Blind Five Year Old

Last week I spent about two days in a WordPress PHP maze of death that, in exasperation, led me to type a cartoon-like expression of frustration into a Google search.

And I laughed. Because sure enough Google had four different versions for me to choose from. Four!

We know that Google has a sense of humor. Take the ‘did you mean’ result for recursion.

That’s right. The ‘did you mean’ result for recursion is … recursion. Clicking on recursion takes you right back to the same page. I’m amused. But don’t try to pay Google a compliment.

What ‘did you mean’ suggestions have made you laugh?

 

I’ve thought about this post for a while but never pulled the trigger. But with the ruckus over names on G+ and the ridiculous Same Name reality show I thought it was finally time to blog about doppelgängers.

Doppelgänger

Merriam-Webster defines doppelgänger as:

1: a ghostly counterpart of a living person 2 a : double 2a  b : alter ego b  c : a person who has the same name as another

The emphasis is mine and I’m using that version of the definition here. It’s easy to find Internet doppelgängers by doing a vanity search on Google or setting up a Google Alert on your name.

So without further ado, let me introduce you to my three doppelgängers. (Who knew I was so talented?)

Pro Freestyle Skateboarder

AJ Kohn co-founded One Skateboard Co and is an accomplished freestyle skateboarder.

The odd thing is we both grew up near Philadelphia. Because of this, every now and again I get a random email from someone looking to reconnect with him. In a few cases it’s been tough for me to persuade them that I’m not that AJ Kohn.

Amateur Baseball Player

AJ Kohn is an infielder on the Plainview Bucks, an amateur baseball team in Minnesota.

I don’t know which one is AJ Kohn, but I do know that he’s the star of the team, batting .424 with 31 hits, 11 runs and 12 RBI.

Marine Biologist

AJ Kohn was the first to report that some cone snails hunt fish by paralyzing them with a powerful neurotoxin. Their sting can even kill people!

Now Professor Emeritus at University of Washington, he dedicated his professional life to “understanding of the evolutionary processes that have led to high biotic diversity in tropical marine environments.”

Passion

I take great comfort in my doppelgängers because they remind me to be passionate about what I do. Each AJ Kohn followed a passion, whether it be skateboarding, baseball or marine biology. I admire that.

What about your doppelgängers? Find yours and tell me what they’re up to. #doppelgangers

Googlebot does not laugh. It is not the lovable Johnny 5 and is probably closer to HAL in disposition.

Humor Signal

Does Google use humor as a search algorithm signal? My first instinct is to state, without hesitation, that there is no humor signal. There’s no analysis of puns or witticisms or double-entendres or other grammatical humor.

The clever pun you use as your browser title will be lost on Googlebot and, truth be told, the majority of your readers as well. Googlebot doesn’t have a funny bone.

Backhanded Signal

Yet the algorithm will reward humor through other signals. Something that’s really funny will attract links and generate a high number of Likes, Tweets and other social gestures.

So humor is reflected in the algorithm through the link graph and social signals.

Research shows that our sharing behavior is heavily informed by humor. We share to get a laugh. Just ask Ben Huh, CEO of I Can Has Cheezburger?

But that’s an indirect signal, sort of like a backhanded compliment. Google doesn’t really know it’s funny, it just knows it’s popular and engaging.

Computational Humor

Google might be able to determine whether a document is humorous or not. Computational humor, a relatively new field of study, has shown a moderate amount of promise.

Early computational humor research focused on producing jokes, resulting in the Joke Analysis and Production Engine (JAPE) and HAHAcronym, which does just what it says. More recently, there’s been a greater emphasis on identifying humor using natural language processing and machine learning (pdf).

Researchers were able to train an algorithm, with high accuracy, to identify humorous one-liners from standard headlines and even proverbs, which had similar sentence construction.

Google Humor

Is Google interested in humor? It’s tough to tell. But a recent patent, brought to my attention by (who else) Bill Slawski, titled Embedded Communication of Link Information contains an interesting idea.

The improved link tags may allow the publishers to communicate additional information, such as opinions, about the content locations and/or document locations. The additional information may be along one or more dimensions. Therefore, different information may be conveyed at the same time. For example, one dimension may indicate that a content location and/or a document location is offensive as well as funny.

For example, “offensive=very” or “funny=somewhat.”

Coincidence? Probably. Nevertheless, I think it’s interesting that humor was one of the examples selected. And most of the Googlers I know have a keen wit.

Humor and Quality

At the end of the day the real question is whether humor and quality are related? Does the incidence of certain types of puns or other humor signal quality? Could quality be predicted based on Monty Python references? Or the presence of alliteration?

Could you construct a database of humor? Monty Python phrases. Caddy Shack quotes. Famous puns. Palindromes. Internet memes. Knock knock jokes. Using that database, could each type of humor be given a score based on how often it appears in what quality of content?

