SEO - Search Engine Optimization

What impact will Bing have on search engine optimization?

July 14th, 2010

jtrag

: Image via Wikipedia

As Microsoft‘s Bing rises in popularity, Computing finds out what end users need to know about the search engine

Usage of the Microsoft Bing search engine grew by 70 per cent in 2009 and was responsible for 4.1 billion searches, according to figures from search engine research provider comscore.

As Microsoft’s Bing search engine continues to rise in popularity, Computing found out what organizations need to know about Bing and how much attention they should pay to Google’s new challenger.

One of the catalysts behind Bing’s recent boom is Microsoft’s partnership with Yahoo. Microsoft is providing the technology behind Yahoo’s once-dominant search engine.

Bing is currently responsible for 12.1 per cent of all searches and Yahoo is responsible for 18.3 per cent, according to comscore’s most recent figures.

This means that optimizing a search engine ranking for Bing will also improve content relevance for Yahoo’s search engine as well.

But in what ways does Bing’s technology differ from Google?

According to Cedric Chambaz, Microsoft’s marketing manager for search and SMB, successful search engines have a lot in common.

“A search engine, irrelevant of the technology or the brand behind it, is all about delivering the most relevant results. The question is: how do you qualify relevancy?” he said.

Experts say Microsoft has worked hard to emulate the Google search.

Richard Baxter, founder and director of SEO consultancy SEOgadget, said the major difference between Bing and Google’s search engine is how it presents search results, rather than the criteria it uses to rank them.

“It’s really clear that Bing has invested a lot of time and effort improving the search algorithm to improve the quality of the results for users, so their results do tend to mimic Google’s a lot more frequently than you’d expect,” he said.

“Google and Bing rankings are more similar than they’ve ever been before. What’s quite interesting is that, from the perspective of the ordinary user, there are very few differences.”

As Microsoft’s Bing rises in popularity, Computing finds out what end users need to know about the search engine But there are some differences.

One feature of Bing is that it takes into account the experience a user has on a web site, according to Chambaz. He said that Bing assigns a quality score for each page that appears in its search engine.
“If people are clicking on a link and land on a web page, then realize it’s not what they want, click back and have a poor user experience, that shows the content doesn’t match the intentions of the consumer,” he said. “The algorithm can learn from that by observing that pattern.”

He said that the best advice is to be genuine to your business and focus on its core strengths and uniqueness, such as the focus of the business and its location.

“If you are a florist, focus on floristry. Use keywords that are relevant and make sure you have locally relevant information, so that if you’re a florist, you’re not competing against worldwide organizations if you are just based in Hammer-smith. Make sure the word Hammer-smith and florist are properly populated across your site,” Chambaz advised.

He added that the best web sites are built to address consumer needs and that content should be consumer-friendly, not only in terms of the website experience, but also in the words that are used.

Don’t fool the engine

Some organizations have attempted to improve search visibility by trying to dupe the search engine into thinking that the site’s content is something it is not.

Chabaz said one example is where companies use a white background and add popular keywords in white text.

“Don’t try to fool the search engine because there will be a backlash. The algorithms are very intelligent and they identify when you are trying too hard,” he said.

Such sites are added to a blacklist and fall in the search engine’s rankings, he added.

Free tools

Microsoft offers tools to businesses hoping to understand how it ranks search results. Its advertising intelligence tool is a free Excel add-on aimed at providing keyword expansion, research, pricing and key performance indicator data, allowing firms to maximize marketing return for their paid search and content ad campaigns.

“You enter a keyword in Excel and another button click will give you a demographic of people searching for it and how often this keyword is searched for,” Chambaz said.

Microsoft’s SEO Toolkit analysis a corporate website and finds ways to boost hits. It uses SEO recommendations to improve traffic and increase revenue streams and helps people discover and solve common problems in website content and design to enhance end-user experience.

“It is is also free. You download it to your PC and it will go through your site and give you recommendations on how to improve it,” Chambaz added.

