Blind Five Year Old

Facebook recently launched their new Q&A product, aptly named Facebook Questions.

The Q&A space is white hot right now, in large part because of the SEO potential of the content. Q&A, if done correctly, creates highly focused long tail content that gets gobbled up by search engines. Look no further than Demand Media’s eHow as an example.

But is that what Facebook has in mind for Questions?

Facebook Questions Not Crawlable

Search Engine Land reported that Facebook Questions could not be crawled by search engines, and that Facebook has no plans to change that policy. The news was surprising, resurfacing the notion of the walled garden and sending mixed signals on Facebook’s strategy.

Facebook Search Powers Questions

In the first few days after launch Facebook search would force users into Questions whenever a search started with the five Ws or one H. Facebook search results would shift to Questions after you entered one of those interrogative words and then hit the space bar. This search feature is no longer active. (Sadly, I did not capture this behavior.)

Perhaps it was a simple test or Facebook pushed enough traffic through the product to receive the necessary amount of feedback. Either way, it showed the power of Facebook search (both in flexibility and volume) and pointed to a reason for not allowing search engines to crawl and index Questions. Does Facebook need traffic from outside the walled garden?

Questions and the Open Graph

Where things get confusing is why Facebook is pursuing Questions and the Open Graph in parallel. There are plenty of other Q&A sites out there. Many of them are using the Open Graph protocol.

Questions from other sites could easily show up in Facebook search results. So, why build a whole new product if you could just suck in content from everyone else? Conversely, if you were going to spend the resources to build that product and create all that content, wouldn’t you expose it to search engines so you could attract more users to Facebook? (Yes, that’s still possible.)

Of course, Facebook might want just one more product that will keep people on Facebook. And the longer users are on the site, the more often they’re clicking on ads and performing searches.

Articles are Second Class Open Graph Objects

Questions would be classified as an ‘article’ type in the Open Graph. Yet, articles seem like second class citizens in the Open Graph. Reports indicate that an object is not created for a page with og:type=article. This also means you can’t administrate likes on article content. In other words, you can’t publish to people who have liked an ‘article’ on your site or blog.

So, maybe Facebook is trying to create its own content instead of indexing what’s already out there? Again, this seems contrary to the Open Graph concept. Yet, if you believe status updates are a form of content publishing, then perhaps Facebook believes they can be the ultimate content creator.

Facebook Questions SEO

Of course, sites are getting around the article prohibition. Answers.com is now populating the Open Graph with their content using the ‘website’ type.

While Facebook frowns on this, it’s the way smart search marketers are going to work the system.

Creator or Aggregator

The Open Graph would indicate that Facebook wants to be an aggregator, to suck more and more of the Internet into the walled garden, allowing their users to find Internet content on Facebook’s terms – through the news feed and through Facebook search.

Questions would indicate that Facebook wants to be a creator, generating content as a way of keeping, attracting and engaging users. Though making them invisible to search engines takes attracting users out of the equation.

Which does Facebook want to be? Who knows, maybe both. But my money is on aggregator given the purchase of FriendFeed, promotion of Bret Taylor to CTO, advancements in type ahead search and roll out of the Open Graph.

In my last post I covered SEO Excel functions. In this post I’m going to cover something even more valuable to SEO – pivot tables. Excel defines a PivotTable as follows:

A PivotTable report is an interactive table that combines and compares large amounts of data. You can rotate its rows and columns to see different summaries of the source data, and you can display the details for areas of interest.

Use a PivotTable report when you want to analyze related totals, especially when you have a long list of figures to sum and you want to compare several facts about each figure. Because a PivotTable report is interactive, you can change the view of the data to see more details or calculate different summaries, such as counts or averages.

What does a pivot table really do? A pivot table lets you slice and dice a big set of data.

Top Queries Pivot Table

Instead of using dummy data I’m going to show how to generate a pivot table report using the new Google Webmaster Top Queries report. I’ll be using Excel 2008 for Mac which is different (probably more difficult) than the PC version.

Obviously we need to the Search queries report in Google Webmaster Tools.

At the bottom of this report you can download the table.

What’s really nice is that it will actually download all of the data, not just the 100 queries on the page but all (4,010 in this case) queries. Other Google products could benefit from this feature. I’m looking at you Google Analytics.

The Data Table

What you download is a big CSV file. (CSV stands for Comma Separated Values if you’re interested.) It will look like this when you open it.

It’s certainly interesting but reading it line by line isn’t very useful or efficient. There are plenty of things you can do to make it easier to digest. You could sort it (by Impressions) or filter it (by Avg. position) but a pivot table can really make sense of the complex.

Before I go on I’m going to Save As, rename the file and change the file type to Excel. This is just a safeguard and good general practice.

Select The Data

Next, you’ll want to select the data you want to include in your pivot table. This doesn’t mean just the rows or columns you want. Instead, you’re going to select the entire set of data you just downloaded. Selecting it is actually really easy.

