Posted by rolfbroer

This post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

Google has found an intelligent way to arrange the results for a search query. But an interesting question is – where we can find that intelligence? A lot of people have conducted research into the indexing process and even more have tested ranking factors on their weight, but we wondered how smart Googlebot itself is. To make a start, we took some statements and commonly used principles and tested how Googlebot handled them. Some results are questionable and should be tested on a few hundred domains to be sure, but it can give you some ideas.

Speed of The Crawler

The first one we tested was Matt Cutts on his following statement: “… the number of pages that we crawl is roughly proportional to your PageRank".

This brings us to one of the challenges large content sites are facing – the problem of getting all pages indexed. You can imagine if Amazon.com was a new website, it would take a while for Google to crawl all 48 million pages and if Matt Cutts’s statement is true, it would be impossible without any incoming links.

To test it, we took a domain with no history (never registered, no backlinks) and made a page with 250 links on it. Those links refer to pages that also have 250 links (and so on…). The links and URLs were numbered from 1 to 250, in the same order as they appeared in the source code. We submitted the URL via “addurl” and waited. Due to the fact that the domain has no incoming links, it has no or at least a negligible PageRank. If Matt Cutts’s statement is correct Googlebot would soon stop crawling.

As you can see in the graph, Googlebot started crawling the site with a crawl rate of approximately 2500 nodes per hour. After three hours, it slowed down to a crawl rate of approximately 25 pages per hour and maintained that rate for months. To verify this result we did the same test with two other domains. Both tests came up with nearly the same results. The only difference is the lower peak at the beginning of Googlebot’s visit.

Impact of Sitemaps

During the tests, the sitemap manifested itself as a very useful tool to influence the crawl rate. We added a sitemap with 50,000 uncrawled pages in it (indexation level 0). Googlebot placed the pages which were added to Google by sitemap on top of the crawl queue. This means that those pages got crawled before the F-levelled pages. But what’s really remarkable is the extreme increase in crawl rate. At first, the number of visits was stabilized at a rate of 20-30 pages per hour. As soon as the sitemap was uploaded through Webmaster Central,  the crawler accelerated to approximately 500 pages per hour. In just a few days it reached a peak of 2224 pages per hour. Where at first the crawler visited 26.59 pages per hour on average, it grew to an average of 1257.78 pages per hour which is an increase of no less then 4630.27%. The increase of crawl rate doesn’t  stop by the pages included in the sitemap. Also the other F- and 0-levelled pages take advantage of the increase in crawl rate.

It’s quite remarkable that Google suddenly uses more of it’s crawl capacity to crawl the website. At the point where we submitted the sitemap the crawl queue was filled with F-pages. Google probably attaches a lot of value to the submitted sitemap.

This brings us to Matt Cutts’s statement. After only 31 days Googlebot crawled about 375,000 pages of the website. If this is proportional to it’s PageRank (which is 0) this would mean that it will crawl 140,625,000,000 pages of a PageRank 1 website in just 31 days. Remember that PageRank is exponential. In other words, this would mean you never have to worry about your PageRank even if you own the largest website on the web. In other words don’t simply accept everything Matt says.

Amount of Links

Rand Fishkin says: “…you really can go above Google’s recommended of 100 links per page, with a PageRank 7.5 you can think about 250-300 links” ( http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-flat-site-architecture )

The 100 links per page advice has always been a hot topic especially for websites with a lot of pages. The reason the advice originally was given is the fact that Google used to index only 100 kilobytes per page. On a 100 kb page the amount of 100 links seemed reasonable. If a page was any longer, there was a chance that the page would be so long that Google would truncate the page and wouldn’t index the entire page. These days, Google will index more than 1.5MB and user experience is the main reason for Google to keep the  “100 links” recommendation in their guidelines.

As was described in the previous paragraph, Google does crawl 250 links, even on sites with no incoming links. But is there a limit? We tried the same set-up as the websites described with 250 links on it but instead we used 5,000 links per page. When Googlebot visited that website something  remarkable happened. Googlebot requested the following pages:

• http://example.com/1/
• http://example.com/10/
• http://example.com/100/
• http://example.com/1000/

On every level Google visits, we see the same page requests. It seems like Googlebot doesn’t know how to handle such a large amount of links and tries to solve it as a computer.