What impact will Bing have on search engine optimization? (seotitans.com)
Bing to Power Yahoo Search Results (morevisibility.com)
Yahoo! and bing are now officially bed partners in the US (browsermedia.co.uk)
Screen Shot: I Am Seeing Bing Results on Yahoo (seroundtable.com)
Microsoft Warns Webmasters: You Might Be Dropped From New Search Formats (readwriteweb.com)
Bing’s New Webmaster Tools Are Here (webpronews.com)
Up to 25% of Yahoo Search is Now bing-ified (marketingpilgrim.com)
Bing Webmaster Tools updated, now utilizes Silverlight 4 (liveside.net)
Testing begins with Yahoo! (bing.com)
Bing debuts well as Google tanks in satisfaction survey (seattlepi.com)

Free Search Engine Submission Links

July 10th, 2010

jtrag

Free Search Engine Submission

I had rounded up a list of almost every search engine on the Web including top tier, second tier and some really out there search engines that allow you to submit your site for free as many of them have limited crawlers and may or may not ever find your site. Below is that list with the engine name and a direct link to the submission page:

Automated free search engine submission resources (includes some web directories and niche search engines):

350 Search Engine Submissions – Link
300 Search Engine and Web Directory Submissions – Link
170 Search Engine and Web Directory Submissions – Link
140 Search Engine Submissions – Link
140 Search Engine and Web Directory Submissions – Link
100 Search Engine and Web Directory Submissions – Link
50 Search Engine Submissions – Link
40 Search Engine and Web Directory Submissions – Link
21 Search Engines and Web Directory Submissions – Link
20 Search Engine Submissions (at bottom of page) – Link
12 Search Engine Submissions – Link

Individual free search engine submission links:

Just Added 3/20/08!

Big Finder – Submission Page
Search Hippo (requires free registration) – Submission Page
Web Squash – Submission Page
W8 Search – Submission Page
Tower Search (requires registration) – Submission Page

Just Added 3/21/08 – Decided to add in some of the major players after many requests.

Baidu (in Chinese, but pretty easy to figure out) – Submission Page
Google – Submission Page
Yahoo – (reguires free registration) – Submission Page
Search-O-Rama – Submission Page
Igwanna – Submission Page
Cipinet – Submission Page

Just Added 3/25/08

Navisso – Submission Page
AxxaSearch – Submission Page
Dino Search (for kids sites only) – Submission Page
Boitho – Submission Page
Gheto Search – Submission Page
Intel Seek – Submission Page
Search Ramp – Site Submission
Ultimate Web Search – Site Submission

Just added 3/29/08

Find Once – Submission Page
Net Search – Submission Page
Susy Search – Submission Page

Just added additional Chinese search engines 4/2/08

iASK – Submission Page
ZhongSou.com – Submission Page

Just added 4/7/08

Famhoo (family friendly search) – Submission Page
ExactSeek (requires registration) – Submission Page
AcrossCan (Canadian sites only) – Submission Page
Megaglobe – Submission Page

Just added 4/14/08

AnooX – Submission Page

Just added 4/20/08

Alexa – Submission Page
Aesop – Submission Page
Shoula! Search – Submission Page
NetSearch – Submission Page

Just added 4/22/08

SearchIt – Submission Page

Just added 4/24/08

Biveroo – (in German) Submission Page
Official Search – Submission Page
Iconnic – Submission Page
Coolfishy – Submission Page
CorrectSearch (requires registration) – Submission Page

Just added 4/27/08

Enter UK (UK sites only) – Submission Page
seeknet – Submission Page

Just added 4/30/08

hakia (requires registration) – Submission Page
gogo – (Russian site) – Submission Page

Just added 5/4/08

43N39E – Submission Page

Just added 5/6/08

Antya (click on Submit URL) – Submission Page
VROOSH! (requires reciprocal link) – Submission Page

Just added 5/17/08

Claymont Search – Submission Page
Really Big Search (requires registration) – Submission Page
Search Engine XXX (not adult – requires registration) – Submission Page
shazee (requires registration) – Submission Page

Just added 5/30/08

amidalla – Submit Page
Wedoo.com (requires registration) – Submit Page
Stopdog – Submission Page
searchengine.com – Submission Page
eXactBot – Submission Page

Just added 6/13/08

Vmgo.com – Submission Page

Just added 6/16/08

Blue.lu – Submission Page

Just added 6/29/08

eBingBong – Submission Page

Just added 7/1/08

Jungle Spider (German Sites Only) – Submission Page
NIGMA.RU (Russian) – Submission Page

