In one of its strongest anti-copying measures to date, Google is now letting users directly report websites that “scrape” content from other sources. In other words, if you catch someone copying from you, you can now raise your hand and tell the teacher.

Of course, duplicate content has been an issue for some time, but the world’s largest search engine has never had an automated system that allows business owners and webmasters to point out violators on their own. This is a great step forward for honest online marketers, and just one more reminder that it’s never, ever a good idea to copy content from a competitor.

Here are three quick implications from Google’s new scraper policy:

Don’t try to copy content. Yes, we said this already, but it’s worth mentioning again. Even if you copy content from someone else’s site and change it slightly, you are likely to be caught. And if you are, there is a better than decent chance that you will be banned from Google, which could do damage to your online business that can never be undone.

And besides, who wants to copy content anyway? Your company isn’t just like anyone else’s, so the text and images on your pages should show what’s unique about your business, and why customers want to do business with you.

Protect your own content. The crux of this issue, from Google’s standpoint, has been that certain marketing websites with “scraped” content were ranking higher than the sites that had originally created it. While that’s likely to decrease now, the fact of the matter remains that there are companies out there that would like to steal what you have, so make sure you are working with a business web designer who can protect what’s on your pages.

Keep fresh content coming on to your business site. In a larger sense, this policy reflects the growing importance that Google and the other major search engines are putting on fresh content and articles. They’ve always mattered, but going forward they will likely influence search engine rankings even more. So, if you can squeeze out one blog post a week, and regular social updates – or get social media done for you – the time to get started is now.

Most website owners or business managers have gotten at least one of the e-mails in the past few months, and some have gotten dozens: an offer from an SEO “expert” or “marketing company” promising to improve their ranking on Google, Yahoo, and Bing for a negligible fee. And who couldn’t use some marketing help for less than $100?

Just like we all learned as children, when something looks too good to be true, there’s almost always an outstanding reason why. It’s no different with search engine optimization. Here is why: effective SEO requires some expertise, but it tends to be very light on “tricks” and heavy on time. There isn’t any kind of special equipment or software you can buy that will simply handle it for you; it takes a lot of hours, research, and refinement to earn a top search engine spot.

Knowing that time is the main ingredient, ask yourself the next logical question: how much of a professional’s time can you really expect to get for $50-$80 per month? The answer, no matter how you cut it, is always going to be “not very much.”

In search engine optimization, as with just about every other part of life, you truly are going to get what you pay for. Invest the right amounts with the right people, and they’ll pay you back time and again with the increased traffic and revenue that come with a first page results on Google or Yahoo; try to get away cheaply, and you’ll soon find that your website isn’t generating leads for your business. We all wish it didn’t have to be that way, but we also know that quality costs more money.

Remember that the next time a stranger shows up in your inbox promising an online marketing breakthrough for a couple dollars a day. You might get a really great price, but you will almost certainly not end up thinking you got a great deal for your money.

Search engine optimization doesn’t have to be outrageously expensive or complicated. Get in touch with eKzact, one of  Calgary’s best web design and Internet marketing partners today to find out why.

A lot of Calgary business owners, and especially those who are new to search engine optimization and Internet marketing, talk about Google as if it’s some kind of magical, irrational entity that gives and takes web traffic from their sites without any reason at all.

The truth, however, is that changes in Google’s algorithms, regardless of the effects, always come for one reason: the company thinks it can do a better job of giving people the search results they’re looking for. It isn’t personal, and it usually isn’t “for” or “against” anyone in particular — they’re just trying to keep their spot as the world’s most popular search engine by doing a better job anticipating searchers’ thoughts. Which is why some of their latest changes shouldn’t surprise you.

One of the most obvious shifts in the way Google ranks results lately has been the way they’ve started to punish what they think of as “scrapper” spam sites that pull you in with lots and lots of badly written (or even nonsensical) articles stuffed to the brim with keywords. In fact, the developers and spiders at all the major search engines — including Yahoo and Bing — are getting better at identifying pages that don’t mean anything to anyone.

So what’s the net of all this? That having a lot of fresh, interesting writing on your site is still one of the very best ways to get to the top of Google’s listings… but trying to fake it with low-quality copy isn’t going to cut it anymore. Throw enough junk on your site and it’s only a matter of time before Google spots it and you’re actually doing worse on the search engines than you were before.