Those scores in place, you can begin to use humor as a signal to help ‘turn up’ high quality content. Perhaps … to 11.

Perhaps the relationship between content quality and humor doesn’t exist. There’s a tremendous amount of personal taste involved and the cultural differences are also substantial. In addition, much of our humor is visual in nature and for all the advances in image search Googlebot still can’t really see.

Yet, humor is clearly a compelling part of the content puzzle. And there’s a part of me that believes that the mere presence of humor indicates a higher level of care and passion, which dovetails nicely with Google’s recent guidance on high quality sites. I doubt you’re going to see humor (at least intentional humor) on splogs or MFA sites.

I still don’t think there’s a humor signal. But maybe there should be. It would be nice to reward writers for their spelling, grammar and creativity.

Starting this month Google will begin to use a version of the Bush Doctrine to fight web spam. Google will preemptively penalize sites.

Google Bush Doctrine

The main tenant of the Bush Doctrine surrounded the idea of preemptive war. Google has decided to adopt this philosophy in dealing with the rampant manipulation of trust and authority via the link graph. Instead of reacting to increases in paid links, splog networks and other schemes, Google is going on the offensive and will penalize sites preemptively.

Perhaps this is a reaction to the revelations about J.C. Penney, Forbes and Overstock, as well as the surveys and polls that indicate that most sites engage in black hat techniques and that paid links are still viable.

Reconsideration Requests

It seems as if an analysis of reconsideration requests helped lead Google to this new policy. A source on the Google web spam team says:

We learn a lot from reconsideration requests. In that environment, sites are willing to admit to and stop bad behavior. Analyzing the profile of these sites before and after has been of growing interest to the team.

Sure enough, the text surrounding reconsideration requests makes it clear that coming clean is important.

Admission and corrective action is required to get out of Google’s dog house.

Preemptive Google Penalties

Preemptive penalties will force sites to divulge and cease black hat techniques. Why? Because you’re simply not going to know what Google does and doesn’t know. If you are not forthcoming (if you hold something back) and Google finds out, it will make it even tougher to get out of the dog house.

Do you feel lucky, punk? Well … do ya?

Penalty Selection and Length

It remains to be seen how Google will select sites for preemptive penalties. Is it random or will it be initiated by members on the web spam team? Will all sites be eligible for preemptive penalties, or will some be white listed?

The length of the preemptive penalty is also unknown. Will it be lifted if the offending site doesn’t file a reconsideration request or is reconsideration required? It will be interesting to see if anyone simply tries to ride out the penalty without engaging Google directly.

And how long will Google pursue this strategy? One would hope that the data gleaned from these preemptive penalties might (quickly) help Google refine their detection efforts, allowing them to scrap this policy.

What do you make of Google’s Bush Doctrine and how will you handle a preemptive penalty?

The other day I followed a ping back to Elsewhere. There I found a fantastic blog commenting policy.

I’ve turned “nofollow” back on for links in comments. If I can find a good WordPress plugin that allows me to disable this on a per-comment basis, I will manually remove that on comments I think deserve it.

Use your name, nickname, pseudonym, handle, or other personally-relevant identifier in the “Name” field. Your name is not “Miami Attorneys” or “Solar Panels” or “Bingo Games”. If you use a product or site name as your own name and it makes it through the spam filters, I will manually delete it. This applies to obvious keyword linking, too. The keyword you’re trying to boost is not your name. If you use it as your name, I will remove your comment. Use your own name, or something reasonably name-like.

Linking to the site you’re promoting is fine, as long as it’s relevant to the post or other comments in the thread. If I feel it is spammy, I may delete the link or the whole comment, depending on my mood. Your link will have rel=”nofollow” applied, unless I think it deserves otherwise.

If you are not a spammer or SEO practitioner, you probably don’t know what any of that meant. Don’t worry about it; it doesn’t apply to you.

This is why so many people hate SEO and you really can’t blame them either. The sad truth is that most people lump SEO in with this obnoxious form of blog commenting spam. This is what they see, despite the reality. Which got me thinking.

Dread Pirate SEO

Most people probably think of SEO as the Dread Pirate Roberts.

If you’re familiar with The Princess Bride (and you should!) then you know that the Dread Pirate Roberts was thought to be an incredible villain. What they didn’t know (among other things) was that the Dread Pirate Roberts wasn’t just one person.

So you can think of the Dread Pirate SEO declaring that his name is Miami Attorneys on blog after blog, taking no prisoners in his quest for keyword anchor text.

SEO Must Die

Of course this provokes a rather normal reaction.

Yes, a phalanx of Inigo Montoyas rise up to call for the head of the Dread Pirate SEO. They seek to battle him at every turn, not knowing the truth behind the mask.

