Search Engine Optimization

April 15th -- The Deadline Looms

April 15th looms on the horizon, and while for many Americans that means the dreaded tax deadline, it's a deadline of a different sort in the internet world. Here in cyberspace, we are waiting to see what happens when Yahoo! officially quits using the Inktomi database, due to occur on April 15th.

On that date, presumably, Yahoo! will officially start using the database for Overture Site Match. The interesting thing is that Inktomi sites are supposed to be grandfathered into Site Match until their official expiration date, but Yahoo! has made it clear that those sites will not be favored with a Yahoo! listing, unless they happen to be picked up by the free spider. Unless you've upgraded to Site Match, you're out of luck when it comes to a guaranteed listing. It remains to be seen just how and where those listings will show up in the Yahoo! search results. The fate of the Yahoo! Directory, with its $299 annual submission fee, is even more unclear. The Directory will probably continue to exist, but is it really doing anyone enough good to warrant the investment? Unless that too is somehow integrated into the new web search results, the answer is probably no.

Some sites which had good listings in Inktomi, but indifferent or poor listings elsewhere, have enjoyed a month of sales growth and strong rankings as a result of their temporary Yahoo! prominence. Those sites will be hit hardest by the imminent shake-up, taking away their day in the sun. Although they still have the chance of MSN listings through Inktomi, that too has a finite life span, lasting only until MSN debuts their own crawler and database later this year.

Other sites, those with strong Google rankings for example, will notice the change less. Although they will miss any traffic they might have gotten through an Inktomi listing, their own more solid rankings across the board will work in their favor to keep traffic levels more steady. Although they will be curious to see what the new crawlers from Yahoo! and MSN can offer, they don't have as much to lose. They'll mostly be watching to see if their sites rank well there too, so they can benefit from even more exposure.

Those who have paid for Overture Site Match will probably be the ones watching Yahoo! most closely in the coming weeks. Although Site Match's flat-fee per-click service can be considerably less expensive than other PPC options for competitive keywords, it does not come cheap, as many people discovered when they subscribed to LookSmart's almost-identical service over the course of 2003. Costs can mount rapidly, and it remains to be seen whether or not the traffic bought is worth the price. For many smaller businesses, the answer, again, is probably no.

Site Match customers, not surprisingly, will be hoping that their listings rank highest in Yahoo!'s search results, a reward for their investment. Smaller businesses, unable to afford Site Match, are hoping hard that free search listings still have the opportunity for favorable rankings -- as are the internet purists, who hate to see every search engine overtaken by paid listings. Inktomi subscribers are crossing their fingers that MSN will continue using Inktomi's old database and sending them traffic for as long as possible, and additionally hoping that losing their Yahoo! rankings will not damage business too badly. They are also hoping that the new free crawlers from Yahoo! and MSN will look kindly on their websites,.

We have customers who fit into all of the above categories, and we will be watching their campaigns closely in the coming weeks, to see what is the best search engine strategy to pursue at this time. In a year of almost-constant search engine shake-ups, this is just the latest in a long line of challenges for internet professionals and their clients.

And that's what keeps us on our toes!

InsyncSoft, Doteasy, and Plagiarism

I am sad to report that the hosting company Doteasy does not abide by their own posted policies, but instead permits websites to remain live that contain plagiarized materials, which futhermore are using those plagiarized materials to commit fraud.

Doteasy is the hosting company for InsyncSoft, the company I exposed in an earlier post as an internet scam artist committing fraud, who openly plagiarized 4 pages of their website from our SharpSoft website. Doteasy was notified by email not once but twice last week that their client was in abuse of their own policy against "Content that infringes or violates any copyright, patent, trademark, service mark, trade name, trade secret, or other intellectual property right of any third party." (from the Doteasy website, under "Service Terms & Conditions", item #13). We not only informed them of the copyright violations, but I personally supplied them with links to every page on the InsyncSoft site that was in violation, along with a link to our website. We requested that they abide by their stated terms and conditions, and pull the website immediately.

