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So what happened here? Did JC Penny actually think that a 1st place ranking for every vaguely relevant retail-related keyword term under the sun was worth risking search results purgatory? Did Google really sit back and do nothing while a major advertiser made a mockery of its coveted 200+ point algorithm during the ultra competitive and highly lucrative holiday shopping season? It’s hard to say because anything is possible in the increasingly aggressive organic search space, but one thing is certain; there is more to the story than meets the eye.

In this situation JC Penny categorically denies involvement in any black hat link building schemes. Google too denies doing anything untoward, stating in no uncertain terms that it does not give preferential treatment to high rolling advertisers, adding that its algorithm had started to catch on to JC Penny when a major change was made in February to how it valued links. It is here where the real controversy begins, and it’s a two-parter: Just what did Google change in February that would suddenly detect such a scheme? And what if JC Penny really didn’t do anything wrong?

Black Hat Offensive?

JC Penny’s adamant denial that it in no way engaged in any paid link scheme highlights a concern that legitimate SEOs have repeatedly expressed; black hat techniques can be reverse engineered and used by competitors as a weapon. Currently there is no way to protect against a vicious competitor paying for links in another site’s name. SEOs have long asked that Google just ignore these types of links, usually low relevance and low quality in nature. A no-penalty-no-reward approach by search engines would level the playing field making paid link schemes a useless link building method and ensuring that such links could never be used with malicious intent.

Did Google finally do just that? Did it finally decide to ignore paid links? Or was the February shift something more far reaching?

Google’s Trust in Paid Links

When Google’s Matt Cutts stated in the NYT article that corrective action against JC Penny was happening naturally in the algorithm itself due to a shift in “how we trust links” he may have let the cat out of the bag. Google announced an algorithmic change in January that was intended to lower the value of scraper site content in search results, but the change noted in the NYT article is something different; the JC Penny debacle was about paid links not scraper sites. Google’s February 14 release of a site blocking Chrome extension that would eliminate sites chosen by individual users from its search results may offer another clue as the announcement of the extension includes this statement, “We’ve been exploring different algorithms to detect content farms…”

In recent weeks Google has released an algorithm change targeting scraper sites, admitted that it has changed the way it “trusts” links, and in a related-yet-unrelated move, unveiled a Chrome extension designed to allow users to filter entire domains out of their search results when they query Google in Chrome. These three clues lead to some obvious conclusions. It seems that Google is waging war on low quality, low relevance and unnatural links in a variety of content types across the web, something that if true would have impacts on everything from paid links and link exchange networks to poorly orchestrated article marketing and excessive content syndication.

What’s Next for Link Building

Link building is a necessary evil in the algorithmically driven Google-verse but the once simple idea of “one link equals one vote” for a site has spawned a whole business of gaming the system with unearned links. Link building has become as much a gamble as a strategy and increasingly there are more grey and black hat areas than there are legitimate white hat techniques. Even areas once considered safely white hat have faded to grey as the algorithm has been adjusted to compensate for a proliferation of useless, duplicate or irrelevant content on the web. It seems that Google is finally taking notice of the many ways that links are being built by design rather than naturally and doing something about it.
How this will change the way link building strategies are developed and implemented remains to be seen.

Thanks to the NYT JC Penny exposé SEOs can forget about search engine purgatory and start worrying about past link building efforts coming back to haunt. When Google advises Webmasters to “Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings” it now means business: The road to Google hell may be paved in poor quality unnatural links and it seems like efforts to eliminate the impact of those links in search results is just beginning.