Taking shortcuts on your website’s writing isn’t a good way to work your SEO plan; but then again, it never really was. Even if you could manage to trick people into visiting pages that were jammed with keywords (and little else), then what they found wasn’t that likely to convince them to contact you to buy anything to start with.

For those marketers who have been approaching search engine optimization the right way, Google’s new algorithms mean very little has changed. But for the unlucky few who thought they could get by with junk copywriting, it’s time to face reality.

Looking for quality SEO answers, a reputable partner, and better positions on Google, Yahoo, and Bing?  Contact eKzact — Calgary’s best web design and online marketing agency — for a free consultation today.

Search engine optimization is kind of an interesting field sometimes. Although it started out with some pretty simple principles — like the right way is to title your pages, the importance of gathering some inbound links, and even working with those pesky meta- tags everyone got to be so familiar with — a large SEO project today resembles something like a space shuttle launch, complete with spreadsheets, timetables, and endless reports and graphs.

But for all the so-called science behind searches, there’s still a lot of room for hard work and common sense. In fact, if there’s one mistake we see over and over, it isn’t a lack of knowledge or technical ability… it’s starting with the wrong assumptions.

Let me explain: most of us would agree that getting to one of the top spots on Google would be a great thing. It might take more than a year and a (hefty financial investment) to accomplish, but who wouldn’t love to have hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of potential customers swinging by your homepage every day?

For any of that to be profitable, though, you have to begin with the right keywords and phrases in mind — not necessarily the ones that are going to bring you the most traffic, but the ones that will lead to the greatest number of sales.

A surprising number of businesses and marketers never make that strategic leap. They always assume that more traffic is going to equal higher revenue, when a better, less competitive keyword sits unnoticed. That’s a pretty big tactical mistake, based on a poor assumption, and one that is surprisingly easy to make. So, as you begin refine your next SEO campaign, stop and ask yourself: are we doing a lot of work to achieve the wrong thing?

If your Calgary search engine optimization campaign could benefit from some stronger focus, or execution, contact us at eKzact Solutions, of Calgary, Alberta today. We’ve got the skills and experience to help you reach the top spots on all the major search engines.

Her resume was posted on a website and was indexed by Google …exposing it all.

Have you ever submitted a resume’ or other personal information to a company only to have it show up on the Internet, in it’s entirety, on Google search results?

That’s what happened recently to a job seeker in Calgary. She passed her resume onto a large professional association in hopes that it may be used to place a “job seeker” ad at the website. Little did she know that they were going to upload the resume’ to their website and make it public. The association may not have even meant to expose the document. May website owners don’t realize that even documents uploaded into a “client only” area can in some cases be indexed by search engines.

Here is what the client had to say,

“Thanks for your assistance earlier.  As I mentioned, xxxxxx provides a wonderful service involving allowing job seekers to submit their resumes for posting to the xxxxxx website.  A few months ago, I submitted my resume to xxxxxxx.  Recently I decided to use the Google search engine to do a search on myself.  I was curious about what the public will be able to retrieve when they enter
“xxx_my_name_xxx Calgary” into a search engine.  Unfortunately, as a result of submitting my resume to the xxxxxx website anyone who enters “xxxxxxx” into a search engine can now retrieve my entire resume.

In the past I have submitted my resume to job search sites (for example, like Monster and Workopolis) and it doesn’t make my resume available for the the entire world to see if they enter my name into a search engine. “

The job seeker spoke to the professional association to remove the resume from their website and received a response back that it is removed. When I investigated, the document is still online and still shows up in Google search engine results. While the website owner may very well have removed links referencing the document, the physical PDF file still remains on the server. This roots itself in “out of site, out of mind”, but on a webserver, once a document is indexed by a search engine the spiders will come back and check on it. As long as the document resides on the public server, it will not drop out of the index.

While many people fight to have their website and documents surface on first page of Google, this is one case where the call to eKzact was to help get it off of Google. The calls for ‘reverse SEO‘ or reputation management are increasing. Unheard of three years ago, reputation management is a phrase that we are all sadly going to have to learn.

To the credit of the professional association, it is clear that they are offering to make submitted resume’s available on the website for public viewing. It was not clear to this particular website visitor though and she did not realize that the PDF file she submitted would win her a first page placement on Google.

eKzact Solutions Inc. is a Calgary Internet Consultancy where our team of expert internet consultants deal with this type of issue daily. Do you need and internet consultant on your team?