So far, we have received no response whatsoever from Doteasy, and the InsyncSoft site, full of pirated web copy and perpetrating fraud, is still live.

It's bad enough that there are so many dishonest people out there, who are willing to steal what is not theirs, and are willing to use the stolen material to commit fraud and theft on a grand scale. It tarnishes internet commerce, and makes it that much harder for legitimate businesses to gain the trust of the consumer.

How much worse is it that hosting companies and providers refuse to enforce their own policies, and apparently do not care that they are aiding and abetting in such theft and fraud?

MSN Unveils Their Search Strategy

At long last, MSN has revealed their plans for the future in terms of internet searches performed through their new search engine. The SEO community has been eagerly awaiting some definite information, and Monday's press release was the first step. It's not complete information yet by any means, but it's certainly an interesting indication of things to come.

The first item of note is that MSN will actually have 3 separate search capabilities: General search; news search; and blog search. Blogbot and Newsbot will be powered through Moreover Technologies Inc., using their listings of internet news and weblogs. These 2 search bots are expected to debut on MSN relatively soon in the United States. Their regular search bot will not go live until later, but hopefully before the end of this year.

A beta version of Newsbot is already live in some other countries, which means that this is the bot we know the most about at this time. Not only does it draw on standard internet news sources such as Yahoo! News and Google News, but it also sets up cookies to allow for personalized searches based on your search history. At this time, there are no live betas of the Blogbot, but it should go live in the United States at the same time as Newsbot. It's unclear just how, precisely, these search bots will be integrated into the overall search scheme on MSN.

That's not all that MSN is working on though. They are also developing an Answerbot, which is designed to allow the computer user to ask a question in "natural" language, and get the correct response. This bot will also be designed to "learn" as it goes, so the more you use it, the better it gets at understanding what you want.

I'm very interested to see how these new search bots work once they go live. It's unrealistic to expect perfection right away, of course, but I see the potential for great things here. Although news searches exist, and blog search engines exist, along with a variety of standard web searches, it would be very nice to see them integrated smoothly into an overall search, with perhaps the option to search blogs instead of general web listings (similar to what Yahoo! currently has on their tabs at the top, but with a few additional and/or different options).

One thing that is exciting to me is seeing how the different search engines are encouraging developments and innovations in each other. Google comes up with something fresh which is very successful, and Yahoo! and MSN take note. Then it's Yahoo!'s turn, then MSN's. Healthy competition between them seems to be working in favor of the internet surfer at this time, giving them ever more options to find what they need quickly and easily, from an ever-increasing library of websites, news stories, images and blog posts.

How To Avoid Internet Scams

Yesterday's incidents reminded me of how easy it is for people to be taken in by apparently legitimate offers. The scam which was brought to my attention was relatively easy for me to see through, but that's because I am familiar with how businesses operate on the internet, and that includes some of the behind-the-scenes details that are definitely not common knowledge. People with less internet knowledge might not be so lucky.

The scams are out there everywhere, and they hide behind different faces. Instead of debunking them one at a time, I've compiled a 2-part list of things to do when investigating a new business opportunity. The first part is standard precautionary measures, the second part is aimed specifically at internet businesses, and includes some information that those who don't work in the tech sector might not know.

BASIC BACKGROUND CHECKS

1. Check out the business with the Better Business Bureau. See if there are any complaints against that business, or the principals of that business. If you can't find out who owns it, beware: Legitimate businesses do not hide their owners, presidents, CEO's, etc. Remember: A clean record with the BBB is a good place to start, but it does not guarantee that the company is clean.

2. Check out the business credentials. Where is it located? Is that a valid address? Who owns it? Who runs it? If they won't give you a physical address, that's another red flag.