About the author
Tina Wilson is a Director of Resource Development at Mediative

The keynote for the 2009 Bing Search Summit was Satya Nadella, SVP of Microsoft’s Online Services Division. At the time, Bing demonstrated its current state of search through the following graph, highlighting the problems people were having with Bing search (and even being apologetic for it):

This data comes from Bing search and toolbar logs. Search sessions can also be quite intensive, with 5% of search sessions lasting longer than 30 minutes. Knowing this information means Bing knows it needs to improve. In its role as a decision engine, Bing’s job is to make a variety of information available in as few clicks as possible. Current features on the search engine, such as related searches and authoritative answers, are all ways the engine is trying to surface a variety of information in order to broadly meet searcher intent. This, along with Bing’s stated focus on the verticals of product purchases, local, travel, and healthcare, form the basis for Bing’s focus on improvements.

Turn to 2010. Bing has kept its focus on its key verticals by introducing new features that assist with all except for healthcare. There are improvements to Bing Maps so that local landmarks and local transit information are improved, in addition to interface improvements. Functionality features for local tickets and from local restaurants helps to assist in purchasing those products. Bing has really improved the amount of information available around travel, providing flight details, airfares and destination pages for various cities within the SERPs, depending on your search query. There’s also been a strong focus on mobile; many of the new mobile features have specific local functionality, which makes sense as Microsoft has found that 53% of mobile searches have a local interest. And Bing has not just kept social in mind: new features allow for greater integration with Facebook, including seeing what search results your friends have liked on the Bing SERP. With the recent information that social can influence organic search results, expect to see more SEOs paying greater attention to the integration of search and social in the upcoming year. Plus, with such a strong focus on a few key verticals, it will make sense for businesses affected by those verticals to keep a close eye on Bing – it may not have the same market share as Google, but its functionality may help to draw in more customers in those particular areas.

Charlotte Bourne is a Search Marketing Strategist with Mediative.

Dubbed the Reasonable Surfer Patent by SEO Bill Slawski, this new link analysis methodology anticipates which links on a page are most likely to be clicked on by a user and assigns a relative ranking value accordingly. The more likely a link is to be clicked on by a “reasonable surfer” the larger share of available link juice it will be assigned.

In technical terms, the Google Reasonable Surfer Patent works like this:

A system generates a model based on feature data relating to different features of a link from a linking document to a linked document and user behavior data relating to navigational actions associated with the link. The system also assigns a rank to a document based on the model.

Reading the full text of the Google Reasonable Surfer Patent it quickly becomes clear that some tried and true interlinking strategies are about to go the way of the dinosaur. A once simple mathematical calculation dividing the number of links on a page by a ranking value and assigning each an equal share has become a complex equation involving the unpredictable variable of anticipated human behavior and a sliding scale of link juice flow. In short, the true value of a link on any given page will no longer be as transparent as it has been in the past. 

The Reasonable Surfer Patent eliminates the transparency of link juice flow which means changes to the way that link building and interlinking plans will be developed. Link flow SEO just became a much more strategic game. When deciding how to link within a site SEOs now need to be very aware of the impact of navigational elements and footers as well as the value of linking to pages like “About Us” throughout a site.

On pages that combine internal links with external links, SEOs will have to weigh the potential costs of lost link juice flow. If a user is more likely to click on the external link it could impact the rankings of any relevant internal links, making it a strategic play to remove the external link at the expense of providing true user value. The Reasonable Surfer Patent could end up cultivating a culture of protectionism among SEO analysts.

Because of its potential to cultivate a sense of protectionism the Reasonable Surfer Patent means that link building could become a much harder sell. SEO strategists may be weary of adding outbound links to their sites for fear that it will devalue internal links. While this fear is valid, excluding quality outbound links is not necessarily warranted.

The Google patent hints at the signals it will use to determine the behavior of a “reasonable surfer” toward a given link, and understanding these signals will give in-the-know SEOs the tools they need to benefit from the new patent.