Just added 7/3/08

Swoogle – Submission Page
Knoole – Submission Page

Just added 7/6/08

XavierSeek – Submission Page

Just added 7/13/08

Lexxe – Submission Page

Just added 7/16/08

Xoole – Submission Page

Just added 7/20/08

eTracking (have to click on ‘Add URL’) – Submission Page

Just added 7/27/08

Zoohoo (Slovakia)- Submission Page

Just added 7/31/08

Foovey Search (requires registration) – Submission Page

Just added 8/6/08

Cavarzano (Italian) – Submission Page

Just added 8/8/08

Yandex (Russian) – Submission Page

Just added 8/12/08

Yoozila – Submission Page

Just added 9/15/08

(They are all part of the same network, so submitting to one WILL most likely provide data to all of them)

Web Portal Guide – Submission Page
Search Blast – Submission Page
The Seek Portal – Submission Page
Find That Website – Submission Page
Search It Guide – Submission Page
Find Similar Pages – Submission Page
Smart Search Guide – Submission Page
Klik Point – Submission Page
Hi Seek – Submission Page
Hot Site Search – Submission Page
More Web Search – Submission Page
Peak Search – Submission Page
Prime Search Results – Submission Page
Search Box – Submission Page
Ifernatix Solutions – Submission Page
The Original Search Engine – Submission Page
amele – Submission Page
AZ to ZA – Submission Page
Dr. Search – Submission Page
Help You Search – Submission Page
My Search Pilot – Submission Page
Therbo Search – Submission Page
Search Engine Tool – Submission Page
Your Reply – Submission Page
Mouse Click – Submission Page
Dash Launch – Submission Page
All Best Search – Submission Page
Better Internet Search – Submission Page
I Need Search – Submission Page
Local Search Engine – Submission Page
Ask the Search Guru – Submission Page
Searching Portal – Submission Page
Home Business Data Center – Submission Page
Go Find Here – Submission Page
Webmaster Tools – Submission Page
Sitefind – Submission Page
Gokoole – Submission Page
BruneiFM – Submission Page
AcuSearch – Submission Page
My Coco Land – Submission Page
All Can Seek – Submission Page
All U Search – Submission Page
All We Seek – Submission Page
And Search – Submission Page
AskSearch – Submission page
Beat Bop – Submission Page
Best City Search – Submission Page
Best Net Search – Submission Page
Big Splash – Submission Page
Computer Seek – Submission Page
DigiCrawl – Submission Page
Dot Search – Submission Page
Easy To Search – Submission Page
Final Search – Submission Page
Find This – Submission Page
Find Path – Submission Page
Find Your Search – Submission Page
FindZilla – Submission Page
Fitter Bitter – Submission Page
Search Network – Submission Page
Hip Flip – Submission Page
Hypno Search – Submission Page
Lightning Search – Submission Page
Meta Search Live – Submission Page
MicroSeek – Submission Page
Mota Crawler – Submission Page
One Search Nation – Submission Page
Querybit – Submission Page
Rapid Crawl – Submission Page
Refresh Line – Submission Page
Remote Search – Submission Page
Search Mind – Submission Page
Search Quick – Submission Page
Search Bell – Submission Page
Sly Seek – Submission Page
SparkleBerry – Submission Page
Surfer Search – Submission Page
Sweet Search – Submission Page
Teeter Totter – Submission Page
Text Billboards – Submission Page
Think Seek – Submission Page
Thunder Seek – Submission Page
World Seek – Submission Page
Wow Seek – Submission Page
Yuppy Search – Submission Page
Maddog’s Profiles – Submission Page
WaWiz – Submission Page
More Web Search – Submission Page
Find Portal – Submission Page
exopple – Submission Page

Just added 9/22

iDoFind.com – Submission Page

Just added 9/25

DeepIndex (in French, but indexes English pages also) – Submission Page
SpongeLink (currently only US and UK sites) – Submission Page

Just added 9/26

ubExact – Submission Page

Just added 10/9

TROPICA (in German, but appears to accept English sites) – Submission Page
www.search.ch (Swiss, but offers multiple languages) – Submission Page