3. Check out the offer. If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Do your research carefully. Be particularly cautious with any "opportunity" that wants you to pay money up front, or asks for detailed information about your bank accounts (the Nigerian scam is infamous on that score)!

INTERNET INVESTIGATIONS

1. Check out the behind-the-scenes details of the website. Who owns the URL? Who is the administrative contact (should be someone in a position of authority at the same company)? Who is the technical contact? Where are all these people located? Does this information fit with what is given on the website itself? To find this information, go to one of the sites where you can research domain ownership. Network Solutions or GeekTools both offer "whois" tools. Type in the website name (for example, insyncsoft.com), and the information should pull up. Watch for red flags. In the case of the scam I learned about yesterday, the website claims they are in Czechoslovakia, the offer claims that they arein Ukraine, the admin contact is in Ohio (that street address turned out to be for a garbage facility -- nice touch, eh?) and the technical contact is in Canada. Red flags all over the place. If that information is protected or not given, that is another red flag. Again, legitimate businesses do not hide, and do not discourage people from contacting them.

2. Check out the offer. In this case, they wanted people to "process PayPal payments". First of all, no company needs a middle man to do this; PayPal payments can be made in multiple currencies to anyone with an email address! Second, no company is going to limit themselves by using only one method of payment, which requires them to pay out 10% - 20% of their profits to a middleman right away. Legitimate businesses have merchant accounts, and can process orders through a secure online shopping cart. It doesn't matter what country you're in. If your business has the right financial credentials, you can get a merchant account.

3. Check out the company. If you have the company name, do a search for it on Google, MSN, or whatever your favorite search engine is. See what else comes up. In this case, you would have quickly discovered that the domain name (www.insyncsoft.com) was for sale in 2002 -- which doesn't fit if the company has supposedly been in business since 1999. Check out their products too. This bogus company claimed to have created "successful software products" including Atrides, RelaniumPost, and X-draw. Personally, I'd never heard of any of them, and I'm not impressed by fancy names. A search for "Atrides" pulls up a site in Russian about a cat. X-draw is free software created by Riku Saikkonen. RelaniumPost gets no matches at all. These are fakes.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU UNCOVER A SCAM

1. Contact the ISP for the website. This is the company hosting the website. By hosting them, they are abetting illegal activities. Lay out the facts, and try to get the website shut down.

2. Contact the people listed as owners or contacts. Odds are, these are fake addresses, but you might get through. Make it clear that you know this is a scam and are pursuing action against them.

3. If you've been scammed, contact the authorities. Give them every bit of information you possess, and help them catch the scam artists in question.

4. If you've seen the site/scam advertised anywhere, notify the sponsor that this is a scam. In this case, the scam was posted on both Monster.com and jobseeker. They have been notified, and asked to pull the ads.

Scams exploit ignorance. Educate yourself, your co-workers, your family and your friends, and you can protect them from being taken for a very expensive ride. The half hour you spend doing background research could save you from a nightmare experience. Just ask Tina, the stay-at-home mom who lost $3000 in one month to a fake company called Insyncsoft.

SCAM ALERT!!!!! Beware of InsyncSoft.com

SCAM ALERT!!!!!

Apparently, there are people out there who like the content on some of the websites for SharpNET Solutions and our various divisions. Unfortunately, they have chosen to show their approval by stealing our content, word for word, and in one case, content was placed on a website which is a SCAM.

Accordingly, SharpNET Solutions would like to issue the following warning:

IF YOU SEE ANY POSTING FOR JOBS THROUGH INSYNCSOFT.COM, IF YOU ARE DOING BUSINESS WITH INSYNCSOFT.COM, OR IF YOU ARE IN CONTACT WITH INSYNCSOFT.COM, BE AWARE THAT THEY HAVE STOLEN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM SHARPNET SOLUTIONS. THREE PAGES OF THEIR WEBSITE ARE WORD-FOR-WORD COPIES OF OUR SHARPSOFT WEBSITE. FURTHER, KNOW THAT THIS WEBSITE HAS BEEN USED IN A SCAM OPERATION, IN WHICH AT LEAST ONE WOMAN HAS LOST $3000.00 TO DATE. IF YOU, OR ANYONE YOU KNOW, HAS ANY DEALINGS WITH INSYNCSOFT.COM, YOU SHOULD CONTACT THE FBI, TO AID THEM IN APPREHENDING THESE FELONS. SharpNET Solutions is taking immediate legal action against the plagiarism of our website copy, and the scam victim has contacted the FBI. In addition, Monster.com, who posted the bogus job offer from this company, has also been contacted.

We would also like to point out that, to date, we have found word-for-word copies of our content on 3 other URL's, all of which had ripped off this copyright-protected material in an attempt to improve their own website rankings -- in at least one case, on the website of one of our competitors.

We strongly encourage every reader of this blog to check Google to see if you have been plagiarism victims. It's very easy to do: Just cut and paste a unique sentence of your content into the Google search bar, and see what comes up. If you find that other people have used your content without your permission, we encourage you to follow up on in immediately by contacting the administrative contact, the technical contact, and also the hosting service.

Make sure that your honest, accurate content is not being used by unethical people, for unethical purposes!

MSN's new search bot

Official word is finally starting to come out about MSN's new in-house search engine. Their goal is to provide results of such relevance that MSN will take over the top spot in the SEO world, and become the most popular search engine, outstripping its main rivals Google and Yahoo! The new engine is due to go public in July, at which time a few other changes in their search results will also be noticeable.

In addition to the new search results generated by their own engine, MSN will clearly separate paid listings from search listings, putting the paid (PPC) listings on top and to the right of the organic search results. This should please many in the SEO industry who feel that the way PPC listings are displayed can be misleading to consumers -- and plenty of consumers feel the same way! Of these paid listings, at least 2 will be advertisements that are sold directly by MSN. Whether or not they will continue to have any relationship with Overture (their current PPC provider) remains to be seen, although MSN says there are no plans to end it.

In the meantime, MSN continues their relationship with Overture to provide their sponsored listings, and uses both Overture Site Match and LookSmart listings for main search results.

Look for the LookSmart relationship to come to an end once again, this time for good, once MSN is satisfied with their own search engine and its results. I would also expect to see Overture become much less important in the overall scheme of things on MSN, until ultimately, they too will probably be phased out, provided all goes as hoped for by the MSN executives.

What impact this will have on SEO is of course up in the air, but it stands to reason that the MSN search bot will have much in common with the Google bot and other spiders which they feel yield the best results. Current SEO standards will probably apply, at least for the most part.

Since MSN ended the LookSmart relationship, I've found their results to be far less consistent than they were previously. They are drawing from a different database, plus they are rotating results, and now combining results from at least two databases routinely. This has probably cost them a few web surfers. I look forward to seeing what MSN will unveil in July, and I hope that it's a robust and reliable engine, with well-balanced results. Not only does that make it easier for me in an SEO capacity to help our clients, but it makes it nicer for me as a web surfer, to find relevant search results that are helpful rather than an annoying series of mediocre websites.

The Unhappy Client

We've all had them. The clients, the projects, that no matter what you do, it just doesn't work. Maybe it's an SEO campaign that simply doesn't perform, no matter how many angles you approach it from. All the things that work for every other client seem to produce nothing at all for this one. Maybe it's a web design that the client is never happy with, despite your attempts to do everything that they ask for. Maybe it's an email campaign that fell flat on its face, or a custom software application that takes twice as long to debug as it should. Sooner or later, your one-happy client relationship turns ugly. It happens to everybody, because that's the nature of the beast.

So what do you do in these cases? To an extent, that depends on the job, on the client, and on your company's philosophy. Our company will do our best to save the client relationship in almost all cases, by offering them a few months of free SEO, a make-good email campaign, etc. Mostly, we try very hard to open the lines of communication with the client.