The signals Google may use when identifying links to be clicked on by a “reasonable surfer” include:

Link position on the page – above the fold is best, the sooner you get a user’s attention the more likely they are to click through, also positioning key links in areas that users naturally ignore, like the left and right hand columns on a page, could devalue user interest ratings

Link relevance – the more relevant a link is to the content on the page the better, truly related resources are always more likely to be clicked on than unrelated or irrelevant content

Anchor text of the link – the more relevant the anchor text is to the content on a page the more likely it is to be weighted with a higher user interest value

Links in the body of the page text – links placed in the body of the page text are known to be clicked on more frequently than links or link groups that frame the content, the positioning of a link within the actual text of a page will be a strong signal

Presentation of the link – be it as an image, in a list, in a larger font size or in a different coloured text, the way in which you present your links will be a signal as to how likely a user is to click through

User ad aversion – avoid presenting links so that they may be confused for advertisements as this will likely be a negative signal, do not place links in areas that users traditionally associate with ads, like the right hand column of a page or in images that look like banners

Uniqueness of the link – redundant links on a page have long been an SEO no-no and while it may seem that increasing a link’s presence on a page would increase the likelihood of a click through, in reality it will most likely be perceived in the new schema as link stuffing

Navigational interlinking – including navigational or footer links on every page may no longer be an SEO must-do as they lead to link distraction and link juice flow dilution, even the coveted (and very useful) breadcrumb trail may be a negative signal for these reasons

Since this is a modification to how the index works, and not an adjustment of the algorithm itself, some SEOs are dismissing it as irrelevant. That is a mistake. While Google Caffeine does not change the actual ranking factors it does change how quickly new information is found and parsed, which will inevitably impact SERPs. Anything that impacts how things are found for search results impacts SEO strategy and development.

So what exactly does Caffeine mean for SEO? Nobody can say for sure because in typical Google fashion, details are not forthcoming. What Google has said is that Caffeine allows for faster more accurate inclusion of pages and other web content in its index. It appears that Caffeine will be kinder to rich media and the real time web than the previous indexing method. Google has provided a pretty (and cryptic) picture to illustrate the shift; make of it what you will…

The Old Google Index V. Google Caffeine

The Methodology
Jim and his colleagues recorded real time search logs from Collecta from June to December 2009. This resulted in just over 1 million search queries that they analyzed at a term (individual words) and query (a string of two or more terms) level for frequency, length, and mutual information, which is a measure of the association between two terms.

Search Source
Jim and his colleagues found that 60% of the searches on Collecta actually came through the Collecta API, rather than the web interface. This is very different from traditional web search engines.

Unique Searches
Studies of typical web search behavior show that the number of unique search queries can be as high as 59%, but Jim and his colleagues found that in real time search this number is much lower at 30%. They suggest that this is because many users are searching for the same timely information, particularly about entertainment, technology, and politics. An interesting corollary to this is that they also found that the same query being submitted repeatedly by the same user over a period of time.

Query Length & Type
This is one measure where real time and normal web search show similar patterns: the average query length was 2.32 terms. Popular queries, as I mentioned above, included entertainment, tech, and political topics. Unlike web search, however, real time searchers are not often looking for things that are pornographic in nature.

Search Terms
The number of unique terms and unique term pairs was similar to web search, but unlike web search, the individual terms that were most strongly associated with each other (that is, were most often found in the same query) tended to be related to people who were in the news during the data collection period.

What does it mean?
Jim and his colleagues sum up that:

• there is heavy use of real time search through APIs
• many of the searches through the API are repetitive over a period of time
• real time searchers are looking for different information than web searchers

and suggest that real time could leverage this by allowing users to save searches and employing faceted search interfaces.

It’s exciting to see research into real time search making its way to the public. If you want to read the whole paper, you can read it on Jim’s website (PDF).