Maile Ohye, of Google’s Webmaster Central team, delivered the keynote discussion this morning at the Search Engine Strategies conference in Toronto. She gave a room full of webmasters, search engine practitioners and website owners the scoop… “right from the horses mouth”, as the moderator mentioned. Although horse is not a term that describes this vibrant Googler that has 5 years in the Googleplex. Ohye is based out of Maintain View California with the webmaster central team.

Ohye gave some insights into the recent algorithm changes at Google as well as some discussions about the new infrastructure that Google rolled out nicknamed caffeine. The update has repositioned many sites on the serp’s, some higher and some lower. If there was any one message to take away from this discussion it is that content is still key.

Google continues it efforts to deliver nothing but the most relevant documents to searchers. Ohye continuously referred to web sites pages as documents. She never once said great looking websites, she didn’t say the best designed websites – it is clear that the written word on the web is what is king. Using the term document, in my mind, really helps to separate the written word from the design. This again validates the eKzact emphasis on a balanced approach to design, writing and conversion objectives.

Inbound links to your website are still an important part of Googles several hundred triggers. Links should become a by-product of doing good business online. Build a unique and relevant website with excellent information and links will then come naturally. The role of mechanized link building was clearly frowned upon by this Googler. The point was that a few quality links are better than a high number of poor quality links.

Ohye clearly had a view on the use of landing pages to focus keyword attention to your niche product. Signs of exacerbation followed a question from the floor around landing pages followed by Ohye and the moderator reminiscing about similar discussions at earlier sessions. Google’s commitment to returning the most accurate search results and to improve user experience really does make, sometimes spammy over optimized, landing pages a contradiction to their goals. Ohye and the moderator had clearly anticipated this question.

There were a number of other excellent points made during this mornings SES keynote, most deserving their own future post.

Best regards,

David West
Calgary based SEO

Google’s annual developer conference is well underway and there are a number of predictions and announcements being made. These advancements in both Google product offerings as well as technology announcements.

Technology announcements / predictions such as the general adoption of HTML 5 over the coming months. HTML 5 is being developed as the new standard and will bring a ton of functionality to web developers including the ease to embed video in h264 format and the ability to build rich web applications that have access to the local PC’s storage and resources such as cameras. I am going to refrain from making bold predictions about HTML 5′s impact on the internet, but it seems that it is going to propel the move to the cloud faster than ever before.

Google Wave has dropped the need to be “invited” to join wave. This will hopefully mean greater adoption by users. Wave is reported to also be “much faster” to use now. Google has also added permission management and an extension gallery to wave. I haven’t seen the ability to use wave as a primary email tool yet though. When Wave can pull my regular email from non-wave users, then it may be more widely adopted. Until then, it’s rather a closed community.

One of the other product developments that Googlers are talking about is “Google Storage for Developers”. This is a cloud based service build on Google infrastructure that will give developers access to low cost cloud based storage space. It sounds very similar to Amazon Simple Storage 3, a widely adopted cloud based storage solutions for developers. These services tend to be exactly what they are sold as… “for developers” to develop applications and services that leverage the low cost cloud based storage. Twitter, for example, uses Amazon Simple Storage to host portions of the Twitter application. While cloud based storage solutions like these are not exactly consumer products, they become the foundation of some fairly powerful potential in terms of development of cloud based services that you may very well already be using.

Cheers,

David West

Come and join Ulistic starting on May 18 for a Canadian tour hitting three cities in 3 weeks.  Ulistic will be sharing the art of Search Engine Optimization with small business in Calgary, Toronto and Niagara Falls.

Interested in learning how to manage your own search engine optimization?

Want to learn how social media can aid in SEO?

Five years ago, most website owners didn’t even know what Search Engine Optimization or SEO meant. Today a growing number of people understand the importance of showing up in Google search results pages… but are at the will of their “web people” to get them there. Search Engine Optimization is a skill that can be learned. There is no secret sauce or mystical club, to join, in order to have a website perform on search engine results pages.
Book now.

• Calgary, May 18th, 2010 – Calgary Search Engine Optimization Workshop
  
• Toronto, June 9, 2010 – Toronto Search Engine Optimization Workshop
  
• Niagara Falls, June 12, 2010 – Niagara Falls Search Engine Optimization Workshop

Invest a day and take away an abundance of information who can put to work in your business immediately.