Semantic Intelligence

One of the SEO myths used on almost every optimised website are the links placed in heading tags. Recently it was mentioned again as one of the factors of the “Reasonable Surfer patent”. If Google respects semantics, it definitely attaches more value to those “heading” links. We had our doubts and put it to the test. We took a page with 250 links on it and marked some with heading tags. This was done a few levels deep. After a few weeks of waiting nothing pointed in the direction that Googlebot preferred the “heading” links. This doesn’t mean Googlebot doesn’t use semantics in it’s algorithm, it just doesn’t use headings to give links more weight than others.

Crawling JavaScript

Google says it keeps getting better in recognizing and executing JavaScript. Although JavaScript is not a good technique to use if you want to be sure that Google does follow your links, it’s used quite a lot to reach the opposite goal. When used for PageRank sculpting the purpose of using JavaScript links is to make those links only visible for users. If you use this technique for this purpose it’s good to keep yourself updated on what Google can and can’t recognize and execute. To test Googlebot on it’s JavaScript capabilities we took the JavaScript codes as described in “The professional’s guide to PageRank optimization” and put them to the test.  

The only code Googlebot executed and followed during our test was the link in a simple “document.write” line. This doesn’t exclude the possibility that Googlebot is capable of recognizing and executing the more advanced script. It is possible that Google needs an extra trigger (like incoming links) to put more effort into the JavaScript crawling.

Crawling Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are a typical element on a webpage specially created for users. Sometimes they are used to support the site structure as well. Last month we encountered some problems where the Googlebot was not able to crawl it’s way up, so we did some tests.

We made a page a few levels deep with some content and links to higher levels on it ( http://example.com/lvl1/lvl2/lvl3/ ). We gave the page some incoming links and waited for Googlebot. Although the deep page itself was visited 3 times by the crawler, the higher pages didn’t get a visit.

To verify this result, we did the same test on an other domain. This time the test page was a few levels deeper in the site structure (http://example.com/lvl1/lvl2/lvl3/lvl4/lvl5/). This time Googlebot did follow some links which referred to pages higher on the site structure. Despite the fact that Googlebot does follow the links, it doesn’t seem to be a good method to support a site structure. After a few weeks Google still didn’t crawl all the higher pages. It looks like Googlebot rather crawls deeper into the site structure then higher pages.

Takeaways

In short, the lesson learned is that one can influence the crawl rate with a sitemap. This doesn’t mean that you should always upload a sitemap for your websites. You only want to increase the crawl rate if the bulk of your crawled pages get indexed. It takes longer for a crawler to return to an “F”-levelled page than to return to an indexed page. So if most of your pages get crawled, but dropped from the index you might want to consider getting more incoming links before using a sitemap. Best thing to do is to monitor for every page when Googlebot last visited it. With this method you can always identify problems in your site structure.

The amount of links isn’t limited to 250 links (even if you have no incoming links) although 5000 seems too much. We haven’t found the exact limit yet, but if we do, we will give you an update.

Links in heading tags for crawl purpose seems to be a waste of time. Though you can use them for usability purposes, because you’re used to it or because WordPress does it anyway and maybe if you’re lucky it’s still a ranking factor.

Another conclusion we can make is that the Googlebot isn’t very good in crawling breadcrumbs. So don’t use them for site structure purposes. Google just doesn’t crawl up as good as it crawls down. In contrast to breadcrumbs, you can use JavaScript for site sculpting purposes. Googlebot isn’t top of the bill if we’re talking about recognizing and executing JavaScript links. Remember to keep yourself updated on this subject, but for now you definitely can use some “advanced” JavaScript to do sculpting.

A last result that came up while performing research on the crawl process was the influence of the URL length. A short URL gets crawled earlier than long URL’s, therefore always consider the need for indexation and the need to be crawled if you choose your URL.