Click on the top left cell of the data. In this case it’s going to be cell A3 with the text ‘Query’ in it. Then hold shift-ctrl and tap the right arrow once (but don’t let go just yet). When you do this all the relevant columns in the entire top row should be highlighted.

Keep holding shift-ctrl keys down and then tap the down arrow once. When you do this all the rows in the data table should be highlighted.

The shift-ctrl-arrow or shift-apple-arrow shortcut selects everything until it hits a blank cell. It’s a nifty time-saving shortcut for any Excel work.

Create The Pivot Table

At this point you can let go and, with the entire data table highlighted, select PivotTable Report from the Data menu.

This will launch the PivotTable Wizard.

Since you’ve already selected the data (which is what you’d do in step 2) you can actually skip steps 2 and 3 and just click Finish. When you do, a new Excel tab is created and you’re staring at an empty pivot table.

In my experience this is where most people get scared off. It’s like Excel is taunting you – demanding you to drop fields and data. It looks more daunting than it is and you can always undo or even create a brand new pivot table. As in nearly all things, trial and error is a great teacher.

It’s probably easier to show you how to do this rather than explain what each part means in the abstract. So lets create a pivot table that shows the total number of impressions, clicks and click through rate (CTR) by position. That would be handy, right?

Insert Pivot Table Fields

First you’ll want to drag the Avg. position field button to the row area. If you don’t see those field buttons, just click anywhere in the pivot table and they’ll magically appear.

In this instance there are no columns so we’ll move swiftly on to data.

Drag the Impressions button into the data area.

The result will look like this.

It looks wrong, I know! But be patient, we’ll fix that in short order. Next drag the Clicks into the data area.

The result will now look like this.

Change Field Settings

You don’t want to count impressions or clicks you want to sum impressions and clicks. To do this click on the first Count of Impressions cell (B4 in this case), then click the PivotTable button and select Field Settings.

After you do this you’ll be able to change the field from a count to a sum.

Click on Sum and then click OK.

Now we’ve finally got the right metric and you’re seeing the total number of impressions by position. Simply repeat the same process for Clicks so that you have both Sum of Impressions and Sum of Clicks.

Create a Calculated Field

You might now be tempted to drag CTR into the data area. Don’t! Averaging a set of percentages will not give you the results you want. Instead you need to create a calculated field. Click the PivotTable button, then select Formulas -> Calculated Field… from the drop down menu.

Now you get to create a Calculate Field. Again, much easier than it sounds.

You’ll first give this calculated field a name. The name CTR is already taken so I’m going to name it CTR by Position. Then create the calculation by typing in functions, highlighting and inserting fields. This is what it should look like before you (1) click the Add button and the (2) click OK.

Formatting Fields

Now you’re got the total number of Impressions, Clicks and CTR by position. But the formatting on the CTR is annoying. So lets change that. Click on the first Sum of Position CTR cell (B6 in this case), then click the PivotTable button and select Field Settings.

This brings you to a two pane process where you will (1) click Number… and (2) select Percentage from the Category menu and (3) click OK which takes you back to the first window where you will (4) click OK again.

At the end of all that you get a fairly easy to read table that shows impressions, clicks and CTR by position.

Filtering Pivot Tables

What if you wanted to just see the data for a specific position? No problem. Drag the Avg. position field from the row area into the page area.

Once the pivot table changes, you can then select the position you want to see using the drop down filter.

I’m going to select 1.7 as my position. At that point I might want to see what actual terms drove traffic at that position. To do that, drag the Query button to the column area. (You didn’t think we’d ignore the column area completely, did you?)

Now I get to see what terms drove traffic at the 1.7 rank and how effective each term was at that position.

Yes, my used books blog is getting a fair amount of traffic on the term ‘dr. evil’. (Image optimization works folks.)

Hopefully, you can envision another pivot table with Query as rows, search engines as columns and keyword rank as data. That’s a nice little table to have in your back pocket.

Hide Pivot Table Items

Still with me? I’m going to do a few other things that you might find useful. I’m going to drag query out of the column area, and drag Avg. position back into the row area so we’re back to the formatted pivot table first created. Then I’m going to click on the Avg. position cell (A3 ) and select Field Settings.

This will bring up a slightly different Field Settings window where you can hide certain items. (FYI – from here you can also click Advanced and change the sort order of your pivot table.)

I’m going to hide any position higher than 10 and then click OK. The result is a much more manageable table.

Pivot Table Charts

Now I want to see which of these positions drove the most clicks. I’m going to delete the Sum of Impressions and Sum of Position CTR fields. To do this, Click on the corresponding cell in the pivot table (B4) and then navigate to Field Settings and then click Delete.

Do the same thing for both Sum of Impressions and Sum of Position CTR and you’re left with a table that shows the clicks by position.

