tag a link and effectively say to search engines, “Don’t count this link as a vote.”

Nofollow is commonly used across the web in places where services can’t vouch for the links that might be posted on them. Wikipedia uses it, because it has so many volunteer editors that it can’t trust them all. Many blog commenting systems use it. At Twitter, links it publishes on the web are tagged with nofollow.

So, while Bing and Google do have a human signal they can assess from Twitter, supposedly they have no link signal that they can also count. But as it turns out, both of them get what’s called the “firehose” of data from Twitter. This is a constant stream of what people are tweeting.

In that firehose, links do not carry nofollow attributes — so there is some link credit that counts, in some cases. Bing tells me:

We take into consideration how often a link has been tweeted or retweeted, as well as the authority of the Twitter users that shared the link.

Google tells me:

We use the data only in limited situations, not for all of general websearch.

Questions & Responses

Below are the questions I sent over to both services to compile this story, along with their responses. Bing’s are paraphrased from a phone interview I had with them; Google’s are from the email replies I received.

1) If an article is retweeted or referenced much in Twitter, do you count that as a signal outside of finding any non-nofollowed links that may naturally result from it?

Bing:

We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results. It carries much more weight in Bing Social Search, where tweets from more authoritative people will flow to the top when best match relevancy is used.

Google:

Yes, we do use it as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by marking how many people shared an article [NOTE: see the end of this article for more about that].

2) Do you try to calculate the authority of someone who tweets that might be assigned to their Twitter page. Do you try to “know,” if you will, who they are?

Bing:

Yes. We do calculate the authority of someone who tweets. For known public figures or publishers, we do associate them with who they are. (For example, query for Danny Sullivan)

Google:

Yes we do compute and use author quality. We don’t know who anyone is in real life :-)

3) Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on the person who tweets it?

Bing:

Yes.

Google:

Yes we do use this as a signal, especially in the “Top links” section [of Google Realtime Search]. Author authority is independent of PageRank, but it is currently only used in limited situations in ordinary web search.

4) Do you track links shared within Facebook, either through personal walls or fan pages?

Bing:

Yes. We look at links shared that are marked as “Everyone,” and links shared from Facebook fan pages.

Google:

We treat links shared on Facebook fan pages the same as we treat tweeted links. We have no personal wall data from Facebook.

5) Do you try to calculate the authority of someone on Facebook, either say via their personal wall or their fan page.

Bing:

We don’t do this on Facebook. On Facebook, we only get what’s public, only updates and things you’ve posted to everyone as viewable. We don’t get things only shared with friends, so don’t know how authoritative you are on Facebook. There isn’t the whole convenient retweet mechanism we see on Twitter.

We do see valuable content shared by Facebook users, even though we only get what’s public.  For example when Gary Coleman died we saw a  video from Different Strokes, saying his favorite line “what ya talk’in ’bout Willis” gain popularity.  It happened to be what a lot of people are sharing on the day he passed away.

Google:

Again, the treatment is the same as for Twitter. And we have no personal wall data from Facebook.

6) Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on the person who shared it on Facebook?

Bing:

We can tell if something is of quality on Facbook by leveraging Twitter. If the same link is shared in both places, it’s more likely to be legitimate.

Google:

Same as question 5.

7) And just to be really clear, the new Facebook data is not yet being used in ordinary web search, right? (asked only of Bing, because it was only relevant to them)

No.

Social Data For Display Use Vs. Rankings

That last question leads me to an issue about using social data for display purposes, rather than ranking purposes. It’s another important distinction to note.

In The Wake Of Bing & Facebook, Google Web Search Tests Getting More Social covers how Google is showing “Shared By” figures next to news stories. This shows how many people on Twitter are tweeting about a particular news item.

The news stories aren’t being ranked according to the number of shares. It’s simply additional information being displayed, more on an FYI basis than anything else.

Similarly, Bing has said in the near future, results it lists will also show the number of “Facebook Likes” next to them, in some situations. Again, this is simply a display usage, an FYI for the searcher. The results themselves haven’t been ranked by number of likes, nor is that part of the overall ranking signals.