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It’s that time of month again where I talk a little about the split of my own income streams in the previous month. We’re looking at June here and I’m excited to share this month’s charts because it illustrates something that I’ve been saying for the last couple of months really well – things DO vary from month to month.

In April and May we’ve seen the charts look much the same from month to month with AdSense being the #1 earner, followed by Affiliate earnings, eBook sales and Continuity programs. This month we’ve seen AdSense toppled as the #1 earner.

eBook sales dwarfed all other income streams in June – mainly because I released a Travel Photography eBook. I should note that the figures I used to calculate this graph are not total income from eBooks but just my share of them (I do a revenue share with the author of this eBook).

Continuity programs also earned just a few dollars more than AdSense this month so it was pushed down into #3 position.

Interestingly the earnings in all areas except eBook sales, continuity programs and the Job board were down on May figures. I do tend to find this happens most years in the middle of the year – probably due to a bit of a downswing in the number of people in the northern hemisphere who are getting out and enjoying good weather in comparison to the number of people inside during winter months in that part of the world.

I thought it might also be interesting to share the different income streams over the last 3 months so you can see how they each do go up and down a little from month to month.

Last month a couple of readers pointed out that the charts are a little meaningless without actual dollar figures and people were confused about whether we were talking about the different areas being in the tens, hundreds, thousands or more. I’m not going to get into specifics on this except to say that June was comfortably in the six figure zone for a month after expenses.

July will probably return to a more ‘normal’ looking month – although I do hope to launch another small eBook here on ProBlogger in the coming weeks which could lead to that segment being a little higher than in April/May (although I doubt as high as June).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How I Make Money Blogging: Income Split for June 2010

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Today’s educated readers want information from a credible, trusted source, says researcher and writer Michael Low. When you convince them you are that source, they will believe and read what you have to say.

Here are twelve ways to make your blog posts more credible:

1. Use rich, vivid detail.

When you use rich, vivid language, words that paint vivid pictures in your reader’s mind, she tends to believe what you are saying because she can see it for herself. After all, seeing, as they say, is believing!

2. Use scientific or technical language.

I know this goes against the grain of what most people suggest. But depending on the type of article you are writing, it might be appropriate to use scientific or technical terminology that demonstrates (without over doing it) your grasp — and thus, your authority — on the topic.

3. Use sequencing or process description.

In some cases, it may be appropriate to describe the steps involved in achieving an outcome. A list of numbered steps would be a good example of this. Or even a simple description in a single paragraph such as:

After taking your new computer monitor out of the box the first thing you will notice is a small bag containing three cords. One cord is blue, one is red, and the other black. Take the blue cord and plug the USB end into your computer, plug the other end (color coded orange) into the left side of the monitor in the port labeled “audio in”. And so on.

4. Use charts, diagrams and graphs.

There’s a saying in selling (where credibility is paramount) that “nothing sells like a demonstration”. The saying holds true in building the credibility for your article content too. If the content of your article lends itself to demonstration via a chart, graph or diagram you should use it.

5. Use a photograph depicting the article topic in action.

This may not always be possible. But have you noticed how the news media use intriguing photos to pull you into the article by attracting your attention? Photos can be as equally powerful when used in your articles to add credibility to your message.

6. Use awards, certificates or qualifications.

Have you any special certificates or awards for achievement that support your credibility as an author or that support the message you are writing about? If so, use them in your articles. The majority of the masses still regard qualifications as a measure of a persons knowledge and trustworthy-ness.

7. Use testimonials and endorsements.

If you say it it’s hearsay. If someone else says it it’s probably true. So use testimonials or endorsements in your articles, especially from a recognized source. If it’s written about in the New York Times or if someone famous backs it up, mention it in your article.

8. Use a logical flow of information, especially logical argument.

Start your article with a strong point your reader will agree with, then carefully walk the reader through a series of “facts” or flow of information that leads them to the conclusion you want them to accept. In this way, you can build a bridge from the things your reader already believes to the things you want them to accept and trust.