Now it’s time to make a chart. First you need to select the entire table by clicking the PivotTable button and using the Select menu to … select the Entire Table.

Now create a chart like you normally would.

And after a bit of tweaking here and there you can produce a presentation quality chart.

In this instance you might be surprised to see where most of the clicks come from. It might make sense for me to review the terms at 2.8 and see if I could move them up a spot to grab a higher share of clicks.

Refreshing Pivot Table Data

Now for extra credit. I mentioned in my SEO Excel Functions post the need to round numbers. In this instance, perhaps I just want to see things by whole number rank.

Lets go back to the actual data table and create a column next to Avg. Position. I’ll name it Rounded Position and then use the ROUND function to change it to a whole number.

Now I’ll copy that all the way down the column. To do this quickly just double click the small box in the lower right hand corner of that cell.

Now select the entire column starting below the title by using the shift-ctrl-down arrow. Then copy and paste values over the data in the Avg. position column. You’re basically overwriting the decimal rank data with whole number rank data.

Alternatively you could insert a column into your data table (between D and E so it’s inside the original table range) and then paste values (including the header row) into that new column. By doing this you aren’t overwriting data. Instead you’re going to add an additional field to your pivot table.

If you choose this route you’d have to swap the Avg. position with Rounded Position in your pivot table and go though the hide items process again. Either way, the idea is to refresh the data in a pivot table.

So lets go back to our pivot table sheet and click the exclamation point.

Voila! Now you’ve got a super easy to use table that shows clicks by whole number rank.

Every SEO likes a good chart, right? The chart data should have updated automatically too. So with a small tweak you can produce another one.

Amazingly enough there is more I could go through, but …  I think that’s enough for now.

SEO Pivot Tables

If you’re doing SEO for any amount of time you’ll see the value of using a pivot table. They help you make sense of large sets of data, allowing you to accelerate your analysis and provide actionable insights. Hopefully this real data exercise was instructive and valuable. If it was, please give it a Sphinn.

Let me know if you have any questions, comments or pivot table tips and tricks of your own.

SEO and Excel are like chocolate and peanut butter – great together. Here are 18 Excel functions (and two formulas) that can make SEO just a little bit easier.

SEO Excel Functions

LEN

The LEN function returns the number of characters in a cell. It’s particularly handy in creating the right title and meta descriptions. Remember to keep your titles to ~60 characters and meta descriptions to ~150 characters.

TRIM

Phantom spaces at the beginning or end of a cell can be maddening. So before you go Office Space on your keyboard use the TRIM function which gets rid of any spaces before or after text. It’ll also get rid of any extra spaces between words. Think of TRIM as a vacuum cleaner for spaces.

SUBSTITUTE

This is just what it sounds like. Using the SUBSTITUTE function you can find specific text and substitute it for different text. It doesn’t sound all that interesting but it turns out to be vital in creating useful formulas.

Word Count Formula

There’s no out of the box word count function. But with a little creativity you can create a useful word count formula using the three functions above.

=LEN(TRIM(A1))-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))+1

The first part of the formula returns the number of characters in the keyword phrase. We’re using TRIM to ensure extra spaces aren’t included in the LEN calculation.

The second part of the formula returns the number of characters in the keyword phrase without spaces. We’re using SUBSTITUTE to remove the spaces.

The difference between the two numbers tells you the total number of spaces in the keyword phrase. That’s where the +1 comes in. If there are three spaces, that means you actually have four words. Confused? Here’s an example.

This is three spaces

There’s a space between This and is, between is and three and between three and spaces. The number of words will always be one more than the number of spaces.

INT

The INT function is excellent if you’re downloading the new Google Webmaster Tools Top Queries report. You might see that your average position is sometimes not a whole number. This level of detail can be useful, but sometimes you want to aggregate. That’s where INT comes in. The INT function will return just the integer from that number.

You can actually do this in a number of ways including ROUND, ROUNDDOWN and ROUNDUP. If you use any of the ROUND functions you’ll simply specific that the number of digits you want to round to is 0. Here’s a look at how each one behaves in a real world example.

Once you have your whole number rank you can use a number of methods to analyze it, my favorite being a pivot table.

LOWER

The LOWER function turns all the text in a cell into lowercase letters. This appeals to my symmetrical obsession when working with text. It can also be handy in dealing with a lot of malformed keywords, particularly if they’re coming from internal searches on a site.

PROPER

This function has more application to the PPC world but deserves a mention here. The PROPER function capitalizes every word in a cell. You might want to use this when creating titles. Warning! PROPER treats apostrophes as a space. So contractions will look strange. Don’t will turn into Don’T. You’ll need to run some standard find and replace scripts to weed out these errors.

CONCATENATE

This powerful function lets you combine text from several cells. I used the CONCATENATE function to create my phrase match and exact match generator. CONCATENATE can also help you create a meta description template, which can be useful for long-tail sites or product pages.