There are many experts telling you that your business needs to be on Facebook or on Twitter, we question the why? Is this important? Is this where your customers are? Many different types of business, many different types of plans. What makes sense to you and your business is what many forget to think about.

About Ulistic

Ulistic is an Internet Consultancy that has a focus on educating clients. We take business owners and managers from being people that have websites to people that own their website. Our core services revolve around a great understanding of Search Engine Optimization combined with the power of Social Media Consulting.

April 1, 2010 eKzact Inc., a Calgary Social Media consultancy and search engine optimization service have opened a registration site. The new registration site is where eKzact will feature upcoming training workshops.

Currently workshops, scheduled and ready for registrations include;

• Search Engine Optimization
• Social Media for Business Owners
• A Social Media Breakfast for Real Estate Agents
• LinkedIn for Business

The iAmPlace.com approach to internet consulting is based on empower the client to take ownership of their online presence through education and support.

A practical “newbie” training…‎ By Sandy – Mar 30, 2010

I have been privileged to take two of eKzact’s social media courses and they have helped me overcome my fear in this area. They taught it in an understandable, hands-on method so that when I left, I felt confident that I could do this. Other courses left me feeling overwhelmed, rather than equipped. Though they’re very experienced in this field, they didn’t make me feel that my questions were silly. I felt very comfortable during the course and excited to try it out for my business. Thanks, Guys!!

or Is it?  Google is now serving personalized search results to everyone…

There have been a number of changes in the way that Google displays search results. These changes are subtle and have been rolled out slowly over the past months. If you care about where your website or information about your business surfaces online, you will want to know this…

Kulick & Horling, both Googlers, declared online that Google now uses browser cookies to trend your search behaviour. By tracking what you search for, and what website links you choose on search engine results pages (SERPS). Google is massaging the results in hopes of giving you what you need. Good accurate search results = happy searcher = return to Google for future search. If you have a Google account, and you are logged into it while you surf, Google is collecting more than just your search behaviour. They are tracking your web surfing history, even after you leave Google. Using this collected data Google can further manipulate the search results that they serve you.

Incidentally, any web developer can use cookies to store information about your surfing behaviour while you visit their website. The data stored in cookies, which are tiny text files that reside on your own computer, can not be read by different domains. So Google can not read cookies from other websites and vice versa other websites can not read Cookies by Google.com.

“Previously, we only offered Personalized Search for signed-in users, and only when they had Web History enabled on their Google Accounts. What we’re doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser,” wrote Google’s Bryan Horling, Software Engineer and Matthew Kulick, Product Manager.

Here is a scenario for you, to help you understand what this all means. A website owner checks the position of their site often by entering keywords into Google Search. Google returns a search result and while the website owner is there there, they will often check their competitors websites out. Let’s say that this website owner loves their own website – but never visits it from the Google search result. This behaviour could potentially teach Google that your competitors website is more relevant to you than your own website. Given a similar pattern over a period of time and you could find that your own site is slipping lower and lower on the search result page. How Google interprets the general behaviour gleaned from a large sample of users who search the same keywords is yet to be seen… or perhaps already being seen?

You can clear your web browsers cookies. I won’t get into that here… but if you Google it… you are sure to get the right results… custom tailored to meet your needs based on your previous search behaviour.

Google does have a page that descirbes “Personalized Search” here. They point out the difference between logged in to your Google account and not. – - http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=54041

Google does allow people to turn off web history from within their Google account. A regular deleting of Cookies from your web browser may be a good habit too.

David West

As Google continues to develop it’s “Local Business Centre” one of the new advents is the introduction of physical labels that include a barcode. These physical labels are being sent to business owners that have already verified ownership of their Local Business listing on Google maps.

The barcode, or QR Code that is on the label allows people with smart phones to simply scan the code with the phones camera. Litterally within a fraction of a second, you receive all of the business details from Google’s Local Business listing including any coupons or offers that the owner has posted.

Reviews are also returned. The good, the bad and the ugly are returned. In fact Google even suggests that there is no better time than the present to leave a review -

“Leave a review right after you leave the business. What’s a better time to write what you think, than when you’ve just visited?”

There are already several QR Code scanning apps on the App Store. I dropped a $1.99 and got one and scanned the code on this page… It works very quickly.