Yet. Stay tuned, because over time, it is likely that social signals will gain more weight in search ranking systems, I’d suspect.

TwitterRank & Retweets As The New Link Building

In the end, it’s clear that Twitter data especially plays a role in web search, these days. Who you are is being understood. Are you a trusted authority or not? If there’s PageRank for pages, both search engines have a form of TwitterRank for people.

Meanwhile, retweets server as a new form a link building. Get your page mentioned in tweets by authoritative people, and that can help your ranking in regular search results, to a degree.

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Ten Question Litmus Test for Professional SEOs

November 22nd, 2010 - Posted by randfish to Search Community

A few years back, I wrote a popular post on SEOmoz featuring a set of questions I felt were a litmus test for SEOs seeking to charge for their consulting services. It's time to revisit that, as many of the answers have changed and the baseline has moved (forward).

If you're in the SEO business professionally - either as an in-house marketer helping your team with SEO or as an SEO consultant (solo or agency), this knowledge should be second-nature. And if you're hiring a new SEO or seeking interview questions for someone to bring onto the team, feel free to use these to separate the wheat from the chaff:

1. Which is more likely to have a positive impact on a page's search engine rankings and why - 10 links from 1 website or 1 link each from 10 different websites?
   _
2. Explain the difference between the following items and how the search engines treat them - 301 response code, 302 response code, canonical URL tag and meta refresh.
   _
3. How can the meta robots tag impact how search engines crawl, index and display content on a web page?
   _
4. Who are the top 2 search engines (as ranked by share of queries) in the following countries - the United States, United Kingdom, Russia and China?
   _
5. Name at least 3 elements critical to ranking well in Google Local/Maps/Places search.
   _
6. What aspects of social media marketing have a positive impact on search engine rankings (apart from the value of direct links from the social sites)?
   _
7. List 5 tags/locations on a page where employing a target keyword can have a positive effect on search engine rankings.
   _
8. Describe the distribution of search query demand and what is meant by the "fat head" and "long tail."
   _
9. Name 6 tools/sources that will display a list of external URLs that link to a webpage.
   _
10. What are some ways to positively influence the ratio of pages a search engine will crawl and index on a website?
    _
11. BONUS! Describe the concept of topic modeling and how modern search engines might use it to improve the quality of their results.

This was great a few years back and it's still a great litmus test. How do you stack up?

Thanks Rand.

 

Serious Robots.txt Misuse & High Impact Solutions

11.10.2010 | Author: Lindsay | Posted in News

Some of the Internet's most important pages from many of the most linked-to domains, are blocked by a robots.txt file. Does your website misuse the robots.txt file, too? Find out how search engines really treat robots.txt blocked files, entertain yourself with a few seriously flawed implementation examples and learn how to avoid the same mistakes yourself.

The robots.txt protocol was established in 1994 as a way for webmasters to indicate which pages and directories should not be accessed by bots. To this day, respectable bots adhere to the entries in the file... but only to a point.

Your Pages Could Still Show Up in the SERPs

Bots that follow the instructions of the robots.txt file, including Google and the other big guys, won’t index the content of the page but they may still put the page in their index. We’ve all seen these limited listings in the Google SERPs. Below are two examples of pages that have been excluded using the robots.txt file yet still show up in Google.

Cisco Login Page

The below highlighted Cisco login page is blocked in the robots.txt file, but shows up with a limited listing on the second page of a Google search for ‘login’. Note that the Title Tag and URL are included in the listing. The only thing missing is the Meta Description or a snippet of text from the page.

WordPress’s Next Blog Page

One of WordPress.com’s 100 most popular pages (in terms of linking root domains) is www.wordpress.com/next. It is blocked by the robots.txt file, yet it still appears in position four in Google for the query ‘next blog’.

As you can see, adding an entry to the robots.txt file is not an effective way of keeping a page out of Google’s search results pages.