Just added 10/10

XOLA (Vietnamese, but appears to accept English sites) – Submission Page

Just added 10/18

Thorseek (UK only sites – URL must end in suffix ‘.uk’) – Submission Page

Just added 10/21

WEBoFANT (Swiss only sites – URL must end in suffix ‘.il’ or ‘.ch’) – Submission Page
Oriango – Submission Page
Find Once – Submission Page

Just added 11/5/08

cuil – Submission Page

Just added 11/9/08

Harmony Search (text mostly in Japanese) – Submission Page
WASALive! – Submission Page
Anopt (in Russian) – Submission Page
Rambler (in Russian) – Submission Page

Just added 11/16/08

META (Ukranian – requires registration) – Submission Page

Just added 12/01/08

Seznam (Czech) – Submission Page
acoon.de (German) – Submission Page

Just added 12/8/08

fastbot (German) – Submission Page
Semager (German) – Submission Page
KOBALA (Dutch) – Submission Page

Just added 12/18/08

Super.Info – Submission Page
Zatka (only Indian sites) – Submission Page
Abraham Search – Submission Page

Just added 12/19/08

Insitor (German) – Submission Page
Pogodak! (Croatian) – Submission Page

Just added 12/26/08
4-everY-1 – Submission Page

Just added 1/6/09
Searchers (UK) – Submission Page

Just added 1/13/09
onkosh (in Arabic) – Submission Page

Just added 1/23/09
Redzee – Submission Page (please note that is says that submissions are to only update the image used in visual portion of the engine results, it will add new sites in this way also)

Just added 1/28/09
Majestic-12 – Submission Page

Just added 2/11/09
SearchWiz – Submission Page

Just added 3/4/09
Sagoon (requires registration) – Submission Page

Just added 4/5/09
ODCN.org (Chinese) – Submission Page
NetSprint (Polish) – Submission Page

Just added 4/19/09
Nepal Search (Nepal sites only) – Submission Page
YAAL.DE (German) – Submission Page

Just added 4/20/09
All Xplore – Submission Page

Just added 4/29/09
Mardox – Submission Page

Just added 5/4/09
AnazitisiS – Submission Page

Just added 5/5/09
Yasmos – Submission Page

Just added 5/11/09
Najdi.si – Submission Page

Just added 5/13/09
HopHunt – Submission Page

Just added 5/21/09
STSEEK – Submission Page

Just added 5/25/09
Cnous.ch (French sites only) – Submission Page
Thagodz – Submission Page

Just added 5/28/09
ilse (Israeli) – Submission Page

Just added 6/21/09
Buscan.com (Canary Islands) – Submission Page

Just added 7/16/09
hengine – Submission Page

Just added – 7/21/09
Watta Search – Submission Page

Just added – 7/27/09
iSTOP.in – Submission Page

Just added 8/10/09
Jabse (Bulgarian) – Submission Page

Just added 8/11/09
Liggs – Submission Page

Just added 8/16/09
IWannaSearch – Submission Page

Just added 8/23/09
Wirtualna Polska (Polish) – Submission Page
Szukacz (Polish Sites Only) – Submission Page

Just added 8/25/09
Portelo (Israel) – Submission Page

Just added 9/3/09
Active Search Results – Submission Page

Just added 9/14/09
Ara.com.tr (Turkish) – Submission Page

Just added 9/24/09
SitiDi.net – Submission Page

Just added 10/21/09
Coyote Search – Submission Page
Spider Monkey – Submission Page
Logical Cities – Submission Page

Just added 11/1/09
ExploreWWW (requires registration) – Submission Page

Just added 11/18/09
Bing – Submission Page

Just added 11/26/09
Geona – Submission Page
LookClick – Submission Page

Just added 11/28/09
Secret Search Engine Labs – Submission Page

Just added 12/2/09
Gooru – Submission Page
Semager – Submission Page
Sujada! – Submission Page

Just added 12/17/09
Duck Duck Go – Submission Page
Search Sight – Submission Page

Just added 12/28/09
Ulysseek – Submission Page

Just added 12/29/09
Active Search Results(ASR) – Submission Page

Just added 1/4/10 (first one of the new year!)
Feedeep – Submission Page
UNAMOO – Submission Page