STRATEGIES FOR HANDLING THE UNHAPPY CLIENT:

1. TALK TO THEM. Nothing takes a client from "unhappy" to "furious" faster than feeling as though they are being ignored. If a client has expressed their dissatisfaction to you, then someone needs to get back to them as soon as possible and assure them that their concerns are being looked into. Even if the first call is just to tell them that you've got someone looking into the situation, and you'll call them back as soon as you have more information, that can go a long way toward calming the client down.

2. Research the concerns. When you do call the client back for the in-depth discussion, make sure you've got all your facts straight, and have them at your fingertips. Know the terms of the contract, know exactly what was promised and when, know if they are current on payment or not. Read through past correspondence, paying particular attention to any concerns they have expressed, and whether or not those were addressed properly. And always, always make sure that you are willing to accept responsibility for any problems on your end. Don't make a bad situation worse by not really knowing what's going on; the client will feel that you're lying to them, or that they've been passed off to someone whose job is just to shut them up.

3. Know what your options are. This comes directly from #2 above. If you know exactly what was promised and what's been done, you'll know what you can do from here. If you've more than fulfilled the contract, and the work is satisfactory from that perspective, then there might not be much more that you can do. If you've fulfilled the basic terms of the contract but the outcome was NOT satisfactory, then you should be ready to offer them a solution which will lead to the result that was promised. Know if you can offer them some "freebies", and if so, how many, and how long it will take to set things right.

4. Know when to get out. You've done everything you can, and the client is still not happy. You gave them free design work, but they're never happy, or they keep changing their minds. You've created a neat little software application that does precisely what they requested, but now they want more, or different. You've revisited their website(s) once a month for 6 months, trying to find a better way to optimize, they've got great rankings, but no traffic. Maybe they have great rankings AND traffic, but no sales. Whatever the case, there comes a time with some clients when you just have to admit that it isn't going to work out. Hopefully it doesn't happen very often, but it will happen sometimes. When that time comes, get out. Do it as gracefully as possible, be tactful, be apologetic that things could not work out, but get out before you lose more time and money on a project that is doomed to failure.

Sometimes the unhappy client has good cause, sometimes they don't. Both types of clients need to be treated the same way though, whenever possible. Be attentive, be concerned, be responsive, and be helpful. Don't burn any bridges, you never know what might happen in the future. Yesterday's unhappy client just might be tomorrow's referral. It's happened to me!

Fast Internet Marketing Results: Email, PPC, or paid inclusion?

One of the known facts of SEO is that it is not an "instant gratification" solution. What is now referred to as "organic SEO" is the process of optimizing your website for the search engine spiders, and waiting for them to index the changes and reward you with improved rankings. This process can take weeks or even months to show strong results, no matter how well the optimization is done.

So what does an SEO firm do about a client who wants to be listed on the search engines NOW? In the past, paying to be listed in the Yahoo! Directory and in LookSmart (which supplied search results to MSN) meant that a human editor would review your site within a week, and if the site was approved, then you would have a great search engine listing within just a week or two. Since these two provided your strongest traffic, there was no problem waiting a few weeks for the other search engines to pick the site up. If you still didn't get strong listings for the keywords you most wanted, or if you wanted a seasonal boost during critical sales times, you could add Pay Per Click (PPC) and buy good rankings for the keywords and phrases you wanted the most.

In retrospect, those were the easy times! Today it is much more difficult to get those strong, quick rankings. First LookSmart went from a one-time-only inclusion fee to a flat-fee PPC system. Since it still supplied search results to MSN, many people reluctantly accepted the much higher cost of LookSmart and stayed with them. As soon as MSN dropped that contract, LookSmart saw its customers head for greener pastures. Yahoo! stopped using their Directory results for their primary listings, and defaulted immediately to Google instead. Although you can still pay their annual fee for a Directory listing, many people do not feel it is worth the cost, and many people never click on the "Directory" tab in Yahoo!, so they never see those results at all.