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Goodbye ASK Enquiro 1.0 – You will be missed…

The Search Industry has changed drastically during the past decade.  We have seen our fair share of SEO agencies and Search companies come and go.  In fact, we have seen our fair share of Search Engines come and go as well.   We have used a large number of search marketing buzzwords and we will probably continue to do so.  To produce thousands of articles about search and search engine marketing is no easy feat.  It takes a dedicated team and a lot of thought to post regularly.  Throughout the years Enquiro has seen some team members come and go, they have all left their mark on ASK Enquiro and all of the blogs associated with the Enquiro brand.  I apologize if I miss anybody, but thank you’s go out to:

Brenda, Rob, Gerard, Darren, Rick, Marina, Lisa, Chris, Jason, Petra, Rich, Manoj, Kyle, Ian, Krista, Tracy, Jordan, Charlotte, John, Barb, Cory, Tom, Andrew, Karl, Gord and Jody for contributing to the Enquiro blogs over the years.  Here’s to another great decade.

Here is a look at 100 memorable search marketing related  posts from Enquiro.  Happy holidays everyone!  See you next decade.

A Decade of Search Marketing Posts Part II

• Heinous acts of terrorism including September, 11, 2001
• Increased natural disasters such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005
• Genetic advances never experienced before
• Soaring oil prices
• The Boston Red Sox winning their first Word Series title since 1918 (in 2004)
• The phenomenon of blogging and micro-blogging (Twitter anyone)
• Monster bailouts and bankruptcies
• The inauguration of the first African American President of the United States
• The death of the King of Pop with the passing of Michael Jackson in 2009

Newsweek has some cool images from the past decade that can be viewed here:
http://2010.newsweek.com/photo/visions-of-the-decade.html

Then there is the online world.  The Internet has transcended quickly and Search has allowed us access to information that we would have not been able to access otherwise.  Like the real world, the Search Industry has transformed drastically over the past decade.  Enquiro has been around for the entire decade and we have posted thousands of search related and marketing articles over the past decade.

Through various environments, blogs and websites, Enquiro has been on top of the latest in the Search industry since the start of the decade (and even prior to 200) and we wanted to share the past decade in the Search Industry with a look at 200 (yes I said two hundred) of our memorable posts from the past decade.  This is but a sample of how the industry has transformed during this time.  For thise of us who have been in the industry during the past ten years, the only constant we have experienced is change.

Some of the posts have been modified from their original version.  We apologize for any formatting errors or omisions.  Take note of the date of some of the posts and thik back about how different things are in the world of Search as we head into the next decade.

200 Memorable Search Marketing Posts from the Past Decade 2000-2009 – Part I
Presented by Enquiro

• Who: Greg Jarboe (SEO-PR), Bill Barnes (Enquiro)
• What: Free Webinar about SEO and Online PR
• When: Tuesday, December 1, 2009. 11:00-11:30 am PST
• Where: Online – Sign Up Here
• Why: To learn about Managing SEO and Online PR

In our digital marketing world, public relations has made a clear and decisive shift online. Companies that can effectively create buzz and manage their reputation will outperform their competition.

Now more than ever, marketing executives have to understand:

* What to do if their company has a reputation management issue
* How SEO ties in to public relations
* The role video plays in PR for their industry
* How to measure the impact and opportunities for online PR
* The interplay of social media, buzz, and online PR

To wrap up Enquiro’s B2B Expert Series of webinars for this year, we’ve put together a special session on SEO and PR which is a “must-see” as you’re finalizing your 2010 marketing plans.

Join industry veteran Greg Jarboe in a live 30 minute session packed with proven tips and insight.

Presenter: Greg Jarboe – SEO-PR

The webinar will be presented by Greg Jarboe, the president and co-found of SEO-PR.

Greg has a history of speaking at SES (Search Engine Strategies), Marketing Sherpa Summits and other large SEO confrences.

With More than 25 years experience in corporate communications, he has lots of insight to offer on public relations.

Host: Bill Barns – Enquiro

Bill Barnes is the co-founder and EVP of Business Development at Enquiro Search Solutions.

Bill has more than 20 years of experience in advertising and promotions, 10 of those years have been focussed on search marketing.

Enquiro Webinar – Managing SEO and Online PR was originally posted by Jordan Kettner.