TEXT

How does your traffic look on Tuesday versus Saturday? The first step in figuring this out is transforming your dates into days. The TEXT function does that and more. You can transform dates into days, months or years.

IF

The IF function is a simple logic test. If the result of that test is true, you do something. If the result of that test is false, you do something else. This function can be helpful if you’re creating titles or meta descriptions with keywords.

The problem? Long keywords can wreak havoc on character length. The solution? Determine the maximum character length that will fit into your template. Use a LEN function to count the character length of each keyword. Then use IF to insert only those keywords that meet your template criteria. Of course, you’ll need an alternate term (or perhaps completely different text) for those keywords that are too long.

SUMIF

If you’re doing any type of research or analysis you’ll likely need the SUMIF function. An example would be if you wanted to know the traffic volume of keywords which contained a certain word, handy if you’re looking for root keyword modifiers.

COUNTIF

Sometimes you don’t want to add things, you want to count things. If that’s the case, use COUNTIF instead.

SUMIFS

Back in the day you had to combine an IF function with a SUMIF function when you wanted to sum something based on two conditions. Yeah, it’s about the equivalent of walking to school and back, uphill, both ways, in the snow. Today you can use the SUMIFS function.

The SUMIF, COUNTIF and SUMIFS functions are often used on an ad hoc basis. When it’s time to construct reports or do thorough analysis you’ll likely be using LOOKUP functions or pivot tables.

WEEKNUM

When you have a data set that spans a number of months you might want to look at it by week. The WEEKNUM function returns a numeric week of the year based on a date. So, daily data can be quickly aggregated and analyzed by week. Of course, it’s easier to pull data on a weekly basis. But if you ever find yourself with a daily data set, use WEEKNUM and then create a pivot table.

TODAY

The TODAY function will return the current date. You can use it to create trailing week trends or develop rudimentary monthly projections in conjunction with the EOMONTH and DAY functions.

EOMONTH

The EOMONTH function returns the total number of days in a month based on a date.

DAY

The DAY function will return the day of the month as a number.

Month To Date Percentage Formula

To create a rudimentary* monthly projection based on month-to-date traffic you need to calculate the percentage of the month already in the books.

=DAY(TODAY()-1)/DAY(EOMONTH(TODAY(),0))

The first part of the formula returns a number that represents the number of days that have gone by in the month based on today’s date. The -1 ensures you’re not including today in the calculation.

The second part of the formula returns the number of days in the month based on today’s date. The 0 is telling the EOMONTH function to return the number of days in the current month.

The rest is simple division.

Today is July 6th, 2010. That means that 16.13% of the month has already passed. If you received 10,000 visits between July 1 and July 5 you simply divide that number by 16.13% to see you’re on track to rack up 62,000 visits in July.

*This doesn’t account for fluctuations in day of week or holidays which are notoriously bad for many sites. That’s why it’s a rudimentary projection.

HLOOKUP and VLOOKUP

LOOKUP functions are powerful advanced functions that are vital in creating report dashboards. I’ll cover these and pivot tables in another post if folks are interested.

This list isn’t exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination. Hopefully it covers most of the more useful functions needed for SEO.

What did I miss? What Excel functions or formulas do you use?

This isn’t a post about predicting the future of Facebook or taking sides in the Google v. Facebook debate. Instead, this is a warning.

Google 2003

AdWords was launched in October of 2000. In February of 2002 Google switched AdWords to a cost-per-click model. Later that same year the first Google Dance was held. By 2003, smart marketers were figuring out how to get the most out of AdWords.

Search volume continued to climb and the Google algorithm became more complex. Search engine optimization became more important and the landscape was changing … fast.

Facebook 2010

Facebook Ads launched in November of 2007. Today (figuratively, not literally) the platform seems to have hit critical mass. Thus far, most marketers have focused on engagement at the urging of the many social media experts/gurus/rock stars. “It’s about conversations” they shout.

But others are finding out how to make Facebook ads really work. Dennis Yu recently shared one of his Facebook ad secrets as well as how he’s using Facebook ads to increase Facebook fans.

In addition, Facebook has created more complexity and opportunity through the introduction of the Open Graph. Suddenly, Facebook search results can be seriously manipulated optimized. Like farms could spring up and savvy operators like Marty Weintraub will crack Facebook SEO.

Different But The Same

Google and Facebook are different, but figuring out PPC and SEO opportunities is the same. Compare the time lines above and you’ll see an eerie similarity. What I left out was that both Google and Facebook launched an advertising initiative approximately three years after launch. Am I the only one who sees the pattern?

Right now, I believe Facebook is at the same tipping point Google was in 2003. There is a tremendous opportunity for growth through experience. Jump in and start figuring it out. This is the fun part!

Those who aren’t afraid to fail are going to be the ones reaping the rewards.

A few months ago I wrote about how you could track keyword rank in Google Analytics. I said I’d blog about how to create ranking reports based on the new data but as I did due diligence on those reports I found something much more interesting.