9. Use personal stories or anecdotes.

It’s pretty hard to argue with a true story about something that happened to you or someone you know (or even someone famous). If you have stories or anecdotes relevant to the point you want to make in your article, use them.

10. Use case studies — especially examples from the lives of people your reader can relate to.

If there’s a good documented case study of the point you want to make, use it in your article. Bring out the detail of the people and places involved and your argument becomes even stronger.

11. Use meaningful specifics, not vague generalities.

There’s a certain attractive quality in the specific. The more specific facts and details you use the more people feel what you’re saying is accurate. For example, avoid using phrases like: “Many years ago”. Instead say, “On the 26th May, 2005, a week after my Dad’s birthday …”

12. Use examples to illustrate your point.

Even in conversation it helps if you give your listener examples of what you are saying to help him or her understand your message. It’s no different in writing articles. If you want to see the true power of examples as a “communication improver,” try deliberately explaining yourself through examples in the next conversation you have with someone at home or at the office.

Michael Low is a writer, researcher and entrepreneur. He’s also the writer of a free ebook titled How To Write Articles People Want to Read

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

12 Ways to Make Your Blog Posts more Credible

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Can a person be both open and maintain his privacy? It’s an interesting scenario and one that many people find themselves being faced with today. To clarify the matter, WebProNews spoke with Chris Messina, an Open Web Advocate with Google.

According to him, openness is a term that is overused and often used incorrectly. In terms of technology, he believes it means that anyone can have access to it. Another element involved with openness is governance. In other words, who has the authority to give permission to modify the technology?

Openness is also used when pertaining to online profiles and how much information a person is willing to reveal about himself. In addition, some people define openness as personal information made public by default.

Messina believes a balance is needed between openness and privacy. He calls the wide misuse of openness “openwashing.” For example, when people call themselves open but don’t have a governance model, a participation model, and don’t allow complete access to their technology, they aren’t really being open.

To make certain that those claiming to be open actually are being open, Messina suggests asking the following questions:

-    Do I need permission to use the technology?
-    Do I need permission to change the technology?
-    Do I have to pay to use the technology and build new innovations on top of it?
-    Are there other restrictions with the technology?

Finding the balance between openness and privacy is the ongoing challenge. But as people start to truly understand what openness is, maybe it will be a good starting point in the right direction.

In this interview, Messina also shares the concept of the “social agent” and how it simplifies many problems. In addition, he shares his thoughts on Facebook’s open graph and concerns with user privacy, the recent combining of OpenID and OAuth with OpenID Connect, and Net Neutrality in regards to the latest ruling in favor of Comcast.

Posted by randfish

In 1997, Google’s founders created an algorithmic method to determine importance and popularity based on several key principles:

• Links on the web can be interpreted as votes that are cast by the source for the target
• All votes are, initially, considered equal
• Over the course of executing the algorithm on a link graph, pages which receive more votes become more important
• More important pages cast more important votes
• The votes a page can cast are a function of that page’s importance, divided by the number of votes/links it casts

That algorithm, of course, was PageRank, and it changed the course of web search, providing tremendous value to Google’s early efforts around quality and relevancy in results. As knowledge of PageRank spread, those with a vested interest in influencing the search rankings (SEOs) found ways to leverage this information for their websites and pages.

But, Google didn’t stand still or rest on their laurels in the field of link analysis. They innovated, leveraging signals like anchor text, trust, hubs & authorities, topic modeling and even human activity to influence the weight a link might carry. Yet, unfortunately, many in the SEO field are still unaware of these changes and how they impact external marketing and link acquisition best practices.

In this post, I’m going to walk through ten principles of link valuation that can be observed, tested and, in some cases, have been patented. I’d like to extend special thanks to Bill Slawski from SEO By the Sea, whose recent posts on Google’s Reasonable Surfer Model and What Makes a Good Seed Site for Search Engine Web Crawls? were catalysts (and sources) for this post.

As you read through the following 10 issues, please note that these are not hard and fast rules. They are, from our perspective, accurate based on our experiences, testing and observation, but as with all things in SEO, this is opinion. We invite and strongly encourage readers to test these themselves. Nothing is better for learning SEO than going out and experimenting in the wild.

