May 5, 2004
In
This Issue:
1. Straight from Yahoo's Mouth
2. In the News - Google's IPO
3. More News Headlines
4. This Week's Q&A - New site in and out of Google
5. Wrapping It Up
_________________
Straight from Yahoo's Mouth
When it comes to optimizing web pages for search engines, there
are a few basic things we've discussed that apply no matter what
search engine you're talking about. Quality pages with keyword-rich
content that have relevant incoming links with good anchor text
should rank well in just about any good search engine these days.
Those are all big-picture ideas that the likes of Google, Yahoo,
etc., all adhere to at some level -- some, admittedly, more than
others.
But what about the little details, like meta tags and keywords,
and things like that? Wouldn't you love to be able to ask someone
at Google or Yahoo how, specifically, their search engine looks
at those little things? Well, you can't do the asking, but well-known
search engine marketer Mike Grehan recently did it for you. He
interviewed Jon Glick, Yahoo!'s Senior Manager for Web Search,
for the e-marketing-news web site and got the scoop about a number
of things you should find interesting.
About the future of personalized search: "The issue of: 'I'm
number one for this keyword'... may not exist at all in a few years.
You know, you'll be number one for that keyword depending on who
types it in! And from where and on what day."
About the meta "Description" tag: "We index the
meta description tag. It counts similar to body text. It's also
a good fallback for us if there's no text on the page for us to
lift an abstract to show to users."
About the meta "Keywords" tag: "Originally it was
a good idea. To me it's a great idea which unfortunately went wrong
because its so heavily spammed. It's like, the people who knew
how to use it, also knew how to abuse it! What we use it for right
now is... I'd explain it as match and not rank. Let me give a better
description of what that really means."
And he does go on to give a better description, going so far
as to explain how best to separate keywords with commas, etc.
The
interview also discusses the <TITLE> element of a web page
and all kinds of other great information about how Yahoo analyzes
a web page. Great, great stuff.
I hear you saying ... "Hold on, Matt. I thought the Keywords
tag was dead." Well, yes, it was. And that's even mentioned
in the interview, too. But Yahoo has decided it's not dead, and
the word in webmaster circles is that other search engines continue
to at least look at the Keywords tag, although how much they're
using it is up for debate. Yahoo even encourages use of the Keywords
tag in its Search Help documents, on a page answering "How
do I improve the ranking of my web site in the search results?"
I think that's enough talk about this great interview. You probably
want to read it. Here are the links.
Mike Grehan in conversation with Jon Glick
E-Marketing News home page
Yahoo
Help: "How do I improve the ranking of my web site in
the search results?"
_________________
In The News
About the only thing "in the news" lately is Google's
S-1 filing with the SEC. They're going public. There have been
countless articles and commentaries about the decision posted on
news sites across the web. Some of the best ones we've found are
posted in the News section
of owtweb.com, so check there if you
haven't already. Here are some additional, related links:
The actual S-1 filing
Part of the filing is an "open letter" to potential
investors from Google's co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
It makes
for interesting reading. I'm no stock market expert, but I admire
this much: They're trying to go about it their way, setting their
terms, and saying that if you don't want to go along, you won't
be taking part. Google's plan of attack is to do an IPO that
limits the amount of money the banks and their institutional investors
makes, that keeps the most money inside Google and with its employees,
that focuses on long-term success instead of short-term goals,
and that creates a two classes of stock so that the guys who
run
Google now are shielded as much as possible from outside interference.
You can read their "open letter" at the S-1 link above,
or read it at Newsday's web site:
Text of Open Letter from Google's Founders
Two other quick bits of news:
1.) Google Local (which we discussed back in Newsletter
#4) is
now, as expected, showing targeted advertising in the search
results. Go to Google Local and and do a search for "italian
restaurants, 99352" and you'll see sponsored links
at the top in a pastel-colored bar.
2.) Google has added two new pages to the "All About Google" section
of its web site. The Technology Overview page provides a big picture
look at how Google search works, including an ultra-simplified
explanation of PageRank. And in the last sentence there's a link
to another new page that shows in pictures the different steps
that take place when you do a search on Google.
Google Technology Overview
_________________
More News Headlines
Here are a few news headlines worth your time to read.
These are just some of the headlines we've posted
to OWTweb.com in recent
days.
Google's hard bargain
May 03, 2004 - News.com
While it remains to be seen whether Google's iconoclastic leaders
can adhere to their mission of running a public company, the
sheer strength of their business has already proven to be the
ultimate bargaining chip.
Google IPO sets stage for Web search war
April 29, 2004 - Reuters
The question is whether Google can challenge the financial clout
of its larger peers. Yahoo had $1.6 billion in revenue and
Microsoft had $32.2 billion in revenue in its latest fiscal year.
The book on Amazon.com's A9 search engine
April 26, 2004 - Traffick.com
Despite the horror of brown links, I decided to press on and
put A9 through its paces, paying close attention to the much-ballyhooed
personalization features. And you know what? I like A9, I
really, really do.
Placing
in top three pages of results key to search marketing success
April 22, 2004 - Internet Retailer
More than 80% of Internet users don’t look beyond the
first three pages of search results, underscoring the importance
of placing
high in searches.
More headlines: http://www.owtweb.com/news/
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This Week's Q&A
Hi Matt,
We recently launched a brand new web site and we think Google
has listed it, but when we check it seems that the site is listed
in Google one day and a couple days later it's gone. Did we
do
something wrong? It just disappears and then shows up again
in Google's database.
Oscar
Hi Oscar -- You didn't do anything wrong. This is quite normal
with Google, and it happens to just about every new web site
I can remember working on myself over the past year or
more.
Google actually has several databases that it uses to serve
up search results. These databases are spread across
several data
centers around the world to help keep the system as quick
as it is. When the load on Google's system gets heavy,
you might
see
results from a different database. (This is also why you
can do the same search a couple minutes apart and get
different results, or why two people in different locations can
do
the same search
at the exact same time and get different results.)
So what happens with new sites is that they get added into
one of the databases -- but not all of the databases.
Over the course
of days, weeks, even months, the data starts to spread
and get shared across all of Google's databases until
it's fully
indexed.
While this is happening, you can do a search one day
and see your site listed, but a day or three later the same
search will leave
your site out. Just be patient. This can go on for 6-8
weeks or more until a new site propagates throughout
Google's index. (Have a question? Email questions@owtweb.com)
_________________
Wrapping it Up
You may have noticed a couple small changes in the format of
this week's newsletter. The email subject is now more descriptive
than it used to be. Rather than a subject that reads "OWT
Newsletter, May 5, 2004", I'm going to replace the date (which
is redundant since your email software already lists the date you
got it) with something that describes a key aspect of the newsletter's
content. The thinking is that you might actually want to save some
of these newsletters (hint, hint -- this one with the Yahoo interview
link would be worth saving!) and three months from now it'll be
easier to locate the saved newsletter if you see something about
the content right in the email Subject line.
And the second change actually began with the last newsletter.
Up at the top in the Table of Contents I'm also adding some more
descriptive elements next to the name of each section. This way,
when you're looking at saved newsletters, you can quickly learn
more about the content of each section without needing to scroll
all the way through the whole email.
Hopefully you'll find these little changes will make the newsletters
a bit more user-friendly. See you next week! Thanks for reading,
Matt McGee
The OWT Newsletter is a weekly service offered free to anyone
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