AJAX Search Results Performance

There is a profound difference in the performance of Google AJAX search results versus normal search results.

Standard search results drive 13% more traffic per keyword, 38% more keywords per landing page and 56% more traffic per landing page than their AJAX counterparts.

Creating The Search Result Comparison

The Google Analytics rank hack captures a specific rank parameter present on AJAX search results. If that parameter doesn’t exist no rank is reported for that keyword. Upon implementing the GA rank hack you find that Google is serving AJAX results approximately 20% to 25% of the time. This is simply a product of looking at traffic that is reported with a rank compared to the total traffic reported in the profile.

You can also create advanced segments that include or exclude the AJAX search results by using the user defined value (Rank:) implemented in the GA rank hack. This gives you the ability to easily compare the performance of AJAX versus normal search results.

Each week I capture the amount of traffic as well as the number of keywords and landing pages that drove that traffic. I then create calculated metrics around traffic per keyword, keywords per landing page and traffic per landing page. There’s no real right or wrong number for these metrics, but it can be quite useful in trend analysis and, in this instance, for comparison analysis.

I’ve aggregated results from two large sites that come from very different verticals. Both showed similar results. I recognize that two is a small sample size so I encourage others to perform the same analysis to increase the confidence level of these results.

What’s Going On With AJAX Results?

It’s difficult to say with certainty why AJAX search results would perform so radically different than normal search results.

I first compared the Browser and OS profile for each to see if there was a distribution discrepancy. Sure enough, there is. Normal results are presented with far greater frequency (almost to exclusion) for the following:

• Safari/Macintosh
• Chrome/Windows
• Firefox/Macintosh
• Safari/iPhone
• Safari/Android
• Safari/iPad
• Safari/iPod
• Chrome/Macintosh

Yet, when I isolate Internet Explorer/Windows (sadly, the dominant combination) I see the same pattern for each result type. So while the difference in Browser and OS is interesting, it doesn’t seem to be the reason for the performance differential between AJAX and normal search results.

Could it be algorithmic? It seems far fetched to think Google would implement a different algorithm for AJAX search results. Nevertheless, lets put it down using the ‘no idea is a bad idea’ brainstorming methodology.

Perhaps it’s related to the presentation of search results. This makes a bit of sense since they are being rendered differently. But most people can’t tell the difference between the two, so I don’t think the way in which they are rendered would result in different user behavior.

But what about the intersection between algorithm and presentation? What if the implementation of Onebox, personalization or AdWords varied by type of search result? Could Google be using AJAX search results for testing purposes?

Further analysis leads me to believe this might be true.

The June Gloom Update

The thread of this analytic sweater began when I noted that total traffic from Google was going up but ranked traffic was going down.

The opposing trend lines don’t make sense. This strange trend began around June 1st which is why I call it June Gloom.

Of course, a simple explanation could be that Google was showing fewer AJAX results. So I dug further.

Ranked Traffic on Google AJAX Results

The great thing about the Google Analytics rank hack is that you can track the trend of each position.

The trend for keyword rank 1 and 2 dropped dramatically (~40% and ~25% respectively) while all other ranks were flat or improved during the same period. The drop in traffic from rank 1 and rank 2 far surpassed the increases in traffic from all other ranks combined. Hence, the drop in overall AJAX results traffic.

Clearly, this same pattern is not happening with normal search results. If it was, the total traffic from Google would be going down. Instead it’s going up. This also indicates that it is not about how often AJAX search is presented.

What Caused June Gloom?

Maybe the tracking parameter is broken. It could, but that would mean that it was broken on just keywords ranked first and second, and that it was only broken on those ranks some of the time. This isn’t impossible, but it certainly seems improbable. Inspection of AJAX search results didn’t turn up any missing rank parameters.

I decided to check a handful of high volume keywords which had a number 1 ranking. An advanced segment for rank 1 can quickly identify these keywords. On both sites, the top performing keywords did not show any impact from June Gloom.

I double checked this by using the new Top Queries report in Google Webmaster Tools. Downloading and comparing the weekly data, I rounded the position number and then created a pivot table to look at impressions and clicks for keywords in the first position. There was virtually no difference in impressions, clicks or click rate pre and post June Gloom.

This doesn’t mean it’s not happening, it only means that it’s not happening on the top queries. Remember, the Top Queries report is not all inclusive and it probably draws from all results – both AJAX and standard.

If top queries were unaffected, it followed that long tail keywords were being impacted by June Gloom. This could be based on keyword volume, keyword type or number of words in the query. The latter was the easiest to test.

By using the Google Analytics API we grabbed keywords that had delivered traffic at rank 1. We used an Excel function to count the number of words and then created a pivot table showing the sum of clicks by word count. We then compared the distribution of traffic by word count in a pre and post June Gloom week. The result? The distribution was virtually the same.