#1 – Links Higher Up in HTML Code Cast More Powerful Votes

Whenever we (or many other SEOs we’ve talked to) conduct tests of page or link features in (hopefully) controlled environments on the web, we/they find that links higher up in the HTML code of a page seem to pass more ranking ability/value than those lower down. This certainly fits with the recently granted Google patent application – Ranking Documents Based on User Behavior and/or Feature Data, which suggested a number of items that may considered in the way that link metrics are passed.

Those who’ve leveraged testing environments also often struggle against the power of the "higher link wins" phenomenon, and it can take a surprising amount of on-page optimization to overcome the power the higher link carries.

#2 – External Links are More Influential than Internal Links

There’s little surprise here, but if you recall, the original PageRank concept makes no mention of external vs. internal links counting differently. It’s quite likely that other, more recently created metrics (post-1997) do reward external links over internal links. You can see this in the correlation data from our post a few weeks back noting that external mozRank (the "PageRank" sent from external pages) had a much higher correlation with rankings than standard mozRank (PageRank):

I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine Google separately calculating/parsing out external PageRank vs. Internal PageRank and potentially using them in different ways for page valuation in the rankings.

#3 – Links from Unique Domains Matters More than Links from Previously Linking Sites

Speaking of correlation data, no single, simple metric is better correlated with rankings in Google’s results than the number of unique domains containing an external link to a given page. This strongly suggests that a diversity component is at play in the ranking systems and that it’s better to have 50 links from 50 different domains than to have 500 more links from a site that already links to you. Curiously again, the original PageRank algorithm makes no provision for this, which could be one reason sitewide links from domains with many high-PageRank pages worked so well in those early years after Google’s launch.

#4 – Links from Sites Closer to a Trusted Seed Set Pass More Value

We’ve talked previously about TrustRank on SEOmoz and have generally reference the Yahoo! research paper – Combating Webspam with TrustRank. However, Google’s certainly done plenty on this front as well (as Bill covers here) and this patent application on selecting trusted seed sites certainly speaks to the ongoing need and value of this methodology. Linkscape’s own mozTrust score functions in precisely this way, using a PageRank-like algorithm that’s biased to only flow link juice from trusted seed sites rather than equally from across the web.

#5 – Links from "Inside" Unique Content Pass More Value than Those from Footers/Sidebar/Navigation

Papers like Microsoft’s VIPS (Vision Based Page Segmentation), Google’s Document Ranking Based on Semantic Distance, and the recent Reasonable Surfer stuff all suggest that valuing links from content more highly than those in sidebars or footers can have net positive impacts on avoiding spam and manipulation. As webmasters and SEOs, we can certainly attest to the fact that a lot of paid links exist in these sections of sites and that getting non-natural links from inside content is much more difficult.

#6 – Keywords in HTML Text Pass More Value than those in Alt Attributes of Linked Images

This one isn’t covered in any papers or patents (to my knowledge), but our testing has shown (and testing from others supports) that anchor text carried through HTML is somehow more potent or valued than that from alt attributes in image links. That’s not to say we should run out and ditch image links, badges or the alt attributes they carry. It’s just good to be aware that Google seems to have this bias (perhaps it will be temporary).

#7 – Links from More Important, Popular, Trusted Sites Pass More Value (even from less important pages)

We’ve likely all experienced the sinking feeling of seeing a competitor with fewer and what appear to be links from less powerful pages outranking us. This may be somewhat explained by the value of a domain to pass along value via a link that may not be fully reflected in page-level metrics. It can also help search engines to combat spam and provide more trusted results in general. If links from sites that rarely link to junk pass significantly more than those whose link practices and impact on the web overall may be questionable, they can much better control quality.

NOTE: Having trouble digging up the papers/patents on this one; I’ll try to revisit and find them tomorrow.

#8 – Links Contained Within NoScript Tags Pass Lower (and Possibly No) Value

Over the years, this phenomenon has been reported and contradicted numerous times. Our testing certainly suggested that noscript links don’t pass value, but that may not be true in every case. It is why we included the ability to filter noscript in Linkscape, but the quantity of links overall on the web inside this tag is quite small.