Robots.txt Usage Can Block Inbound Link Effectiveness

The thing about using the robots.txt file to block search engine indexing is not only that it is quite ineffective, but that it also cuts off your inbound link flow. When you block a page using the robots.txt file, the search engines don’t index the contents (OR LINKS!) on the page. This means that if you have inbound links to the page, this link juice cannot flow to other pages. You create a dead end.

(If this depiction of Googlebot looks familiar, that's because you've seen it before! Thanks Rand.)

Even though the inbound links to the blocked page likely have some benefit to the domain overall, this inbound link value is not being utilized to its fullest potential. You are missing an opportunity to pass some internal link value from the blocked page to more important internal pages.

3 Big Sites with Blocked Opportunity in the Robots.txt File

I've scoured the net looking for the best bloopers possible. Starting with the SEOmoz Top 500 list, I hammered OpenSiteExplorer in search of heart-stopping Top Pages lists like this:

Ouch, Digg. That's a lot of lost link love!

This leads us to our first seriously flawed example of robots.txt use.

#1 - Digg.com

Digg.com used the robots.txt to create as much disadvantage as possible by blocking a page with an astounding 425,000 unique linking root domains, the "Submit to Digg" page.

The good news for Digg is that from the time I started researching for this post to now, they've removed the most harmful entries from their robots.txt file. Since you can't see this example live, I've included Google's latest cache of Digg's robots.txt file and a look at Google's listing for the submit page(s).

As you can see, Google hasn't begun indexing the content that Digg.com had previously removed in the robots.txt.

I would expect Digg to see a nice jump in search traffic following the removal of it's most linked to pages from the robots.txt file. They should probably keep these pages out of the index with the robots meta tag, 'noindex', so as not to flood the engines with redundant content. This move would ensure that they benefit from the link juice without flooding the search engine indexes.

If you aren't up to speed on the use of noindex, all you have to do is place the following meta tag into the

 

Additionally, by adding 'follow' to the tag you are telling the bots to not index that particular page, but allowing them to follow the links on the page. This is usually the best scenario as it means that the link juice will flow to the followed links on the page. Take for example a paginated search results page. You probably don't want that specific page to show up in the search results as the contents of page 5 of that particular search is going to change day to day. But by using the robots noindex, follow the links to products (or jobs in this example from Simply Hired) will be followed and hopefully indexed.

Alternitavely you can use "noindex, nofollow" but that's a mostly pointless endeavor as you're blocking link juice as with the robots.txt.

#2 - Blogger.com & Blogspot.com

Blogger and Blogspot, both owned by Google, show us that everyone has room for improvement. The way these two domains are interconnected does not utilize best practices and much link love is lost along the way.

Blogger.com is the brand behind Google's blogging platform, with subdomains hosted at 'yourblog.blogspot.com'. The link juice blockage and robots.txt issue that arises here is that www.blogspot.com is entirely blocked with the robots.txt. As if that wasn't enough, when you try to pull up the home page of Blogspot, you are 302 redirected to Blogger.com.

Note: All subdomains, aside from 'www', are accessible to robots.

A better implementation here would be a straight 301 redirect from the home page of Blogspot.com to the main landing page on Blogger.com. The robots.txt entry should be removed altogether. This small change would unlock the hidden power of more than 4,600 unique linking domains. That is a good chunk of links.

#3 - IBM

IBM has a page with 1001 unique linking domains that is blocked by the robots.txt file. Not only is the page blocked in the robots.txt but it also does a triple-hop 302 to another location, show below.

When a popular page is expired or moved, the best solution is usually a 301 redirect to the most suitable final replacement.

Superior Solutions to the Robots.txt

In the big site examples highlighted above, we’ve covered some misuses of the robots.txt file. Some scenarios weren't covered. Below is a  list of effective solutions to keep content out of the search engine index without link juice leak.

Noindex

In most cases, the best replacement for robots.txt exclusion is the robots meta tag. By adding 'noindex' and making sure that you DON'T add 'nofollow', your pages will stay out of the search engine results but will pass link value. This is a win/win!