So we can only theorize that long tail keywords based on volume or type are being impacted by June Gloom. What would do that? Greater AdWords reach? More personalization? A higher rotation of Onebox and/or 7-pack listings? Or maybe it is algorithmic. Unfortunately, we have been unable to find the smoking gun – that query or queries that present differently on each type of search result.

Or perhaps we’ve botched it – made a gross assumption or overlooked the obvious. Once again, peer review is encouraged.

Who’s this we? This is a good time to mention that my colleague Jeremy Post provided invaluable assistance in data gathering and in talking through the analysis.

June Gloom and Caffeine

These days no change in traffic can escape the Caffeine question. Strangely, there is some evidence of Caffeine in the data.

The number of landing pages driving total traffic has increased. Landing pages are up nearly 20% for standard search results and only down 3% for AJAX search results. In fact, one of the two sites saw a small increase in landing pages from AJAX results. The number of landing pages was least affected in AJAX results compared to the changes seen in traffic and keywords.

This leads me to believe that the improvements in crawl and indexation brought on by Caffeine may be adding more landing pages. However, these new landing pages haven’t yet acquired a cluster of keywords. This drives down the keywords per landing page metric. Essentially, the rate in which keywords are added is less than the rate landing pages are being added.

The difference on AJAX search results is that there were substantial keyword losses even as new landing pages were being added. June Gloom may actually have been tempered by the impact of Caffeine.

AJAX Results and June Gloom

The evidence suggests there is a difference between AJAX and normal search results. And June Gloom only serves to reinforce this theory.

SEO is supposed to be a zero sum game. One site gains traffic at the expense of another. Are other sites benefiting from AJAX results? What sites are now getting more traffic from those top two positions?

Of course, AJAX results and June Gloom could be the vehicle Google is using to test Onebox, 7-pack, personalization and universal search options. SEO is still a zero sum game … but the game board is expanding.

Are you ready?

There are plenty of great blog posts about SEO tools, though you should be careful to look at a curated and updated list. Actually an SEO tool wiki would be an interesting idea. But I digress.

Instead of discussing the SEO tools I use I thought I’d share the other tools I use each and every day. Tools that have become indispensable, saving me time, energy and headaches.

Dropbox

Sharing files can be hassle unless you have Dropbox.

Dropbox is essentially a cloud based storage system. I started using it to sync files between my laptop and desktop computers. But what Dropbox is really good for is sharing files with clients.

Email is unreliable and you often wind up spending time waiting for folks to find and download files. Dropbox lets you create a shared folder for each client where you can keep all related materials. Not only can your client find the materials, they can point internal resources to it with ease. This is particularly useful if a client uses contracted or offshore developers.

You may have to convince clients to install Dropbox. Don’t worry, the 2GB plan is free, installation is easy and the instant value it delivers will earn you quick kudos.

Adium

I love Instant Messaging. Short of being on-site, this is often the best way to communicate, clarify and remove roadblocks. Email is slow and asynchronous. The phone doesn’t provide the added context of links or screen shots. IM is fast and effective. It can also be a hassle if you have clients on multiple IM platforms. Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, Jabber, AIM and more.

Setting up accounts with each is easy, but having every IM client up and running at once creates problems. Context switching between each platform’s UI is not trivial. The messages arrive in different ways (with different sounds) and you wind up having multiple windows begging for your attention.

That’s where Adium comes in.

Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that can connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more.

Adium unifies all your IM programs into one slick interface. The tabbed chat feature is particularly nice so that you don’t have a new window for each IM conversation cluttering up your monitor.

You can even combine contacts (the same person on multiple IM platforms) “so that each one represents a person, not an account.” This is nice when you don’t care how you reach them, just that you reach them. Like the phone, you don’t care who the carrier is, you just want to connect.

The good news is you can use Adium even if your friends or clients don’t. The bad news, it’s Mac only. Windows users might want to check out Trillian instead.

TinyGrab

If a picture is worth a thousand words, perhaps a screen shot is worth a few hundred.

Screen grabs are a vital part of the SEO process. You want to show clients what you’re seeing and how to fix it. If you’re building a presentation deck this isn’t a huge problem.

If you’re having an IM conversation about an issue (with Adium I hope), the traditional screen grab can be slow and clunky. Enter TinyGrab.

Download this tool and each time you take a screen grab it saves it to the cloud and copies a tiny URL of it to your clipboard. Then simply paste it into your conversation and you’ll be looking at the same thing in no time.

The free version of TinyGrab gives you 10 grabs a day. For a one-time fee of £10 you can upgrade to the premium version for unlimited grabs.

These tools make me more productive every day. Do you have other tools that make a difference in your daily life? Share them here.

Google has a Heisenberg problem. In fact, all search engine algorithms likely have this problem.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

What is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? The scientific version goes something like this.