#9 – A Burst of New Links May Enable a Document to Overcome "Stronger" Competition Temporarily (or in Perpetuity)

Apart from even Google’s QDF (Query Deserves Freshness) algorithm, which may value more recently created and linked-to content in certain "trending" searches, it appears that the engine also uses temporal signals around linking to both evaluate spam/manipulation and reward pages that earn a large number of references in a short period of time. Google’s patent on Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data first suggested the use of temporal data, but the model has likely seen revision and refinement since that time.

#10 – Pages that Link to WebSpam May Devalue the Other Links they Host

I was fascinated to see Richard Baxter’s own experiments on this in his post – Google Page Level Penalty for Comment Spam. Since then, I’ve been keeping an eye on some popular, valuable blog posts that have received similarly overwhelming spam and, low and behold, the pattern seems verifiable. Webmasters would be wise to keep up to date on their spam removal to avoid arousing potential ranking penalties from Google (and the possible loss of link value).

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But what about classic "PageRank" - the score of which we get a tiny inkling from the Google toolbar’s green pixels? I’d actually surmise that while many (possibly all) of the features about links discussed above make their way into the ranking process, PR has stayed relatively unchanged from its classic concept. My reasoning? SEOmoz’s own mozRank, which correlates remarkably well  with toolbar PR (off on avg. by 0.42 w/ 0.25 being "perfect" due to the 2 extra significant digits we display) and is calculated with very similar intuition to that of the original PageRank paper. If I had to guess (and I really am guessing), I’d say that Google’s maintained classic PR because they find the simple heuristic useful for some tasks (likely including crawling/indexation priority), and have adopted many more metrics to fit into the algorithmic pie.

As always, we’re looking forward to your feedback and hope that some of you will take up the challenge to test these on your own sites or inside test environments and report back with your findings.

p.s. I finished this post at nearly 3am (and have a board meeting tomorrow), so please excuse the odd typo or missed link. Hopefully Jen will take a red pen to this in the morning!

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Posted by randfish

Somehow, my flight from Seattle landed just before the newest Icelandic ash cloud began shutting down airports across UK airspace. As a result, I was able to present at SMX London this morning. The presentation is included below.

This slide deck focuses on things that are probably in the search engines’ ranking algorithm today (e.g. the reasonable surfer model), might be in today and probably will be more in the future (e.g. tweet data) and may or may not get in (e.g. Facebook’s open graph).

SEO Ranking Factors 2010 SMX London

Everyone at SMX noted that this year’s event is much busier and more active than last year. Goodbye recession; hello London as a new center of the search world.

Looking forward to your comments as always!

p.s. I’m planning to write a much more comprehensive post about the "reasonable surfer" patent, but in the meantime, be sure to read Bill Slawski’s analysis.

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A Guest Post by James Dunworth. First Image by NDevil

Over the years I have spent hours working on tweaks to my websites that have lead to zero or imperceptible improvement in rankings and earnings.

On other hand, I have also made changes which took just a few minutes of my time – and lead to huge changes in profits and revenues.

All of the changes here took less than an hour to implement.

Analytics

After linking AdSense to my analytics accounts, I analysed my website to see where adsense payments were coming from.

The results were astounding.

While there were around 800 hundred pages in my website, 70% of the revenue were generated from just 3 pages, relating to jobs in my niche.

I commissioned an advert from a freelancer. As I had another advert done at the same time it cost just $15. I placed the advert in a prominent position on my website.

That month my adsense revenue rose from $533 to $832.

That was last year. Last month revenue was over 2000 dollars. Obviously, now I know which pages are making money I have spent some serious effort in optimising those pages!

Subscriptions

I have never liked pop up forms, and I assumed that most people would react in the same way as I often do when I see a pop up form – leave the website.

However, I decided to test the Aweber popover on my website.

The result? A huge increase in sign up rates, as shown in the graph below.