301 Redirect

The robots.txt file is no place to list old worn out pages. If the page has expired (deleted, moved, etc.) don't just block it. Redirect that page using a 301 to the most relevant replacement. Get more information about redirection from the Knowledge Center.

Canonical Tag

Don't block your duplicate page versions in the robots.txt. Use the canonical tag to keep the extra versions out of the index and to consolidate the link value. Whenever possible. Get more information from the Knowledge Center about canonicalization and the use of the rel=canonical tag.

Password Protection

The robots.txt file is not an effective way of keeping confidential information out of the hands of others. If you are making confidential information accessible on the web, password protect it. If you have a login screen, go ahead and add the 'noindex' meta tag to the page. If you expect a lot of inbound links to this page from users, be sure to link to some key internal pages from the login page. This way, you will pass the link juice through.

Effective Robots.txt Usage

The best way to use a robots.txt file is to not use it at all. Well... almost. Use it to indicate that robots have full access to all files on your website and to direct robots to your sitemap.xml file. That’s it.

Your robots.txt file should look like this:

-----------------

User-agent: *
Disallow:

Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

-----------------

The Bad Bots

Earlier in the post I mentioned that "Bots that follow the instructions of the robots.txt file," which means that there are bots that don't adhere to the robots.txt at all. So while you're doing a good job of keeping out the good bots, you're doing a horrible job of keeping out the "bad" bots. Additionally, filtering to only allow bot access to Google/Bing isn't recommend for three reasons:

1. The engines change/update bot names frequently (e.g. the Bing bot name change recently)
2. Engines employ multiple types of bots for different types of content (e.g. images, video, mobile, etc.)
3. New engines/content discovery technologies getting off the ground stand even less of a chance with institutionalized preferences for existing user agents only (e.g. Blekko, Yandex, etc.) and search competition is good for the industry.

Competitors

If your competitors are SEO savvy in any way shape or form, they're looking at your robots.txt file to see what they can uncover. Let's say you're working on a new redesign, or a whole new product line and you have a line in your robots.txt file that disallows bots from "indexing" it. If a competitor comes along, checks out the file and sees this directory called "/newproducttest" then they've just hit the jackpot! Better to keep that on a staging server, or behind a login. Don't give all your secrets away in this one tiny file.

Handling Non-HTML & System Content

• It isn't necessary to block .js and .css files in your robots.txt. The search engines won't index them, but sometimes they like the ability to analyze them so it is good to keep access open.
• To restrict robot access to non-HTML documents like PDF files, you can use the x-robots tag in the HTTP Header. (Thanks to Bill Nordwall for pointing this out in the comments.)
• Images! Every website has background images or images used for styling that you don't want to have indexed. Make sure these images are displayed through the CSS and not using the tag as much as possible. This will keep them from being indexed, rather than having to disallow the "/style/images" folder from the robots.txt.
• A good way to determine whether the search engines are even trying to access your non-HTML files is to check your log files for bot activity.

More Reading

Both Rand Fishkin & Andy Beard have covered robots.txt misuse in the past. Take note of the publish dates and be careful with both of these posts, though, because they were written before the practice of internal PR sculpting with the nofollow link attribute was discouraged. In other words, these are a little dated but the concept descriptions are solid.

• Rand’s: Don’t Accidentally Block Link Juice with Robots.txt
• Andy’s: SEO Linking Gotchas Even the Pros Make

Action Items

1. Pull up your website’s robots.txt file(s). If anything is disallowed, keep reading.
2. Check out the Top Pages report in OSE to see how serious your missed opportunity is. This will help you decide how much priority to give this issue compared to your other projects.
3. Add the noindex meta tag to pages that you want excluded from the search engine index.
4. 301 redirect the pages on your domain that don’t need to exist anymore and were previously excluded using the robots.txt file.
5. Add the canonical tag to duplicate pages previously robots.txt’d.
6. Get more search traffic.

Happy Optimizing!

