Search Engine Musings

The search world has been in meltdown for the last few days because of a little green bar.

Toolbar PageRank (tbpr) is the source of more wasted blog time and forum comments than any other topic. Despite repeated statements from the more sensible end of the SEO market that toolbar pagerank is neither a true reflection of the real unseen PageRank, nor in any way worth bothering about, the mass of webmasters seem to obsess about it.

Last week a lot of people reported falls in their tbpr and the speculation machine surged into action.

• ‘They’re penalising paid links’ - hmm, so why are sites being affected that don’t sell links?
• ‘They’re penalising blog networking’ - hmm, so why aren’t some very obvious link schemes being affected?
• ‘We’re all doomed’ - hmm, your tbpr seems to have gone back up again.

None of these experienced commentators seem to have followed the usual golden rule in these situations - sit on your hands, do nothing, and wait to see what happens after a couple of weeks. After every piece of twiddling or lever pulling, whether minor or major, there is always a period of instability. Sit it out and then review the situation. Wildly changing some aspect of your site only adds another variable into a situation that already has too many of them.

Meanwhile Google themselves were remarkably quiet. Official mouthpiece Matt Cutts has been making no search related blog posts for a few weeks, and no other comment has been forthcoming. We seem to be back to the bad old days of complete non-communication. This really isn’t good enough for a company that expects us to trust it with all of our data. It has to realise that if it leaves a vacuum then speculation will inevitably rush in; most of it ill-informed and potentially harmful to both webmasters and to Google itself.

For instance the latest turmoil could easily be interpreted by the cynical as being the third year in a row that the natural SERPS have been thrown into randomness so that Xmas-dependent businesses would have to spend money on Adwords. Is that true? I don’t know, but I do know that a lot of people suspect it to be, and in the absence of any explanation from Google that is the view that will spread. Is that what they really want?

The fact is we don’t know if this is a major update, or a change in PR algorithm, or a manual blitz, or a warning shot across the bows of  link sellers, or an experiment (failed or successful). No-one can respond sensibly to such a situation, so if it is a warning shot as some have speculated, then it’s not very well aimed. And as has been mentioned by many, it’s one that won’t even be understood by most web businesses because outside of the search industry most people haven’t a clue what a nofollow tag is or why it might be important. They also have no idea about selling PageRank - they are just trying to make some money from advertising on their site. That’s the reality - most site owners don’t know much about web design and know nothing about SEO and it’s related subjects. They just see a medium for communication - and that includes advertising the same as any other medium does. They see Google selling adverts with links on them - must be ok then.

Come on Google - get rid of the PR and make with the Public Relations.

Seems like it’s the week for plugging friends’ sites. (Google please note these are not paid links!)

Oyster-Web are launching their new directory today. Called YourLocalPages, it’s intended as an easy way to find local businesses and services, and an opportunity for those businesses to get goood visibility at a much lower cost than the conventional local directories.

There are standards listings available at £10 per year, or premium listings at £50 per year which allow a much fuller description of your services and get prominent positions and precedence in searches.

Built to be search engine friendly it has over 400,000 pages listed in Google even before official launch.

If you’re looking to place advertising then check it out. www.yourlocalpages.co.uk

… or a website, or well, what if it were a boat?

Scene: The enquiries desk at Sail Every Ocean (boatbuilders) Ltd.

SEO: Good Morning, SEO luxury boatbuilders, can I help you?
Client: Hello, I’d like to buy a boat.

SEO: Yes sir, what did you have in mind?
Client: I’d just like a quote please.

SEO: For what exactly sir?
Client: For a boat. How much does it cost?

SEO: Well that depends sir, do you want a new standard boat from our catalogue, a reconditioned secondhand boat, a custom built boat?
Client: It has to be the number one boat.

SEO: In what class sir? Speed, range, number of passengers? What exactly is the boat for?
Client: Everything, I need to have lots of passengers and it has to be fast; and it has to look good, for my corporate image.

SEO: And is this boat powered by sail or steam sir?
Client: Well I tried steam but it’s very expensive, all that oil buying is just a bidding war, so I thought that since wind is free I’d use that.

SEO: Ok sir, you’ll need plenty of sail to go quickly.
Client: Oh I don’t want much of that - obscures the attractive views for the passengers

SEO: I see sir, you do realise that it’ll take a while to build up any speed in this boat? And you’ll only be able to leave port when there’s enough wind?
Client: That’s no good, my friend Sir Frederick Willington-Smythe has a boat that does 60 knots.

SEO: Yes but that’s a powerboat sir - it has a Rolls Royce 4000hp engine and can only take three people.
Client: Well what about my friend Stavros, he has a boat that carries 800 people. He says it won the Blue Riband or something

SEO: Yes sir, the Mediterrania has three engines - nuclear powered with twin screws, two turbo diesels for backup. Either one capable of powering Paris. It cost a great deal of money.
Client: Yes, yes, that doesn’t matter. You’re supposed to be the best - how much will a boat cost me?

SEO: Well sir, depending on the specification, which seems a little wide in this case, our usual costs are between £30,000 and £50,000,000
Client: What!!, that’s no good, Mr Smith at the sailing club got one for £500.

SEO: That would be the Cheapboats WaveChopper training boat for children I imagine.
Client: So why are you so expensive? Cheapboats say their boat is guaranteed to make you a winner.

SEO: Goodbye sir. Happy Sailing.

A little plug for Mike over at IMJUK - he’s been hacking together carefully constructing a Google maps mashup to display good quality Internet Marketing companies in the UK. Good way to display them if you have a need for a local expert. If you’d like to be considered then drop over to IMJUK Mashups and have a look. And don’t forget to add your blog feed if you have one.

You can always rely on an “expert” to keep you right.

Professional SEO readers will be fascinated to learn that according to a recent BBC news article all the search engines are basically the same. They quote Jupiter analyst Nate Elliot as saying that the “underlying algorithms that powers search are also very similar among the main players”. Google will doubtless be interested to learn that Yahoo and MSN use a PageRank-based algorithm.

Not only that but the results are the same too! Apparently he said “Strip out the brands and just show the results and there is not often a lot of difference. The biggest difference between them is the logo at the top of the page,”.

When you’ve picked your jaw up from the floor you’ll be happy to know that you’ll never need to check a client’s positions in more than one engine ‘cos they’re all the same.

Which internet is he looking at?!? What exactly does he analyse? It certainly isn’t the same one I’m looking at and I seriously doubt that he’s involved in SEO or anything like it. Anyone who’s ever compiled a spreadsheet of search results knows that this is complete tosh.

Makes you wonder about the advice from all the medical and scientific experts they trot out all the time doesn’t it!

Microsoft’s shrinking reputation in the search market took another blow with the release of figures by Comscore showing that they are no longer in third place in the ranks of major search engines. Chinese company Baidu have apparently overtaken them and and Korean engine NHN are only just behind as the far eastern markets become ever more important.

Given that according to Marketshare their worldwide search share already ranks considerably below the searches carried out on Google.co.uk and is only just above Google Canada I wonder what would happen if all the SEOs stopped running checks on all their clients keywords!! Considering that this is the search engine that is the default one for new Windows machines it shows how little faith people have in it.

Eagle-eyed viewers will notice that there are some pretty major differences between these two sets of figures. Which, if either, is correct I have no idea, but it’s pretty clear that with Google miles out in front Yahoo is the only other serious player. Despite considerable hype Ask don’t seem to be getting anywhere and you have to wonder about their future. Clearly the far east is a completely different market with its own dynamic and will develop very fast in the next few years. How the western companies respond to this will be interesting to observe.