Today's fast response internet marketing options:

1. Paid inclusion. To be listed in Yahoo!'s primary search results rapidly, you need to pay for listing in Overture's Site Match. This is almost identical to LookSmart's flat-fee PPC of a year ago. It requires a submission fee, plus a deposit, plus a flat-fee per-click charge. Your listing will appear within days, not weeks; however, this option is beyond the budget of many (if not most) small businesses.

2. Pay Per Click (PPC). The advantage to Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns is that they are customizable to almost any need. Pick your keywords/phrases, decide how much you're willing to pay, decide where you want to be listed, submit your own description. You can hold the #1 listing on several major search engines for a few days, a few weeks, or longer, depending on your budget, and cut it off anytime you please. However, for some industries, even a short-term PPC campaign can be extremely expensive, as they keywords are so competitive, and recent studies show that many consumers skip the "sponsored sites" and head straight for the regular listings.

3. Email marketing. Email marketing currently suffers from guilt by association. There are two main kinds of email marketing, and they are as different as night and day: Bulk email and permission-based email. Bulk email is what is commonly called "spam", loathed so universally that legislation has been passed to curb it, and ISP's have invested a great deal of time into building spam filters to protect their clients. On the other hand, permission-based email relies on opt-in lists, where the recipient has signed up and agreed to receive promotional emails, and in many cases has even provided relevant information such as age, income, and place of residence, to help make sure that they receive offers they are interested in. Email blasts provide almost instant feedback, and are one of the least expensive ways possible to reach a large audience. It's a great way to get the word out about your new product or new website, as long as it's done properly.

No single marketing technique is right for every client, and most clients will get the strongest response from a combination of tactics and approaches. The best ROI, long-term, is still traditional SEO, but if the client is impatient, using one or more of the options above can help give them some instant business while you wait for the spiders to do their job.

The Internet: Land of the Free Submission?

The people have spoken, and evidently, Yahoo! has listened. Last week, all Yahoo! properties informed us that to submit, you would have to go through Overture Site Match. This caused a huge outcry from the internet marketing world to the effect that even low cost PPC is too expensive for many internet-based small businesses, and the Yahoo! and its partners had priced themselves right out of that market.

Today, AltaVista and AllTheWeb have added a paragraph to the effect that they are working on improvements to their free submission and it will be available again soon. What's more, Yahoo! itself now offers a free submission! The internet marketing world discovered this new development this morning, and it took me 5 tries to get a site through the submission process, but I have verified that it is in fact active. It will take several weeks for the site to be crawled, according to Yahoo!, but that is standard practice.

The question that remains is, where will these free sites rank? Will they mingle in the main search results with the sites submitted through Site Match? If so, will the Site Match sites be weighted more heavily? Or will the free sites be listed separately, as Yahoo! used to do way back when their Directory listings came first, followed by the Google free listings? If people get no reward for paying Site Match, then there will be no incentive to sign up; on the other hand, if your free submission doesn't show up anywhere in the search results, then this is just a smoke screen, to make it appear as though Yahoo! is giving the little guy an equal chance.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out in the coming weeks, but it is at least an encouraging sign.

More on Ask Jeeves

This just in: Ask Jeeves has made a bid to acquire Interactive Search Holdings, the parent company of Excite.com and iWon.com.

Is this another indication that AskJeeves is poised to become a bigger player in the search engine world? It would certainly seem to be their goal.

In the battle of the search engines, the more contenders there are, the better off we all are. The ultimate goal should not be the victory of any one search engine, but the victory of the web surfer himself. After the dust settles, the needs of the internet users must be met, or no one wins. The more search engines there are to choose from, with different algorithms and different philosophies, the more likely it is that the internet user will emerge victorious from what is shaping up to be a bloody battle of the search engine Titans.