The act of measuring one magnitude of a particle, be it its mass, its velocity, or its position, causes the other magnitudes to blur. This is not due to imprecise measurements. Technology is advanced enough to hypothetically yield correct measurements. The blurring of these magnitudes is a fundamental property of nature.

The quantum mechanics that go into the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle are hard to follow. That’s probably an understatement. It is fascinating to read about the verbal jousting Heisenberg, Schrödinger and Einstein on the topic. (I’m envisioning what the discussion might look like as a series of Tweets.)

Yet, some of the mainstream interpretations you get from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle are “the very act of measuring something changes it” and, by proxy, that “the observer becomes part of the observed system”.

These two interpretations can be applied to Google’s observation of the Internet.

Google Changes the System

Not only does Google observe and measure the Internet, they communicate about what they’re measuring. Perhaps quantum theorists (and those looking at comments on YouTube) would disagree with me, but the difference is also that the Internet is made up of real sentience. Because of this, the reaction to observation and measurement may be magnified and cause more ‘blur’.

In ancient SEO times, meta keywords were used in the algorithm. But the measurement of that signal caused a fundamental change in the use of meta keywords. This is a bit different than the true version of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle where measuring one signal would cause the others to blur. In this case, it’s the measurement of the signal that causes it and the system to blur.

Heisenberg and the Link Graph

Today the algorithm relies heavily on the link graph. Trust and authority are assigned based on the quality, quantity, location and diversity of links between sites. Google has been observing and measuring this for some time. The result? The act of linking has blurred.

The very act of measuring the link graph has changed the link graph.

In an unmeasured system, links might still be created organically and for the sole purpose of attribution or navigation. But the measured system has reacted and links are not created organically. The purpose for a link may be, in fact, to ensure measurement by the observer.

Nowhere is this more clear than Demand Media’s tips to driving traffic.

Clearly, the observer has become part of the observed system.

Social Search Won’t Help

There are those who believe that moving from document based measurement to people based measurement will solve algorithmic problems. I disagree.

In fact, the people web (aka social search) might be more prone to blur than the document web. Documents can’t, in and of themselves, alter their behavior. The raft of content produced won’t simply change on it’s own, people have to do that. And that’s precisely the problem with a people based algorithm.

Think links, social mentions and other Internet gestures are perverted by measurement now? Just think how they’d change if the measurement really were on people. The innate behavior of people on the web would change, as would their relation to documents. Do I have to mention Dr. House’s favorite mantra?

No, social search won’t help. Is it another signal? Sure. But it’s a signal that seems destined to produce a higher amount of blur.

Does Google Measure Blur?

Does Google have an attribute (meta data) attached to a signal that determines the rate or velocity of blur? I have no idea. But those folks at Google are pretty dang smart. And clearly something like that is going on since signals have gone in and out of favor over time.

At SMX Advanced 2010, Matt Cutts made it clear that the May Day algorithm change was made, primarily, to combat content farms. These content farms are a form of blur. The question is what type of signals did they trace the blur back to? Were they content based signals (e.g. – quality of content based on advanced natural language processing) or link based signals?

Does Google realize they are, inadvertently, part of the problem? Aaron Wall believes it’s more intentional than inadvertent in his excellent How To Fix The Broken Link Graph post.

Should Google Shut Up?

Google has always been somewhat opaque in how it discusses the algorithm and the signals that comprise it. However, they are trying to be better communicators over the last few years. Numerous blogs, videos and Webmaster Central tools all show a desire to give people better guidance.

You’ll still run into stonewalls during panel Q&A, but more information seems to be flowing out of the Googleplex. On the one hand, I very much appreciate that, but a part of me wonders if it’s a good thing.

In this case, the observer is clearly acting on the system.

Should Google tell us meta keywords are really dead? Or that they don’t process Title attributes? Or that domain diversity is really important? Sure, we’ll still have those who postulate about the ranking factors (thank you SEOMoz), but there would be a lot less consensus. It might produce less homogeneity around SEO practices, or in other words, the blur of other signals might lessen if the confidence in signal influence weren’t as clear.

It’s not that the algorithm would change, but perhaps the velocity in which a signal blurs beyond usefulness slows.

The Solution

Well, there really isn’t a solution. A search engine must observe and measure the Internet ecosystem. Acknowledging that they’re part of the system and working on ways to minimize their disturbance of the system would be a good start. Hey, perhaps Google already does this.

The number of signals (more than 200) may be a reaction to the blur produced by their measurement. More signals mean a distribution of blur? But I somehow doubt it’s as easy as a checks and balances system.

Google could maintain very different algorithms – 2 or even 3 – and randomly present them via their numerous data centers. However, they’d all have to provide a good user experience and it’s been difficult for Google to maintain just the one thus far.

I don’t have the answer, but I know that the rate in which the system blurs as a result of Google’s observation is increasing. I believe Google must account for this as they refine the algorithm.

What do you think?

I ask good questions. Really good questions. Even Matt Cutts says so.