To learn more about being a “Favorite Place on Google” you can visit this page here

Cheers -

David

]]> http://www.davidawest.com/2009/12/08/google-favourite-places-and-bar-codes/feed/ 1 http://www.davidawest.com/2009/09/18/do-you-want-more-leads-from-your-website/ http://www.davidawest.com/2009/09/18/do-you-want-more-leads-from-your-website/#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:57:04 +0000 David West http://www.davidawest.com/?p=245

Has the economy slowed your business down?

I talk to a lot of small business owners in a week and the general consensus is that most companies have seen a decline in revenue over the past 12 months. You really have two choices to make when your business is slow – cut expenses or increase sales.

Do You Want More Leads from Your Website?

You may have the ability to increase the leads that your website generates.  Have you heard of Search Engine Optimization – my guess is yes. It’s quite a buzz right now. That and “Social Media”… things like Twitter, Facebook and Linked In.

What does all of this SEO, social media stuff mean?

If you are even slightly confused or feeling overwhelmed trying to both understand and implement an online marketing program – we have a solution for you.

What does it do for your business website?

If you cause enough banter online and direct the focus of the various media to your marketing website, the search engines respond by showing searchers links to your online presence. The louder you banter… more traffic.  A well designed website with clear conversion goals will convert those visitors to potential clients.  That’s what search engine optimization, social media and video syndication can do for your business.

I’d like to Introduce you to eKzact

I would like to introduce you to ULISTIC Inc. Our focus is completely on internet consulting and marketing.  Here are some of the things we want to help you with;

• Managed social media, yes we can do it for you. Become a part of a growing Twitter pool and let work at driving traffic to your website or blog
• Search Engine Optimization, get your website showing up on Google for the important keywords and phrases that will generate new leads.
• Website conversion goal review and optimization. Getting traffic is only one part of the big picture… is your website really ready to greet guests and compel them to call you?
• Social Media Coaching and Setup. One and one setup and design of your Facebook company page, LinkedIn, and Twitter account. Setup to automatically cross syndicate you blog writing, tweets and status updates!
• Internet video production and syndication – with a focus on getting traffic!

Here is a quote from an email from a company representing itself as a “professional search engine optimization” service. They also provide pay-per-click services.

“Thank you for signing up. Ash said that he was able to cut a deal with Google, and you will get a report from Google in our behalf, and you will be able to track every  visitor from your site and you would be able to track every detail and you would know where your clients come from. They would be able to identify if it’s by eB——–W-b [name removed to protect the stupid], YP, search results, and other marketing endeavors. We would like to ask for your FTP access in order for it to work efficiently, and accurately. “

Find out why this statement not only raised red flags around ethics, but also raised my hair… I write at length about this one at our corporate blog.

….to read the full posting, visit the eKzact blog and read the article, “Some Peoples Kids… will say almost anything”

Tom Costello and Anna Patterson of the new search engine “Cuil” have something to celebrate!

Anna Patterson’s last Internet search engine was so impressive that industry leader Google Inc. bought the technology in 2004 to upgrade its own system. She believes her latest invention is even more valuable — only this time it’s not for sale.  See the Fox News site for full article

And according to CUIL;

The Internet has grown exponentially in the last fifteen years but search engines have not kept up—until now. Cuil searches more pages on the Web than anyone else—three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.

Rather than rely on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance. When we find a page with your keywords, we stay on that page and analyze the rest of its content, its concepts, their inter-relationships and the page’s coherency.

Since it’s launch on July 28th, CUIL has enjoyed more than 50 million searches. This type of traffic closely rivals that of Yahoo and Microsoft’s Live.  A fair feat to celebrate given that CUIL is a small start up with only 30 employees.

I spent some time on CUIL testing some of my favorite keyword phrases, like “Calgary website design“. I have mixed feelings about the search results that CUIL is returning.  Actually the result for Calgary website design is fairly excellent   When I search the names or domain names of some fairly well know Calgary business websites, to my surprise they don’t perform as well as I thought that they would.

I think CUIL is a pretty fine tool. I am looking forward to it maturing and giving the big boys a run for their money. There is a lot of room for strong search engines on our Internet… competition is good for us all.

CUIL claims to be the “World’s Biggest Search Engine“… now we wait to see if the search results are a relevant as our friend Google.  While indexing 120 Billion plus pages on the internet is quite impressive, the true measure of success for a search engine has to be in the quality of the actual search results.

By the way… did you download your free report from Stuart’s blog yet…
http://blog.itsuccessmentor.com/connect-the-dots

Hey – why not get Skype now and give me a call?

Cheers -
David A. West