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Tricks to Build an Effective Website - Via WomenEntrepreneur.com

One common question I am always asked is: "Do I really need a website?" My answer is yes, you do need a website. Then I ask the questioner how he or she found me, and the answer is usually through our website. There you go.

Websites are a business basic and, as far as I'm concerned, an integral part of marketing and growing your business. It's your calling card to the world.

Studies have shown that people often decide whether to do business with a company within seven seconds of visiting the company's website. After seven seconds, your potential customers are either impressed or gone.

The primary challenge in designing a website is to make sure it functions properly. I can't impress on you how important this is. That means no errors and no missing graphics.

E-commerce companies spend anywhere from $100 to $500 to acquire each new customer. So don't choose the cheapest web developer you can find. Choose a web design firm that has a good track record and that you are comfortable with. It's also essential that you have an understanding of the key functions to be served by your website before it's created. What will the site do for your business? Will it sell products, or will it be an informational site and point of contact for your business?

It's key to design the site to support the function or functions you've decided upon--but from the user's point of view. It should be easy for your customer to navigate the site, select products and order them. If the key function is informational, keep it simple and concise, and don't use too many technical terms.

Tips For Creating a Successful Website

• Make it easy to use. Make the website easy to access and quick to load. Be sure your site is compatible with all browsers.
• Include fresh content. Content is the key to success, and that doesn't mean fancy flash pages or graphics. Don't get too wordy: Keep it concise and to the point. But have enough information on your site to indicate what you are selling and to entice customers either to follow through and purchase your product or seek more information on your services.
• Keep your graphics simple. Your graphics should support your branding and content, not detract from them. Less is more.
• Make navigation a breeze. Provide easy-to-use navigation links on every page. You only have a few seconds before a user decides to stay on your site or leave. Keep it as simple as possible, and don't make it difficult for them to find what they are looking for. When I design a site, I always assume that the user isn't web-savvy. I design the navigation and feel of the site so that anyone, especially someone new to the web, can easily navigate the site.
• Match your branding and style. Don't be taken in by fancy designs and graphics. Users dislike this because they can't find what they are looking for or the pages take too long to load.

Things to Avoid When Creating a Site

• Pages that load slowly. Avoid flashy web pages. Although they may load without problems on your computer, not all users have cable connections. Keep it simple and clean.
• Too many links. Don't force your customers to go through numerous screens to reach the information they want. Be sure to plan out your site map.
• Free e-mail address as your contact. A mistake I frequently see business owners make is using a generic e-mail address. It's unprofessional and sends the wrong signal to potential customers. Use your company e-mail address, not a free e-mail address.

Don't be overwhelmed by the many facets of designing a website. You can start small and let your site grow as you grow. It can open the door to many opportunities for your business on a global scale. 

via womenentrepreneur.com

Hold it right there!

My wife pointed this article out to me last week. Good enough read I guess. Everything mentioned is great for website usability.

However, the trick to building an effective website is much more than simplicity, ease-of-use and using your professional email address. If your simple and easy-to-use website isn't discovered by your customers or prospects, you're wasting your time.

The most important trick to building an effective website is to build a website that can deliver effective traffic. What is effective traffic? Effective traffic is traffic that is segmented, measured and converts on your desired goals, whether that's signing up for a newsletter, downloading a free trial offer, online purchases or making contact with you.

Take advantage of intent!

Search Marketers earn a good living by matching content with intent and then delivering that content at the right place and time to capture effective traffic; potential customers. Depending upon the brand and direct traffic, chances are most of your website traffic will come from two sources; Google or Bing. (Yahoo no longer counts since it is using the Bing back-end algorithm.) These sites match website content with search queries. Whether through the use of a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign or through organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) you should take advantage of the search query intent.

So, what do I do?

Bring a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) consultant on-board or in-house from the very start that can deliver your website content to your potential customers when they are looking for it and by any means they wish to consume it.

Google and Bing are full of flashy and "professional" sites that receive little if any effective traffic because a SEM expert was never consulted.

So, the question isn't "Do I really need a website?" The real question is "Do I really need a Search Marketing Expert?" The answer is yes.