Inconceivable!

The problem is what most people see looks like (and often is) trickery. Yes, many in our profession are true Dread Pirate SEO. Compounding this is the fact that every good SEO does know some tricks. Not only that, but many like to poke and prod the algorithm in an effort to understand what will really work.

SEOs enjoy this battle of wits. And we like to win. However, it may give many the wrong impression of our true purpose.

We’re Westley

Dread Pirate SEO is actually … a good guy!

Good SEO is simply ensuring that your content finds the right audience. It would be nice if a good site or great content would immediately rank for the right queries. But that’s not what happens, despite the Google dogma. Instead, SEO is there to storm the castle and ensure that your time and effort is rewarded with the right traffic. That your site and content are seen by the right people.

Will most people ever think of SEO as their ally? Probably not. That just happens in the movies.

Reports are coming in from queries around the Internet about the unprovoked attack by Google on indents. Please be aware that the following screencaps may not be suitable for younger viewers.

Google Indent Massacre

Google Indent Hostilities

Hostilities against indents boiled over at 2010 SMX Advanced.

Danny goes on a rant about indented listings — can’t they go away? Danny yells “death to the indents” and half the audience boos!

While Matt Cutts declined to take a position during this flare up, the cozy relationship between Danny Sullivan and Google’s Matt Cutts is well documented.

Google Indent Appeasement

Searches on the ground report that Google is now presenting three consecutive listings in some cases.

Will these efforts at appeasement mollify pro-indent supporters? To date, Google and anti-indent activist Sullivan remain silent on these activities.

We’ll monitor the situation and provide updates as they become available.

November 12th Update

Embedded reporters are now telling us that Google is no longer providing domain grouping on search results.

The fragile relationship indents had with Google seems fractured with what pro-indent supporters call ‘a step backward’. Google will only say that they conduct many bucket tests to determine the best search results for users. Such tests are cold comfort for the millions of indents that have been suddenly removed from SERPs.

November 18th Update

The demise of indents seems all but sealed. Yesterday, Google unilaterally released a statement confirming that they’re “expanding the feature so that, when appropriate, more queries show additional results from a domain.”

The statement also tells us that while up to four results from a domain may be presented, additional results will have single-line compact snippets.

As you can see, this two result domain listing uses a single-line compact snippet instead of an indented full-snippet result.

No matter the clever wording used in Google’s statement to ingratiate themselves to the world audience, indents have been marginalized and are approaching extinction. Indent preservation campaigns in Skitch, TinyGrab, SnagIt and others are working to capture indent images so that they can always be remembered.

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.

Google suggests can be an endless form of entertainment and insight. Here’s one I caught in late January.

At first glance it seems like a strange combination but upon further inspection it’s a lot like a Google-style Burroughs cut-up.

Theology

You’ve got the adult and kids version of theology with is there a god and is there a santa claus. The current suggester also includes is there an afterlife. Some heavy stuff.

Health

From herpes to AIDS to cancer, health queries are rising. I imagine that many dealing with these issues might wind up typing in is there a god or is there anybody out there. The Internet can isolate but also connect.

Lyrics

The Pink Floyd song is easy to spot, though at first glance I thought it was a Duran Duran reference. I’m an 80s fan and won’t apologize for it! The other song is by Band of Horses. I’ve never heard of them until now. All the songs do have a yearning and ethereal feel to them.

Miscellaneous

The meteor shower must have been very topical at the time because it’s not included in the current suggester. However, things falling from the heavens certainly fits into the overall theme.

As for hdmi cables, get the cheap ones.

The other day I was doing some robots.txt research and found a great little Easter egg on Yelp.

A robots.txt file is a great place to drop Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. Thanks for the chuckle Yelp!

The other day I was walking to lunch with a long-time client and we passed one of the main entrances to Pac Bell, SBC AT&T Park. He noted that this particular entrance seemed overly obvious.

This image, from Google Street View, shows the ‘Giants Building’ sign with a SF logo underneath and a ‘Home Of The Giants’ as a type of sub-header.

My response was simple. That’s good SEO.

This brought me a round of good-natured chiding from my client about being a bit too SEO focused. But really, this was a great example of Blind Five Year Old SEO. The sign was simple and instructive. (Perhaps also a reaction to the frequent name changes that Park has undergone.)

Could the San Francisco Giants be SEO savvy?

Let’s say I’m a tourist from … Sweden. What name tells me more: AT&T Park or Giants Building? That’s a no-brainer, right! Better yet, I’ve got that nice SF logo there for some context. And if I’m still confused I’m even told that this is the home of the Giants. Without a doubt I know the building in front of me is the home of the Giants.

Whether or not they’d know that the Giants are a baseball team is another thing entirely.

So am I too SEO focused or is this just a good real world case of providing easy, instructive signage?