Just added 2/13/10
cruiser (Serbian) – Submission Page

Just added 2/25/10
SitiDi.net – Submission Page

Just added 3/15/10
Secret Search Engine Labs – Submission Page

Sorry about the delay….:-)
Just added 5/17/10
SoSo (China) – Submission Page
Information – Submission Page

Just added 6/4/10
Slider – Submission Page

Free Search Engine Submission

SEO Alone is not Enough

July 9th, 2010

jtrag

SEO

SEO Alone is not Enough

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), one truth is everlasting: The landscape is continually changing. And often, when it changes, the resulting shift in rankings can be seismic. Google’s announcement of Caffeine is one example. The new partnership between Microsoft Bing and Yahoo! aims to provide a long-term competitor to Google and will impact search results across many major Web properties.
For an example of search’s ever-changing environment, look no further than a popular search on Google. Search for “Xbox 360” (click image below for larger view) and you will see more than just organic results from websites that mention those keywords. A broad range of content appears, including news, paid advertising, shopping feeds and social media results, including user updates from Twitter. This means that publishers and merchants need to concentrate on more than just increasing organic search placement for an Internet marketing plan to succeed.

Search Basics

Several factors have traditionally produced consistent SEO results. Content is still king, in many ways. Compelling content with proper keyword density and keywords highlighted in titles and meta tags remains very valuable to improving search engine rankings. Link building — inbound and outbound — adds strength to your site in the eyes of search engines, giving your site credibility and respect. Site structure is also important — if it’s easy for search engines to index your content, rankings are not only more easily achieved but longevity can result, too.

Social and SEO
As it stands today, no shift in search is more important or prevalent than social media. Every day, millions of people communicate with social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. Reaching these people can be a critical component of any successful online marketing campaign. However, every social media strategy needs to be more sophisticated than simply starting a Twitter page and posting your company’s latest specials.

Social media and SEO marketing programs can strengthen each other. A high-quality social media campaign that is interactive and engages audiences can improve search engine rankings on two fronts — both in organic listings and as a source of inbound links. At the same time, applying smart SEO practices to social media content — such as keyword-rich updates — will increase the reach and visibility of your social media campaign.

It is important to use your social profiles as a way to attract attention by making sure that the right keywords are highlighted within them. This way, when a user searches for your brand, business or industry, your profile will appear in results. A nice side effect is that the more results containing your brand, the less room for your competition. It’s also important to be active on your chosen social media sites. Along with making your own posts, build friends and followers by being involved in communities with similar interests. Social bookmarking tools like Digg and Delicious will help promote your own activities along with helping you share useful information with your followers.

Video and Feeds

Feeds have also become a valuable tool in the new SEO landscape. This includes RSS feeds with the latest company news, press releases, blog posts or social media updates. It can also include product feeds — another reason why it’s important that your products and shopping carts can be easily indexed by search engines.

A relatively new concept is video SEO. Since acquiring YouTube, Google presents many video results in regular searches, often on the first page. Applying SEO concepts to videos can not only increase their placement in various searches but also improve the overall ranking of an entire website.

Getting Personal, and Local

Search engines are constantly looking for ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. One way has been attempting to deliver individual users with as much personalized content as possible. Localized search results have become increasingly expected by users in recent years, as they seek information relevant to their specific geographic area. Even as a small business, it might make sense to have offices (or even phone numbers) in different parts of the country or world to help improve search results in localized searches.

Beyond localized searches, search engines are continually looking for ways to drill down searches with results as individualized as possible. The new Google Personalized Search is just one example of this. Not only are search engines taking factors such as location into account when delivering results, they are also considering previous search history and other sites users have visited in the past. The reality is that, in many cases, no two searches will produce exactly the same results.

Because of concepts like personalized searches, it’s important to feature customized content. Microsites that are targeted to specific areas of interest, demographics or geographic regions are one way to do this. You might build a microsite for teens, or city and state pages for different parts of the country. These sites also give places to post fresh content on a weekly or even daily basis — something that search engines like to see.

The bottom line is that basic SEO concepts are still critical, just not by themselves. In order for SEO campaigns to be truly effective they need to be paired with smart marketing campaigns that involve every aspect of a company’s online brand. As with any marketing campaign, it’s very important to think about your target audience when designing an SEO campaign and how and where you can most effectively reach them.