This hasn’t always been replicated on other websites I own, but it does make the case that you should always tests things, even when you think they won’t work – it might just make a huge difference to your site.

(Intriguingly, the new and much more attractive Aweber forms lead to an immediate and substantial drop in subscription rates!)

Images

I decided to add images of users with electronic cigarettes to the front page of my e-commerce website, E-Cigarette Direct.

One particular image was of a Welsh National Opera singer using our product on stage. I chose this one because it showed the acceptance of the device by a very respected organisation in my country.

The next day orders flooded in.

When things settled down we were left with a 17% improvement in the conversion rate.

That meant thousands of dollars a month to our business!

Your thoughts

What small changes have you made to your blog or website which have made big a difference?

James Dunworth is the IT director of E Cigarette Direct, the UK distributor of the NJOY electronic cigarette (http://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk). He is also the co-author of theTobaccoHarmReduction.org’s study Electronic Cigarette (E Cigarettes) As a Potential Harm Reduction Product,

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Small Changes That Lead to Big Results

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Posted by great scott!

Earlier this week Facebook announced its ‘Open Graph’ at F8. There was all sorts of hubbub (much of it the bye-product of well-orchestrated buzz) about Facebook finally making strides to kill Google’s dominance of the web.  So should you hangup your white hat, your black hat, your grey hat, and trade it all in for a blue hat?  Much as we love Facebook, the answer, dear reader, is no: SEO is not dead. 

Watch this week’s video to hear Rand’s take on how Facebook’s ‘Open Graph’ will impact web marketing and all the ways it won’t.  There are all sorts of opportunities that will likely emerge out of this new technology, so you should pay attention. So go ahead and keep an eye out for a nice fitting blue hat in the near future, but don’t plan to throw away your white hat anytime soon.

The sticker we received

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There’s an interesting phenomenon going on involving Twitter and linking. A couple of years ago, when someone would see an interesting piece of content, they would link to it. Today, when this happens, people tweet it. So, what does this mean for link bait?

In this interview with WebProNews, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz says, “…essentially, Twitter is cannibalizing the Web’s link graph, and it’s doing so in a disproportionate manner for more social media forward industries.”

Although Fishkin does not believe the link graph is disappearing completely, he says it’s growing faster in the social Web than it is in the blogosphere. Google is also picking up on this trend and is paying attention to tweets. According to Fishkin, people can calculate Page Rank with the Twitter graph in the same way people do on the Web. He thinks Google is working with this concept now and expects to see more from them in this area.

Speaking of Google, Mike McDonald asks Fishkin about Google Buzz. From a strategic standpoint, Fishkin believes Google wants to let people know that the social Web and social media are important to them. In addition, Google realizes the amount of sharing and connection that happens through email and wants to leverage it.

There are, however, many issues that have been raised over Google Buzz, as WPN previously reported. While the lasting power of Buzz is still to be determined, Fishkin says SEOs are waiting to where it goes before they fully embrace it.

What are your thoughts regarding link bait in this age of Twitter, and do you believe Google Buzz will stick around?

The term “social search” is starting to creep up more and more in online conversations, but what is it? WebProNews caught up with Johanna Wright, the Director of Product Management for Google Web Search, to get an explanation on what the phenomenon really is.

According to Wright, social search is a beta product for both Web and image search that Google launched in January.  In other words, Google takes published content from a user’s social network and ranks it as relevant to other users in that same network.

Wright gives an example that if her friend, who is also a writer, writes a article about the iPad and if she searches for an iPad, the article will show up in her search results since it is relevant to her.

Although she does not believe social search will have a strong impact on marketers, she does offer tips for marketers and publishers. She says:

-    Make good content that people want to read and follow
-    Follow webmaster guidelines
-    Use webmaster tools to make sure your site is indexed in Google

In addition, if your site is social, Wright suggests marking it up using Google’s social graph API code that comes from code.google.com.

Since Google Buzz is also raising hype, are the two connected? In response, Wright says, “I think that Google Buzz and social search are a great way to marry key components of Google, the company, in a way that’s great for users.”

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