Best Question at SMX Advanced

The You&A with Matt Cutts at this year’s SMX Advanced covered two main topics: Caffeine and May Day. After a humorous back-and-forth between Danny and Matt the public Q&A period started.

Danny asks about Caffeine update and HTML5. A “really good question,” Matt says. Matt says HTML5 is completely unrelated to Caffeine, and Google doesn’t give bonus points for code that validates. But Google does have an HTML parser in the wings.

That’s my question! Proof will come with the video where Danny attributes the question to me by name. Not that it really matters, but it’s nice to be acknowledged and get a pat on the back every once in a while. As an aside, the online submission form is a great way for introverts to interact.

Okay, it’s probably not the best question, but maybe Gil Reich can add a new Best Questions category to his Best of SMX Advanced 2010 post.

Best SMX Advanced Session

Speaking of the best. The You&A with Matt Cutts was great but I walked away from Search Marketing in the Facebook Zone with actionable information and a renewed passion for paid search.

Dennis Yu from BlitzLocal shared real world campaigns and tips on getting the most from Facebook advertising. And Marty Weintraub from aimClear reminded me that figuring out a new platform is amazingly fun. Thank you.

SMX is the Best

Speaking of thanks. A big thank you to Danny Sullivan who has done a super job in providing the search industry with a valuable conference series and continues to be a great ambassador for the search community. See you next year.

There’s a new unlinking meme going around that contextual links are a bad thing for web content. That they’re a distraction and take away from the prose of the journalist or blogger. It’s amazing that so many smart people actually believe the myth that people are reading their content word for word.

They’re not.

People Scan Text

Jakob Nielsen found that 79% of users scanned content and further research has supported this finding. But there are ways to increase the readability of web content.

highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others)

That’s right. Links actually help the usability and readability of your content.

Writing for the Web

Putting all the links at the end may encourage users to skip your content. People aren’t patient and while it would be nice if they were, I don’t think that’s going to change. Fighting against this instinct doesn’t seem to be a winning strategy, nor is it entirely bad.

Different mediums dictate different writing styles. A novel versus haiku versus grant writing. They’re all very different in style, syntax and structure. Contextual links are simply a part of the style, syntax and structure of web content.

Links and SEO

Don’t forget that links are still an important part of SEO and recent research indicates that links within the text likely carry more trust and authority. And while backlinks are far more important, establishing a hub of authority and your presence within a ‘neighborhood’ is going to help your content get read by the right people.

So, get over the anecdotal stories and past the vanity. Links within text are valuable in web communication. Period.

The average number of views a Google Webmaster Central video, starring Matt Cutts, receives is approximately 4,000.

That’s right, only 4,000 people (if you believe every view is unique) tune in to learn from the guy who heads up Google Web Spam and is the face of Google search.

I don’t get it.

Is the SEO community that small?

One person recently commented that the Facebook Like button made him feel lonely.

Fundamentally, this means that the web is a lonelier place for me. It’s like walking on a sidewalk on one side of the street, where it’s totally empty, and getting a glimpse that the other side of the street is crowded with friends chatting. The friends are there: they’re just not mine. I must be a loser.

When I look at the number of views Google Webmaster Central videos get, I begin to feel similarly. Are there only 4,000 people who share my passion for search engine optimization? Is the SEO community that small?

SEO Search Volume

I decided to so a little research. First up was to see what type of search volume ‘SEO’ gets using Google’s Keyword Tool.

It’s not monster volume but it certainly shows that there’s a fair amount of interest in the topic.

Quick note, if you don’t like Google’s new interface you can force the old version of the Keyword Tool with the following URL:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal?forceLegacy=true

SEO Site Traffic

So what about some of the major sites out there. What type of traffic do they get?

While I don’t usually find Compete* to be accurate, it shows that sites like SEOmoz and SEO Book get nearly 1 million visitors a month. Even Matt Cutts gets nearly 400,000 visitors a month to his blog. So, the idea that only 4,000 people are watching his videos is … shocking.

*I find Compete to be wildly wrong most of the time but the alternative is Quantcast which has SEOmoz at 46K, SEO Book at 3K and Matt Cutts at 15K. While I usually find better success with Quantcast, these numbers seem outlandishly wrong.

RSS Webmaster Central Videos

Webmaster Central Videos are usually less that 2 minutes long and Matt provides as much information as he can on a specific topic. Sometimes the topic isn’t that illuminating, and sometimes Matt can’t divulge as much as you might like. But it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, right?

Read between the lines or listen for what seems like an offhand comment and you often do learn something. As I was writing this, a new video was uploaded that addresses the May Day algorithm change.

The best way to ensure you’re watching these videos is to subscribe to them via RSS. This is easy, so do it now!

Just go to the Google Webmaster Central Channel on YouTube and click on the RSS icon in your browser toolbar. If you’re not using RSS, well … shame on you.